MoS

This is a predictable, cliche answer, but Kiniski at Starrcade 1983 is actually really bad.

I think the lens with which we measure athleticism has changes, yeah. For my money, Ric Flair might be the most athletic wrestler ever, even though he is not someone considered conventionally athletic, and because he was rather sloppy while executing his high spots.

I've said this before, but rewatching Goldberg's comeback entrance and promo, if Roman had done something even remotely similar instead of spinning Looney Tunes rhymes in early 2015, I think he would have been a hot babyface. I think Goldberg is underrated as a worker -I prefer him to Kevin Nash any day of the week- but Reigns blows him out of the water as far as working ability goes. All they needed to do was book a badass character as a complete badass. Watching the first few Shield promos, they were doing exactly that. In their first interview, Rollins and Ambrose did all the talking, while Reigns stayed silent. When Cole turned around and asked him what he wanted to say, he coldly replied something to the effect of "If I want to say something, I'll say it." That was awesome. How difficult is it to continue booking someone like that?!?

It's because I don't know what a wrestling expert is, because I don't think that the term has been used in wrestling at all. But if anyone has a legit claim to being called that, it's Dave. So, the opposite of what you said.

I haven't read the piece, but the frustration of the largely white, working/middle class blue collar workers, who have seen their jobs go away and their wages remain stagnant even as the cost of living keeps increasing exponentially, and who blame the Establishment for it - and upon baiting, minorities - who got frustrated and voted for Trump because he's an outsider and he promised change in loud, crude and simplistic words, despite having voted for Obama both times, is something a wrestling "expert" like Meltzer can definitely give a nuanced analysis on, because that group has been wrestling's traditional target demographic for decades now. The common blue-collar man just doing his job and hating the establishment was the gimmick that got Steve Austin to hecome arguably the greatest draw in wrestling history. Dusty Rhodes, Bruno Sammartino, etc, also had very similar gimmicks. The stoking of resentment against minorities is also very much in line with wrestling's traditional treatment of foreigners as a distinct, reudctionist binary of good or bad, with their nationality being their primary identifier. The relative ease with which promoters have got to get evil foreigners over as heels traditionally is also relevant here.

I don't see how play-dohs help, but puppies are great! When I was on exchange in America for a semester, they had a "bring your pet to college" day and it was so weird but also so great haha.

I haven't seen the clip so I cannot comment on that, but it never fails to amuse me how so many anti-PC people whine and moan and complain the absolute most, without a shred of self-awareness. "OH NOE THEY SAID HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND NOT JUST MERRY CHRISTMAS OMG THIS NATION IS DYING!!" "HOW DARE HE INSULT THE AMERICAN FLAG HORRIBLE MAN FIRE HIM!!" And yeah, saying Trump stands for free speech when he has an actual history of filing lawsuits whenever there is criticism of him or when people say mean - and petty, to be fair - things about him, and when one of the first things he is doing as President-elect is changing a lot of media protocol to give them less freedom to operate as well as changing libel laws to ensure there isn't much criticism of him, is so mind-fucking I don't even know what to say. A lot of these people probably support the Parents' Council and do not like "ass" or "tits" being used on TV either.

lol yeah that is not happening. If they did, they will get zero people to pay here. You know how Vince's biggest success is that for so many people, wrestling just equals WWE? That is the embodiment of wrestling culture here in India. Of course they could try and pass themselves off as a WWE B-show, but given that India is WWE's 3rd biggest market here and they have been making a heavy PR push here for a few years now, no way does Vince let that slide.

Not getting into the whole "Foley is creepy" thing, but he has always seemed very think-skinned and sensitive to criticism. He wrote a long-ass, really whiny response to Meltzer for criticising his 3rd book (I think) for essentially stuff that was not even particularly damning. He was also somehow convinced that his suggested angle of Terry Funk biting him in the ass was amazing and felt really insulted when it was shot down.

I also caught Goldberg's promo on YouTube. Amazing how effective having a badass character cut badass promo can be, right? Imagine Roman cutting such promos back in early 2015 instead of the whole Looney Tunes rhymes shit. Not to mention, while I think Goldberg is underrated as a worker, Roman is a much much better worker.

Nice.

I haven't been following wrestling much and I read up on this today and my head hurts.

Yeah, and it can he argued that in the current political landscape, the dominant discourse not only eschews basic decency, but actually despises it.

I actually think giving Dylan a Nobel was a subtly political response to the extreme right-wingism gaining strength all over the world.

Dylan getting a Nobel prize reminded me of this.

Also Brock botched the shooting star press and nearly killed himself in the process.

Rock had never beaten Austin in a singles match before I think, and Austin pretty much knew it was his last match - he was broken down and had a massive panic attack the night before, spending the night in hospital, to the point the match could very well have been cancelled - and they did not know then that Rock would essentially never be a full-time wrestler again. This was like the passing of the torch that never was.

I remember Austin getting (slightly) more cheers than Rock in the build-up to WM 17, but I don't remember Rock getting boo'd. However, Dave's point about turning Rock and not Austin was not one of booing or cheering but the kind of investment people had in their respective characters. He said you could turn Rock because Rock was like Hogan, a larger-than-life charismatic figure. He said that Austin was much much more like Bruno, and that's how fans felt about him, and there's a reason why they never turned Bruno. It just wouldn't have worked. By the end of their first runs, both Bruno and Austin had the kind of relationship with fans which would have made a heel run absolutely disastrous.

Just chill out and listen to some Indian music, people.

No idea, but knowing Ross, it probably ended this way. "[something offensive to gay people].... not that there's anything wrong with that..." He had come out in support of marriage equality, hadn't he? That was a big surprise to me. Austin in an interview supported gay marriage as well, which was again a pleasant surprise to me, considering the character he used to play.

Maybe the Sasha title change happened because they are trying to recreate the "Anything can happen on these shows!" that was the selling point of the Attitude Era, which the brand split essentially tried to recapture?

Man, he was granted an exemption from the 4-month testing scheme pretty specifically to get all the shit out of his system, and he still failed two tests. UFC is really lucky his results came out after the PPV. Also, every fighter who has ever failed a test has had multiple successful ones around the same time-frame. Plus, we do not know the kind of tests these were. This might have been a blood test while the others were simply piss tests. As people said, doping is almost always far ahead of the testing. Given his failure and that of Jon Jones, I am guessing they developed a new way of testing estrogen blockers.

Ronaldo saying Iceland have a small mind for being defence-oriented is like Triple H saying RoH are losers for not aggressively competing with WWE

And YAY TAJIRI!!! He has always been one of my absolute favourites.

Please tell me more. The first world's (ironic?) love for Bollywood always makes me happy.