The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,305
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Post by The Ichi on Apr 20, 2022 16:14:06 GMT -5
The fact that people are rushing to Warrior's defense (and someone has him in their f***ing profile pic) kind of defeats the "people are more forgiving of Benoit" narrative.
They were both pieces of shit, but yes Benoit was a bigger one.
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Post by sungod2020 on Apr 20, 2022 16:28:10 GMT -5
I'm just saying the way he saw these things, no matter how far out there they were, dosen't have the same baggage as a man who murdered his wife and son. There's a reason Warrior's in the Hall of Fame and Benoit isn't and I'm sure we can all figure out why. And nobody is claiming they are, they're objecting to the comparison because it's an ugly comparison that seems to be made up of a bunch of projections and assumptions. Almost nobody would think that the homophobe is worse or even on the same level as the guy who murdered his family. The judgment call that somehow wrestling ability would be a factor in the public's repulsion of a man who murdered his family was your claim. Chris Benoit killed his family and scores of people buried fond memories of him forever and can't look back. He was my favorite wrestler. I haven't watched a moment of him since what happened. This idea he's seen on any kind of wide scale as better by any reasonable proportion of people is a massive projection and a really ugly comparison you've kept shoving out there with nothing to back up and it feels more and more like some kind of f***ed up gotcha to be like "People are only mad about Warrior's homophobia because he couldn't do flips". The claim that there is any comparison has been your projection this whole time. I'd endeavor to say plenty more people go back and watch Ultimate Warrior matches putting aside what he said than have ever gone to rewatch Benoit stuff. And no, it's not his opinion. People are entitled to opinions. People are not entitled to hatred. When you begin to hate on a group of people and 'delegitimize' them you are no longer in the realms of beliefs you can just keep on having. I don't have proof that any one IWC member chose to separate Chris Benoit the character from Benoit the murderer, while making Ultimate Warrior/Jim Helwig the same guy per se, but there's many smarks(not on this board in particular, which is pretty tamed compared to other forums I've been on) who would do such a thing. In my time, I've seen people say Benoit was as much of a victim as his family was due to his dementia, that instead of angry for his actions, said poster is disappointed, and that some other poster said he didn't care for the person, but he respects the wrestler. I also don't see much of him being a backstage bully, let alone bash him for it. I do see it quite alot with his idol Dynamite Kid though. With Ultimate Warrior however, I DO hear alot of what he was like backstage, in addition to him being unsafe to work with. Again, this is just generalizations I've seen, but there IS an overlap. And don't underestimate how much emphasis certain sections of the IWC put on "the workratez." I've had a debate/argument with one poster how when Goldberg injured Bret Hart, they eventually became friends, yet Goldberg gets bashed as a wreckless worker, while Owen Hart NEVER apologized to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for giving him a stinger and even avoided him at all costs. His reasoning = Owen was a better trained worker and accidents happen. I don't remember how he explained the avoiding Austin part, but my point remains. The only thing I'm saying is, there IS double standards within the IWC for certain guys, I've seen it myself so I know I'm not making this up for the sake of an argument.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Apr 20, 2022 16:40:17 GMT -5
The fact that people are rushing to Warrior's defense (and someone has him in their f***ing profile pic) kind of defeats the "people are more forgiving of Benoit" narrative. They were both pieces of shit, but yes Benoit was a bigger one. If someone on this webbed site had a Chris Benoit avatar they'd have eight mods kicking in their window demanding they change it.
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 20, 2022 16:46:40 GMT -5
I really appreciate this post. So many wrestlers who are legit criminals or hurt people on purpose seem to get less heat from the IWC than guys who politicked or hurt someone by accident Unfortunately this situation reappeared quickly with Ridge Holland...Social was a fn nightmare when Big E got hurt. And it was a little bit here too. Fortunately I find people more reasonable on these boards. For a really extreme case, I know of people who call Rey Mysterio a murderer over the Perro Aguayo incident. I admit I used to joke about that but gladly have gone past that and tried to mature.
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 20, 2022 16:55:08 GMT -5
Right, and in Warrior's f***ed up, bigoted mind, he thought gays weren't legitimate because they couldn't reproduce, thus making it his opinion. Hell, now that I look at it even further, AJ Styles also has a homophobic, but because he puts on exciting matches, it's looked at as an afterthought. If they swapped movesets, would their(the IWCs) opinion change accordingly? Listen, I'm not saying Warrior's views are right or that I agree with it, or that the backlash isn't justified. I'm just saying the way he saw these things, no matter how far out there they were, dosen't have the same baggage as a man who murdered his wife and son. There's a reason Warrior's in the Hall of Fame and Benoit isn't and I'm sure we can all figure out why. Well the thing with the Benoit killings and their fallout is that they were such a devastating blow to WWE's immediate public image in 2007, so I'm not surprised they took extra steps to honor him even less than their other controversial legends. Benoit's not in the hall because luckily homophobia is something that can be unlearned, where there's not much to do for public redemption after a double murder-suicide. Exactly. It was the fallout and media coverage that caused WWE to do what they did. Jimmy Snuka was different because there were no 24/7 news networks, no Internet, no TMZ. So I think only hardcore wrestling fans knew. As such, WWF/WWE could get away with re-hiring him and honoring him for decades. Of course, when the case was back in the news just before his death, that became a different story and WWE distanced themselves from Snuka. Yet they still gave him a posthumous tribute. Basically, if it's a pain in WWE's ass coming from mainstream media and such, they'll act on it. I think I said this before. Compare, also, Hogan in 2015 to the Warrior thing. I am now wondering if when Warrior said...that...was it covered as much as Hogan's sex tape and utterances? Then again...the Warrior incidents happened when we thought bridges were burned forever between WWE and him. I do think people are easier on wrestlers whose work they respect or whom they have nostalgic feelings about. And about the Alzheimer/murderers question...it interested me that Benoit still had enough cunning to carry out his acts amongst 2-3 days. If he really didn't know what he was doing, wouldn't it have been more like one savage lash-out? Well the CTE issue is still not as bad as the total conspiracy nuts who insist Kevin Sullivan did it.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 20, 2022 17:00:52 GMT -5
The fact that people are rushing to Warrior's defense (and someone has him in their f***ing profile pic) kind of defeats the "people are more forgiving of Benoit" narrative. They were both pieces of shit, but yes Benoit was a bigger one. If someone on this webbed site had a Chris Benoit avatar they'd have eight mods kicking in their window demanding they change it. Honestly, one of us would probably just remove it... we'd send a note with a "yeah, no" response... but that's not a headache we'd want to even start...
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chazraps
Wade Wilson
Better have my money when I come-a collect!
Posts: 27,989
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Post by chazraps on Apr 20, 2022 20:29:08 GMT -5
He f***ed over a lot of people though. Like, when Vegas finally had a thriving mid-90s indy (NWC) at a time when the business in general was doing terrible, he convinced the promoter to make him a partner and then proceeded to steal from it and destroy it. That's actively irredeemable beyond "this guy is tough to work with." And then you have how many fans he f***ed over up through the last year of his life by lying to them about the history of different replica belts. If you sell at least four different people the belt that you're claiming was *the* belt you won at Wrestlemania VI - and the moment of when you're selling it to them is your supposed "changed" twilight years - you're a piece of shit. Also, if you ever read his essays or listened to his speeches, if anyone is to blame for him sounding like an "irrational asshole nutcase" it's the man himself who thought posting all that shit for years was a good idea. Comes back to the thread topic. Any number of charlatans in pro-wrestling have ripped off folk - be it wrestlers running a wrestling school (like Smith Hart), or the fellow that vanished on a young Taker after pocketing $3k to train him (forget his name), or promoters stiffing guys on pay. To my knowledge Warrior did the dirty on a grand total of $7k in Vegas, yet some like Heyman is praised when he did the dirty to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet Warrior is being vilified and Heyman has a "great mind for the business", so it's OK. I remember the belt auctions and he was advertising "ring worn" titles, not necessarily Wrestlemania 6 belt itself. He had multiple coloured belts made for him for house shows and TV tapings. But I could be wrong and the sources for this are on webpages I don't want to wander into without getting malicious software on my device. Yes he had a shitty opinion on a lot of things and made bad business decisions but that's the extent of it - comparatively small fries to the stuff in the industry but feels like Warrior is put up on a pedestal of assholes ahead, undeservedly, of far worse individuals. The Warrior total was much larger than 7K when you consider he took an entire additional place for wrestlers to make good money/exposure from monthly during the hardest time it ever was to be a wrestler. You'll never hear me say a kind word about Heyman, but just because Heyman stretched out killing a promotion longer isn't anything particular better than Warrior doing it in one swoop. And what I'm talking about isn't the auctions, I'm talking his literal one-on-one dealings with private collectors. Until he died he'd lie to their faces. Conrad's gone into more detail about it in the past. And you can't just chalk his "shitty opinions" to being "small fries." He didn't just keep this opinions to himself, he tried to redefine himself and his legacy with them and posted them repeatedly on his platforms. And these opinions weren't just about abating properties on highways near school districts, he was openly racist, homophobic, transphobic, just a vile furnace of hate. Warrior put himself on that pedestal of assholes all by himself.
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Post by sungod2020 on Apr 21, 2022 12:12:15 GMT -5
To add to how much emphasis some put on in-ring prowress, take Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. He has 100% of the power to remove Benoit from it, but instead he had subscribers cast a vote and if it exceeded 60%, he'd be removed. The vote was only 53%, thus keeping him in. Seriously, wrestling ability is like the halo effect for some. If he wrestled like Kurrgan, I bet the vote would be exceedingly higher. And they have the nerve to say WWE's Hall of Fame is a joke.
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Post by "Playboy" Don Douglas on Apr 21, 2022 21:49:53 GMT -5
To add to how much emphasis some put on in-ring prowress, take Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. He has 100% of the power to remove Benoit from it, but instead he had subscribers cast a vote and if it exceeded 60%, he'd be removed. The vote was only 53%, thus keeping him in. Seriously, wrestling ability is like the halo effect for some. If he wrestled like Kurrgan, I bet the vote would be exceedingly higher. And they have the nerve to say WWE's Hall of Fame is a joke. The Observer Hall of Fame is just as big a joke, just in a different way.
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Post by James Fabiano on Apr 23, 2022 17:14:00 GMT -5
To add to how much emphasis some put on in-ring prowress, take Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. He has 100% of the power to remove Benoit from it, but instead he had subscribers cast a vote and if it exceeded 60%, he'd be removed. The vote was only 53%, thus keeping him in. Seriously, wrestling ability is like the halo effect for some. If he wrestled like Kurrgan, I bet the vote would be exceedingly higher. And they have the nerve to say WWE's Hall of Fame is a joke. Sadly this isn't far from the truth. If Hogan or Warrior were in and they did something like this, I'm sure it would be a resounding NO. Other examples... If Bull Nakano was a human trafficker, would we be as quick to believe it, then condemn? If Bryan Danielson was a trainer and was accused of being a bully, would we be as quick, etc. etc.? How talented you were seems to be another instant apology.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2022 17:43:46 GMT -5
Corey Graves appears to be well liked backstage and among others in the business. Never heard any bad stories from fans too. His douchebro commentator is clearly a character (like many heel characters he probably inflates his IRL worst traits) and while his defense of his character on twitter is weak and annoying being bad at twitter is the norm really.
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