S.L.L.

Ah, but in the second paragraph, they forgot the "c" at the beginning of "classic", so clearly everything here is false and Benoit is innocent and there's no drug problem in wrestling and EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE I SWEAR!

MVP still has it. I always thought he was the one guy who made that move work in the context of his style, as his gimmick was "shitty overrated guy", and that's a classic shitty overrated guy move. Really wanted him to start busting out the Canadian Destroyer and the Lungblower (which, appropriately enough, became Carlito's finisher after the Overdrive) as secondary finishers, or start adding needless pumphandles to moves. Still, he's not doing "shitty overrated guy" anymore, so it doesn't really fit now.

"In 2007, the rising popularity of John Cena seemed to be bringing the company into a new boom period. Their hopes were dashed, however, after Chris Benoit murdered his family and killed himself." Well, when you're right, you're right.

How much of that do you think is booking? I just remember how at Wrestle War '90 in Greensboro, Cornette did the spot where he and the referee got in a shoving match and the fight had to be broken up by the wrestlers and the crowd went absolutely crazy for it. He tried the same spot in '98 in the same arena and it played to crickets. Also worth noting that, aside from regional differences, you're looking at a major difference in crowd makeup between ROH and FIP. Big difference between ROH playing to an audience of internet smarks, and FIP playing to a more traditional family audience. In fairness, I get the sense that you're more likely to find the former in the north and the latter in the south these days, but I'm not sure it's a strictly regional difference as much as a demographic difference that coincides with a regional difference to some extent.

I don't know. I remember a lot of comments about what happened before Gorilla "threw his tights into the Pacific Ocean". Not a lot of specifics, but I got the idea that he had been a wrestler pretty quickly. Incidentally, I always thought it'd be really cool if, were pro wrestlers ever to actually retire, they had retirement ceremonies that closed with them throwing their tights into the Pacific Ocean. So I guess that's a positive for Gorilla's commentary. What Loss said. No one ever gave Tony a pass for anything from that period.

Personally, I think the only reason I'm as fond of Gorilla's commentary as I am is because I grew up with it. I imagine in another time in another part of the country, I'd probably have a different opinion.

True, but keep in mind that the people writing these pieces are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very dumb.

Man, you would think the pro wrestling situation is fucked up enough that they wouldn't feel the need to do shit like that. Oy vey.

I should know better than to be surprised that this thread got really weird, but there you go.

I think that's a fair assessment. Personally, evil, dangerous, and harmful tends to blend together with sordid, vulgar, and tawdry in my mind. That said, it does go back to what I was saying earlier about the immediacy of sleaze in porn vs. the lack of immediacy of sleaze in wrestling. You could say the same for organized crime. You look at John Gotti and you look Max Hardcore and Hardcore's sleaze jumps out at you in a way Gotti's doesn't. But presiding over an empire built on ill-gotten gains, exploitation of innocents, and dead bodies on a level that would make any pornographer or wrestling promoter swoon is some pretty monumental sleaze to me.

Oops. Got my wires crossed on that one. My bad. Not really. Seriously, I may not be the heppest cat around, and I may not have my finger on the pulse of today's society, but I'm almost 100% certain that "organized crime is clearly less sleazy than pornography" isn't the widely accepted conventional wisdom you seem to think it is. If nothing else, you would think the mob's long-standing influence in prostitution would disprove that, unless you want to argue that pornography > prostitution in terms of sleaziness, which I would like to think you're sane enough not to argue. And then of course there's robbery, theft, fraud, counterfeiting, loansharking, gunrunning, drug trafficking, HUMAN trafficking, money laundering, political corruption, and oh yes, MURDER. I mean, it's not like this stuff never happens in porn, but you're crazy if you can't see the difference in scope and significance here. I guess if you could show me a picture of your pinky-less hand, I'd understand, but otherwise, you're bonkers.

It was? Before you posed the Maeda question, the only talk of organized crime in this thread were tangential mentions of the yakuza's connection to wrestling and porn. No one was making that comparison. Seriously, how the fuck did you get that? They're not? Did we, as a society, agree on this? You really think this is unquestionable conventional wisdom? Really?

Is any of this supposed to mean anything?

1. "Professional wrestling is better than organized crime, and therefore okay" isn't a very compelling point. 2. Pro wrestling in Japan has a pretty long history of being tied up with the yakuza anyway, thus rendering this question even less potent.

So...is the solution pretending this stuff isn't fucked up, or is the solution pretending it doesn't matter for whatever reason? Because those both seem way less healthy and practical than *FH*'s solution.

I voted for wrestling, but really, I see arguments for both. Two comparisons here that really stand out to me: 1. Mindset of wrestlers vs. mindset of porn stars TomK and Sek69 hit on this already. To the best of my knowledge, no one's getting into porn for strictly artistic purposes, at least, not on the level that happens in wrestling. I'd consider that something in wrestling's favor were wrestling not so fucked up. As it is, killing yourself for art is pretty deeply fucked up. 2. Immediacy of sleaze in wrestling vs. immediacy of sleaze in porn Obviously, it's A LOT more immediate in porn. That's why it's porn. That said, not sure immediacy of sleaze necessarily trumps consequences of sleaze. Not sure the immediacy of being anally fisted by Max Hardcore beats the consequences of taking an unprotected chairshot to the back of the head. Not that every example would be in porn's favor, mind you, I'm just not certain that the immediacy of sleaze makes it more sleazy when considering the consequences.

At the risk of calling the kettle black, something about the nature of his grievances makes me think having a life isn't a major priority for him.

On a certain level, I'd like to think that Doyle is actually some nouveau Smoeater, lying about his credentials but fooling Meltzer by telling him what he wants to hear so that he chooses to believe him. But I'd also like to think that Dave knows better than to fall for that.

I swear, I will never tire of people complaining that Cena et al. don't fit in with the "new age" of wrestling, not noticing that the "new age" they're describing is 1998. Where were these people back then? "Austin's black trunks/black boots working class shtick is so 1970's. Everyone knows this bold new era of wrestling needs the Saturday morning cartoon stylings of guys like Hogan and Savage and Sting. Although I don't know why those guys are so drab these days. They need to go back to the drawing board on their characters if they wants to survive in this business. One word. Day-Glo. Sounds silly, but that's what the kids are into these days. Not sure why they changed that."

What a coincidence! I've got guests coming by today, and I managed to get their room vacuumed AND dusted despite my seasonal affective disorder acting up.

Just to confirm the (hopefully) obvious, this excerpt from the book.... ....couldn't possibly be real, could it?

Yeah, that, and also, slight difference between company that hires emotionally stunted manchildren and encourages their nerdom and company that hires emotionally stunted manchildren and encourages them to do drugs while living in a split personality and completely divorcing them from reality. I don't know if it means anything legally, but it's an interesting angle on all this.

Could you imagine the shitstorm if that had been outed in the mainstream media during its brief coverage of Kronus's death? "WRESTLING DEATH FACTORY EXPLOITS MENTALLY RETARDED MAN, HIDES HIS CONDITION." Wouldn't it be great if John Kronus ended up being the great martyr for wrestling reform?

Well, yes. But my thought was more that it's a business based on the exploitation of the mentally ill and the deliberate exacerbating of their conditions. So someone like Benoit, who likely had some sort of antisocial personality disorder beforehand is encouraged to worsen this condition until it reaches critical mass and he offs his family. Someone like Jake Roberts, who had an incredibly traumatic childhood, is encouraged to drug himself into oblivion. WWE Divas likely come into wrestling with self-esteem issues or body dysmorphic disorders and are exploited for the sexual gratification of the audience while worsening their conditions. And of course, a massive narcissist like Vince McMahon (who also came from a broken home), convinces himself that he can do anything without fear of long-term consequences, and with no one around to tell him otherwise and get him psychiatric help, he allows his condition to worsen. Stuff like that. It's not just self-injury. It's a factory that takes the mentally unstable and makes them even worse, then tours with them around the world without the slightest concern from anyone that something could go horribly, horribly wrong. The more I think about it, the more it surprises me that it took this long for something like the Benoit murders to happen. There was Snuka, but there's a pretty big gap in time between those events. This whole time, they've really been training an army of high-grade psychos, and I'm a little surprised it hasn't exploded on a greater level than it has yet. This is serious Batman villain type stuff.

You know, a thought crosses my mind. I don't know if it means anything, and I'm not exactly a legal expert, but I'm throwing this out to the floor in case anyone knows or thinks anything of it. Basically, WWE (and really, professional wrestling as a whole) is an organization that hires almost exclusively from the mentally ill, and not only allows but encourages - directly or otherwise - them to do things that will drastically worsen their conditions. I don't know much about mental health legislation, but the fact that a man (who is himself, clearly mentally ill) is exploiting other mentally ill people in an astoundingly reckless fashion, seems like it must be violating some kind of mental health law. I mean, it really is tantamount to an organized beer-drinking contest specifically hiring alcoholics to compete. I don't know if any of that meant anything, but looking at this from the standpoint that there's a traveling freak show owned and operated by people in need of serious medical help, freely worsening their conditions under the encouragement of management, with no government oversight whatsoever....something here doesn't take.