delacroix

I was really hoping that the devil thing would just end up with Samoa Joe being revealed as the one pulling all the strings the whole time, and The Devil would be nothing more than another goon except he got to wear the cool mask. It would have been a dumbass ending, but it would have been an ending, which is what most everyone wants at this point. Whatever the original plan was, it’s beyond ruined already, and Joe has enough credibility to carry off being the diabolical-mastermind-who-orchestrated-an-elaborate/nonsensical-plan as much as anyone possibly could. Plus, in my head, I was imagining a scene where MJF pulled off The Devil’s mask middle of the ring, and it’s just some guy, which (in my imagination, at least) would have been genuinely amusing.

I was sort of thinking about this, too. I was thinking how I’ve never seen anyone make that argument and how even though it’s the internet and it’s foolish to be surprised by any half-ass, half-baked hot take, I would probably still be shocked to run across it, in this case. It would be like someone arguing against joy. If someone was really arguing that Terry Funk isn’t so great, I think my first reaction would be to wonder why in the world they’re even talking about wrestling to begin with, because they obviously don’t like it at all. It’s definitely a misanthropic tendency and I’m not proud of it, but I always am somewhat put off by the predictable routine whenever someone dies, with the inevitable and seemingly rote performance of everyone talking about their impact and all that. Everyone says the same shit almost every time, and it just all rings hollow to me. But in this case, all that grandiose, sentimental nonsense actually needs to be said, because it’s not nonsense this time— it’s actually the truth about Terry Funk.

obviously I’m not sure how much my memory is garbling things now, but I remember Wheeler’s sharpshooter looking much better than Harwood’s, which I was hoping they would point out and attribute to the legwork. that would lead directly to him being forced to drop the hold, then Wheeler dropping his can easily be explained by not being the legal man and there no longer being a need to neutralize the other guy. then Harwood reapplying the move more tightly was explained perfectly, of course.

i keep expecting Daniel Garcia to start coming out to a Westside Gunn song like any week now, surprised it hasn’t happened already. Gunn played “Dr. Birds” for his entrance live last year when he won the Pure Title, but i’m waiting for a recorded theme specifically for Garcia. Gunn does have a song called titled “Red Death,” but its a ten minute Griselda-style posse cut, so it’s not necessarily great wrestling theme material (at the very least not for this particular version of Garcia). but if the discussion is wrestling’s current presence in rap Griselda has to be mentioned, more specifically Westside Gunn, since he’s a superfan who has a whole compilation record of his songs named after wrestlers and had a dedicated line of wrestling themed merchandise (both called The Fourth Rope).

Hasn’t it been a familiar refrain/punchline, pretty much forever, that TV executives don’t know shit? Honestly, at least in this case, I can easily imagine their thinking: Dana White is widely credited with making UFC into a hugely successful business, and one notable part of how he’s seen to have made that happen is with a reality show that came on right after wrestling. So now here Dana White comes with a new combat sport that he wants to build, and oh look, he’s got a reality show, and we just happen to have a popular wrestling show. It makes sense. Well, business sense. I won’t attempt to justify the moral aspect. Pretty sure television executives aren’t known for their morality, either.

To be clear, it’s not my intention to accuse anyone, as the motivations of an individual when choosing one word over another are almost impossible to pin down and, frankly, not terribly interesting to me. (I’m not sure what the end goal of that would be, in this context, anyway.) I’m much more interested in focusing attention on larger questions about how we discuss this stuff, because it’s much more important (and, again, more interesting to me).

I guess I can’t argue with this

I’ll chime in on this and say I understand the complaint, and I’ve never liked the ‘Stephy’ stuff, either, and for the same reason. (I do feel a little self-conscious that I only ever post on here about this kind of thing, but whatever.) I don’t think ‘intent’ matters, because calling Abdullah the Butcher ‘Abby’ or Goldberg ‘Goldy’ is not the same, no matter how much you want it to be (though, to be honest, I have always understood the ‘Brucie’ stuff to be intended to feminize him, anyway). Saying that stuff to a guy can easily be taken as just a familiar, colloquial way of addressing them, but addressing a woman (that you don’t know and are usually criticizing, bt-dubs) with that kind infantilizing name can’t help but carry strong misogynistic baggage. We don’t just get to be above it because we want to be. (And claiming that being called out on this stuff is ‘virtue signaling’? Really now… )

Not intending to argue against the idea that people can and should be given the opportunity to evolve, but I don’t know that this is the key issue here. What I mean is, it will be a “learning story” one way or the other, and I feel like we’ve learned the lesson that people with privilege deserve second chances more than enough. I honestly don’t think that story is quite as inspirational to some as it might be to others. Another story that could be told is that saying vile things that target the vulnerable carries lasting consequences. That probably isn’t as comforting to many of us, but it’s probably a story that we need to hear more.

This makes sense, but I still want to say it’s still a matter of personal tolerance (or whatever; I’m kind of having hard time coming up with a way to refer to this that feels appropriate). The line isn’t as direct, obviously, but it’s also very possible to make the argument that the hyper-masculine culture of sports strongly contributes to the kind of homophobia displayed in Briscoe’s tweets. Besides, regardless of the specifics of these two cases, I think it’s still a personal thing, dependent on individual values.

I’d argue that it is. Unless you agree with or simply don’t care about the thing they did, you have to set it aside and choose, consciously or unconsciously, to not allow that action (which is more ‘real’ and consequential than a wrestling match or song or movie) to affect your enjoyment of their performance. Is this really any different than choosing not to watch a Jay Briscoe match because of his homophobia? Isn’t this just choosing to draw the line in a different place than someone else, because you’re not able to overlook that Benoit did something bad (i.e., the cognitive dissonance is too much for you)? If my point of no return is violent homophobia, it seems like, basically, we’re engaging in the same thing here. Similarly, I’ve never watched a Woody Allen movie because I believed it would make me a better person, and it’s not why I think I’m done with his films. For a long time, I’ve known about the gross stuff that he’s been accused of, but I chose to ignore it. And it was easy, because it was what pretty much everyone else was choosing to do, as well. Over time, though, it became more and more uncomfortably, partly because more information came out and I had more time to sit with it, but mostly because popular opinion forced me to think about it more, and, at this point, it’s not something I think I can set aside. I always have had the impression that this is what cognitive dissonance is (as it relates to this kind of situation): awareness of something that might compromise your enjoyment that you choose to ignore (at least inasmuch as it impacts to your enjoyment of the wrestler/artist/whatever). Logically, based on the values you believe you hold, it should matter, but it doesn’t.

As was mentioned, homophobia shouldn’t be a gimmick, because it has real-life consequences. Virulent, violent homophobia is a much greater transgression than breaking wrestling character. As a wrestling fan, I suppose you could say it doesn’t matter (though I disagree with that, as well), but as a human being I care quite a bit. There’s obviously an inherent, necessary degree of cognitive dissonance required to be a wrestling fan (really to be a fan of anything, though wrestling sets that bar higher than most things), and we all have to figure out where we, as individuals, draw the line, and I’m not interested in criticizing anyone whose habits of compartmentalization happen to look different from mine, but to suggest that this is like the Bushwackers popping off 30 years ago makes very little sense. The wrestling business, wrestling fandom and the larger culture have changed greatly since that time, so to bring up how fans would have reacted thirty years ago to a hypothetical similar situation seems pretty meaningless and, honestly, like some Jim Cornette shit. A common expectation, at this point in time, is that we all think more complexly about stuff like this. It might not directly affect you and me, personally, but it matters.

I don’t think that’s entirely fair— some of them do a fine Shatner impression.

Related to this, the nearly identical cadence used in the majority of promos makes me tune right out. It’s not just in WWE, but they’re certainly the most conspicuous with the unnatural, self-consciously dramatic style that everyone seems to use now. It’s that thing where there’s constant pauses for drama and emphasis. No one sounds like a real person talking, ever. When I first saw Matt Riddle, I wondered why people were so into him, and the first thing that occurred to me was that at least he doesn’t talk exactly like everyone else and maybe that was being mistaken for charisma.

@Log— ngl, i’ve always kind of taken it that way.

When I was in my early twenties, I worked at a movie theater. One of the assistant managers, Juan, was kind of a tool, and he always seemed to have some minor and confusing problem with me. In this dream I had, there were people from corporate making a visit to the theater one day, and one of them happened to be Ric Flair. At this theater, there was this tiny window looking out from the upstairs office onto the floor, right over the concession stand and facing the entrance, I guess so that the manager could keep tabs on the floor and yell down to the floor staff if necessary. As I was sweeping up popcorn from the floor in front of concession, I could hear Flair, up in the office, ‘Woo!’-ing vigorously every so often. I was pretty excited, because, Ric Flair was at the theater (I didn’t even know he worked for Cinemark), but Juan was a serious jerkoff and passive-aggressively scolded me in front of all of them for some petty, nonexistent infraction, just to humiliate me. However, Ric pulled me aside as they were leaving, putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me “Don’t worry about him, you’re doing great. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” He walked out the door, strutted in front of the box office, and left. And I felt great.

I think you are probably right about ending this specific avenue of discussion, but I would like to draw out one final point: When you say that there are thousands of ‘micro-contexts,’ you are right, of course. However, I believe you are overstating how independent they are of the larger, dominant cultural context. Often, I think, they simply reproduce the systemic inequalities of the dominant culture in their own ways and with their own idiosyncrasies. Certainly, professional wrestling is, if anything, somehow even more oppressive and abusive to women than the larger culture, and, this being the specific micro-context under examination, then I would argue even more forcefully that seemingly benign expressions like ‘She’s super hot’ are problematic. You’re right that words are, in and of themselves, neutral, but I don’t think they can ever exist outside of these contexts. The reason that these words matter is because they reflect systems of oppression and exploitation. It’s about power, who has it, and who doesn’t. We can argue that individuals are able to break free of these constraints (maybe this is the ‘I don’t see color’ position?), but I don’t buy that. And even if they are, I would argue that they still need to be mindful of how others hear their words, regardless, because those words can still have unintended effects. Again, I know that this is possibly going to be an unpopular opinion, but I felt like it should be in the mix. (In addition, as you say, this is a complex theory discussion, and I’m not really a theory guy, so it’s likely that I’m not expressing my own points very well, despite it being my first language.)

You may feel i have misunderstood you again, but I’m confused here: If language doesn’t work in a vacuum (a belief I share), then I’m kind of unsure about your final point here. Why does it matter if, in a vacuum, any word can be innocuous? We live in a specific context, and these words have a significance that we ignore at our own peril— this is my entire argument, I thought. (My position, however, is that we don’t get to insist on our own ‘intended’ meaning.) I don’t want to get into a debate, because we are seeing this issue completely differently, but this part is unclear to me.

I mostly lurk on the forum, but this conversation is important enough that I’d like to make a quick contribution. It sounds like you are coming at this from a different perspective, but I would disagree with this, at the very least as it refers to public speech. If I’m understanding you correctly, this suggests that the individual has absolute control over the meaning, which is never true. In a culture that values women primarily (if not solely) for how their bodies are useful to men, saying ‘She’s super hot’ cannot possibly be an innocuous declaration— especially it’s the first thing that you think to say. Which, of course, it always is, for every one of us. I’m a great fan of Asuka, and I have to constantly recognize the fact that, regardless of how much I admire her talents as an athlete and a performer, I also, instinctively, notice that I think she’s fucking hot as hell, and I notice it before anything else. I don’t want to judge her in those terms, because she deserves better and I wouldn’t like to think of myself as someone who would objectify her and discount her talent like that, but it just happens, because I have internalized these attitudes. The best I can do is to recognize it, be honest about it, and address it. We can say “that’s not the same thing as rape” (which it obviously isn’t the same) and even “that’s not the same thing as saying ‘I wanna rape her’” (not so convinced on that one), but they’re absolutely related. All three are defining women by their sexuality and how it is useful to men. As was noted, each one one points the way, inevitably, to the next. ‘Intent’ is irrelevant, because the individual doesn’t have power to define these things for others (or, I would argue, even for themselves), regardless of how ‘pure’ the motives are. I can appreciate why this argument isn’t palatable, as it basically means that anything short of changing the entire foundation of civilization is inadequate, because it draws an arbitrary line and says some things are okay and others aren’t, based on nothing more than what we’re personally comfortable with in the moment. I am suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water, essentially. We won’t, obviously, but I honestly don’t see anything else as anything more than just re-drawing our collective arbitrary lines that will, eventually, show themselves to be just as inadequate and damaging.

i'm in agreement that the problem isn't the topics, it's the tone. these larger phenomena affect us, and they affect professional wrestling, and to try to draw a line that keeps them out (or pretends to, since what it will really do is keep them from being acknowledged- well, it could keep out some less popular perspectives) keeps discussion from going too far beyond benign nostalgia (which, don't get me wrong, i like just fine, too) and, pardon the term, wankery. if this results in conflict, well, yeah. of course it does, but that's not a bad thing at all, as long as people can maintain respect and civility.

Absolutely, this is the whole point. This thread has been fun and interesting to follow, apart from the folks who just want to delegitimizatize the underlying basis for the discussion. And, honestly, even with those points, tone is the issue more than the argument, as they're coming across more as attempts to shut everything down, rather than offer a coherent viewpoint. I tend to sympathize with overbooked's perspective number two, which is strongly connected to the much-derided 'cultural imperialism' argument, but there are multiple defensible perspectives being offered in the thread, even when they aren't being explained in the most effective way (to me). This is an interesting, important topic for discussion, and threads like this are why I choose to lurk here so much. A definitive answer is not going be reached from this discussion, and even consensus isn't going to happen, but since when is that necessary? Insisting on a single, stable truth (whether that's a definition for what wrestling is or what topics of discussion are suitable) isn't super useful for anyone, except, of course, for the people getting to define these 'truths,' since they get to avoid being uncomfortable. It's not very interesting, and certainly not fun.

This is pretty close to spot-on, I think. Reading through the thread, I've noticed that pretty much everyone is starting from the same point- lucha libre is, for whatever reason, difficult to get into, because it's hard to 'get.' From there, broadly, there's two responses: 1.) those who react to this by believing that they are missing something, that it's their responsibility to try to understand and appreciate what's going on (whether they're actually going to follow through on this or not - see 2b above) and 2.) those who dismiss it, with the implication (or outright claim) that the wrestling is faulty, that the style they don't understand/appreciate is doing it wrong. Both are understandable reactions to something unfamiliar. The sjw tangent is off-topic, but I can see where it's coming from, because the second reaction, depending on how it's articulated, can easily come across as anti-intellectualism, since it suggests an unwillingness to engage with perspectives outside your own: 'SJWs are crybabies. If I don't see oppression, then it's not there' being the rough equivalent of 'Lucha makes no sense. If I don't see x, y, and z, then it sucks/is not real wrestling/etc.' This reaction is the prerogative of anyone, of course, but it's obviously problematic coming from those in privileged groups. Anyway, back to lurking.

This is probably my all-time favorite feud/rivalry. I have a hard time thinking of another story in wrestling that is so perfectly character-driven and consistent in that regard. With both Austin and Hart, both of their characters are really pushed and developed (and defined and redefined) in uncommon depth. They are both allowed to exhibit babyface and heel qualities simultaneously, and not in a tweener fashion where they're attempting to straddle a line or appear cool. Both characters are complex individuals, noble in some respects and fatally flawed in others. (My investment in Austin actually decreased in later years as the more problematic aspects of his character were glossed over or phased out entirely. It just made him less interesting to me, even if he was still great.) One of my favorite moments that hasn't been mentioned yet is the very end of the Raw where Austin attacks Hart in the ambulance. HBK chases off the Hart Foundation who had been beating down Austin in the ring. The show looks like it will go off the air with Austin pulling himself together after the beating (a subdued to a wild two hours), but then Brian Pillman appears out of nowhere to attack Austin, returning for revenge after Austin destroyed his ankle with the chair (and leading to Pillman joining the Hart Foundation). Vince McMahon has this great line about Pillman being certifiable. It was totally shocking, but made complete sense, and I could not wait for next week. Also, it's been mentioned, but Hart's entrance into the Royal Rumble was another awesome moment for me. Austin's shock was great as a flash of panic and self-doubt before he pulls it together and starts motioning for Hart to bring it. Totally gave me chills watching it live.

This is a good list, and I think the first couple things listed are a good starting point- doing this consistently will help you define concretely for yourself what you like and don't like, which will help you start to analyze why certain matches work for you and others don't, as well as to help you understand the opinions of others and measure their opinions against your own. The next question, about the story being told in the match, suggests another way to approach things- what was the goal of the match, and how effectively did they accomplish that goal? Like, if it was a squash and the goal was to make Wrestler X look like a world-beater, how effective was it in accomplishing that goal? What did they do that helped accomplish the purpose and what detracted from it, and why? (This one seems more objective on its face, but it's still subjective, because it's all open to personal interpretation- what I see as a flaw that detracts from the match's goals, you may very well see as a strength, and neither one of us is wrong, because, again this kind of analysis is always based on what you value).

did he ever do a full bio for sherri martel? i'm very possibly just remembering wrong, but i thought she got lost in the shuffle because she died right when the benoit stuff happened.