Jamesman posted:

poo poo like this is more fascinating and entertaining than WWE puts out on TV.

At least I'm assuming. I stopped watching when they got rid of the Spirit Squad, but even back then, it was kinda that way too.

Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:

Starting to understand why so many wrestlers are antivaxx

Gavok posted:

That was actually One Man Gang. Tugboat went on to become Typhoon and, much more importantly, the Shockmaster.

SilvergunSuperman posted:

I loved Akeem as a kid, the charismatic big fat slob is a lost art.

quote:

Time_pants posted:

It's worse. They clearly tried to sabotage his even more over Fiend gimmick and then axed him while he was still topping merch sales.

Time_pants posted:

The one thing you absolutely do not do in WWE is get over with fans when it wasn't Vince's idea.

Pimpcasso posted:

wrastling is fake

Cornwind Evil posted:

Yeah. It's considered 'tradition' that if a wrestler is leaving or retiring, they 'go out on their back', ie lose to make someone else look good. But WWE is run by perverts and misogynists like every other business, so not only did Lita lose her final match as 'per tradition', afterwards she got humiliated one final time. I can even see the logic of it; Lita's 'betrayal' of Matt was 'never forgiven' (but wait) by the fans and she was 'forever' the Treacherous Slut, and every crowd would let her know it, in a weird mix of mark "She is bad and we will call her bad names!" and internet types "She loving betrayed Matt and I am going to make sure the whore knows it, no never mind it takes two to cheat and Edge never got this nasty real life aspect for his part as part of his 'heel heat' but she's the woman so she's A WHHHOOORRREEEEE". She's retiring, might as well get in a final boot stomp from the fans so she can know how bad it was that she did Those Bad Things.

But if it makes you feel any better, afterwards her friends took her out to a quiet goodbye party, and when she returned for a guest appearance a few years later, the absence had made the fans forget their stupid (and inconsistent, and misogynist, and taken too far) grudge and she was cheered as any returning 'legend' would be, which has remained the case ever since.

SilvergunSuperman posted:

I always thought he was lame but changing my tune, Mark Henry owns

FilthyImp posted:

By all accounts, Taker was the guy that would stick up for employees being mistreated and would occasionally tell Vince he was loving poo poo up.

Dude might be a Guns and Ammo conservative in real life but as a workmate he seemed to be legit.

gbs but from 2004 posted:

Is that for real?

Pennywise the Frown posted:

That's good to hear. I like him in his small movie roles like The Russian in Punisher and random security guy in John Wick.

quote:

Rex (Kevin Nash) and his men aim to kill the homeless people living in a local deserted school hoping it'll slow an ultra deadly strand of covid. Now, outnumbered 100 to 1, "Hap" must save his little sister.

Pennywise the Frown posted:

There's wrestling on TV tonight at 7pm. Monday Night Raw. I haven't watched wrestling in decades and I'm going to watch it tonight. I'm sure I'll think it's incredibly stupid but eh, whatever.

Pennywise the Frown posted:

Is it on tonight?

Ghost Leviathan posted:

WWE sounds like bad anime filler where every actual fight is padded out to hell with characters redundantly talking at each other for half the episode, except with even more community theatre level acting. And I'm guessing like comic books it's incomprehensible unless you're familiar with decades of continuity that it nevertheless also contradicts.

Mr. Meagles posted:

Okay, I've never watched AEW before and have been tuned out of wrestling for many years but I clicked on that Elevation stream posted above and my reaction is immediate

the announcers aren't feuding, or rambling about some crazy inane poo poo, or doing bits, they're talking about what's happening in the match. it's crazy the difference this makes.

bagmonkey posted:

I watched AEW from the beginning until the summer of the pandemic, then picked it up again in early 2021. I hadn't watched wrestling regularly since like 03-04 I'd guess but man, AEW hooked me right away. One touch I love is the commentary is blended between pro announcers like Excalibur, JR and Tony, and talent like Taz or Chris Jericho (he's a chud poo poo head but god drat is he the best on commentary), meaning that you get some really hilarious bits where they play off of each other making jokes without being assholes to each other.

I'm also trying to remember more about Al Snow's Head character storyline but I'm drawing a lot of blanks. Was that actually a good storyline or did it suck and I was young and dumb?

kntfkr posted:

Val Venis's whole shtick was rhyming with penis

gbs but from 2004 posted:

also Jericho is a chud shithead?? what did he do?

Trollologist posted:

The real story about how Vince sucks rear end is the tragic tale of Zach Ryder.

I hope someone with more history knowledge can elaborate on him

Pennywise the Frown posted:

Isn't Mick Foley a really good guy? I think I heard he was.

Seth Pecksniff posted:

I'm gonna be fascinated to see what happens to WWE after Vince kicks it. When you cut the head off the chicken, is it going to survive like Mike the Headless Chicken? Or is there going to be a power struggle, since I presume Vince really hasn't designated anyone to take over after he dies (because he will never die; he is immortal)

shadow puppet of a posted:

I’m dying to see a post Vince and really
Post McMahon wwe and am super curious for how it will play out. I don’t think he iswrong to ask a fortune, closer to what activision blizzard sold to ms for than the idiot fire sale that was starwars lucasarts going to Disney

Which nicely excludes any sound minded private equity type drain it dry organizations or coalition of pension funds that need to park 7 billion somewhere fast and means the wwe will got to a real lunatic like the Saudi king-in-waiting or his next richest rival along the straight of Hormuz after a dispute over a polo pony blows up out of proportion to steal away his beloved Yokozuna memories and tarnish them in spite

What excites me is that the McMahon jr era could be the sane stable one once the next monied arrogant tyrant gets a hold of it.

Detective No. 27 posted:

You know who else got hosed because he got popular without Vince's consent? Rusev. I'm sure someone could give the whole story better than me, so I'll just give my brief story.

I used to watch WWE off and on in the 2000s but fell off until the mid 2010s. Right before I got back to watching it, had a customer tell me I resembled Rusev. I got back to WWE and he easily became one of my favorites. A couple years later we went to Smackdown being filmed in Glendale, by Cardinal Stadium. Like Rusev, one of our friends is from Rusev, and we brought him with us. It was his first and only WWE live event he'd ever been to. This episode happened to be the very birth of RUSEV DAY. Nobody knew this going in. They gave Rusev a segment where he got his own holiday and held a ceremony by an actual Bulgarian mayor. They made everyone stand up and Rusev sang the Bulgarian national anthem. It was pretty incredible. Then the coward Randy Orton came and attacked them.

Anyway. Rusev Day would end up being incredibly popular. From then on, "RUSEV DAY" would be chanted by audiences on air and at live events. I even heard people chant it at NXT house shows, which were untelevised and not something he was part of. TODAY IS RUSEV DAY shirts constantly sold out.

I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but they'd just never let him win much of anything at that point. They killed Rusev Day. Eventually he got released. I'm glad he's thriving in AEW.

Gavok posted:

Miro was Rusev, who represented Russia despite being Bulgarian. Whatever. He spent a long while being an unbeatable hoss. They payoff was losing a feud to John Cena and that’s when the problems started. See, Rusev’s real-life girlfriend was his valet Lana. Vince McMahon thought Lana was hot and for some reason it broke his mind that she’d be with Rusev. He put together a storyline where Lana left him for Dolph Ziggler while Rusev just got Summer Rae to dress like Lana. The storyline came to an abrupt end when TMZ reported that Rusev and Lana were engaged.

Rusev started teaming up with Aiden English and got over huge with his “Rusev Day” gimmick. Crowds went crazy for him and would constantly chant for him. Vince still refused to push him. He even refused to acknowledge his popularity. Rusev sold out all of his merchandise? Well, I guess they just made too little, then. When Rusev’s contract was nearing its end, Vince tried to sweeten things up for him in hopes of making him re-sign. Said sweetening was a main-event storyline where Lana was cheating on him with Bobby Lashley and Rusev was made to look like a total dork.

That was all she wrote for Rusev, who left the company. Once Miro appeared in AEW, Lana started a storyline where she was put through a table week after week.

Gavok posted:

“THE REDEEMER” MIRO

When Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford were getting ready for their wedding, Kip revealed Miro (WWE’s Rusev) as not only his best man, but THE Best Man. United by their love for video games, the two were a real force as a tag team. Some thought Miro was a little too goofy, what with his interest in gaming and his fashion choices, but as he dominated the ring, the real Miro underneath started to boil through. Underneath the smiles was a vicious beast of a man who wanted to crush everyone in his way to prove his dominance.

When Kip took the pin for a major tag match, Miro showed his true colors by hunting down the elusive Kip, brutalizing him, then explaining, “I forgive you.” From there, he’s become a singles competitor, who thanks God for giving him the strength to make short work of all of his opponents, with extra thanks for giving him a crazy hot wife who can do splits.

Trollologist posted:

Does anyone remember that time that Ray Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero arguably the 2 greatest Latino wrestlers in WWE history, had to solve a custody dispute....


With a ladder match?

They literally hung custody papers from the rafters and fought over the parenting rights of a child.

stratdax posted:

How's Billy Corgan's wrestling thing going

Trollologist posted:

Chikara is all the best elements about "wrestling is basically comic books" (crazy characters, insane plots, bizarre supernatural elements, ongoing continuity, plots that go places) mixed with the worst elements from actual comic books (dense lore, hard to get caught up if you miss an issue, back issues are tricky to find, plot from chikara could happen outside chikara, so now you have to keep up on that)

But what I was able to gleem then was glorious. They had to walk so Lucha Underground could run

The Last Call posted:

WWE isn't about wrestlers or wrestling.

It's about the brand, nothing else matters. All serve the brand, that's the beginning and end of Vinces plan.

It's also why take red hot wrestlers and make them into just another guy or girl on the roaster.

Seth Pecksniff posted:

Good on Goldberg for saying no but holy poo poo how did anyone ever think that was a good idea?

Shumagorath posted:

This thread is full of fascinating inside baseball, but can any of you tell me if the Iron Sheik really runs his own twitter account?