By Coach B

From: Dr. Gelaburn

Are you or your family struggling with belly fat? If so, I have a miracle baking soda cure viral $1 that will shed pounds in 30 days! Can we please do tell you more?

Gel,

People can say what they want about these difficult times we live in, but I choose to focus on the positives.

I am a mid-40s man trying something new, and here comes a kind medical professional reaching out from the goodness of his heart with a one-dollar baking soda cure for belly fat.

That is community.

At first, I’ll admit, I had no idea what this had to do with professional wrestling. I sat with it. I gave it the respect it deserved. I tried to connect the dots between miracle powder, weight loss, and the squared circle.

Then it hit me.

This is clearly connected to “Playboy” Buddy Rose and the legendary Blow Away Diet, one of the great medical breakthroughs in World Wrestling Federation history.

For those unfamiliar, Buddy Rose once appeared in a fake infomercial where he covered himself in powder, stood in front of a household fan, and let science do the rest. The promise was simple: blow away the fat.

Did it work?

No.

Did Buddy look exactly the same afterward?

Of course he did.

But that is not the point. The point is that one brave man once looked at a fan, a pile of powder, and Vince McMahon’s television time, and said, “Yes. This is medicine.”

So once I recognized what the good doctor was really offering here, everything changed.

This isn’t spam. This is lineage.

Dr. Gelaburn is not some common internet criminal trying to trick me into sending my banking information to a warehouse outside the jurisdiction of God. No, sir. This man is carrying on the proud medical tradition of the Buddy Rose Blow Away Diet.

And now, for one American dollar, I can be part of wrestling history.

My family? Wonderful, healthy people. Probably not necessary.

But me?

I would be a fool not to listen to the doctor.

Gel, let me gather that Social Security number and routing information right now.

From: niboifhdeg

We encountered an photo storage subscription.

Dear Nibo,

I know it’s early, but we are only on our second mailbag question and already a second helpful individual has reached out to protect me.

THAT is community.

Now, I will admit, “We encountered an photo storage subscription” is not the cleanest sentence I have ever read. But I respect the urgency. Something has been encountered. A photo storage subscription may be involved. Say less, I'm in.  

The part that got my attention was the threat that my photos could be removed.

My personal history has taught me, it is that I cannot be trusted with photo storage.

We got the internet at my house around 1997 and all I knew was that within about nine seconds of getting dial-up, some kid at school said, “Hey, you know there are free boobs on the internet, right?”

This was news.

Not today, obviously. Today that sentence has all the impact of someone telling you there are chairs at a furniture store. But at that time? This news cracked the space-time continuum.

The specific photo that comes to mind was Pam Anderson. I believe it was from Playboy (like I don't know). I printed it out on the family color printer, because I was a genius and had apparently decided consequences were a myth.

For younger readers, printing a picture in 1997 was not a casual act. It was a full military operation.

First, you had to make sure nobody needed the phone. Then you had to make sure nobody needed the computer. Then you had to make sure nobody was going to walk into the family room while your printer spent the next 12 minutes loudly constructing a nude celebrity one millimeter at a time.

And that printer was not quiet. No amount of fake coughing was covering this unless you were Doc Holliday.

So you just sat there, sweating through the longest 12 minutes of your life, watching the image slowly become real with one eye on the front door and one eye on whatever elbow or boob had emerged so far.

Also, color ink was not cheap. I may have used a third of a cartridge. That was basically financial fraud against my parents.

Anyway, long story short, that photo was removed very quickly.

Because where did I put it?

In a folder next to the computer.

In the family room.

Why?

No idea.

I know I was that person. I recognize the dumb decision as mine. But even now, decades later, I have no defense. Just a dumb kid making dumb kid choices with dial-up internet and the confidence of a criminal mastermind who forgot doors exist.

So yes, Nibo, I take photo removal seriously.

Some people might see your message and think, “This is a scam.” But I see something else.

I see a stranger looking at my history and saying, “This man should not be left in charge of images.”

I have clicked the renewal link, surrendered all financial information, and we are off and running.

Final question.

From: uryhmrdgvtbwaa

Email: 200 Free Spins in your account.

Dear Yuri,

Now this one has nothing to do with old wrestling, new wrestling, or wrestling of any kind.

This is just a good deal.

Two hundred free spins? In this economy? I’m listening.

And it did make me remember one of the stranger gambling achievements of my life, which is saying something because I am not exactly a decorated athlete in the casino arts.

I was in Vegas by myself once, which honestly is a great way to do Vegas. People act like that should be sad, but it was fantastic. I got up early, walked around, drank coffee, played blackjack by myself, and nobody ruined the table by explaining their system to a dealer who wanted to walk into traffic.

That is peace.

At some point, I won an entry into a slot tournament.

I had been around casinos before, but I had no idea what a slot tournament actually was. In my head, I assumed there was strategy involved. Some kind of gambling wisdom. Maybe timing. Maybe patience. Maybe the old gods of downtown Las Vegas would whisper through the carpet.

Nope.

They gave me a number, sat me at a machine, and explained that when the timer started, my job was to hit one button as fast as possible for one minute.

That was it.

That was the sport.

And the thing was, people had methods. Fully grown adults had developed techniques for this. Some used two fingers. Some used thumbs. Some of the older ladies had a fingertip rhythm that suggested they had been training for this since the Reagan administration. I went for the "Donkey Kong hammer fist smash" method. 

There was also a crowd.

That part cannot be overstated. A crowd of adults had gathered to watch other adults hit slot machine buttons. No ball. No opponent. No horses. No cards. Just a line of people hammering a button while strangers looked on like history might happen.

Naturally, I was in.

There was money involved. I think the prize was something like $500, and I am nothing if not spiritually available for low-stakes humiliation.

My turn came up. I sat down. I was very fat at the time and, if we are being honest, probably drunk.

Actually, no.

I was definitely drunk.

The timer started, and I went to work.

About 20 seconds in, I realized I had badly underestimated the cardiovascular demands of button-based gambling. By 40 seconds, I was breathing like I had entered a Toughman contest. By the end, I was winded from a slot machine.

Not my proudest physical moment, but far from my worst.

I did not win the tournament. I did, however, win something like $84 and, I believe, a deck of cards from the Fremont Hotel and Casino.

But here is the part that stayed with me.

Not on winning. I did not win.

Random ass people congratulated me on my performance!

Three separate times, complete strangers came up and said some version of, “Hey, we saw you in the slot tournament. You did really good.”

And I had to just stand there and accept it.

Because what else do you say?

Thank you, I’ve been hitting buttons my whole life?

So yes, Yuri, I understand the appeal of free spins. I have been inside that world. I have felt the lights, the pressure, the crowd, the shortness of breath, and the respect of several elderly gamblers who believed I had a real future in repetitive hand motion.

Two hundred free spins sounds generous.

Possibly too generous.

But I have learned not to question opportunity when it arrives from a name like uryhmrdgvtbwaa.

I have clicked the link, cleared my schedule, stretched appropriately, and I am ready to chase greatness again.

--

*For transparency, future mailbags do not have to come exclusively from spam bots, overseas fraud attempts, or whatever we are calling “miracle baking soda fat cure.”

Actual questions can be sent to alteredstateswrestling@gmail.com.

Submission requirement: 

You must have committed at least one crime. 

Nothing major. 

Speeding counts. 

Downloading one Metallica song in 2001 counts. 

Saying “I’m on my way” while still standing in your kitchen absolutely counts.