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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Jan 13, 2019 15:22:56 GMT -5
?
I was just watching the “Ric Flair Drip” music video and this popped into my mind. Flair’s character was known as a womanizer and objectifyer of women and some sources say the man wasn’t that different from the character at times. Not only didn’t Ric face any trouble from the #Metoo movement, but he was featured in a music video objectifying women the same year that movement was arguably at its peak.
Not to peak on Ric or even say he should have faced backlash. He just made me think of it though. Wrestling is an industy filled with performers ranging from questionable in their treatment of women to out and out scumbags.
Is it just that wrestling is scummy business so the mainstream media feels no need to look for scum in it?
The only example that immediately comes to mind as someone impacted by the #Metoo movement in wrestling is Enzo Amore with him being fired for not disclosing that he was being investigated for rape.
Outside of WWE there was also Michael Elgin who got some bookings cancelled after some poor choices he made came to light. Also, Kenny Omega facing some backlash after allowing a sex offender on the show he booked.
There is probably some more I’m forgetting, but in the grand scheme of things with house much scandal wrestling has been rumored to have I’m surprised there wasn’t more.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Jan 13, 2019 15:24:48 GMT -5
Because as much as Vince strives to be main stream, enough people still look at pro wrestling like a freak show that people ignore it.
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Post by Mama Rhodes Looking @ U Now on Jan 13, 2019 15:31:51 GMT -5
Cause wrestlers are more likely to do nothing and cry on Twitter about what a good worker they are for this business
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Post by Captain Patren Fenderbaum-X on Jan 13, 2019 15:42:30 GMT -5
Because wrestling is niche no matter the "celebrity" they may bring in etc to prove they are mainstream.
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Post by BatPunk on Jan 13, 2019 15:44:07 GMT -5
To start with, I could be completely wrong, so feel free to flame away.
Maybe WWE, the company, isn’t as bad as the product it presents.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Jan 13, 2019 15:54:39 GMT -5
Cause wrestlers are more likely to do nothing and cry on Twitter about what a good worker they are for this business I’m thinking the older guys/management that Vince still props up or has a business relationship ones would be the ones that would get attention. Just like with the Hollywood scandals a lot of them like Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein weren’t young guys but people first believed to have done bad stuff decades ago. Speaking of which the Jimmy Snuka. incident also got back in the headlines after being ignored for decades around that time. But the current roster with guys who divide their time between the gym and playing video games I wouldn’t expect to have as many bad things going on.
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Post by nickcave on Jan 13, 2019 16:01:35 GMT -5
Vince McMahon's sexual assault allegations from the mid-2000s briefly resurfaced around the time it was really ramping up but nothing came of it.
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 13, 2019 16:01:41 GMT -5
I think some of it is just that we already knew about some accusations or they were widely accepted, so there are fewer bombshells to drop. Flair flashed his dick on a plane while utterly drunk to a creeped out flight attendant on the Plane Ride From Hell, for example.
It isn't like wrestling hasn't been affected at all, since there are some accusations flying, such as against Elgin, Jay Lethal, and Ellsworth even outside of his fan creeping, but whether or not they're going to get bigger remains to be seen.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Jan 13, 2019 16:25:43 GMT -5
To start with, I could be completely wrong, so feel free to flame away. Maybe WWE, the company, isn’t as bad as the product it presents. This post is thoroughly incredible in so many ways, may as well shut down the board until 2020 because no weird, misguided contrarian hot take is going to beat this one. How you can even take "wrestling is a scummy business" and the general under-the-surface ugliness simmering largely unrecognized with a ton of wrestlers having dark pasts and secrets that speak to larger issues, and turn it into this?
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Post by Shark on Jan 13, 2019 16:30:49 GMT -5
I think it's mostly a lack of anything concrete. No charges filed against anyone like Weinstein or Spacey or scores of reports on their behavior like Louis CK. Not even people really naming names. It's a lot of vagueness. Taeler Hendrix and Shelly Martinez are the only ones I can remember who put names to what happened to them. In Taeler's case, nothing's come from it and in Shelly's case, Umaga's been dead for almost a decade, so it's not like she can press charges against him now.
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Post by nisidhe on Jan 13, 2019 17:25:42 GMT -5
I think there has genuinely been some restriction of ill behaviour in the territories by the fact that very, _very_ few women were in the business during the 1970s and particularly the 1980s outside of Moolah-managed talent and the GLOW promotion (we'd have heard about it from Ivory if there had been). The valets in the business, almost every last one of them, were either long-term romantically involved or married to their wrestler(s), were related by blood to some of the talent, or were brought in specifically for their roles by management with a Very Clear Understanding that nothing untoward was to happen with them. I can imagine that any ill behaviour towards women and others risked unwanted attention from outside and a threat to kayfabe.
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Jan 13, 2019 17:29:29 GMT -5
Partly that Wrestling is still carny AF and will always be carny AF, so nobody really wants to pay any attention to it.
And partially that even though the Court of Public Opinion has way more sway now than it ever did before thanks to social media, it's still not powerful enough to 1) Overcome the Carny Bubble, or 2) Jettison a given wrestler from the public sphere without concrete proof.
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Post by tekkenguy on Jan 13, 2019 17:35:30 GMT -5
It has had some effect, honestly. Enzo and Swann got fired. All the anger over Saudi Arabia even before the Khashoggi stuff happened. The growing backlash against Moolah.
#MeToo isn’t just about sexual harassment. It’s also about the role of women in society in general.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2019 17:39:49 GMT -5
Look at the types of people wrestling employed way back when. There is a lot of shit out there that we don’t know about and may never find out about. I just finished watching the R. Kelly special so maybe I’m a bit biased now but a male dominated environment with characters like that at a time where you could get away with anything? Nothing would shock me.
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Post by zero744 on Jan 13, 2019 17:51:29 GMT -5
Maybe since the whole movement was flawed from the start. Most adults read # as pound and not hashtag. So PoundMeToo doesn’t sound so good for a sexual assault movement.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Jan 13, 2019 17:53:51 GMT -5
It really wasn't all that many years ago they tried to create a Tea Party-esque heel and the live crowds happily chanted along with his catchphrase, and chanted USA at the foreign babyface he was feuding with (yes, it was ADR and we all hate him, but I like to think we're decent enough human beings to hate Bertie for reasons unrelated to his heritage).
All the stereotypes about the sort of people who watch pro wrestling (in the US, at least) are still a lot more accurate than we'd all like to admit.
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Post by BatPunk on Jan 13, 2019 17:54:34 GMT -5
To start with, I could be completely wrong, so feel free to flame away. Maybe WWE, the company, isn’t as bad as the product it presents. This post is thoroughly incredible in so many ways, may as well shut down the board until 2020 because no weird, misguided contrarian hot take is going to beat this one. How you can even take "wrestling is a scummy business" and the general under-the-surface ugliness simmering largely unrecognized with a ton of wrestlers having dark pasts and secrets that speak to larger issues, and turn it into this? All I’m saying is WWE, being the carny company they’ll always be, takes care of a lot of their issues ‘in house’. Also, is it that hard to believe that a company who’s product had its ‘boss’ have Trish on all 4’s and barking like a dog, doesn’t do that in their real life offices? I’m not saying that things didn’t go down. But maybe WWE looked into these things and handled it before it got out.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Jan 13, 2019 17:58:02 GMT -5
This post is thoroughly incredible in so many ways, may as well shut down the board until 2020 because no weird, misguided contrarian hot take is going to beat this one. How you can even take "wrestling is a scummy business" and the general under-the-surface ugliness simmering largely unrecognized with a ton of wrestlers having dark pasts and secrets that speak to larger issues, and turn it into this? All I’m saying is WWE, being the carny company they’ll always be, takes care of a lot of their issues ‘in house’. Also, is it that hard to believe that a company who’s product had its ‘boss’ have Trish on all 4’s and barking like a dog, doesn’t do that in their real life offices? I’m not saying that things didn’t go down. But maybe WWE looked into these things and handled it before it got out. The same WWE that knew about but didn't do anything about Randy Orton presenting his junk to random people, handling it and then making them shake his hand? That WWE?
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Jan 13, 2019 18:03:07 GMT -5
I think there has genuinely been some restriction of ill behaviour in the territories by the fact that very, _very_ few women were in the business during the 1970s and particularly the 1980s outside of Moolah-managed talent and the GLOW promotion (we'd have heard about it from Ivory if there had been). The valets in the business, almost every last one of them, were either long-term romantically involved or married to their wrestler(s), were related by blood to some of the talent, or were brought in specifically for their roles by management with a Very Clear Understanding that nothing untoward was to happen with them. I can imagine that any ill behaviour towards women and others risked unwanted attention from outside and a threat to kayfabe. Rats.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Jan 13, 2019 18:06:49 GMT -5
This post is thoroughly incredible in so many ways, may as well shut down the board until 2020 because no weird, misguided contrarian hot take is going to beat this one. How you can even take "wrestling is a scummy business" and the general under-the-surface ugliness simmering largely unrecognized with a ton of wrestlers having dark pasts and secrets that speak to larger issues, and turn it into this? All I’m saying is WWE, being the carny company they’ll always be, takes care of a lot of their issues ‘in house’. Also, is it that hard to believe that a company who’s product had its ‘boss’ have Trish on all 4’s and barking like a dog, doesn’t do that in their real life offices? I’m not saying that things didn’t go down. But maybe WWE looked into these things and handled it before it got out. Aside from Flair mentioned above, there is Jerry Lawler's past, the whole Moolah thing where the company celebrated a sex trafficker and it took Snickers stepping in for that to be put on pause, allegations made against Vince himself, Vince covering up for Jimmy Snuka who murdered his girlfriend. Like come on dude. This isn't about the Trish barking segment or anything of the sort, and Vince has too many skeletons in his closet for this to be some kind of benefit of the doubt thing. Yeah, Swann got the boot and Enzo was put on pause until he stormed out throwing a shitfit. That doesn't mean the business doesn't have a million messed up things going on and that people very high up in the company get away with a lot. If anything, unless there's a police report there seems to be a good chance nothing happens.
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