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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Oct 8, 2021 16:46:20 GMT -5
"Nobody wants to hear your beliefs, you're preachy and self-righteous" is literally a twitter comment someone would put under an article about the new Chapelle special. That's the point. That's been the whole point, and it's weird that the point has become the elephant in the room to so many people in this conversation. Every basic, general negative trait you can point to Gacy's character is something people who hate 'the wokes' do say. It's 1:1. "Joe Gacy is trying to stick his social justice stuff into wrestling where it doesn't belong" versus "woke academics are pushing critical race theory in our schools where it doesn't belong" versus "woke wrestling fans are forcing these talks about diversity and representation where they don't belong, just watch the show". This character is an unflattering stereotype of a person the people in charge don't like and so many attempts to reconcile why this character is actually a heel regardless of the beliefs just rings out as being how people criticize these views in real life. There's no difference, even if you don't mean it that way, and I'm not saying that you do, but that doesn't mean the design and the intent aren't there. I think there's a wide degree of difference between teaching children history, and taking 5-10 mins of a wrestling show to preach your beliefs. In a less political degree, it's like Elias taking time to play guitar during a wrestling show. The idea is whotf does he think he is playing during a time where people are supposed to be fighting. That's just it though; there is a difference between tis and teaching children history, but this is a wrestling show, so he does what he does in a wrestling context, but the effect is to get at the same thing. To portray a side disagreed with in a certain light. Annoying douches who play guitars aren't a group of people in our society who have things to say in the political sphere, they aren't a group who a polemic of becomes a political rallying point for. But, Elias is a pretty direct parody of exactly the type of guy. I've known a lot of annoying guitar dudes who try and pull all focus toward themselves for no good reason and make a show of their very presence. The character is obnoxious, but his gimmick traded on more than just "Why are you playing a guitar instead of fighting?" and it's massively oversimplifying the Elias character and just wrestling gimmicks in general to boil him down to that. His delusions, his vanity, the dramatic presentation, how abysmally he actually played. It all served a purpose and created a very rounded profile of A Guy. With Gacy it's the same thing; you can't divorce the politics of the political character from the still actually political things he's getting heat for. They're entwined. They're all part of the character. It's why Fox ran a piece on WWE's takedown of the 'woke left'. How he says things make him a heel, but what he says is still cast in a negative light for a heel saying them, and we see that in so much of the positive reception this character's getting elsewhere.
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 16:52:35 GMT -5
Like I said before it's not about if he's right it's that he's interjecting it during a time no one wants to hear it. It's not a pacifist role, it's a self-righteous one. He's the enlightened one because he wants two winners and others just want to be number one. Even in his asking of a title shot he is using the rhetoric to benefit himself, but pretending it's for the greater good. I think the big reveal will probably be when he loses or is close to losing. He'll either blow up or cheat to prove he's not practicing what he preaches... OK, if the issue isn't his views but rather how he's going about things, then here's my challenge: book this character as a face. How would you, personally have someone who believes what he does and is vocal about it, but is a good guy? I mean the subtext of the Kofi WWE title chase was inclusion. but I mean the easiest way to book him as a face is to have him fight for opportunities for other people. Imagine if his goal was to get someone like Cesaro a championship, and they played how Vince thought Cesaro was too Swiss. I obviously don't think WWE would do something like that but if I had to make him face I'd do something like that.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Oct 8, 2021 17:06:03 GMT -5
OK, if the issue isn't his views but rather how he's going about things, then here's my challenge: book this character as a face. How would you, personally have someone who believes what he does and is vocal about it, but is a good guy? I mean the subtext of the Kofi WWE title chase was inclusion. but I mean the easiest way to book him as a face is to have him fight for opportunities for other people. Imagine if his goal was to get someone like Cesaro a championship, and they played how Vince thought Cesaro was too Swiss. I obviously don't think WWE would do something like that but if I had to make him face I'd do something like that. The text of Kofi's title chase was obvious, explicit racism. Kofi was good enough, and An Evil Villain refused to give him real chances anyway because of racism. Adding an evil racist villain is cheating, I think: anyone's a face against that. Let's say the dude just does research on TV time between the men's and the women's roster, and he sees that it's wildly disproportional to the relative sizes of the rosters. And so he vocally, on screen, campaigns for the women to get more screen time. Or, he finds out a given member of the roster uses they pronouns as well as he pronouns, and with that person's permission, he criticizes the announcers for never using the they pronouns. Would you consider this a face?
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 17:13:23 GMT -5
I think the most heelish thing about him is how self-serving he seems.
He literally told Ciampa he has NXT title privilege and give him a title shot cause it will help the underprivileged people who speak through him...
Like bruh what?
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Oct 8, 2021 17:16:00 GMT -5
I think the most heelish thing about him is how self-serving he seems. He literally told Ciampa he has NXT title privilege and give him a title shot cause it will help the underprivileged people who speak through him... Like bruh what? OK, but again: if he was supporting others in the ways like I described, you think he'd be a face? That's a face character, to you?
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 17:19:11 GMT -5
I mean the subtext of the Kofi WWE title chase was inclusion. but I mean the easiest way to book him as a face is to have him fight for opportunities for other people. Imagine if his goal was to get someone like Cesaro a championship, and they played how Vince thought Cesaro was too Swiss. I obviously don't think WWE would do something like that but if I had to make him face I'd do something like that. The text of Kofi's title chase was obvious, explicit racism. Kofi was good enough, and An Evil Villain refused to give him real chances anyway because of racism. Adding an evil racist villain is cheating, I think: anyone's a face against that. Let's say the dude just does research on TV time between the men's and the women's roster, and he sees that it's wildly disproportional to the relative sizes of the rosters. And so he vocally, on screen, campaigns for the women to get more screen time. Or, he finds out a given member of the roster uses they pronouns as well as he pronouns, and with that person's permission, he criticizes the announcers for never using the they pronouns. Would you consider this a face? It would require some nuance, but it could totally be done especially if it's drawn out. Imagine if a trans man wanted to compete with the men, but the powers that be kept blocking it, and he fought to be the first man to face him that would be an interesting storyline..
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Oct 8, 2021 17:25:43 GMT -5
The text of Kofi's title chase was obvious, explicit racism. Kofi was good enough, and An Evil Villain refused to give him real chances anyway because of racism. Adding an evil racist villain is cheating, I think: anyone's a face against that. Let's say the dude just does research on TV time between the men's and the women's roster, and he sees that it's wildly disproportional to the relative sizes of the rosters. And so he vocally, on screen, campaigns for the women to get more screen time. Or, he finds out a given member of the roster uses they pronouns as well as he pronouns, and with that person's permission, he criticizes the announcers for never using the they pronouns. Would you consider this a face? It would require some nuance, but it could totally be done especially if it's drawn out. Imagine if a trans man wanted to compete with the men, but the powers that be kept blocking it, and he fought to be the first man to face him that would be an interesting storyline.. OK, but there's a lot of work being done by your "it would require some nuance" caveat. Why? What nuance is required? What's important about it being drawn out? I mean, if the sole problem is it seems like he's out for his own gain, then why isn't the problem solved if it's made explicitly clear he's not? And importantly: why shouldn't he be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims it's not for his own benefit?
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Post by Starshine on Oct 8, 2021 17:29:09 GMT -5
The problem with this gimmick is ultimately that there's no real world context example to act as a reference point. Compare this to Dan Lambert, who basically does the boomer version of this character, who throws out right leaning terms like "snowflake" in the way you expect to see it used from the exact type of person who Lambert is portraying. There's a clear anchor point to the character where you know exactly who they are, and know what to expect from them, ergo you can make accurate assumptions about what's in front of you. It was the same with early cult leader Bray Wyatt, or smooth talking, yet threatening, Waylon Mercy, or JBL, or any of the other gimmicks that are built on the back of implicit stereotypes, for better or worse.
With Gacy, we have a guy who throws out a plethora of left leaning terms, dresses as if he's guesting on Ben Shapiro's show, and for whatever reason is a professional wrestler despite constantly talking about not wanting to hurt others and wanting everyone to be a winner. What is this character exactly? What point is it trying to make? The only thing that makes sense out of this contradiction is the context that these points are meant to be what indicates he's a heel, which ties in with what a rich guy in his 70's would probably think about that subsection of modern day culture. "He's bad because he uses these words, doesn't that make you angry(?)" is the point. It's the only explanation that has any actual legs.
WWE has never done nuanced or subtle storytelling, it's never been in their interest to do so. You have to take everything they present at face value, because they never give you more than the surface level presentation. Even from the contradicting points of the character the most buzzworthy aspect of it are the words he uses, so we have to take them as the defining trait despite none of it making a lick of sense.
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 17:40:17 GMT -5
It would require some nuance, but it could totally be done especially if it's drawn out. Imagine if a trans man wanted to compete with the men, but the powers that be kept blocking it, and he fought to be the first man to face him that would be an interesting storyline.. OK, but there's a lot of work being done by your "it would require some nuance" caveat. Why? What nuance is required? What's important about it being drawn out? I mean, if the sole problem is it seems like he's out for his own gain, then why isn't the problem solved if it's made explicitly clear he's not? And importantly: why shouldn't he be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims it's not for his own benefit? I did not say it was the sole reason, I said it was the biggest thing for me. Being in sports, in theory, is an egotistical thing. You don't try to win for the other people you're trying to win for yourself. Sports is one of the few places that mindset is ok... You want to be the best and that's ok. Then when you add the craziness of pro wrestling where guys are breaking into people's houses and whatnot it's even more "ego" driven. When someone says he's trying to find 2 winners it already comes off as fake... When he starts to use the catchphrases to justify why you should get a title shot it comes off as self-serving..
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 17:49:00 GMT -5
It would require some nuance, but it could totally be done especially if it's drawn out. Imagine if a trans man wanted to compete with the men, but the powers that be kept blocking it, and he fought to be the first man to face him that would be an interesting storyline.. OK, but there's a lot of work being done by your "it would require some nuance" caveat. Why? What nuance is required? What's important about it being drawn out? I mean, if the sole problem is it seems like he's out for his own gain, then why isn't the problem solved if it's made explicitly clear he's not? And importantly: why shouldn't he be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims it's not for his own benefit? Also nuance cause since the attitude era almost anyone who speaks out about a wrestling product from a moral standpoint has always been a heel. It would take some storytelling to show this guy is different than the rtc, mike knox, the network, ect
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Oct 8, 2021 17:55:34 GMT -5
The problem with this gimmick is ultimately that there's no real world context example to act as a reference point. Compare this to Dan Lambert, who basically does the boomer version of this character, who throws out right leaning terms like "snowflake" in the way you expect to see it used from the exact type of person who Lambert is portraying. There's a clear anchor point to the character where you know exactly who they are, and know what to expect from them, ergo you can make accurate assumptions about what's in front of you. It was the same with early cult leader Bray Wyatt, or smooth talking, yet threatening, Waylon Mercy, or JBL, or any of the other gimmicks that are built on the back of implicit stereotypes, for better or worse. With Gacy, we have a guy who throws out a plethora of left leaning terms, dresses as if he's guesting on Ben Shapiro's show, and for whatever reason is a professional wrestler despite constantly talking about not wanting to hurt others and wanting everyone to be a winner. What is this character exactly? What point is it trying to make? The only thing that makes sense out of this contradiction is the context that these points are meant to be what indicates he's a heel, which ties in with what a rich guy in his 70's would probably think about that subsection of modern day culture. "He's bad because he uses these words, doesn't that make you angry(?)" is the point. It's the only explanation that has any actual legs. WWE has never done nuanced or subtle storytelling, it's never been in their interest to do so. You have to take everything they present at face value, because they never give you more than the surface level presentation. Even from the contradicting points of the character the most buzzworthy aspect of it are the words he uses, so we have to take them as the defining trait despite none of it making a lick of sense. Yeah, so far he’s just a reheated Bo Dallas combined with a self absorbed college professor or something. I figure they want to contrast how hard he’s hitting dudes in the ring (BTW. Ikemen Jiro sold great and made him look strong at least). I think my issue is that we’re supposed to take the character seriously, and I really don’t want to. That was my problem with Starr (pre-scandal), the fact I apparently am meant to legit ponder what him and Gacy are saying. Yeah, no thanks. How I feel about the subjects they’re discussing doesn’t matter, it’s still too heavy handed and depressingly real-world for what I want from my wrestling cards. I like for my social satire to be more dry and less blunt than how wrestling usually tries to handle these issues. Cartoons pull off this stuff better and more consistently than this sport. Now for the record, I really didn’t like the racial overtones of the World Champ Kofi angle. Not because I found it problematic or anything, it was just kinda unnecessary and too on-the-nose. Kofi going through the gauntlet and beating Bryan at Mania just on its own would have been perfectly fine. The celebration and hype so many black fans felt still would have happened anyway, I bet you. The payoff was great, but all I could think was “y’all could have got this same pop without all that.” I’d find Gacy far more entertaining if he was more comedic, obviously hypocritical like Kurt Angle 2000, or maybe just a bit more hammy. As for him having an enlightened attitude and also being a heel because Vince doesn’t like this stuff, I…kinda don’t care, because this is way low on the scale of offensive ideas he’s greenlighted. It’s dumb, but it’s far less bothersome to me then whatever that Hunter/Booker thing was or Roddy Piper at Mania 6, everything Muhammad Hassan related, etc.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Oct 8, 2021 18:12:49 GMT -5
OK, but there's a lot of work being done by your "it would require some nuance" caveat. Why? What nuance is required? What's important about it being drawn out? I mean, if the sole problem is it seems like he's out for his own gain, then why isn't the problem solved if it's made explicitly clear he's not? And importantly: why shouldn't he be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims it's not for his own benefit? I did not say it was the sole reason, I said it was the biggest thing for me. Being in sports, in theory, is an egotistical thing. You don't try to win for the other people you're trying to win for yourself. Sports is one of the few places that mindset is ok... You want to be the best and that's ok. Then when you add the craziness of pro wrestling where guys are breaking into people's houses and whatnot it's even more "ego" driven. When someone says he's trying to find 2 winners it already comes off as fake... When he starts to use the catchphrases to justify why you should get a title shot it comes off as self-serving.. Wait, wait. Like. I think I understand what you're saying here, but do you acknowledge that this idea "having a communal mindset while engaging in a (fake) sport makes you a bad person" is... somewhat idiosyncratic? I mean, it's internally coherent that if you think this, you'll think his behaviors are bad, but that premise is not universally shared, to say the least. But I'm really not clear on why you're not engaging with what I'm asking, even though I fully believe you're responding thoughtfully and in good faith. Because you keep saying it could be a face gimmick if XYZ, but then not saying what XYZ are, and now you just pulled back and said no, actually, anyone criticizing wrestling from a moral standpoint is a heel. So I'm really confused about where you stand. If it'll help, one thing I was thinking about was there might be a common aspect where you think the gimmick could be face if there's a clear villain they're opposing: someone who is A Bad Sexist (or whatever). Is this a fair assessment? If so, why is that important? If criticizing Mr. Evil Racist is ok, why isn't criticizing general social trends that are simultaneously nobody and everybody's fault?
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Oct 8, 2021 18:15:09 GMT -5
OK, but there's a lot of work being done by your "it would require some nuance" caveat. Why? What nuance is required? What's important about it being drawn out? I mean, if the sole problem is it seems like he's out for his own gain, then why isn't the problem solved if it's made explicitly clear he's not? And importantly: why shouldn't he be given the benefit of the doubt when he claims it's not for his own benefit? Also nuance cause since the attitude era almost anyone who speaks out about a wrestling product from a moral standpoint has always been a heel. It would take some storytelling to show this guy is different than the rtc, mike knox, the network, ect Yeah, typically people speaking from moral positions are cast as the heels. Mike Knox wasn't taking any moral position, he was just a jealous, controlling boyfriend. But those other two groups make for good examples. Both were overbearing, preachy groups whose moral positions were unwanted in the promotions they showed up in. And both were direct, real world analogues to groups that the bookers wanted to criticize. What that expresses isn't that wrestling reveres the status quo and casts everyone who wants to change anything in any way like it's South Park, but that characters who have any sort of design or intent or agenda for wrestling are almost universally cast as the heel in an unfavorable parody of groups that the booker dislikes. RTC wasn't the bad guys because they were loud about their different opinion. You were meant to boo what they believed as much as how they went about expressing that.
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Post by polarbearpete on Oct 8, 2021 18:50:41 GMT -5
I mean the subtext of the Kofi WWE title chase was inclusion. but I mean the easiest way to book him as a face is to have him fight for opportunities for other people. Imagine if his goal was to get someone like Cesaro a championship, and they played how Vince thought Cesaro was too Swiss. I obviously don't think WWE would do something like that but if I had to make him face I'd do something like that. The text of Kofi's title chase was obvious, explicit racism. Kofi was good enough, and An Evil Villain refused to give him real chances anyway because of racism. Adding an evil racist villain is cheating, I think: anyone's a face against that. Let's say the dude just does research on TV time between the men's and the women's roster, and he sees that it's wildly disproportional to the relative sizes of the rosters. And so he vocally, on screen, campaigns for the women to get more screen time. Or, he finds out a given member of the roster uses they pronouns as well as he pronouns, and with that person's permission, he criticizes the announcers for never using the they pronouns. Would you consider this a face? That seems like a face-leaning character to me
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 19:16:55 GMT -5
I did not say it was the sole reason, I said it was the biggest thing for me. Being in sports, in theory, is an egotistical thing. You don't try to win for the other people you're trying to win for yourself. Sports is one of the few places that mindset is ok... You want to be the best and that's ok. Then when you add the craziness of pro wrestling where guys are breaking into people's houses and whatnot it's even more "ego" driven. When someone says he's trying to find 2 winners it already comes off as fake... When he starts to use the catchphrases to justify why you should get a title shot it comes off as self-serving.. Wait, wait. Like. I think I understand what you're saying here, but do you acknowledge that this idea "having a communal mindset while engaging in a (fake) sport makes you a bad person" is... somewhat idiosyncratic? I mean, it's internally coherent that if you think this, you'll think his behaviors are bad, but that premise is not universally shared, to say the least. But I'm really not clear on why you're not engaging with what I'm asking, even though I fully believe you're responding thoughtfully and in good faith. Because you keep saying it could be a face gimmick if XYZ, but then not saying what XYZ are, and now you just pulled back and said no, actually, anyone criticizing wrestling from a moral standpoint is a heel. So I'm really confused about where you stand. If it'll help, one thing I was thinking about was there might be a common aspect where you think the gimmick could be face if there's a clear villain they're opposing: someone who is A Bad Sexist (or whatever). Is this a fair assessment? If so, why is that important? If criticizing Mr. Evil Racist is ok, why isn't criticizing general social trends that are simultaneously nobody and everybody's fault? Maybe it's because I do some social justice work, but I've found people respond better to stories with faces attached to them. There's a thin line between complaining and making a difference. So saying something will almost always be met with more opposition than fighting for someone else. It's why the civil rights movement would bring busses of people to desegregate states. You can tell states they need to integrate and it's another to see dogs attack people for trying to sit at the same lunch table. We all might not understand buzzwords but we understand humanity
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Post by joeiscool on Oct 8, 2021 19:37:45 GMT -5
Also nuance cause since the attitude era almost anyone who speaks out about a wrestling product from a moral standpoint has always been a heel. It would take some storytelling to show this guy is different than the rtc, mike knox, the network, ect Yeah, typically people speaking from moral positions are cast as the heels. Mike Knox wasn't taking any moral position, he was just a jealous, controlling boyfriend. But those other two groups make for good examples. Both were overbearing, preachy groups whose moral positions were unwanted in the promotions they showed up in. And both were direct, real world analogues to groups that the bookers wanted to criticize. What that expresses isn't that wrestling reveres the status quo and casts everyone who wants to change anything in any way like it's South Park, but that characters who have any sort of design or intent or agenda for wrestling are almost universally cast as the heel in an unfavorable parody of groups that the booker dislikes. RTC wasn't the bad guys because they were loud about their different opinion. You were meant to boo what they believed as much as how they went about expressing that. I've kinda lost your point.... I never said I think WWE likes "the woke" culture. I just was saying there's clear heel stuff happening that is outside of the realm of dude who wants to bring social justice to wrestling. He's going about it super annoyingly and coming off as self-indulgent(and probably will turn out to be a hypocrite) which are all heel traits.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Oct 8, 2021 19:40:21 GMT -5
Yeah, typically people speaking from moral positions are cast as the heels. Mike Knox wasn't taking any moral position, he was just a jealous, controlling boyfriend. But those other two groups make for good examples. Both were overbearing, preachy groups whose moral positions were unwanted in the promotions they showed up in. And both were direct, real world analogues to groups that the bookers wanted to criticize. What that expresses isn't that wrestling reveres the status quo and casts everyone who wants to change anything in any way like it's South Park, but that characters who have any sort of design or intent or agenda for wrestling are almost universally cast as the heel in an unfavorable parody of groups that the booker dislikes. RTC wasn't the bad guys because they were loud about their different opinion. You were meant to boo what they believed as much as how they went about expressing that. I've kinda lost your point.... I never said I think WWE likes "the woke" culture. I just was saying there's clear heel stuff happening that is outside of the realm of dude who wants to bring social justice to wrestling. He's going about it super annoyingly and coming off as self-indulgent(and probably will turn out to be a hypocrite) which are all heel traits. My point is that all of that can be true, and what's going on here can still be "he's a heel because he's an SJW". The two are not mutually exclusive, and when they have made characters to do the former, they have very typically been the latter.
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mrbananagrabber
King Koopa
Paul Heyman's unofficial joke writer
Posts: 11,807
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Post by mrbananagrabber on Oct 8, 2021 20:11:16 GMT -5
How in the hell did my thread about Joe f***ing Gacy hit 12 pages??
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2021 20:15:11 GMT -5
How in the hell did my thread about Joe f***ing Gacy hit 12 pages?? You know what this man's gimmick is. Come on now, you knew it'd be controversial lol.
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mrbananagrabber
King Koopa
Paul Heyman's unofficial joke writer
Posts: 11,807
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Post by mrbananagrabber on Oct 8, 2021 20:29:14 GMT -5
How in the hell did my thread about Joe f***ing Gacy hit 12 pages?? You know what this man's gimmick is. Come on now, you knew it'd be controversial lol. Well, true. But this thread probably has more views than NXT did.
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