tomk

George Mason develops first urine test for HGH. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2008-12-16-...-hgh-test_N.htm

I want to say Chyna took a bump into a "laundry basket of broken glass" or some such thing. I think blood packets. There was a Roxxi v Awesome Kong hardcore match in TNA where I assume the blood was result of bladeing.

It's 2008 there is no way post Attitude Era WWE to do violence on woman as spot to get heel heat. At least in the North East it's a face popping spot no matter what the context. Wrestling has long since been brought out of the smoke filled backrooms and into the well lit gutter.

Scott Keith is not a guy who had creations. He took. I don't care enough to say he stole. He tended to borrow without attribution. I'm not sure anyone really wants proper citation by Keith. But the point is he was never known as guy who came up with jargon/ideas by himself.

Has Meltzer refered to the "Owen voice"? That seems like a pretty common term. I mean someone in a bar jokes with his wifes "One of these days I'm going to fucking OJ you bitch" are you really going to answer "You know women have been knifed to death before OJ"?

I think it shows up pretty regularly as an aside. Melina gets punished for this, Zach Gowen gets punished for that, someone else for something else, someone gets punished for that. Never more than a sentence or two. No long piece, explaining, or defendingthing or criticizing the system too much. JBL and Bob Holly get more individual criticism than Undertaker or Benoit (or Kid Kash for that matter). I think it's safe to assume most of Meltzers informants are wrestlers or folks in the biz. Taker and Benoit probably more respected and "insidas" more willing to justify their arbitrary sadism (or blame sadism on them) than that of people who they "respect" less. Wrestling is work built on controling ones emotions. Pretending stuff doesn't hurt when it does, pretending stuff does hurt when it doesn't, pretending not to have feelings when you actually do, pretending to have feelings when you don't. Mocking someone for an emotional breakdown isn't particularly surprising. The "What a Gay Bitch!" story is a good story to set up what Randazzo describes as the two Eddie tribute shows where Benoit emotionally breaking down were used as the main events. Jericho removing the story of a guy getting mocked for having an emotional breakdown by a friend of Jerichos who ended up killing himself and his family seems smart. But I don't think its removed for its "sadism."

So at one point Phiil, SLL and I had talked about doing a roundtable discussion of the book at Segunda Caida. The sense I got was that we all had pretty different takes on the thing. Never finished writing anything and maybe should put unfinished stuff up as a Segundacaida incomplete. But I pretty much am a guy who shares Randazzo’s basic thesis . That said I found the book really disappointing as I don’t think he makes a case that would persuade anyone who lives outside of the wrestling bubble. It’s not a book written for a general audience. It’s a book written for wrestling fans. And as such both the praise and criticism really expose the limited scope of that audience. For the most part when I read someone pan the book, the ridiculous arguments that they used to criticize the book made me go “Holy fuck does this guy have any experience reading other books?” For the most part when I read the effusive praise, I came away with same sense. goodhelmet: Bix: In last year or so of Benoit’s life Meltzer regularly mentioned him as part of wrestling courts. I don’t know whether that meant Meltzer ignored his participation prior to 2006 or if Benoit only became active in 2006. It was enough of change that I remember writing asking if this was new thing: Benoit finally figuring out how to properly socialize in the WWE and suddenly appears in the courts. I’m basing my dates here on my memory that he wasn’t regularly mentioned as participant at the time that Kid Kash was mentioned as regular member ( Kash left in 2006). Benoit was in WWF from 2000-2007, Ring of Hell doesn’t really do anything to clear up the question of when he started getting involved with the “courts.” As to other hazing stories, Ring Of Hell has Scott Norton say that Benoit was a mean Stampede style prankster but we get no actual stories of his pranks, and we get stories of forcing folks to do Hindu squats. Unfortunately there is nothing in ROH that comes off as sadistic enough that we can accuse Meltzer of cleansing a record. Wrestling is a world where sadism and hazing are regular normative behavior. Wrestling court sadism is "proper socialization". Weird variations on it, guys into shitplay, will end up having it mentioned in their obits...but otherwise normative unremarkable behavior.

This is Schneider on Momoe Nakanishi. It is really over the top and he gets carried away but that’s part f what made it work. It may not read as well if you don’t have the background. At the time this was written Momoe was being pimped regularly as wrestling underdog babyface GOAT. This piece really angered a lot of folks. But the amusing thing about the response to this piece was that even the biggest Momoe defenders all agreed with this point: “Her selling is interesting, as she doesn’t sell like she is in pain, as much as she sells like she is being humiliated by the beating. Like when Maekawa kicks her, it is more degrading than painful, but she will soldier on and not give up.”. There was one actual response that went essentially “Yeah its true that she sells by making facials that she refuses to be humbled but that’s part of Japanese culture, I reminds me a lot of Bukake where the girls always seem to try to hold onto their dignity in the face of humiliation. But that’s the culture and doesn’t make me a sadistic creep for liking her matches” and another that referenced a scat film. Really when you are in an argument where you get your adversaries to say “ this is like a scat film/Bukakae that I watched yadda yadda yadda I resent the implication that I’m scummy” you have done God’s work.

Aw I miss doing the TNA reports. Thanks for reminding me how fun they were to write. TNA was so dysfunctional that it allowed me to start thinking and writing about the mechanics of how wrestling functions, how promos function, how storytelling functions, how jokes work, or go off on tangents about Christian pop culture, make up names of fictitious hack fake Def Comedy comics, or review the Jackass films. TNA really threw the ball right into the soft spot that made it easy to hit a homer a lot. Looking at them on crz’s board: http://the-w.com/threadsbyuser.php/id=921 SLL skipped over a lot of my Bible passage jokes which were always fun to write. Was making neither argument as used Steinman to refer to a style of Japanese main event wrestling that left me cold. U.S. discussion was all Angle as Whitney and HBK as Bette Midler. My impression is that the Epic for sake of being Epic shit in the US is stuff that’s being layed out/called by the “veteran” wrestlers themselves. Neither Patterson or Laurenitis should really eat the blame for that. I rarely agree with Wild Pegasus about anything but I think there’s a lot to what he is saying here. I’m a guy who loves reading Stiglitz and thinks the study of incentives is fascinating. The “Nash as guy who only in wrestling for the money” both is a misreading of what Nash says and requires you to not pay attention to what Nash actually does. I think people have written several times here about the Kip Frey era of WCW and how setting up raises and paying bonuses to wrestlers for having the best match on the show provided an incentive for guys (who otherwise would be content to mail it in) to work harder. But not everyone responds to financial incentives. Different people respond to different types of incentives. And not everyone worked harder under Frey. Terry Taylor is a guy who I don’t particularly dig at that point. And Nash is another guy who seemed more content to mail it in under Frey. Nash worked harder under Dusty, Vince, and Watts than he did under Frey or Bischoff. Nash is a guy who works harder when he has a guy who he respects who he’s trying to “please”. And if you read or listen to Nash interviews he pretty clearly says this. Nash working hard to please Dusty in TNA isn’t a guy who understands that wrestling is about making money so much as he’s a guy who sees making money as not being an actual incentive linked to making him work harder. "Nash only cares about money" is a real missreading of what Nash is saying and what he did over his career. It isn't that he only "cares about money" so much as "money isn't something that makes him care". It’s unclear to me if Hogan worked harder for Vince. Fuck I hated Hogan masturbatory booking and refusal to job but if we want to go and count back bumps.... I have no idea what this is. Someone enlighten me.

I also don't like fantasy booking or comedy shoot angles. That said I think I understand how they work and fuck at least on paper they are easy to do. On some level they should rally up your fans and bring your opponent down to your level. Oh and SLL missed this one: Of all the goofy fantasy booking: Ferara and Damore as a tag team who constantly do dueling chants from the apron to the ring is my favorite.

It's wrestling calling Stephany a sexual fantasy isn't insulting. Wrestling: "fat hag who makes his dick wither up"=insult "skanky whore"=compliment.

NWE is not some mystery organization: http://nwewrestling.homedns.org/

More likely Bruno is aware that Kurt Angle is a gold medalist: Even if Angle did nothing but SSPs and barbed wire bat shots, you'd have a hard time finding a wrestling veteran who wouldn't want to put him over. This Olympian gold medalist has great cardio much like I did back in the day when my opponents struggled to keep up with me.

I thought Trevor Murdoch/Rhides had a reall nice run there, surprised he hasn't gone back.

What's the history of Cade as "apologist"?

Could ask him about his Puerto Rican title run in 1990? How that came about, what that title run was like for him. thoughts on opponents, yadda yadda. Some questions on his students: What became of Matt Murphy?

There is also

Aw man the Krotch is awesome. Fun little worker great in role of Stevie Richards to Raven style heel lackey. I'm not the biggest fan of ECW/ROH style chants but drunken guy at state fair yelling at face to "look out for the Krotch " or "Nail the Krotch" is a blast.

I have never heard anyone compliment the D.I... I'm assuming Eddie Gilbert ewas deep in Meltzer's ear or something. Maybe Mark Pyle was just a really poor man's Terry Daniels...and it hurt my ability to get into the D.I.s act. Again who has Global tapes? Remember Brazos in 81. Don't remember an 88 tour.

Did Undertaker have a triangle choke that got a Max Pain w/ Fujiwara arm bar level response? Or was it Undertaker who had Angle put him in a triangle choke to Max Pain w/ Fujiwara arm bar level crowd response? Memory is they tried for Newton/Hughes shmozz finish with Angle applieing choke and crowd didn't get it.

Ok who has footage of the Barr/Two eagles team?

I don't know if his fake Liddel stuff is about knock out power or instead combinations that make it impossible to avoid getting hit. I also don't think he started working the submission game (gogoplata) until after Liddell got KOd by Rampage. Taker realized that not enough to pretend to be a one dimensional shooter. Have to be a pretend cross trained shooter.

Undertaker was inducted into WON HOF in 2002, and even then Meltzer questioned his status as a draw. He was "most succesful gimmick performer of modern era" and yadda yadda but Meltz in 2004 was unsold on value as draw.

Just because Undertaker is a better broken down no selling cripple than some of the other broken down no selling criples doesn't make him any less of a broken down no selling cripple.