funkdoc

honestly though, what parv just said fits my fighting game analogy too! although i said that the fighting game scene is a bunch of different communities more isolated than united, there are also common things people learn if they go online and learn about tournaments. mortal kombat is the most famous fighting game franchise in general, yet it never gets anywhere near the tournament numbers that street fighter or marvel vs. capcom do. hardly anyone outside of anime nerds has heard of guilty gear, and that's basically the "chris benoit" in this example. i guess blazblue would be the "dean malenko". there are common ideas you'll encounter in an internet fandom that you would never have seen otherwise, but that doesn't change the fact that the fandom is still a hodgepodge of different scenes. it's just that the largest such community online tends to dominate the discussions so you get exposed to their groupthink first and foremost. tl;dr both parv and jdw are right to some extent

chief jay strongbow is perhaps the strongest argument that the death of kayfabe was a good thing

SuperCena is kinda outdated now tbh the new term all the cool kids use is CENAWINSLOL, just fyi

i had never, ever heard the term "shine" until i got on here. one of my friends told me it came from an al snow video breaking down the standard WWE match structure, but i have no idea how true that is. +1 on "the product", that's probably the one i hate the most. just say "the show" or what have you, no need to sound like you had your soul sucked out of you. similarly, i hated when wrestling fans started calling EVERYTHING "brands" after the raw/smackdown split and am real glad that's dead. to add further thoughts on "IWC", the discussion here reminds me a lot of my involvement with competitive fighting games (i.e. street fighter, mortal kombat). ever since that scene blew up with the release of street fighter 4, "FGC" has become the catch-all term for it. i never liked it from day 1 because i felt it sounded too self-important (just like "IWC"), but over time i realized another big problem with it that also applies to "IWC". specifically, the fighting-game tournament scene isn't really one unified community. rather, it's a bunch of smaller communities for the different games that happen to get together at the major tournaments. street fighter players are almost a completely different crowd from tekken players, who are a completely different crowd from mortal kombat players, who are a completely different crowd from super smash bros. players...you get the picture. the end result is that as most people use it, "FGC" just means "the capcom community" since capcom's fighting games (street fighter & marvel vs. capcom) have the biggest tournament numbers and their players are the main "stars" within this subculture. it has the effect of erasing a majority of the overall tournament scene, which bugs me the most out of all of these issues. i strongly suspect something similar has happened with "IWC" where it's only used to refer to the CENA CAN'T WRESTLE fans and completely ignores this site, though i'm not positive...

yep, count me as another person who completely quit watching WWE because of the katie vick angle. hell, ever since then i've typically just watched rumble + mania and it was only this year that i watched raw semi-regularly (though i'm already done with that). RVD was the most over guy in the company among people i knew at the time, but i will say that between the weed and busting people's noses, i can't really fault them TOO much for not pulling the trigger on him. booker t was inexcusable, though. if it weren't for katie vick i would say that was the worst thing HHH was ever involved in, just by virtue of the angle they took and the end result. i forget who on here said that the bulk of HHH's career was one giant ric flair cosplay, but it's an apt summary of his various failures. the heel title reign from hell, matches like the scott steiner one...

i'm in the same boat as petey here. it's not that i would think i'm doing some sort of meaningful protest - i just genuinely don't enjoy stunts like those when i know the possible long-term effects of them. i too love football, but for its strategic depth & ongoing evolution rather than the JACKED UP!!! side of it. and even then, i'm getting less and less comfortable with the game over time as i realize how unsolvable the problem truly is...

good one! along similar lines, this would take way more effort but i suspect goldust would be the longest-active wrestler to have the highest average meltzer rating of the year, at least in WWE. IIRC he was #1 over cena/punk/bryan last year.

lol, i always felt that way and i've long been used to seeing internet fans rave about flair/AJPW broadways (hell, even the WM12 ironman!). glad to see i'm apparently in the majority for once =) even for the aforementioned ironman matches, i think 30 is the way to go for sure. just look at how well steamboat-rude has held up compared to WM12...

you can! go on http://rspw.org/tidbits/ and look for a post right after WM6 =) oh yeah, one more thought - scaia had to be one of the more important internet presences of the attitude era as well. i distinctly remember bill simmons plugging "ask the rick" in his columns during that time. and didn't online onslaught do the russo interview that basically got him hired by WCW?

yea, i tend to use "smark" to mean "typical scott keith-style internet fan". i do loathe "IWC" because it just sounds too self-important to me, but i think we need a term to describe the internet hivemind that does exist. anyway, very interesting discussion here, thanks everyone! as a 90s kid i'll chime in with my experience: i started watching the WWF in 1992, close to summer, and WCW some time after that. i also had a local video store with a ton of older WWF tapes so i rented damn near every one of those once i got into it. i was 7 at the time, and thought it was real at first - papa shango & nailz scared the living hell out of me! but even then, i tended to be most drawn to high-flyers - 2 cold scorpio and the 1-2-3 kid were my favorite wrestlers period back then! i also found savage-steamboat and bret-bulldog from summerslam really exciting, though i couldn't say why at the time. i stopped watching in mid-93 and didn't come back until shortly after the austin boom started...i think the raw where he won the title back from kane was my first show. i was the perfect age for the attitude era, and i ate it up all the way (although i did snark on the most obviously corny stuff like beaver cleavage). i had the internet now, and was already active on the usenet groups for final fantasy & street fighter, so it wasn't long before i found the infamous RSPW FAQ and had my mind blown. that led me to scott keith, and i absolutely DEVOURED everything of his. he was THE influence on me as a fan during that time, although by the end of the attitude era i began noticing what a bad writer he is. so yes, you can chalk me up as a product of that first big internet wave before i discovered this place! i'm actually inclined to agree with parv somewhat, as the way keith rated *everything* made him come across as an authority to people who didn't know any better. he did more work than anyone besides meltzer in that regard, i am pretty sure, and it helped that he was reviewing a lot of older shows during the period when wrestling had the most eyeballs on it. and of course, i didn't have to pay for his stuff like i did with meltzer! just one man's 2 cents, of course, but i figured it might be of interest since i'm part of a generation a lot of yall are discussing EDIT: oh yeah, one more thought. i suspect herb kunze may be underrated as a hidden influence of sorts. in particular, i'm thinking of his post from 1990 where he essentially lays out a definition of "work rate" to bash hogan-warrior since he was mad at all the praise for that match. it was basically "count the number of different Proper Wrestling Moves used in the match, and dock points for restholds", which is how so many still view matches to this day. you can't say this was just copying meltzer either, since meltzer liking hogan-warrior was one of the main things that triggered this. and of course, herb was one of the original big puro guys on the internet which probably counts for a lot...

re: the camel clutch that move seems to be up there with the bearhug in terms of smark hatred. heck, people on here complained about it with rusev! in fairness, it looks REALLY bad when not executed well, even compared to most wrestling moves...but i think another big factor is the "cliched evil foreigner" stench on it. that move inevitably brings up memories of the iron sheik, and iron sheik embodies everything old & corny & uncool about wrestling to a lot of the typical internet crowd.

dark horse pick: a bunch of the random indie guys WCW signed in 93-94. so many of those were regulars in the apter mags, and i'm almost positive that's the whole reason they ever got a job in the first place. let me list the ones that come to mind... the equalizer slazenger/pierce the colossal kongs charlie norris the blackhearts the mongolian mauler there are quite a few others i suspect of being similar cases but am not sure about: maxx payne, RVD, big sky, the wrecking crew, jungle jim steele... that was such a weird period for WCW. heck, JYD & jim neidhart got a cup of coffee as a tag team in 93! also, speaking of guys with native american gimmicks, wasn't chris chavis hyped up a ton in the apter mags? thought he was "Rookie of the Year" there or something, though i'm less sure that was the reason the WWF noticed him. EDIT: i think choices like these, abdullah, & mascaras fit the spirit of the thread far better than a luger or flair. i'm more interested in guys without national TV exposure who were promoted and gained something from the magazines.

i didn't know people were underrating austin, always used to seeing matches like over the edge 98 get tons of love online no idea how one could put cena above austin, that's for sure. "company ace" does not mean "most great main event matches"!

the fact that people would call HHH in that first photo "flabby" or anything close is exactly what i'm talking about here to me, that looks like someone who got really good results on a Starting Strength-type program. and if i had to guess which one was a better athlete, i would take the one without the six-pack. i remember seeing one case of a dude who started out at 10-12% bodyfat but didn't exercise - he was just genetically skinny and had some abs. he got into hardcore weightlifting and ate a ton to support the strength gains, since that's the only way to do it without drugs; he ended up having a noticeable gut and *zero* visible muscle definition, but his squats went from entry-level to well over 400 pounds IIRC. parv/fantastic/et al. would ridicule the idea of this guy having an "athletic body" if they saw the shirtless pics, but he became an infinitely better athlete than he was when he had abs! learning stuff like this from friends over the years has made WWE look that much sillier to me, let me tell you! EDIT: i would enjoy kawada 100x more if he wore a chicken suit, but then my tastes tend toward the absurd for a lot of things

Pray it happens sooner cause this Stardust shit is embarrassingly horrific. disagree, i'm kinda of a sucker for this stuff. but then, i'm the same guy who unironically thinks they should have just made tensai a babyface japan fanboy who "goes super saiyan" before his finisher.

i really hope the stardust thing sticks. it's an example of what i've talked about on here before - gimmicks that have built-in appeal to nerds. in this particular case, basically every anime fan i've seen who watches wrestling is going nuts for this act. why? because, by sheer accident, stardust is more or less a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character! the flamboyance, his name & dialogue being rife with popular music references, kicking ass in combat, it all fits. jojo's is one of the most widely beloved anime/manga series within that community, and the resemblance is strong enough that fans are picking up on it. of course, cody's probably going to turn heel sometime this month, but what can ya do...

p. much this even in legitimate sports, the obsession with six-pack abs is some real bullshit. being that ripped is more likely a sign of weakness than strength, unless you're a genetic freak or on drugs. i've known people who have done figure competitions (basically bodybuilding-lite for women) and the dieting involved will turn you into a monster even with PEDs! tl;dr i think bodybuilding, pro wrestling, & film have given us a completely warped idea of an "athletic body" EDIT: if anyone cares, fuyuki & yatsu (89 vs. mid-90) would fit this thread to a T, i imagine. noriyo tateno would be the standout example among women although i wouldn't consider the super-skinny look "best"...

i was rather surprised at the pop for ambrose, even if he has been their best thing going since the turn definitely tuning out until brock is in play though

Can you elaborate on this?like i said in the thread on drawing, pro wrestling has tended toward very simple, sports-movie type stories. the old great passing the torch to the next generation, the guy who gets it done in the clutch when his equally-talented opponent can't, and so on. i just do not find this sort of material compelling at all anymore, probably because my extensive sports fandom has killed it for me. i am also not really interested in hypermasculinity either, and find it outright abhorrent if anything. beyond me personally, these kinds of stories just aren't much respected in art overall, compared to more nuanced fare. i have posted here before about how wrestling could tell a story that draws kayfabe-era reactions without kayfabe (HINT: think lawler-snowman) but it would take far better hands than WWE's to pull it off...

i actually agree with el-p more than he would probably suspect. he's right that wrestling as it currently exists is broken and does not hold up compared to other scripted entertainment at all. that said, that doesn't mean it's an impossible goal altogether! i just think wrestling needs someone to come along who has no connection to the carny days and rethinks its entire storytelling from the ground up. i think pro wrestling has the potential to tell more compelling stories than the sports-movie fare that has made up practically its entire history, but it would take someone unique to pull it off and establish it... until then, yes, wrestling is broken. but i think older wrestling holds up poorly as well if you look at it from the same viewpoint. EDIT: one last thought - i think guys complaining about their push in promos can actually work without breaking the fourth wall. pro sports coverage these days tends to focus a lot more on "marketability" and drama manufactured by social media or the networks themselves, rather than how good a player is or how much his team wins. there is sometimes a major divide between the best players and the most famous ones, and the former can definitely get jealous of the latter. you could build a wrestling storyline around that, and some of the "worked shoot" type of material would fit in a context of guys wanting to win; i wouldn't expect it from WWE, but the idea isn't inherently ludicrous.

i'm 100% with dooley re: fan behavior if the product doesn't want fans to act a certain way, then the people in charge need to change the product. people should be able to respond however they want to what they see, as long as it doesn't tip over into outright bigotry or such (as allegedly happened with the WCW road wild crowds). makes me wonder how a lot of yall feel about the audience traditions that developed with rocky horror, or any number of other examples of crowd participation/"meta" stuff. also, i find it funny that people still cling to this idea that you can bring kayfabe back somehow. sorry, but that genie's never going back in the bottle. even with kids, you're forgetting something major: the internet & especially social media that has been a total game-changer in so many arenas. for example, in US sports, the conventional wisdom was that you had to play in a top-tier media market (east coast, CA, chicago) to become a national superstar. nowadays, if you really like an athlete, you can find youtube highlights and follow their twitter & instagram to keep up with their daily goings-on and become even more attached. hence kevin durant can become a national superstar while playing in oklahoma city, something that would absolutely not have happened a generation or two ago. smartphones have been an important part of this transformation as well, by allowing you to access the internet anywhere at any time without requiring any tech savvy. tons of teens and even some younger kids have one these days, further contributing to the above. so with pro wrestling, nobody will ever be able to scare kids for long (like papa shango did to me) when you can find out their real name and past gimmicks in a minute. having more of a window into wrestlers' everyday lives will also inevitably ruin some of the magic, if it was ever there to begin with. kayfabe was fundamentally reliant on hiding basic information, which goes against the entire ethos of our modern world. that is why i take the opposite position of many in this thread and say that wrestling simply MUST learn how to live in a post-kayfabe world. period.

reminder that icycalm is a trust-fund baby who talked like he was a big-time ebay con man and bragged about it. then people found out he was nowhere near big-time and he was more mad about that than anything else. nietzsche fanboys are consistently hilarious for all the wrong reasons. very similar to rand in terms of surface appeal to sheltered egotistical white dudes...

Doesn't Evan Bourne have issues with drugs and/or being generally kinda crazy? Heard offhand comments but don't really know.

yea digiorno was doing the same schtick last week too. luke harper hiding pizza in his beard and all sorts of similar wackiness. fyi there are a number of corporate twitter accounts like that. typically it's somebody from "weird twitter" (search for that phrase, basically it's internet comedians who either came from something awful or aped its style) manning the account. but yeah, you'll see the official world of warcraft account making Doge references, or nature valley talking about anime and getting flooded with nature valley bars photoshopped into anime scenes. it's just one of the newer forms of marketing to nerds!

yeah, i really like what Parv had to say there. there are plenty of ways to immerse someone beyond just "fun". i do feel like we could do a lot better than Dys4ia & Depression Quest (and *have* done better, see Yume Nikki & Gone Home), but i still think it's a great thing that those games exist. it makes no sense to me that video games have to be for fun when we don't treat other media that way, just like how it makes no sense to me that we can't treat pro wrestling the way we treat other public performance. Parv's writing on Magnum vs. Tully also brings up a major reason i don't watch that much wrestling anymore: i just don't find the stories told by a lot of the canonized "great" matches to be that profound. a lot of that comes from my life experiences and study, along with that of my closest friends. basically i have come to view currently-existing masculinity as completely and utterly toxic, so i just can't get into any sort of "who's the better man" deal. i also find a lot of the other common narratives in "great" wrestling to be the same ones used to explain sports (e.g. "he has all the talent in the world but he chokes at the end"), and those largely tend to be bullshit if you really analyze sports. to put it a bit more succinctly, even the best pro wrestling tends to draw on the surface-level appeal of sports as opposed to the stuff that lies deeper. this was more than enough to captivate me as a teenager, but years of ESPN have killed it for me. i've been saying for years that rather than a "male soap opera" (a terrible description in my view) or even a "live-action comic book" (a much better one, granted), wrestling is really most like old-school sports movies (e.g. Rocky, Hoosiers, The Natural) since it tells very much the same stories. and if you'll notice, that entire subgenre of film has basically died and been replaced with more serious dramas that just happen to involve sports (think Million Dollar Baby). maybe wrestling has to follow suit to stay relevant...?