Line #39 Creator/ScottKeith


1	[[quoteright:307:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scottkeithbook.jpg]]
2
3	Scott Keith is a Canadian writer and reviewer of [[ProfessionalWrestling wrestling]] events. He is most well-known (and often hated) for his [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] style of match reviews as well as his star rating system.
4
5	Keith's content can be found in the following places:
6	* [[http://411mania.com/author/ScottKeith/ 411 Mania]]
7	* [[http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/insider/scottkeith/ Inside Pulse]]
8	* [[http://www.sportingnews.com/author/102-scott-keith The Sporting News]]
9	* [[http://www.rspwfaq.com Scott's BLOG OF DOOM!]]
10	* [[http://blogofdoom.com Scott's (New) BLOG OF DOOM!]]
11	----
12	!! "Scott's TROPES OF DOOM!":
13	* ArchEnemy: Along with Vince Russo and the victims of the Hot Pokers, the Japanese wrestler Gedo was one of the biggest targets of his hate, especially when reviewing the ''Super J Cup'' tournaments from 1994 and 1995.
14	* BrokeTheRatingScale: Normally, he rates matches from DUD to Five Stars. The inversion of this, when matches are REALLY bad, is from -1 star to -5 stars. When things get REALLY, REALLY bad, he breaks out the Hot Pokers Up The Ass system, where he symbolically inserts said objects up the ass of whoever he deems responsible. (Wrestling/KevinSullivan, Wrestling/KevinNash and various members of Wrestling/{{WCW}}'s announce teams were popular targets during the promotion's existence.) (See HoistByHisOwnPetard below.)
15	** In his [[http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/2002/08/28/4918/ review]] of ''WCW Bash at the Beach 99'', there were three matches (Wrestling/DeanMalenko-David Flair, the [[GarbageWrestler Junkyard Invitational Battle Royal]], and the "boxing" match between [[Wrestling/RoddyPiper "Rowdy" Roddy Piper]] and Wrestling/BuffBagwell) that he ''refused'' to rate.
16	-->"What do you add? This show sucked in ways I didn't think it was possible for a wrestling show to suck. I couldn't even rate three of the matches because they were outside the envelope of watchability."
17	** There's also his more ubiquitous "I don't rate battle royales." (Except for the Royal Rumble, of course).
18	** He gave the [[Wrestling/JohnnyGargano Gargano]]-[[Wrestling/TommasoCiampa Ciampa]] match from ''NXT [=TakeOver=]: New Orleans'' six stars.
19	--> ''Scott'': If [[Wrestling/TheWrestlingObserverNewsletter Meltzer]] can do it, so can I.
20	*** And now he's given Okada-Omega IV from NJPW's 2018 Dominion event seven stars.
21	* CausticCritic: Earlier works, yes. However, in most of his newer reviews (and his 2011-13 Scott Says blurbs on older reviews), he has mellowed out dramatically. When doing his 2012 Scott Says rant re-repostings, he often calls himself out or makes fun of himself for being so volatile back then. He has heavily implied a lot of his bitterness stemmed from the deaths of some of his favorite wrestlers (namely Wrestling/OwenHart, Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, and Wrestling/ChrisBenoit).
22	%%* DeadpanSnarker: And HOW!
23	* DoomyDoomsOfDoom: Pioneered the concept of adding "OF DOOM!" when listing moves that he finds particularly ridiculous. The most over-the-top example would be Wrestling/HulkHogan having the "STINKY, WART-INFESTED, GIANT-KILLING LEGDROP OF DOOM!"
24	* FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy: If he's mentioned at a "real" wrestling news site (ie, The Observer or The Torch), it's to point out how full of shit he is. His first two books are chock-full of bad "history", all presented as undisputed truth. We're talking about the man who routinely claimed that Raven and Paul Heyman were gay, that WCW "hid" payroll expenses by signing big names to contracts with Turner Broadcasting directly (Hogan yes, everyone else no), and constantly repeated mid-90s RSPW rumors as fact until many just assumed they were true.
25	* FiveMovesOfDoom: The {{Trope Namer\|s}} in reference to Wrestling/BretHart.
26	* ForWantOfANail: The trope namer was the inspiration for his [[https://411mania.com/wrestling/for-the-want-of-a-nail-the-1993-wcw-rant/ rant about everything wrong with WCW in 1993]].
27	* GeekyAnalogy: His [[https://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2012/12/09/six-million-pageview-request-king-lear/ rant about the fall of WWE in 1994-1996]] was called "The ''Theatre/KingLear'' Rant," and his [[https://411mania.com/wrestling/lazarus-the-rise-of-the-wwf/ rant about the promotion's resurrection in 1996-1998]] was called "The [[Literature/TheFourGospels Lazarus]] Rant".
28	* GuiltyPleasures: He's invoked this at times in his reviews. If he calls something [[InsistentTerminology "entertaining crap"]], it's this.
29	** His original [[https://insidepulse.com/2002/08/15/4891/ review]] of ''WCW World War III 1997'' dismissed The Faces of Fear (Wrestling/{{Meng}} and Wrestling/TheBarbarian) vs. Wrestling/{{Glacier}} and [[Wrestling/ErnestMiller Ernest "The Cat" Miller]] in three sentences. In his [[https://insidepulse.com/2004/06/09/5011/ retro re-rant]], he gave it a full review and said, "I feel so dirty but this was a fun match and everybody was working hard."
30	* HeroWorshipper: Of Wrestling/ChrisBenoit until his tragic end.
31	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: From his [[NotSafeForWork [=NSFW=]]] [[http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/2002/07/30/4814/ review]] of ''[=XPW=] Baptized In Blood 2'', for which he employed the Hot Pokers Up The Ass system against promoter Rob Black, in describing the Vic Grimes vs. [=Kraq=] match.
32	-->"Kraq, another one of those high-concept characters, is a militant Black Panther type who has a male transvestite valet named Angel. See, the implication is that Angel enjoys pleasuring Kraq, so the fans can then chant "You suck dick for Kraq" at him and pretend they're actually witty. As a note, when you need setup lines from the promoter, you’re not actually witty. Grimes gets a pair of elbows to start, and a legdrop, and Kraq gets sent into a bed of nails and falls onto Angel. Homophobic HILARITY follows. Five hot pokers up Black's ass for resorting to cheap anal penetration humor. Um crap, that doesn't make me look very good. See, irony is only funny until it happens to you. Okay, so scratch that, anal penetration humor is actually funny and very witty. Yeah, that's the ticket. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
33	* JerkassHasAPoint: Pretty much any time he makes a good point, since they're usually applied with a sledgehammer.
34	* LampshadeHanging: His apologizing for jokes that didn't work. An example, from the Doom (Wrestling/RonSimmons and Butch Reed) vs. [[Wrestling/TheHeadshrinkers The New Wild Samoans]] ([[Wrestling/{{Rikishi}} Fatu [Rikishi]]] and [[Wrestling/TheTongaKid The Samoan Savage (The Tonga Kid[=/=]Islander Tama]]) match in his [[http://www.kayfabememories.com/TapeReviews/starrcade/starrcade89-2.htm review]] of ''NWA [=Starrcade=] 89'':
35	-->"Anyhow, the match is mercifully clipped down to about 30 seconds, just long enough for me to make a joke I’ve been dying to work in somewhere since Fatu's repackaging: The Savage plays [[RickyMorton Rikishi Morton]]. Ahem. Well, it SOUNDED funny when I was doing the rough draft in my notebook."
36	* MisaimedFandom: InUniverse example: Parodied without mercy in his ''[[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.sport.pro-wrestling.fantasy/_NTF0412VgU/pHF01DgY13QJ WCWF SummerSlam 1995]]''. It starts with a group of [[StrawCharacter political activists]] called [[FunWithAcronyms Women's Activists and Convicted Killers Organization]] protesting "something or other." Wrestling/MrFuji and his stable of {{Foreign Wrestling Heel}}s ([[Wrestling/JinseiShinzaki "The White Angel" Hakushi]], [[Wrestling/NikitaKoloff "The Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff]], [[Characters/WWENewGeneration "The Helsinki Hellraiser" Ludvig Borga]] and The Quebecers[[note]]Wrestling/JacquesRougeau and [[Characters/WWENewGeneration Pierre Carl Ouelette]][[/note]]) confront them. Fuji introduces Hakushi, and the activists talk like {{Smart Mark}}s about Japanese wrestlers' workrate and the quality of Japanese technology. He introduces Koloff, and they talk about how the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar must have depressed him. He introduces Borga, and they talk about the [[UsefulNotes/{{Finland}} Finnish]] UsefulNotes/IceHockey team's winning percentage at the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames. Finally, Fuji introduces The Quebecers, and they talk about how they must "feel so betrayed by the mainstream Anglophone population."
37	** Lampshaded by Fuji: "They're supposed to HATE us, not cheer us."
38	* NoIndoorVoice: A written, sarcastic example. Whenever something stupid is supposed to be exciting, Keith will describe it in all-caps.
39	* OverlyLongGag: Once stopped in mid-review of a boring match to tell the (made-up) history of the fast-forward button. This ended up being over a page's worth of text.
40	** Another example would be his fictional recap of the century-long history of the WWF Hardcore Title which traced the belt-which was actually created in 1998-back to the glory of days of Frank Gotch and Wrestling/GeorgeHackenschmidt.
41	* RunningGag: A few in his works:
42	** When a wrestler makes a comment that can be seen in another way: "I love shoot comments that aren't meant to be shoot comments."
43	** "This feud ''must'' continue!"
44	** Calling Dino Bravo "the worst".
45	* SmallNameBigEgo: Try asking him for his autograph and watch him treat the occasion with the solemnity usually reserved for events such as Abraham Lincoln penning the Emancipation Proclamation.
46	** He's even acknowledged this trait, going so far as to refer to Wrestling/RobVanDam as "the only person more self-centered than me."
47	* SmartMark: He even goes by the [[RedBaron nickname]] "The [=SmarK=]," which plays off of his initials.
48	* TakeThat:
49	** Wrestling/VinceRusso is another favourite of his; he'll at least acknowledge Hogan's good matches, but he went so far as to compare Russo to a Special Olympian.
50	*** Two compliments, both from ''Tonight...In This Very Ring.'' He first complimented Russo's policy of giving all wrestlers established characters, not just the upper-carders. He also praised Russo for creating the "backstage segment," thus giving the illusion that fans were seeing the wrestlers as real people. But otherwise, yeah, Russo has been the butt of many jokes.

Context Creator / ScottKeith