JerryvonKramer Posted April 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 Passed with flying colours Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted April 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 I should probably qualify what I said about Americans liking football. I meant no disrespect by it. It's just that whenever we hear Americans talking about "soccer", they apply terminology from American sports. "Offence" and "DEEEfence", things like that. "That was a real nice kick!" I dunno, they just say things you'd never ever hear said here. The language of football in Britain is very idiomatic. Pretty much any interview from any manager reveals this instantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bn8kXyWK4 That's just the first one that came up. So hearing it spoken about with a different set of terms with an American accent is always very comical. Likewise, it's always really strange to hear a British person in Wrestling - Davey Boy or Regal. Especially Regal, because he's booked as an aristocrat but blatantly speaks with a Midlands accent rather than a posh one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 Don't want to come across like a dick here, I mean I'm a Brit who loves American wrestling, but I've always been slightly amused by the notion of American "soccer" fans. The 70s were the wave of soccer play growth in the US among, and I was in that wave. Took it up at 8 (1974) and played it through the high school team (1984). We got a Division 1 game each week on local PBS (KCET). Part of my dad teaching me baseball and football and basketball was by watching it: the pros, or good college (USC football / UCLA basketball). You learn by watching how good players do things. So when I took up soccer and KCET started carrying Division 1 games, he'd have me watch them. So I saw games during Pools glory days. Stopped with Heysel, which was a good break: was in college, wasn't playing anymore, booze & dope & babes were better uses of my time, and Heysel was extremely depressing to a pretty depressive kid. Got back in while going through with insomnia in the early 90s. EPL was on local cable, often as late nigh filler. Couldn't bring myself to be a fan of Pool with Heysel still in my memory. The story of the season was ManU's quest for the first championship since the late 60s. Eric came over from Leeds and was the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Pulled me in. Then they sustained it, then the generation of kids game in to watch develop... they were a fab team to watch get shaped. I'm a massive football fan by the way - and get this - I've never had a team. I don't support anyone which is admittedly highly unusual but I have my reasons. And I agree with the notion that there are really two types of fans: fans who only care about their team, who tend to have a narrow fairly parochial view of the game, and then "proper" fans. The sort of fan who'd be excited to watch, I dunno, say Milan vs. Barcelona in a random Champions League game. Often the latter type will have a team they follow, but do not try to transmute any and all footy chat to that team. I don't know if I'd go so narrow. I do know a lot of "team fans" who will watch some of the games of their rival just to root for them to lose. There are a lot of Duke Haters out there who watch Duke games. I have had stretches where I'm really narrow because it's all that I have time for, and times in the 90s when I watched a ton of Serie A as well. There was less EPL on TV back them, so it was probably easier to "follow" both leagues: 1-2 EPL games, 1 Serie A game, the assorted CL / CWC / UEFA Cup games of interest, and a highlight show or two. Now... there's a hell of a lot of futbol on the air. I tend to follow the top of the EPL... don't have a lot of time to track what the news of Blackpool is... have no time to worry about Serie. If I get GolTV next year, about as much La Liga as I'll follow is Barca. Just don't have the time to add Barca + Real to my viewing schedule. EDIT: Incidentally, my football fandom is in a bit of a slump at the minute. Probably parallel with jdw's wrestling fandom slump. Once upon I time I could name the first XI of pretty much any team across Europe, now I'd probably struggle with anyone outside the top 4 of the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A. When I was a kid in the 70s, I could give the name and number for every position on every team in the NFL. Probably could have named all the position players in MLB along with the top startes as well, though not the numbers. Just useless information. I think you get some of that today with Fantasy Players, especially in baseball where you need to know everyone as a potential member of "your" team. Might also get some of that from gamers, such as people who play Championship Manager / Football Manager. When I played that in the later 90s it really expanded the useless info I had, especially in leagues or national teams that I didn't follow. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 Dylan (and Jerome?) watched everything that ECW ever kicked out. *That* is beyond the scope of my fandom. In my case, blame unemployment. And torrent sites which make huge contents available for free. And of course an interest in revisiting, or in the case of ECW 1993-1995 and 99-00 visiting a product I wasn't familiar with in great details. But really, in the mid-00's, there was a point I wasn't watching wrestling at all. To the point of when I got to Japan in 2005, I didn't bother going to a wrestling show, and quite frankly I was totally disconnected from the scene even back then. I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 Soccer is weird in the States. I think there is a younger generation that pays a ton of attention to it now which really surprises me. I played for ten years, was a starting sweeper on multiple state champion teams. My dad and uncle coached state championship teams. All my brothers have played. We all watch it when it comes on, but none of us go out of our way to find it on tv, seek it out, et. We aren't really fans of any teams, or even players really. It's strange because it is my favorite sport to play AND watch, but also the one I am least invested in emotionally. I've got a ton of other friends who played for years and feel similarly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victator Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 I'm at the point I judge those who don't like wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 I really think to get back in *and* stay in after playing you need a team to pull you in. I had the opportunity (not sleeping) and the entry level fandom (played and watched as a kid). But without a team to hold the attention and make you want to see what happened next, I probably would have wandered off. Great story of 1993 winning the title. 1994 was the Double. 1995 they didn't win, which meant 1996 had a comeback storyline to it (on more levels than one). The big move towards younger players as well. Came back in 1996 and 1997, by then a storyline developing on the failure to win the Champions League. Then everything of that era peaked in 1999 in a way that frankly was over-the-top. My fandom went backwards after that. You just couldn't have written a better climax to the 1993-99 storyline than that, and returning to even the "normal great" of 1993-98 was anti-climactic. I enjoyed and followed the 2000 through 2006 ManU seasons in an increasingly casual way... even the pretty decent amount of hardware the team picked up didn't have the cha-ching of prior ones. A dream season like 1999 can really screw up a fan. What actually pulled me back into major following was the 2006 World Cup, and then my hate of Chelsea and not wanting to see them three-peat in 2006/07. So watching the 2006/07 in the hopes that ManU could keep the Blues from three-peating was my viewing goal... and that turned out very good. Excellent time to get pulled back into being a big fan as that was a pretty fab era of ManU, and the 2008 team was pretty fab to watch (while love to have a Season Set of that club). I suspect my current level of fandom will peak again and decline. Hasn't yet, but I tend to ebb & flow over time, so it will happen. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 500 discs is really nothing for people who trade regularly. I've seen about 5% of my footage at best, so there's easily a few thousand disks I've owned that I've never watched. But in my defense, I don't have the patience to sit through alot of wrestling stuff anymore. Too much going on and I'd rather talk about wrestling on the board or listen to Alvarez. It's kind of hard to judge one's fandom against another. I think alot of it depends on real life circumstances, location and wrestling tastes. Hardcore japanese fans have cracked over 130 shows a year and I'm sure mexican fans could do that even easier, while I will probaby see less than 5 this year. I think anyone posting regularly on a message board though should be considered hardcore. However, since there's not alot of wrestling fans all around, if you want to discuss wrestling, message boards are all there is. I'm definitely not as hardcore as I used to be. I really don't go to live events as they are too expensive or too far. The lowest price for WWE events is around $40 and it's not worth it, same with indy's at $20. I can download any event I want for free, so it really doesn't make sense especially when the camera's view is always better than mine. I've slowed down trading bigtime and I don't download anything that's not a shoot interview. I used to go to wrestlemania and japan every year, but wrestlemania's aren't what they used to be. I'll move to japan next year(though wrestling has little to do with it). I have few lasting interests besides wrestling/internet/women though, so I'm probably going to always stick with wrestling no matter how bad it gets. I probably fit in most with some of the people's tastes on DVDVR. I usually watch old joshi and raw but I probably spend the most time watching promo's/short videos along with random one-off's. Anything more than 10 minutes to me though is an immediate skip. I love flashy/colorful costume wrestlers, anyone that kicks and new wrestlers that I haven't been overexposed to yet. I also want to say that I would probably enjoy some of the things I don't enjoy if I was watching it in person. Everything seems to suck less live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 My comment about 90s workrates styles being passe specifically referred to people not watching actual 90s workrate styles like hot period AAA anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 John, if you don't want to be banned, retract your statement that Alvarez is above me on the wrestling scale of 100. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 That's only because any wrestling reporter worth their salt spends half their time watching MMA nowadays, Will! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 I really identify it nowadays as keeping tabs on a childhood obsession. The closest thing on televsion nowadays that captivates me like WWF and WCW did as a child is Top Gear (British version, of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted April 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2011 There's a non-British version of Top Gear? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted April 10, 2011 Report Share Posted April 10, 2011 I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story. Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kronos Posted April 10, 2011 Report Share Posted April 10, 2011 I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story. Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. I don't watch Sumo, though I would if I had a sense of what youtube channels to view and such. But there have been a number of scandals lately about match-fixing. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted April 10, 2011 Report Share Posted April 10, 2011 I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story. Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. It's been scandal after scandal for a little while now. Last year a bunch of guys got caught up in a gambling scandal including an Ozeki(2nd highest rank). The biggest scandal is match fixing via cellphones. Even though it's well known that people take pay offs to lose, the media really got a hold of it. Then because of it, the Spring tournament got cancelled and 22 guys retired. Also, within the last year, the yokozuna Asashoryu was forced to resign due to a drunken fight. The last few years had some other bad issues too with a guy in a sumo stable getting beaten to death and people getting caught with marijuana(Japan is serious about drugs). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 10, 2011 Report Share Posted April 10, 2011 I'm a much bigger sumo fan at this point, although it's probably the worst and most depressing time ever to be a sumo fan at this point, but that's another story. Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious. It's been scandal after scandal for a little while now. Last year a bunch of guys got caught up in a gambling scandal including an Ozeki(2nd highest rank). The biggest scandal is match fixing via cellphones. Even though it's well known that people take pay offs to lose, the media really got a hold of it. Then because of it, the Spring tournament got cancelled and 22 guys retired. Also, within the last year, the yokozuna Asashoryu was forced to resign due to a drunken fight. The last few years had some other bad issues too with a guy in a sumo stable getting beaten to death and people getting caught with marijuana(Japan is serious about drugs). This. Since Asashoryu was forced into intai, it has been a downward spiral with new and worst scandals every months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 There's a non-British version of Top Gear? The History Channel in the U.S. launched an American version of the program last fall. There's one in Australia, and one in China of all places has started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted September 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 I don't know if this warrants a new thread and it's only sort of related to the topic of this one, and I am not sure entirely how to put it into words but ... Can you ever truly shed your wrestling origins? For example, one of the sort of "knocks" that often gets flung my way on this board is that I tend to filter everything through the prism of the late 80s / early 90s WWF product. I'm pretty sure some people here might even think of me as some sort of die-hard apologist for that era. True, it's usually from people who don't listen to the two podcasts I put out (one on NWA, one on an earlier period of WWF), but still -- the perception is there that "this guy sees things from this perspective ... and therefore [insert conclusion here]". Leaving aside the issue of whether this is or is not true of me (not a very interesting topic), I want to scrutinise that train of thought a little bit. There are people here who I've come to know who definitely have "soft spots" which usually happens to be the promotion in which they had an emotional investment as a mark kid. For Will it's mid-80s NWA and maybe Watts. For Johnny Sorrow it's early-mid-80s WWF. For khawk and Smack2k it's probably AWA. For other dudes here it'll be the early 90s, for others still it's the attitude era. So ... I guess there are two questions here: 1. Accepting the idea that people have this sort of "soft spot", to what extent does it actually form your view of what wrestling should be like? I mean, you've got to get your benchmarks and expectations from somewhere right? 2. Can you ever really turn your back on the thing that brought you to the dance? ---------------- I'll have a bash at answering these questions myself: 1. The view I've developed myself over the past couple of years is that to a certain extent, you have to be a kind of relativist watching wrestling from different promotions. By that I mean, when watching AWA, you have to judge it by AWA standards, NWA by NWA standards, Lucha by Lucha standards and so on. That's not to suggest that one "standard" is above or better than the other, just that there's no point in trying to evaluate the thing outside of its own context. I was talking to Chad and Brad about this recently when they did their debate about ratings. For me, each set of ratings is contingent within the promotion itself. So like, an AWA **** match is "4 stars within an AWA context". But that's worth the same as 4 stars from any other company, if that makes any sense. So what I've tried to do when watching footage from different places is establish NEW benchmarks and expectations per territory. A lot of the time then, I'm mainly looking to judge matches against other matches from within the same sort of timeframe and within that promotion. So if I'm watching a match from 1979 WWF, I only really want to consider other matches from around then. I'm not going to start trying to compare Patterson vs. Backlund to Jumbo vs. Tenryu 89. I don't really see the point in it. So for myself, even though my "soft spot" will always be 88-92 WWF, my benchmarks in terms of evaluating matches are almost never coming from there. In fact, my benchmarks switch according to what I'm watching. I'm interested in this because I wonder if Loss, for example, with his "yearbook-style" watching switches up his criteria relative to context in this way or whether he has more "absolute" benchmarks. 2. I honestly don't think you can. Or at least, personally, I won't turn my back on the shit that first got me into wrestling. It goes back to the first post I made in this thread over 2 years ago: I don't like smarkiness, or the point of view that sees "work" as being the only game in town. A lot of the time, that means I'm going to be batting for Vince's goofy crap: I dunno fucking Dino Bravo doing bench presses, or Jesse Ventura shitting on Uncle Elmer's wedding. I'll defend it time and again, and argue that such "crap" was instrumental in making fans of millions of people. This was a bit of an incoherent ramble, but keen to get anyone else's take on any of this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrainfollower Posted September 29, 2013 Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 To reply to your thoughts Jerry, no you probably can't 100% but that fact shouldn't matter in the slightest. It's only wrestling for cripes sakes. It's not like we're talking about a historian born and raised in Nazi Germany who writes things in the 80's that reflect those prejudices. David Irving isn't on this board you know. I mean what's the worst damage you can do? Have a slightly (Or largely) biased view towards a form of entertainment that's only broadly touched being mainstream off and on throughout its history. To answer your questions I was raised on the Hulkamania era. But my favorites as a kid were Tito Santana (His feud with the hammer was the first I remember a bit), the Bulldogs, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage (awesome as a face or heel) and much later Bret Hart. So I wasn't 100% into what Vince McMahon wanted me to think as the epitome of pro wrestling. I actually enjoy Hogan matches a lot more now than I did then. However it did prejudice me. I was taught that in the end, more often than not good triumphs over evil in wrestling. That's my biggest problem with Crockett, the good guys almost NEVER really win. When they do it's a batshit happy moment (think Barry/Lex winning the tag titles) and then what happens? A few weeks later Barry turns and the status quo is restored. Yokozuna's run was a black hole for most of my friends who gave up on the WWF because of that precise reason (I still recall two friends giving up forever when Lex only won via countout) and it's why the HHH era made me give up on wrestling (that and I thought the guy was the biggest untalented political parasite I had ever seen in wrestling at that point). So finishes matter a lot more to me than they probably objectively should. But so what? Also there's a nostalgia factor to me in wrestling. It reminds me of simple days, sitting in my parents living room, finishing a hot dog lunch, cartoons are over and its time for Superstars of Wrestling then Challenge. There's nothing wrong with that. I like to think I've grown as an objective critic since then but I don't WANT to go all the way. Then it stops being fun. Being a wrestling fan should always be fun first and foremost. Remember that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted September 29, 2013 Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 1. Accepting the idea that people have this sort of "soft spot", to what extent does it actually form your view of what wrestling should be like? I mean, you've got to get your benchmarks and expectations from somewhere right? No. 2. Can you ever really turn your back on the thing that brought you to the dance? Of course you can. That's called growing up. What brought me to watch pro-wrestling is WWF in late 89/90. Superstars shows with Beefcake squashes and Volkoff vs Zukoff. Do I have a soft spot for this shit ? Probably, but it's more nostalgia for what I loved when I as 14. Have I turned my back on it and would I call it crap today ? Of course I have. Of course I would call it crap today. No pity for nostalgia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted September 29, 2013 Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 It can be done, but it's not always necessary, and it's not always a bad thing if it's not. I'm not sure anyone should work at shedding these things either. We need to balance each other out. "All of us are smarter than any of us" as the saying goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted September 29, 2013 Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 Jesse shitting on Uncle Elmer's wedding is gut busting funny because Jesse is legit losing it and laughing his ass off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted September 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 Of course you can. That's called growing up. What brought me to watch pro-wrestling is WWF in late 89/90. Superstars shows with Beefcake squashes and Volkoff vs Zukoff. Do I have a soft spot for this shit ? Probably, but it's more nostalgia for what I loved when I as 14. Have I turned my back on it and would I call it crap today ? Of course I have. Of course I would call it crap today. No pity for nostalgia. Some of this stuff is quite hard to put into words. I think what you're talking about here is valid. Your tastes as a 20-something or 30-something are not going to be the same as the 8-year old. We gain new appreciations and see new things, etc. I'm talking about something a little more deep-rooted. Brainfollower hit on it when he talked about finishes. He was "hard-wired" as a fan to expect the babyface to go over. For me, as a heel fan, JCP was liberating because it was like this fantasy world where the faces always got screwed over. As a kid I used to get so excited when managers interfered or when there were heel run ins, I'd pop for that stuff. So when I was first discovering the early Starrcades and other JCP stuff tape collecting in the early 2000s, it was just amazing that a promotion could be run on such different lines. But no matter how much other stuff I watch, I still to this day expect the babyface to come out on top in the end. There are other expectations that are really hard to shake. Another example, we're all trained, to an extent, for "finishers". WWF was big on finishers. Finishers became a de facto norm in the 1990s. When you watch matches from the 70s, it can be jarring -- at least at first -- when a match is finishing with a simple elbow drop. Again, no matter how much 70s stuff I watch, the expectation for a definitive "finish" with a finisher is there. This is the sort of thing I'm getting at, not so much still loving poor Boris and poor Nikolai. I guess I'm making a second point too. Like I said this is hard to articulate for some reason ... The second point is that I don't count the fact I love NWA so much against the WWF stuff I grew up with. And I still think that stuff is defensible on its own terms. My view these days is much more along the lines of different types of wrestling as being different types of cuisines judged by the standards of that cuisine. i.e. You don't knock French cooking for its lack of noodles. It's a difficult view for me because "relativism" / "pluralism" of this sort goes against my nature. And I also don't know how far you take it. Do you judge WCW 2000 only against WCW 2000? I dunno. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted September 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 29, 2013 I think I can make the second point more succinctly: you shouldn't knock WWF for not being NWA. And vice versa. That's not to say some things aren't true (NWA had better matches, NWA were terrible at pay offs, WWF were good at postcard moments, etc.), but to say that when you go to WWF or go to NWA, you might as well go for the things they do well. You're not going to get the Flair 5-star match in WWF so don't moan when you don't find it, but you might get Rick Martel spraying arrogance or a knock-out great segment on Piper's Pit. They did different things well. I think the tendency in wrestling fandom has always been for guys to back a horse. "All Japan is best". "NWA is great, WWF sucks", etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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