Wrestling in unusual contexts

[El-P]

I never noticed it before, although I realize it's really famous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hOZaTGnHU4

"I freak beats, slam it, like Iron Sheik".

[Dav'oh]

FBI sting involving ANoM, an encrypted communications app, results in 3.7 tonnes of drugs being seized in Australia alone.

"Senior investigators describe Ayik as the 'principal distributor of the AN0M handset.' who didn't just distribute the devices among associates but also profited from the sales.

'It's like having The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) sponsoring your gym. This is a high-value criminal sponsoring a criminal communications system,' Australian Federal Police Superintendent Jared Taggart told News Corp papers. 

[PhilTLL]

In the first episode of Marvel's new What If, the very first big-time superhero move that (our newly minted hero) pulls off is backdropping a Nazi car.

[Graham Crackers]

The new season of The Righteous Gemstones reveals that John Goodman's character was a professional wrestler in late 60s Memphis and acted as a mob enforcer as a side gig before becoming a preacher/televangelist. Looks like more wrestling in the upcoming episodes now that he's run afoul of an old partner in crime turned promoter played by Eric Roberts.

[flyonthewall2983]

Walton Goggins’ character is loosely modeled on Flair, but not as close as the guy Will Ferrell played on Eastbound & Down. Maybe more “Nature Boy” Buddy Landell.

I might have to dive in the 2nd season if they are doing more with Goodman’s character. 

[KawadaSmile]

A possible example of professional actors working a live crowd and keeping the kayfabe alive: after Chris Rock made a crass joke, Will Smith slapped him in the fucking face. Some are wondering if the whole thing was a work or a shoot!

[PhilTLL]

100% a work, and a brilliant one. They set a billion tongues wagging.

 

[Ricky Jackson]

Seems like a work to me, but the overwhelming consensus in the media is that it was a shoot, which is strange in a modern world so quick to scream "fake" at everything and embrace insane conspiracies as truth

[El-P]

Pro-wrestling fans be like

[PeteF3]

Creating "buzz" might work for a weekly show (wrestling or otherwise), but I don't know how a live incident that many people wouldn't and didn't see until after the fact is supposed to juice TV ratings. People thought Steve Harvey reading the wrong beauty contestant name was a work too--that was a big story for like a week and by next year's pageant it was forgotten about.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, after thinking more about the whole thing, my pro wrestling brain is probably clouding my better judgment lol 

[PhilTLL]

I'm not saying the Academy planned it, but what's in that slo-mo is two guys fucking around, not an actual heated confrontation. People don't typically grin and put their hands behind their back to take one in anger. And especially they don't give the "You really laid that one in!" smile afterwards.  

It doesn't make perfect (or even any) sense as a marketing tactic, even just as a gag between the two of them, but it still doesn't look real.

[SteveJRogers]

Chris Rock also has been doing standup comedy for decades.  Even if it hasn’t been done to him personally, he’s probably heard dozens of stories of confrontations through the years, and knows how to handle them.  Especially when it’s a good friend who was pissed off, but not enough that it’d be more than what it was.

Watch the unbleeped version from Japan.  Unless Will was channeling his inner Steve Austin, he probably wouldn’t have been cursing that loudly on live international TV!

[El-P]

Pro-wrestling fans looking at slo-mo videos with confirmation bias be like 

I mean, it's stupid. Yeah, people talk about them. One for making a stupid sexist joke, the other for acting like a goofy "white knight", which is just as sexist (yeah, his wife needed him to act like a "real man" aka display idiotic violent behavior on a worldwide watched stage, as if she wasn't able to defend herself if she wanted to). Would be a great marketing plan for... what ? Both look bad. And I won't mention people on Twitter going "people believing this is real are sheep", for obvious reasons (I mean, what does that kind of argument makes you think about ?).

About Chris Rock's reply, what was he supposed to do ? He's trying to stay professional and not lose face more than he already did in the process. The fact he smiled and said what he said displays exactly zero evidence (or even hints) of this being a work. The rest of the exchange is pretty awkward too. If that was a pro-wrestling angle, it would have been a pretty poorly thought out one, with no benefit for anyone involved, no one getting over, and a sloppy execution.

[El-P]

So Jeff Hardy is trending on the French Twitter because, well... this

Should have been Darby though, as the guy absolutely tried to Coffin Drop the newly elected president Macron. 

Speaking of which, I DIED :

 

(kinda fitting to, as Brigitte Macron is hated about as much as Brandi)

[Johnny Sorrow]

I just watched an episode of the cartoon " Young Justice" where it looked like Nightwing had been killed, but he was faking it. He faked it by blading his forehead with a batarang and he called it an " old pro wrestling trick." I laughed out loud.

[KawadaSmile]

I was watching RRR - fantastic movie, by the way - and a tiger does a Standing Spanish Fly. It's that kind of movie. 

[KawadaSmile]

 

[Dale Wolfe]

Hes got his dates wrong but its still a good shout 

[Ricky Jackson]

Ha, I was wondering why Backlund was trending on Twitter without having died 

[KawadaSmile]

Stephen A just cut the greatest Ric Flair promo since 1992

 

[Cobra Commander]

I can guess how Travis Kelce spent his Monday Nights in the late 90s

 

[flyonthewall2983]

How many wrestlers were on Carson? Hulk, Jesse Ventura and Andre off the top of my head but I wonder if there were more

[Ricky Jackson]

Blassie was on with Ali hyping the Inoki match in 76, but that was with McLean Stevenson guest hosting

[El-P]

Pro-wrestling and hip-hop, kinda. Anyway, that was quite unusual.