SteveJRogers

I don’t know if there is a WWE “CTDWAT” thread in that folder, as it doesn’t really count as a WWE “thing”…well kinda, sorta, but it’s a separate thing than current product discussion. John Cena is in the “crosshairs” of certain media outlets for apologizing to the Chinese marketplace for misstating Taiwan’s current status. Tyrus has been on at least one of those outlets defending Cena, pretty much because it was inadvertent, and Cena isn’t one of those constantly showing his political/social bent and exposing hypocritical nature of certain beliefs (ie not going after China for their human rights record when given the opportunity while decrying major issues of the day here in the US). Anyway, Tyrus claimed that he’ll always be a Cena Guy after Cena allowed him to have 8 or so minutes of air time on WrestleMania by getting in a “bathroom break” before the ME…though that pre-ME segment/match generally IS the bathroom break match. Thing is, getting on WrestleMania is one thing (FWIW, Tyrus referred to it as a “match”) but I’m not sure if I’m being paid to be an athletic performer, I’d be bragging too much about dancing to your theme song as your lone time in the WrestleMania spotlight!

So, because you don’t like a media outlet’s social/political/theological take, you pretty much play the victim blaming/shaming card. So...if I am not a fan of the output of the Weinstein Company/Mirimax, or on a micro level the works of a sleazy, scumbag harassing and manipulating, but lefty leaning director, it’s someone’s fault because they chose to get a paycheck from the studio, or work for said director? Political/social/theological beliefs do not equal toxic work environments! I mean John Layfield the toxic person is NOT as over the top JR Ewing neo-con as the JBL character is, and Tyrus has a libertarian frat boy act going on that network, probably to help balance the stuffy “elite prep” feel of the more conservative guy opinion talkers on there.

It’s not like coming back a few years later with his buzz cut, and don’t piss me off gimmick worked wonders to get him over though.

Was there a more discussed literal MacGuffin in wrestling history than what could be in Undertaker’s urn? The way it gets talked up about on TV in the early years of the gimmick, you’d thought an “endgame” would have been revealed at some point! I know at the end of the day, it’s no different than what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, but I can’t think of too many unresolved and discussed storyline threads that revolved around a singular object like it (as opposed to “who did what to whom” plot threads).

A CT area charity event held the day before the 1992 Rumble popped up the other day, and was discussed on the most recent Place To Be Nation podcast (covered the Jan 1992 MSG house show).

Sad news about Mongo McMichael https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-prem-chicago-bears-steve-mcmichael-als-20210423-okfosu3f7ffzpcn6d4lja62cw4-story.html

The only one of those three who’d ever be, or have a reason to be on as an active AEW employee/suit is Cody. And even there I’d doubt he, or Dustin would do anything like it until either one finally heads into the sunset as a regular performer.

I’d prefer the alternate timeline where the 75 year old is making appearances at fan fests and cons FWIW, no one has answered me about why the indifference towards essentially a promotion’s HOF, even with all the marketing over hype, drive for tickets sales, and production given to it on an annual basis gets complete shat on, yet fans of certain non-scripted sports teams get all bent out of shape over who’s number is or isn’t retired, who’s in or out of their team’s version of a Hall of Fame, if the team should even have a version of a Hall, and who should have a statue in their honor erected by the team at their stadium/arena! Case in point, something caught my interest in an Major League Baseball team’s media guide this year where in a section listing the entire roster by uniform number, the text is broken up with pictures spotlighting the six men who have their uniform numbers retired, and two other players. Rumors and speculation have been swirling since both men retired (also one has been deceased for nearly a decade now) are due to be among those announced as the next retired number honorees, but more likely it was just random luck that these two franchise legends got the pics to break up the text on those pages. Anyway, I posted about the “interesting” nature of the layout on a forum of fans of said team, and a poster who is no fan of the deceased former star lost his shit over why this guy, who admittedly has tangible reasons for not getting his number retired by the franchise (only spent 5 of his 19 MLB seasons with the team, and was his future baseball HOFer self for 2 of them, and was good to barely mediocre for the other 3), is constantly being considered! The poster has personal issues with the player’s off-field antics and such as well, but I so want to bring the prevailing attitude of the IWC towards the WWE Hall of Fame to this guy, and simply be all; Don’t care so much, selections are all arbitrary according to whomever is in charge of the franchise! Plus it’s all part of ways to sell tickets on games that they don’t think will sell well!

Well, to be fair, a case can be made that a solid percentage of those who were brought to the product that summer of ‘96 were lapsed WWF, Rock n Wrestling connection era fans

Pretty much what I said Also of note, three “years” in a row the Warrior Award has kind of “pivoted,” sort of, to what Warrior said in his speech about employees of the company, more so than the inspiring stories of someone in the fanb...I mean WWE Universe.

Infamously in fact, with both the Brawl For All being structured around him winning, and in WCW mocking Jim Ross! Part of me wonders if it’s just meant for deceased performers, but two people were inducted in 2019 that are still living as of today, and clearly Davey Boy Smith getting in shows they still let the deceased in the main “wing” as a solo act (as opposed to part of the Bulldogs tag, or the 1997 Harts faction). So maybe it’s more about the visibility/desire to show up, of descendants, or at least people willing to present them, as well as adding names to a HOF class?

Tell you to truth, the frustration with the line is directed completely at Conrad’s lack of following up in some form than Arn being bitter by how shitty he was being treated at the end. Point of this was that Jericho on Broken Skull Sessions negates the idea that the “no other promotions exist outside of what we do in kayfabe” way of doing things actually exists within AEW.

I’m not making that a big deal, it’s the dickish response to a “what did you think he’d say” line of questioning, which at the time I chalked up to “well that means he is signing with AEW soon!” Tangental to that, that does beg the overall question as to why, beyond big paydays, now is he doing all these kayfabe and 4th wall busting convention panel appearances and podcast hosting when all his time in both WCW and WWF/WCW he was Taker-esque in keeping up the gimmick and old school kayfabe. But that’s for a different forum here

Consider the series is career encompassing, would shock me if more is brought up beyond how things came to be towards the end of the conversation.

Oh, I don’t blame him for having bitter feelings and holding a grudge so soon after everything went down. And it was a bit of silly thing for that twitter user to ask at THAT point in time, but there are more diplomatic ways of saying “not interested” without sounding like you don’t care about whomever would enjoy watching him pop up on a random Network productions

Ditto Hogan when employment situation allows and/problematic optics have seemingly lessened, and that’s an additional 10 years on since his epic championship winning face run ended! I know in the Attitude Era they tried to shine away a little from “honoring the past,” though they still held spotlight segments in St. Louis, KC, etc, but I wonder how much Bruno would have been leaned on back then if it wasn’t for the rift between him and Vince.

Over a year ago on his podcast, Arn Anderson gave a flat “Not interested!” hand wave response, with no followup line of questioning from Conrad when it came to appearing on WWE Network docs and other projects as a talking head or something. His employment with AEW had yet to be revealed, but it did make Arn sound like a douchebag who was severely hurt by the way a relationship ended. The fact that this actually is happening with the first ever AEW Le Champión, and a guy still very much under contract and in main event level AEW storylines, kind of makes that response even more like a jilted douchebag. Granted past history with promotions not wanting a thing to do with gainfully...emplo...I mean independently contracted performers with other promotions may have affected that response. And granted this was probably signed off on due to the extraordinary nature of the project, and things may have been different if say they were doing a doc on WCW post Flair’s release/pre Hogan’s arrival and needed Jake Roberts (yeah I know THAT project is hard to do sans Sting, JR, Bischoff, Tony and to a degree Arn himself) for a quote or two. But a “not right now, but you never know what the future will bring” comment reflects better on him than the “fuck off” that a “not interested” sounds like.

Pro cop/pro military/pro 2nd Amendment clothing company.

BTW, Sabu isn’t wrong about selling tickets. For example, in recent decades (say since the 1990s) the New York Yankees add former employees to Monument Park that fans have recently seen perform for the team, recently enshrined into the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, or iconic employees that either just retired (stadium PA announcer (their Howard Finkle) Bob Sheppard) or passed on (announcer Mel Allen, owner George Steinbrenner). So certainly regency bias, and getting a big gate is very much a key factor in who gets honored by the franchise. Lone exception being a HOF ace pitcher from the mid 1930s, who had been deceased since the mid-1980s. And that was only because his family had garnered so much support for him to get some sort of recognition after all those years in the mid-2000s. But try going on forums of Yankee fans and say their Monument Park, retired number roll call, or even a statue is pretty meaningless due to the same selection committee of pretty much one that the WWE Hall has!

FWIW, try telling specific non-scripted sports team’s fanbases that their team’s HOF/retired number roll call/statue roll call is fake and meaningless due to ever changing criteria that at times can be at the whim of the squeaky wheels of a fanbase, especially when it comes to honoring living and/or former team employees healthy enough to enjoy the ceremonies (New York Met baseball fans still curse their former owners for announcing statue plans for an iconic ex-player after it was publicly announced he was no longer healthy enough to attend public appearances). Hell, sometimes an induction can be a petty shot at a sport wide HOF’s bow in terms of “we’re honoring this person, so you should as well!” Not arguing the point, but it’s interesting that in more subjective, and less quantifiable forms of entertainment (including music and acting), any sort of “Hall of Fame” concept gets shat upon as being meaningless more so than not.

Wants to go in in front of the Dallas, TX crowd?

Once the WWE started to make kayfabe breaking documentaries, Piper’s minstrel performance got the “we don’t know what he was thinking, or going” treatment on them. I haven’t seen/read any official discussion about that segment. Neither falls under the “excuse” of heels that should get comeuppance, so both are justifiable in needed to be scrubbed in light of what actually did pass for comedy. To NL’s point, yeah in the mainstream that kind of offensive shit was taken very seriously, decades before “cancel culture” or SJWs were even considered terms for it. Probably the one of the most famous heat against that sort of “act” was an early 1990s blackface gag Ted Danson did performing for then girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg. Then again caucasian comedic actors were still using greasepaint and wigs to do impressions of noted black people as late as the late 2000s, so there is still plenty of “circumstances for the sake of what our/my audience expects” instances of “excuses” for something that rightfully should have been left in the dust bin of “entertainment genres” history

I guess you don’t want to know why certain New York Yankees’ numbers are retired, and others aren’t

A ton of that can be “excused” to Piper being a massive trolling (before it became a social network term) bully heel. True his nature remained when he turned baby face/tweenier, but it was never as over the top vile as it got when Piper was the white hot heel from 84-86

Most well known being before shows where Chris Benoit is heavily featured, and not making bookmarks for his matches and featured segments