The Macho Man Randy Savage Wrestling Memorial Thread

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[quote name='lombarvm']Woo Woo Woo...

Is this the third week in a row Cena has been on camera with ZR?[/QUOTE]

I think it's only been this week and last week.
 
I'd rather ROH not be on TV at all than be on MTV2. It would be completely pointless, particularly for the reasons Brak and Survivalism gave. Going from HDNet to MTV2 would be a completely lateral move at best. They can have Wrestlelicious (I can't believe I actually just typed that word).
 
You could throw him into a 50,000 watt searchlight.

I really hope the Miz does a Rock and plays a tape of Cena saying "I quit."
 
I was thinking that he would just start beating Riley up with the pipe after he handed it to him to demonstrate to Cena what he would do.
 
They had Cena say "I Quit" pretty clearly tonight - twice. I would not be shocked to see a Rock/Mankind redux. Either that or a Flair/Mankind redux where Miz winds up threatening someone and Cena says I Quit to save them or whatever.

...then again, Cena could just win, since Cena always wins.
[quote name='tiredfornow']That streaming site I posted up earlier relooped back to 1990 and it's fucking incredible. Seems so corny, but really entertaining.

http://www.justin.tv/thestr0

Cactus Jack :D[/QUOTE]

Awesome, thanks.
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']They had Cena say "I Quit" pretty clearly tonight - twice. I would not be shocked to see a Rock/Mankind redux. Either that or a Flair/Mankind redux where Miz winds up threatening someone and Cena says I Quit to save them or whatever.[/QUOTE]

At first, I was thinking the first one. But after Miz said that he has ideas on how to get Cena to quit, I'm thinking he or A-Ri are going to hold a "fan" hostage and make Cena quit to save them.
 
[quote name='diddy310']Kane and Big Show have done more for the Nexus than Cena did in the 8 months of that feud. Seriously...Big Show did the face in peril thing and sold offense from Mike McGillicutty and David Otunga.[/QUOTE]
I've always been a fan of Big Show and his knowledge.
[quote name='KaneRobot']I know Cena is annoying most of the time, but he's probably the one pushing for these little Ryder appearances here and there, so it's hard to totally despise him.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely.
 
Okay first hour, but the second hour just dragged on and on. The King-Cole stuff appears to be over after the PPV. Thank God. They've gone from joking about Lawler's mother dying A WEEK AGO to now basing everything around feet. It's Gene Snitsky's dream match, but will probably make for a lame payoff. Show/Kane-Hennig/Otunga was pure death. Boring, boring, boring, BORING match and somehow Punk beating Kofi made he and Ryan the top contenders to the titles. It's a shame too, because Punk-Kofi would've at least been good, and there's no way that match can be. Cena-Swagger was very Swagger offense-heavy, which made me happy until Cena no-sold the ankle lock by running around and doing the jump shoulderblock like nothing was wrong, beat him, then got hit by a pipe and no-sold THAT. Then Miz rambled on for-fucking-ever about what he could, would, and wouldn't do on Sunday. God this sucked. Rey-Alberto was good, Miz's opening video at least made him seem like a badass for a little , Truth's wacky promo was amusing, and Kharma flicking Kelly was great, but this show sucked as a go-home show.

Screens -

He's the nasty boy...
















Quotes -
Cena - WELCOME TO THE ALAMO!
Riley - ACKEM! Save it, John - I HAVE HEARD IT TIME AND TIME AGAIN. Lemme guess - HUSTLE. LOYALTY. RESPECT! Uh… I NEVER QUIT and this Sunday, you’re gonna beat the Miz at Over the Limit. Why don’t you take a look at this!?
Cole - WILL MIZ BECOME THE FIRST MAN IN HISTORY TO MAKE JOHN CENA SAY I QUIT!? AND I BELIEVE HE WILL! I BELIEVE HE WILL SAY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
King - Please sit down and shut up.
Riley - from the beginning, you’ve underestimated the Miz - from his start on TE, to his MAIN EVENT AT WRESTLEMANIA, YOU SAID HE SHOULD QUIT! Well, you also said the Spurs would make it out of the first round, and we all know what happened there! This Sunday, in an I Quit match for the…WWE CHAMPIONSHIP, THE MIZ WILL PROVE YOU WRONG BECAUE HE WILL NEVER UTTER THE WORDS I QUIT!
Cena - Alex Riley… You are as stupid as you are useless. If you wanna talk about things he’d never say, it would be “I’ll pass on Jonas Bros. tickets” and “I don’t need to play with My Little Pony” or “I HAVE A SET OF TESTICLES” which is a shame since you need them for an I Quit match. You’ve got form laughing stock to WWE Champion, and I respect that, BUT THERE’S A REASON I CHOSET HIS MATCH! When I look past the suit and loudmouth bravado, I can look into your mentor’s eyes and see fear. Same fear I see right now. I’ve been in these matches and I’ve gone the distance, but you’re wondering how bad, at OtL, I’ll get hurt, or maybe you’ll quit before you get hurt. You’re so very scary because after Over the Limit, you won’t be saying “I’m the Miz and I’m awesome”, you’ll say “I’m the Miz, AND I QUIT!”
Cole - AND I QUOTE! Miz, since I allowed Cena to make the stip for Over the Limit, as long as you and Riley aren’t involved, it’s only fair that I let you name the match and opponent for John Cena tonight.
Miz - John, I don’t know who your opponent’s gonna be yet. I don’t know the stipulation yet as well, but there is one thing for sure - IT’S GONNA BE AWESOME!
Josh - CM Punk is the ultimate spin doctor.
Cole - THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK. THE NEW NEXUS HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE OF IT!
Punk - What you just saw was leadership by example! And it’s just step 1. I’ve heard all the rumors - Nexus isn’t formidable, but I promise you, NO MORE MR. NICE PUNK! I’M DOING THINGS MY WAY FROM NOW ON AND I’M NOT STOPPING UNTIL EACH MEMBER IN NEXUS IS THE MOST DOMINANT FORCE THE WWE UNIVERSE HAS EVER SEEN!
Josh - Kelly Kelly has been a trending topic on twitter ever since being named on Maxim’s top 100 list of the most hottest women in entertainment.
(after Kharma flicks Kelly)King - Cole, you’re better than Wikipedia - what did that mean?
Rey - BUENO NOCHES, SAN ANTONIO. I came out here to speak the truth. Last week, Truth wasn’t chosen to be in the main event, so he attacked me from behind. I been passed over before, BUT I NEVER LOST IT LIKE THAT. I don’t go blaming others for my own problems and I’m not the type that starts flipping out if I don’t get my way. What I like to do is call out the guy who jumped me and handle my business like a man! So Truth, MAKE YOUR WAY ON DOWN HERE AND FACE ME RIGHT HERE SO I CAN SHOW YOU WHY YOU DIDN’T DESERVE TO BE ON THIS OR ANY OTHER MAIN EVENT ON RAW. AND THAT’S THE TRUTH!
Alberto - NY NAME IS ALBERTO DEL RIO! But you already know that, ESPECIALLY YOU, LITTLE CHICHUAUA. You got beat up last week, and not me - YOU’RE THE REASON I’M NOT FACING CENA FOR THE WWE TITLE! You don’t deserve to be on the same show as me - know why? BECAUSE I’M BURRO LATINO! A FULL-BLOODED MEXICAN, NOT LIKE THESE PEOPLE FROM SAN ANTONIO!
King - I don’t know what that meant, but I bet it wasn’t good.
Alberto - THIS COUNTRY BEGGED ME TO COME HERE! THEY GAVE ME EVERYTHING TO COME HERE, NOT LIKE YOUR PEOPLE - THEY CAME TO AMERICA LIKE A BUNCH OF RAT-AS!
Rey - I’m not gonna let you disrespect MY PEOPLE - MI RAZA! I’m proud to be a Chicano AND AN AMERICAN AS WELL! And if R-Truth isn’t gonna come down here, I HAVE NO PROBLEM SHUTTING YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!
Cole - Alberto’s destiny is to be WWE Champion.
King - AND YOUR DESTINY IS TO EITHER SHUT UP OR BE SHUT UP!
Josh - You’ve gotta be jealous of Alberto’s wealth.
King - That’s one of the seven deadly sins - greed.
Cole - You’ve committed the other six.
Truth - STOP THE PRESSA! CALL THE PO-LICE! THE POLICIA! WE HAVE A THIEF AMONGST US! THERE HE GO RIGHT THERE! REY, HE A THIEF YO! HE STOLE MY SPOT! AND I LOST MY SHOT AT THE TITLE! THAT AIN’T RIGHT, Y’ALL! SOMEBODY GET ‘IM!
Truth - What are ya doing, Rey? Who do you think you are? Challenging me? NO ONE CHALLENGES THE TRUTH! I MAKE THE CHALLENGES, REY! Just like I showed you tonight. LOOK AT ME! THIS SUNDAY, YOU GONNA GET GOT!
Cole - CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!? I would like to welcome you to the contract signing for MY MATCH against Jerry Lawler at Over the Limit. Lawler, you couldn’t let well enough alone - I was about to retire and you challenge me to a match, that was accepted on my behalf by Jack Swagger. THIS MATCH WILL NOT BECOME OFFICIAL until I sign this contract, and I will only do so if you tell the world what you’ll do if I beat you for a third time at Over the Limit. What do you say!?
King - YOU HAVE NEVER BEATEN ME LEGITIMATELY, BUT IF YOU DO, I’m a man of my word and I’ll give you my HoF ring. And should it come to it, induct you into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Cole - THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! C’mon, I’ve signed… IT’S OFFICIAL, AND I believe in full disclosure. And like these Texas yahoos - YOU DIDN’T READ THE FINE PRINT. STIP CLEARLY READS THAT THIS MATCH ON SUNDAY WILL NOT BE AN ORDINARY MATCH. IT WILL BE A KISS MY FOOT MATCH! And Sunday, you are gonna do to me what I made J.R. do last month! Let’s roll the FOOT-age. HAHHAHAHAHAHA! J.R’s accomplished a lot - the first man to kiss Mr. McMahon’s butt and my foot - GREAT CAREER, J.R. I also made this match a kiss my foot match because I wanted you to be comfortable. You’ve got experience in them. You know what it’s like to kiss the feet of a superior athlete! Woowee, what’d that smell like? FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS! You’re gonna kiss that athlete’s foot! THAT’S YOUR DESTINY!
King - SHUT UP, COLE. First all, you need to realize that was BRET HART AND YOU’RE NOT BRET HART! You’re not even a Jack Swagger. I don’t like him, but I can respect him in the ring - he’s a former world champion. Cole, you should be congratulated because you’ve taken a former world champion and made him nothing more than a sidekick.
Cole - Hey - NO ONE REMEMBERS HIM BEING WORLD CHAMPION. Some may say that him being my sidekick is the best thing to happen to his career. SOME SAY THE ONLY REASON WAS AT WM WAS BECAUSE OF MICHAEL COLE!
Swagger - NO ONE REMEMBERS ME AS WORLD CHAMPION!?
Cole - Jack? BUDDY! BUDDY, WHERE YA GOING!/ I didn’t mean anything by that? IT WAS A FIGURE OF SPEECH! JACK! JACK! JERRY MY PAL, THESE PEOPLE KNOW IT WAS A JOKE! IT WAS FUNNY, RIGHT!? WE got back 14 years! I’M NOT A WRESTLER!
King - STUFF IT, COLE. IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT! YOU’VE BEEN STICKING YOUR FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH FOR MONTHS, AND ON SUNDAY, I’M GONNA STICK MY FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH AND CLOSE IT!
Crowd - JERRY! JERRY!
Josh - Kane and Big Show have been on a wrath since becoming tag team champions.
Josh - Kane starts with…uh…MICHAEL MCGILLICUTTY!
(after Show lifts up then lowers his leg)Josh - ONLY THE GIANT IS CAPABLE OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT!
Miz - I could look under the ring - ALEX, GO FIND SOMETHING USEFUL!
 
[quote name='Halo05']That justin.tv stream is awesome. I'm watching a WCW show from January 13, 1990.[/QUOTE]
thestro on Justin.tv is awesome. I'm pretty sure I found out about it when someone posted it here last year.

It looks like he just added some earlier ECW stuff to this current run as well.
 
Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker!

EDIT: This channel rules, ok. Reminded me that the highlight of playing GTA: Liberty City Stories was that they had Giorgio Moroder's "Chase" on one of the radio stations. First time I heard it in the game I thought "holy fuck, The Midnight Express theme!"
 
I briefly mentioned Truth's promo, but couldn't get any good non-blurry screens of it.

ROH is losing money, a deal with MTV2 would help them prevent losing as much money, and keep them alive longer, so while I doubt it would feature 50+ minutes of wrestling in a 60 minute show, it could still be a good showcase for the promotion. Plus, I'm sure MTV2 would be fine with giving them plenty of time - they've done that with Bellator.

Oh, and Abyss
is now the second grand slam champion in TNA history.
 
Oh fuck yeah TNA really lives up to their new "Its About The Wrestling" bullshit. Kinda reminds me of that infamous lyric by The Who... "meet the new boss same as the old boss."

Impact spoilers for this Thursday:

* Immortal minus Hulk Hogan come out to begin the show with an in-ring promo. Brian Kendrick interrupts and all the X Division comes out as well. A huge brawl ensues as Fortune hits the ring.

* TNA X Division Champion Kazarian vs. Abyss is announced for later tonight as well as Amazing Red vs. Samoa Joe and Generation Me vs. Eric Bischoff & Matt Hardy.

* Rosita, Sarita & Madison Rayne vs. TNA Knockout Women’s Champion Mickie James, Tara and Miss Tessmacher with Mexican America on commentary. Winners, Mickie, Tara & Miss Tessmacher.

* Kazarian vs. Abyss for the TNA X Division Championship. Winner and **NEW** TNA X Division Champion, Abyss.

* Samoa Joe b. Amazing Red in an 8 seconds squash match. After the match, Joe doesn’t let up but Crimson hits the ring and makes the save.

* AJ Styles comes out for a promo and calls out Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer comes out and beats down Styles. Christopher Daniels makes the save. Bully Ray joins in the melee and helps Dreamer take out Styles and Daniels.

* Kurt Angle comes out for a promo and says he and Jeff Jarrett will have a match and it will be for the number one contendership for the TNA Championship. Jeff Jarrett comes out and it ends up being announced they’ll face off at Slammiversary for Angle’s 1996 Olympic Gold Medal. Velvet Sky pushes Karen Jarrett down the ramp in a wheelchair

*Matt Hardy and Eric Bishoff defeated Generation Me. Bischoff scored the pin.

*Velvet Sky defeated Angelina Love and Winter with a rollup on Love. After the match, ODB returned and laid out Sky.

*There is a back and forth segment with Ric Flair and Robert Roode. It ends up with Immortal attacking Roode and injuring his shoulder as revenge for Flair being hurt at Lockdown.
 
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but at least Hulk Hogan took a beating and was good at making it look like anyone could beat him before making his comeback. Hulk Hogan sells better than John Cena. Sweet Jesus.
 
[quote name='mitch079']Mark Callous and Dan Spivey squash match with Theodore Long. Sweet.[/QUOTE]

Sweet haircut, Deadman!

64ib8k.jpg


2u4ndsl.jpg
 
[quote name='Chase']I can't believe I'm going to say this, but at least Hulk Hogan took a beating and was good at making it look like anyone could beat him before making his comeback. Hulk Hogan sells better than John Cena. Sweet Jesus.[/QUOTE]

2 words

Super. Cena.

Says it all, and frankly its one of the oldest go-to tricks in WWE. Cena with the miraculous comeback at the last minute to win the match.

I was watching tonight with my buddies and we counted how many different moves he used. 7, 7 different fucking moves and let's face it you might as well call the fireman's carry leading into the 5 knuckle shuffle the same as the attitude adjustment anyway which then brings it down to 6. I get that the point of the match was a squash with a last minute comeback but to only put forth 7 different moves, for someone who is supposed to be the "top guy" is just plain laughable.

But, this is all stuff that's been said before... I really have to wonder what would happen if they sent Cena through Tough Enough? Not as a trainer but as a contestant. Would he learn something? Perhaps a DDT, maybe a suplex? I 'unno.
 
I think Cena's power level is far greater than that of Hulk Hogan.
 
[quote name='Demolition Man']... but to have ROH sandwiched between reruns of Jersey Shores and whatever other reality shows MTV2 reruns..... yeah, I'll pass.[/QUOTE]

Sandwiched between whatever shows or not, Brak was right about the production style of MTV being something to fear. Wrestling Society X tried something new, at least - take the gritty style of indy wrestling and immerse it in a crowd of hip, trendy, demographically-appropriate young twentysomethings. But the presentation was fuckin' awful, man. No respect for the wrestlers, the matches, didn't they have a house band?, and the announcer. The ring announcer. Kris Kloss was his name, I think?

My god in heaven, I wanted to beat that man with a Callaway Wood upside his skull until even *I* felt sorry for the man. Corny, overzealous to the point of being fucking obnoxious, self-promoting twatfuck.

I still seethe with rage at the thought of him running circles in the ring while announcing...I dunno. X-Pac.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']2 words

Super. Cena.

Says it all, and frankly its one of the oldest go-to tricks in WWE. Cena with the miraculous comeback at the last minute to win the match.

I was watching tonight with my buddies and we counted how many different moves he used. 7, 7 different fucking moves and let's face it you might as well call the fireman's carry leading into the 5 knuckle shuffle the same as the attitude adjustment anyway which then brings it down to 6. I get that the point of the match was a squash with a last minute comeback but to only put forth 7 different moves, for someone who is supposed to be the "top guy" is just plain laughable.

But, this is all stuff that's been said before... I really have to wonder what would happen if they sent Cena through Tough Enough? Not as a trainer but as a contestant. Would he learn something? Perhaps a DDT, maybe a suplex? I 'unno.[/QUOTE]

While I do have a seething hatred for what the man represents in the business, I've always been conflicted as to just how big a percentage of the problem can be attributed to WWE.

Cena's matches now are awful. It's exactly as you described... he gets the shit kicked out of him, he does the Five Moves, and that's about it. Admittedly, though, I'm happier with that than with what it was a few years ago, which was him getting the shit kicked out of him, not really hitting any moves, and randomly slapping the STFU on. Of course, saying I'm 'happier' is like saying I'm happier getting stabbed in the eye than the scrotum. Relative.

Where I get conflicted is when you go back to early Cena, I'm talking bicycle shorts Cena, the man could wrestle and put on reasonable matches. It's tough to watch that first match he had with Angle and realize it's the same guy, since it's like night and day. Normally I'd even attribute that to Angle, but the whole style of match is different now, which leads me to believe it was more of an edict than anything else.

I'm going to say something terrible here, but in a context that makes it less so... I think John Cena can wrestle. I really do. I think, though, the problem is that WWE has dictated that his matches become the boring cookie-cutter crap we've been getting since he became the focal point of the company. Now, I'm not saying he's secretly Ric Flair or Shawn Michaels, but I think there's a lot more honest wrestling talent in him than we'll ever get to see.

Hogan was slightly better at selling, but I'd chalk that more up to Hogan being active in a time period where wrestling was still populated with hard-ass old school wrestlers. He started in an era where more emphasis was put on making the matches at least slightly believable, and I'm tempted to say that had Hogan started out at the same time Cena did, they'd effectively have ended up the same guy.

Ugh. God, I can't believe I just did a post sort of defending Cena. He's the poster child of what's wrong with wrestling right now, but he's just been so neutered and packaged by WWE it's tough to gauge just who to be disgusted with. Really, had Cena not been anointed as the chosen one, I'd be damn curious to see how he would've ended up, since he got blander and blander the higher he climbed.
 
I dunno, Cena's rise came during the time in which I quit watching wrestling so I can't really agree or disagree with you. The thing is though, I'd lean more toward believing that he can wrestle for the simple fact that he made it to the top in the first place. Is it complacency in knowing that at this point he'll be the WWE top guy until he retires or is it WWE taking a heavy-handed approach to his matches that causes his matches to be stale? I really believe it could easily be either one.

I mean really, we know it, he knows it, and the locker room knows it that he doesn't have to put forth much effort because he's always going to be the top guy. If he keeps doing the same moves he lessens his chances of injury so he can stay at the top. The product doesn't really demand excellent wrestling skills anymore; they can sell their t-shirts without it.
 
I think it's just lazyness personally. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels regularly phoned it in when they didn't feel like it. Chris Benoit would only have a good match if it would build up his reputation. Ric Flair was lazy for decades. Goldust started out strong and then he became incredibly lazy in the ring.
 
My biggest point for it being more WWE-style edict than lazy? Randy Orton.

Go ahead, tell me that Orton and Cena's matches aren't effectively the same.



Oh, and while performers do get lazy, the difference between a standard Cena match and a phoned in HBK or Hart match is still night-and-day.
 
Good point which reminds me of him winning the title 2 weeks ago. Christian's wailing on him, goes to the top rope, Randall hits the RKO, and gets the win.
 
I feel weird for saying this, but I think that tattoo is kind of cool on him.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Raw took a shit in the ratings. Lowest of the year, almost below a 3.0.

Clearly we need cena to remain the focal point of the show.[/QUOTE]

and more Cole/Lawler contract signings.
 
I'm in the middle of reading a great editorial by Bryan Alvarez about wrestling in general.

I use the term "storyline" all the time, but that term is preposterous nowadays when used in reference to pro-wrestling. Unless a guy like Shawn Michaels or Chris Jericho is put in charge of creating their own storylines, storylines don't really exist anymore. A true storyline has a beginning, a middle and an end. I literally cannot think of a single storyline in TNA in the last ten years that really had a beginning, a middle and an end. Often they have a beginning and sometimes a middle. They never have an ending. If there is an ending, there was no beginning or middle. WWE is a little better, but only because nowadays people compare them to TNA. If you compared WWE booking today to the booking of any major promotion prior to about 1997 WWE would look completely inept. But the standards have dropped so far with their "competition" that when only 10 percent of their angles make sense, well, that's still about 10 percent better than TNA is doing. So it's kind of ridiculous to reference a "storyline" on Raw, Smackdown or Impact in 2011. You're better off referencing "shit that happened." A guy turned. Someone beat up someone else. Someone won a belt. A promo was cut. Shit just happened.
Click to expand...
Full thing under the spoiler.
So I was reading the Wrestling Observer this week and I had a revelation.

Every year there is a TVN study of sports fans over the age of 12, basically asking what people's favorite sports are, their age, education level, family income and the like. Pro wrestling did pretty horribly, Dave Meltzer noted. "Overall numbers showed a 5 percent decline among those who considered themselves avid fans and a 3.3 percent decline among those who considered themselves casual fans. Of those who considered themselves casual fans, the percentage was identical (8.6 percent) who said they were somewhat interested, the percentage of those who said they were a little bit interested was down 7.8 percent and those who said they had no interest at all were up 1 percent. The 79.2 percent who said they had no interest in pro wrestling was the highest total in the history of the survey, breaking the previous record of non-interest of 78.7 percent set in 2005. Men being avid fans declined 8.0 percent from the prior year from 8.8 percent of sports fans to 8.1 percent. Those who labeled themselves as less than avid fans declined a whopping 18 percent year-to-year from 20.0 percent to 17.4 percent. Broken down even more among casual fans, those who labeled themselves as casual fans, and said they were somewhat interested in wrestling declined 7.9 percent, those who said they were a little bit interested declined 17.6 percent and those who said they had no interest at all in pro wrestling increased 4.6 percent from 71.2 percent to 74.5 percent. The percentage of those who said they had no interest in wrestling was the second highest in the history of the annual survey, behind only 72.1 percent in 2005."

That all sucks and everything, but the thing that stuck out to me most, even more than the overall decline in interest, was the massive change in interest level in terms of economic and educational status. As compared to last year, avid fans who were high school dropouts increased 9.1 percent. Those who made less than $20,000 per year (who often, but not always, are those with the least amount of schooling) increased 19.7 percent. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, those making more than $150,000 per year (who, on average, generally have the strongest educational backgrounds) decreased a whopping 43.3 percent, by far the biggest drop of anything in the entire survey.

To me, these numbers tell a story, that being that pro-wrestling today is more anti-intellectual than it has probably ever been before in its history, and that is causing a disturbing shift in the audience.

When I was growing up I was never embarrassed to be a wrestling fan. Sure, I wasn't going to wear a Hulk Hogan t-shirt to school or anything like that, but to me, the way I looked at it was that I thought wrestling was really cool and I accepted that a lot of the people at my school weren't going to share that view. I didn't care, though. I liked it, and if they liked something else, great. But the key is that it was never something that when I watched it, I felt stupid. That all started to change in the late ’90s, and it's gotten progressively worse with each passing year.

Rip Rogers broke into wrestling before I was born, worked all over the world, and went on to become perhaps the most bombastic trainer of all time, most notably for Ohio Valley Wrestling when they were part of the WWE developmental system. When Buddy Wayne broke into wrestling in the mid-’80s, Rip took him under his wing and mentored him. A decade or so later, Buddy did the same thing for me. This was one of the great blessings of my lifetime. But it was also a curse.

Anyone who has trained with Rip Rogers will have stories about him. Some people might not like his personality or how he trains people, but I don't think you will ever find anyone who would try to claim he doesn't have an incredible mind for wrestling. And one of the things that I'm sure countless people have heard him say, and I know this because Buddy used to say it to me all the time and I know he got it from Rip, is, "Now why the fuck would you do that?"

Now why the fuck would you do that? That right there is my curse. It was pounded into my head over and over on countless road trips for years that, and I quote, "This shit has to make sense." Despite the pervasive use of derogatory terms like "marks" and the constant desire to work people, the fact of the matter is that for most of pro-wrestling's history, up until probably ten years ago, the workers actually gave the so-called marks significantly more credit than they do today.

I remember Buddy and I would head to a building and he'd ask me what I wanted to do during a match. I'd say, "Whatever you want." He'd tell me to come up with something. So I'd come up with something that I thought was pretty good and he'd suddenly stop me and say, "Now why the fuck would you do that?" And I'd stop for a second and then he'd explain to me that my idea that I thought was so good was actually not very good at all because if you actually thought about it, it made no sense.

"Now why the fuck," he would say for example, "would you hit me with a flying elbow and then lift me back up to hit me with another move? Why wouldn't you go for a cover and try to WIN?"

"I don't know," I would say. Then I would have to think of something else.

Same thing happened when we came up with angles. Tim Flowers when he promoted ICW would come up with angles for all the guys, but he trusted Buddy and would let us come up with our own stuff. We'd make up these programs and, long story short, try to come up with angles that would allow us to continue working with each other, whether it be as opponents or partners. And again, sometimes I would make a suggestion and in the middle of it he would stop me.

"Now," he would say, "why in the fuck would we do that?" He would point out that my idea did not, in fact, make any sense at all if you really thought about it.

Buddy wasn't doing this to be an asshole. This was just the way that things were done up to that point. Wrestling was fake, but the idea was that you wanted to make the people think it was real, and in order to do that you had to make sure that your matches and storylines and angles made sense and that there was an internal logic to everything. His constant questioning caused me to think more before making suggestions. I would come up with an idea and then I would think about it for a while, trying to run over in my head whether it made any sense, and if not, why it didn't make sense and what I could do to make the idea better.

The beginning of the end of the glory days of big-time wrestling was the late 90s when Vince Russo took over the book at WCW, leading to the most preposterous television shows that had ever aired on national television up to that point in time. The end of that era, and to me the beginning of the modern age of wrestling, was right around 2001 when WCW died. The last ten years, at least on a major league level between TNA and WWE, have been a progressively-expanding logical disaster, and unfortunately, when your average person thinks of pro-wrestling in 2011, they think of those two companies, not ROH or DGUSA or Chikara or mid-’00s Ohio Valley Wrestling where the bookers still did their best to have their storylines make some sort of sense.

I use the term "storyline" all the time, but that term is preposterous nowadays when used in reference to pro-wrestling. Unless a guy like Shawn Michaels or Chris Jericho is put in charge of creating their own storylines, storylines don't really exist anymore. A true storyline has a beginning, a middle and an end. I literally cannot think of a single storyline in TNA in the last ten years that really had a beginning, a middle and an end. Often they have a beginning and sometimes a middle. They never have an ending. If there is an ending, there was no beginning or middle. WWE is a little better, but only because nowadays people compare them to TNA. If you compared WWE booking today to the booking of any major promotion prior to about 1997 WWE would look completely inept. But the standards have dropped so far with their "competition" that when only 10 percent of their angles make sense, well, that's still about 10 percent better than TNA is doing. So it's kind of ridiculous to reference a "storyline" on Raw, Smackdown or Impact in 2011. You're better off referencing "shit that happened." A guy turned. Someone beat up someone else. Someone won a belt. A promo was cut. Shit just happened.

Wrestling used to be considered "mindless entertainment." The funny thing is, when I go to Cauliflower Alley or other get-togethers and I see older, long-time fans, they're some of the smartest people I know. When I think of guys who have been around forever, like Dave Meltzer, Kurt Brown, Steve Sims, Bruce Mitchell, Steve Yohe and so on and so forth, these are smart fucking people. These are not people who would be fans for decades of something where when they watched it, it made no sense and they felt stupid for doing so. But that's exactly what is happening to wrestling.

TNA can do all the rebranding they want, but it's a lost cause. The storylines make absolutely no sense, the characters act completely illogically, you are never rewarded for thinking during the show, and, in fact, it is actually to your detriment if you try to think about it or make sense of things. Every week I write the Impact report and I'm just blown away by how stupid everything is. If you want to be nice and say some of the matches are good or sometimes you'll get a good promo, that's all fine and dandy, but the complete absence of logic up and down the show is overwhelming. There is literally no hope for this promotion in its current state.

WWE is not quite as bad, but again, we're grading on a curve in 2011. There is, however, still hope. Every now and then you'll get something resembling a storyline that pays off, although, to be honest, that's usually only during the "WrestleMania season." The rest of the year is a crapshoot, and more often than not angles will be dropped (remember Drew and Kelly? just as a single example of many), plans will be changed, and if you pay any sort of attention you'll get pissed off. But it's not nearly the lost cause that TNA has become, and because WWE is far and away the biggest and most popular wrestling company worldwide they've got a fanbase that will give them more chances than they will anyone else.

Ironically, the anti-intellectualism that we see with WWE today is probably tied to Vince McMahon's growing anti-wrestling stance. He got rid of wrestling bookers, people who had great minds for wrestling, and brought in writers. Granted, some of the writers in the last decade had good minds for wrestling, but many did not, largely because Vince wanted people who were, essentially, only casual fans. Being a hardcore wrestling fan was actually a DETRIMENT to you if you were trying to get hired to work for WWE, a concept that would be mind-boggling to your average person. "If you know the subject matter," Vince McMahon essentially said, "you are unqualified for the job." So instead of people who understand wrestling writing wrestling, the majority of them don't understand wrestling and so they're creating a product that is quite alien to fans who have followed wrestling for years.

Vince McMahon never used to be embarrassed to be labeled a wrestling promoter. Sure, he wanted to do other things and be known for more, and he was trying to introduce "sports entertainment" as a term over a decade ago, but it wasn't until fairly recently that he got really weird about all sorts of wrestling-related terms, including the word "wrestling" itself. And what's funny is that the reason the wrestling business is viewed the way it is today, outside of real-life things like wrestlers getting busted for drugs and dying, is not because of the actual in-ring wrestling that happens bell-to-bell, but because of stupid storyline stuff like Trish Stratus barking like a dog, Vince pulling down his pants and having people kiss his ass, heels making fun of dead people, people humping corpses, and terrorist angles the week of a London bombing.

WWE is never going to be Cirque du Soleil. But you know what Cirque du Soleil is? It's a glorified circus with super high production values. Nobody looks at Cirque as an anti-intellectual endeavor attended only by the dregs of society. It's a pretty fucking big deal, especially in Vegas, they travel all over the world touring, men and women of all ages love it, and it's THE CIRCUS.

WWE has a lot of similar characteristics outside it's carnival roots. Good-looking bodies, super high production values, colorful characters and athleticism. They also have something Cirque doesn't have, the ability to be more than a touring company. They have national TV, a platform to get people to sit at home every single month if they'd like, get involved in interesting storylines, and pay money to sit at home and watch those storylines play out every month in high-def. When you really sit and think about what WWE has the potential to be, and then you think about what they are today and what the results of that poll tell you about what has happened to their audience over the years, it's actually really sad. And the indications certainly are that it's only going to stray farther away from its own potential ideal, further towards a product that even many of its most hardcore fans don't really like to watch anymore.
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I forgot that there's no red text when you use a quote under a spoiler. Thank god.
 
"shit that happened" is awesome. Added to my lexicon.

EDIT: The editorial is okay, but its very simple premise is that modern pro wrestling programming punishes viewers (that is, fans) who critically review and evaluate the product for logic and consistency. And he's dead right about that.

The demographic shift in terms of education and income levels for pro wrestling fans is simply staggering, however. That's the real takeaway.
 
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myke's post about WSX reminded me - the Before They Were Stars: Matt Sydall DVD that Big Vision put out is great and not only includes uncut WSX matches, but also uncensored promos and even a Dragon Gate match. Definitely worth either a Netflix rental or $10 purchase if you can still find it.
 
It's overall a decent read but he forgets two major points:

Flagrant stupidity and unrealistic storylines en masse started in both top promotions in 1998. That's the reason there was such a tremendous shift in WCW. Had Russo never been successful in WWF, he wouldn't have been handed WCW.

In the same way that most writers doesn't get good wrestling, wrestlers rarely understand good writing. The list is immense of good wrestlers who were and are terrible bookers.
 
[quote name='davo1224']It's overall a decent read but he forgets two major points:

Flagrant stupidity and unrealistic storylines en masse started in both top promotions in 1998. That's the reason there was such a tremendous shift in WCW. Had Russo never been successful in WWF, he wouldn't have been handed WCW.[/quote]

Can you point to some things in 1998 that illustrate your point?

Honestly, I always thought Austin-McMahon was so brilliant in its writing. It is (ironically, given McMahon's politics) a story of the proletariat rising against the bourgeoisie in Marxist philosophy. Not that I'd use the feud if I thought a college course in conflict theory, but the themes are indeed in that storyline.

The way I see McMahon now as a Howard Hughes-esque compulsive whackjob wracked with paranoia really harms how much I can go back and enjoy that feud, though.

In the same way that most writers doesn't get good wrestling, wrestlers rarely understand good writing. The list is immense of good wrestlers who were and are terrible bookers.
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Can you give some examples of wrestlers as writers who did not ever put themselves in the promotion? It's easy to say Kevin Nash didn't get it, (1) because he didn't, and (2) because he was more concerned with putting himself and his friends over than in growing the promotion. But more along the lines of wrestlers behind the scenes who don't get it - guys like Kevin Sullivan or Dutch Mantell (though I think he's unfairly maligned to an extent).
 
More proof that wrestling "matters" in TNA:

Eric Young is the new TNA Television Champion after defeating Gunner at last night's TNA iMPACT Wrestling Tapings, to air on May 26th.

The match came after the two had a run-in earlier in the night in a bathroom. Young offered to lay down in the ring for Gunner to make up for it. During the match, Young laid down in the ring for Gunner to pin him but pulled a swerve and rolled Gunner up for the win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNVA-xnjU10
 
CAPTAIN MIKE ROTUNDO: Kids, you can be the captain of your own ship. Don't do drugs and stay in school.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Meanwhile, he's cutting this promo while standing next to Norman the Lunatic.

Dude, I hope this turns into the Homeless Amnesiac Mick Foley angle soon.
 
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