El-P

I watched Gilbert booked ECW 93 product not too long ago, and well, it was not very good at all. And Gilbert King of Philly gimmick was only good for a bunch of silly vignettes.

That is really was Saturn was all about ? The rape story was a work ?

Well, that's not surprising considering how bad he looked on the last picture I saw of him. Too damn bad, cancer is a bitch. RIP Doc, he's been an awesome wrestler at times.

Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels would be hysterical only for the reactions and over-"analysis" of the Shawn apologists, the Shawn haters, the Bret Cult, the Bret haters etc... Add the Flair marks who hate Bret and want to prove Flair was still good in in match with Shawn... That would be better than the match itself. Make it happen.

Jeez, that article on Barthes was pretty embarrassing... More than luck, you'll need ton of aspirins...

Obviously, this decade sucked.

Didn't remember those ones. I do remember him calling them and Sasaki "crowbars" though... Did I miss something about Dreamer ? Where does he works now ?

Yep. Only one of the two was great in his domain. Reminds me this movie by excentric French director Luc Moullet, "The prestige of death", in which he simulates in own death to finally be recognized and his body of work be canonized. "All dead guys are great guys." Same applies to Eddie Gilbert I guess, who I never understood why he was considered a great one...

Fonzie said in his shoot interview that it was basically a miscommunication issue, and that both guy made it out backstage, there was no problem between the two. I think he said Luger wanted to carry the dance despite being green and of course Brody the veteran disagreed. "Brody shooting on scared Luger" is a total urban legend. Yes, it's puzzling that it's still out there when the video is widely available.

I'm French and I know who Jude Apatow is. And I've not seen any of his movies, which I don't think are that huge of a success here anyway. But still, his name has been on the forefront of american comedies for the last few years.

Well, maybe Bret wants to one-up Flair in terms of whoring out yourself. Gotta love that feud.

At least, Bret was colorful, which is more than what you can say about the dull and bland generic look that has been the rule for the past decade. Austin and Rock's black tights were a breath of fresh air in the late 90's, but the 00's have been the decade of blandness also in term of look. More bland than HHH or Orton, you can't do. I miss the times when wrestlers had tons of differents and colorful outfits (Savage, Bret, Jake Roberts, Rick Rude, Ric Flair etc...). I don't think the "look" aspect of wrestling would capture my imagination if I was a child now. Not enough variety, not enough color, expect for Rey Rey.

I can definitly see Brody work a match with Onita. They would have packed the Kawasaki stadium and made shitload of money. Hell, Onita did get Tiger Jeet Singh to do a job, so Brody, for a last big payday and match as he was getting old, could very well have done it. Like Tiger, two match program, with Brody killing Onita the first time, and then do a job in a deathmatch in which Onita takes 99% of the big bumps and Brody only bleed a lot and barely touch the wires.

You mean, her charisma ?

From his appearance on european tours, Bret looks miserable. I guess he does lust for a spot under the lights again.

Forgot about Kerry. That's another one. If no motorbike accident and both feet ? Bigger career in the WWF ? Goes straight to WCW ?

Sometime I wonder what would have happened with the careers of workers whose careers have been cut short because of injury or death. What would have happened in the career of : Magnum TA Art Barr Eddie Gilbert Brian Pillman (if no car accident that fucked up his ankle) Bruiser Brody Adrian Adonis Crash Holly I wonder how they would have fit in the scene...

I guess. Current WWE fans have been raised in a WWE only environment, which is why they can be fed so much shit, in term of the supposed history of wrest.... pardon me, sports entertainment, and in term of product, since there's no alternative (TNA, yeah, right...). Anyway, Bret signing back with the WWE is kinda surreal to me. It's been 12 years since Montreal, 10 since Owen died. I feel old... No idea what Bret can do. Maybe works something with the young Hart generation. Bret was really the hero of my young mark days in the early and mid 90's. Yeah, makes me feel kinda old.

Well, there's a big difference though. Misawa did take headrops packing the Budokan and making shitload of money. Onita got blown up packing Kawasaki stadium making shitload of money. The imbeciles getting sliced up in some osbcure indies for 200 peoples, and the idiots of ROH taking a hundred headrops so that "strong-style" fans can jerk off to ***** matches don't make shit and destroy themselves for nothing. Not that I justify the abuse, but there is a difference between them. I've not heard about Toyota being physically impaired at all BTW.

Even worse, to think that Dawn Marie of all people suffers from chronic head pain because of the bumps she had to take, for basically no reason at all... It's scary.

Well, me neither, but sometimes there are something to read through the lines. ANd I admit I would have marked out huge for such angles. A little bit of complexity is always good. That's why the Bret vs US angle was so great. Bret was basically right about the US fans turning their back on him and the values he carried for years. It was not a black and white heel turn like Hogan with the nWo. It was more subtle and that's what made it so fun. The fact that RAW was taking place in Canada from time to time made things even better, as the entire dynamic with the audience was turned upside down despite both performers (Bret and Austin) playing the exact same role. Anyway, I'm rambling. Wrestling is most of the time more like porn...

That there was nothing wrong with Goldust being (or not being) gay wasn't the point of the gimmick. The point was, his outrageous homosexuality (or at least what he projected) was seen as a menace and as an agression by the babyface, which was even better since the babyface in question was super macho Razor Ramon. In case of Adonis or The Genius, the homosexuality was just ridiculed, it was just "look how this fag looks stupid and effeminate". With Goldust, it was threatening, which is what made it different and a lot more interesting at first. Of course it was never used to its full potenial, even with Razor, but still, the seeds of something really disturbing for the audience was there. It lasted like 3 months or so before becoming your usual gay-bashing crap with Roddy, but it was there.

The original Goldust could have been an amazing character, playing with gay stereotypes that homophobic people are afraid of to fuck with the mind of his opponents and win matches. The fact that Marlena could have been bisexual too would have made the entire thing even better since there was basically nothing *wrong* with them being gay/bisexual, it's just the fact that the audience and the babyfaces would have been uncomfortable with it. Of course that would have sent back the entire audience to think about them being uncomfortable, about them maybe being homophobic, that would have been something quite deep infact. So of course it had no chance of happening, and before you knew it, they brought Roddy Piper and his gay bashing face act. And then you got Goldust "in depth" interview in which he comes "out of the closet", revealing that Goldust was just a role and that him and Marlena are in fact husband and wife and that they have a beautiful daughter and whatnot, the typical great american family cliché. Goldust was dead by then, it was stripped of anything but his makeup. Same thing could have happened with the arabian guy they had (forgot his name). The idea of a guy that was booed just because he was from arabian heritage, and yet being an american-born citizen, was great, because it sent back the picture of the prejudice arabian people (and indians, sikh etc.. whatever could be put together with muslims) had to deal with after 9/11 in the american society. But of course, they made him a "terrorist" soon enough, so there's no ambiguity and to confort their audience into booing the evil arabian guy. These are two missed opportunities of having some relly deep, interesting angles in wrestling that would go beyond the stupid homophobic and xenophobic aspects that is usually promoted. But then again, Vince isn't exactly a progressive guy, and the casual wrestling audience isn't the brighest either. I wonder if we'll see some social progress of that nature in wrestling, or if it'll always be very low end entertainment using the same tired and insulting clichés about gays, woman, ethnicity other than white and foreign lands...

I agree in theory, but the wrestling scene and audience is way too homophobic for this to work though. Gay bashing has always been a sad part of pro-wrestling, just like xenophobia. What they would gain in gay audience, they would loose elsewhere in their traditionnal audience who probably don't want to watch "gay stuff" despite the fact that two grown men in their underwear touching themselves and pretending to fight, well... The other thing is, I don't think the performers would be able to deal with it. I'm not sure what is the % of gay performers in wrestling. It doesn't seem to be that much, but maybe we don't know everything. I'm not familiar about the japanese and mexican promotions would dealt with this niche audience. Well, joshi puroresu with Chiggy had clear lesbian thematics (LLPW was basically a promotion for lesbians), but in men's promotion I can't think of anything that clear. It's an interesting case tough. Not familiar about Dragon Gate, although I heard the audience was mostly feminine thanks to the good boys-band look of its performers, so I guess there's something there that could be done.

Sexual desire ? I knew wrestling had strong gay overtones, but I never knew it was that strong. So, basically you mean Vince fetish of big muscular guys like Orton, Batista and Cena is only a way to promote sexual desires to his audience ? You mean 12 year old boys ? Well, I know the divas are jerk-off material for 14 years old virgins, but I'd never guessed that was the case of Orton and Batista. Still, WWE needs to promote more bears like the Andersons. Bears promote sexual desire too you know. Most absurd post I've read in a long time, and that covers a lot of ground !