JerryvonKramer

Paul Orndorff was very likable and entertaining, almost cheeky with his mischievous little laugh, but holy shit the Kevin Sullivan shows form one of the best shoots I've ever ever heard.

I'd be more interested to know if evilclown, as a serious wrestling historian, would deny the truth of what I laid out in my last post (i.e. About the birth of casual smart fans). And, if he would deny it, explain exactly where I've gone wrong.

I don't think jdw has really grasped what I'm saying because he's still focusong on hardcore fans. I'm not talking about hardcore fans. I'm talking about Joe Bloggs who stumbled onto the internet because he wanted to read about his favourite wrestler. We're talking about a genuine phenomena that took place in wrestling fandom, namely the birth of the CASUAL "smart" fan. Who is the casual smart fan? - A guy who grew up watching WWF or NWA or even the territories - A guy who maybe read the Apter mags as a kid - A guy who has fond or nostalgic memories of watching that wrestling - A guy who found his way online, probably during the Monday Night Wars. How did being on the internet transform his fandom? - He learned about insider terminology for the first time, and started seeing fan favourites as "babyfaces" and wrestlers as "workers" - He learned about star ratings and "work rate" - He learned that certain guys were great workers but that maybe some of his favourites as a kid like Hogan or the Road Warriors were lazy or unprofessional or dickheads behind the scenes or whatever - He learned about the Montreal Screwjob - He learned about what a booker is and, perhaps more importantly, how to complain endlessly about booking decisions What did this fan care about? - WWF or WCW or ECW TV - His old favourites for whom he had nostalgic memories What did this fan not care about? - Anything foreign - Indy promotions - Anything outside of the major leagues including old territories ------------ This fan was created as a type by the internet. I don't see how this variety of fan could have existed in the pre-internet era. Meltzer's voter-base in 1991 was not more than 500 people. Let's say only 25% of the total readership bothered to vote, it's still only 2,000 people max from an audience of millions. The kid sitting at home with his PWI and his Ultimate Warrior toy had no idea, and let's say he grows up to be a 17-year old watching Raw and Nitro, without the internet where's he going to "smarten up"? Even his old man telling him "y'know kid that wrestling's all fake", is still not going to make him into the sort of fan I've described above. If you listen to jdw, that sort of fan has always existed. When? How? How many? The death of kayfabe was a real event in wrestling history. I know jdw HATES to acknowledge real change. This is the same guy who told us Vince didn't really change how wrestling was presented on TV and pointed to the fucking 1950s as evidence. Yes, there was Montreal and Russo bullshit that exacerbated the death of kayfabe, but the business was exposed on the internet. If you're an average fan, with access to only PWI and your mates, do you REALLY know about the Montreal screwjob? Really really? This is why I'm saying that jdw is not well placed, because he's lost sight of that average "mark" fan who had no real idea about how the business worked and of just how many of them hit the internet around the same time. I'd hazard the entire userbase of PTBN is madeup by such people. I don't believe -- as an actual class of fan -- that they would have existed prior to the internet. There was no such thing as your casual smart fan. You would have had hardcores, you would have had sceptical casual fans and maybe some who'd worked out some basic things, but the vast majority of the audience were not talking about "workers" and "heels" or throwing out star ratings. That sort of thing post 1996 was not ONLY the preserve of the hardcores, it was anyone who had a 56k dial-up and whacked "Wrestlemania review" into Yahoo.

I don't disagree for a second that jdw and Dylan or El-P and his mate were having really interesting disagreements back in 1999. Not for a second. But what I do question is how many of the people I'm talking about even knew who Takada was, let alone had an opinion on him. I think there's a distinction to be drawn between hardcores, who were part of tape trading circles and who knew about Japanese wrestling and lucha, and ... basically Joe Bloggs who grew up on WWF and stumbled online to find Scott Keith's reviews, The Rick and others and then discovered the whole world of smart terminology, "behind the scenes" news, and so on and so forth. There was a type of fan who emerged from out of that. I don't think they are the same types of fans that jdw and El-P were hanging out with. Hope that makes sense. Also, "community" does not and has never entailed everyone being of the same opinion, even if there are opinions that fall in and out of fashion or consensuses that grow up, any community is going to have disagreements. They talk about an "academic community", most academics could start an argument alone in an elevator. This all gets us back to whether "IWC" has any purpose or application as an historical term along the lines Matt D has suggested. As a CURRENT term, of course, it is meaningless because everyone and their grandfather are online. I still think the numbers of people were small enough in the late 1990s for it actually to refer to something, whatever that might be. I am much less invested in this argument, however, than I was in the "shine" one.

I'd love to believe that individuals are all supremely free-thinking agents all coming to their own conclusions all the time, but we can't pretend that there weren't some massively influential people who created certain consensuses that were ready-made when a lot of us came online. You only need to read old Observers to see the huge influence Meltzer exerted on his own reader-base. The voting is virtually almost in-line with his own tastes. How many fans were sticking their heads above the parapet in 1999 to say that "actually no, I think Dean Malenko is fucking boring and doesn't know how to work a crowd"? How many fans chimed in when commenting on Scott Keith reviews with "Oh actually John Tenta is a really underrated worker"? How many people really challenged the orthodoxies? People wanted to create a "smart" image and maintain a rep; certain opinions were vogue. In jdw's world, apparently the orthodoxies didn't exist. Obvious nonsense. I've done cross comparisons of reviewers from down the years on matches like Flair vs. Garvin to see that there was a type of hive mind that developed, whether consciously or not, with star ratings. I remember when Hogan would just get bashed and bashed and bashed and bashed. Don't pretend these were just small sections of the internet, it was everywhere. RSPW, Online Onslaught, CRZ, The W, you name it, that same shit was happening with the same tired old opinions being regurgitated over and over again. Lex Luger was always a shitty worker. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart are the greatest of all time. And so on and so forth. It seems ridiculous to deny it. What planet were you on? It's like I said, Williams moved in elite circles so his perspective on this isn't representative.

Listen to any guy who grew up in the 1970s watching WWWF TV and one of the first names they'll come out with is Chief Jay Strongbow, and usually they love him. Vince Russo mentioned him recently on Austin's show. Members of the Wu-Tang Clan like him. Jimmy Fallon. Seemingly anyone who grew up in that area has fond memories of Strongbow and loved him. My question is: WHY? I don't understand why the fuck anyone cheered for this complete douche. This guy is one of the shittiest wrestlers ever and as far as I can see has no redeeming features. I've seen him mid- and early-70s too and it's not like he looks or works any better. Let me breakdown the areas of shit: His look - Strongbow was not in shape and had saggy old skin, even mid-70s he looked like that. Just a horrible-looking individual that doesn't scream "top wrestler" on any level. His complete lack of charisma - horrible, boring promo in which he shows no emotion, no excitement, not much of anything at all, and on top of it, he ususally says the wrong thing too. He's excrutiatingly bad on the mic. But even beyond that, his face is non-expressive. His complete lack of wrestling ability - Strongbow couldn't work. Everything he does is shitty. He's poor at selling, he's poor on offense, he throws weak chops, he has an extremely limited range of both action and moves. Woeful in every sense. His awful war dance - You could say that I'm being offensive, but I think it's genuine native Americans who'd take the strongest offense at Strongbow's pisspoor excuse at firing up. Every time he does this spastic epilectic fit of a comback I'm left thinking WHAT THE FUCK? He's just the worst thing ever, THE WORST. Fans are there gobbling it up every time. This is why I'll never concede to Johnny's argument of "did he get over, could he control the crowd in the palm of his hand? Then he was a good worker". No. Not on any level was Strongbow a good worker. None. I'm not even convinced he was controlling the crowd, they just cheered him regardless cos they were fucking idiots. I've never had a disconnect on someone as bad as with Strongbow. Usually, even if I think someone is lame, I can understand what the fans were cheering. I HATED Warrior as a kid, but I get why he popped crowds. Strongbow though? What the fuck?

The problem with jdw weighing in on the IWC stuff is thst he's not an average fan, he's a guy who wrote in newsletters and knew Dave Meltzer, so his experiences are atypical. As such he's one of the people here worst placed to comment. The idea that there were no broad trends is complete nonsense. I remember being a fan who literally didn't give a shit who Chris Benoit was until I started reading online only to discover that he's the best thing since sliced bread. That Dean Malenko was in fact severely underrated. That phrases like "workrate" and so on exist. Look at the amount of people who have said that they were influenced by Scott Keith when they first found their way online. To say that "oh it's just fans being fans" completely misses the mark, completely. There was a big difference to being a fan online and a fan who'd never been online. I think basically anyone who joined the internet in the late 90s will attest to that. jdw's perspective is non-representative, and it's because he has been a guy in the 1% from back in the 1980s.

Dude, it's like talking about a song and mentioning how the singer hits the chorus or the middle eight. "WHAT? You need to explain that there's a chorus to music fans?" Your objection is silly OJ.

It's telling you that Rich and Dundee are the babyfaces and that this is the part of the match where they are popping the crowd and establishing their credentials to kick things off. It's telling you all that in one word. Your sentence tells you none of that.

If I seem to be coming out really defending it, by the way, it's because I think it's part of the critical lexicon here that lots of us use and I don't want anyone to think that it has no application, because it does. I don't see people complaining about the uses of the terms "comeback" or "finish", yet those are also insider terms. Senseless.

It's unnecessary usage of an insider term and I don't see what the practical application is. Besides, this is a thread about terms that annoy you. I don't think it needs to be rational. It's an economic use of language. I've just run a search for people using it to see if it really is unnecessary. This is telling you in fewer words than you'd use without "shine" that the babyfaces spend a longer amount than is usually the case dominating the match at the beginning. It's shorthand, and you know exactly what it means straight away. Here we see that Magnum TA doesn't get as much of the opening as you'd expect. Again, not necessarily necessary but economic. Not just me who uses it. Here's my man Marty Sleaze: Makes perfect sense. And he's said in two words who might have taken ten. Here's a dude called Gregor: Yip, I'm there, I can picture it. Many many many many other examples of people using the term in situations where not using it would require significantly more verbage. It's not a pointless use of an insider term, it's saving space and time for everyone.

It's no different to talking about how someone sets up their introduction in an essay, or if you want to stick with the film analogy, about how X, Y and Z is done in the first act / introduction / establishing scene / whatever you want to call it. I think OJ taking against the use of the word "shine" is basically irrational.

What about Bobby Heenan for this thread?