funkdoc

Since i saw someone complain about Alex Wright finishing above his father here, i can give some possible context on that: A few years back, one of the more popular Youtube channels in this space (Wrestling Bios) had been doing a series called "Reliving the War" where he reviewed each week's episode of both Raw and Nitro. He happens to be a huge Alex Wright fan and would mark the fuck out in his videos whenever he appeared, and that enthusiasm eventually spread to his audience. There's been a big reappreciation of him and a lot of younger fans discovering him through this (and Bischoff singing his praises on podcasts also can't hurt with the older demographics). Oh yeah, and his promo in the WCW Thunder video game has lived on as a meme to this day ("You're gonna have a hell of a wictory, I PROMISE!!!!!"). i'm willing to bet that's where this came from. He also just fits really well with Gen Z culture loving the goofballs & dorks of any given roster, especially with how memorable that dance is!

That's not going to land with someone who lists Big Black & the Gerogerigegege among their favorite bands (hi it's me) Poptimism has outlived its usefulness and more people seem to be realizing that - it should not be the job of art critics to boost the biggest corporations.

The promo thing is so weird to me because he WAS good at that...in UFC. Like that was a big part of the draw with him there, that he was this cocky fake wrestler talking shit to all the Ultimate Fighters(tm). Maybe it's that he's fine doing sports-style interviews but not wrestling promos, per se?

Out of everything Hogan's done, i maintain that the Gawker lawsuit has done the most damage to society as a whole - it showed that celebrities (or even microcelebrities) can get pieces taken down if they have enough money behind them. And to tie things even more to the present state of the world, remember that Peter Thiel backed that... No love here, sorry

And we have more coming out from this...MAJOR CONTENT WARNING AHEAD: The full document is grotesque enough that i might recommend not reading it - the sheer volume of all this is soul-crushing. The main part we didn't know before was that Vince & Linda had video footage of Mel Phillips sexually assaulting a boy and covered it up. Think that's all i need to say here...

The impression i get lately is that him wearing out his welcome in AEW (seriously, people were PISSED at him going over Hook this weekend) has really hurt his legacy these days. It just feels like he's far less often talked about among the all-time greats in the way that he was after, say, his first few successful reinventions in WWE, and now he has major go-away heat with a significant chunk of AEW's core audience.

What i was getting at was the way some folks heavily hype up WWE workers and their style in general and think it's a black mark against someone if they didn't draw on top (regardless of surrounding circumstances). There's a lot of the same kind of arguments here that i saw in defense of Britney Spears & Justin Timberlake back in the 2000s (or, say, the MCU now) which is why that comparison occurs to me. One other more on-topic quick thought: i feel like Sting really worked well with superheavyweights in general but didn't get a chance to show it much outside of the Vader series. His PPV match vs a young Paul Wight really surprised me at how enjoyable it was until the overbooking kicked in!

Kinda wonder if they would've waited longer to pull the trigger with Swerve if their numbers were doing a bit better. This is one of the things they had to do to even begin to earn positive buzz back, and i feel like the pendulum will eventually swing at least a little bit given the quality of their shows this year. Seen a lot of raving about Danielson-Ospreay even outside the AEW fan bubble, too.

Southern wrestling in general has drastically faded in terms of influence since the last GWE, you see more indie wrestlers taking elements from Bret than from Flair these days. i actually think Smothers would be easier for younger fans now to appreciate than some of his contemporaries (largely due to his goofball side), but the promotions that gave him any decent push were ones that have largely been forgotten by mainstream history. The people who'd already watched a ton of Tracy Smothers by the time of the previous GWE aren't going to have anything new to say about him, and he's not going to be on newer people's radars.

"Failed ace" stigma meeting some folks' attempts to force Pitchfork-style poptimism into pro wrestling. OK, OK, that's a bit too pithy. It's the above combined with him never having the reputation as a ring general, as i feel like he's always been seen as closer to a Kerry or Luger than a Flair or Funk. Also during the last GWE ballot, the 90s Yearbooks were fresher in a lot of voters' minds and Sting had a *bad* run with the belt in early '98 that was captured in great detail there. i'm talking "getting outworked in the ring by late-90s Hogan" levels here.

i feel like either you absolutely love this guy or you see him as a system quarterback. Which you could probably say about a bunch of WWE main-eventers, but he's been more divisive than most especially given the nature of his matches in more recent years...

Angle has really had an uptick legacy-wise in recent years, i think in part because of TNA nostalgia emerging as a non-ironic thing (remember, they were big in the UK back in the day and i think that's where a lot of it comes from) and in part due to the specific popular legend that has formed around Perc Angle. There's also him becoming a massive TikTok meme that i still see posted all over the place (the "jacked bald guy intently staring into your soul" image). Not stuff that would matter for this board's main demographic, but if this were a Youtube project that drew in a lot more late millenials & zoomers he would likely rate pretty darn high overall now!

Hi all, figured this would be a fun little thing folks here would want to take a crack at: https://tiermaker.com/create/all-pwi-500-wrestling-observer-woty-and-most-outstanding-winn-15079364 (For the unfamiliar, "S Class" is a Japanese linguistic convention indicating the best of the best, something above simply an A grade) A few folks i know have made their personal lists, so i'll post them here and see if you have a read on what type of fan each person is... Exhibit A: Exhibit B: Exhibit C: And of course, feel free to post your own using whatever criteria you like!

Yeah, this latest booking of Cody (which is getting an unusual amount of hate even from the Vincels) screams Dwayne asserting dominance. Felt like that even before the newest reports came out. And remember that he tried to do exactly this with the DC Cinematic Universe before Black Adam bombed and his reputation in Hollywood tanked, so this would be a logical next step i guess

Regardless, the point here is that HHH looks like a goner and potentially Prichard & Nick Khan as well. Will be interesting to see how far it goes, like i'd bet Heyman & Shawn knew at least some of this was going on but have enough plausible deniability to get off free. Imagine if, say, Stephanie were to serve as a witness...there were theories floating around that she left Hunter because he stayed with Vince after the previous scandal broke. And maybe Shane could show up for this too, given his strange position as the one Vince never believed in.