MoS

I swear I am not making this up, but I once read some shit about how Owen Hart deliberately killed himself because he wanted his family to receive money, as he was not happy with the money he was making. The douche who propounded it even went into details, the most memorable for me was "Owen said 'I love you' to Martha, something he would never say to her."

What fucking cesspool full of douchebag losers did this happen at? This happened at LoP, but in the board's defence, it was in a section called "Free-for-all", where flaming was explicitly allowed, and implicitly encouraged. Was a long time ago as well, 9 years or so. Maybe that section is much milder now.

Not related to this, but I remember being told "Listen, you fucking dothead. Go kilk yourself. You are already taking away our jobs. Don't take away our wrestling as well." when I had the temerity to suggest that giving Khali the secondary world title for a month or so was not an irredeemably awful decision, since it was getting a lot of free publicity here in Ibdia, and it could only be a good thing. And in hindsight, I was right; India has to be at minimum the 3rd most profitable market for WWE after the US and UK. But saying that was sacrilegious, and I am guessing "dothead" is a racial slur used becayse many Indians shave their heads but apply tika on their foreheads, I guess? Had it just been one racist fan, I wouldn't have noticed. But the sentiment was echoed by many; I remember that post being quoted with "Preach, brother." and shit like that. He wasn't warned. It makes me think that racism is considered almost a natural trait of many wrestling fans by outsiders.

Puerto Rico isn't a foreign country. Sorry, my bad. Don't feel bad. A surprising number of Americans do not know that Puerto Rico is part of the US as well.

Yeah, didn't they ask Regal to actually change his natural accent?

Yeah, The Rock was the only one I could think of in terms of non-white wrestlers whose race was relatively never emphasised. At least when he became a megastar. In a way, Austin was the opposite of that. It was regional emphasis more than racial emphasis, but he was playing a foul-mouthed redneck in a New York company and was its biggest star. That is really a stereotype you associate with white people.

Is Taker the ibly long-time wrestler who has never been criticised in shoot ibterviews and books? Everyone from Bret and Jericho to Shawn and Cornette seems to love him

This does not mean much, probably, because this bias existed in wrestling well before globalisation, but foreigners in 3rd world countries like myself - and even first world countries, I'd say - immediately associate America with New York or L.A. No one really thinks of Alabama or Mississippi when they think of America here. So for promoters like Vince with international ambitions, it might have been thought to be a marketing hindrance. Although that doesn't explain the specific North-Eastern part of ECW that Loss mentioned.

Excellent read, and was actually very informative for me about America's socio-political evolution - and the Western world in general, I guess. Holy shit Newt Gingrich wanted to quarantine gay people? Fuck, wasn't he a Presidential candidate recently? Jesus. Also, fuck John Wayne. I realise I am not close to his target audience, because I am a brown dude in India who doesn't cheer for Murrican troops, but his entire shtick is a huge turn-off for me.

This is not so much a post for listing out the stereotypes in wrestling, since stereotypes exist in all forms of entertainment, but a post to felicitate discussion on how it is treated. I have a lot to say, but I am finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts. Principally, I am reminded of the story when Tiger Ali Singh asked Vince to reconsider the angle where his Turban was removed - for laughs, IIRC - because of its importance in his local culture. Vince, apparently, listened to him, and then just said "Go and fucking do it." I am not saying he should not have booked that angle, but I do want to talk about how it was booked and treated. To put it mildly, for a man of Singh's character's background, his turban being tossed like that is literally ten times worse than Hogan getting his cross ripped from him. Of course, Singh is no Hogan, but remember how it was treated like an enormous deal when Andre did that? It was tantamount to blasphemy, almost. The reaction and treatment of the Turban angle did not come close to being treated with suitable gravity. Has wrestling improved in that matter now? It has always had a fruitful relationship with the Samoan community, but now, when the Usos do their entrance dance, not only is it not made fun of, it is also treated with respect, or at least that is what I feel. Is it a sign of an overall improvement, or just an exception? Would the Maori Haka also be treated with the same level of respect, considering the Maoris, to the best of my knowledge, have not been a consistent target demographic in wrestling history? It is something I am intrigued about.

This has been a really good discussion. I agree about the gender-neutral naming. Is there any name in the Harry Potter world that is gender-neutral, though? If I ever have kids, they are going to be named after the people in that world. Non-negotiable. Right now, I am leaning towards just naming them Hermione, no matter what set of genitalia they are born with.

If someone had told me 3 years ago that out of the Shield members, one day Roman Reigns would be the best worker, I would have laughed and made that joke that Americans do about selling some seashore property in a desert area. This will sound smug, but the day they had Dean Ambrose running in with a hot dog stand, in an attenpt to give him a memorable segmet on the lines of the beer bath, I was pretty sure that they were going to turn his character into a complete joke. That segment was neither funny nor edgy.

The only reason Jimmy should be banned is because, despite being knowledgeable and intelligent and knowing better, she nearly got Triple H into the top 100. That is unforgivable. That said, she has made some absolutely wonderful posts here. I have interacted with women on wrestling forums before, but no one has written about this issue, and reading her posts have been so eye-opening.

Meltzer's board also happens to be a meeting point of the worst of the dregs of wrestling fans. I have seen them talk about how Austin should have stomped a mudhole in Debra and stunned her. I firmly convinced that 75% of the regular podters there are outright psychopaths.

Vince McMahon would be a better President than Donald Trump. I am sorry, I just can't get over this. WTF, America?

I honestly don't know where to put it, or whether it should be put, but the guy who was stunned by Steve Austin at WM, and who goes about calling all Mexicans rapists and thinks that a formal debate is a good place to talk about his penis size is now presumably the official Presidential nominee of a centuries' old party, a party which boasts of people like Abraham Lincoln as its members. Congrats, America. You are the land of the brave.

I can only speak for myself, but when I became a wrestling fan, while I believed firmly that women and men should be treated equally, I was too young/immature to understand many cases in which they were not treated equally. The disproportionate way in which the bodies and sexual appeal of female wrestlers was focused on compared to the male ones did not then strike me as being unfair. Every divas match would have the commentators, particularly Lawler, drool over them in a way that was very creepy. I think I am actually agreeing with what Steven and others are saying, but am expressing myself terribly, so I guess I won't debate this any further; at least not until I can compose my thoughts. Posting through your mobile is a nightmare, and I have no idea how you people do it.

Feminism is a lot more nuanced than saying women ahould be treated equally to men, although that is its basic premise. Hell, even Donald Trump would agree on the former, a few seconds before he mocks a female reporter for being ugly.

Yes, Steven, but if I had to guess, most of us wrestling fans who also identify ourselves as feminists were wrestling fans first; feminism came later. By that time, we had an emotional connection to wrestling that we might not have had otherwise. Most of us stayed fans and continued watching even after the Benoit tragedy. I am not doing a very good job explaining myself, but my point is that for feminists who have never watched wrestling before, presentation would be a crucial factor. I just have anecdotal evidence, which I gave. In any case, Jimmy is by far the better person to speak on it. Brilliant post, btw. Also, as much as I wish it wasn't true, Indo agree with Parv's point about asshole crowds. We have come a long way from when an audience's idea of insulting a female star was chanting "slut", all the while wildly cheering on Rock for bragging about how much pie he gets every night, but the normal Raw crowd is still a far cry from the usual nXt crowds.

Agreed. I am actually struggling to think of a recent example that comes close to this. People qere convinced as late as a couple of months ago that this was a fluke, and that there was no way they could actually win this.

I agree, fakeplastictrees, and I look forward to reading your article.

There was this time when I tried to make a very good female friend, who identifies herself as a feminist, start following wrestling. She was a bit apprehensive, but she agreed to give it a shot. One of the first thing she watched was a Vickie Guerrero segment/match, where Jerry Lawler constantly kept making fun of her for being fat and ugly. Bear in mind that this was after she had lost a ton of weight, so not only was it nasty and uncalled-for, it was also stupid and nonsensical. She ignored it the first couple of times, but when, in her words, "that creepy old man who thinks it is totally okay to be fat himself but makes fun of women for being fat and not bangeable enough for him" kept doing the same shit every week for quite some time, she tapped out. She said it would have been okay had her weight been a part of some storyline or added purpose to the matches or the segments, but it wasn't; it was just a commentator being an asshole. A babyface commentator, no less, although I don't think she even knew then that colour commentators are often heel. My point is that the presentation of women in wrestling will have to drastically change, at least as far as WWE is concerned, for feminists in general to start becoming fans. Hopefully, Steph gaining more power means that at the very least, in some time the official WWE humour won't be what an out-of-touch 70 year old man thinks is funny.

Some time ago, some big-shot American corporate dude said that it is not a good thing financially for clubs like Leicester to play in the Champions' League; that it would be more prudent if the old powerhouses kept on qualifying. All I have is anecdotal evidence, but here in India, I have never seen as much interest in Football as I have seen in this dream run for the Foxes. Football is pretty popular in India, but this season has been incredible in terms of people talking about it. Speaking of managers, it would be interesting to see who is more polarising: Wenger or Mourinho. Both have rabid fans and sworn haters.

For all intents and purposes, this is like that time when Santino almost won the world title. Except Leicester have actually won the world title.

Honestly, the comments on the Dylan Cena > 4 Pillars video is much better than I expected. I went in there expecting that someone was going to call him an overgrown kid or a fucking faggot or shit like that.