Jingus

My short answer to storytelling: why does Wrestler #1 defeat Wrestler #2? Way too many matches tell the same story, "#1 hits his finisher on #2 and pins him". That's just intellectual laziness. It especially bugs me when the guy has one of those Out Of Nowhere finishers which he can hit from anywhere at any time; why doesn't he keep trying for it over and over again until he hits it? Why is the dude going for a pin after a bodyslam when he should just be trying to hit his finish instead? Randy Orton is actually a good example of a guy who explains how he hits his finisher when he does. He'll try to go for the RKO a bunch of times, and in between he typically uses a bunch of moves which target the neck and head so as to wear them down and make them more susceptible to it. On his good days Keiji Mutoh is the same way, constantly attacking his opponent's legs to make sure they spend as much time as possible down on the mat to set them up for shining wizards. Of course it's more complicated than just that. Each wrestler out there has to show their character through their actions, and give us a sense of their gameplan. The Joe/Kobashi match was really fun along those lines; Joe starts marking out for who he's wrestling and uses some old All Japan spots and moves, so Kobashi gets pissed and steps up his offense, so Joe goes back to his faux-MMA stuff such to regain control, so in response Kobashi does... so forth and so on. Another was the Evolution vs. Rock & Sock match at Mania XX. Every guy had their own part very clearly defined by their actions: Orton was the opportunistic bully, Flair was the crazy old man, Batista was the badass backup who kept having to save his team when they got in trouble, and Rock was the godlike superstar who'd moved beyond wrestling and was just there to do his old friend a favor. Every guy had at least one moment where he got to look like Superman, and everyone made their opponents look like world-beaters too. Foley was the most complex one, weaving a tale about how he was trying his best, but he was too broken-down and rusty, and simply got overmatched by the numerical odds and his younger opponents. And this played into the larger storyline, with him deciding that he couldn't beat Orton in a straight wrestling match, so challenging him to the hardcore match, so forth and so on, storytelling. I've got a slightly different perspective than most people on this topic, due to having spent the better part of five years as a play-by-play commentator for a small indy show. While we'd sometimes have some Memphis veterans or slumming TNA workers, the roster was mostly made up of various old guys who'd never gone anywhere and various young rookies whose future prospects weren't much good either. On a very southern show, in a building with a low ceiling which prevented any flippyfloppy, in a creaky old ring which always had something wrong with it, there wasn't a whole lot of workrate going on. That's part of why I sigh in exhasperation when some people praise the old Tennessee bullshit like endless stalling, punching someone with a chain, intelligence-insulting comedy spots, and stuff like that. Because I saw that shit every night by guys who were either unwilling or unable to do anything else. We'd see many of the same spots, sometimes even the same finishes, multiple times on every show. And there was generally very little Storytelling as I've defined above, it typically just boiled down to "babyface good, heel bad". So, when I have to call two or three hours of this stuff, sometimes without a color commentator, it was real easy to get real bored real quick. And I couldn't just constantly crack jokes to keep myself awake, or bury the talent doing the same "sleeper hold -> referee drops the arm twice -> elbow out -> duck two clotheslines ->sunset flip -> TWO -> clothesline -> back to the hold" spot which I sometimes literally saw three or four times per night. I had to try to say stuff which enhanced these matches, not further pointed out how lame many of them were. So I made a point out of calling the psychology. And if there wasn't and storytelling being done, I'd invent it. If one match was nothing but two non-working fatasses clubbing each other over the back and not selling, I'd make up some bullshit about how it was a war of attrition between two stubborn behemoths who were both using the same strategy, attacking the spinal column and central nervous system of their opponent, in a macho contest to see which one was tougher and which one dropped first. That's not a hypothetical example, I've actually done that. When the heel inevitably puts the babyface in a sleeper hold, I tried to state a reason why this guy would do it, and that reason had to be different than what I said about the guy who did the same thing in the previos match. If the heel is younger or more athletic looking than the babyface, he's trying to capitalize on his cardiovascular advantage by further tiring the other guy. If it's the opposite, the heel is trying to take away the other guy's wind advantage. If the heel is bigger, he's being a bully. If he's smaller, he's trying to chop the other guy down to his level. So forth and so on. Even if the wrestlers don't have a reason for what they're doing, the crowd wants to believe that they do, so I helped supply those reasons even if there really weren't any. (This is another reason I'm sometimes amused by the over-analyzers on the net who look at everything under a microscope in the assumption that everything was deliberately planned that way and has its own specific meaning: no, it often doesn't. Trust me, sometimes there's no there, there.) Oh yeah, one last thing: Storytelling = Misawa/Kobashi vs. Kawada/Taue 6/9/95. God that match is so fucking awesome.

I just find myself depressed at how much the newer generation of smark websites these days seem like a watered-down copy of the old stuff. Way too many guys seem content to just recap a show instead of actually reviewing it. Say what you want about Scott Keith, and I'd probably say more, but at least he had his own distinct voice and opinions. Same thing with guys like, say, Chris Hyatte; not necessarily the most proficient intellectual analysist of all time, but had an engaging and entertaining writing style. But nowadays, we're stuck with guys like the interchangeable idiots over at the Observer site, most of which reads like some rookie smark who just discovered the IWC a year ago.

I wasn't trying to say that Harley was a shitty wrestler because of this. I still enjoy his matches. Almost every wrestler ever inevitably does some dumbass stuff which just doesn't make sense. Unlike most people here, I'm still a big fan of Kurt Angle's WWE work. But I don't just ignore the fact that he often incorporated some counterintuitive nonsense into his matches, I don't pretend that it didn't happen or attempt to craft an arguement about how it made sense for him to throw nine german suplexes in a row and then have his opponent no-sell it like a Harley Race piledriver. I see it, acknowledge it, and then get over it and enjoy the parts of the matches which I like. And it's not that hard to find at least one small thing to like about even the worst match; if presented with Khali & Ashley vs. Deuce & Domino in a one-hour ironperson match, buried somewhere under all that arguement for suicide, there will be at least one tiny little bit of fun. Conversely, even in the finest Flair/Steamboat masterpiece you can find at least one bit which could've been done better. ...come to think of it, has anyone ever done an hour ironman tag match? I don't mean an oldschool type 2/3 falls match which goes long, I mean an real ironman tag. Seems like it could be kinda cool if you could get two really good teams for it.

Dude. He had jobbers kicking out of piledrivers and then going onto the next spot like it had just been a bodyslam. It wasn't a heel using a dirty move on a babyface, it was a top guy using a devastating finisher on a nobody and then acting like the devastating finisher barely even hurt. And Harley did the same thing when he was a babyface, too. The old "you shouldn't think about it, just sit back and enjoy it" arguement doesn't even begin to sweep that detail under the rug.

That's the one thing I never understand about the most common criticism from non-fans: YES WE KNOW IT'S FAKE. It's been publicly admitted for decades that it's fake. Watch five minutes of any wrestling show and it's pretty obvious that nobody's even attempting to make this look like a shootfight. Countless books and documentaries have been made about the reality of wrestling. Yet the average joe still legitimately believes that all wrestling fans are slack-jawed yokels who somehow can't see the wrestlers stomping when they punch. Where did the modern mainstream stereotype of "dumb rasslin fans think it's real" originate and how does it stay perpetuated, anyway? I see where Meltzer's coming from on the Flair-house show topic, but it's still based on anecdotal evidence. In theory Ric might've deliberately worked harder if he knew Dave was in the audience. I only saw Flair at one house show, where he had the most godawful match against fucking Nash. Which was worth maybe half a star. If I'm being generous. But obviously I wouldn't assume that all of his untelevised matches were that horrible. I've got a great mental image of Taue on the shore of some creek, almost losing his grip and nearly falling over as he clumsily nodawas a catfish into a bucket.

I just don't like moderators stepping in unless they absolutely have to, and I've got a pretty narrow definition of "have to". As for the word filters, I've never seen the point. They're kinda amusing the first time you stumble across them, but by the hundredth time you innocently type the word "product" in any context and get the nonsensical "stuffing instead of potatoes", you just feel like giving someone a lariatooo. How? Exactly?

Some of it, yeah. I'm not a fan of word filters, or closing threads, or moderators fucking around with the members in general. But there's enough worthwhile there that I still go there, even if I might occasionally bitch about it afterwards. (I gotta remember, never go in the Current Events folder.)

Didn't really know where else to put this, but: have the DVD boards been down all day for everyone else? Every time I try to access it, it gives me this message: This isn't the first time it's done this recently, there have been at least one or two other occasions over the past few weeks where it's done the same thing.

While he's consistently been stuck in dumbshit angles and gimmicks, I've never had a problem with Eric himself. I worked a few indy shows with him, including one where he'd had emergency throat surgery on Tuesday but still showed up to work a nothing show in a glorified crackhouse on Saturday. He didn't exactly work hard in the match, but still, dude.

I've worked with his "son", Gary Valiant, many times. How did he come to pass along the gimmick like that?

Not like this is even close to the first time someone's drawn something weird like that involving wrestlers. Anyone else see the bizarre drawings a couple years back of a few WWE guys depicted as anime chicks? Also, sometime back around 2000 or thereabouts, I accidentally ran across a piece of slash porn involving Kurt Angle and Undertaker. The most hilarious part was that it was clearly written by a smart mark, since when Taker starts acting manly beyond my wildest expectations Kurt is all like "What the hell, Mark? You're married!" And Kurt took him down greco-roman stylez and then... it got disturbing.

Hey, I think I might have finally remembered a legit case of this from American tv wrestling. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, it's been so long, but I seem to remember this being done. In late 1996, WCW had the early NWO angle going on, and the top feud for the moment was Hogan vs. Flair. Then Flair got injured, tore his rotator cuff on a Japanese tour iirc. To explain his sudden absence, WCW showed footage of someone laying down on the floor in the back. They played an old audio clip of Flair selling over the image, and claimed that it was Naitch and he'd been assaulted backstage by the NWO. I think that's how it went.

Yes, but exaggerating the problem, misidentifying the specific cause and symptoms, that stuff can be nearly as bad as ignoring the problem altogether. You have to precisely identify what is wrong and how wrong it is.

Having both worked with Tracy in person and had a dumb online arguement with the ex-girlfriend in question, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The dude is clearly carrying around some fairly impressive mental cobwebs, since he often has trouble with memory and a fierce temper. But having also dealt a little bit with the woman who wrote the letter, she came off to me like someone who lives in their own little world which only has a nodding relationship with reality, and she'll cheerfully tell you a preposterous lie right to your face and expect you to believe it. Beau James' letter refutes at least a couple of her claims. One thing which makes me suspect her is her assertation that he's been having a whole lot of mini-strokes, including while wrestling in the ring and while driving a car. It's very unlikely that this could occur and yet still allow Tracy to just get up, dust himself off, and make it to the next show. Transient ischemic attacks have wide-ranging symptoms which commonly include temporary blindness, partial paralysis, and is almost always accompanied by loss of conciousness. You can't have several of these happen and then go about your life without anyone else noticing that something's different. Also, she repeatedly refers to his medication as "blood pressure pills" and "seizure medication", when stroke patients are usually on anticoagulants. Is Tracy severely brain damaged? Of course. But I think the ex is telling some fibs about the details of the problems.

Supposedly they're getting a decent chunk of change from the percentages they charge their contracted talent to work indy shows. I forget the exact amount, but I want to say something like 20% of their indy payoffs goes directly back to TNA.

It may seem a bit obvious, but would the several hundred different Doinks count?

Oh yeah, but it's usually not the macho wrestling crowd. Get a bunch of teenage girls together and ask them about what songs and movies made them cry, and they'll probably talk for hours. I generally agree that it's not something you should really brag about, though. On the flipside, honestly I'm not sure they're lying about the experience itself. I didn't cry during Flair/Michaels, but the finish made me come pretty close to it, and I'm not an emotional guy and literally can't remember the last time I cried about anything. And crying tends to be like yawning, it's often psychologically contagious within a group of people; in an emotional moment, if one guy starts sobbing, it's not unusual for his buddies to quickly follow suit.

No real surprise there. Teddy tried to rib me a few years ago, to hand me the phone when I came into the house and have Benoit on the phone with instructions to say "Hey Jingus, this is Chris Benoit and I think you're a faggot". However, Chris didn't answer, which according to this was his usual M.O. anyway.

That's what I was thinking. Not like Flair has never made an inappropriate decision in his life, but you'd think he'd know better than that.

I'm not surprised by anything wrestling fans ever do. While working indy shows, I met countless dumbasses (along with a few legit retarded people) who REALLY thought that wrestling is real. Christ, when I was a heel manager I was once attacked by a chain-wielding granny who was well known for being a violent old bitch. And this was in the 21st century! There are lots of perfectly decent and intelligent wrestling fans out there, but they're buried under a mountain of idiots, jerks, and psychopaths.

I wonder what he's been doing for the past three years. In the summer of '05, I worked a show where Sid wrestled. He had a horrible match, but truthfully I'd attribute that more to his opponent. Bobby Eaton, who sadly can't really seem to do much of anything these days. They even had to have some other guy run in so that someone could get powerbombed. But point being, Sid looked as if he'd fully recovered, just like his old self again. Weird that he's only worked a handful of dates on obscure shows, you think TNA would've brought him in for a little while at least.

This ability exists? Aside from the obvious Lance Storm jokes? Aw c'mon, we all know Vince doesn't pay the undercard guys enough to go there.

Well of course, but what is the internet for, if not completely unfair comparisons between apples and orange Tang? I'm not really clear how this falls as a knock on Race. "Wrestler does a move, opponent stupidly uses it as cue to go on instant offense that makes both look silly" is a very old problem. Maybe Race is the one calling the match, I don't know (I would assume he is, thinking about it, that would make sense). But even then you can still come back on offense while not forgetting you got hit with a piledriver moments before. As Phil pointed out, that's something which seems to happen a lot in Harley's matches. I still remember the first time I saw it, just watching some random tape of Race vs. anonymous jobber at an old Crockett tv studio taping. It was me and a few rassler pals killing time, and when that jabroni got dropped on his head and then got right back up we actually went "...what the FUCK?!" and rewound the tape to make sure we saw it right. Meanwhile, I can think of several examples of Flair selling a piledriver like death. Admittedly, most of 'em involve Terry Funk, but it's not like no-selling the driver is something Ric did all the time.

I believe you're correct on the Hogan/Race matches, I've got at least one of them on tape somewhere. Intrigued by this discussion, I popped in an old Race/Flair match. Don't have the date, but it was from Bob Geigel's All Star Wrestling, Harley was the babyface, and Missing Link did a bunch of interfering. The match itself was clipped in half, but what was left was mostly a plodding affair with both guys slowly hitting each other on the ropes. And sure enough, Harley did a piledriver, and Ric kicked out and came up swinging like nothing happened. However, Race did hit a surprisingly decent dropkick on Link at the end. For comparison purposes, I also watched Angle vs. Austin from Summerslam 01... let's just say it was better than Harley's match.