Coffey

I don't really have anywhere to put this but I was just thinking today, while watching some old AJPW matches, how deep pro-wrestling psychology can really go. One of my favorite little things, is how hope can work both for a babyface and against a heel. In example, if you think of a Jake Roberts match or a Diamond Dallas Page match in example, due to how their finish was established, it didn't matter how much of an ass whipping they took, as a fan you still thought they had a shot. If they can just hit their finish, they can still win. Even after getting beat down from bigger, stronger guys. It gave you hope, as a fan, throughout the entirety of their matches when they were working babyface. On the other end of the spectrum, a guy like Ric Flair. So many people got put in the Figure-Four Leglock, but you would see people power out of it, or refused to quit, or reverse it or get to the ropes... It gave you hope that even when he put it on, the babyface wasn't out of it & still had a shot. It wasn't automatically over. Which helped Flair as a heel in that regard. You felt like anyone had a shot against him & you might just get to see the upset. Good stuff.

I really want to read & own The Last Outlaw - Stan Hansen's book. But even freakin' paperback versions are like $100 on Amazon. Is it that rare? I don't want to get a Kindle version. I want to own a tangible copy. I also want to read Scott Norton's book. Has anyone read that? @C.S. did you finish it? I take pride in being Norton's highest voter in the PWO GWE ballots from a few years back. Also, thanks to this thread I learned about Tito Santana's book which I'm now interested in.

I work overnight security at a county park in Indiana. The fact the parks even reopened blew my mind. Then I saw that people were still actually coming out & camping, pandemic be damned. I have NEVER seen a single camper or coworker wearing a mask. Despite the fact that I was told that we must have a mask on when interacting with campers or going into any bathroom/shower house or face immediate termination. It really does feel like, at least in red states, no one gives a fuck. I wear a mask but if no one else is, I feel it kind of defeats the purpose of keeping ME safe. The guy that worked the shift before me had to self quarantine because he said his wife had CoVid. Then my bosses were looking into getting confirmation of her positive but there weren't any sort of medical records filed. So they think maybe the guy lied to just get out of working? I don't know but he got fired & I'm still going to work every night until 3 A.M. thinking "great." It's bad enough we get all the meth heads & homeless degenerates but now we might have CoronaVirus Homeless Methheads. It's like the ultimate video game villain.

I was under the impression that Jimmy Havoc checked HIMSELF into rehab because in Florida you can't be fired while in rehab. Can anyone confirm that? I assume as soon as he's out, he gets fired.

I've now heard rumors about potential 30+ Lucha stars that have died from CoVid-19 complications hinted at but I can't find any tangible information or articles or anything. Where is this rumor coming from? Does anyone have any information regarding this?

Kudos for this. It's appreciated.

This is because the Twitter crowd doesn't actually care about consequences. They'll talk about "cancelling" people every single day. And people do lose their jobs & careers over some of the stuff they say or do. Sometimes justly. But to Twitter people, they just start a new crusade. Karen says "Cancel Bob! Bob sucks" Then Bob loses his job. Now Karen says "Cancel Jeff! Jeff sucks." There's no sense of justice or even a moment of celebration or anything. It's just onto the next one. Because the actual consequences don't effect her, personally or individually. Sometimes these people casting stones can't even equate these accounts to actual living, breathing people that have lives & real things they can lose. It's just a name on a screen to them. Sammy said something stupid & apologized. Should he be fired over it? Most likely no. Maybe some sort of sensitivity training if AEW really wanted to make a statement. His comment was vile, agreed, but it's not in the same fucking stratosphere as 30 year old men sleeping with 15 year old girls that they groomed & used their position of power to take advantage of... And it's only been like three or four days & I feel people are already straying off topic & turning this #SpeakingOut into just rock throwing for anyone they don't like.

Yeah, that's a decent apology. I hope he privately contacts Sasha to apologize to her personally too.

Nope, it wasn't. He tried to defend his shit. Got called out. Deleted the posts then locked his profile. Next will come blocking people that shit on him but the screenshots last forever.

I took a screenshot because this will inevitably get deleted. This is the type of shit that gives pro-wrestling a bad name. Motherfuckers like this.

This is all making me feel like shit as a life long fan. Not just because it's a fucking heinous, terrible tragedy but because I selfishly am feeling somewhat vindicated in my dislike in some of the names that have come out. How fucked up am I in the head if that's where my thoughts go to? I think a dude sucks as a pro-wrestler, they get outed as a predator & I'm like "yup." Awful line of thinking on my part. I'm questioning my fandom. The fact that people are still going through this is crazy. That's not even mentioning how many people are staying silent. Or whom died without their secrets ever coming to light. I certainly won't lose any sleep over guys like David Starr, Joey Ryan & Jimmy Havoc leaving the world of professional wrestling. But it's not worth all the trauma that these women have had to go through. I keep thinking about how Kylie Rae is always able to put on that smile for the camera and it just makes my blood boil thinking about the shit they've had to endure when there wasn't a camera, or a lot of them times when they were freaking children.

Man, the title saying "several" doesn't even feel big enough anymore... Pro wrestling couldn't avoid the eye of scrutiny forever. We knew that the hammer was coming eventually. So many people in wrestling have gotten away with so much for so long. Vince McMahon himself being a rich, white man in a niche world where the outside looking in casually just brushed the wrestling world off as not mattering, or ever getting any sort of media coverage, doesn't matter when the people are on social media & not TV news outlets that can be bought off. The Jimmy Snuka shit came to light years later & went to trial. It would be great to see some of the old sleeze from McMahon himself, such as the rape allegations from the female referee Rita Chatterton get another look. NXT UK is doomed. NWA just released all their talent from their contracts. AEW & WWE are both releasing official statements. Wrestlers are getting lawyers & people are getting fired. And it's only the second day...

Yeah, but

Cool.

I don't like this argument. If something is good, it's good. We don't need to dissect it to try to discredit it. Much like Savage/Steamboat was great, regardless of if they planned it all out beforehand or rehearsed it or whatever. When what we see as fans is good, we should be able to say "that was good" without the "yeah, but" part. How many expected the match to be as good as we even got?

You're right, I meant Nia. My fault.

Honestly, the lack of Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins is a positive to me. Would love to see Daniel Bryan but I would rather not see Owens & Rollins more than I would want to see Bryan. ...of course there's the Braun Strowman/Miz/Morrison match on the card. And Tamina getting another PPV match... for reasons. I don't think I'll watch the show live tonight. I'll read about it instead & see if anything catches my eye.

I think a lot of wrestlers are given the benefit of the doubt over the years because of where they have worked previously. Especially if you're a fan of in-ring work. Some companies just have a more positive outlook on them than others. I can't comment on his TNA run, that's all El-P. I know he did a deep watch of TNA. So as far as A.J. Styles is concerned, or Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, even Magnus/Nick Aldis, I can't speak on their time in TNA. As far as overall résumé is concerned though, if you've worked in both Ring of Honor (especially several years ago) and New Japan Pro Wrestling, you're going to be looked at a lot more favorably than if you just worked solely in WWE as far as in-ring work is concerned. That doesn't always translate well to WWE but AJ Styles & Daniel Bryan have both certainly excelled there. Would Daniel Bryan be as good as he is with just his WWE on his résumé? He came into the company already having word of mouth, just like A.J. Styles. Samoa Joe, after his ROH stint, was talked about more favorably than damn near any wrestler in the world. TNA brought his worth down, if anything. No one really talks about his time in Zero-One. 2003-2010 or so ROH was on fire. More recently, that last decade or so of NJPW has been on fire. A.J. Styles, Kenny Omega even Finn Balor/Prince Devitt. Omega hasn't done much of note in AEW thus far & I would argue that Balor has bombed in WWE. Styles, all things considered, has transitioned pretty well. I wonder how much his run in TNA helped him acclimate to WWE better? But sometimes a dude is seen as a big star because he's given a big, non-WWE stage. Meanwhile, Randy Orton never got a run in ROH or New Japan & I think that matters because no one has gotten to see him work a non-WWE style before. And people use that against him. But if you're working for Coca-Cola, you don't follow the Pepsi guidelines, you know? It really comes down to not only what Vince McMahon expects & wants from his performers but also the different style & what the fans want from different promotions. WWE style is boring. Especially if you're a life long fan that has been watching for decades from promotions all across the world. But sometimes there's wrestlers with a lot of non-WWE experience that can take that experience & incorporate it into WWE style & still have something that is special. Daniel Bryan & AJ Styles come to mind. On the other side of the spectrum is Finn Balor & Shinsuke Nakamura, whom I would argue haven't been able to adapt in WWE very well at all.

Replacing one 50-year-old dude with another 50-year-old dude to try to appease a 70-year-old dude is certainly not how you appeal to the younger fans, that's for sure. It sounds like the United States government. I really don't think wrestling is going to be cool again for a long time. We're not getting a Stone Cold Steve Austin or nWo anytime soon. And AEW is going in the complete opposite direction - they want to be the super nerds. The Rick & Morty fans. The Dungeon & Dragon LARPers & shit. NXT looks even geekier than that. At least for in-ring, New Japan is coming back, so that's something. Nothing is changing until Vince McMahon dies. Not retires, but dies. Do you think Vince retiring & walking away would be able to keep his fingers out of shit? No way. And when he's gone, it's going to be The Clique running the show. With everyone trying to do Shawn Michael style epic bullshit matches. So I hope you like Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano & Seth Rollins, because that's what you're getting for the next decade plus.

He sure could cluck his way down the aisle like no one else.

I don't know if he's a producer, but I would guess Road Dogg. Due to his past work in the armed forces, I could see him being on the side of police during all of this protesting & getting into a hissy when seeing Keith Lee wearing Black Lives Matter gear.

This Pay-Per-View as a whole was a really big miss. At least match-wise. Moment wise, there was some cool stuff. Bringing back Todd Pettengill from the moth balls for some nostalgia. The RING camera doorbell spot in Gargano/Lee was cool, as was the Pounce spot. Io being crowned the champion was a cool moment, for sure. The very obvious "make this into a .gif" moment with D-X acting clueless to computers/internet/technology. The Adam Cole ICOPro throw back commercial. There was some fun stuff. It's just that none of the actual wrestling was very good & NXT is usually known for the in-ring work. Even if it veers into the self masturbation congratulatory Johnny Wrestling HBK-influenced overindulgence often.

I still remember when a Bella came off the ropes with a kick - that missed - and still slapped the leg.

As long as Vince McMahon is alive and people like Michael Hayes are employed, the shit won't go away.

A few great pictures from tonight worth saving though.