ohtani's jacket

It's not about whether you can/should acknowledge that musicians have fucked-up lifestyles and sometimes die from it... It's about how you acknowledge it... Saying there should be no music anymore, while still listening to your favourite albums, is really no different from apologists. The whole thing is a touchy subject & people are gonna react to it in different ways... including wishing it would go away or being worried that it will threaten the business... Some people square all the blame on the business, others think it's inherently fucked to begin with. Whatever position you take, "I can enjoy it and criticise it" is not a defensible line against taking shit about A and marking out about B, and moreover, it's not a defence for talking shit about people who can't bring themselves to criticise the business. The assumption is that those people are marks, but that bingo sheet had relevant aspects to any dialogue about this issue, particularly for people who can't accept that all wrestlers have psychological problems or that Benoit's brain is why he killed himself and his family.

It comes across like people are picking and choosing their spots to criticise, based on whether they like the wrestling product or not. I'm sure that's not true, but that's how it comes across. I know people here have no illusions about workers & promotions they like, but time and time again people fall back into old habits of pimping workers and matches they like with no regard to their concerns about the business or the participants' welfare... It's confusing. For example, if Bob Roop becomes a pimped worker after the Mid-South, is he a fuck-up for being in the business, a great worker or a fuck-up and a great worker?

I don't think it's wrong to be non-apologetic, so long as people don't end up spinning as much BS as apologists. Personally I don't think the issue is as clear cut as people make out and yes I have a hard time understanding how people have squared that concept.

My comment wasn't about the Mid-South project specifically, it's about people's attitudes. I think it's OK to say "I don't like the business, but I like wrestling", the point is whether you can separate the two. Where's the consistency in criticisng ROH and praising Mid-South? They both come from the same sleazy business. If there's no contradiction then are we gonna get a criticism of Mid-South? (I hope not, but that's the way it comes across to me -- this stuff is ok, this stuff is the object of scorn.) While we were having the porn vs. wrestling debate, it seemed to me that people who watch porn are a lot more honest about it, just like nobody who has a cigarette is kidding themselves. I mean the only people who watch porn and think, "Well I enjoyed that but something has to be done about it" are anit-porn lobbiysts. I'm not saying people have to learn to live with it or stop watching, or that they shouldn't care, they just need to be consistent... Otherwise, for every remark on that Bingo sheet, there's a counter remark for non-apologists.

I think the Mid-South project is great, but the whole "you can still like something and criticise it" thing is BS. Not in the sense that people should ignore the sleazy/shitty/fatal aspects of the business, but in their attitude towards it.

Cute. How about Mid-South Project Apologist B-I-N-G-O?

As far as I recall, my top 10 was: 1. Jaguar Yokota 2. El Dandy 3. The Destroyer 4. MS-1 5. Chigusa Nagayo 6. Ric Flair 7. Akira Hokuto 8. Blue Panther 9. Volk Han 10. Jumbo Tsuruta

I dunno what people expect from a guy who's been in the business as long as Ross. Listen to him salivate over Luger or Doom and the Steiners. The guy's always been a mark for "upper bodies" and football careers, until those bodies went to the opposition... then there was no money in body building.

I was wondering if the Kitano in last week's issue meant Takeshi Kitano.

First you've gotta care that the opinion's wrong... I don't even know what fast food my friends like let alone thinking they're full of shit... If someone said Ozu, Eric B and Rakim or Yoshiaki Fujiwara suck, then I'd care. Otherwise they can like or dislike whatever they please.

Me too! PM'd you. -- Loss, 01/09

They didn't diss Jumbo as much as I recalled. Instead they made strange comments about Joshi.

I think I only submitted 50 wrestlers. I wanted to make sure I chose 50 great workers instead of filling up a ballot. Still don't like the top 10.

Ha, tell me about it. It used to drive me crazy when he was late with them.

Who was Herb Kunze's buddy who shat on Jumbo when they did their Wrestlemarinepaid tape watching?

At one point he called Chigusa the best women's wrestler of her era, then he said Jaguar was the greatest female wrestler of all time. The former surprised me a bit since I thought people were high on Asuka back then, but how much Jaguar was available back then? The same amount as Lorefice used to sell?

Another question -- when did Gordy's body shape change? 1991-92 Gordy looks nothing like '89 Gordy.

I don't know what the source of the story is. I first read about it on Jumbo's wikipedia page, then did a search for it. As far as I'm aware, it's mentioned in this: It's a Jumbo memorial magazine. The story is told differently, however, so it may be a myth. The most interesting page I found was a discussion about whether Jumbo really dominated that match, where they went back to the tape -- jdw style I guess the legend surrounding this match has grown with time.

Eh, I didn't make it up. It was an important part of the feud.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's a famous story, comes up almost any time someone mentions Jumbo vs. Choshu. Doesn't matter whether it was a work or if Choshu was really blown up, since it works on so many different levels. I'm surprised nobody told Dave about this.

I think Jeff did a pretty good job with the list. It reflects the era he wrote it in, and the DVDVR project will be dramatically different, but we have more footage available now than people had back then.