Professional Wrestling

I don't know and don't care. Never actually cared about him, and clearly he hasn't raised my interest in 205 live. I honestly mute the tv while he's on so I can focus on other stuff.
And tbh, if Miz is getting written off TV for a bit, there isn't really much left for me on Raw. Never liked Mcmahons in the main event, or the Shield, the tag division is paper thin... it's like, there are people on Raw I like, but none of them can make a 3 hour show worth the others.

On another note, I wish I could see Jinder succeeding as a face champion. Part of why he's a heel is because American wrestling fans are still mostly bigots. But beyond that, WWE has a real colorism problem - there's pretty much no dark skinned face ever allowed to succeed, especially not long term. 50 World Champions in and none of them have been actually black (besides half of the Rock). Other divisions are similarly structured. Hell, the closest WWE ever got to a black "top guy" was with Booker T, who they buried as part of an intentionally racist angle.

...this is very true.

Pretty much every black wrestling fan I know IRL is consciously aware of this. I don't mean to knock anyone on this very well done video list, even the ones I don't personally like. It'd just be nice to see more representation and variety. The list had the Rock (also half Samoan), Yokozuna (Japanese), the Shiek (Iranian heel, transitional champ), Batista (Hispanic? DC native) and Jinder (Indian-Canadian, pretty much only rehired in order to make money off of Indians). It's just sad that for whatever reason, the "top face" or "the guy" push has never gone to the likes of Booker T, or Mark Henry, or Shelton Benjamin, or Bobby Lashley, or the like.

I know there's plenty of other people who have never been "the guy". I'm just bummed that the closest people who look like me seem to get is either being the fall guy in racism angles, or "whatever Kofi does to momentarily stave off elimination in the Rumble" as the most to look forward to each year.

Would be nice if Kofi was allowed to win the damn thing...

As a black man myself, I'm really annoyed that I missed this. I mean, Marc Henry and the Rock have been champions as you've pointed out, but yeah, Henry was a heel and the Rock...well he's the Rock. He's whatever he wants to be but he's probably the only one. This is something that I should have been aware of, but I suppose I've been so deep in Wrestling for so long I just never gave it the thought I should have.

It's really rather disappointing now that I think about it.

And again, Mark Henry held the former WCW title. The true top title is the one in the video linked. As for The Rock, he's always been an interesting case, as this article points out.

And that's also kind of why I'm reflexively defensive of Jinder. I know he has flaws. I know he's not perfect. But all this bullshit about him being "the worst world champ"? Really? When Vince put the title on himself, or when Bray Wyatt had a worse run this year and is still known as the "Eater of Pins"? Why does Jinder stand out in people's minds? Hmmmmmmmm...

edited 24th Nov '17 1:19:14 PM by wanderlustwarrior

For being the fifth man in the kill the Colon family angle? Okay, only someone who watched WWC two years ago would probably get that...

Anyway, as someone who 1) doesn't put all that much stock in WWE and 2) doesn't really see the issue with The Rock, I will admit to having my own issues with black men in the business, but before I get to them, I really have to touch on The Rock. The man doesn't hide his blackness, downplay it, denigrate it. As far as I'm concerned, he is black, so long as he identifies as such himself and accepts other of like mind, which he does.

Should that mean WWE fans should be satisfied that The Rock was champion a few times? Well Shelton Benjamin probably should have been a main event staple and WWE has no one but themselves to blame for anyone who holds that sentiment. MVP probably should have had a run lasting until whatever time they didn't feel like dealing with his passport issues, especially when he turned face and made his intentions to go to the top clear. Kofi Kingston's case was similar to Shelton's except he at least feuded with a main event Randy Orton for awhile, rather than going undefeated against Triple H only to lose to Randy Orton out of the blue and gradually degenerate to the point he was treated like a child by his suddenly obese mother, as if we're supposed to believe his losing streak was that long.

Bobby Lashley probably would have been "the guy", stuff happened, I don't even know what that stuff was, but there were plenty of other cases in between Rock and Lashley and I'm sure after Lashley. No, WWE fans shouldn't be satisfied just because The Rock. I'm just saying WWE fans shouldn't downplay The Rock, as if you want the next potential black man to be WWE/World Heavyweight/Universal whatever champion, it works against your cause. Yes, The Rock was of Samoan heritage, but how many Samoans have been elevated as such by WWE? God, Umaga wrestled the match but Donald Trump beat him to the Hall Of Fame. They've known about Samoa Joe since at least 99 but were of the "no future in the business" opinion until, like 2005.

And it gives the uncomfortable notion that well, The Rock doesn't look black enough...because what, he's light skinned? Genetics don't work that way. Most alleles for lighter skin tones are recessive. Two so dark brown they almost look ebony black Africans will give birth to a light skinned baby, every once and while. Rock is "mixed" in this case, but what if MVP got the belt? Would he not be black enough? If D'lo Brown had been luckier, or God forbid, WWE had actually decided to push Rodney Mack, would they? Mack was certainly black enough for white boy challenges, which amounted to what? Getting squashed by Goldberg? What's that, a legit shooter? John Cena's sidekick? That's not working? Race baiting! He makes Severn's WWE run look fortunate.

I could be wrong, but in my opinion down playing Rock's blackness doesn't help the cause. So he's Samoan too, let's count that as two victories.

As for other promotions, I call it second champion. As in most companies will make the black man champion, but only after they've really got no reasonable alternative. He's almost never the inaugural champion, the one mind when the company starts up or decides it wants to start another division. Sometimes I question myself for even noticing something like that, which is why I don't bring it up or only passively hint at it when it's related to some other issue. And as I have griped about it before, Rich Swann and Gargano vacating the Open The United Gate belts leading to Galloway replacing Swann as Gargano's EVOLVE Tag Team partner doesn't fit in this context. I should make that clear, as EVOLVE clearly were planning on a black man foundation, Swann can probably thank AR Fox for that. Granted, it was pretty obvious their first choice in Fox's case would have been Bryan Danielson but just because Danielson was out of the picture doesn't mean they couldn't have spent the better part of 300 days trying everything until they had to go with Fox. And being the second option after "The Best In The World" is alright. Fox was been a great representation of the brand, its good, bad or otherwise, you'd see it in everything he did.

While not the first, when CMLL lost the better part of its roster to AAA it didn't hesitate to put the World Heavyweight Title on Black Magic, and while being such doesn't mean quite as much in CMLL as other promotions, that's still pretty strong show of confidence when the defector was Cien Caras, the guy before him was Konnan, while Pirata Morgan, Pierroth and Lizmark were among the contemporary loyalists. And maybe it wasn't considered a "top title" yet but I remember MVP's speech after winning the IWGP Intercontinental belt being very touching. Oh, and NOAH went with the ever reliable Scorpio and Vader to establish its heavyweight tag team division. Which all brings me to another factor concerning the United States. When a promotion in Japan or Mexico(or Korea, etc) is looking for "international" or "world" credibility, they'll gladly push the black man(further evidence:Bob Sapp)

Here in the States...not so much. If you've got the choice of Willie Mack and Kevin Steen, well, Steen's Canadian, he makes us look more important. Now in Italy, they love the Dominican El Dinámico. When Liga Elite was holding its campeonato mundial it mined Africa and The Caribbean for reps. Most of them didn't get too far but I get an itch trying to remember the last time a US based promotion looked as far as Panama, unless you count WWL, which isn't in the states proper but nonetheless was going for a pan am thing when it started. The NWA did aggressively pursue some Carib talent in the 2000s and early 2010s, dipped its toes in Nigeria, but when Tharpe managed to run off most of the member promotions that died off. For whatever reason, when promoters in the US think "exotic" or "foreign" they rarely think "black". Maybe we can blame that on Jack Veneno, or maybe it's something bigger...

I think that front might be a way to get more black people in the business. The smaller indie promotions already develop talent from pools the larger companies skip over, but the indies themselves will likely have to develop a little more before we really see a dent...and also, I really think they will have to be more willing to take the risk and push the black guys as champions when they have them. Not just for the sake of it but when you've got, say, Keith Lee, who for whatever reason has the fans into everything he's doing, maybe rookie Riddle can wait a bit. A month or three? Test the rookie with something else before the "bigger than every other title previously contested, for reals" championship belt that Lee ends up getting from him anyway? ROH didn't push Lee and you, who claim not to like them, missed a prime time to capitalize!

And it's unrealistic to expect a Berwyn based indie to find, much less fly in talent from every corner of the Earth. SHIMMER's work in Australia, the UK and Japan is all I would ever expect of them, ask of them, if they never went any further, but I have to wonder who is reaching for the places they aren't pulling from? Did we really have to wait for all talent not based in North America to be indisposed before a black woman was champion? Aren't there more black people outside of North America than in? There was no middleman whatsoever, for a decade? Maybe this is a socioeconomic issue bigger than pro wrestling. Roots in problems where my thoughts would not turn to things like "ticket sales", but these thoughts do come when I am thinking of pro wrestling. I'll enjoy pro wrestling even if everyone on a card or all expected cards is white, whatever, but I do notice these things. I kind of think its weird that I do, but I also know I'm not the only one. It'd be cool if the business looked like and was treated a little more like a microcosm of the world. That's what many promoters, including the Mcmahons, especially the McMahons, claim it is already. And the business is supposed to work better when more people are moving around anyway.

You wrote quite a bit, and I don't want to misinterpret or undercut you, so I'm only going to respond to one specific topic, more to make myself a bit more clear on something:

With regards to what race(s) Dwayne Johnson identifies as, or what social work he has done, or "one drop rule" stuff or whatever - I'm not intending to discuss that at this point forward, whether or not I have already - my thoughts on that and the reality of those concerns is not actually germane to the thought I was meaning to bring to this thread.

With regards to The Rock solely as a pro-wrestling character in WWE, everything I can remember of him, except the aforementioned Nation of Domination run which I never personally witnessed, seems intended to either downplay his black heritage or prop something else up instead. It annoyingly reminds me of the commercialized sport whitewashed aspect of "I don't see color (implicitly, except green, or "Samoan" from time to time)." Whether the speaker of that fictitious sentence is Dwayne, "The Rock" Character, or Vince the CEO & Executive Producer, is mostly irrelevant to the way that I personally feel as a black wrestling fan - kinda shitty and unwanted.

Somewhat on the same track, somewhat separately, It's annoying when not only can I not turn off "being hated 24/7", but popular media is all like "just get over it, it's not a big deal... except when we're using that hatred to get paid, then you're just wrong for being the one being hated." Like all those "Stop talking about racism, because it has never harmed me, so I shouldn't have to hear about it" people out there.

edited 25th Nov '17 4:38:51 PM by wanderlustwarrior

I do remember John Cena tried that "get over it" approach, while invoking colors of people who didn't exist I believe, to Muhammad Hassan...anyway, the funny thing about the Nation Of Domination was that the original USWA group were mostly white guys trying to impress their black friends. Amazingly someone at WWF missed the point(I'm guessing Vince Jr). The Rock actually wrote in his book about being disturbed at it becoming a militant black front while he wasn't looking.

So if Rocky, the "character", seemed to be downplaying his blackness, it started with "creative"'s decision to move him into The Nation. He didn't want to come off like a black supremacist and cut a promo along the lines of "You all can go to hell. This isn't a white thing, or a black thing, but a respect thing! And like him or not you will respect Rocky Maivia!" Rocky Maivia, was incidentally a gimmick he never wanted(in his own words "hid dad's name and his grandfather's name), so he also tried to get as far from that as possible at the earliest opportunity, eventually becoming the man obsessed with his overpriced tacky clothing, his right eyebrow and his "bronze surfboard belly", who always referred to himself in third person we know as The Rock.

I always thought of it as a great example of a man grabbing his station by the horns and taking control of his career, like Stone Cold Steve Austin's "King Of The Ring" promo(more so, The Rock was certainly a more creative endeavor, we saw Dick The Bruiser and The Sandman before Stone Cold and saw Charlie Haas, The Briscoes and Silas Young after Stone Cold but there's only one Rock). But yes, the truth is part of the motivation behind it was to look as little like a black separatist as possible (the other being as unlike The High Chief and Soul Man as possible). I don't think the intent was to be seen as something other than black but if that was the result, it's really unfortunate.

So, if I'm following correctly, the perception is WWE can't have black man on top unless he's got such an over the top gimmick that it somehow makes people "comfortable" with his blackness or if his blackness played for fear?

Generally, as far as myself and all of my black male wrestling fan friends go, we recognize that:

• Most minorities are played as caricatures
• Black men in particular (also middle-eastern men, and most non-blonde women, though this isn't as direct an issue for us) are not allowed as top singles faces in The WWF/E. While this is mostly based on observed patterns, some anecdotal evidence relating to Vince and Hunter does support this.
• Black men can be top tag faces, or top singles heels (see: the New Day, Booker T, Devon, etc.)
• Vince has an established "type", and Hunter's out for Hunter first and foremost.

Separately, after all this time I've finally looked at your profile. I'd been meaning to ask for some time, are you a fan of the WNBA? Or particularly the athlete in your profile pic? I finally saw a WNBA game in person this year.

Yes, I am a fan of Tamika Catchings. The Fever, not as much, but that's how sports leagues work.

Every athlete I use as an avatar I'm a fan of. They're all inspirations to me, in their own way. I used to cycle through them but have left it on Catching because there's a glitch that makes all the others look stretched out and weird.

So how about a match with Jazz, who was the first champion of Amber O'Neal's promotion(and won the NWA World Women's Title last year) vs Thea Trinidad, back when she was Rosita.

Sexy Starr shoot-attacks another in-ring opponent. Looks like we have another Vader...

I'm debating making a Characters page for Matt Hardy. Why him, and not Mick Foley or someone else with distinct personas?

Because I want to make a page specifically for tropes about #BROKEN Matt, Brother Nero, and ALL of the other characters in the Broken Universe: Queen Rebecca, King Maxel and potentially Wolfie, Vanguard-1, Senor Benjamin, the Scribe, Skarsgaard the Dilapidated Boat, the Hardy Zoo, and the Seven Deities.

Or maybe a Wrestling page for the Broken Brilliance that covers its continuity (at least, the Final Deletion through the Expedition of Gold, if it doesn't continue).

I've seen Diosa Quetzal before. She paired with Baronessa in Lucha Liga Elite last year, and last I heard she'd been booked for LLF's seventeenth anniversary show...damn that's this Friday!... if I've ever seen an MDA show, though, I can't remember it. It's definitely not an enterprise I keep up with. So I heard it from Fuzzy first, this time.

That's like, three times. Two official and one she said-she said case against Sexy Dulce. That said, I've only seen the twitter clip and it doesn't look that bad. Shaking an opponent by the hair and kicking her lower thigh are fairly common luchadora spots and she is a boxer, so even if she was shooting I wouldn't be surprised if most fans didn't suspect anything until that buzz saw kick. AAA was also a bit of a mess before Sexy Star's incidents with Shani and especially Rosemary. If MDA is facing similar scrutiny, I wasn't aware of it.

Vader? He certainly had a reputation for being stiff, but I don't recall him shooting on opponents in this sense. I know, the reporter in Kuwait, but by Vader's account that was a misunderstanding induced mistake on his part. A female Vader I think would be more like La Comandante(who few promotions wanted to hire until she dialed it back, incidentally)

As for Matt Hardy? I guess a Wrestling/ Broken Universe page would be the way to go.

I legitimately want the Miztourage to have a theme song and win the Raw tag titles.

I wonder if the first post in this thread was an intentional "awesome" reference.

FINALLY!

Though there's very few people on RAW I care about, I now have something I'm greatly looking forward to! Hopefully WWE (and their universe) doesn't mess it up.

If it's alright with you guys, I'm thinking I'm going to title the page for the tropes of Broken Matt and company as Broken Brilliance (since that's what he calls it, even while it may be referred to as "#WOKEN"), which I will get started on soon.

Fortunately, I already made a subsection on his main page for the Broken tropes earlier this year, and can just migrate that over.

And "Consumer of Terrestrial Entities" is indeed his name for "The Eater of Worlds" Bray Wyatt.

So Broken Matt Hardy has finally awoken in the WWE.

I saw some clips of him a while back because I'd never seen the gimmick during it's original run (though I did hear about it), but man, that was glorious.

And now, he and Bray are having a who's crazier contest.

Interesting times are in store.

So what broke him this time?

Like, Dulce's MDA episode is something I think came up mainly due to events at Triplemania, but I imagine whatever broke Hardy a second time is a story all its own.

No strong in-story reason. The legal dispute with TNA was getting resolved, so WWE finally pulled the trigger for him to go full broken after a loss to Bray Wyatt.

I don't like Shane's current heelish interactions. He works better as a face right now, especially to counter the heeling of the rest of the family.

I hate that I find Stephanie attractive. It flies in the face of all of my appreciation for genuinely kind personality.

edited 5th Dec '17 8:06:15 PM by wanderlustwarrior

Well, I personally don't like Cody Rhodes ROH Champion, but I do like Cody Rhodes advocate for the independent circuit, helper of the little man...I guess that's not the same as finding him attractive but having conflicting opinions about someone isn't that strange.

In fact, there are several wrestlers I'd otherwise find unremarkable or outright ugly but find myself looking over in detail just because they're wrestlers. Being a wrestler will never move "not with a hazmat suit and cattle prods" to "hit it", but it will turn "pass" to "further evaluation needed". Before the whole paterfamilicide my mom described Chris Benoit as "average" and I thought that was way too generous. Then I saw one of his matches, which was spectacular, and I was like "yeah, average". Do...whatever McMahon is doing these days do for you what wrestlers do for me? Well, I like athletes in general. I must have seen two dozen tall but too slim types a day in the clinic office but Aries Merritt being interviewed before the 110 meter is something to record so I can look at again later. I notice it more with pro wrestlers just because a whole lot of them would otherwise be nowhere near my type. Again, it's not even an attraction thing in this case but would the team 2000 theme really fly if it wasn't used by someone like Masahiro Chono, MM Bop without The Young Bucks, Lie Cheat and Steal or OOOH Chavo if not for being attached to Los Guerreros?

"yeah, average" is an interesting and probably appropriate phrasing. I guess I see most women that way because I can't really see most in a purely physical light - personality, their actions, existing relationships, etc. are very important.

For some bizarre reason Stephanie belittling wrestlers is kind of a turn on, even though it's really rude and downright stupid from a story perspective that she does it so consistently.

Why don't you like Cody as ROH champion? Not to sound accusatory, I'm just curious that you led with that. What are your opinions, both on the championship, on him, and on the Bullet Club?

edited 6th Dec '17 10:00:03 AM by wanderlustwarrior

The belt? It's the belt of Jerritol Lynn, Nigel McGuinness, Takeshi Morishima et all. Lethal's run was going good until it was pretty obvious that locker room raid ruined their plans, but they had to hold off on Cole, for whatever reason. Cole #2 was okay, I think it should have just been Cole #2 but I guess it's nice to say O'Reilly won at Final Battle. That was a great story. Daniels was a great story too.

As for Cody, I when I first saw him I hated him and while he's definitely improved since that OVW outing(or has he just grown on me?) I'm still not into much of what he does in the ring. I think he's good in tag matches(which is ironic since I wasn't into Team Priceless/Legacy, which what I knew him for before he became a free agent), he'd be great as the third Hung Buck, maybe, but as a singles wrestler I'm of the opinion you might as well have gone with Mark Briscoe(Jay's less psychologically refined, less physically imposing brother). I think of all the guys who have been through the company without holding that belt(Shelley, Hero, Castagnoli, KENTA, Coleman...can you believe he was once in the top ten among contenders...both members of Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team individually, KUSHIDA...he did get the television title), all the places Cody went without a belt before ROH(though he has gotten more since then, Bullet Club will do that I guess), and uh, I guess I can say I am overwhelmingly underwhelmed. He just doesn't have that whatever Lethal, Cole, O'Reilly, Daniels had, either in the ring or in promos to make me really want to see what he'll do next, take in what he just did, laugh at his jokes, feel harsh when he decides to diss. I smile just thinking of the match where one of them retains against the legendary badass with the worst personality in the world Suzuki, Cody's kind of done it and I'm like...that all?

Bullet Club, I'd say it's weird they're so cheered in the states but it's the nWo with the decency to lose and go away sometimes, it's to be expected. I just think they were better in ROH when they were straight good guys, which might just be unfeasible with Omega/Cole/Rhodes/Page, but all the same I enjoyed that more.

With no Devitt or Styles, I just can't really stay on the bandwagon, unless it's Guerrillas Of Destiny or Scurll I guess, but aside from Cody the main thing are The Young Bucks. It makes sense, they are original members, they are a good team, they've been associated with ROH for a good while, never gone too long, but as I stated earlier, I think the current champions should have been champions last year. ROH has been strong tag team wise for awhile and the bucks rarely have my favorite tag match of any given card. But I'll also admit Page definitely grew on me, before he joined Bullet Club, and his membership hasn't soured me on him. Until Castle conquers Cody and or beats the Hung Bucks somehow I'll probably be thinking Page could have waited to get those belts, though.

edited 7th Dec '17 6:19:57 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

I don't watch nearly enough ROH to have a full opinion (I only caught my first new episode this weekend), but from what I've seen of NJPW / online, I want to like the Club more as a concept, but the Elite are uncomfortably Spotlight-Stealing Squad over the Tongans who had been there from the start, and even as hard as some of them try, the stable aren't really heels anymore. Tweeners, mostly.

But then again, how many hated heels are there anymore in men's competition?

Adam Page was pretty hated, even after joining The Club, until, you know, The Hung Bucks. The Kingdom were good if not ideal foils to Bullet Club too. It's just 4/5ths of The Kingdom are gone.

It was as good a time as any to make the heel turn from every logical angle except the fans ignoring it. I'm sure there were other options but ROH seems to know what they're doing, going with a "Boo them! Or don't, we really didn't expect you to and in fact have everything lined up in case Bullet Club is applauded but are still hoping you'll boo them" attitude. And it's not the first time ROH has had heels or even a heel faction that getting cheered anywhere from 50(The Age Of The Fall) to 98%(The Rottweilers) of the time. Half of Bullet Club's heat comes from being gaijin anyway which you know is going to be lost at most of their non Japanese dates.

I'm the weird one who is not jumping on the bandwagon, and if I was at the shows I might have just been swept up anyway. I wasn't with Aries, Corino, Steen, or Hero but after getting strange looks for cheering Hakim Zane at a non ROH show I recall trying not to make that mistake again only to join in when pretty much everyone at the ROH show cheered.

At least in WWE main roster, genuine hated heels include: Jinder (Foreign Wrestling Heel even when he's not pursuing that angle because USA is indeed still bigoted), and... Baron Corbin?

• The Miz's work ethic and mic skill has actually pushed him deeply into tweener territory, and I genuinely cheer for him. Even Cena said he respects him
• The Kevin/Sami/Shane/Daniel Bryan thing is trying to make them all seem heelish, but it's not working for any of them.
• Bray very quickly became a joke this year, and because we expect Matt to win his debut feud, even this won't get me invested in Bray as an actual "heel".
• Kane... is Kane.
• Elias is working on Cheap Heat, but he's one of those that it's fun to boo.
• Orton has Reliable Traitor working for him, but the RKO is too over for him to ever be heel. Hell, he burned down Bray's house and made the then-champion cry, and no one cared.

Even in Tag... Smackdown is all Faces and Tweeners, and RAW doesn't even use most of its teams.

Honestly, Jason Jordan might actually be the best heel on RAW. He's really making this manipulative angle work, but they need to move it along quicker.

Hunter vs Jinder tomorrow. I hope Jinder wins, but I doubt he will.

I don't like the Alexa Bliss push. So far this year, she beat three of the four horsewomen and Nia Jax, and Mickie James, for titles, and got no comeuppance for anything until Absolution debuted. She's even still kayfabe friends with Nia (I know they're IRL friends, but it's jarring that the same show constantly teases a Sasha/Bayley breakup when they're amazing friends).
And yet somehow Alexa's still the champion when she's at best the 6th best total package out of the 11 women on that show: Sasha, Bayley, Nia, Asuka and Paige all are more bankable (no pun intended), better wrestlers, better heels or faces, better mic skill, or some combination of those strengths.
It really feels like Alexa's just there to give white 20-somethings a blonde to fap to.

edited 8th Dec '17 4:06:21 PM by wanderlustwarrior