Portland State: Finishing School For WWE Superstars

Today this blog comes to you to talk about a school from the Big Sky Conference. This school is Portland State University. They're not particularly distinctive in basketball (6-10, 1-4 in conference; good for 6th in the Big Sky and 226th in RPI). This blog isn't here to talk about Portland State basketball though.

This blog is going to claim that Portland State just might be the most World Wrestling Entertainment-inspired university out there. Now this site can already hear you saying, "How can this be? Their wrestling team's no good, they're only 1-13-3 this year!" This is correct, and this blog isn't going to argue with you on that. However, what you may have forgotten is that the WWE has very little to do with actual wrestling, and quite a bit to do with x-tremeness and the other factors this blog is about to layout for you.

First off, for those of you unfamiliar with the WWE (this blog is continually less familiar with the WWE, so it knows where you're coming from), there are a few recurring storylines that crop up. One of such storylines is when a pair of previously bitter rivals suddenly decide to form an uneasy alliance and become a tag team. The explanation for this reversal of course is usually that the team was "formed out of mutual respect."

You want mutual respect? Portland State has an entire climate of mutual respect. In fact, one of their primary mottos is "A Climate of Mutual Respect."

As alluded to earlier, the WWE is a huge proponent of x-tremeness. In fact, using the letter X or Z (especially when used in an unnecessary or gramatically incorrect fashion) is a way of gaining credibility within the WWE. Come to think of it, it's most likely the best way of achieving mutual respect. X-amples of this include wrestler X-Pac, the ill-fated WWE-inspired Xtreme Football League, the WWE Fan Axxess tour, and Wrestlemania X8. Not to mention the Dudley Boyz, Hardy Boyz, and Tazz.

Portland State takes it to the x-treme by using www.pdx.edu as their website. Were it not for a WWE-affinity, this domain would be in-x-plicable. PSU.com was taken by Penn State, so it's understandable why that domain wasn't used, but this blog has no x-planation for the PDX choice. (Portland's airport abbreviation is PDX, but Portland State offers no courses toward receiving one's pilot license).

A final x-ample of Portland State's commitment to x-cellence is their sports logos. The mascot is the Viking, but in spite of this, they chose to use a logo that looks much like a wrestling mask with horns.

Beyond this, their secondary logo appears to be some type of hybrid between Hillbilly Jim and Bob "The Viking" Morse. It might also be important to add that when WWE wrestler Brock Lesnar attempted to reach the NFL, the team he went to training camp with was the Minnesota Vikings.

So there you have it, if you want to get on the inside track to the WWE, Portland State University is the school for you.

Special thanks to Phonograph's Ronk Romens for his contributions to this post.