nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 26, 2024 17:24:51 GMT -5
A son of wrestling legend Gene Kiniski, no less. Orton may have heard something of the allegations against Patterson or Garvin by his late uncle, Barry O. We'll likely never know how deep this all runs or who all will come forward in due season. I've often felt that the strides made to include more women on wrestling rosters and to change the hazing culture were a bit like pulling a blanket over a rumpled bed. It's somewhat satisfying to know that that rumpled mess underneath is getting a good straighting and pressing now.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 24, 2024 23:32:49 GMT -5
The best Ric deserves is something like that John Belushi biopic Wired that spends its entire run time calling him a junkie f*** up. I saw Belushi and _Wired_ and was about to break into my local library to see if Bob Woodward actually referred to him as that. Thank you, reading comprehension - you saved me a trip and a rap sheet.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 23, 2024 8:37:13 GMT -5
As admirable as Theory's response seems to be, I would very much love to a) have said reporter ask that question of someone like Dwayne Johnson (which he would never do), or b) have the response a long, articulate and insightful critique of modern news media and that reporter for wasting his potential and career prospects, and his and his editors'/producers' time and goodwill, by starting an interview about an uncoming _major_ sports-entertainment event with a stupid, bad-faith question. I'd probably draw in his colleagues in that newsroom to give them "Journalism 101" about being intellectually humble and curious, about doing necessary research before going into _any_ interview about the subject, and about being courageous enough to turn down assignments, especially if you have no interest in the story and no desire to learn about it. Like, absolutely make him question his vocational choices and his life's purpose.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 22, 2024 20:27:29 GMT -5
Wrestling has never been kind to women; the culture of not only secrecy but of 'protecting the business' made it incredibly insular, inheriting all of the worst whims of show business in general but then doubling down on this almost secret world kept away from everyone else. Her name eludes me right now, but there's a woman who wrestled in the '60s that claimed some territory bookers wouldn't give a woman their money for a show until they performed sexual favours. Moolah pimped her trainees out for financial gain. Women in wrestling have always had to deal with this ugly shit, the business has always been like that, Vince simply escalated it and kept his empire obfuscated enough with "I'm just a garbage man making garbage" buck-passing that it got to fester. Wrestling had not been kind to women so long as Moolah held the strings. Before her, women's wrestling might have been a side attraction, but the women did demonstrate extraordinary skill - Mildred Burke was the gold standard there, and her style directly inspired the women's wrestling style in Japan where the craft grew and thrived pretty much ever since. However, under Moolah's influence, women's wrestling was on life support for nearly thirty years - even in the face of male promoters who wanted to see it thrive. There were women who trained outside Moolah's school - Rockin' Robin had been trained reputedly by Nelson Royal, and GLOW's women were trained by Hector Guerrero and promoted by David McLane. There was the LPWA in the late 80s and early 90s, but in a troubled wrestling scene financially, it never got the exposure it probably deserved. The female valet was a trope directly brought into being because the women could be protected by the wrestlers with whom they worked. But nearly all North American women wrestlers who wanted to work in North America has to work under Moolah's management, and most promoters who wanted women's wrestling had to work with Moolah to get the talent on the shows. Debbie Desperado in Southpaw Wrestling was likely trained by someone other than Moolah, and that's why they couldn't get the second woman in.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 22, 2024 16:57:27 GMT -5
Was just wondering, when Vince passes on (I'm not wishing death on him), how will the WWE react, considering they're trying to distance themselves from him? Will we just get a quick "in memory" slide at the beginning of RAW or will even that be too much? If it happens within the next year? Maybe a quick graphic. After that? TKO doesn't have to acknowledge him at all. There will certainly be no ten bells with the roster at the top of the ramp, that's for sure. The McMahons are no longer involved in the wrestling business.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 21, 2024 20:30:49 GMT -5
He didn't kill anyone and he sure as f*** didn't shit on anyone's head against their will (that we know of as of writing this), but Cena's occasionally made boneheaded comments about things when better judgment might have implored him to stay silent on.
He's had nearly a month to come up with something that wasn't going to make himself look like a tool or worse. Maybe he's that drunk on the Vince Fresh-Aid that it'll take some time for the deprogramming to take hold. Maybe he still feels as though Vince could f*** up his career somehow. That's how deep the rot goes - into the hearts of those Vince has made famous such that they don't dare question him lest he turn on them. It's insidious how it works.
Fortunately, there are a lot of people that Vince couldn't hold in thrall. Cena will be okay and this gaffe will be forgotten in a month or so. The scales are off enough eyes that Cena can stay blind for a little while longer.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 20, 2024 21:13:31 GMT -5
Conor McGregor is the ten thousand spoons of UFC when all you need/want is the knife that is GSP.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 19, 2024 17:08:57 GMT -5
Hmm. Who wants to bet that said ambulance-chasing law firm is actually getting paid by Vince to throw together a spurious claim for a class-action lawsuit to try to shut all this legal stuff down?
Because this would not be outside Vince's wheelhouse to try, in my opinion.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 13, 2024 13:37:39 GMT -5
Nah, this was absolutely a pivot. They underestimated how quickly fans would connect the dots between the Rock joining the board, the lawsuit against Vince rearing its head, and the push to get Dwayne Johnson shoehorned into the main event at Wrestlemania. After all the company news, the simplest and most satisfying road to Wrestlemania was for Cody to have won the Rumble, then challenge and beat Roman for the title. Anything else was going to complicate the creative direction while foment discontent among the hardcore fans. The straw that would have broken the camel's back was for WWE to pull away the football once again.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 10, 2024 18:46:37 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I think the MITB trope has run its course.
Whatever the outcome, I think we need to acknowledge that the briefcase might well be as much a curse as a blessing. It's pointless to sell the idea that one can cash in at any time when the champion has been as absent as Roman has been. Having to hold the briefcase when the powers-that-be have decided that the champion is going to keep his title until Doomsday must be frustrating as hell for the holder.
It almost certainly will be against the "workhorse" title that Damian Priest cashes in. I can see him doing so against Drew if Drew were to win against Seth - if rumors that Drew is leaving are true, Priest would have the faction behind him to make the cash-in more certain. But one also wonders how much longer Judgment Day would last and whether it would be Priest who is the one outside looking in at the end.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 9, 2024 19:53:59 GMT -5
I know Billy Jack ain’t exactly in the same league as Hulk Hogan, Austin, and Cena in terms of household names, and not to mention all the shit that’s going on in the industry today, but why aren’t any newz sites reporting any of this? I'd suggest they're still trying to get details of what happened before they can really provide anything halfway accurate. This is _not_ the kind of story you want to get wrong.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 9, 2024 19:30:13 GMT -5
Obviously, this is a much less important matter than the human lives that were ruined and destroyed by Vince's acts, but one's left to wonder how badly women's wrestling itself was hindered in WWE thanks to his warped view on much of the female talent. I mean Vince Russo's a bit of a sleaze himself, but even he seemed to at least see value in the knockouts as actual wrestling characters when that roster was taking off in Impact. McMahon seeing so much of the female employees under him as potential conquests puts an even worse spotlight on just how dubiously the latter were generally presented until 2016, and one wonders if the triumph of wrestlers like Charlotte, Becky, Bayley, Rhea, etc were because he gradually lost some influence on the shows. I was that would-be Shakespeare's sister growing up in the 70s and 80s, wondering why there weren't any girls in the ring, or why they all wrestled so poorly compared to the men. Moolah was the main reason for it - you did things her way if you wanted to wrestle at all, and you had to "earn" your way to work. History doesn't tell us who partook of Moolah's side hustle vis a vis her talent clients prior to Vince, Jr, but it would seem that a lot of the problems with women's wrestling after the 1950s can be laid at the late Ms. Ellison's doorstep. It's why women of the sort that would not have given Bret Hart a boner were the stock-and-trade during most of the 70s and 80s. It's why a lot of more serious competitors plied their trade in Japan. It's why GLOW was an exception that proved the rule. It's why it took Japanese-trained women like the Jumping Bomb Angels and Alundra Blayze to give audiences a sense of what it could be like, and audiences who pushed for more disciplined and talented women who didn't look like lingerie models to get signed to larger promotions. To some extent, it took the rise of women's wrestling and the embrace of diversity to start the ball rolling on examining the old barriers and seeing with horror how many still held.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 9, 2024 15:14:32 GMT -5
Just thinking, Macho Man's paranoia and over protectiveness of Miss Elizabeth kinda makes sense now. Don't conflate that into being in any way rational please. Miss Elizabeth was absolutely protected by the locker room. If anyone had designs on her, there were easily a dozen ready to kill to defend her honor. Vince himself practically revered her, to the extent that Lex Luger was persona non grata with him after her death.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 9, 2024 12:23:47 GMT -5
If they're taking it off Seth (and probably will), and if they can't get Drew to re-sign, it might be not a bad move to have Drew challenge and then have Priest make the run-in with the briefcase just as Drew is about to get the pin.
Priest needs to fish or cut bait with the briefcase soon; the move would either cement JD as tweeners leaning babyface or as outheeling a heel Drew who's going into Ambrose territory as it stands. Priest pulling it off here would be an entertaining way to allow Drew to have an extinction burst, where he just tramples everyone until one of the new champions has to run him out of WWE.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 9, 2024 11:50:14 GMT -5
This reminds me that I need to get my signed and framed picture of the Hitman back up onto my wall.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 8, 2024 19:38:37 GMT -5
I need to take a walk....
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 8, 2024 9:39:01 GMT -5
Any settlement is going to be made contingent on the Plaintiff dismissing her claims (against all) with prejudice. TKO can’t make Vince and Johnny sign anything or pay anything, but the agreement between TKO and Plaintiff can stipulate that the whole thing is contingent on a full dismissal of the lawsuit. And, as we've heard from Ms. Callis, that's not going to happen. Ms. Grant wants it all out there.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 7, 2024 13:44:44 GMT -5
Woah. That's... I'm stunned. If I'm TK or Hunter I'm making calls to Canada right now to try and bring Scott on board. Err...no. I'd be getting far more information about why Anthem let him go before reaching out to onboard D'Amore. The timing suggests that Anthem may have been looking into the TNA staff once the Vince McMahon news broke.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 3, 2024 22:31:00 GMT -5
The Hart/Benoit/Bryan tradition of the desired challenger facing multiple opponents to win the title seems to be holding true. But, I think fans are getting tired of having their expectations subverted.
Wrestling has historically always been responsive to the fans. Push Face A but the fans want Face B? You give Face A something to do to keep him in the spotlight but let Face B get the push to the title chase and the run. If you keep pushing Face A, eventually your overall ticket sales drop, your merch sales drop and you lose Face B to another promotion that sees both what he's drawing and what you're doing to yourself.
Right now, Cody is Face B who's just be pushed aside by the company's idea of a Face A - who just also happens to have executive power on the board of the company thanks to an outgoing executive chairman who's now under federal investigation for sex trafficking and sexual harassment. Dwayne Johnson is Vince's avatar and his poison pill for the company.
|
|
nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,723
|
Post by nisidhe on Feb 3, 2024 19:11:22 GMT -5
This could well backfire on the company bigtime if they don't correct course immediately.
Dwayne Johnson joining the TKO board, as one of Vince's last acts, already bears some of the taint surrounding Vince's departure and may bring on questions about what Johnson knew of the whole kerfuffle and when. With Trips still in charge of creative, the sus-ness of the entire situation becomes more magnified.
The _last_ thing a company needs during its very public and seemingly very visible efforts to clean itself up are any manuevers that suggest it's not taking the matter seriously. Putting Dwayne potentially on the throne is going to reek of Dwayne being a proxy for Vince when Vince needs to be gone and seen to be gone without any prospect of returning. This is not a time to be yanking fans' chains here. Piling on fan frustrations will result in fans walking away. Give the fans what they want - Cody beating Roman - and don't go throwing more and more swerves in the way of that.
|
|