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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Mar 29, 2019 20:29:59 GMT -5
I think he probably actually saved it. It is so much safer now, and it wouldn't make WWE take action if the tragedy was any smaller. It's horrible but I think the industry would otherwise be years behind where it is now.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 20:33:04 GMT -5
I think you can draw some lines between what happened and the state of wrestling now. There was sort of a mass societal wakeup at the time to what most of us knew in great detail already: "Oh, wow, wrestling is a scummy business full of dark, disturbing secrets." Some of WWE's efforts to clean things up to pass the smell test with the public arguably had the side effect of making the product more boring. The product is boring because they don't write good shows anymore. Benoit is a piece of shit, but that's one thing we actually can't blame on him.
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Post by abjordans on Mar 29, 2019 20:36:40 GMT -5
I know when that happened in 2007 I told a lot of people I was done with wrestling, though I never really stopped. I know others were in the same boat. I don’t think it really did is basically what I am saying.
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Post by darbus alan on Mar 29, 2019 20:42:39 GMT -5
Well, after rejecting go PG for a while, WWE embraced that very fast right after this sad event. It took WWE well over a year from the Benoit murders to go PG. I wouldn't call that "very fast."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 20:49:20 GMT -5
He’s basically responsible for the PG “politically correct, social media, please accept us pop culture!” Era.
He’s the reason we don’t have blood, choking, chairshots to the head, etc anymore.
Now some people might like that but for me, a FAN, I think it’s a massive step backwards. Now don’t get me wrong... I’m not for the idea of these performers getting seriously hurt but as I’ve stated in other threads, I would like to see fake blood. I would like to see fake choking. I would like to see “fake” chair shots to the head. When you think about it, most of those chair shots were protected anyway. Very rarely did somebody take a straight chairshot to the head without putting their hands up to push it away... That to me, is safe. And the only reason WWE are not doing those things, even if they were 100% fake is because they don’t want to risk backlash from the media and their sponsors.
I mean, shit, Daniel Bryan got fired for FAKE CHOKING a guy. That says it all.
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Post by darbus alan on Mar 29, 2019 21:21:09 GMT -5
The blood was never fake, though. To be honest, I can live the rest of my life without seeing another bladejob done again.
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Mochi Lone Wolf
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Development through Destruction.
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Post by Mochi Lone Wolf on Mar 29, 2019 21:21:44 GMT -5
I don't think anything outside of another steroid trial will kill the industry.
Benoit did do nigh irreparable damage to it's image. No doubt about that.
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Post by Aceorton on Mar 29, 2019 21:23:23 GMT -5
I think you can draw some lines between what happened and the state of wrestling now. There was sort of a mass societal wakeup at the time to what most of us knew in great detail already: "Oh, wow, wrestling is a scummy business full of dark, disturbing secrets." Some of WWE's efforts to clean things up to pass the smell test with the public arguably had the side effect of making the product more boring. The product is boring because they don't write good shows anymore. Benoit is a piece of shit, but that's one thing we actually can't blame on him. Yeah, definitely, I agree the writing itself is the direct culprit. What I wonder is whether they went even further down the road of "let's try to make ourselves more like a real, respectable TV show!" than they would have without all the negative attention Benoit brought. And with that came worse writing: more outsiders from the TV industry involved to try to dilute what was left of the old-school carny vibe.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 21:29:42 GMT -5
The product is boring because they don't write good shows anymore. Benoit is a piece of shit, but that's one thing we actually can't blame on him. Yeah, definitely, I agree the writing itself is the direct culprit. What I wonder is whether they went even further down the road of "let's try to make ourselves more like a real, respectable TV show!" than they would have without all the negative attention Benoit brought. And with that came worse writing: more outsiders from the TV industry involved to try to dilute what was left of the old-school carny vibe. I'm firmly of the opinion that the problem isn't TV writers, it's bad writers and bad oversight. I firmly believe having people beyond those who've been involved with the business for decades is a good idea, so long as you're getting people who are actually good at their job; I really don't even think you need to be a wrestling fan to write good wrestling. The big problem is that between Vince being a control freak and WWE treating their writers like shit, they're hardly attracting anyone who's actually worth anything.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Mar 29, 2019 21:32:00 GMT -5
The product is boring because they don't write good shows anymore. Benoit is a piece of shit, but that's one thing we actually can't blame on him. Yeah, definitely, I agree the writing itself is the direct culprit. What I wonder is whether they went even further down the road of "let's try to make ourselves more like a real, respectable TV show!" than they would have without all the negative attention Benoit brought. And with that came worse writing: more outsiders from the TV industry involved to try to dilute what was left of the old-school carny vibe. I'd actually highly disagree with all of that because the show's have kept to the same exact format since The Attitude Era with how matches are made and show's are structured. The key difference is that talents aren't allowed to shine, Vince has control over absolutely everything and surprises aren't there to grab viewers, they're there to get one weekers to talk about it and then watch football/Netflix/play video games after they heard about it regardless and that sure as hell wasn't a sudden post 2007 thing.
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Mar 29, 2019 22:13:56 GMT -5
I think you can draw some lines between what happened and the state of wrestling now. There was sort of a mass societal wakeup at the time to what most of us knew in great detail already: "Oh, wow, wrestling is a scummy business full of dark, disturbing secrets." Some of WWE's efforts to clean things up to pass the smell test with the public arguably had the side effect of making the product more boring. I feel like the biggest difference between WWE and the more exciting wrestling in indie promotions or NJPW is that the WWE guys have to do it 5+ times a week, year in year out. They cannot go crazy every match at the expense of their health, lest they end up like Benoit.
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nisidhe
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Post by nisidhe on Mar 29, 2019 22:35:06 GMT -5
Had the Benoit tragedy never happened, the bodies would have continued to pile up from a variety of causes - and among the names attached to some of those bodies would be those on whose talents WWE was able to negotiate its TV deals, and who have made wrestling suitable for family watching again. The NFL concussion case would never have been blown open to the extent it was without Benoit's brain as a control of sorts. The media frenzy that followed shone a _huge_ spotlight on brain injuries in sports and in life (a study released somewhat after the tragedy revealed an estimate that half of Toronto's homeless population had suffered some kind of brain injury.) The business in North America might have dried up as talent decided either a) that they were too small to try to get to WWE or b) the lifestyle above a certain level was simply too brutal to maintain.
What it did was rip the scabs off all the other deaths; brought attention to the issues wrestlers face while on the road and, perhaps for the first time, exposed pro wrestlers as human beings with dreams, aspirations, fears, dreads, prejudices, talents, families, lives that extend outside the ring and whose lives were suddenly being made important to their fans. Fans began to care about wrestlers enough not to want them to die young or make choices that could risk their lives. The culture of juicing up and sucking it up took a huge hit when Benoit died. What replaced it was a hell of a lot healthier.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Mar 29, 2019 22:44:15 GMT -5
Had the Benoit tragedy never happened, the bodies would have continued to pile up from a variety of causes - and among the names attached to some of those bodies would be those on whose talents WWE was able to negotiate its TV deals, and who have made wrestling suitable for family watching again. The NFL concussion case would never have been blown open to the extent it was without Benoit's brain as a control of sorts. The media frenzy that followed shone a _huge_ spotlight on brain injuries in sports and in life (a study released somewhat after the tragedy revealed an estimate that half of Toronto's homeless population had suffered some kind of brain injury.) The business in North America might have dried up as talent decided either a) that they were too small to try to get to WWE or b) the lifestyle above a certain level was simply too brutal to maintain. What it did was rip the scabs off all the other deaths; brought attention to the issues wrestlers face while on the road and, perhaps for the first time, exposed pro wrestlers as human beings with dreams, aspirations, fears, dreads, prejudices, talents, families, lives that extend outside the ring and whose lives were suddenly being made important to their fans. Fans began to care about wrestlers enough not to want them to die young or make choices that could risk their lives. The culture of juicing up and sucking it up took a huge hit when Benoit died. What replaced it was a hell of a lot healthier. And not being funny but the 2000s practically had monthly “Monday Night Wars era wrestler dies of heart failure/suicide” stories and, honestly, that weighed a lot on me for if I was actually comfortable being a fan of the business in any way considering most of them didn’t live beyond 40.
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Post by GuyOfOwnage on Mar 29, 2019 22:46:42 GMT -5
It didn't kill the business, but it damn sure brought it to its knees.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Mar 29, 2019 22:50:44 GMT -5
It didn't kill the business, but it damn sure brought it to its knees. That’s pretty much it for me. A media that wasn’t in “Wrestling’s fake so who gives a shit?” mode would have gone in and gotten way more from it and possibly wrecked the WWE from a PR standpoint for way longer than it did. Instead, we got one week of coverage and a senate hearing that went nowhere. We’re just lucky the WWE actually acted and wanted to show they were doing something instead of ignoring it as they had been.
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Post by Limity (BLM) on Mar 29, 2019 23:35:20 GMT -5
I say not remotely did it endanger "the industry". After a couple weeks it was already all but forgotten by everyone not a wrestling fan.
I've always loathed this hyperbole. I remember people saying the WWE would get drug across the coals if they mentioned Benoit in their subsequent encyclopedia. Nobody outside of the wrestling world remembers or really gives a shit.
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Mar 29, 2019 23:48:11 GMT -5
I don't even think the Benoit murders/suicide was even responsible for the rating of the shows changing. There was always going to be more advertising revenue, PR benefits, and potential for lucrative business partnerships in taking the product PG. It was a matter of time, especially with someone like John Cena continuing to succeed at the main event level despite whatever reactions he received from select live audiences at the time.
It was just a matter of when Vince and company realized this. The Benoit incident sure made for a convenient scapegoat, if nothing else.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Mar 30, 2019 0:17:05 GMT -5
Stephanie had to testify in congress and bullshit her way out of it, she claimed that they were changing stuff and going with CM Punk who was drug free, at the time the main event scene all got caught with roids.
The government was threatening with regulations that would’ve effectively killed indy wrestling because only the wwe would’ve been able to afford to comply with it.
Every news channel on both political spectrums were shitting on them and people were throwing major accusations at the wwe and some of its biggest stars. I think it was the first time on major tv that Debra accused the wwe of covering up Austin beating her up and his steroid abuse.
There were also interviewing doctors who called the wellness policy a complete joke.
There were even rumors that the wwe sent Dave Taylor to Benoit’s house to clean all the shit up.
If it wasn’t because the public got tired and the news tuned into another tragedy a couple of weeks later, wrestling as a whole would’ve died. Imagine real congressional hearings to discover why Eddie died on their watch or why they encouraged chairshots to the head.
Only the wwe could’ve survived the shitstorm and they would’ve been a shelf of themselves, like the years after the steroid trial and how they had to run high school gyms.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Mar 30, 2019 0:23:22 GMT -5
If I’m not mistaken a mining accident took all the attention out of the Benoit murders so the government and the people stopped caring about wrestling shortly after.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Mar 30, 2019 3:03:19 GMT -5
It gave us Khali as World champion.
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