Professional Wrestling

Anyone watching Lucha Underground? I haven't seen a bad episode yet but the last one with Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma taking up the entire episode with an Iron man match may just be the high point so far, in terms of what I've seen.

edited 20th Jun '15 8:48:13 AM by hitmonkey

Honestly, other than the cheek caress, it's just Dalton Castle being insane and fond of exhibiting his body (thereby his typical title of "The Party Peacock"). It was a bit of a shame that he didn't get his deadlift suplex off. It tends to be fun to watch. Based on the commentary, I'm guessing this might have actually been one of the Top Prospect matches I'd mentioned before, finally getting released online.

And, a reminder of why it's so reprehensible that McMahon does not offer health insurance and refuses to let his wrestlers group together for insurance. At least it sounds like Jamie Noble is only suffering from broken ribs. The early reports of non-responsiveness and oxygen were a bit worrying.

Yeah, I never got a Gorgeous George vibe from Dalton Castle, but to paraphrase Coleman, you thought I was bluffing when I said he wrestled for ROH?

Whatever, no one actually seems to stop watching Vince Jr's product, or even protest when they hear about moral issues, financial issues, ego issues. Stupid booking does seem to consistently run viewers off but they don't seem to be running to Lucha Underground, New Japan or anything. It's a shame, because the pro wrestling industry growing around them while they shrink would be the second best message WWE could get short of another fed springing up in the US and kicking their ass(another pro wrestling fed, ten years of UFC foot in their behind hasn't changed McMahon land at all)

Anyway, RIP Buddy Landel.

I stopped watching WWE, but I also understand that I'm not the norm on that. Also, it is pretty problematic because in a lot of places WWE is the only widely available product, with TNA and ROH not always being as accessible and anything smaller than that needing to be either streamed or purchased from online or seen in person. As it stands, I see most of what I do by buying DVDs of other Feds and, when I deem it necessary to buy a WWE product, doing my best to buy it used.

I think the reason most people still haven't left WWE is because the PG rating has succeeded in keeping the incredibly young casual fans, who probably think WWE is the only wrestling company in the world. Along with that, their minds probably get too easily bored by the technical wrestling favored by other promotions such as NJPW and their attention spans are kept more in-line by the high flyers and repetitive slops such as Cena.

I can relate to not understanding the intricacies the independent, foreign and territorial circuits(in the political sense, though I can understand not understanding what the territories were in the bygone wrestling era sense too). I used to think WWE and what I now know to be independent feds around the USA were all part of one big pro wrestling league, and indeed, that ECW, WCW and WWF were all in a loose partnership. I learned better the former two closed and the number of indy feds exploded, ROH and TNA being particular eye openers. But even then, I really wasn't a pro wrestling fan until 2003. Me, a kid/teen largely apathetic to the "fake sport" beyond Vader running into an slamming people has pretty much always known of the feds outside of WWE, even if I didn't always recognize them for what they were.

My mom, who still isn't really a fan, still insists to me that TNA is something Vince McMahon runs behind the scene and that the Jimmy Jacobs IWA M-S AAW incident was a work(though she doesn't use that exact term). I can even sort of grasp the concept of not watching pro wrestling because "WWE ruined it", even though I think that's a silly reason. My dad, for example, refused to watch more than two minutes of pro wrestling after "Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan made it too fake". I really don't get how fans emotionally invested in modern pro wrestling would only be aware of WWE.

True, they are loath to mention the existence of anyone else, but the "legends" will advertise their own projects like Tommy Dreamer's House Of Hardcore shirt and their website occasionally talks about the independent circuit and sometimes mentions promotions on it by name. The wrestlers sometimes make reference to "experience" that couldn't have possibly come from working with WWE, such as 'Kaval' and 'Daniel Bryan' on NXT or half the contestants on Tough Enough Five, most obviously Ryan Howe (whom Stratus derided for his "indy mentality"), whatever name they had for Matt Cross and that lady who "lost my fundamentals".

Though apparently the current Tough Enough rejected everyone who already worked in the business. That news made me upset for some reason, but this made it better.

Eyeh, I see my approximately monthly show and that's enough for me. Sadly, I'm missing somewhere around three events in a row with the International Wrestling Cartel due to scheduling, but dem's de breaks. If I watched TV, I'd probably watch WWE, but as it is, the live events are just so much more fun.

Oh, and Pedro, the ring announcer of IWC, is retiring (at least for now) due to him soon being a father, so they're looking at replacements. I'd love to do something like that, but I just don't have the time. Hasn't kept me from teasing Plummer about how he buys the organization and suddenly everyone's leaving...

Bret Hart speaks highly of Roman Reigns and says that Daniel Bryan is finished. It's an interesting essay, albeit one that feels a bit rambling.

Yeah, sure is interesting. In other news, the rebirth of Ball Park Brawl seems to have gone unnoticed by TV Tropes.

And Chuck Taylor seems to have been in a bad mood about it. Edit:In such a bad mood it seems to have made the link unembeddable. Oh well.

edited 8th Jul '15 6:22:19 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

And Vince's instructions to the announcers may have been leaked. There's some good advice, some iffy advice, and some batshit McMahon advice.

And just because I'm watching it, AIW - Colin Delaney vs. Hania the Howling Huntress:

Edit: Huh... you're right. Embedded videos aren't working.

edited 8th Jul '15 11:49:45 AM by FuzzyBoots

And Another of the intergender matches. You start to see why very few people take them seriously...

Uh, what was present in either of those matches that the indy hipster link you posted earlier complained about? Neither of the women had to "prove" themselves and while the Hania\Colin Delaney match wasn't the best, just looking at what they did right makes that so called Lethal Lockdown between "team Dixie" and team "MVP" in TNA look so much worse in hindsight.

My main complaint about intergender matches is that the man often forgets how to wrestle, helpless to all sorts of moves he would have easily countered if his opponent was another man and his own offense reduced to basic brawling (example:Eric Young vs Ayako Hamada) and that didn't happen in those matches either.

Unless you mean a serious sports league wouldn't arbitrarily put on an entire female vs male card or tolerate a referee allowing a balls plex done right in front of him, I get that, but I think the first match(first you posted, second on the card) was passable and the second was very entertaining.

Huh? I was referring more to the general difference in size and power. It kind breaks the illusion that the wrestling is some sort of actual fight when they make it pretty obvious that the male wrestler generally can take the entire force of the female wrestler's body and casually juggle it about. And yeah, it does lead to the male wrestler apparently forgetting every fundamental they ever learned. I thought that the Delaney one was actually mildly plausible, but the one with Gargano was a joke, like having a full-size wrestler being dominated by one of the midgets.

:) Maybe this is just one of those things with a difference of opinions. I'm cool with that.

2008 IWC match, Bubba the Bulldog vs. Shark-Boy

[[youtube:s67ipCeqgGQ]]

And William Regal reveals what Triple H is looking for in a man. I found it an interesting read, if nothing terribly surprising. I do agree with the idea of hiring people who look like they could beat someone up plausibly. And it it's good they're moving away from bodybuilders.

It's so weird, I'm still used to the Sharkboy who didn't talk and it's 2015.

And what shovel wants is a man who has made no prior merchandise deals with any companies WWE doesn't use. ROH is still making money off of Kevin Steen dolls? I thought they weren't competition so what does it matter? I really don't know what's happened to that company. McMahon apparently didn't mind helping out ECW and it had a national TV deal. Why can't they leave the independent circuit alone? How long until they're screwing up the business of Nigeria, Botswana, Cambodia or New Zealand...assuming they aren't already?

edited 23rd Jul '15 12:35:30 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Because Vince knows that, even without money, people might still flock to the indies if people start realizing how bad his product has gotten. That's why he's in a "business relationship" with ROH and raiding it for talent. And the less said about TNA, the better. With Lucha Underground still not drawing a large enough crowd and Global Force still without a TV deal, Vince not only knows he has no competition, he's practically rubbing it in everyone's faces.

Anyone hear about what happened to Hulk Hogan today? He got fired from the WWE for some racist things he said in that one sex tape he did some years ago.

Really, how many times do we have to point out how much of a shithead Hogan is? And all these other wrestlers saying, "I can't believe it! I really believe he's a good man!" NO. Hogan has been, is, and always will be an egomaniac to the extreme.

But what pisses me off the most are the Yahoo! comments on this topic. "WWE are a bunch of PC blowhards! He said that years ago!" Seriously? Are you motherfuckers actually trying to defend someone who very clearly said the N-word?

And I'm ranting. Again.

Part of the problem is the lack of information, or perhaps the amount of disinformation, going around. Many of the articles about this claimed that it stemmed from a 2002 radio interview where Hogan joked about the Booker T incident. In actuality, it looks like this stems from the 2012 sex tape where Hogan goes on a 5 minute tirade about the kind of women his daughter dates, which apparently includes black men.

I agree that he's indefensible on this one, but the people stepping up to his defense based on the misinformation about why this happened stand on slightly better ground. Although, if we throw out any wrestler who ever made a racist comment somewhere in the vicinity of a camera, we're going to wind up with a pretty scanty roster.

Well I don't know the details of Hogan's firing, I haven't so much as heard or read anyone's side of the story. I have my doubts of WWE and racism complaints when they're the ones who did the white boy challenge angle, the silver back Mark Henry angle, they loved to race bait.

Again, I don't know the facts, they might have been right to can Hogan, but my view of WWE hasn't improved yet.

I haven't seen the Hogan sex tape either, and really have no desire to. It baffles me why Hulk Hogan would hold racist opinions of black people though. That kind of thing is always disturbing to hear from an athlete of all people but Hogan, an athlete whose career was helped by black people who didn't need to help him? He personally sought work with non wrestlers Mr. T and Tiny Lister. Hogan might have been an asshole but if someone accused him of being a racist without proof, I'd have my doubts. Haven't seen the tape so I can't dispute it, nor add anything else to the discussion.

edited 14th Jan '16 4:54:52 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

He talks that in the fuckin' tape Gawker is getting sued over by Hogan himself because they gave people a link to it in their own site? Something it was supposed to be private?

That is...something delicate. I don't like violations of privacy. You know, my biggest fear is what people would think of me for things that I say to myself in private.

I don't want someone to be judged over it too.

edited 25th Jul '15 1:48:28 PM by MeetTheNewBoss

Whatever you think of Hogan, while in principle I don't object to him being fired from WWE for his comments I think totally scrubbing him from WWE.com and related sites and making him an unperson is excessive.

Doing it to Chris Benoit when it was discovered he also killed his wife and son is one thing (and even that could be argued, though I don't intend to do so myself), but for simply being an ass (and much less of one than Vince has been in the past) in an interview?