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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Jan 8, 2023 22:50:47 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore the racial baggage around the Pinata on a Pole match (and there is a loooooot), the end result of it was Dr. Death came out and killed everyone in the match entirely to build up to him, um, losing a match to f***ing Jerry Only and then leaving the company within a month. What was it supposed to accomplish?
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Jan 9, 2023 0:30:26 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore WCW and TNA, we have so many first hand racist, sexist, transphobic things he's said on his multiple short-lived podcasts over the years, including the last decade. Like, directly from him. Indefensible shit.
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Jan 9, 2023 3:16:55 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore WCW and TNA, we have so many first hand racist, sexist, transphobic things he's said on his multiple short-lived podcasts over the years, including the last decade. Like, directly from him. Indefensible shit. Then there's the people who came out and said that while he was working in TNA behind the scenes he'd talk about how "the blacks" are inherently not as good of wrestlers as white people.
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Post by evilone on Jan 9, 2023 6:25:13 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore the racial baggage around the Pinata on a Pole match (and there is a loooooot), the end result of it was Dr. Death came out and killed everyone in the match entirely to build up to him, um, losing a match to f***ing Jerry Only and then leaving the company within a month. What was it supposed to accomplish? That match and everything about it was timeslot filler and nothing more. Small IQ fun for the small IQ fans who just want "brainless action" and quite honestly there were a lot of fans like that. Wrestling is a carny business, run by carnies and you can't escape carny mentality. As far as I have been aware of wrestling as a kid there has always been a foreign heel angle that people booed because the guy was Russian, Iraqi, Iranian, German, English, Canadian. That's alweays been stupid and insulting as hell but people want their enemy of the week and those enemies have been every single minorities you can think of. Like I said a carny business. Everyone is OK with a Muslim being a bad guy that you can freely boo but hell try to put on a Israeli nationalist heel gimmick out there and watch your company burn to the ground.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 9, 2023 7:08:28 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore the racial baggage around the Pinata on a Pole match (and there is a loooooot), the end result of it was Dr. Death came out and killed everyone in the match entirely to build up to him, um, losing a match to f***ing Jerry Only and then leaving the company within a month. What was it supposed to accomplish? That match and everything about it was timeslot filler and nothing more. Small IQ fun for the small IQ fans who just want "brainless action" and quite honestly there were a lot of fans like that. Wrestling is a carny business, run by carnies and you can't escape carny mentality. As far as I have been aware of wrestling as a kid there has always been a foreign heel angle that people booed because the guy was Russian, Iraqi, Iranian, German, English, Canadian. That's alweays been stupid and insulting as hell but people want their enemy of the week and those enemies have been every single minorities you can think of. Like I said a carny business. Everyone is OK with a Muslim being a bad guy that you can freely boo but hell try to put on a Israeli nationalist heel gimmick out there and watch your company burn to the ground. I was around when Daivari went to TNA under Russo and became Sheik Abdul Bashir and they gave him theme music with an intro so warmly received, they scrambled to remove it from his entrance theme later on. Even in the context of wrestling, something that way too often relies on xenophobia for stories, both in and out of the US (Mexico, the UK, Canada, and Japan are no strangers to evil foreigner gimmicks, themselves), this was really goddamn gross.
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Post by CeilingFan on Jan 9, 2023 7:11:05 GMT -5
Even if you want to ignore WCW and TNA, we have so many first hand racist, sexist, transphobic things he's said on his multiple short-lived podcasts over the years, including the last decade. Like, directly from him. Indefensible shit. Then there's the people who came out and said that while he was working in TNA behind the scenes he'd talk about how "the blacks" are inherently not as good of wrestlers as white people. That is strange, considering that he insisted on making Booker T the World Champion.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Jan 9, 2023 7:13:28 GMT -5
Also should add to Mozenrath's point that even in the early 90s, during the near peak of Hulkamania, having Hogan face the Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter at WrestleMania tanked so hard, they moved stadiums and tried to disguise it as a bomb threat in official accounts.
And that was at the height of war in Iraq where, to go to other points, that should have worked.
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Jan 9, 2023 7:14:58 GMT -5
That match and everything about it was timeslot filler and nothing more. Small IQ fun for the small IQ fans who just want "brainless action" and quite honestly there were a lot of fans like that. Wrestling is a carny business, run by carnies and you can't escape carny mentality. As far as I have been aware of wrestling as a kid there has always been a foreign heel angle that people booed because the guy was Russian, Iraqi, Iranian, German, English, Canadian. That's alweays been stupid and insulting as hell but people want their enemy of the week and those enemies have been every single minorities you can think of. Like I said a carny business. Everyone is OK with a Muslim being a bad guy that you can freely boo but hell try to put on a Israeli nationalist heel gimmick out there and watch your company burn to the ground. I was around when Daivari went to TNA under Russo and became Sheik Abdul Bashir and they gave him theme music with an intro so warmly received, they scrambled to remove it from his entrance theme later on. Even in the context of wrestling, something that way too often relies on xenophobia for stories, both in and out of the US (Mexico, the UK, Canada, and Japan are no strangers to evil foreigner gimmicks, themselves), this was really goddamn gross. Much lighter topic but I remember once seeing someone complain that Evan Bourne's music having plane chatter at the start of it was tasteless because of 9/11 and it's stuck with me for years for how, "Um... What?" it was. Then there's the people who came out and said that while he was working in TNA behind the scenes he'd talk about how "the blacks" are inherently not as good of wrestlers as white people. That is strange, considering that he insisted on making Booker T the World Champion. Could be several explanations I guess. Could be a false or exaggerated account, could be Booker T being a case of him thinking he's an exception which certainly isn't unheard of with racists, could be his opinions became more extreme with time...
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 9, 2023 7:18:19 GMT -5
Then there's the people who came out and said that while he was working in TNA behind the scenes he'd talk about how "the blacks" are inherently not as good of wrestlers as white people. That is strange, considering that he insisted on making Booker T the World Champion. Bill Watts liked having black men as top faces. Bill Watts also said this in an interview with the Torch, among other things in that interview that led to his firing/forced resignation: You can definitely have disdain for black people and other groups while still recognizing that they are paying customers. Watts' old territory had a high black population, as did WCW's of Georgia. Russo also desired new main event acts who'd be more likely to offer him less pushback than Hogan and the others, so whether or not Russo respected Booker, he was one of the most obvious choices to promote to the main event.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Jan 9, 2023 7:48:53 GMT -5
That is strange, considering that he insisted on making Booker T the World Champion. Bill Watts liked having black men as top faces. Bill Watts also said this in an interview with the Torch, among other things in that interview that led to his firing/forced resignation: You can definitely have disdain for black people and other groups while still recognizing that they are paying customers. Watts' old territory had a high black population, as did WCW's of Georgia. Russo also desired new main event acts who'd be more likely to offer him less pushback than Hogan and the others, so whether or not Russo respected Booker, he was one of the most obvious choices to promote to the main event. Wasnt the racism lawsuit going on at the time? So could be Russo got some pressure to help out legal.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 9, 2023 8:00:05 GMT -5
Bill Watts liked having black men as top faces. Bill Watts also said this in an interview with the Torch, among other things in that interview that led to his firing/forced resignation: You can definitely have disdain for black people and other groups while still recognizing that they are paying customers. Watts' old territory had a high black population, as did WCW's of Georgia. Russo also desired new main event acts who'd be more likely to offer him less pushback than Hogan and the others, so whether or not Russo respected Booker, he was one of the most obvious choices to promote to the main event. Wasnt the racism lawsuit going on at the time? So could be Russo got some pressure to help out legal. I believe it may have been, good point.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Jan 9, 2023 8:02:40 GMT -5
Wasnt the racism lawsuit going on at the time? So could be Russo got some pressure to help out legal. I believe it may have been, good point. Sonny Onoo 🤝 Shark Boy Made so much from lawsuits, they never needed to work again.
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Post by WoodStoner1 on Jan 9, 2023 10:03:15 GMT -5
I feel that "Pinata on a pole"/"Mexicans and Japanese won't get over here" is to "No one wants to just see flippy matches with no story" as "You people don't get to be world champion" is to "Hunter meant WCW guys." Just a hunch.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2023 10:46:06 GMT -5
Also should add to Mozenrath's point that even in the early 90s, during the near peak of Hulkamania, having Hogan face the Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter at WrestleMania tanked so hard, they moved stadiums and tried to disguise it as a bomb threat in official accounts. And that was at the height of war in Iraq where, to go to other points, that should have worked. The war was over in february. Royal rumble, with warrior vs slaughter, slaughter had the desert shield build up heat for november and december, the war started as the rumble was happening, rumble was jan 19, war started jan 17, the war was over officially in february (feb 28 according to the internet, in real life it was over as soon as the first stealth bombers struck the first day, the ground war at the end lasted 100 hours when iraq surrendered), and mania was after that march 24. So all of the heat was sucked out of the room for mania, the real life event was over, but we still have this rah rah wrestling match to do, gee, I wonder who's going to win? And then they stretched it out over the summer all the way to summerslam. The rumble match with warrior had all of the real life heat, but as soon as the war was over, it was just a wrestling angle with the foreign bad guy and the american hero. It's like they planned this angle out expecting the war to go on and on, and when the real life event ended, they couldn't change course and adjust, so they just plowed ahead with what they had planned. And you have gorilla monsoon declaring "and now, the war is officially over!" after hulk gets the pin, like the war wasn't officially over until this wrestling match happened in los angeles a month after the after war was over. All of the rah rah usa stuff was in january, all of the pop stars wearing american flag clothes, the superbowl was jan 27, american music awards were jan 28, etc, by the time mania happened all of that including the war or any active shooting was over, and it was we love our troops and welcome home stuff. Warrior and slaughter got all of the heat at the rumble, then warrior and savage had the hotter feud coming out of that through feb. It seemed like slaughter vs hulk was more "oh yeah...that", like the title was an after thought after the actual feud with warrior and savage. Hulk beating slaughter was more tying up a loose end in the secondary feud. I don't know if it's possible, but it would be interesting to see what were the ticket sales in jan going into feb, and what was the drop off feb-march, and when the decision to move the show was made.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Jan 9, 2023 10:54:39 GMT -5
]The war was over in february. I mean, WWE presumed America it was still at war with Japan when Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna, Hakushi, Kaientai, Kenzo Suzuki etc came around so I’ll just say that isn’t a precedence for them not to do an angle like that.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2023 11:13:14 GMT -5
]The war was over in february. I mean, WWE presumed America it was still at war with Japan when Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna, Hakushi, Kaientai, Kenzo Suzuki etc came around so I’ll just say that isn’t a precedence for them not to do an angle like that. That was more sad than anything. At least the iraq stuff in 1991 was recent and somewhat relevant. 93 was, we're friends with russia, can't do that, the iraq stuff is over, can't do that, can't do evil vietnam, can't do evil german stuff, let's do evil japanese from a four year war from forty years ago. It's like they were trying to figure out, "we need an evil foreign heel, but we're not at war with anyone, who's the least offense evil foreign country we can use". I remember people getting mad at the 1997 canada vs usa stuff (in real life, not "Wrestling heat"), "we're not at war with canada, why are they (the wwf) trying to start stuff" and people getting turned off by that and wanting to stop watching that. Yokozuna would've been fine on his own as "sumo champion, no one can beat him, how are they going to stop this guy" heel, they didn't have to add "and he's an evil japanese guy" on top of it, although that gave us patriotic zombie undertaker, so that was funny edit: and they had bret, the canadian hero, fighting the evil japanese guy while the crowd chanted usa for him. The same thing with warrior/savage getting the heat over hulk/slaughter in 1991 is what happened with bret and lex in 93/4, bret had the "cheated out of my title, I win the king of the ring and this guy attacks me, my brother wants to fight me now" actual story going on where you could feel sympathy for him, where lex was just mr usa here to defend the country against yoko and ludvig borga from the evil country of finland. And then crush from hawaii joined the evil foreigners. Where bret had an actual story going on.
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tirtefaa
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Post by tirtefaa on Jan 9, 2023 11:42:49 GMT -5
Bryan Alvarez has a great rant on Russo from over a decade ago when Russo wrote his book, which was 100% correct in the assessment that Russo considers himself some kind of a genius. And if you didn't "get it" then there was something wrong with you.
I don't hate Russo, but it's amazing that this guy can't look back on his three decades in the business and accept some responsibility for the bad segments and angles over the years.
I think one of the reasons he doesn't, is because if he did, he'd admit to how superficial his role was to the success of the late 90's WWF. Like, I'll give credit to Russo for changing the layout of how WWF was presented, as well as giving everyone something to do, but that's something that could have been continued without his involvement, since that's exactly what WWF did after he left!
Comparing him to Bischoff, at least Bischoff can always point to the nWo angle as one of the biggest and best angles ever designed (initially). Where can Russo say the same thing? What big angle can Russo point to that provides him value in 2023?
I think that's why he defends the little things so much. Because he doesn't have any big things to point to.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2023 12:04:58 GMT -5
I feel that "Pinata on a pole"/"Mexicans and Japanese won't get over here" is to "No one wants to just see flippy matches with no story" as "You people don't get to be world champion" is to "Hunter meant WCW guys." Just a hunch. The match is on youtube. You're free to go there and watch it, come back and explain here how it's racist and have actual discussion instead of taking veiled shots at people who can't fight back.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Jan 9, 2023 12:10:05 GMT -5
The other thing factor in is, like, before Tony Khan took full control at AEW, who were the people most associated with booking major companies? Watts, Cornette, Russo, Bischoff, Heyman, Ole, Gagne and Dusty. Five of those men are still alive and seem to be able to either brag about or wiggle into jobs involving booking things for various reasons.
It reminds me of how in the Premier League, there’s somehow spots ready for Harry Redknapp, Sam Allerdyce, Neil Warnock and others even though there are way more qualified out there that could take their place but because they’re experienced, they brag about what they can do to the media and are brought up in managerial vacancy conversations.
But the difference being there is that in football management, there ARE more experienced people. Everyone else in pro wrestling is either someone like Gabe whose only booked later stage ECW, ROH and other small indies (and the NXT spin off they rejected), Scott D’Amore whose at Impact and people who’ve always stuck to their territories.
EDIT: Thinking about it, you could maybe argue for a Jim Smallman going from PROGRESS to NXT UK but then that isn’t really going from a small territory to a show watched by way more people and he seems to still be in WWE in some capacity, possibly working on NXT Europe? Who knows?
If you’re Russo, who booked in not one but TWO major promotions, you’d act like you know what works even when what works was more than 20 years ago at this point and things have moved on so much and so quickly, you might as well be talking about it like you do Variety shows, Jerry Springer or rental stores.
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Post by WoodStoner1 on Jan 9, 2023 12:15:29 GMT -5
I feel that "Pinata on a pole"/"Mexicans and Japanese won't get over here" is to "No one wants to just see flippy matches with no story" as "You people don't get to be world champion" is to "Hunter meant WCW guys." Just a hunch. The match is on youtube. You're free to go there and watch it, come back and explain here how it's racist and have actual discussion instead of taking veiled shots at people who can't fight back. Why get mad? I know what'll solve all this... Let's get Vince to write about What We Didn't Understand about this!!!!
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