delacroix

that makes me really interested to hear him talk about it. one of my main points is this idea that, to outsiders, this stuff seems so outlandish, but for those who are part of the culture, it's completely natural and unquestioned. a person who can actually function fully as a member of the culture, while at the same time retaining the ability to think about it critically, is rare.

i'm not super familiar with mendoza, was he just a mexico guy, or is this stuff that happened in the us? (this paper is focused on this country) that does sound really great, though, since i'm assuming that his actions were not only condoned, but lauded.

when i was little superbrawl 2 was the first pay per view i ever ordered, so i have especially fond memories of this one. i had just started watching wcw like a year or so earlier. i didn't care about austin and zybyszko at the time, but i was way into rhodes and windham. i remember taping this show and watching it over and over, and trying to get my friends to be as amazed by pillman and liger as i was. but yeah, it was a great match and a great show. i wanted to get every pay per view afterwards, but i was little and had no money, so i had to just watch this show over and over while waiting for the next clash of champions.

wasn't there also a story about one of the von erichs being seriously injured in the ring, and fritz getting mad at someone for giving him cpr? like he would rather let one of his sons die than look like they needed to be saved? some of that von erich stuff would probably be mentioned if this turns into a bigger project, which may happen. but, at the same time, even people in wrestling thought fritz von erich was nuts for that stuff, right?

yes, i just found this. thanks very much. if anyone has any other suggestions or thoughts or anything, i'd love to hear more about this sort of thing.

the tim woods story is definitely going to be used, with the quote from flair about how woods "saved" wrestling in the carolinas by showing up and wrestling when he had just been in a plane crash. with the bret hart book, are you talking about the stomper coming over to the house, and the kids being scared because they hadn't been smartened up to the business yet, thinking he was coming to kill their dad? (sorry, my memory for this stuff isn't too great) i'm kind of looking for more "codes of conduct" type of things. that one seems more like "stu hart is a crazy guy" because he didn't clue his family in. unless this was a common, expected practice, that you were discouraged from even letting your family in on the secret. i didn't get that vibe, though. am i mistaken? because if so, that would be great, as it's absolutely outrageous. the other one i keep thinking of is the story about fritz von erich, when he put the claw on a tv reporter interviewing him, and the guy freaked out and clamped onto his testicles, and fritz had to pretend it wasn't killing him because the camera was still rolling. again, a great story, but it's more of a funny anecdote about this thing that happened to this one guy than it is displaying a specific rule. i'm thinking of common practices in wrestling culture that relate to "protecting the business" that, to an outsider, would seem ridiculous or unnecessary. that's why the watts thing (which i guess i dreamed up) seemed so perfect- that he wouldn't be telling guys "don't get in fights" so much as he was telling them "you better win fights or you're fired" because the illusion of legitimacy is always the biggest concern, and it would be actually verbalized as a rule. and i realize that that would have been an extreme example, but i felt like it would have been perfectly acceptable to present it as representative of the nature of kayfabe, and the intense pressure to "protect" wrestling.

just seeing if anyone can help me with this, or point me in a direction- i've been arbitrarily searching through old observers and it's not getting me anywhere except sidetracked. i'm working on a short paper about the idea of "protecting" the wrestling business, looking the nature of kayfabe and how it's evolved now that it's pretty much universally admitted that wrestling is worked. what i'm looking for is very specific, sort of. i believe i read a story about bill watts' mid south territory, and him telling guys that if they were out in public and got into a fight with a civilian, whatever the situation, they better win, and if they didn't then they shouldn't bother showing up for work in his territory after that. this is what i remember. i might be mangling the story, i might be attributing it to the wrong guy, i may have made it up entirely in my own little head. i'm hoping someone here can point me to an issue of the observer, a book, whatever (something i can cite) where i can find this story, or, if i did indeed dream it, suggestions of similar stories that hit the same note (seemingly insane codes of conduct enforced to protect the business). actually, similar stories would be awesome either way. thanks.

here's a question; are you allowed to participate in this, meaning turn in a ballot, if you aren't a member of the dvdvr forum? i've had the set finished for more than a month now, but i haven't even bothered ranking anything because, since i couldn't get approved to post there, i assumed i couldn't turn in a ballot. i just saw that the deadline was extended again, so i figured i'd ask.

i had to come over here, too, for the same reason. pm goodhelmet.

on the raw that's up now, vince is putting over the ufc on commentary during ken shamrock's match. as he's chiding the uninformed critics of ufc, he notes that there have been no recorded deaths related to "extreme fighting". he points out that boxing and even professional wrestling can't make that claim. yikes.