Dumbest foreign object ever

[goc]

You don't see real sports referees getting knocked over so the visiting team can break the rules either. Or conveniently looking the wrong way every time a team fouls/holds/goes offsides/a million other rule infractions. Wrestling isn't a real sport expecting wrestling referees to act like 'real sports' referees is pretty silly.

 

Besides, I've seen referees break holds for pulling hair/tights after asking the crowd if the heel cheated so it's not like it's never ever resulted in something happening.

[Jingus]

It doesn't get the crowd involved. It teases the crowd with the possibility of involvement, and then basically tells them "go fuck yourself, you don't matter" when the crowd-asking doesn't lead to any punishment of the rule-breaking.

 

Also, it sets up an expectation that the referee is supposed to listen to the crowd, if he ever asks them. How do you do any kind of fuck-finish after that? The referee asked them just five minutes ago if the heel was cheating; now he's expected to ignore all the fans who are screaming that the heel hit the babyface with a foreign object and then put his feet on the ropes for the pin? "Hey you blind asshole, you listened to us before, why aren't you listening NOW?" Once again, the heat in those situations goes on the referee rather than on the wrestler, and unless you're setting up a Danny Davis, Evil Official angle then that's always a bad thing.

 

Besides, I've seen referees break holds for pulling hair/tights after asking the crowd if the heel cheated

Oh, I would loved to have worked for a company where a referee could get away with doing that on the fly. Unless it was a spot that one of the wrestlers explicitly called, a referee doing that could almost automatically expect a pissed-off wrestler throwing a tantrum about interfering with their stuff-to-do. Most modern workers seriously do expect the referee to just do whatever they say and otherwise stay completely out of the way, never interjecting themselves unless instructed otherwise.

[goc]

You seem so jaded from your indy wrestling experiences that I'd be shocked if you still get any enjoyment out of wrestling.

[Jingus]

I'm fine with wrestling in general. It's the awful, illogical, intelligence-insulting spots that I hate. And that description covers a whole lot of the southern, Memphis-style aggressively-phony bullshit that probably helped kill off the territories.

[Al]

The key to the asking the crowd spot is that the heel gets pissed at the crowd for ratting him out. He gets distracted yelling at the crowd, face takes advantage.

 

Along with the scythe and sword, the chainsaw fits the bill here as well.

[goc]

I'm fine with wrestling in general. It's the awful, illogical, intelligence-insulting spots that I hate. And that description covers a whole lot of the southern, Memphis-style aggressively-phony bullshit that probably helped kill off the territories.

But Memphis being the last surviving territory kind of disputes your theory.

[Mad Dog]

I find it funny that Jingus hates Memphis so much when his precious ECW is deeply rooted in Memphis style.

[BillThompson]

 

I'm fine with wrestling in general. It's the awful, illogical, intelligence-insulting spots that I hate. And that description covers a whole lot of the southern, Memphis-style aggressively-phony bullshit that probably helped kill off the territories.

But Memphis being the last surviving territory kind of disputes your theory.

 

 

Not just that, but Memphis thrived for years. If the Memphis style was territory killing then how come the Memphis territory was a top territory for decades?

[Mad Dog]

Memphis is still going in sime form too. It's not like Memphis ever really died.

 

Shitty booking and failure to adapt is what killed the territories, not the Memphis style.

[goc]

Let's not get crazy about "what killed the territories" here. A huge part of that is WWF made themselves look like the major leagues and everything else in turn became second rate. That and the dirty tactics like buying up the local territories TV time and getting them locked out of arenas. Even well booked territories died off.

 

EDIT: But let's not derail this thread any more.

[Jingus]

THE THINGS TOTALLY MURDERED THE TERRITORY BY CUTTING OFF THEIR HEADS WITH A CHAINSAW.

 

Except what I actually said was "probably helped". Pay attention, guys.

[DR Ackermann]

Oh wow, that really changes everything. Great point, Jingus. What a bull shit copout. As long as you preface ever claim with, 'probably' then no one can argue with you because you can't be wrong. Respond to the points they're making if you really believe anything you said or concede that you were 'probably' wrong.

[Jingus]

Oh wow, that really changes everything. Great point, Jingus. What a bull shit copout. As long as you preface ever claim with, 'probably' then no one can argue with you because you can't be wrong. Respond to the points they're making if you really believe anything you said or concede that you were 'probably' wrong.

I don't recall saying a single goddamn thing to you, buddy. And I've had this exact same argument multiple times on this board, I'm tired of re-elaborating on it. If you wanna know why, go work on shitty wannabe-Memphis indy shows in the South and see how high your tolerance remains for walk-and-talk bullshit in matches after seeing it done ad infinitum for years on end.

[dawho5]

Seems to me Jingus likes to start big arguments in a very similar manner across multiple threads lately. Almost something you'd pick up on and just...let go without responding to to save yourself some time and energy.

[DR Ackermann]

Its a message board, Jingus.

[Jingus]

Aw, for fuck's sake... fine, here:

 

 

Southern bullshit sucks. By which, I very specifically mean, the sort of extended stalling and bad acting and agonizingly unfunny "comedy" that too many lousy, lazy workers rely on to fill time instead of wrestling. For example: whenever a heel kills five minutes of a match playing hide-and-seek with a weapon. "But I thought that was hilarious when Jerry Lawler did it in this one match with Bret Hart!" Yeah, because 1.Lawler's the best at it; 2.you're easily amused (lots of people don't like these spots, period), and most importantly 3.it was just that ONE time. Imagine working shows where nearly every match is full of stuff like that, basically providing extended excuses for every guy on the card guy to avoid contact and not have to WRESTLE for most of the match. That's one of my biggest problems with this stuff, workers lean on it to avoid having to actually put any significant physical effort into their performances. (And on the shows I worked, you'd constantly get lazy never-was veterans preaching about how this stuff was "what the people really wanted to see", while "working" in front of crowds so miniscule that Jerry Jarrett would've cancelled the show if the house was ever THIS bad.)

 

I still remember the first time I ever saw the ask-the-audience spot: watching a rental tape of Starrcade 1986, in the year 1999. Tommy Young turned around and actually asked the crowd "Did (heel) pull (face)'s hair?" and yes, of course I popped. I'd never seen it before; and everything looks cool when it's new to you and feels innovative. Years later, after having DONE that spot AS a referee on countless occasions: no, it sucks. It slows the match down and encourages the wrestlers to stall. It also encourages that terrible "we're part of the show!" feeling among fans, albeit in a blue-balling manner; when you ask them Did This Guy Cheat and then you don't do anything ABOUT the cheating, then the fans get angry at the official rather than getting angry at the heel. Please trust me, in the modern age, this is the consistent outcome of ask-the-crowd spots almost every single time. I've seen it happen FAR too often, and it's generally nothing more than a waste of time and a distraction from the action.

 

And the "comedy" spots, oh the "comedy" spots! I honestly couldn't tell you how often I saw the same ones repeated over and over again, in the same towns, sometime on the same goddamn night. And, so many of them rely on having the heel act like they are literally a retarded person. The one where the babyface challenges the heel to play a game of drop-down leapfrog, which ends with the heel flinging themselves out of the ring in a really contrived manner? Awful. The one where they start a criss-cross spot, the babyface stops running, but the heel inexplicably keeps going for the length of a marathon? Ridiculous. They're spots which seem like they're intended to make a toddler laugh, they make the bad guys look like harmless buffoons who couldn't possibly pose any threat to the heroes, and once again it's a poor substitute for spending the same amount of time with guys punching each other in the face.

 

And no, the Memphis territory's longevity isn't due to its tolerance for goofy bullshit in the ring. They had a bunch of other variables in their favor,:from super-low expenses (especially payroll), to working relationships/talent exchanges with many other companies, to the fact that most of their core stars remained loyal and were never poached by the big national companies, to the simple luck of having a good television deal and never getting their show cancelled out from under them like had happened to so many other promotions. And even then, all that wasn't enough. They went out of business like everyone else, they just took a little longer; and remember it was a little longer, less than a decade overall, by 1997 they were dead and buried. None of the other indy promotions that ran Memphis since then count as a "territory", they certainly never ran the loop in Nashville, Louisville, and the other traditional old CWA/USWA towns.

[DR Ackermann]

There we go!

[Johnny Sorrow]

You must be a blast at parties.

[Mad Dog]

You must be a blast at parties.

This post would get a like if the feature worked.

[goc]

I have higher standards and would never have liked that post. It isn't realistic enough because it assumes the party throwers wouldn't be intelligent enough to know better than to invite him. I guess you're just easily entertained Mad Dog.

[Mad Dog]

But Johnny Sorrow would be there and I can hardly imagine the shenanigans that would follow. My guess is a night out with Sorrow can only end inside of a jail cell.

[JerryvonKramer]

The Baron had a wife and kids to feed, some people would see them starve.

[Jingus]

Gotta love people complaining about me not writing long point-by-point posts, and then when I do write one it's followed by a string of nonsense like that.

[MJH]

Actually I'm in the same boat (or near enough) to Jingus on goofy bullshit, and I think he laid out a perfectly valid reasoning as to why. I've both been on, and seen, far too many shows where there was a massive overreliance on cheap comedy. I'm fine with the odd spot, and if you're creative with it then great, but a) few guys are original with it, and it's worse for someone like me because I'm likely to know where they've lifted it from, b ) it gets old very fast, and c) at the end of the day, I'm an adult.

[JerryvonKramer]

I do think there is bit of a double standard on this. I will never forget being roundly scolded by Pete for "daring" to compare Baron Mikel Scicluna to Jerry Lawler. But it still seems to me that his argument rests on a circular logic: hidden forgein object play is fine when Lawler does it because Lawler is awesome, but it sucks when Scicluna does it, because Scicluna sucks.

 

The best and most amazing hidden foreign object play I've ever seen is in the three Abby and Sheik vs. Funks matches, because they ratchet up the cheating and villainy to about an 11, to the point where it is drawing serious heat from a sit-on-their-hands-70s-Japanese crowd who are out of their chairs and throwing trash at the ring. It remains the most incredible example of simple rulebreaking generating heat that I've ever seen, and is a masterclass in psychology.

 

I'd love to hear Jingus's take on the foreign object play in those matches and how it compares to what he's talking about.