funkdoc

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.

My buddies were thinking maybe Rollins or even Orton, if not Jericho. Most likely Jericho tho

That got ZERO reaction from the crowd too, WWE's fanbase is less chronically online news at 11 etc. etc.

This has me thinking Jade Cargill is out to collect that particular bag while it's still there and she'll just retire from wrestling once it's over, given the recent reports on how little they're having her train there. Nice work if you can get it...

The interesting thing is Malakai never struck me as a "malcontent" in the same sense as a Miro or Andrade - he seemed to like the folks he worked with in AEW, gave good effort in the ring, wasn't pulling any "that doesn't work for me, brother" nonsense, etc. But his wife being in WWE definitely had to have taken its toll over time, plus he's legitimately banged up IIRC and i can't imagine it helped that Brody King kinda took over as the star of the stable literally named after him... One interesting point my friends raised, on a related note: Sting & Christian having spent years in TNA likely made them more sympathetic to that #2 position, as they clearly seem to treat AEW like it's every bit as important as WWE. The conclusion i've increasingly come to from all this is that a startup promotion needs to find its own identity (which AEW did a great job of!) then refuse to compromise any part of that identity for big names from the outside.

So apparently the WWE UK store is selling brand-new CM Punk merch...we've got ourselves a new entry on Carny Mt. Rushmore, folks!

It's 100% that last part. i personally know people who say "Tanahashi & Okada are like Austin & the Rock to me" as far as making them lifelong wrestling fans, and that generation is becoming the key influencers more and more over time. Also, Kurt Angle is 100% not seen as a joke pick outside these circles. If anything i see *more* widespread appreciation for him now, with even the Perc Angle time in TNA receiving a lot of nostalgic love.

Again: what evidence do we have of the Elite "playing petty games" with Punk here? i said earlier that SRS & Dave both flat-out denied them giving those stories, so you either have to say they're completely lying or Punk was full of shit on that particular point. i ain't even denying the Bucks have a history of being assholes themselves (and would agree with suspending them since that's not how EVPs should handle this) but people seem to be ignoring that part. This board in general is massively pro-Punk because he did great stuff in WWE and wrestles slower and makes Bret Hart references, and anti-Elite bc they're shitposting theater kids who just happened to become pro wrestlers and work matches the way hardcore punk bands play rock songs. From where i stand that's clearly influencing a lot of the takes here.

And now one of the mods on the F4W board is saying that unless things change after the most recent company call, Punk & Steel are getting fired and the Elite are all getting suspended. Best outcome if true imo

SRS & Meltzer have been emphatic that none of the Elite guys had anything to do with giving them the stories on Punk or Colt, so either they’re lying or Punk and a bunch of folks on this board were just making assumptions. SRS also says folks told him WWE would be interested in Punk if it comes to that - if that actually happens he’ll be confirmed at least 10x the carny Cody is The more that comes out here, the harder it is for me to buy any “both sides” narrative though i do agree the EVPs shouldn’t act like the boys in a situation like that. Also don’t be shocked if Jericho gets promoted to EVP over this - all the scuttlebutt is raving about how he’s been the one to step up as a leader ever since the Punk-Page drama first broke

A lot of us in my friend groups feel like Swerve should be a main-eventer down the line. He can even do the media crossover stuff that Cody did for them before! That said, Stacy was right to mention Bowens. He's improved markedly over the last year+, which they badly needed since Caster is middling at best in the ring. Now they have a dynamic of mic guy + workhorse which i think can make them viable tag champs, especially with ol' Billy Ass apparently being the last missing piece for them.

My feelings on this are: 1. "Pretense that this is worked combat" is fundamentally impossible anymore and the Internet & the popularity of MMA were always going to make it that way in the long run. We know that even the bottom-feeders of UFC would destroy virtually any pro wrestler in a real fight, and really that's been apparent since the collapse of Japanese shoot style in the 90s. Wrestling at its core is a nerd fandom anymore, and nerds want athletic burlesque. Hell, my own watch group is into stuff like DDT/TJPW/Hoodslam/Effy's Big Gay Brunch that makes the "burlesque" part literal at times! 2. If you want to win over millennials & zoomers & whoever comes after, you *are* going to have to throw out a whole lot of what worked for even the Gen Xers. Again, i think the Internet has been the single biggest cultural gamechanger since at least TV, and any time before that feels like the Stone Age at this point. Here's an example of what i'm getting at: the infamous Sammy Guevara cum belt promo. A big reason that bombed so hard (besides the obvious) is that he was supposed to be a babyface when he did this. A ripped guy bragging about banging a hot chick could have gotten face pops in a prior era, but a key difference between then and now is that now we don't want our heroes to be the people we secretly wish we were. We want our heroes to be relatable, and that Sammy promo was the polar opposite of relatable to the core pro wrestling fanbase. There's a reason Hangman Page connected so strongly after initial skepticism of his push, and it's the way he felt like one of us with his depression & alcoholism & the audible lack of confidence he gave off in his promos. THAT'S what gets the non-boomers attached to you.

Overall this has been a much better show than i expected given how weak the card looked on paper, Jay Lethal winning aside Maybe the "RAW making them step up" narrative could have some truth to it

Hearing from more reputable sources that stuff was bullshit, which i figured from the start. i can buy Ahmed Johnson using PWI as a bargaining chip in the 90s, not a history buff in the modern era