S.L.L.

I'm still trying to figure out what to make of the draft itself. Favorite WWE guys currently are Randy Orton, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, JBL, John Morrison, The Miz, The Big Show, Matt Hardy, MVP, Finlay, Chuck Palumbo, and Festus. That was 3 guys from Raw, 7 guys from Smackdown, and 2 from ECW. Well, functionally, it was 3 from Raw and 9 from Smackdown and ECW via the talent exchange. Only two of those guys changed places, but they were both from Smackdown, giving us 4 guys on Raw, 3 on ECW, and leaving 5 on Smackdown. Playing field is a bit more even now. Then we get the question of what happens when they start doing the ECW tapings with Raw. I doubt they'll continue the ECW/Smackdown talent exchange. If they do an ECW/Raw talent exchange, you get 7 to 5. If not, 4 to 3 to 5. Either way, far more even. Then there's the matter of prominent guys who irritate me. I don't necessarily think Triple H is a bad wrestler (the match he had with Mark Henry last night was pretty boss, actually), but his constant presence at or near the top of Raw has pretty consistently kept Smackdown the more watchable show. One of the major causes of the quality B-show phenomenon that was going on there. If I may jack something TomK wrote a while back.... Now Triple H is on the B-Show. What does this mean? How will this effect the rest of the show? How does the absence of HHH effect Raw? It pretty much has to make Raw better to some degree. Does it drag down Smackdown? If nothing else, it probably means we get a HHH vs. Edge feud, which might be the only thing more unbearable than the interminable Batista/Edge feud. Of course, now Batista is on Raw. Again, Batista is a guy who I think is a fine wrestler, he's just really fucking irritating. Batista as tertiary Raw babyface might not be a step up from HHH as secondary Raw babyface. For one thing, it bumps Shawn Michaels up to the #2 spot, not that that's a huge bump up. But at least HHH was often amusing is his irritating nature. He's no Kevin Nash. He still tries to be serious to laughable effect much of the time. But Batista is even more serious and even more laughably unconvincing at it. Does this mean he's going to feud with Michaels again? Christ. Everything's spread out pretty even now. People are talking about how ECW got raped here, but honestly, I could see this resulting in ECW becoming my go-to brand, just because of the shifts in personnel and booking focus. And Matt Hardy is a pretty choice add for them.

Apparently Vince McMahon getting killed is an official part of their closing ceremonies now. That is something.

It's probably pretty close to what'll actually happen. I can't recall if it was this board or another where I pointed this out before, but it is worth remembering that psychotherapy - of which "sensitivity training" would be an extension - only works if the one being treated really believes/is open to the possibility that he has a problem and is willing to actively participate in solving it. If Hayes just goes through the motions with this, it's not gonna change a damn thing about him. Which, for reasons Loss noted, probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

LOL..what's next, Brooke outed as a dyke? Honestly, that wouldn't be the worst way to try to distract the media from all their other problems. Worked for Jim McGreevey. Make it happen, Hulkster! A more likely scenario (givne his run of luck as of late) is more pictures of Hogan touching his daughter's ass coming out somehow, and him getting accused of incest in the mainstream media. I can see the headlines: "INCEST TURNED ME LESBIAN!!!" SCREAMS HULK'S DAUGHTER I don't think it really counts as "luck" when you totally bring it on yourself, but yeah.

LOL..what's next, Brooke outed as a dyke? Honestly, that wouldn't be the worst way to try to distract the media from all their other problems. Worked for Jim McGreevey. Make it happen, Hulkster!

You know, at this point, maybe it would help to hide.

I don't really have a set method. My general rule of thumb is watch the match, note all the interesting (for better or worse) stuff that happens, consider why it's interesting, consider how it all ties together into a cohesive whole, decide whether or not the result is any good, consider why, and then head over to my computer and write it all down. My biggest folly is watching a match to review and then not actually writing down my thoughts until much later, by which point I inevitably forget everything and have to hastily re-do the process (or not so hastily, if it's a match I actually enjoyed). The advent of DVD and great matches being readily available online makes this a lot easier, but then there's stuff I have on VHS or TiVO, where the match is in one room and my computer is in another, and I have to go back and forth a lot between two rooms. And of course, there's live shows. I'm a pretty bad judge of live wrestling to begin with, because I mark out for just about everything, but then I wait a few days after an event to write a review and have to say things like "this match was pretty good, but that's all I really remember about it", and I basically feel like a tool.

I don't know if folks do interpolation these days. I took some time off from college and when came back folks had graphing calculators and there were no tables in the back of books anymore. When I was doing math tutoring pretty clearly a subject dropped from curriculum. My guess is that its a dead (no longer taught) math skill at this point. It was used idiomatically to mean filling in gaps between knowns to get an approximate answer. Probably also dead as an idiom. But really feels like a better word choice than deduced. But it's me, fuck if I know anything about proper word choice. I've forgotten 95% of the math I learned from middle school onwards. I know about extrapolation, so I kinda assume I learned about interpolation at some point, but I could very easily be wrong about that. I've never heard anyone use "interpolate" as an idiom before, but I'm sure Irv is much older than I am, and it might have been more commonplace in his day. From my own frame of reference, I still think "infer" would be the correct word, but maybe "interpolate" works, too.

I believe the word he was looking for was "extrapolate", although that doesn't really fit, either. "Infer" would probably be the correct word. Either way, like most people who claim to be looking for "the truth", Irv only seems interested in looking for his version of it, which is unfortunate, since the real truth seems to be every bit as disgusting, and has the advantage of being....you know....true.

I actually check out allmusic.com pretty frequently, and I'm inclined to think this would be two great tastes that taste great together, but it would be a pretty huge undertaking.

I've sworn off responding directly to Resident Evil, as my opinion of him has shifted from that of incredibly stupid but harmless guy to frightening lunatic who may have bodies under his floorboards, and at that point I no longer feel comfortable mocking him directly. That said.... I don't know if it's actually relevant at all to the thread, but it is worth noting that the pro wrestling genre is one that has been limited to the stage. Yes, they show it on TV, too, but it's just a broadcast of a live stage production. It's theatrical genre, and it's never been seriously attempted in any other medium. I've spoken before of the potential benefits of approaching a wrestling show as "a show about wrestling", rather than a simple simulated broadcast of a wrestling event, but that's still presenting wrestling as theater first and foremost. Can the wrestling genre be translated to a different medium successfully? The main aesthetic appeal of theater as a medium is its immediacy, the closeness between the audience and the performers, and unsurprisingly, that's a large part of wrestling's appeal. You take wrestling off of the stage, you take that away, but can it theoretically take advantage of the positives presented by other mediums?

The bottom line, as I have mentioned before, is simply this: MMA is a combat sport, pro wrestling is a genre of fiction. Not only are they different things, they belong to two drastically different classifications of things. That fact that MMA, and PRIDE in particular, may have borrowed aspects from a genre of fiction doesn't change the fact that MMA is a legit combat sport, and pro wrestling is a genre of fiction, and the two can not possibly be considered the same.

I imagine his career would have turned out quite a bit differently, if only because it would have been much harder for him to gain political power, but when you were as charismatic as he was, I'm still inclined to think he would've made it to some degree.

It doesn't teach me that. I can't speak for you, but when I watch wrestling, I do so knowing full well that professional wrestling is fake, and that doing things in real life because they were awesome in a fictional context is fucking retarded. No one ever said either of these things. I'd say that barring extreme circumstances, you shouldn't resort to violence to solve problems. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not. Either way, it doesn't follow that enjoying violence in a fictional context means one can't be horrified by real violence. To people who aren't raging sociopaths, there's a difference between watching a guy who you know isn't really getting killed pretending to get killed in an impressive fashion and watching a guy really get killed by a guy who really is trying to end someone's life. I can't believe I actually have to explain this to another human being. The fact that I do....THAT is horrifying.

Yeah, because you can't enjoy a fictional representation of something without condoning it in real life. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I'm a Jew with two grandfathers who served in World War II (happy Memorial Day, folks), and I think "Schindler's List" is a great movie. I guess that means I'm a hypocrite for not being totally chillax with the Holocaust. Seriously, OJ, aren't you just a little bit capable of recognizing the difference between fantasy and reality, or are you legitimately insane? Because right now, I am inclined to think you should be seeking out mental help immediately. Yakuza kills someone in a movie = cool. Yakuza kills someone in real life = horrifying. Wrestler pretends to punch someone = cool. Wrestler punches someone for real = horrifying. You tell me who's being naive. You. Next question, please. Yes. What do I win? So I don't have to condone the Holocaust, but I also can't find it shocking or horrifying, either? Look, I basically agree with Kevin Cook's assessment of the situation. The only real outrage I feel over the situation is that I'm a wrestling fan, and I don't like that wrestling is this way, but that's strictly my personal desire as a fan. I'm just saying people should try to address the situation honestly, rather than disassociating from reality because it's too scary. Acknowledging that wrestling is fucked up and that it's owned and operated by fucked up people is healthy. Refusing/being unable to acknowledge the difference between reality and fantasy is not.

I am really not following your line of thought here. Murdoch dogging it every now and then makes him a sadistic shooter? I don't get it.

Yeah, because you can't enjoy a fictional representation of something without condoning it in real life. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I'm a Jew with two grandfathers who served in World War II (happy Memorial Day, folks), and I think "Schindler's List" is a great movie. I guess that means I'm a hypocrite for not being totally chillax with the Holocaust. Seriously, OJ, aren't you just a little bit capable of recognizing the difference between fantasy and reality, or are you legitimately insane? Because right now, I am inclined to think you should be seeking out mental help immediately.

Wonder why someone is shooting on you in the 21st century? Respond by beating the shit out of him? I don't know what the protocol is for something that hasn't happened in over a century. I'm talking about accidents. If the average person was kicked in the face and broke their orbital bone, they'd hit the deck like a sack of potatoes. And they sure as hell couldn't hold a broken neck in place. However severe dojo training may be, it increases pain threshold & makes people tougher. I repeat the previously-asked question of how the fuck does getting randomly punched in the face increase your tolerance for pain? I'm no scientific genius, but I am somewhere in the neighborhood of 100% sure that's bullshit. Lots of things increase pain tolerance. Adrenaline, drugs, mental illness...and those are all things fairly common in wrestling, too. Getting randomly punched in the face by Jushin Liger is not one of those things. Oh, cut the fucking shit, OJ. The system was ALWAYS horrifying, we just didn't have all these details about it until now. The fact that we didn't know about then doesn't mean it was OK. The fact that it produced great wrestlers who had great matches doesn't make it OK. If my still having something vaguely resembling a moral compass means I should harden up, then fuck you, 'cause I'm not doing it. Jushin Liger randomly punching dudes in the face =/= full contact sparring. I think both systems suck, but at least Hiromitsu Gompei could've theoretically made his money back somehow. I do love how you've covered all your bases here. First paragraph is dedicated to playing down the significance of the abuse, the second one still opens up the possibility that the abuse didn't even happen. Of course, it would've made more sense if you flipped there order, but still, pretty savvy.

...what? That's the least sequiterish non-sequiter I've seen in a while. It's a turn of the century wrestling joke. Something about screwjob finishes where Frank Gotch fell into the orchestra pit (because apparently, they used to have wrestling matches at places with orchestra pits). I figured the last real shoot in wrestling predated that by some time. It seems I was wrong.

What. Yeah it does happen. Not on most of the more reputable shows, but disagreements and fights happen all the time on the smaller indies. When you get a bunch of maladjusted macho egotistical types who think they're tough guys together in one room, it's almost inevitable that you're eventually gonna have problems and someone is eventually gonna try to stretch someone else. I've personally seen liberties taken in the ring by guys who were seriously trying to hurt their opponents more times than I care to remember. It doesn't happen on every show or anything like that, but it happens often enough that wrestlers at least need to know some basic self-defense if such a situation arises. See, I would think the ideal form of defense here would be to fire dudes who are shooting in a worked sport, but maybe that's just me. In any case, God help you if you ever work anywhere with an orchestra pit.

OK, point taken. Still, point is that wrestling fans don't necessarily demand high-risk stuff to the point that some people think they do, even if they do enjoy it.

Wonder why someone is shooting on you in the 21st century? Respond by beating the shit out of him? I don't know what the protocol is for something that hasn't happened in over a century. But seriously, I'm aware some dudes don't work their punches, but.... A. They're the ones fucking up, not you. There's no reason to be catering to them. B. How the fuck does one learn to get punched in the face for real, anyway? It's a pretty straightforward process. No training required.

ECW was never really that popular, though it achieved enough notoriety to have some degree of influence on the major promotions. Nitro's cruiserweights were pretty poplar at times. I know Mysterio, at least, was a significant ratings draw for them. But the real draw of the company was Hollywood Hogan doing mean things while Sting lurked about in the rafters, and later, Goldberg destroying dudes. The Attitude Era actually played down many of the "high-risk" aspects of the aesthetic they were going for, at least until the Hardys got popular, and even then it was largely limited to whatever they were doing. Even Foley really only took those ungodly beatings in a handful of matches, and as he noted in his first book, those did less for his popularity than pulling a sweatsock out of his pants. Their main draw had some major physical limitations that prevented him from doing a lot of the more dangerous stuff. The hardcore matches weren't that hardcore. The cruiserweights were quickly swept under the rug. They broke a lot of tables, but that's about it. I'm not saying fans didn't/don't like that stuff, but I don't know that it ever sold to them as well as you think/fear it did. I think there are a lot more fans in the same boat as you than you may realize.

Speaking on behalf of the CKC community, I can assure you we are working day and night trying to figure out which one of us "remember chubb rock" is. Because really, he has to be one of us.

Just put in my order on Amazon.