SirPhoebos posted:

I'd tune the gently caress in to see Punk get eaten by Lesnar.

16-bit Butt-Head posted:

wrestling reality will really gently caress a motherfucker up if they're submerged into it too long because it blends real life and show business in a way that will drive anyone insane because is it fake is it real who knows

mexican willie posted:

Punk vs Lesnar Brawl for All match

Prof. Crocodile posted:

Sumo, boxing, and classical-era wrestling are/were also demonstrably rigged. There are probably several theories as to why combat sports are so susceptible to being fixed, but I'll leave that to the experts in PSP.

Pope Corky the IX posted:

GoutPatrol posted:

because gambling i assume

Sydney Bottocks posted:

TK actually said that he feared for his life during the incident.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Of course, but actually wouldn't be surprised if people quickly realised having matches be rigged and more of a performance was easier all around especially for the competitors, who might get to have less life-threatening career-ending injuries, and also was a lot more fun to watch.

.

CharlestheHammer posted:

Hey the Miz will go out there to give a good promo and then job to the next big thing

Please respect it

Animal-Mother posted:

I feel like the revelation that gladiators were just the pro wrestlers of their time has indeed been discussed here.

Mulaney Power Move posted:

The old school guys are calling him a huge wuss for this

Mulaney Power Move posted:

I think the implication is that back in the day a promoter would have just pistol whipped Punk or had Bob Roop put him in a sugar hold for 30 minutes then sucker punched him with a roll of quarters and that's why wrestling was a real sport

X JAKK posted:

They should make a movie about that.
Call it Coliseum Entertainer
Starring Dean Ambrose.

Mulaney Power Move posted:

The old school guys are calling him a huge wuss for this

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The Hollywood idea of gladiators is all deathmatches all the time but like five minutes thought will probably make someone realise how impractical that'd be even if it was entirely socially acceptable. I think it gets mixed up because we do have evidence that deathmatches were a thing, but that they were specifically advertised as such should be a hint that it wasn't the norm.

Animal-Mother posted:

We should've realized it was a work after archaeologists uncovered evidence they were billed as Texas deathmatches.

16-bit Butt-Head posted:

terry funk was even older than that

bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:

Archaeologists discovered recently that a deathmatch between Canicio Omega and Giovanni Moxley was exposed when the tigress that was brought out to attack them after 30 minutes was just 2 guys in an embarrassing costume

Mulaney Power Move posted:

The old school guys are calling him a huge wuss for this

Cornwind Evil posted:

Having been out of the loop and reading all this, it sounds that, beyond possibly diagnosing Phil Brooks with a legit mental issue, like bipolar disorder, or paranoid personal disorder, if you believe such a thing exists, it sounds like he's just the latest example of the unique form of "Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be." wrestling has infected and destroyed men with ever since the mid 70's. It was probably around earlier, but certain aspects of the 80's, I feel, made it even worse. As said, actors can lose themselves in roles, but wrestlers have that unique demon of basically always being their role; whenever they're in public, until somewhat recently, they're expected to be The Character. As Steve Martin said in a wrestling documentary, a line I quoted, if you go to a movie premiere and shake hands with Tom Cruise, you're shaking hands with Tom Cruise, not Maverick/Ethan Hunt/Jerry McGuire/etc. If you went to a wrestling event and shook hands with Ric Flair, you were shaking the hand of the man who'd be in the ring, on the TV, at public appearances, and basically almost everywhere. Heck, it seems like the only times until recently that wrestlers could be themselves was on their long drives and at home, assumingly.

And history shows that in the end, the character eats the person. Ric Flair has repeatedly destroyed Richard Felair's life because you can't LIVE as Ric Flair, but Felair is almost enslaved to it from sheer repetition and familiarity. Terry Bollea let his bad experiences and the meteoric rise of Hulk Hogan make him decide that reality was how he defined it, and it would always be defined for what was best for him, no matter what else had to be damaged or broken. Jim Hellwig was said to have been cored out and more or less killed by his overwhelming Warrior character, and while I can't say what the life of Randall Poffo, lifetime baseball player and catcher would have been like, but I strongly suspect that Randy Savage took all the negative traits of the man and made them worse. Heck, I'll even apply it to my guy, Bret Hart, who is sort of like Punk in how he views wrestling as a serious thing, and how he really did see himself as a hero to many, despite in the end he was still a character putting on a show. Steve Williams needed years to detox from the wrestling life, and even now he's still doing his things under his Steve Austin name. Dwayne Johnson managed to redirect the nature of the business into an actual acting career, and I'm pretty sure even he's done his share of bad things. And as I analyzed, it really seemed like John Cena the man was a pale ghost who barely existed, everything given to John Cena the Character.

And so it seems to have happened to Phil Brooks. The chip on his shoulder super egotist I'm better than you best in the world CM Punk pushed away everything, and as it turns out, you can't live as a two dimensional character without severe issues. Getting hosed over by other carny aspects of the business sure as hell didn't help, but it's fitting that Brooks, a big comic book fan (I mean, he yelled "It's clobbering time" before his matches), would fall under that famous Batman film line: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

It's just a shame, and a disappointment.

Cartoon Man posted:

You forgot the biggest example of them all.

https://i.imgur.com/4jeVVA7.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/hsBK1ej.gifv

https://i.imgur.com/OLSFEh0.gifv

Torchlighter posted:

Vince is a carny, as much as he doesn't want to admit it, and thus more of an example of the reverse. His on screen persona is entirely a fake, a pastiche of the megalomaniacal company owner who does things like angrily temper tantrum in the ring because a match had a confused victor.

The fact that Vince himself, apoplectic with rage at the ending being muddy, walked to the ring and tore both his quads before demanding the match be restarted from the mat is both a damning irony and a great example of why Vince is the perfect actor for the role.

Cornwind Evil posted:

Having been out of the loop and reading all this, it sounds that, beyond possibly diagnosing Phil Brooks with a legit mental issue, like bipolar disorder, or paranoid personal disorder, if you believe such a thing exists, it sounds like he's just the latest example of the unique form of "Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be." wrestling has infected and destroyed men with ever since the mid 70's. It was probably around earlier, but certain aspects of the 80's, I feel, made it even worse. As said, actors can lose themselves in roles, but wrestlers have that unique demon of basically always being their role; whenever they're in public, until somewhat recently, they're expected to be The Character. As Steve Martin said in a wrestling documentary, a line I quoted, if you go to a movie premiere and shake hands with Tom Cruise, you're shaking hands with Tom Cruise, not Maverick/Ethan Hunt/Jerry McGuire/etc. If you went to a wrestling event and shook hands with Ric Flair, you were shaking the hand of the man who'd be in the ring, on the TV, at public appearances, and basically almost everywhere. Heck, it seems like the only times until recently that wrestlers could be themselves was on their long drives and at home, assumingly.

And history shows that in the end, the character eats the person. Ric Flair has repeatedly destroyed Richard Felair's life because you can't LIVE as Ric Flair, but Felair is almost enslaved to it from sheer repetition and familiarity. Terry Bollea let his bad experiences and the meteoric rise of Hulk Hogan make him decide that reality was how he defined it, and it would always be defined for what was best for him, no matter what else had to be damaged or broken. Jim Hellwig was said to have been cored out and more or less killed by his overwhelming Warrior character, and while I can't say what the life of Randall Poffo, lifetime baseball player and catcher would have been like, but I strongly suspect that Randy Savage took all the negative traits of the man and made them worse. Heck, I'll even apply it to my guy, Bret Hart, who is sort of like Punk in how he views wrestling as a serious thing, and how he really did see himself as a hero to many, despite in the end he was still a character putting on a show. Steve Williams needed years to detox from the wrestling life, and even now he's still doing his things under his Steve Austin name. Dwayne Johnson managed to redirect the nature of the business into an actual acting career, and I'm pretty sure even he's done his share of bad things. And as I analyzed, it really seemed like John Cena the man was a pale ghost who barely existed, everything given to John Cena the Character.

And so it seems to have happened to Phil Brooks. The chip on his shoulder super egotist I'm better than you best in the world CM Punk pushed away everything, and as it turns out, you can't live as a two dimensional character without severe issues. Getting hosed over by other carny aspects of the business sure as hell didn't help, but it's fitting that Brooks, a big comic book fan (I mean, he yelled "It's clobbering time" before his matches), would fall under that famous Batman film line: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

It's just a shame, and a disappointment.

Prof. Crocodile posted:

OTOH if he was sincerely afraid for his life because an old man threw a temper tantrum, then he is in fact a wuss.

Cornwind Evil posted:

Having been out of the loop and reading all this, it sounds that, beyond possibly diagnosing Phil Brooks with a legit mental issue, like bipolar disorder, or paranoid personal disorder, if you believe such a thing exists, it sounds like he's just the latest example of the unique form of "Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be." wrestling has infected and destroyed men with ever since the mid 70's. It was probably around earlier, but certain aspects of the 80's, I feel, made it even worse. As said, actors can lose themselves in roles, but wrestlers have that unique demon of basically always being their role; whenever they're in public, until somewhat recently, they're expected to be The Character. As Steve Martin said in a wrestling documentary, a line I quoted, if you go to a movie premiere and shake hands with Tom Cruise, you're shaking hands with Tom Cruise, not Maverick/Ethan Hunt/Jerry McGuire/etc. If you went to a wrestling event and shook hands with Ric Flair, you were shaking the hand of the man who'd be in the ring, on the TV, at public appearances, and basically almost everywhere. Heck, it seems like the only times until recently that wrestlers could be themselves was on their long drives and at home, assumingly.

And history shows that in the end, the character eats the person. Ric Flair has repeatedly destroyed Richard Felair's life because you can't LIVE as Ric Flair, but Felair is almost enslaved to it from sheer repetition and familiarity. Terry Bollea let his bad experiences and the meteoric rise of Hulk Hogan make him decide that reality was how he defined it, and it would always be defined for what was best for him, no matter what else had to be damaged or broken. Jim Hellwig was said to have been cored out and more or less killed by his overwhelming Warrior character, and while I can't say what the life of Randall Poffo, lifetime baseball player and catcher would have been like, but I strongly suspect that Randy Savage took all the negative traits of the man and made them worse. Heck, I'll even apply it to my guy, Bret Hart, who is sort of like Punk in how he views wrestling as a serious thing, and how he really did see himself as a hero to many, despite in the end he was still a character putting on a show. Steve Williams needed years to detox from the wrestling life, and even now he's still doing his things under his Steve Austin name. Dwayne Johnson managed to redirect the nature of the business into an actual acting career, and I'm pretty sure even he's done his share of bad things. And as I analyzed, it really seemed like John Cena the man was a pale ghost who barely existed, everything given to John Cena the Character.

And so it seems to have happened to Phil Brooks. The chip on his shoulder super egotist I'm better than you best in the world CM Punk pushed away everything, and as it turns out, you can't live as a two dimensional character without severe issues. Getting hosed over by other carny aspects of the business sure as hell didn't help, but it's fitting that Brooks, a big comic book fan (I mean, he yelled "It's clobbering time" before his matches), would fall under that famous Batman film line: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

It's just a shame, and a disappointment.

Unlucky7 posted:

Everything else aside, Punk could probably easily kick my rear end, and apparently he was getting in TKs face

So yeah, I would understand being afraid

Prof. Crocodile posted:

OTOH if he was sincerely afraid for his life because an old man threw a temper tantrum, then he is in fact a wuss.