sek69

Maybe HHH was making an in-joke by saying Flair's "not wanted here"....

Also, and this may be too high concept for wrestling, did Vince use that word to Cena to underscore the "wannabe" aspect of his gimmick? I didn't watch SS, just asking.

Out of curiousity, were you offended when Rock was doing that bit where he was basically calling people gay with that "italian word and side to side hand motion" deal?

Wrestling's always had a high threshold of offensiveness. Diehard fans have put up with so much foolishness it takes a lot to offend one. "Going there" racially is one of those things that still crosses the line becaus it's the one thing that even Vince has steered clear of over the years. As far as Lashley goes, I don't know if we can consider him buried yet, SS was pretty much fucked due to the card getting shuffled after Eddie. To me, they messed up with him by shooting the wad too early. In OVW he was just kinda in the background until he got tired of everyone's shit and when he finally snapped it was like a crowd-wide orgasm. In WWE he's an unstoppable monster right from the jump (until yesterday). There's really nowhere for his character to go except as Goldberg V2.0.

For the record, I don't think it was cool for Flair to say he was going to "Jap slap" someone either. This is just one of those things wrestling shouldn't even get close to broaching.

Ordinarily I'd say you're right but that probably wasn't the most offensive thing Vince did that day. As far as the word goes, it is just a word. I subscribe to the George Carlin theory where its all about context. The word "nigga" itself doesn't offend me, the asshole saying it to be a racist does.

It's probably not helping that SmackDown had more of the younger. hip vibe and Cena's gimmick seems painfully out of place on RAW. I personally thought that taking Cena out of the environment that was more suited to him took a lot of wind out of his sails.

Oh I know that, but he's always rattling on with this "the fans come first" bullshit when he makes it painstakingly obvious his pet projects come before what the fans may or may not want to see.

I find it ironic that Booker would be offended at someone using the word "nigga" in a promo. Vince should have been all "JOHN CENA, WE COMIN' FOR YOU NIGGA~!~!" I also found it ironic (especially after watching Vince's "we give the fans what they want" speech in the Warrior DVD) that they think they can just ignore the fans turning on Cena. I mean think about it, they turned on Cena so bad that now the heel can enlist the manager of a guy who got fired for re-enacting terrorist acts and still get cheered. The fans hate Cena more than terrorism.

There were a couple of segments where they went back and forth hitting each other with some stiff-ass shots to the head and chest so there was definately opportunity to bust some teeth.

I got this from goodhelmet today and was eager to watch the match that everyone is clamoring over. Did it live up to the hype? Honestly, I'd have to say no, only because it had that new-Star-Wars-movie level of hype that no match could have lived up to. I think a lot of the hype was from ROH fans having a collective orgasm over seeing one of their Japanese heroes live in person. Match of the year? Most likely. I heard some people talking as if it was the greatest match ever, which I'd argue was a bit of overhype. Having said that, it was certianly one of the better matches I've seen in a long time. You know how sometimes discussions here end up comparing wrestling to boxing or MMA? This was one of those matches where it would be an apt comparison. They'd trade blows like madmen to the point where you'd almost forget it was a worked match. You know how Flair can hit those chops that sound like gunshots? Kobashi makes those look like pussy shots here. Your chest will hurt watching Kenta turn Joe's upper body into an abstract art piece. The people who think Joe's a "spot monkey" based on his TNA work need to watch this match too, just for the sequence of submission moves he uses to keep Kobashi from reaching the ropes. He held his own against one of the world's best and showed why he deserves to be considered one of them. In all it was a great strong style match, great crowd heat, just great work all around. It comes down to two guys beating the piss out of each other, no sportz entertainment, no run ins, no soap opera. Just two guys trying to do what it takes to keep the other man down. Sometimes that's all wrestling needs to be.

Heels are the ones not allowed to do highspots, WWE doesn't want people cheering heels because they started busting out the cool shit. Carlito's been wrestling for a few years in PR before he went to WWE so I think he's capable of more than what we've seen so far. It hasn't helped that most of Carlito's opponents in WWE so far haven't exactly been ring generals, and the one time he was matched up with one (HBK) the guy decided to wear his pissy pants and sandbag him.

Actually when he was with Rick, he was part of one of the best tag teams in the US and Japan. It's only when he decided to gobble steroids like they were Flintstone vitamins did things start to go downhill.

There's been so many stories about Flair though, that it comes down to either Flair really is/was a dick backstage to people or a lot of people still have it out for him 5 or more years later.

HHH made sure to get Steiner blown up and made him look bad.

I loved when Steiner would get mic time in WCW, no one (not even him probably) knew what he was going to say.

No one ever accused Scott Steiner of ever being classy in the first place, and Eddie was an addict when they were in WCW, so other than his bluntness I don't see anything wrong with these comments either.

Because WWE is doing a lot of things that reminds people of WCW in its dying days, hence that's why WCW gets mentioned in a negative way. I'm wondering if this was Benoit's idea and they agreed to it to give him incentive to stay.

Any truth to the reports that the audio is messed up with the Bret-Austin match?

I thought he was shorter than that. Either way, comparing him to the Divas and Tazz kinda proves my point, heh.

It just cracks me up to see WWE, who normally is obsessive about not doing anything they didn't originally come up with, so clearly cribbing from their old rivals.

From the UK SmackDown taping:

Even with lifts, Rey would still be way short unless he wore boots with some Gene Simmons KISS style elevation. He's really, really short. Like inches away from being considered a midget wrestler short. That's why he won't be seen as a credible world champion by most of the audience. It would be like putting the strap on Little Beaver.

For Rey in particular, his problem is his height. Benoit and Eddy were lighter weight guys, but at least they could go face to face with the big guys and not be eye level with their kneecaps. I think that's Rey's biggest handicap in the eyes of the WWE writers/bookers/Vince himself.

Some of you are giving the impression that you're being deliberately obtuse in this discussion. You can't compare wrestling to boxing or MMA here because (since it's worked) wrestling has its own laws of physics that fans have just accepted over the years. In boxing, either guy is one punch away from winning a fight, no matter their size. You catch someone dropping their guard for a second and you can knock them the F out if you have the skills. Same with MMA. In wrestling, we've accepted that guys will bounce back off the ropes if thrown into them. We've accepted that moves that cause 2 second tap outs in MMA can be 5 minute restholds. We've accepted that pulling the back of someone's tights and exposing their ass gives you the needed leverage to hold someone's shoulders to the mat. It's also been accepted that little guys can beat big guys on occaision, but doing it on a regular basis isn't seen as credible. I don't see top guys like Taker or HHH putting over a small guy on a regular basis without some type of overbooking to make the small guy's win look like a fluke. I don't see Vince giving a small guy a serious title run, and I don't see the current WWE writing team being able to sell the fans properly on buying small guys beating big guys without the big guys looking like chumps. No one is saying that we don't think small guys like Rey are capable of being world champion, I'm just saying I don't think the politics of wrestling would allow what would need to happen to make it credible. I don't know if this is sufficent for the essay Q requested, maybe I'll go back and double space it and add footnotes.