XIII
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by XIII on Jun 21, 2020 11:02:50 GMT -5
No. A few people have pointed out that it's not exclusive to wrestling, and I don't think it's even exclusive to entertainment. Even the most workaday environments there are people prepared to exploit and abuse others. If you were to ask anyone who's ever worked in HR or something, you can bet they've at least heard stories similar to some of the allegations made; some people will have seen or experienced it first hand. It's just one of those grim realities of life, always has been, and always will be. Wrestling (and other entertainment) has probably given a lot of them an opportunity to behave this way, but it's absolutely everywhere in the world and if it wasn't wrestling it would be something else. This is exactly it. Not at all limited to wrestling or entertainment, it’s endemic of work culture as a whole. Go down to your local McDonalds, Home Depot, WalMart, or wherever and I can guarantee that managers are attempting to exploit some of the workers via the promise of raises or more shifts, and if it’s not currently going on it has happened in the recent past. This isn’t even getting into actual corporate jobs where I can say with 100% certainty that it happens As someone else said(sorry don’t remember who at the moment), it’s a power structure dynamic more than anything else. Shine the light on these cockroaches and bring them out into the open.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Jun 21, 2020 13:09:49 GMT -5
I feel detached from the industry as it is. Other than Jim Cornette, I don't recognize any names that have been accused.
My main fandom was 1990 to 2003-ish. This place is the only connection I have to wrestling in the main.
My main thoughts are "f***ing hell what's wrong with these kids?"
None of that should matter as far as the victims are concerned, but the rampant abuse, particularly from people who, as far as I'm concerned, haven't even made a splash in the big time makes me worry about the immediate future of industry.
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Post by darbus alan on Jun 21, 2020 13:33:37 GMT -5
That is still going on? That thread hasn't been updated in a while It’s less of a full on situation as much as hanger ons still bothering people and trying to prove the justice system is against him...or something. There is an appeal that hasn't been dismissed on procedural grounds... yet. But I assume like a lot of other civil cases, it has been delayed indefinitely due to COVID-19.
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Post by BatPunk on Jun 21, 2020 13:49:18 GMT -5
No.
If anything, I’m a little more proud to see how the wrestling community, wrestler and fans together, has come together as a whole.
Sometimes it’s hard to be wrestling fan and with all the allegations around, I’m really happy to see the overwhelming support for the victims and the absolute disdain for those pieces of shit who can’t even act like respectable human beings.
Wrestling is a family.
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Dub H
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Post by Dub H on Jun 21, 2020 14:10:27 GMT -5
I feel detached from the industry as it is. Other than Jim Cornette, I don't recognize any names that have been accused. My main fandom was 1990 to 2003-ish. This place is the only connection I have to wrestling in the main. My main thoughts are "f***ing hell what's wrong with these kids?" None of that should matter as far as the victims are concerned, but the rampant abuse, particularly from people who, as far as I'm concerned, haven't even made a splash in the big time makes me worry about the immediate future of industry. You know this is small time compared to the industry back then right. Luckily today people have the chance and plataforms to speak out and fight back against the awful people.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Jun 21, 2020 14:20:03 GMT -5
I feel detached from the industry as it is. Other than Jim Cornette, I don't recognize any names that have been accused. My main fandom was 1990 to 2003-ish. This place is the only connection I have to wrestling in the main. My main thoughts are "f***ing hell what's wrong with these kids?" None of that should matter as far as the victims are concerned, but the rampant abuse, particularly from people who, as far as I'm concerned, haven't even made a splash in the big time makes me worry about the immediate future of industry. You know this is small time compared to the industry back then right. Luckily today people have the chance and plataforms to speak out and fight back against the awful people. Agreed, However it's disappointing to see the seedy underbelly still exists. Particularly with the progress in the last few years with #MeToo and social media being prevalent, I would have thought the younger generation would have been different. Not excusing any behaviour, but if it was more old-timers, you could think, "f***s sake, they haven't changed or grown at all"
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Kalmia
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Post by Kalmia on Jun 21, 2020 14:32:13 GMT -5
I don't feel disgusted right now, but if this doesn't spur some sort of change in wrestling then I will. Whether individuals are guilty or not is something we can't comment on, but I think there's no doubt that overall wrestling has a huge problem with how it treats women. As a female fan, I want to see wrestling become safe for women both in front of and behind the curtain.
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Celgress
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Post by Celgress on Jun 21, 2020 15:00:17 GMT -5
Chris Benoit was my second favourite wrestler. No explanation required what happened there..... I'll never forget the day in 2007 when I was working a summer job (I was in High School) at a local historic society. Earlier in the summer, I had told my boss (the director) that I was a Pro Wrestling fan. When I came into work that day she informed me there was a front-page story in the newspaper about a wrestler and that she'd clip it for me. I was so excited until after lunch when I came back and found the clipping on my desk - "Chris Beniot likely killed his family in bizarre murder-suicide" read the headline complete with a picture of Beniot the Heavyweight Belt draped over his shoulder. I've never felt so ashamed or angry before or since. When she later asked if I found the clip all I could do was meekly say "yes, thanks". I couldn't look her in the eye (or the other employees) the rest of the time I worked there.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Jun 21, 2020 17:13:32 GMT -5
Chris Benoit was my second favourite wrestler. No explanation required what happened there..... I'll never forget the day in 2007 when I was working a summer job (I was in High School) at a local historic society. Earlier in the summer, I had told my boss (the director) that I was a Pro Wrestling fan. When I came into work that day she informed me there was a front-page story in the newspaper about a wrestler and that she'd clip it for me. I was so excited until after lunch when I came back and found the clipping on my desk - "Chris Beniot likely killed his family in bizarre murder-suicide" read the headline complete with a picture of Beniot the Heavyweight Belt draped over his shoulder. I've never felt so ashamed or angry before or since. When she later asked if I found the clip all I could do was meekly say "yes, thanks". I couldn't look her in the eye (or the other employees) the rest of the time I worked there. That sounds like an astoundingly shitty thing to do to someone.
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Post by crankypants on Jun 22, 2020 10:35:32 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days.
The more stories come out and the more I think about it, the less I want to be a wrestling fan.
I don't regret being a fan in the past, but until the industry as a whole gets cleaned up, I just can't be a fan anymore.
It's supposed to be an escape from reality and something fun to enjoy, but it feels tarnished to me at the moment.
The only wrestling I've been watching lately is AEW. They are willing to work with a convicted rapist so I don't have faith in them doing the right thing.
Everybody has a choice to make about what they are comfortable watching and enjoying. I've ignored shady stuff in the past but I don't think I can in good conscience enjoy watching wrestling right now.
I really hope these revelations lead to wrestling getting cleaned up and being a safe environment for workers and fans alike.
Until then, I'm done.
I'm using this as an opportunity to reevaluate whether my entertainment is worth overlooking shady behaviour of businesses and artists.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Jun 22, 2020 10:40:55 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days. The more stories come out and the more I think about it, the less I want to be a wrestling fan. I don't regret being a fan in the past, but until the industry as a whole gets cleaned up, I just can't be a fan anymore. It's supposed to be an escape from reality and something fun to enjoy, but it feels tarnished to me at the moment. The only wrestling I've been watching lately is AEW. They are willing to work with a convicted rapist so I don't have faith in them doing the right thing. Everybody has a choice to make about what they are comfortable watching and enjoying. I've ignored shady stuff in the past but I don't think I can in good conscience enjoy watching wrestling right now. I really hope these revelations lead to wrestling getting cleaned up and being a safe environment for workers and fans alike. Until then, I'm done. I'm using this as an opportunity to reevaluate whether my entertainment is worth overlooking shady behaviour of businesses and artists. Preface; I was one of the people who questioned working with Tyson. That said, it isn't really fair to compare the things. Tyson was accused by one woman for one event. While he denied it, he did go to prison, and being paroled means he has to have admitted what he did. He has, arguably, paid for his crimes. These people have not, appear to have engaged in systemic abuse rather than a single event, and I am betting not that many of them are going to be headed to jail.
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Post by ThereIsNoAbsurdistOnlyZuul on Jun 22, 2020 10:58:02 GMT -5
What other fanbase is so willing to just look the other way?? Literally all of them. I have a rant regarding this, and it's ironic to me I am a member here but: Fan is short for fanatic, and was intended as a pejorative initially. Just because a group 'owns' the term and tries to make it positive doesn't mean it gets rid of the root of it. Yes not everyone is this way, but that concept might be flawed from the outset...
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Post by HMARK Center on Jun 22, 2020 11:56:10 GMT -5
I've been trying to figure if there's anything unique to wrestling that makes this kind of awfulness so prevalent, but again, like I said before rape culture and patriarchal thinking runs too deep to just get angry at wrestling, these things are ingrained so deeply that it'll be the work of generations to dislodge them (and work, we must).
That said, are there enough aspects of pro wrestling that can be looked at and understood to try and get a better grasp on its particular problems? It's hard to say: I don't think there's anything unique to wrestling relative to other formers of performance or sport that make it more likely to be a place where stuff like this happens, but there could just be a confluence of factors that pile up in wrestling in a way they don't always do so in other areas of entertainment.
-Like, it's not just "it's a locker room of fit, attractive people in revealing clothing spending lots of time in close contact" - that happens in theater and dance and things like that. Abuse happens in those environments, as well, so again, not unique to wrestling. -There's been a rise this generation of wrestlers who grew up "geeky"; some people have posited they're folks unused to being the center of attention or being desired, so they abuse the newfound privilege. Again, I don't know; it's not like wrestling didn't have a massive sexual abuse problem when most of "the boys" were jocks/weight lifters/bodybuilders, too. And again, it's not unique to wrestling: "geeky" fandoms have been going through a slow motion reckoning with all sorts of scandals involving targeted harassment of women, bad behavior at conventions, etc. -There's the idea that this is like sports, and many sports involve hazing, some of which goes all the way to being abusive or downright rapey; again, not unique to the industry, either, and most sports seem to be working towards cleaning that culture up as much as possible. -I don't know any stats on this, but it does seem the modern industry has a lot of people in it who suffer from certain conditions like depression; does this create a pool of targets for predators, who see a population that includes a lot of vulnerable people they might try and take perverse advantage of? Again, I do NOT have stats on that, so I'd rather not pursue the line of thinking too far without data, but it does seem to come up a lot.
I think the key right now, though, is that pro wrestling, at least here in the US and much of Europe, is really seeing a rise in women's wrestling in a way we haven't seen in ages. For so many generations women's wrestling was kept as a sideshow act, or women were relegated to valet work and "eye candy" roles, but it's really only within the past generation that we've seen a push to take women's wrestling seriously on a much wider level.
The bright side is that this has led to an increase in the number of women in the industry, and an increase in the number of women who don't want to take others' bullshit because they have aims on being successful in-ring talents, and not just kept to the sidelines in a slim number of available character tropes. The down side is that maybe those multiple factors I mentioned above are now combined with locker rooms with larger numbers of members of each sex, and the close contact (e.g. think of how many small indy venues don't offer separate dressing rooms), the "locker room culture", all of it means we're seeing some kinds of abuse in seemingly greater numbers.
Kid Kash put out a tweet recently calling on wrestling schools to always have at least one female trainer, for each venue to ensure separate dressing rooms, and other seemingly common sense solutions that, unfortunately, are not always cure alls nor always easy to implement; again, most venues a regular indy books likely won't have separate bathrooms for talent, let alone sex-specific changing areas. But this reckoning is needed now; the business is evolving at a rapid rate, the demographics of the talent in the ring has been shifting, and we're in the midst of a pandemic which means there's ample time for people to get working on how this can all look different when shows resume.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Jun 22, 2020 14:29:28 GMT -5
Been thinking long and hard about things and it's turned some things on the head from wrestling's past.
Remember how Macho Man locking Liz away in the locker room while he had a match was seen as abusive? I can now see what he was protecting her from.
Shawn Michaels was a jock asshole at work, but pretty harmless in the bigger picture.
Goldberg doesn't have workrate? Give me big Bill anyday over the abusers that have workrate.
Eddie Guerrero and Owen Hart died young. f*** me, the good DO die young.
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Post by Viking Hall on Jun 22, 2020 14:48:09 GMT -5
I've been trying to figure if there's anything unique to wrestling that makes this kind of awfulness so prevalent, but again, like I said before rape culture and patriarchal thinking runs too deep to just get angry at wrestling, these things are ingrained so deeply that it'll be the work of generations to dislodge them (and work, we must). That said, are there enough aspects of pro wrestling that can be looked at and understood to try and get a better grasp on its particular problems? It's hard to say: I don't think there's anything unique to wrestling relative to other formers of performance or sport that make it more likely to be a place where stuff like this happens, but there could just be a confluence of factors that pile up in wrestling in a way they don't always do so in other areas of entertainment. -Like, it's not just "it's a locker room of fit, attractive people in revealing clothing spending lots of time in close contact" - that happens in theater and dance and things like that. Abuse happens in those environments, as well, so again, not unique to wrestling. -There's been a rise this generation of wrestlers who grew up "geeky"; some people have posited they're folks unused to being the center of attention or being desired, so they abuse the newfound privilege. Again, I don't know; it's not like wrestling didn't have a massive sexual abuse problem when most of "the boys" were jocks/weight lifters/bodybuilders, too. And again, it's not unique to wrestling: "geeky" fandoms have been going through a slow motion reckoning with all sorts of scandals involving targeted harassment of women, bad behavior at conventions, etc. -There's the idea that this is like sports, and many sports involve hazing, some of which goes all the way to being abusive or downright rapey; again, not unique to the industry, either, and most sports seem to be working towards cleaning that culture up as much as possible. -I don't know any stats on this, but it does seem the modern industry has a lot of people in it who suffer from certain conditions like depression; does this create a pool of targets for predators, who see a population that includes a lot of vulnerable people they might try and take perverse advantage of? Again, I do NOT have stats on that, so I'd rather not pursue the line of thinking too far without data, but it does seem to come up a lot. I think the key right now, though, is that pro wrestling, at least here in the US and much of Europe, is really seeing a rise in women's wrestling in a way we haven't seen in ages. For so many generations women's wrestling was kept as a sideshow act, or women were relegated to valet work and "eye candy" roles, but it's really only within the past generation that we've seen a push to take women's wrestling seriously on a much wider level. The bright side is that this has led to an increase in the number of women in the industry, and an increase in the number of women who don't want to take others' bullshit because they have aims on being successful in-ring talents, and not just kept to the sidelines in a slim number of available character tropes. The down side is that maybe those multiple factors I mentioned above are now combined with locker rooms with larger numbers of members of each sex, and the close contact (e.g. think of how many small indy venues don't offer separate dressing rooms), the "locker room culture", all of it means we're seeing some kinds of abuse in seemingly greater numbers. Kid Kash put out a tweet recently calling on wrestling schools to always have at least one female trainer, for each venue to ensure separate dressing rooms, and other seemingly common sense solutions that, unfortunately, are not always cure alls nor always easy to implement; again, most venues a regular indy books likely won't have separate bathrooms for talent, let alone sex-specific changing areas. But this reckoning is needed now; the business is evolving at a rapid rate, the demographics of the talent in the ring has been shifting, and we're in the midst of a pandemic which means there's ample time for people to get working on how this can all look different when shows resume. So much of this is on the money. I do think one thing that needs to be implemented too is some sort of age restriction for trainees and wrestlers too though. Not only for the obvious benefits of protecting minors who end up in close contact with adults, but also so the people that enter the business have a chance to get out into the real world and not just grow up in the weird bubble of pro-wrestling. I don't think it's any coincidence that (particularly those who have been accused within the UK scene) have nearly all been in and around wrestling since their mid-teens. The screenshots of conversations that were shared were a particular eye opener to me as so many had one thing in common, in that many of them read like they were written by 15 year olds who had yet to develop emotionally regardless of the age of those who were sending them. To me this is a massive signal that growing up within wrestlings weird ethics system is severely stunting many of these young peoples developments both socially and emotionally, leaving them as a bunch of physically developed 30 year olds who have never progressed mentally beyond the teenagers they were when they began training.
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Post by paulbearer on Jun 22, 2020 18:00:23 GMT -5
Joan Collins wrote about me too in '78 , nobody cared then
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Cranjis McBasketball
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Jun 22, 2020 18:05:11 GMT -5
Re-reading Jericho’s first book now, just stories he tells, if a guy tweeted them out today, the world would be outraged. And they’re all fairly benign.
Look at the current class action lawsuit going on in the CHL (Canadian Hockey League) and while abuse isn’t a contest, the allegations there are far and beyond what anyone in wrestling has spoken about in the last week.
Look it up yourself if interested, this isn’t the thread, but if the wrestling stuff disgusts you, brace yourself.
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