Jingus

Yeah, point taken. But still, there were black superstars at the top of practically every other medium of popular entertainment except wrestling. Eddie Murphy was breaking box-office records at the same time that the WWF's only token gesture was having an aging JYD lose tag matches in the semi-main. It's even weirder when you look back at times like the 70s, when black athletes were already dominating most real sports, but the top of the card in wrestling was always lily-white even despite their claims of trying to be as realistic and kayfabe-loving as possible. It doesn't? Memphis was the only place I've ever been which had a black majority in the crowd. That was really bizarre, just because I'd never seen one like that before. I've been to a couple of lucha shows with all-hispanic crowds, but that's different because it's marketed and sold differently. With ordinary American rassling, I'm just conditioned to expect a crowd full of young white men and rednecks of all ages.

I know, but it's still not Ireland, it's a part of Great Britain. It's one of those details that the WWE just ignores, figuring that its audience is too simple to get such a complicated concept. When it's not complicated at all and I understood it back in grade school. Kinda along the same lines of how many foreign-born wrestlers are just announced from their country, instead of their home town. The company comes off like it thinks the fanbase is too stupid and will be confused by such a complex idea. Yeah, I shoulda phrased that better. I don't keep up with the shows much now, so I'm slow to notice if they've fixed an old problem. But, man, wrestling has been slow to fix this problem. Sidney Poitier became the first black person to become a legitimate movie star back in the 60s, but naturally it took the WWF/E thirty or forty years (depending on if you count the Rock as "black") to first put their heavyweight championship on a dude of African descent.

Thanks, Slickster. But most all of them were at one point or another. Mark Henry was "Sexual Chocolate" and "The SELF-PROCLAIMED Silverback", and MVP was a stereotypical cocky superstar basketball player who shouted "BALLIN'!". Alicia, like many of the Divas, has no apparent gimmick or personality at all; and Otunga and Young are part of the Nexus storyline which pretty much steamrolls over everything else in its path. Point is, practically every non-white non-American has at some point had a gimmick which was entirely based on their race or nationality. They took one look at Kofi Kingston, and thought "huh... weird accent... dreadlocks... let's make him an (implied) Rastafarian from Jamaica!" And of course there's practically every Samoan ever; in the 21s century, they're still doing Jungle Savage gimmicks. It's not just the other races either, it's also foreigners: Regal is English: well, obviously he's gotta be a stuck-up nancyboy! Never mind that his accent is the British equivalent of an Alabama drawl. Or even worse, Irish Finlay, The Irishman From Ireland, With His Green Irish Trunks And Irish Shilleleigh and Irish Folk Entrance Music and Irish Leprechaun Sidekick... and the dude is correctly announced as being from from fuckin' Belfast. Apparently the WWE thinks we all flunked geography class. The business has gotten slightly better in recent years about not leaning so hard on racial and national stereotypes, but you'll still get plenty of stuff like the Highlanders or Crymetyme or whatever other minstrel-show junk amused Vince this week.

Anti-semetism seems to be fairly rare and tame in the business. I never heard a peep onscreen about Raven being Jewish, for example; and aside from his last name and the never-happened "Mossad gimmick" deal, nobody ever really brought it up when it came to Goldberg. Really, their bizarrely stereotypical treatment of the Scotty Goldman character stuck out more than it should, just because that kind of thing hardly ever happens. Compare it to how awful the treatment is of practically every non-white wrestler, for example; is there literally a single one on television now whose gimmick isn't at least partly based on their ethnicity? Question: Meltzer completely destroyed the old lie about 93000 in the Silverdome, right? I'm arguing with some idiot at some other board who completely refuses to believe that the WWE might have, gasp, lied about something. Anyone got any handy sources on that matter?

It's not a constitutional right to wear slogans advertising a candidate into the voting both. That's illegal in CT and many other states, and it's never been a controversial issue. Nobody in California was whining that they couldn't wear a Terminator t-shirt into the voting booth for the gubanatorial race. Wearing any WWE merchandise is legally considered to be shilling for Linda McMahon's campaign, period, and that's against the law. You also couldn't go in there wearing a Republican Party baseball cap. That's simply how the rules work.

That's only half an analogy. To make it complete, you'd need the restraunt owner to be running for political office, and then to complain about some wacky rule about dress codes at the polls which are supposedly targeted at hurting his election chances. Vince is acting like it should be everyone's constitutional right to wear any damn clothing to any damn event no matter what, and clearly he's full of shit with his own company's practices being obvious proof.

The point is that Vince is trying to portray this as a freedom-of-speech violation, when he doesn't allow the fans to practice similar freedoms at his own events.

From the description of everyone involved, the latter half of '98 was practically one long backstage war over who would be the one to finally beat Goldberg. Which really says it all about that fucking company and the selfish mindset which killed it. They should have been thinking "how do we continue this Streak indefinitely?", but of course they were more preoccupied with "how do I convince Bischoff that I should be the one to end the Streak?" instead. I'm usually very suspicious of the Greater Good mindset in wrestling; to me, that's usually code for "do whatever the Boss says, for He is our Lord and savior" and an excuse to treat wrestlers like toilet paper. But WCW proved that there has to be some discipline, and that you can indeed be too generous to your individual employees to the point where it eventually fucks over everyone.

It's not discriminatory, it's an ancient rule. You can't advertise or shill for a candidate within a certain distance of the polling location. That's why all the old folks with their party signs and lawn chairs are always a discrete distance away from the voting booths; the law says they can't come any closer. And it's hardly a stretch to consider the WWE name as being inextricably linked to the woman who was its CEO for fifteen years and is still married to the controlling stockholder. Linda's press machine will whine about it, but it's an absolutely fair ruling.

Which leads to two other points I never understood. Firstly: Nash no-showed the event, but his tag partner Scott Hall was indeed there and even looked halfway sober. The obvious solution would be to just slide Hall in that match instead, right? Of course they didn't do that, it would've made too much sense. Instead, they sent Hall out to cut a rambling five-minute promo, and Giant ran in and chokeslammed him and that was all. Admittedly, they might not have wanted to do that because it would have been the second time that night: they already had a similar angle where Raven weaselled out of his big match with Benoit by sending in Saturn to take his place (and even that ended in a run-in fuck finish). But then you'd have to ask: why the hell did WCW book it that way in the first place? They could have changed it on the fly. But no, of course not. In fact, WCW completely fucked the fans on all of the most heavily-promoted matches that night, considering the stupid non-finish to Zybyzko/Bisch and Hogan basically squashing Sting in the main. The NWO also won all their meaningless prelim matches like Bagwell/Luger and a thrown-together six man tag. The only babyface to get a decisive win on that night? DDP. How 'bout that. Pure coincedence, I tell ya. In FACT, come to think of it: what was with WCW's obsession with never letting the fans go home happy at the biggest show of the year? From 1995 onwards, the babyface never once got a clean, unambiguous, definitive win over the heel in the main event of Starrcade. The closest exception was when Piper beat Hogan, but even that was tainted with the "whaddya mean, it's a nontitle match?" stupidity. You can literally count on one hand the number of times that the babyface pinned the heel in a main event title match without outside interference or shenanigans at Starrcade. And there were always a whole bunch of heels going over and/or various fuck-finishes in the undercard. WHY. Why on earth did they keep booking it like that? Especially since they had a clear example in Wrestlemania every year that it was much more profitable to just let the people have some happy endings. They knew this didn't draw as well as the classic Babyface Wins The Big Match formula, but they kept doing it for decades anyway. But back to Nash/Giant: why the hell did Kev never do that elusive job for Paul? They wrestled several times; if Giant ever pinned Nash, I sure as hell don't remember it. Even aside from the infamous Ganso Bomb at their Souled Out match a month later, Nash was booked to pin Giant anyway. (And going back and watching that powerbomb, does anyone else think it looks kinda funny? Nash didn't look so much like he lost control. He didn't even try to get Wight all the way up, he just dropped him and then fell over himself. Not saying it was intentional, but it sure looks odd to modern eyes.) It's amazing that Kevin still whines in shoot interviews about how everyone unfairly accuses him of never doing jobs. Big Sexy, listen: it's because you never did jobs. Name any meaningful losses Nash ever suffered in WCW. The fluke loss to Mysterio doesn't count; it was clearly portrayed as a fluke where Nash essentially defeated himself. The rematch with Goldberg doesn't count; everyone was forced to lose to Bill at some point. The title loss to Savage didn't count, because it involved all kinds of outside interference. The retirement match with Hogan doesn't count: Nash booked it himself because he wanted a vacation, and purposefully sandbagged the whole time to make the worst match possible. And any time the Outsiders lost a tag match, it was inevitably Hall getting pinned. The only example I can think of Nash jobbing decisively was losing the cage match in 2000 to Booker T, and you could argue that he knew he had to do that job because Booker was the only untarnished top babyface they had left. Why are some guys so terrified to ever lose a single goddamn match?

Yep. Seemingly every bit of psychology that Nash ever explains is just one more excuse for why he never loses. "No, you don't understand, it's good for business if I consistently make the babyfaces look like shit!" That goes along with the old "the money is in the chase" theory, which has been readily disproven on countless occasions.

No, it's a preventative defensive measure disguised as a manufactured grass-roots movement. It's said that Blumenthal's people have finally learned most of the real bad insider dirt on the McMahons (my mental image is a room full of interns poring over stacks of old Observer back issues), but the Democratic campaign managers are holding it back as an ace up their sleeve in order to really zap Linda with some of the worst stuff right before the election.

That's missing the important part there. Jericho worked a long, hard match with a severely broken arm, plus being shot full of painkillers and antibiotics and probably having his blood pressure at a dangerously high level. Him leaving pints of plasma all over the place was merely the side effect.

I've mentioned this before, but I still don't understand why blading is such a big deal. (Aside from the possibility of communicable infection, which is a real risk, but oddly seems to have never became much of an issue.) Making a tiny cut in your forehead is one of the least damaging things you can do to yourself in a wrestling ring. The only real consequence of the blade is facial scarring. It's purely cosmetic; if you don't mind looking like a hideous mess, then there's little other reason not to. Compared to other forms of self-mutilation, like bumping, cutting your head is pretty insignificant. Abdullah is the perfect example; he still wrestles occasionally now, even though he's 137 years old. If he has any serious health problems, they come from his weight, not his mangled forehead.

Waltman was the latest guest on Colt's podcast. Haven't listened to it yet, still trying to catch up with my tardiness on this damn DVDVR "watch 31 horror movies in October" project, but I can't wait.

On the latest free WOL, Meltzer did a pretty thorough explanation of why they keep beating people in their hometowns. And an even more thorough explanation of why that's a goddamn stupid idea and contrary to all established booking practices. It reminds me of what a local said about the last time Misterio got destroyed in San Diego: it wasn't so much "that evil dastardly heel!" as it was "aw hell, not this shit again?!" They run individual towns so infrequently, and there are so few guys who are considered to be important in their hometowns, you'd think it would be obvious that they'd want to protect those guys on those once-a-year dates. But no, this is the modern WWE, where nobody gets over unless the office planned it that way.

TNA's always been embarassingly grateful to nab D-list celebrities for one night. Remember when they got one of the dudes from The Sopranos to back up the Dudleys... and it was the guy who plays fuckin' Bobby? An absolutely non-threatening fat guy, one of the least menacing characters on that show? And they were presenting him as if they got Robert DeNiro to show up. And probably paid him more money than your average X-division dude gets all year.

Is there anything more smug and hateful than a lawyer who pulls out the old "I'll sue you!" card at the drop of a hat? Especially for pointless shit like this. Chatteron's allegations were repeated all over the national news media back in the day. It's not like they ever got a court order that said the whole world would never be allowed to mention them ever again. And that's a laughably loose definition of "libel", bearing no relation to the actual legal term. McDevitt knows this shit, but he's still playing the bully anyway.

How so? Anyone willing to provide a piratical download?

Long before Doctor Stevie, I had a similar idea. Except it was back when I was still managing, and the concept was that it was a manipulative shrink who would work exclusively with female wrestlers; get inside their heads and convince them that only he could help them. Leading to sort of a whole cult-leader type of deal, possibly with icky "you will do anything to please the master" implied sexual overtones. I'm an out-of-shape pudgy dude, but I figured it would be more believable for me to intefere in women's matches; they were all half my size, so it's more plausible that I'm more of a physical threat to them than to guys who looked like they should be able to easily kick my ass. But there were never enough women working the circuit, so it never happened.

Same here. I don't even know why I hate that guy. There were probably dozens of others on the roster who were worse workers. But something about him made me instantly not want to watch his match, no matter who his opponent was. Konnan was a pretty big one too. I've rarely seen a shittier wrestler who was more over than him during the Wolfpack period. Entire arenas were going fucking crazy for this guy, and he could barely string together the simplest spots without botching half of them and then getting so blown up that he looked like he was having a heart attack. And that's on top of some of the most aggravating promos in the whole company, TOSS MY SALAD LOLLOLLOL. Sid, on the other hand... I don't even know why I liked that guy, but I always did. He was maddeningly inconsistent; sometimes he'd have a perfectly decent match with a mediocre opponent, but other times he looked like the worst muscle-bound stiff to ever walk the aisle. I once got to commentate a Sid match live, and oh dear fucking lord it was terrible (though admittedly a lot of that was due to his opponent, a nearly immobile Bobby Eaton). But somehow, I always kept marking for Sid. Even if last week he and a Harris brother had gone out there and had the worst goddamn match I'd ever seen, this week I still grinned slightly when his music hit. It wasn't even for ironic "let's see how bad he is THIS time" reasons, there was just some intangible about him which made me like him.

Delaney's was awesome. All of Colt's shows are worth listening to, but Delaney was particularly noteworthy since you just rarely get guys who recently worked in the WWE and are willing to be completely open about their experiences. He perfectly illustrated how that company is somehow incredibly chaotic yet orderly at the same time.

I can think of a couple of possibilities. The easiest one would just be to have Nexus get in a beef with another heel, someone who the audience really despises and would never cheer. Cena volunteers to go after that guy, giving him a little mini-feud which could easily kill time for a month or so. Then Nexus keeps interfering and giving Cena unwanted help in his matches, which rekindles the conflict between him and them, which brings us back to the main storyline.

During the whole McMahon/Austin thing, they at least came up with a series of excuses for why Vince wouldn't just fire Stone Cold. Ever since then, the whole "YOU'RE FIRRRRRRRRRRRED" thing has been relatively protected as meaning something. It's not a perfect track record, but over the past few years I can't think of many moments where they fired someone only to immediately bring them back. Cena's legions of grade-school fans didn't grow up with firing and retirement stipulations being as commonly abused and devalued as in earlier generations.

Yeah. Like that fucking hack Shakespeare, for example. That idiot always made his protagonists doubt themselves and commit unspeakably horrible acts. Clearly he didn't know anything about storytelling. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark would have totally been better if the babyface had just Hammed Up and kicked the heel's ass, instead of whining about all his insecurities for three hours in a row.