El-P

And once again, you don't enjoy a dick spot. (because he's a heel... a dick... see what I did here ?) See, I'm not going to be a stingy reviewer like you. You're getting 4 1/2 stars for that joke. Thanks. I'm trying to work comedy posts inside the context and conventions of PWO.

And once again, you don't enjoy a dick spot. (because he's a heel... a dick... see what I did here ?)

Seriously, Orton's 2017 is up there with the worst, dullest, most awful title reign ever, with two of the most godawful Wrestlecrap matches and feuds ever, beginning with a useless Rumble win. The Black Hole in his dullest splendor.

What?! Only a 1/4 star? Your ranking system is too tough. Meltz would have it **** in the Tokyo Dome. Kinda like I actually enjoyed the last two years' Mania threads here much more than I did actually watching Mania. Whatever good comes of it on the board is a positive.

He's barely better than Brian Lee. With crappy hair. Actually, he makes me think about this French fellow : which makes him a fail in every case imaginable.

No-selling, hulking up and nut shots are conventions of pro-wrestling. The Dick spot plays on all of them in an absurd way. The more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that the "dick" part is what bothers people the most. That was not intended as comedy in the least. That was Russo at his all-time worst shooty-shooty "the rest if fake but this shit is real... (and scripted" dumbfuckery. Actually, the actual quote is even more legendary : "What are they gonna do now ? IMPROVISE ?" And I have to say this, most attempt at doing comedy in pro-wrestling is usually extremely bad and embarrassing (not "embarrasing for da biz" but simply "embarrassing"). What the WWE tries to pass as comedy is 99% rotten. So there..

Thirded.

Off-topic : As a non-anglo-saxon, I've seen stuff on the whole "dating" concept and its subtleties, and it absolutely flies over my head. I've been in a relationship for more than ten years and we never got engaged. That's neither here nor there though. On topic : It's relevant to the character because it was, of sorts, a comedy spot in a pro-wrestling match also, as he used it to actually get her in a small package and pin her, classic heel move. So it was both cute IRL and funny as a gag. Ryan is a comedy pro-wrestler, and a pretty good one at that. End of story.

Not very funny, that, either. Quarter star for effort. BTW, not finding Joey Ryan's dick spot funny is one thing. Totally understand. Well, I think it is funny, but then again, I'm a Raven fan. Getting outraged because of it and saying it's an embarrassement to pro-wrestling and shit is another. This is the ridiculous part.

I don't care if some people thought it was funny or not. This is completely different. Vince Russo booked illogical shit, offensive stuff and violence against women and effectively killed off whatever was left of WCW and prevented TNA from ever growing past of its status because of it. Joey Ryan is an indy comedy wrestler who does an absurd gag spot. Get over it people. And yeah proposing his girlfirend during a match is relevant to the whole character, because it was also a spot in the context of a pro-wrestling match, and quite a cool one at that. (and since we're playing a "morality game" here it seems, yeah, those Dynamite Kid matches were awesome, weren't they ? Of course, the man was/is a complete piece of shit, but that never was considered an embarrassament to pro-wrestling, that biz where Jimmy Snuka gets a hero tribute video) As far as making pro-wrestling look stupid ? Watching Ric Flair placing the hand of his opponent on his chest before taking the same damn bump for no other reason other than "pop the crowd" makes pro-wrestling look stupid to anyone willing to think about it for two second with an "out of the wrestling bubble" mind. Hulk Hogan is stupid as fuck (really, he looks like a giant jingoist clown injected with steroids doing bad pantonyme). The Undertaker zombi sit-up ? John Cena's Five Knuckle Shuffle ? The People's Elbow ? Kicking yourself hard in the face until you bleed or get concussions like Shibata used to do ? Jumping off the Cell through the announcers table ? Mr. Socko ? Guys in masks carefuly rolling around doing gymnastics and very obviously collaborating with each others ? Men in underwear slapping each others' chests with open hands ? Working "stiff" despite not actually being in a fight ? A fucking Irish-whip ? "Do you smeeeellllalalala what the Rock is cooking" ? Playing on xenophobic, homophobic, mysoginistic clichés ? Cutting your forehead with a razor to draw blood to pretend you were punched hard ? Actually punch a guy hard to draw blood to pretend you punched a guy hard ? A fat man sith a G-string sitting on another guy's face ? Giant Baba's chops ? Guys catching other guys doing jumps and flips over the top rope instead of moving ? For fuck's sake. Pro-fucking-wrestling. It's a gag. With a dick spot hulking up. It's funny because it's absurd. And harmless. Get over it. (I probably spent more time today talking about Joey Ryan than I actually ever did watching Joey Ryan's stuff. And by "stuff" I don't mean anything specific.)

What did he not accomplish exactly ? He makes a living doing what he loves, got over, got fans, didn't hurt anyone doing it, proposed his girlfriend, a fellow worker, during a match, which is quite the cool thing to do. That sounds like all good and fun to me. So yeah, the outrage and vapors are quite funny. And ridiculous. Mostly ridiculous.

Joey Ryan certainly draws money for himself as he's one of the guy who doesn't need the "sweet" NXT deals to get around, get over and live his life as a pro-wrestler in 2017. More power to him. He's as pro-wrestling as anyone I've ever seen, really.

The inability to laugh at yourself, or the things you love, is a pretty sad thing in general. People are taking this stuff way too seriously. Plus, if you really think about it, the Dick Spot is nothing but an absurd gag using one of the most unrealistic, stupid as fuck spot in pro-wrestling anyway, the Hulking Up. There's nothing more ridiculous than Hulking Up. Joey Ryan does a comedic version of it in the context of his own sleazy character and it's quite funny. Low brow ? Like pro-wrestling is anything but. This spot is kinda like burlesque. You don't have to find it funny, but to say it's an embarrassement to pro-wrestling is just taking shit way too fucking seriously. And really, Joey Ryan found a gimmick spot, it sells tickets and merch, gives him booking, gets him over. That's what pro-wrestling is all about. And he did it by himself too, without a promotionnal machine or "creative writers" finding "stuff for him to do". FWIW, I didn't even knew about Ryan dick spot before someone talked about it on this board, he doesn't use it in Lucha Underground where I saw the guy for the first time. He's a perfectly fine worker too, it's not like he's Jimmy the Boogie Woogie Man Valliant or some old-school respectable serious worker of that ilk. Indeed...

I am way funnier than GAMI IRL. Also, I guess those two indian guys aren't very well trained, because Randy Orton sure took great care of them too lately.

She rolled outside because Nia just dropped her carelessly straight on her shoulder from that double-winged hold thingy. It's very obvious, and ugly, when you look at the footage. (if you can't protect your opponent, you should probably not do the move at all) Then again, if Vinny Massaro says otherwise... Well, wait a minute, who the fuck is Vinny Massaro already ?

I must admit, although his Corny doesn't really sound like Corny, it totally cracks me up at this point when he goes into the "double cheese" tirade.

He got himself over with a comedy spot, hurts no one, contributed to create a promotion that gives indy guys some work, proposed his girlfriend in the middle of a match... That makes Joey Ryan better than a whole lot of guys in pro-wrestling to me.

Damn, even in Twitter trolling battles, Corbin is dull, lame and shows no charisma.

That was a stroke of genius. Speaking of current worker that should get a real song, Sasha Banks really deserves this :

USA : The Attitude Era.

I'm amazed every time I see RF is still doing the same godawful interviews he has been doing for more than 15 years now. Who pays for that shit ? ("he broke his own leg trying to counter a wristlock" Holy shit.)

Oh yeah. X ! Gotta love that Onita would pick a Los Angeles cult punk band version of a classic rock song as his theme song. I always had a thing for really creepy stuff, and Jim Johnston did quite a few of these in the 90's. The Mankind dual themes was brillant (it seems like this period, which is really the highlight of Foley's work in WWF to me has been forgotten a bit because it came just before the Attitude Era) of course. Also loved Doink (the schyzo one, not the fucking circus) and Waylon Mercy, which was wonderful and minimalistic and really fucking shilling. Brian Pillman's theme was also quite the piece of work, dissonant and droning in parts, with the eerie piano melody in the middle. The 00's really signified the end of cool music themes in general, with a shitloads of generic neo-metal (way after the fact) shit during the decade.

Oh, then yes, totally on board with you on that one.

Which is probably why Tod Gordon has been pretty much forgotten and erased from "official" (aka WWE) ECW history, despite the fact he was an essential part. To this day, you can read people dismissing Gordon as "the guy who promoted the first few years before GodHeyman made ECW".

I think this is overstated. Heyman is still very much in the wrestling bubble. I mean, people around this place know (well, old timers do) that I'm an ECW and especially a Raven fan. But let's be honest. ECW was runnning with a grunge character in 1995. Grunge was already dead and buried by that point. The music theme of the biggest show of the year in the second half of the decade was November Rain by the Gun's & Roses. It was cool and all. But it was still not exactly down with what pop cuture was at the time. He was down with what the smart fan culture was at the time : workrate with guys coming from Japan (Eddielenkonoit) and Mexico (soon to be WCW cruiserweights), garbage wrestling and smart mark shoot stuff and historical perspective.