Scott Keith is a Canadian writer and reviewer of wrestling events. He is most well-known (and often hated) for his snarky style of match reviews as well as his star rating system.
Keith's content can be found in the following places:
"Scott's TROPES OF DOOM!":
- Arch-Enemy: 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.
- Broke the Rating Scale: 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. (Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash and various members of WCW's announce teams were popular targets during the promotion's existence.) (See Hoist by His Own Petard below.)
- In his review
of WCW Bash at the Beach 99, there were three matches (Dean Malenko-David Flair, the Junkyard Invitational Battle Royal, and the "boxing" match between "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Buff Bagwell) that he refused to rate.
"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."- There's also his more ubiquitous "I don't rate battle royales." (Except for the Royal Rumble, of course).
- He gave the Gargano-Ciampa match from NXT TakeOver: New Orleans six stars.
Scott: If Meltzer can do it, so can I.- And now he's given Okada-Omega IV from NJPW's 2018 Dominion event seven stars.
- In his review
- Caustic Critic: 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 Owen Hart, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit).
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: Pioneered the concept of adding "OF DOOM!" when listing moves that he finds particularly ridiculous. The most over-the-top example would be Hulk Hogan having the "STINKY, WART-INFESTED, GIANT-KILLING LEGDROP OF DOOM!"
- Falsely Advertised Accuracy: 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.
- Five Moves of Doom: The Trope Namer in reference to Bret Hart.
- For Want Of A Nail: The trope namer was the inspiration for his rant about everything wrong with WCW in 1993.
- Geeky Analogy: His rant about the fall of WWE in 1994-1996 was called "The King Lear Rant," and his rant about the promotion's resurrection in 1996-1998 was called "The Lazarus Rant".
- Guilty Pleasures: He's invoked this at times in his reviews. If he calls something "entertaining crap", it's this.
- His original review of WCW World War III 1997 dismissed The Faces of Fear (Meng and The Barbarian) vs. Glacier and Ernest "The Cat" Miller in three sentences. In his 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."
- His original review
- Hero-Worshipper: Of Chris Benoit until his tragic end.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: From his NSFW 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."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."
- Jerkass Has a Point: Pretty much any time he makes a good point, since they're usually applied with a sledgehammer.
- Lampshade Hanging: His apologizing for jokes that didn't work. An example, from the Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) vs. The New Wild Samoans (Fatu [Rikishi] and The Samoan Savage (The Tonga Kid/Islander Tama) match in his review of NWA Starrcade 89:"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 Rikishi Morton. Ahem. Well, it SOUNDED funny when I was doing the rough draft in my notebook."
- Misaimed Fandom: In-Universe example: Parodied without mercy in his WCWF SummerSlam 1995. It starts with a group of political activists called Women's Activists and Convicted Killers Organization protesting "something or other." Mr. Fuji and his stable of Foreign Wrestling Heels ("The White Angel" Hakushi, "The Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff, "The Helsinki Hellraiser" Ludvig Borga and The Quebecersnote ) confront them. Fuji introduces Hakushi, and the activists talk like Smart Marks about Japanese wrestlers' workrate and the quality of Japanese technology. He introduces Koloff, and they talk about how the end of the Cold War must have depressed him. He introduces Borga, and they talk about the Finnish Ice Hockey team's winning percentage at the Olympic Games. Finally, Fuji introduces The Quebecers, and they talk about how they must "feel so betrayed by the mainstream Anglophone population."
- Lampshaded by Fuji: "They're supposed to HATE us, not cheer us."
- No Indoor Voice: A written, sarcastic example. Whenever something stupid is supposed to be exciting, Keith will describe it in all-caps.
- Overly Long Gag: 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.
- 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 George Hackenschmidt.
- Running Gag: A few in his works:
- 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."
- "This feud must continue!"
- Calling Dino Bravo "the worst".
- Small Name, Big Ego: 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.
- He's even acknowledged this trait, going so far as to refer to Rob Van Dam as "the only person more self-centered than me."
- Smart Mark: He even goes by the nickname "The SmarK," which plays off of his initials.
- Take That!:
- Vince Russo 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.
- 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.
- Vince Russo 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.
- Tonight in This Very Ring: The title of one of his books.
