El-P

He got a 100 million dollars out of it. I would have told the world and WWE to smell my ass. Cool. But don't complain when people treat "you" (as in Hogan) as a fucking racist. Again, it's not a matter of balance between the two issues. These are separate issues. The fact is, we have seen and heard Hulk Hogan say he wouldn't like his daughter to marry a nigger (and I repeat the sentence on purpose because it's not just a simple word, it's being used in a quite disturbing, extremely racist, way that doesn't need to be explained I think). So, from there what ? Let's make some excuses because he was "the childhood hero of a generation" (and really, what a childhood hero… grow the fuck up people, my childhood hero was Inspector Gadget, I got over him some time ago) ?

Well, no. Spewing racist shit betrays a particular vision of the world which Hulk Hogan, heroes of many, seems to have. What you don't seem to get, or refuse to admit, is that the leeking of a sextape and the expression of a racist view of the world are two separate issues here. We're not in a court of law. There's no such things as "oh that piece if evidence can't be considered because of the way it was aquired". Leeking Hogan's sextape : wrong. Hogan using nigger : very wrong. Too fucking bad for him it came out that way. Karma's a bitch apparently.

Don't tempt me. There have been enough debate about tasteless and offensive jokes on this board today already. But yeah. What the fuck. Brain implodes indeed.

Wait. Hogan saying he doesn't want his daughter to marry a nigger doesn't count because it happened on a leeked sextape ? Really ? Well, people have made excuses before, but that one is hilarious.

Well, yes, that's the conventional wisdom. Actually, you really don't hear much about any of his 80's stuff, which is not much anyway in term of body of work (some of the NJ stuff is excellent, some isn't), while the Bret feud and the Bulldog match in Germany are part of the canon WWF greatest matches. So, no I don't think Owen's 90's is that underrated tbh.

How can he be so ignorant about the political context of this particular show is beyond me though. It's bad enough that WWE seems to think that makes it ok to just pay the women anyway (hey, it's good that they do, but it doesn't make it ok).

Well, in beautiful, progressive Jeddah, it's actually your birthright not to be booked and therefore, not to be paid.

Indeed. Pretty sad.

Oh yeah, the 2006 drop is downright brutal (although D'Amore booking had already began to show clear signs of burn out). It takes a while for the product to recover to the point the first 7 months of 2008 are actually the best since 2005, despite Russo's bullshit.

Just picture 2007 & 2008, with the talent they had and D'Amore & Mantell booking... I wonder how bad the quality drop is when Dutch gets fired in 2009.

Of all the things he does poorly, bumping never struck me. That flying clothesline though, is legit atrocious.

This is where I'm at too. I really have enjoyed the podcast a lot in the past. A few more comedic episode was really fun from time to time. But that turned into a complete joke. I'm probably gonna check it out again for PPVs I care about in the hopes it's gonna get better again (one recent not-watch along before the wedding was really good again), or if they do another ECW episode or something, but I'm definitely gonna cherry pick a lot. As far as the joke itself, I agree with the bolded part. On paper, I don't find the joke offensive and may be even funny if delivered right. But the issue is that, is that the place ? I'm the kind of guy who would joke about literally anything, but I always take the "audience" in consideration before I say anything. If I'm not sure if something can be found offensive or too gross, I refrain myself until I get to know the people I'm around because the goal of to make someone laugh. Personally, I have no limit as long as it makes me laugh. That's why one can see me by myself laughing at my own bullshit in my head, and thinking to myself at the same time "Man, I'm so awful !". I dunno. Funny or not funny is probably not the right question. Unnecessary strikes me as the right word if you have to disagree with it.

I'm sorry to hear that. Then I can fully understand your reaction.

How do you know that Russo finally got his dirty hands on the women's division ? No more Awesome Kong vs Gail Kim. No more Awesome Kong challenge leading to a great underdog upset. Instead : Beauty Pageant with the Beautiful People, who are know saddled with Billy Gunn as a makeup-artist. Watching TNA, I think there's something about Russo that is absolutely destructive on purpose. Twice after a great in-ring focused product (Angle vs Joe in the cage and Angle vs Styles last man standing), the booking takes a nosedive with hotshotting and gimmicks galore. Now that Gail is out of the picture so we can't have more great Gail vs Kong matches, the women's division is turning into every Russo sexist cliché & bullshit.

Conrad makes the joke then bust Tony's balls for laughing. That's just phase two of the joke. It's pretty usual, really, when you do a borderline joke that you know is actually an awful thing to say, just adds another layer by playing outraged at the people laughing. EDIT : oh wait you're talking about Conrad's line after Tony's first sentence ? I must admit that first one totally flew over my head because it's not even a joke really. It's not funny, it's like, ok, whatever. But so it's Conrad setting up his own joke actually by telling Tony he's making fun of Nikita's wife dying. I guess if people should be mad, be mad at Conrad because he's the one making the actual joke. The context of the death. She died of cancer. The wordplay refers to cancer. (I actually had to google sickle cell because I did not know that term) BTW, I'm not saying I find it funny. I just like nuances.

I read some of the posts at 1.5X speed too.

I went through about 95% of available ECW shows some time ago. Candido was clearly one of my favourites there. The thing is with Candido is that he never got the super high end matches but he really wasn't positioned to do so (apart from SMW, which is also why this is considered his best work). He's also a guy who didn't take himself too seriously (and there the Owen comparison applies) I believe and would rather had fun than try to be a star (and back then, he would never had the same opportunities he would have gotten now because of his size). Then there was the life going astray (Tammy surely didn't help) which really fucked his trajectory too.

It's actually a way to relativize what he was just saying in a way that made the racist tone of his sentence "ok" because after all, it's not that big of a deal, right ? But no, we're not "all a little racist". But what he was just saying truly was. I guess it's ok to work with black guys when it's time to make money, but when his daughter is dating one, then surges something ugly. Anyway, I can't wait to see Hogan thank the Saudi princes for the way they hosted them in Ryad soon.

Having a racist discourse is not a "thought crime". It betrays a way to see and construct the world. How does it matter that Hogan never displayed any racism toward the black guys he worked with before ? That's just business. Bill Watts wasn't acting racist either. But the things Hogan said, or rather got caught saying in intimacy (in a context in which he was more himself, basically), are extremely racist. The fact he and his friends have only made excuses just makes it worse. Hum.. yeah, it's just sex. Who cares ?

Ok. That's not making fun of someone dying. That's making an absurd wordplay in the context of someone's death. Now, wether you find it funny, offensive, smart, idiotic, mean-spirited is all up to appreciation. But that's not making fun of someone dying. Delivery can also make it way worse or much lighter than it is on paper. (for reference, I have not listened to the episode either and have no intention to since I could not finish the previous one already)

This Liger vs NOAH stuff never ceased to be awesome. This is all about planting the seeds of the upcoming Jr. tag title match, as Liger is now teaming with the awesome Osaka Pro ass-kicker Takehiro Murahama. Marvin is an unmasked luchador was kinda was the talk of the day back then, while Suzuki is still a rookie, mostly, but shows very good potential. But really, as KENTA and Murahama trade great kicks, the crux of the match is Liger & Marufuji not respecting each other. And damn, this is awesome. Maru blocking Liger's shotei and holding his hand while badmouthing him, Liger deviating Maru's superkick and slapping him in the mouth. Meanwhile, Murahama and KENTA are kicking each other again, really hard. Excellent six-men match in front of the hot Korakuen crowd, with tons of purpose and heat, foreshadowing the big match to come.

Lazy me. This. The only criticism I would have is that Saito's kicks were sometimes not exactly reaching their target swiftly. But apart from that, what a great, great match. Honda as the underdog with shitloads of ability and will, Kobashi challenged to the task by frustrated grumpy Akiyama, Saito as the perfect second hand veteran who can actually go. Tons of layers, tons of cool shit, tons to Kobashi as the destroyer of wolrds. This was about as good as it could possibly be. MOTYC.

It's pretty easy to get caught in the Taue hype watching this match for two reasons : it was the Taue show, which mean he was the one who really got the shine the most as the story was all about Nagata taking everything one of NOAH's finest could throw to him and still come up victorious; it was also a great performance by Taue all around. It is not to say Nagata wasn't exactly up to the task, he was a terrific outsider, playing heelish toward the NOAH audience (something he learned in WCW) and being on point with everything (great kicks). They pretty much worked it as a sprint, with Taue getting the advantage early and delivering a barrage of bombs on NJPW's great savior of the cursed generation. Just relentless action with a terrific flow, this shows you can achieve greatness in a mere 15 mn.

Honestly, I would be Metlz, I would totally troll the idiotic Twitter crowd to no end and watch them get ulcers over nothing. Plus it's so damn easy anyway, almost too easy.

The Houston edition of Back to the Territories is interesting also when you get to the point Bruce is very bullshiting about WWF and Corny obviously knows is bullshiting. And then watch the interaction between the two. Bruce is a profesionnal bullshiter and a great promo (listen to him improv in his show, he's a better promo than anyone on the WWE roster today). And that's part of why his show can be so fun too actually. Conrad and him have a puppet show where Conrad plays the Meltzer side (not only that, but also the "smart fan" in general) and Bruce cuts promos on Meltz. It's like Shane Douglas cutting promos on Flair in 1994. It gets attention and his audience loves it (at this point it really feels rehashed to hell though). As far as the Twitter Stupid Army, it's a way broader issue, really.