Commonly used words and phrases that annoy you

[ohtani's jacket]

People are taking this community stuff to literally. It was just a term to describe a collection of message boards and websites created with the express purpose of talking about wrestling. It's meant to be analogous to a physical community with different neighbourhoods, not a community ethos where people share the same beliefs. When people mention "what the IWC thought at the time" it's just a generationalisation to establish what the consensus was at the time among the majority. Since there were all sorts of fans online -- old timers, lapsed fans, new fans, casual fans, hardcores, 'purists' or 'elitists' (as people were often called), people trying to make money off wrestling, people trolling -- it's easier to lump them all under the IWC banner than stumble about trying to find the perfect terminology to describe all of the contributors. Even something like message board posters is clunky.

[ohtani's jacket]

Not at all. I always thought "Baba's booking went to shit because of the cancer" was the most unintentionally ironic statements every written.

 

It's almost as amusing as "Manami Toyota was a lesbian because she wasn't interested in me backstage."

[pantherwagner]

I always thought it was really annoying when people used the word PURORESU in a radio show and pronounced it POO-RO-RE-SOO. Then again it’s even worse when people try to pronounce it in proper Japanese. Just call it Japanese wrestling and be done with it. I don't know if this still happens as I haven't listened to any radio shows where they'd say this in something like a decade. For whatever reason it doesn't bother me when somebody types "puroresu", though I think it looks dumb when somebody refers to it as PURO.

 

The misspelling of "luchador" as "luchadore" used to bother me more than it should have.

 

I'm also glad that John doesn't throw people or matches or entire promotions on to the woodpile anymore (or at least not on every third post).

[jdw]

I loved the Woodpile, and for a while kept using it because I knew it annoyed some people. Given enough time, I moved onto some other way of saying it.

[Loss]

It eventually became a fire hazard.

[jdw]

Here's one that's a bit of a surprise:

 

Gordy List

 

Don't 100% hate it. But there was a stretch where most of the ones I'd come across ones that were really poor, and not terribly interesting to read.

 

The reason it pops to mind because of terrific ones like Jose's Blue Panther piece. Also, I've recently read 20+ Keltner Lists, which the Gordy List is based, and they've been difficult to read. The chap doing them has his heart in the right place and is trying to get discussion going on a variety of players, but "Yes, No, Not Really" for most doesn't make for a good read.

 

There tend to be two extremes of weaker Gordy Lists:

 

* Yes/No/Maybe

* Data Dumps From Hell

 

The first don't make for interesting reads. The second tend to overkill a point, or even lose a point. You toss out 50 ****1/2+ matches that Misawa was in and... eh. It's something to save for the discussion afterwards if someone asks, "Was Misawa really in a lot of terrific matches."

 

I'd say that there's been some good Gordy List's around here that pull me back off the ledge of wishing I'd never created the thing. Daniel's one on Jim Breaks is really good, and pretty much a textbook example of why it can be a useful tool. Daniel is basically answering a lot of questions that someone would toss at him about Breaks that could/would come up in a HOF discussion, gave really thoughtful answers beyond just yes/no, and comes across as really objective given the ones where the answer is essentially "Not really". One thing I still like about the List is that there isn't a question:

 

"Do you think he's a HOFer"

 

Instead, you get to the end and both the person putting it together and the person reading it are left to mull over the information compiled and shared. Daniel's piece gives one a lot to think about... which is flat out a good thing.

 

So I don't 100% hate a concept that I lifted and tweaked from Bill James. But there was a rough stretch for it, and I'm happy to come across good ones and see that it can still be useful.

 

Daniel's is here:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/21527-jim-breaks-gordy-list

 

If you haven't read it, I can not recommend it strongly enough.

[jdw]

It eventually became a fire hazard.

 

Yep. There are times to shift to a new way of saying things.

[jdw]

 

Not at all. I always thought "Baba's booking went to shit because of the cancer" was the most unintentionally ironic statements every written.

 

It's almost as amusing as "Manami Toyota was a lesbian because she wasn't interested in me backstage."

 

 

I'm glad I didn't write that one.

[goc]

One thing I will say is that when I first came online (almost twenty years ago, christ), there was FAR more consensus than there is now. Does this mean everyone agreed on everything and that there weren't different cliques with shared interests? God no. But in general there were many more sacred cows. Or at least that's how it seemed to me as a teenager at the time

I think this is definitely true. Back in like 1996 you would be a pariah if you were to claim Jerry Lawler was the best wrestler of the 80s, criticize Ric Flair or praise Hulk Hogan.

 

[JerryvonKramer]

I don't think jdw has really grasped what I'm saying because he's still focusong on hardcore fans. I'm not talking about hardcore fans. I'm talking about Joe Bloggs who stumbled onto the internet because he wanted to read about his favourite wrestler.

 

We're talking about a genuine phenomena that took place in wrestling fandom, namely the birth of the CASUAL "smart" fan.

 

Who is the casual smart fan?

 

- A guy who grew up watching WWF or NWA or even the territories

- A guy who maybe read the Apter mags as a kid

- A guy who has fond or nostalgic memories of watching that wrestling

- A guy who found his way online, probably during the Monday Night Wars.

 

How did being on the internet transform his fandom?

 

- He learned about insider terminology for the first time, and started seeing fan favourites as "babyfaces" and wrestlers as "workers"

- He learned about star ratings and "work rate"

- He learned that certain guys were great workers but that maybe some of his favourites as a kid like Hogan or the Road Warriors were lazy or unprofessional or dickheads behind the scenes or whatever

- He learned about the Montreal Screwjob

- He learned about what a booker is and, perhaps more importantly, how to complain endlessly about booking decisions

 

What did this fan care about?

 

- WWF or WCW or ECW TV

- His old favourites for whom he had nostalgic memories

 

What did this fan not care about?

 

- Anything foreign

- Indy promotions

- Anything outside of the major leagues including old territories

 

------------

 

This fan was created as a type by the internet. I don't see how this variety of fan could have existed in the pre-internet era. Meltzer's voter-base in 1991 was not more than 500 people. Let's say only 25% of the total readership bothered to vote, it's still only 2,000 people max from an audience of millions.

 

The kid sitting at home with his PWI and his Ultimate Warrior toy had no idea, and let's say he grows up to be a 17-year old watching Raw and Nitro, without the internet where's he going to "smarten up"? Even his old man telling him "y'know kid that wrestling's all fake", is still not going to make him into the sort of fan I've described above.

 

If you listen to jdw, that sort of fan has always existed. When? How? How many?

 

The death of kayfabe was a real event in wrestling history. I know jdw HATES to acknowledge real change. This is the same guy who told us Vince didn't really change how wrestling was presented on TV and pointed to the fucking 1950s as evidence.

 

Yes, there was Montreal and Russo bullshit that exacerbated the death of kayfabe, but the business was exposed on the internet. If you're an average fan, with access to only PWI and your mates, do you REALLY know about the Montreal screwjob? Really really?

 

This is why I'm saying that jdw is not well placed, because he's lost sight of that average "mark" fan who had no real idea about how the business worked and of just how many of them hit the internet around the same time. I'd hazard the entire userbase of PTBN is madeup by such people. I don't believe -- as an actual class of fan -- that they would have existed prior to the internet. There was no such thing as your casual smart fan.

 

You would have had hardcores, you would have had sceptical casual fans and maybe some who'd worked out some basic things, but the vast majority of the audience were not talking about "workers" and "heels" or throwing out star ratings. That sort of thing post 1996 was not ONLY the preserve of the hardcores, it was anyone who had a 56k dial-up and whacked "Wrestlemania review" into Yahoo.

[Johnny Sorrow]

 

 

I find "shine" racially offensive since I'm old.

 

All I hear when someone says that is Billy Batts telling Tommy to go get his fucking shine box.

Haha, me too, no shit.

[goodhelmet]

I hate 'X is being pushed down our throats' or any iteration of that. It always connotes a petty bitterness to me.

 

I hate it when Wrestler X is actually pushed down our throats. Why can't it be Wrestler Y?

[Johnny Sorrow]

 

 

I hate 'X is being pushed down our throats' or any iteration of that. It always connotes a petty bitterness to me.

I hate it Wrestler X is actually pushed down our throats. Why can't it be Wrestler Y?

Wrestler KY goes down smooth.

[goodhelmet]

I always thought it was really annoying when people used the word PURORESU in a radio show and pronounced it POO-RO-RE-SOO. Then again it’s even worse when people try to pronounce it in proper Japanese. Just call it Japanese wrestling and be done with it. I don't know if this still happens as I haven't listened to any radio shows where they'd say this in something like a decade. For whatever reason it doesn't bother me when somebody types "puroresu", though I think it looks dumb when somebody refers to it as PURO.

 

The misspelling of "luchador" as "luchadore" used to bother me more than it should have.

 

I'm also glad that John doesn't throw people or matches or entire promotions on to the woodpile anymore (or at least not on every third post).

 

God, I hope you have never listened to me on a podcast. We wouldn't be friends after that. I probably violate your luchador rule also.

[evilclown]

But what I do question is how many of the people I'm talking about even knew who Takada was, let alone had an opinion on him.

 

Those people would be politely asked to lurk and learn.

 

Lex Luger was always a shitty worker.

Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart are the greatest of all time.

 

 

I think you are completely missing the dynamic that existed at the time. Battle lines were drawn all over the place. There was no such thing as consensus.

 

Michaels and Hart, in particular, were both part of vicious and continuous debate for as long as I can remember. Not only were there vocal critics of both men (5 moves of doom, etc) but the other man's fans certainly weren't acknowledging his rival as an all-time great. Add in the fact that WCW fans would shit on both reflexively—and you hardly find consensus.

[Hollinger.]

I don't think there's ever going to be any agreement on this topic between those of us who were around in the 90s and those who weren't.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'd be more interested to know if evilclown, as a serious wrestling historian, would deny the truth of what I laid out in my last post (i.e. About the birth of casual smart fans). And, if he would deny it, explain exactly where I've gone wrong.

[Bix]

Parv is absolutely right that there is a much greater quantity of people reading smarky stuff online now. People who will read stuff and comment on places that aren't WWE.com but have no desire to pay for the Network or anything like that.

[El-P]

We're talking about a genuine phenomena that took place in wrestling fandom, namely the birth of the CASUAL "smart" fan.

 

Who is the casual smart fan?

 

A casual fan with an access to the Internet and social medias. And since everyone has access to the Internet and social medias, what you're describing is just the casual fan of today, really.

[pantherwagner]

 

I always thought it was really annoying when people used the word PURORESU in a radio show and pronounced it POO-RO-RE-SOO. Then again it’s even worse when people try to pronounce it in proper Japanese. Just call it Japanese wrestling and be done with it. I don't know if this still happens as I haven't listened to any radio shows where they'd say this in something like a decade. For whatever reason it doesn't bother me when somebody types "puroresu", though I think it looks dumb when somebody refers to it as PURO.

 

The misspelling of "luchador" as "luchadore" used to bother me more than it should have.

 

I'm also glad that John doesn't throw people or matches or entire promotions on to the woodpile anymore (or at least not on every third post).

 

God, I hope you have never listened to me on a podcast. We wouldn't be friends after that. I probably violate your luchador rule also.

 

 

That reminds me that I never got to listen to your podcast with Lars and somebody else (I forgot who!). Maybe on Sunday as I have a Eurostar trip from Paris to London.

 

If you have any particular podcasts you are proud of let me know and I will listen to them. I have even listened to a few of Dylan's eight hour podcasts if you can believe that!

[JerryvonKramer]

 

We're talking about a genuine phenomena that took place in wrestling fandom, namely the birth of the CASUAL "smart" fan.

 

Who is the casual smart fan?

 

A casual fan with an access to the Internet and social medias. And since everyone has access to the Internet and social medias, what you're describing is just the casual fan of today, really.

 

 

Right, and that type of fan with that "smart" perspective and way at looking at the product did not exist before the late 90s.

[jdw]

 

But what I do question is how many of the people I'm talking about even knew who Takada was, let alone had an opinion on him.

 

Those people would be politely asked to lurk and learn.

 

Good lord... I haven't heard that one for ages.

[jdw]

 

Lex Luger was always a shitty worker.

Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart are the greatest of all time.

 

I think you are completely missing the dynamic that existed at the time. Battle lines were drawn all over the place. There was no such thing as consensus.

 

Michaels and Hart, in particular, were both part of vicious and continuous debate for as long as I can remember. Not only were there vocal critics of both men (5 moves of doom, etc) but the other man's fans certainly weren't acknowledging his rival as an all-time great. Add in the fact that WCW fans would shit on both reflexively—and you hardly find consensus.

 

 

Exactly, on all three points:

 

* there were the Super Hardcore Work Fans debating Bret vs Shawn

 

This would be in the same context of debating Kobashi, Benoit, Kawada, Flair, Liger, Hokuto, etc. Similar to the type of discussion seen in the big SmacksChoice poll, or that people talk about here.

 

* there were Bret Fans vs Shawn Fans

 

Mostly the WWF Fan brigade, but you'd also get the US Fans who'd cross over watching both programs. You're Bret Fan typically hated Shawn, and your Shawn Fan hated Bret.

 

* WCW Fans vs WWF Fans

 

How generally hated the guys in the other promotion until they jumped.

[ohtani's jacket]

Jerry,

 

Regarding the casual smart fan, the first thing that most people discovered through dial up was the news sites. Suddenly, they had access to all sorts of gossip, rumours and backstage news, but the extent to which it effected them was that they probably thought Yokozuna was going to show up on RAW on Monday. If they ventured onto the message boards, they would have been exposed to WCW vs. WWF fans and the WWF death riding that took place after Pillman's death and then Montreal. Learning about workers and star ratings, and everything like that, would come later if the person was interested and decided to hang around. Many people weren't interested in 'work.' A lot of people only cared about the top of the card, which wrestlers were leaving for which promotion, and who won the ratings on Monday night. Generally, people became interested in 'work' either through one or two posters piquing their interest, or through discovering a pocket of the internet where people cared about it more than on the boards they first encountered.

 

People who cared about workers and matches more than the WCW vs. WWF war were often labeled as purists or elitists, particularly if they believed that Japanese wrestling was better than American wrestling, and there wasn't that many reviews of past wrestling shows because tapes were expensive. One of the reasons why Keith had a presence back then was that he reviewed (seemingly) everything in an era where it wasn't easy to get stuff and where the 'canon', for want of a better word, was WON star ratings and maybe the old rspw awards.

[Matt D]

I read a lot of Hyatte when I was 17. It took me forever to remember that guy's name.