Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[C.S.]

17 minutes ago, sek69 said:

FWIW the new Editor in Chief of PWI  did a multi tweet thread apologizing for the Marty Scurll thing, said his intention was to not leave out any mention of #SpeakingOut allegations but in practice the limited size of each blurb didn't really allow for them to do that properly. 

What is there to apologize for, at least with the Scurll listing? Considering the lack of space, I thought they did a fine job summarizing the situation.

Obviously, the PWI 500 is not the place for a nuanced description of these issues, but not mentioning it would've been criticized too.

I guess I'm not seeing the problem here or missing some greater point.

[Al]

Some of the PWI 500 blurbs.

Matt Riddle: "Prior to his Smackdown debut, Riddle was accused of sexual assault by a former partner during the #Speaking-Out movement...He's since denied the accusation." (Ellipses their's)

Velveteen Dream: "Derailed by #SpeakingOut accusations in June."

Jordan Devlin: "Was stripped of title and released by PROGRESS after being accused of assault."

Austin Theory: "Largely absent from TV over the summer following a #SpeakingOut allegation in June."

Jay Lethal: "The subject of new and old accusations of harassment, which he denied in a tweet dated July 6."

Others didn't make the list. They did not rank Jack Gallagher, Joey Ryan, Michael Elgin, David Starr, Jimmy Havoc, Dave Crist, Joe Coffey, Travis Banks, El Ligero.

Personally I think they dropped the ball on the Scurll bio. But I think a genuine effort was made. 

[El-P]

Is Matt Riddle listed ?

"Matt Riddle. Former MMA star. Made waves in NXT then shows a lot of promises in the main roster. May or may not have raped an ex-lover."

What about Velveteen Dream ?

"Velveteen Dream. Came back form injury, did not show much improvement. But he did show his dick to some underage boys."

(EDIT : damn, a few seconds too late !)

[C.S.]

3 minutes ago, Al said:

Personally I think they dropped the ball on the Scurll bio. But I think a genuine effort was made. 

What is so much worse about that bio than the others you listed?

[Al]

2 minutes ago, C.S. said:

What is so much worse about that bio than the others you listed?

The belief that sex with a minor can not by definition be “consensual.”

[C.S.]

1 minute ago, Al said:

The belief that sex with a minor can not by definition be “consensual.”

Oh yeah, Jesus, that's horrible. 

[KawadaSmile]

the best part is that not only it can read as straightforward praise, but also as some thinly veiled irony

[Robert S]

16 hours ago, Victator said:

I was reading an issue of Victory Sports Wrestling and they did a Top 50 WWF list, which seemed like a precursor to the 500. 

Hogan was one and Savage was two. Probley the part I found confusing is how some tag teams were ranked. Especially in the case of the Killer Bees where Blair was way ahead of Brunzell. 

I know Bret was ahead of Neidhart and Dynamite slightly above Davey because of the unspoken workrate criteria they use. But why would you place Blair that far ahead of Brunzell?

Maybe they just forgot Brunzell. Or Blair was more accomplished as a single.

 

Ted Arcidi was 50. 

 

Blair was there for 1.5 years or so before Brunzell, Blair came in in late 83 / early 84 while Brunzell came in in mid 85. So if the list was done in late 85, it would to some degree make sense to put Blair above Brunzell.

[NintendoLogic]

For those of you who remember the periodic conversations on this board about how far heels were able to go to get heat in the old days, there's a hilarious story in the latest Observer about how Beauregarde nearly got Portland Wrestling thrown off the air in 1970 by saying he was going to have his tag team partner The Claw kill the Easter Bunny. The station was flooded with angry phone calls and forced him to issue an immediate apology.

[Superstar Sleeze]

3 hours ago, Robert S said:

Blair was there for 1.5 years or so before Brunzell, Blair came in in late 83 / early 84 while Brunzell came in in mid 85. So if the list was done in late 85, it would to some degree make sense to put Blair above Brunzell.

I know @Ricky Jackson is a massive Blair mark so there might be something to this Blair >>> Brunzell talking point. Kelly & Victory Sports Mag are just on a different level when they are analyzing pro wrestling than the rest of us.  

[Ricky Jackson]

Blair was clearly the worker of the team while Brunzell was just a one trick, dropkick-throwing spot monkey 

[Matt D]

1 hour ago, Ricky Jackson said:

Blair was clearly the worker of the team while Brunzell was just a one trick, dropkick-throwing spot monkey 

After the AWA set, I wanted to do a project where I reviewed all of Brunzell’s WWF work because he was such a standout. Obviously that didn’t happen. I’m glad we got the Frankensteined hour match with Bock though.

[clintthecrippler]

If we are assuming the that WWF Top 50 list was drafted between late 85 and summer 86 (I think I remember the final release date being more late Fall/early Winter 1986), Brian Blair did go back to Florida for six months at the end of 1984/early 1985 and had separate runs as Florida Heavyweight Champion AND Southern Heavyweight Champion, so it's possible on a "kayfabe" accomplishments level they weighted holding both the 1A and 1B singles championships for that territory as a reason to give Blair a higher individual ranking than Brunzell.

[C.S.]

Agreed, @clintthecrippler. It's not like "workrate" had any factor on PWI's rankings in the '80s, other than their pro-NWA, anti-WWF bias, which was obvious and embarrassing. 

In the end, Blair was the more successful of the two anyway - kayfabe and otherwise. Brunzell was legitimately a Brooklyn Brawler/Jim Powers-type, "who the fuck is this?" no-name jobber by the early '90s - Blair probably saved his money and wrestled for the love of it by then. He later became a politician and may still be one today. No idea what Brunzell has been up to.

[cm funk]

This is lovely

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8699101/Mexico-wrestlers-hit-streets-body-slam-deadly-COVID-19-virus-promote-safe-measures.html

On Thursday, a team of six luchadores took to the streets of Mexico City's Xochimilco borough to led a campaign called 'Put the face mask on or we'll put a maneuver on you' to stop the spread of the virus.

[KawadaSmile]

gotta love that double mask action going on

[Alucard]

On 9/3/2020 at 6:36 PM, Al said:

Some of the PWI 500 blurbs.

Others didn't make the list. They did not rank Jack Gallagher, Joey Ryan, Michael Elgin, David Starr, Jimmy Havoc, Dave Crist, Joe Coffey, Travis Banks, El Ligero.

Personally I think they dropped the ball on the Scurll bio. But I think a genuine effort was made. 

Michael Elgin wasn't ranked in the PWI 500? the fuck

[sek69]

They were trying to not rank people who quit/got fired for #SpeakingOut reasons.

[C.S.]

8 hours ago, Alucard said:

Michael Elgin wasn't ranked in the PWI 500? the fuck

The horror! The horror!

[KawadaSmile]

https://wrestlingnews.co/impact-wrestling/crazzy-steve-i-am-blind-thats-news-to-some-people-because-as-of-recently-i-just-came-out-advertising-it/

What the fuck Crazzy Steve is blind???????????

[ButchReedMark]

1 hour ago, KawadaSmile said:

https://wrestlingnews.co/impact-wrestling/crazzy-steve-i-am-blind-thats-news-to-some-people-because-as-of-recently-i-just-came-out-advertising-it/

What the fuck Crazzy Steve is blind???????????

Yeah, he was joking about it all through Wrestle House. 

[sek69]

Becky Lynch is probably about to get a ton of dummies spewing hate at the wrong person since a soccer player name Rebecca Quin came out publicly transgender.

[joeg]

13 hours ago, sek69 said:

They were trying to not rank people who quit/got fired for #SpeakingOut reasons.

I don't understand any of this. Maybe its just me being old and not understanding how Twitter and social media work, but to me #SpeakingOut is no different than the old DVDR Urban Legends Sleaze Thread. Like the late Anthony Bourdain said twitter is the 21st century equivalent of writing on the bathroom stall- anybody can say anything anonymously and without consequence. If there was an active criminal investigation or criminal charges or a civil lawsuit or an HR complaint of some sort or credible accusations from actual people became public, then yes I would absolutely expect somebody to lose there job for the accused behavior. The #MeToo movement had actual people with actual names, DOBs, and social security numbers coming forward and filing actual complaints against prominent public figures. #SpeakingOut seems to be twitter handles anonymously accusing private citizens (most of these wrestlers accused aren't important enough to be considered public figures) of misconduct often with little to no details or evidence provided. So yeah I don't understand.

[sek69]

The reasoning (at least as how I understand it) is that anyone who got fired over it was probably not some innocent lamb caught in the murky waters of social media. The idea is the companies involved looked into it enough to determine there was sufficient smoke to the fire and cut ties. Which is why folks like Riddle and Marty were still listed (despite it looking more like all parties involved will die of old age before ROH concludes their investigation). 

[Al]

From the magazine (writer Al Castle): "...we chose to consider each accused wrestler on a case-by-case basis...eliminating those left in limbo by terminations or suspensions."