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There was that time where a wrestler was given a character that was basically Jack Sparrow and he acted like a drunk crazy pirate person and swung to the ring on a rope and people were actually kinda into it because the Pirates movies were popular at the time and the wrestler was selling the whole thing pretty hard. Then Vince was like "Who the gently caress cares about pirates? What is this poo poo?" and cut the whole thing. There was also this thing where Vince's character was going to be blown up or something and all these wrestlers were gathered backstage to look at him as he walked to his car or something. At least one wrestler had no idea what the gently caress was going on so he had a poo poo-eating grin on his face because nobody told him what to actually do and Vince fired him over it.
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Jan 28, 2022 17:53
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MrQwerty posted:lmao vince getting killed in a carbomb was hilarious And then Trump called to find out if Vince was really dead or not. I can't remember if that was the death angle, or the one where Vince was crushed by the stage, that they ended up cancelling because a real wrestler death ended up happening a few days later.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:03
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Infidel Castro posted:And that's not even the first time they did an incest angle! Was it at least the first time they did it with people who weren't actually related? I can't remember.
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Jan 28, 2022 19:44
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Shane never needed to work very hard but he still said "I'm going to try and kill myself whenever I am within eyesight of a wrestling ring." and I gotta respect that. I haven't watched wrestling since they got rid of the Spirit Squad, so the only real racist stuff I know about Triple H was the feud with Booker T that was depressingly true-to-life.
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Jan 29, 2022 02:40
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 Shane McMahon was just let go by WWE.
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Feb 2, 2022 19:52
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If this were 20 years ago, Shane being top-tier would sound perfectly reasonable to me. Dude was insane. AEW is the new competition right? I would watch the hell out of it if Shane O' Mac came out next week and did a flying dropkick from one corner of the ring to another. Doesn't even have to be to anybody. He can just have another match with God or something like that one time on WWE.
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Feb 2, 2022 23:30
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Brother Tadger posted:Lol professional wrestling is so dumb Yes, but it used to be the good kind of dumb. Comfy Fleece Sweater posted:I wouldn't mind learning more about how hosed up wrestling is behind the scenes. Who is the evil woke man wrestler. Has Vince everr gotten a lady wrestler pregnant and has illegitimate children. What is this about saudi blood money. Vince seems like an insane person every time I hear about him. I bet WWE it's full of real life wrestling storylines There was like a podcast/voting thing that happened a few years back on SA, where people tried to determine what the absolute, most hosed up thing in wrestling history was. It went over a ton of horrid and scummy poo poo. If somebody could post that link, that would be a great place to start. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 04:00
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Blurry Gray Thing posted:Gotta say, I was under the impression that wrestling stopped having villains like "The Communist!", "The Foreigner!", or "The [Insert Thing That Scares Old People!]" after we moved past... the 80s. Oh honey, let me tell you about MUHAMMAD HASSAN.  First off, this person's real name is Marc Copani, and they are Italian-American. So there's that. Now, this character came around after - you guessed it - 9/11. He appeared in filmed vignettes where he talked about the rise of Islamophobia after 9/11 and how he and "his people" were being treated like terrorists and asked for people to give him a chance to show that he is, and always has been, a proud American. Then he had his message translated by his manager, Daivari, into Arabic (note: it was Farsi, because Daivari is Persian). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0CZYzWD7u0 Naturally, the crowd loving hated them. Which they were supposed to, because this was a villain character. As you can see in the vignettes, they become more angry and hostile in their message, going from "Please stop treating us like poo poo." to "Keep being racist. See what happens." to "gently caress you and gently caress America." but the overall message remained pretty fair and reasonable if you ask me. An Arab-American becoming bitter and resentful as their own country develops more and more hostility against him and his people? Honestly, this was played pretty drat straight and, like, way more respectfully than most characters in wrestling (which is to say, still not great), because they didn't need to embellish. The average wrestling fan was inclined to hate him for the exact things he was pointing out. It would be brilliant if it wasn't so sad. Here's his debut in front of a televised crowd. He interrupts Mick Foley who is out there promoting his book and licking the boots of the US military. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHTrVeKDgAo You can see the character start to incorporate more hate and poo poo-talking to generate more heat, and this would continue as a means to distance the character from their valid and justified comments and make them more of a general hateful rear end in a top hat, so that the arguments could be made that "No, people don't hate you because they're racist. People hate you because you're assholes." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHCVp3J55s OK long story short WWE made him into not just a terrorist, but a MAGICAL terrorist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwCUSCTG6gk This aired the same day as the London bombings. Following this, Hassan was kept off television due to network demands, and was essentially killed off on the pay-per-view event that was coming up and then eventually released from the company, and Copani retired from wrestling. Funnily enough, Daivari would remain in WWE and on TV for another two years. Apparently Hassan was planned to become the youngest World Heavyweight Champion ever at Wrestlemania, so he went from being a potential future champion to being completely thrown under the bus. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 22:06
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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.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:07
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Pennywise the Frown posted:The video games were fun. The video games were what got me into watching in the first place. I had a demo of WWF Smackdown for PlayStation that I tried out with friends, and we had so much fun with it, I went out and bought the full game. Then I bought the sequel, which introduced me to Too Cool. "Wait, there's a guy who's signature move is to do THE WORM? And the other guy puts on GOGGLES when he jumps off the turnbuckle? And they DANCE? And they get other to dance by giving them SUNGLASSES? I gotta see if the show is really like this!" And it was!
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Feb 4, 2022 01:50
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Pennywise the Frown posted:
None. Apparently every single person in that video was asked if they were comfortable with this, and they all said the same thing. "I'm lovin' it."
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Feb 4, 2022 04:17
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Time_pants posted:2 Cool and Rikishi were, without hyperbole, the single greatest act in the history of any entertainment medium and always will be. I sadly only really got to see them once or twice. When I started watching, Brian was soon out of action for a neck injury I think. Then Scotty had a knee injury just in time for Brian to come back., and his return was short-lived because I think he had issues with drugs and was pulled from TV. By the time Scotty came back, everything moved on without him so he was only on Heat from time to time. I stand by The Worm being a significantly better finishing move than The People's Elbow. They're essentially the same move (an elbow drop on a guy laying down), but The Worm has waaaayyyyy better buildup and The Rock's hype was undeserved.
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Feb 4, 2022 20:29
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Vice President posted:I haven't really watched wrestling since the early 90s so I appreciate all the effortposting catching me up on all the trainwreck of nonsense and intrigue I missed out on. Can I tell you about one of my favorite periods in wrestling? It's essentially three back-to-back storylines involving one wrestler. Everyone, this is Kane.  His backstory is he is the brother of The Undertaker. The Undertaker's backstory is he is a magic demon zombie, and he set Kane on fire, so now Kane is a magic fire zombie.  Sometimes they're fine with all that though. OK so we've mentioned Triple H before. Triple H's character is.... he doesn't really have one, actually. He started off as a snobbish rich guy from Connecticut, and then just became a general prick. Kane and Triple H had a feud which came about because Triple H wanted to be a prick.  To antagonize the magic fire zombie, Triple H said he knew about "Katie Vick." Apparently, Katie Vick was a girl Kane knew back in school and had a crush on (it's suggested she did not like him back). Kane was out driving with her, got into a car crash, and she died. Remember, this is Kane. OK, so now Triple H is suggesting that Kane had sex with Katie Vick's dead body, going so far as to dress a mannequin up like a cheerleader and refer to her as Katie. Going so far as to film... this thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKWOAzDw4Hg So they have their big fight and Kane loses. Then they have their rematch and Kane wins. Then- OK eventually Kane gets a chance to face Triple H for the Big Important Belt, but if Kane loses the match... he has to take off his mask! The reason Kane wears a mask is because he was horribly disfigured when Undertaker burned him (Hmmm, I wonder what day that took place?). He even used to wear a costume that covered more of his body because he was scarred all over and he also couldn't talk, but I guess those things got better. But regardless, Kane has always worn a mask of some sort for as long as he had been Kane, which was the better part of a decade. If he loses his mask? Oh wow holy poo poo guys! So he loses. He has to take off his mask! OH WOW HOLY poo poo GUYS!  ...huh. Now I know what you're thinking. "Did WWE put black makeup on Kane to make him seem horribly burned and disfigured?" and the answer is "Maybe?" It's more likely that he would wear black around his eyes for an effect when wearing his mask and he just sweated it all over his face though. But that doesn't explain THAT HAIR. WHAT IS THAT HAIR. The next time we see Kane, he looks like this.  Also he was kinda freaking out about being unmasked and beating people up and setting them on fire. It's kinda suggested it was all some sort of psychological thing where HE saw himself as disfigured but never really was, which contradicts plenty of stuff over the years, but whatever. Anyway he got in a fight with his brother again for a little bit and that's how Kane got to stop wearing a mask, at least for a while. Next time; Loss.jpg comes to wrestling.
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Feb 7, 2022 04:47
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When we last left Kane, he had been antagonized by a grown man having sex with a mannequin and lost his mask. So Kane's continuing to be a loving psychopath, and he sets his sights on a woman named Lita.  Lita was often teamed up with the Hardy Boyz, pictured here. She was even dating Matt, the super-cool dude on the left. Their whole thing was they were TOTALLY EXTREME and also kinda pretty for wrestlers, so the ladies liked looking at them and the guys liked seeing them doing insane stunts. Lita was no slouch and would keep up with them in doing huge flying leaps and killer spots, in an era of wrestling where women were mostly used for catfights, strutting around in bikinis, and being objects passed around between wrestlers instead of being treated like actual human beings. So now we get to see Lita passed around between wrestlers instead of being treated like an actual human being. Kane kidnaps her. Matt Hardy fights Kane because THAT'S MY PROPERTY NOT YOURS!  This isn't related to anything. I just want you to remember the good times. Lita finds out she's pregnant. It's not Matt's baby. Kane raped her. Matt Hardy and Kane fight over who gets to marry Lita. Kane wins. Lita is now dragged alongside him all the time, and she tries to screw over his matches and stuff in an effort to get Kane to attack her and cause a miscarriage.  It gets worse so here's another cool gif. Now let's meet GENE SNITSKY.  Greatest wrestling name ever. Gene Snitsky debuted in a match against Kane. Lita was there. She distracted Kane, which lets Snitsky get in a cheap shot, which caused Kane to fall on Lita.  Please absolutely watch this video. You will thank me for it. Now, a miscarriage is definitely not a joke, and I have no intention of making light of it. And I know that it’s often much harder on the woman than on the man. But in this case, it was definitely much harder on Kane. He ended up getting a feud with Snitsky over it, while Snitsky's entire character ended up being repeating "IT. WASN'T. MY. FAULT!" It even became his theme music. I should point out that this made Kane into a good guy, and actually united Kane and Lita. Snitsky's character would eventually lean into the whole thing and torment both Lita and Kane over the miscarriage. He would beat Kane in a match and sideline him for months with an "injury" (Kane needed time off to film a movie, which would be released on some day I don't know what day though), which then left Snitsky to just go after Lita, and not much else. Kane would come back and beat Snitsky, whose character then shifted to being a creep with a foot fetish. But now, I give you; Gene Snitsky Punts a Baby So what happens to Lita and Matt Hardy, you might wonder? Well, Lita cheated on Matt Hardy with fellow wrestler Edge. Matt posted about it online, and was fired for breaking the illusion of wrestling all being real (just think about this for a moment, with everything I've already told you in mind). All of this was all over the internet for fans to hear about, and they were pretty pissed at WWE, and pretty pissed at Lita. They would slut-shame her in live shows and chant that they wanted Matt back. Eventually, WWE would lean into this and have her become a bad guy and start an on-screen relationship with Edge, where her character was now "Slut." Complete with Edge and Lita having a "Live Sex Celebration" in the middle of the ring in a bed. Oh and then Matt Hardy got re-hired and would feud with Edge. Because this is all a very healthy way to run a business. Next time; A day to remember. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 27, 2022 |
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Feb 7, 2022 05:25
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When we last left Kane, he had gone from a rapist to a hero rapist, and filmed a movie. So like I said, Kane was sidelined with a storyline injury so he could film See No Evil, one of WWE's early ventures into making movies under their WWE Films banner. They really wanted to make movies, and would put them into theatres and stuff just like real movies! Watch a trailer for it! See No Evil was set to be released on May 19th. But there was a slight issue; The utter mention of the date "May 19th" would send Kane into a psychotic, murderous rage. He would turn on anybody, included his Current Best Friend, The Big Show.  Big Show is very big. Now, you might immediately think "Hey, May 19th happens every year. Has this happened before?" Nope! So then you might think "Is there something that happened recently that would suddenly make May 19th special?" Nope! "So what is the deal with May 19th?" Nope! This went on for weeks. They would talk about the movie, May 19th would be mentioned, Kane would freak out. There even came moments were the big screen they have as part of the stage would show Kane's old mask and lights would change and you'd hear spooky sounds and voices (except you were supposed to pretend you didn't see any of this because it was all in Kane's head). So what happened when May 19th actually came? Well... the movie came out.  I like my women like I like my slice-and-dice-'em horror flicks. Afterward, some commentator guy would talk to Kane and be like "Hey, Kane? The gently caress?" and Kane's answer was "Oh yeah, May 19th is the day of my origin story where Undertaker (or maybe someone else by this point who loving knows) burned my family alive and disfigured me (but I got better). Haha, crazy stuff. But at least that's all behind us now!" Except it wasn't. Kane would have a match but it would get interrupted by those silly theatrics again, and then out comes... Kane?  The outfit is supposed to be the one Kane wore when he first debuted. It probably IS the same one. But putting it on someone else who is not Kane and giving them a horrible wig makes it look like they got it from a Spirit Halloween. Fake Kane would torment and beat up Real Kane for weeks leading up to a Big Match at the Big Event. When Real Kane was asked about all this, he simply suggested he knew who the imposter was, and that it was someone from his past, and he was very scared of him.  Fake Kane won at the Big Event. The very next night, Fake Kane would once again show up to do his spooky thing, but Real Kane beat the crap out of him and kicked him out of the building. The End. Apparently the higher-ups decided the whole thing was poo poo and nobody wanted to see it continue. So we will probably never know who Fake Kane was supposed to be, but the man behind the mask would get another shot on TV soon enough. But maybe that's a story someone else can tell us about.  Kane - real name Glenn Jacobs - is now currently the Libertarian-Republican mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. 
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Feb 7, 2022 06:00
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Marshal Prolapse posted:He's also super nice from another person who did some work periphery to him. Hell even Jim Cornette won't bad mouth him, he loves him dating back from Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Kane is a worker who did drat near everything he was asked and never seemed to rock any boats. He's probably the ideal employee for WWE. I feel like "Undertaker's Brother" really rubbed off on him because I feel the same way about Undertaker and they probably did have a really strong relationship where Kane learned a lot of poo poo from him.
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Feb 7, 2022 21:16
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Time_pants posted:Yeah, it's too bad this thread wasn't around like 6-12 months ago when Alexa Bliss and Lilly the Doll were on loving nonstop. That was some peak Vince bullshit. I'm on a phone so I'm not really in much of a position to give a comprehensive rundown, but they leaned loving hard into making one of their more conventionally attractive women's wrestlers into suddenly acting like a possessed childlike girl and making her weird doll haunt people and cause other wrestlers to puke black goo. See that's the kinda thing I eat up. I loved wrestling when it was just not trying to take itself seriously (but also wasn't using rape as a plot device). It's probably why I latched on so hard to Too Cool, and why I stopped watching when they got rid of The Spirit Squad, which I kinda want to gush about at some point in this thread. Creepy girl who makes people throw up black goo? I'm in. Give me Harley Quinn Undertaker.  You will probably need to elaborate some more on why I should not be in love right now. I mean, I'm sure WWE/Vince are doing absolutely stupid poo poo with this but I'd also love to believe that this owns. Edit: I looked at some clips online. She looks to be having a LOT of fun with this character and I'm down for it and all its cheese (AHAHAHAHAHAHA). But it also looks like they're doing away with the character? So that's lame. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 05:07
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That Time Vince Almost Ended Kurt Angle's Career (Not Clickbait!) (Gone Sexual?!) Reality shows were all the rage, and I guess still kinda are. But going back a few years they were definitely the "Hot New Thing" with your Survivors and Big Brothers and Bachelors and whatnot. So WWE wanted to get in the action. The premise of Tough Enough was actually pretty solid. You get a bunch of people who want to become professional wrestlers, and you create a competition reality show based around training them. The audience gets to see what goes into becoming a wrestler and the contestants get to build up names for themselves before ever even debuting in the ring. The trainers are all WWE wrestlers (current and former), so they all get a rub and a sort of general push. And even though there's only supposed to be one or two winners, with the prize being a massive contract, you still now have a handful of other talent you can continue to work with and sign to smaller contracts. It's a total win! Now let's talk about how this all falls apart. The mentality behind how to properly train wrestlers is to basically put them through boot camp. The general idea was to break these people and knock them down. Those that got back up? Congrats, you want it bad enough. Those that can't handle it? Well, see ya later, weakling. Exhaust the poo poo out of them, make them run drills and practice moves until their muscles give out. Beat on them until they're too sort to move. On one hand, professional wrestling is a very physical job, and not only do you have to worry about yourself, but you gotta take care of everyone else you get in the ring with. You NEED to be at a certain level of physicality and determination or else people will get hurt. On the other hand, there's lots of egos and people looking down on these contestants for what some considered an easy road to get to the same place others worked their rear end off for, and they'll be DAMNED if they're gonna let you get away with it. This was, and is, a very common issue in WWE, and you have all kinds of fun things relating to hazing, "Stiffing" (actually hurting your opponent for real), a kangaroo court of wrestlers, and even worse. Because this is a very good and healthy way to run a business.  Remember this face for later. So there was a fine line between "Make sure these people understand what is required of them and they can provide it" and "Make sure these people suffer for their arrogance because I'm old and my body is falling apart and I'm past my prime in this business and I can't handle these things with maturity."  Remember this face for later. So let's jump ahead to Tough Enough 4, where it seemed the entire premise was to center the whole thing around the very open secrets I just mentioned above. By this time, the show was no longer being broadcast on MTV, so instead, they were vignettes aired during the actual wrestling show, with some in-ring moments as well in front of the crowd. Apparently it was Vince's idea to have things play out the way they did, with a little help from Paul Heyman egging things along, so we can tie this back to the original premise of this thread being about Vince's terrible ideas. "Training" continued to include the above boot camp-style bullshit, but now included some very poorly thought out segments. You had other wrestlers staying in character and playing off these kids for heat by bullying them and smacking them around, except there was the major issue of these kids lacking experience and having no idea how to make any of this not look pathetic. For example, one time, Big Show talked some poo poo and pushed them around backstage, so the contestants were asked to cut promos in the ring to talk poo poo about Big Show in response. Following this, Big Show came out and smacked them around some more and would then body slam people who had not properly learned how to sell the illusion that they were just body slammed by a 7-foot-tall, 400-pound man, which ultimately made him look weak as poo poo because these guys would pop back up and back into position like they were currently trained to do. Hell, they were excitedly lining up for the opportunity like it was a ride. It's worth a watch. (Honorable mention to Nick Mitchell's promo at 2:14. This guy would go on to play Mitch as part of the Spirit Squad.) And then there's Kurt Angle.  Kurt Angle is a former Olympian and a goddamn wrestling machine. He's one of the best technical guys wrestling might ever have, and at the time, was playing a bad guy. He also had a neck held together by hopes and dreams and maybe some chewing gum, and was not at his physical best. So it's a great opportunity for him to establish dominance on, a bunch of kids who still don't know how to properly execute maneuvers without getting hurt or hurting someone else. Hell, make sure you run them to exhaustion and fill them with pasta first. And to make it even better, make them do a squat-thrusts competition to tire them out even more and the "winner" gets to have an actual impromptu match with Kurt Angle RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT! So Kurt picks this one guy as a "winner" and lays him out as a reward, breaking the kid's ribs in the process and apparently landing on his own head wrong, causing him to lose feeling in his hand. Then, he challenges the others to see if anyone else wants some of this. Now, what the contestants were probably supposed to do, was back off and make Angle look like an rear end in a top hat, albeit a very strong one. Daniel Puder either did not understand the assignment, or understood it perfectly, depending on who you ask.  Puder had a background in MMA, which meant that he was no stranger to harsh training, and was not one to back down from a fight. So not only did the attempts to wear him down not work, but he just saw Angle come out and break a friend's ribs and offered an open invitation to try and kick Angle's rear end for real, so he stepped the gently caress up. And the audience loved it. This guy immediately made a name for himself and just established a future storyline and feud to work with. In other words, Puder had now won Tough Enough and next few weeks were simply a formality. But yeah, back to the match. They lock up and Puder quickly puts Angle in a Kimura Lock, which is basically "I'm going to bend your arm in a way it was not designed for." And he held that poo poo in, trying to get Angle to tap out and made to look like a bitch. Kurt Angle was not a bitch. Kurt Angle knew he absolutely could not tap out. Puder would have to break his arm before Angle would ever relent. Puder may or may not have been willing to oblige. Thankfully, Puder rolled on his back, which is something you can do in MMA but not in wrestling, so a ref made a very quick decision to count this as Angle pinning Puder and winning the match. Puder relented and even extended his hand to Angle out of respect, but Angle instead got in his face and told him how loving stupid he was and to get the gently caress out of the ring. Poor quality but you get the idea. And that's how Vince McMahon almost sidelined one of his biggest stars with a broken arm. After winning Tough Enough, Puder would go on to be part of the Royal Rumble, where he was stiffed by three other wrestlers and tossed out of the ring. He would then leave WWE after they tried to negotiate a much cheaper developmental contract for him after his first year guarantee was over, and continued to pursue MMA competition, retiring with an 8-0 record. Angle would seek to be released from his contract due to his neck continuing to not actually exist, but would then immediately sign with another promotion. The whereabouts of Kurt Angle's neck are currently unknown. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 23:13
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Mokotow posted:Not a wrestling watcher, so need some clarification. Personally, I felt like the novelty wore off after the first competition, which is how I tend to feel about most reality competitions. The later seasons didn't really do anything to change up the formula with the exception of Tough Enough 4, but that was simply because MTV wasn't making it its own show anymore, so WWE had to incorporate it into its normal programming. And I would say those changes were stupid and dangerous for everyone involved. My memories of the show are pretty fuzzy now, as are my memories of who would get signed and what would become of them. Maybe some other folks have some highlights to mention. In the meantime, please enjoy the theme song for Maven, the male winner of Tough Enough 1, who had a BEAUTIFUL dropkick and had a feud with The Undertaker after kicking him out of the Royal Rumble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z43_wtXsrU And then listen to the theme song for Nidia, the female winner of Tough Enough 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSyvwLxfdOQ GolfHole posted:anxiously waiting to hear about these ghosts Soon. I was hoping to find some good clips of them to share first. I'll leave you with this though. 
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Feb 10, 2022 03:56
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I realized that I don't really have much in the way of talking about The Spirit Squad in a way that connects with Vince's insanity, and the only decent clips I can find of them are on WWE.com. So it's not really a big story to tell here in this thread. All you need to know is that The Spirit Squad was a faction of 5 guys whose gimmick was that they were male cheerleaders. Terrible male cheerleaders.  They would do chants completely out of sync. Their cheerleader moves were ridiculously goofy dances (Remember Mitch scooting his rear end on the mat like a dog? That became a signature move for him) and jumping up and down. They were designed to be grating as hell to the audience. And it was GLORIOUS. These guys put their all into the gimmick and sold everything that was asked of them. They had airhorns to distract their opponents. They would form a human pyramid for one of them to air off up to attack the opponent. They even had a goddamn trampoline to jump off of. And the entire time they would be screaming and acting like the absolute biggest douchebags and just wear their opponent down with sheer assholery before ganging up on them.  They even had a neat hook of collectively becoming the Tag Team Champions, sharing and defending the belts as a group instead of a duo. Any two members could be booked for a match, but all five of them were gonna come out and do their thing. They would eventually be taken in as Vince's henchmen as he dealt with a feud against Shawn Michaels, beating the absolute poo poo out of him. Soon though, Triple H would defect from under Vince and rejoin his old friend to bring back Degeneration-X. From there, the Spirit Squad would get clowned on and squashed, literally being stuffed into a box that was addressed to Ohio Valley Wrestling (WWE's developmental/retooling division). Kenny would go on to singles competition for a brief time, I think two of the other guys remained as the Spirit Squad for one or two shows, one was released, and the other would become Dolph Ziggler. But I loving loved The Spirit Squad. I loved them so much I even bought the action figures of them.
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Feb 12, 2022 01:25
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Mumpy Puffinz posted:Remember that time the 45th President of the United States was a character on WrestleMania Which time? I'm officially requesting someone regale us with the story behind this moment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTYJxpeltEI 
Jamesman fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 20:17
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There's so much you're leaving out. People need to know that "Rosie" was constantly eating backstage, including an entire Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake, and she was perving in the ladies' locker room.
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Feb 14, 2022 22:41
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So many stories here now and it's hard to keep track of what's already been shared, and my time as a WWE fan is long behind me, so I think this is my last tale unless this thread unlocks something else in the future. Vince's OTHER Son - Part One: Dr. F & the Women His name, is Finlay. And he loves to fight!  David Finlay began wrestling at 16. His father ran a promotion, a wrestler no-showed, and lil Finlay stepped in. He would work his way through the European wrestling scene for the next 20 years, before being picked up by WCW. I don't really know much about his time in WCW. All I know is this one glorious picture I found on Google.  When WCW folded and was gobbled up by Vince, that included the contracts of most of their talent, Finlay included. He was now 43 years old and apparently hadn't wrestled a WCW show for about a year and wasn't really considered someone WWE would bring back out for any of their Invasion storyline stuff, so instead, he was brought on as a trainer for the next generation of wrestlers. And this is what makes Finlay so drat cool. Finlay knows how to wrestle. Dude was born into the business and worked his rear end off for decades. Having someone like that being able to train others is a goddamn gift, and one of the smartest things WWE has ever done. All their big names that rose up in the early 2000's were probably trained by Finlay... including the women. If you would like to see what women's wrestling looked like circa 2001, please watch this video.  Or just look at this gif. Finlay was training the women how to properly strip down without showing their assholes on live television, and he saw a bit of an issue with that. He decided he was gonna train the women to actually wrestle, and many of the women were on board with that idea. The most famous example would have to be Trish Stratus.  Such an icon, even The Rock looks up to her! I previously talked about how Lita broke conventions when it came to women in wrestling by actually wrestling. Trish Stratus was those conventions for a long time. She was valet/arm candy, she was in every various state of undress you could show on television (and some you couldn't but still managed to), and she was in all those classic storylines we know and "love" Vince for.  Vince gifs really deserve to be in an art museum. Holy poo poo. If you didn't watch the above video, it's of Trish and Stacy Kiebler (another conventional female talent, this time coming in from the WCW buyout) having a Bra & Panties Match for the Women's Championship. And it was brought about following a Gravy Bowl Match. If any of this sounds at all arousing, keep in mind it's all accompanied by the lively commentary of Jerry "The Howler Monkey" Lawler, which makes the whole thing feel like you're watching softcore porn with a 10-year-old boy. Under the guidance of Finlay, Trish actually busted her rear end to become an awesome wrestler. She could have continued to do all the same stuff she was doing, made her money, and left after a couple more years. She could have continued to keep having segments where she made out with Vince, was spanked by Vince, was made to crawl around and bark like a dog by Vince. Trish chose violence. And we absolutely love her for it. Trish Stratus' retirement match in 2006. And the higher-ups at WWE (*cough* Vince *cough*) wanted NONE of this to happen. Finlay was actually told not to do this, and just keep it to simple catfight-style stuff because nobody wanted to see "girls wrestling like guys." Finlay, also, chose violence. And we absolutely love him for that. This was the tiny little snowball that would continue to roll and grow, and you can see the impact it has had in WWE over the years. The era of "Divas" is gone, now replaced with a proper Women's Division and a real belt to go along with it. They've had women headline shows and even have events (or maybe just one event, I don't know) where the entire card was made up of women-only matches. People actually watch these shows just to see the women's wrestling. The current talent cite people like Lita and Trish Stratus as pioneers in WWE and inspirations, and the two are even in WWE's Hall of Fame. And it can easily be traced back not just to Finlay, but to the women who were willing to say "gently caress You" to Vince and actually wrestle in wrestling. Next Time: Finlay returns to the ring.
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Feb 22, 2022 17:55
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Vince's OTHER Son - Part Two: The Little Bastard Finlay made his return to in-ring action in 2005, now 47 years old. That may sound old, especially when you see how other older wrestlers can look in the ring...  And especially when so many wrestlers are dead by 50... But Finlay was no slouch. It certainly helped that his background was in more grounded, traditional professional wrestling, versus the flashier style and high-flying moves. So this wasn't some guy reliving his glory days, having his corpse paraded around to do the same shtick he did when he was younger. I mean, it probably was the same shtick he did when he was younger, but that shtick is basically "I punch and kick people" and that just ages better than, say, The Road Warriors.  RIP Hawk and Animal Finlay debuts in WWE. He also knew how to work, and being a trainer meant he wasn't rusty and had good chemistry with a lot of other wrestlers in the ring. He was supposed to be bad guy, but there was something just so darn likable about this guy coming out and having good matches and beating people up that he actually kind of sucked as a bad guy. How can you hate this face?  There was also another problem. Finlay just wasn't Irish enough. At least, someone thought that was a problem. He's wearing a shamrock on his singlet, has a pretty great theme song, and had pre-debut vignettes that would remind you just. How. Irish. He is. There's even a little drawing of him as a leprechaun in his entrance video!  MY NAME, IS FINLAY. AND YOU WON'T GET ME LUCKY CHARMS! But what if... hear me out here... what if, he started beating people up with a shillelagh? And what if we changed his theme music? And what if we had him do a little high-stepping jig? Oh wait, sorry, that last one was for a different Irish wrestler. HEY WHAT IF HE HAD AN ACTUAL loving LEPRECHAUN?  So now there's this unnamed little person who lives under the goddamn ring and comes out during Finlay's matches to cause a ruckus and attack people like a rabid badger, until Finlay kicks him back into whatever hell dimension he comes from. For a while, this guy was only known as "Little Bastard," until Finlay tries his damnedest to sound threatening while staring down Michael Cole, and shouting. HIS NAME. IS. HORNSWOGGLE. (Somehow not the worst thing featured in this video.)  Hornswoggle has been brought up in this thread before, but I don't think it's really been stressed enough that WWE introduced a magical ring imp into their world and we were just supposed to... accept it? I don't know if this was a punishment or just one of Vince's Great Ideas, but they took Hard Irish Badass and felt they needed to refine that gimmick by having this become part of it. And to the credit of both Finlay and Hornswoggle, they worked their asses off to make this good television. And they kind of succeeded. Seeing Finlay unleash this crazed rear end in a top hat upon his enemies, literally picking him up and using him as a weapon, was more entertaining than it had any right to be. And as a result, Hornswoggle stuck around for a long time and eventually developed into not only his own character, but a sort of legitimate wrestler too. That's not to say most of it was good.  Only some of it was good. Little people are an endless source of comedy, according to WWE. One of their favorite things to do is dress them up like wrestlers in a form of mockery during feuds, which has been utilized by both good and bad characters over the years. There was a VERY brief window where WWE actually tried to treat them with something resembling dignity, by creating a wrestling division for them, but they called it "WWE Juniors" and years of conditioning their audience to laugh at little people lead to the entire thing coming off like comedy sketches. They would release almost all the talent they hired for the division, with the exception of Dylan Postl, who would go on to play Hornswoggle.  Hard to believe that nobody would take this seriously! And considering he would then play a feral leprechaun, you can see that they were done trying to consider little people as people. As his character developed, he would "speak" in grunts and snarls, which could only be understood by a select few. He would be smeared with dirt on his face because he lived under the ring and was more of an animal than a human being. He had gotten over by being with Finlay, so now WWE was going to shove him down everyone's throat by inserting him into all kinds of horrible skits and storylines. ...which brings us to Part 3. Next Time: Putting the "Kennedy" in "Vincent Kennedy McMahon." Jamesman fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 22, 2022 19:52
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Vinces OTHER Son - Part Three: MISTEEEEEEEER KENNEDYYYYYYY! ...KENNEDYYYYYYY Ken Kennedy was exactly the kinda guy WWE wanted you to see when you turned on their show in the mid-2000's. He had the look, he had the mic skills, he had the personality, he had the moves (ish?). You looked at him, and you not only knew WWE was gonna push this guy, you also kinda knew they were right. ...KENNEDYYYYYYY The only issue was Kennedy's body appeared to be prone to exploding. Just as his momentum was going, he would get injured. This kept happening, and kept him from reaching the top. Every time you thought you were going to see him become THE Next Big Thing, something would happen that would sideline him. WWE tried to keep him on TV and not lose the heat, but there's only so many times this can happen before everyone's feeling like they should stop getting invested in the poor guy.  WWE stayed invested, though. There was undeniably something about the guy, and they knew that sooner or later, he would climb his way to the top. Things were looking good for a while, and so he ended up being booked to win a Money in the Bank match, which gave the winner a year to "cash in" on challenging for the championship at any point during events. And then the muscle on his arm was ripped off the bone, so they had him give up the prize to another wrestler. Sadly, the "muscle on his arm was ripped off the bone" was a premature diagnosis, and the injury ended up being much less severe. Had it had been known at the time, he probably would have kept the prize and the plans stayed in place for a Wrestlemania match. But even so, something else was about to happen that would gently caress it all up anyway.  "Hey, fuckers. It's me again." The murder-suicide of the Benoit family re-ignited talk about steroid use in professional wrestling. WWE worked on damage control by instituting a Wellness Policy (For real this time! Honest!) and having wrestlers be a part of the discussion on news outlets to turn the conversation away from any blame people might be trying to put on the company. One of these people would be Mr. Kennedy. And then Mr. Kennedy was implicated in steroid abuse through journalist investigations, along with several others. The investigation results were bad enough, since WWE was trying to act like "No, we're totally on top of this stuff." But having one of those people implicated be on TV saying "No, we're totally on top of this stuff." was loving embarrassing. I'm sure at least a few people wanted Kennedy dead after this, but since WWE was trying to distance themselves from murders, he was instead suspended, per the Wellness Policy (For People Whose Name Doesn't Rhyme With "Mandy Borten").  They call him "The Viper" because he injects cobra venom into his testicles. Kennedy would stick around for a bit longer, but this pretty much cemented that any plans for him to be the Next Big Thing were dead and gone. This included a storyline where it would be revealed that Vince McMahon had an illegitimate son... and they were a wrestler in WWE! So what do you with a storyline involving Vince when one of the key actors needs to be replaced? Well, you replace them. You idiot. Of course, you could just scrap the whole thing and come up with a new and better storyline, but you should know by now Vince never wants to throw out a perfectly good lovely plot involving himself (See: The time Vince's character died. Twice.) So yeah, just hold off a bit and revisit it when you have another big wrestler to plug into such a major story. Or... maybe a little wrestler...  And that's how Hornswoggle became a McMahon. For, like, a month. Then it was revealed he was actually Finlay's son.  MY NAME, IS FINLAY. AND I LOVE TO gently caress!
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Feb 22, 2022 20:50
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TheSwizzler posted:Replying from the previous page but I'm sure you'll get to H-Swaggle's horrible feud with Chavo eventually, which did irreparable damage to both of them. I don't think I was watching at the time of this, so someone else will have to cover it. The only Chavo thing I remember is Kerwin White.
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Feb 23, 2022 03:34
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Gavok posted:Becky Lynch. I no longer follow wrestling, aside from checking out Up Up Down Down/Xavier Woods. So when I hear about wrestling things, it's through social media or people talking about stuff elsewhere. I remember the Twitter trend regarding WWE's treatment of women's wrestling. I remember people being sick of Roman Reigns being forced upon them and expected to love him, and wanting Bryan Danielson to be pushed. And I sure as poo poo know that Becky Lynch is THE MAN.  And it's so weird to me how the audience can have a perception of the product, and have platforms where they can not only make it clear to WWE what they want but also bring attention to the product to outsiders and draw interest to it, and WWE continues to stubbornly fight against this at every point. I'm not saying you need to give in to everything the audience thinks they want, but you're actively sabotaging yourself by knowingly giving them what they DON'T want because you're loving petty. And it's something Vince has done and continues to do because when you're a billionaire, you exist in a realm separated from the rest of the earth. The concept of "losing money" means nothing to you, even if it means everything to the people that work for you.
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Feb 23, 2022 19:48
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I apparently significantly misremembered the WWE Juniors Division and was giving WWE way more credit for it than they deserved. If anyone would like to delve into more details about it, I would absolutely love to read a break down of it.
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Feb 24, 2022 21:35
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So I saw Asuka trending on Twitter the other day, with the news being she's being kept off TV because WWE has no idea what to do with her. And I think that's absolutely fair. If I was as creatively stunted as WWE, I wouldn't know what to do with this, either.  But are there any fun (or "fun") stories that can be shared about Asuka's time in WWE, or other Japanese talents? I feel like more than a few Japanese people have been scouted and brought into WWE, only for it to be a complete and utter mess. Ultimo Dragon comes to mind from my time when I watched WWE.
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Mar 2, 2022 17:27
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Cornwind Evil posted:I said in my Hell In A Cell posts that people generally get into wrestling for two reasons: as a calling, or a job. I believe Cena is the former, or at least, leans that way much more than the latter. Admittedly, he didn’t start as a wrestler-to-be; he was originally a bodybuilder. Whether that was just what he did first before moving onto his desired career, or not, that’s what happened. If anyone remembers Atom Films (YouTube before YouTube was a thing, with a focus on short films), I remember watching some video that was a prototype to those prank channels you saw pop up a few years back. I can't remember the premise all that well, but I do remember a very large, muscley, veiny man coming out and screaming at people. I unfortunately can't find it anywhere and even IMDB doesn't make mention of it in his credits. But this is pretty much what he looked like then.  It should also be noted that in Cena's early days in WWE, he would always come out in tights with matching colors to the football team of wherever they were doing shows that day. Then he went into his rapper phase that was like the opposite of Kerwin White yet somehow worse, with raps about how gay he thinks you are. Then after filming The Marine, he'd now salute and wear camo jorts. And I don't know where things went from there because that's when I stopped watching. But the guy's character had always been about pandering and throwing poo poo at the wall and seeing what sticks. And whatever didn't stick, well, they're gonna use your face to wipe it up and press you up against the wall and then say "Look! They love it!"
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Mar 5, 2022 18:53
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I get that Cena was marketable and kids (and women) liked him, and the business they did with him in that position was seemingly more worthwhile than listening to other demographics of their audience. I get that nobody cared that I and many others didn't enjoy Cena. But I always felt like it didn't have to be that way. The problem was never John Cena himself, but always what WWE was doing with him, and I don't believe they HAD to make him this polarizing centerpiece of their business. But WWE's problem has often been - as we've highlighted many times in this very thread - they're just really bad at telling stories. If they had been better at it, there wouldn't have been any reason that more of the audience couldn't have gotten behind Cena. And keep in mind that, at the time I was watching, there were 3 separate shows for 3 separate rosters. You would think that, hey, if you don't like Cena, then there's other options WWE would be putting out that might be up your alley. Cena's only one guy. Cena's only in one match, if that. You have an entire rest of the show that might have something in there. If not, maybe you'd like Raw, or ECW. Again, I will refer back to the many tales we've already shared in this thread to explain why that didn't work. When wrestlers are released, it's often attributed to the excuse of "Creative has nothing for you." The late Chris Kanyon is said to have given them the perfect response to this when his time was up. "Fire Creative, then."
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Mar 7, 2022 19:05
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Gavok posted:WWE’s ECW You totally forgot the best part. Raw was on Spike TV. Smackdown was on UPN. Where does ECW go? Sci-Fi Channel. That's a pretty drat odd pairing at first glance, but at least one person in charge somewhere was aware of that fact.  This is The Zombie, played by the late Tim Arson. The Zombie was... a zombie. He stumbled into the ring, grabbed the microphone from the ring announcer, and cut one of the top 5 promos in WWE ever. You already know what you're going to see here, don't you? Also included in the video is ECW veteran The Sandman coming down through the crowd, and beating The Zombie up with a kendo stick, essentially sending a couple messages out there to the audience about what to expect out of "WWE's version of ECW, on Sci-Fi Channel." This actually became a recurring segment on ECW. They'd come out with various gimmick characters and have Sandman beat them up. They quickly stopped having much to do with "Sci-Fi elements" and were more just whatever random comedy poo poo they could come up with. Like... Macho Libre - A cross between Nacho Libre and Macho Man Randy Savage And my personal favorite, Big Dick Johnson.  I searched for images and this one came up from our very own forums. Big Dick Johnson was already a sort of established character in WWE, courtesy of Vince McMahon wanting to see a big fat male stripper character for some reason, and getting one of the writers to portray it. It actually was kind of well received, so WWE would bring him out every now and then, including on ECW where this happened.  This even became my forums avatar for quite some time!  Now as far as other sci-fi elements would go, I believe there might have been a guy dressed as an alien or something, but there were actually two larger presences on the show that would represent "sci-fi" pretty strongly. The first was Kevin Thorn.  No, this isn't a member of My Chemical Romance. Kevin Thorn was a wrestling vampire.  How original! There was also Ariel, a tarot card reader... for like one or two episodes. Then Kevin Thorn bit her and she became his vampire valet.  There's a lot more to say about Thorn and Ariel's times in WWE, but that's a whole other story and maybe someone better than me could talk about them since it was right around that time I stopped watching. Also if anyone remembers any more sci-fi things they included in the show, or any other stuff regarding what kinda show ECW was (Kelly Kelly's sexpose or whatever comes to mind), those would be some great additions too. Jamesman fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Mar 8, 2022 |
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Mar 8, 2022 07:30
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Bogus Adventure posted:Wow, Big Titty Vampire Wrestler is a fetish I did not know I had until now... Big Titty Vampire is a fetish everyone is born with so I think you're lying. Maybe the Wrestler part is new for you though. I dunno.
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Mar 8, 2022 08:15
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I fail to see the issue with crazy people killing Randy Orton.
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Mar 8, 2022 22:59
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Ad by Khad posted:no editing at all They had Alexa Bliss throw a fireball into Orton's face? OK I'm officially in love with Alexa Bliss. (And Liv Morgan)
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Mar 9, 2022 02:53
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I've already professed my love for Alexa Bliss based on the few things I've seen of her and read about her in this thread, but I also don't doubt that WWE would take ideas that are Most Definitely My poo poo and somehow make them very bad. My question is do you see a universe where these gimmicks would have been fun and interesting, or am I just broken brained to think that at least the ideas were solid on paper and just needed a better stage to use them on?
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Mar 9, 2022 22:50
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FullLeatherJacket posted:It would probably have worked in something like Lucha Underground, where everyone has magic talismans with other people's souls in them and Pentagon fights sexy evil ninjas (Kairi Sane, Mayu Iwatami and Io Shirai) and just ragdolls them around for twenty minutes It's just that, WWE is already a place where dead men and fire monsters and leprechauns roam the halls, and maybe that's why I look at something like Alexa Bliss and I'm on board with the idea, because I feel like it's just an extension of that. What's the difference between a magic doll and a magic urn? What's the difference between Alexa setting Orton on fire and Kane setting everyone on fire? In premise, I'm totally on board. Ad by Khad posted:better booking coulda made alexa's gimmick much better and coulda made bray wyatt's stuff outright good But yeah, it's not surprising to me at all that WWE would gently caress it all up, especially WWE now. But I do wonder about something. Why is it things like Kane and the Undertaker worked and have stood strong for decades, but other, similar characters are short-lived? Are they just seen as Undertaker/Kane knock-offs and don't stand on their own? Would Undertaker and Kane even be things if those characters showed up in the last ten years?
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Mar 10, 2022 00:33
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Gavok posted:I think what separates them is focus. The stuff with Undertaker has never been well-defined in any way. It also tends to exist in the background of the character. He doesn't shoot lightning bolts during matches. It's theatrics for promos or post-match stuff. He'd constantly get up, but that seemed to blur the line between supernatural and just being a tough bastard. Do you think the emphasis on theatrics was related to the pandemic in any way? The lack of a live audience and them trying to adjust leading to playing too much with the style of the show? As for the Goldberg thing, what I looked at said this was one of those Saudi Blood Money events, so WWE deliberately tanked Wyatt's character in favor of Goldberg doing Goldberg things to appease those princes. But would you mark this as the beginning of the end for him, the final nail in the coffin, or just something in the middle of a clusterfuck?
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Mar 10, 2022 04:58
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:i think people often forget that kane and the undertaker have been in some of the worst wrestling storylines and matches of all time and imo if it wasnt for the streak, nostalgia and a few good matches neither of them would be as well-remembered as they are now. and even the streak has the undertaker getting choloformed by Giant González and the match being ruled as a DQ lmao. Well that's kind of my point though. I made plenty of posts highlighting some completely insane Kane stories so I'm not oblivious that he and Undertaker were subjects of terrible storytelling. I just don't really know why those characters were allowed to exist for so long (of course, Taker famously became BikerTaker for a few years, and Kane really strayed from his origins), where other characters are so quickly abandoned.
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Mar 12, 2022 02:10
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Mr. Meagles posted:Razor's Edge was truly one of the S-tier finishing moves Who is the guy getting hit with it? That selling is absolutely perfect.
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Mar 15, 2022 17:50
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