jdw

I was going to say this is the WWF/WWE equiv of the old Sting For The HOF argument, but Kane doesn't even get to the Sting level.

Those are big ones. There are likely any number of small ones. We see portrayals in movies all the time of audience members throwing stuff at the performers. There are walk outs. I don't know how many people here are old enough to recall people reacting to The Exorcist when it first was released. People walked out, there were reports of people heaving, etc. Wrestling is hardly the only form of entertainment that works people up. As far as concerts, I'm not sure why we can't include GNR & Metalica's famous one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring#Performance_history_and_reception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Place_Riot http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5402902 http://www.academia.edu/8157259/American_theater_riots_and_class_1754-1849 http://18thcand19thc.blogspot.com/2014/09/chinese-festival-and-1754-riot-at-drury.html https://books.google.com/books?id=Fdmd_JDTjB8C&pg=PA323&lpg=PA323&dq=theatre+riots+in+20th+century&source=bl&ots=P_wtPjHBs-&sig=Wl4hzGk6Dy-OUU0VnjenGjLsPDc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CIFnVYXDEY22ogT-woKoCA&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=theatre%20riots%20in%2020th%20century&f=false http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Playboy_of_the_Western_World#The_.22Playboy_Riots.22 http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-night-at-the-theater-often-used-to-be-a-riot-1426874162

So that tends to line up with the notion that the cost for ROH is minimal. Little worry about pulling in a lot of advertising money if the costs are low.

We probably need to add Apartment Wrestling in the mags to Kayfabe.

The only people who believed in "kayfabe" were people in the business. How could fans believe in "kayfabe" when they didn't even know what the term was? Anyway, as I said: "It's bullshit. People inside the business thought they were bullshitting the public, but for the most part they were and are bullshitting themselves." More people knew it was fake that people in the business thought. They always did. Which is something that I and others have pointed out, going back to articles written in the 1800s in major newspapers. So Heysel happened because Liverpool and Juventus fans believed in Kayfabe? Kayfabe ensured that the people in the business could believe that they were smarter than the marks. That's largely what it was about. Massive changes? So the fans threw shit in the ring because they thought the NWO was "real". Alrighty... "It's bullshit. People inside the business thought they were bullshitting the public, but for the most part they were and are bullshitting themselves." I know that you believe the word "never" is in there, but I suspect that most people reading it can see that it's not there. I've seen ECW and ROH crowds who knew what they were watching was fake lose their shit over something. It had nothing to do with kayfabe. Okay... wait... I'll go beyond that. It's November 6, 1994. I'm sitting in the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Sitting on my left is Dave Meltzer, with Hoback and Yohe off to my left. We're watching Octagon & El Hijo del Santo vs Love Machine & Eddy Guerrero from our favorite choice seats. Dave knows exactly who is going to win the match. Not only because it was obvious to the rest of us (which it was), but because Art and Carlos have told Dave for weeks/months. Eddy & Art win the first fall. It's 100% obvious who is going to win the second fall. Even when Santo got eliminated from the fall leaving Octagon in a 2-on-1 situation, he knew who was going to win. Octagon comes back and wins it. The pop in the building was the biggest, most joyous, relieved and emotional one that I've ever been in the building for in pro wrestling... and I've been in buildings for some rather big ones. The crowd was just going nuts. Next to me, Dave is going nuts popping for how awesome it was. The King of Post Kayfabe, who has no suspension of disbelief. Hardly the only time I've been with Dave where he lost his shit watching something. The notion that people "have to believe" or "have to suspend disbelief" to pop emotionally for something is yet another bit of bullshit.

Can someone copy & paste.

It's bullshit. People inside the business thought they were bullshitting the public, but for the most part they were and are bullshitting themselves. Probably from the WON in the early 90s. It may have been in one of the few wrestling books prior to that, but if I ran across it, the word had little meaning. I also knew wrestling was fake, and never gave a crap about how the wrestlers thought they were conning the public, or themselves. Wrestling, wrestlers, promoters and people inside the business needed to get over themselves that they were fooling people. That's really the only thing needed.

Is that any different than complaining about the direction your favorite fiction based TV show is going? I don't think most wrestling fans who embrace "smarkdom" grasp this. They tend to believe their wrestling fandom is unique compared to other fandom, when it really has a ton in common with other fandoms. People who are involved in other niche hardcore fandoms, and have been for a long time, tend to get that. Is that any different than complaining about the direction your favorite fiction based TV show is going?Not really since people stop watching TV shows when they start not liking them. The exception used to be daytime soaps, which pretty much were the same thing as pro wrestling. People stop watching wrestling as well. People also continue watching / reading / listening to / going to other forms of entertainment, including sports, after not "liking them" or getting critical about them. I have an on going Manchester United e-mail chain with another four fans/friends that's every bit as hardcore and analytical as anything we circle jerk about on this board or other boards. We all hated the 2013/14 season, Woodward/Moyes management, the horrid performances the team was rolling out, and the general cloud over the team's head. We kept watching, and kept talking about it through the whole season. Did the same thing through this year, which was up and down, with high points and with frustrating ones. Same goes with my Lakers friends. Same goes with friends that I had when we thought the Sopranos past it's peak (early), but watched to the end. It's fandom. People talk and watch even when it sucks.

Their is nothing wrong with that. Well... the are a lot of other people involved in TNA over the years that we probably also want to be out of wrestling for good...

I'm not a fan of Shawn in pretty much any period. But even given that, the one house show that I saw between the two, using the same template the used in a lot of house show matches, was wildly disappointing. In contrast, the Shawn-Razor ladder match out here prior to Mania was pretty damn entertaining.

Marty's dope bust kind of screwed up the feud with Shawn. It's not like they had zero good matches. But the primary house show feud, where they would have the fake non-match, then restart it later on the card, was wildly disappointing even as they were trying to work it hot/heated.

So... uh... how's that TNA vs Dave Meltzer lawsuit going?

Do share, Dylan.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/05/27/destination-america-acquires-rights-to-professional-wrestling-league-ring-of-honor/409080 Next Wednesday. I believe that's a giant Fuck You at TNA over how quickly they moved not just to kick TNA to the curb, but also go out and pick up a "rival".

For Rodman, I'd like to find a Hall of Famer who was a nut but largely a "team player" when in the right settings, which was a large chunk of his career. Also not too short of a career. Trying to think of someone, but having a bit of a blank. Benoit would be wrong due to the end game, though other than that is someone similar. Different kind of nut, though. For Warrior, he's closer to someone like Steve Francis. Over hyped, thought too much of himself, etc. Stevie wasn't as big of a "star" as Warrior, but the same trainwreck of a career.

Jumbo. Misawa has a shorter window of being interesting to me: roughly 1990-96. The 1990-92 if more interesting for character development than his actual work: Jumbo, Kawada and Kobashi are more interesting workers in the period, and all have their own character development which is as interesting in their own ways as Misawa's (with the exception of Kobashi's which is pretty standard). 1993-96 is prime Misawa where the work and character hit their stride, ending with winning the TC back from Kobashi to start the next year. After that he increasingly bored the fuck out of me and frustrated me to no end in the direction he was taking / allowing the work to go in. Matches that I thought we interesting at the time, like the 6/97 match with Kawada, have been painful to watch within the past ten years. We can all point to the NOAH stuff as driving us nuts, but I got there in real time long before that point. The 80s stuff has long since been uninteresting. In contrast, I've found Jumbo interesting as early as 1973, and as late as 1992. Even in October of 1992 when he was almost certainly "unwell", there is something compelling and interesting about his performances in the last two TV matches that matter. There are a ton in between. Not really a "star calculator" thing. I find Jumbo's two performances against Wahoo that we have to be more interesting than Misawa & Kobashi churning out another ****1/2 match, even if the Jumbo-Wahoo matches aren't ****+, or might not even get to *** if I cared to put snowflakes on them.

Last appearance on the sets. His last appearance as a "comparative" wrestler was in the series finale at Budokan. His tv matches from the series (match dates, not tv dates): Oct-02-1992 Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Stan Hansen & Johnny Ace & Pete Roberts Oct-07-1992 Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs Terry Gordy & Steve Williams (World Tag Titles) Oct-11-1992 Giant Baba & Dory Funk Jr. & Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Gordy & Steve Williams & Richard Slinger Oct-17-1992 Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi Oct-21-1992 Andre The Giant & Jumbo Tsuruta & Terry Gordy vs Giant Baba & Dory Funk Jr., & Stan Hansen It's kind of nice that luck would have 10/07/92 & 10/17/92 matches got booked onto tv tapings. One last title match, and one last Jumbo & Co vs Misawa & Co match.

Good lord. Fucking idiot.

Well... I'd be okay for it to last until the Lakers are ready to win #171 & #18 to tie and pass the Celtics. 1 We actually already have 17, but the NBA doesn't honor the first title the Mikan Lakers won in the NBL in 1947/48

It does make Ryder's nonsense about coming after Dave even funnier.

Remember the Fake Buddy Rogers story that had people on Wrestling Classics (and possible elsewhere) buying it and waited with baited breath for the next installment of the con-job history? It was Hitler Diaries level of working people on wrestling history. I seem to recall that I threatened with the ban-hammer when early on calling it bullshit in a not very nice way. I think the board where most of it happened is long since gone, and who knows how much of the side conversation on Classics is around. A hoot when it blew up.

Funny thing ever since the last time TNA did the funniest thing ever. Easily the dumbest fucking promotion ever.