Youur Thoughts about Rob Fienstein

[sek69]

Over at DVDVR, there was a thread that got (prematurely, IMO) closed about RF and his new promotion losing their building. Basically, RF's new promotion was going to run in an Elks Lodge until a bunch of people were calling the Lodge and telling them about Rob's past. Now the Lodge said they're not hosting any more wrestling shows.

 

This made me wonder, we excuse a lot of things under the banner of "it's just pro wrestling", but there was actually people defending RF in the DVDVR thread. There were comments basically saying people should let it go, it's been 2 years, etc. Are people that jaded or just stupid? For those who forgot/don't know, Rob was caught by a web site that targets pedophiles setting up a meeting with who he thought was a 14 year old boy. He even expresses fear of getting caught in the chat transcripts but still goes through with it. Even then he was more afraid of losing his wrestling empire than the whole "having sex with a 14 year old" aspect.

 

This is part of the reason I have a hard time getting into ROH. After all this broke, they made all the right PR moves saying Rob no longer was part of the company until it came out that he was still working for them on the downlow for months. I sometimes wonder how much Gabe knew before it became public. It's nothing you could ever prove one way or another of course, but it always creeped me out that they kept him on the payroll after everything came out.

 

I've said in the Eddie thread that it bothers me when kids are involved in wrestling angles. It kind of applies here since 15-25 year old males are a large part of the fanbase for groups like ROH. Is it right for people to let the building know that the wrestling promotion they booked is run by someone who attempted to solict a 14 year old? What about the guys who work for the promotion? Guys gotta get a paycheck, but would you work for a guy like RF?

 

I'm sure wrestling promoters have done worse things than this (especially since as far as we know RF never actually got to do the deed with anyone underage), but should "someone else did something worse" be an excuse?

[kjh]

Is it right for people to let the building know that the wrestling promotion they booked is run by someone who attempted to solict a 14 year old?

Those people are just playing the exact same sort of games that I'm sure Rob Feinstein played when he promoted ROH. So for them the question of whether it is morally right doesn't come into the question, they?re just looking for revenge. Personally I feel he's a black mark on the industry and when he's no longer associated with it it'll be good riddance.

[Coffey]

Honestly, I just might be that jaded/stupid because as long as the show is good, I don't really care about anything else. I think ROH is the best promotion in the world right now and Feinstein being involved there in the past doesn't change that fact.

[Loss]

I hate to say it, but Vince McMahon is just as bad as Rob Feinstein. The difference is that Vince hasn't ripped off a bunch of tape traders with an axe to grind. I have to wonder if anyone would care that he was a pedophile if their ECW fancams weren't in such shitty video quality. This will be misinterpreted as me condoning his behavior, which I'm not. It's just that every wrestling promotion in the history of wrestling is filled with pedophiles and rapists. Was there a boycott of the WWF in the early 80s when Vince McMahon helped Jimmy Snuka cover up the death of his girlfriend? Was there an outrage against Giant Baba when he had Brody flush the evidence in David Von Erich's death, or when he got Steve Williams off of his drug charges? Is Inoki's Yakuza connection cause to not watch NJPW? I have no desire to invest my time in PWU as it's determined to fail anyway, but Rob Feinstein hasn't done anything that plenty of other people in wrestling haven't already done. And no, that doesn't make it right.

[Guest Dangerous A]

Is it right for people to let the building know that the wrestling promotion they booked is run by someone who attempted to solict a 14 year old? What about the guys who work for the promotion? Guys gotta get a paycheck, but would you work for a guy like RF?

 

 

Depends on who is letting the building know and what their intents and purposes are. Are they guys who Feinstein has screwed over before? Rob isnt' known as being the most honest man in indy pro wrestling. Perhaps it's just people who will do whatever they can to ruin a pervert or pedophile's life. I'm not really one to judge who is right or wrong on that front, but that's just me.

 

 

I would not work for a guy like RF. Throw out the pedophile stuff, I heard he is a douche as far as being a promoter. Then again, just about every wrestling promoter this side of Giant Baba is a piece of shit. Guess that's why I'm not working in the wrestling business. (yet?)

[Guest teke184]

Anyone who used to read my stuff at TSM probably know my opinions on the situation...

 

 

In short, I feel Rob is a boil on the ass of wrestling and, as long as the tactics used against him are *legal* and *generally accepted practices* within the wrestling community (by which I mean the promoters, NOT the fans), I don't have any problems with this.

 

It's one thing to lie and tell schools booked by RF's group that the promotion does satanic rituals. It's another thing to tell them "The guy who runs this promotion was in some well-publicized trouble a few years back" or send them a tape of the promotion's shows as an example of the kind of product they present.

 

 

 

Doing a fradulent letter campaign a la Brent Bozell = BAD... telling the people who run the buildings what kind of person RF is with verified examples (the report from the NBC channel in Philly for one) = acceptable.

[sek69]

Well one thing, most of what you mentioned happened in the 80s when the business was much more closed off. If any of that happened now, there would be huge reactions.

 

*edit* This is in reply to Loss's post.

[Loss]

Eddy-sploitation. Is that causing anyone to swear off anything Vince McMahon ever promotes again? Not really.

 

And would everyone be coming down quite as hard if he was caught soliciting an underage girl? Jerry Lawler is still gamefully employed in pro wrestling, so apparently not.

[sek69]

Well, he was fired/suspended when he was on trial (when HBK replaced him at Survivor Series vs the Hart Family) and he was only brought back when the case was dismissed.

 

Legally he was found not to have done it (I don't remember exactly how it played out other than he wasn't found guilty) , despite every guy who's ever worked in Memphis having a "Lawler and the little girls" story.

 

Double standard? Probably, but then so is the "teacher has sex with the student" when it's a young boy with a hot blonde teacher.

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

I honestly haven't given the man any thought since the incident first went down. He's in need of help, but I never lost any sleep over it.

[Guest thecitythesky]

Well, he was fired/suspended when he was on trial (when HBK replaced him at Survivor Series vs the Hart Family) and he was only brought back when the case was dismissed.

 

Legally he was found not to have done it (I don't remember exactly how it played out other than he wasn't found guilty) , despite every guy who's ever worked in Memphis having a "Lawler and the little girls" story.

 

Double standard? Probably, but then so is the "teacher has sex with the student" when it's a young boy with a hot blonde teacher.

*

 

But in the RF situation, there weren't charges raised against him. He wasn't even in postion to really be facing a trial.

 

If Lawler having the case dismissed in his hearing (which is no way/shape/form a statement of innocence) is reason enough to look the other way. Then why not the fact that the police/DA's couldn't find sufficient cause to arrest and try him.?

 

I'm not saying that I'm okay on either count. But there certainly seems to be a hole in that logic somewhere.

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

Eddy-sploitation. Is that causing anyone to swear off anything Vince McMahon ever promotes again? Not really.

 

And would everyone be coming down quite as hard if he was caught soliciting an underage girl? Jerry Lawler is still gamefully employed in pro wrestling, so apparently not.

Wise words from Loss. At least part of the reaction to this is homophobia- there's been plenty of people in the business who've had problems of this sort (Lawler's merely the one where he got as far as court) but because they're all about women, no-one really gives a fuck. He did a bad thing, but consensual sex, even with someone of 14, isn't half as bad as rape. There's plenty of worse people still gainfully employed with not a word about their private lives, and no-one in threads like this calling them scum or whatever.

 

It's that Feinstein is one of us- an indie promoter and tape trader, who found something that worked. I don't doubt his dodgy business practices (although I'd wager a lot of what people think of him is due to people like Bob Barnett badmouthing him constantly for years.). He did something wrong, for sure, but there's many people who've done a great deal worse.

[Mad Dog]

At least part of the reaction to this is homophobia- there's been plenty of people in the business who've had problems of this sort (Lawler's merely the one where he got as far as court) but because they're all about women, no-one really gives a fuck.

Bullshit. The reason Lawler isn't brought up is because 80% of the people on message boards weren't even alive when it happened. Half of the people that post on these boards have no knowledge of wrestling pre-95. So it's ignorance. Does Patterson get bashed for his potential ringboy scandal. That was homosexual and it rarely gets brought up.

 

Don't bring fucking homophobia into this either. It's a bullshit apologist tactic for the guy. He was trying to pick up a 14 year old. Ok, people hate the guy because he's a pedophile not because he's gay.

[The Thread Killer]

Does Patterson get bashed for his potential ringboy scandal. That was homosexual and it rarely gets brought up.

Actually, it turns out that Pat Patterson had nothing to do with that. Superstar Billy Graham totally made that up in an effort to extort money out of Vince McMahon. Former ring announcer Mel Phillips and WWF agent Terry Garvin were both guilty of sexually molesting ring boys. Both were fired and investigated by the police, but Patterson had nothing to do with it. I only know this because I just finished reading Graham's book, where he totally comes clean about the smear campaign. That's why Patterson wasn't fired and the other people named in the scandal were.

[Mad Dog]

Interesting, that's actually the first I've heard about the Billy Graham thing.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

Just because he didn't actually end up fucking a 14 year old kid doesn't mean he didn't go with the intention of doing so.

 

He did something wrong, for sure, but there's many people who've done a great deal worse.

So does that mean because there are killers we should take it easy on muggers? Because their are forceful abusive rapists out there we should ignore roofie using date rapists? That kind of logic is so flawed. "Well, he's a scumbag, but he's not a dirty fucking scumbag." Yeah, but he's still a scumbag.

 

Just because he used to be "one of us" doesn't make his actions any less deplorable or disgusting, if anything it should serve as proof that the business is so scummy that people are willing to forgive guys who attempt to solicit sex from young kids over the internet as long as they keep providing entertainment. Michael Jackson allegedly does similar shit even though he was loved and famous, his career is ruined. A wrestling promoter and tape trader attempts it and is caught in the act, people feel bad for him and ask, "when will he get that second chance?" Crazy.

[Mad Dog]

And let's be honest. If he got caught like that it probably wasn't the first time he tried it.

[sek69]

Interesting, that's actually the first I've heard about the Billy Graham thing.

I'd be skeptical of anything Billy says, to be honest. I think part of his WWE Legends deal was to accept Vince as his personal savior. I didn't read the book, but just the part on his DVD where he said that the steroid trial came from stuff he made up was completely asinine, considering Vince was all but convicted had the feds handled the case properly.

 

I don't know if he is paying his medical bills or what, but Superstar has completely thrown himself in front of the train for Vince. Besides, didn't the allegations involving Patterson come from the kid himself?

[The Thread Killer]

No, they didn't.

 

What happened was this...

 

When Vince still worked for his dad, he loved Superstar Billy Graham. He saw in Graham the same things he saw in Hulk Hogan, and thought his dad should put the belt on Graham, leave it there, and then build around him.

 

Vince McMahon Sr. didn't see the same things in Graham that Vince Jr. did, so he put the belt on Backland instead. Vince Sr. didn't think that a musclebound, balding blond power wrestler could draw as a babyface...he would only do well as a heel. He didn't think Graham would get over and stay over as a face. The fans wanted somebody clean cut and respectable, like Bob "duck walk" Backlund, dammit!

 

(This whole debate actually valdiates the whole "Vince could have done it with anybody in the 80's" argument. People have claimed that Vince would have done with Superstar Billy Graham what he did with Hogan, if his father would have let him.)

 

So when Vince Jr. took over the WWF from his dad, and started to go national, one of the first things he did was hire Superstar Billy Graham back. Many of you will remember this brief run in 1986 or so. The only problem was that Graham was SO worn down from years of steroid abuse, his body was literally breaking down. Both his hips were going, and his liver was shot.

 

(Keep in mind that Billy Graham didn't do the same kind of steroids that many of today's guys used...injectable ones...he sometimes took PILLS, which are uber-toxic and kill your liver. Dynamite mentions this in his book, that some old timers took that type of steroid, but he wouldn't. Also keep in mind that back then roids were perfectly legal, and nobody really knew or understood the long term side effects of doing them. In this way, sadly, Superstar was a pioneer.)

 

Once Graham came back in 1986, he immeadiately hurt himself. He needed a hip replacement. Vince gave him the time off to get it, and paid for it. While Graham was off, a lot of Vince's flunkies got into Vince's ear, and claimed that Graham KNEW that he needed a hip replacement when he came into the WWF, but he signed the contract so that Vince would pay for it. Back then, as now, one of Vince's right hand men was Pat Patterson. The thing is, Pat Patterson and Graham used to be close friends, and Tag Team Partners in the LA territory.

 

Graham came back, and tried to wrestle with the fake hip. He couldn't do it. So, Vince gave him a job as Don "The Rock" Muraco's manager. Graham still couldn't handle the walking around at ringside. Vince gave him a try on color commentary. His big try out was SummerSlam 88. He was AWFUL, which shocked Vince because Graham was one of the best talkers in the business. He actually chewed Graham out for saying "brother" too much...which was ironic to Graham considering Hulk Hogan's interviews.

 

Anyhow, Vince couldn't come up with anything for Superstar Billy Graham to do, so he fired him. Graham claims that Vince had promised him a job for life. Vince denies ever saying this. Graham (who was already hooked on pain killers) went into an even worse downward spiral and sued McMahon. He also blamed his old friend Pat Patterson, feeling that Pat had helped convince Vince that Graham had used Vince to get the surgery, and that Pat could have gone to bat for him with Vince, but didn't.

 

According to Graham, the straw that broke the camel's back was when Hulk Hogan went on Arsenio Hall, and claimed that he had never used steroids, except to heal injuries. He also stated in that interview (and quite a few times afterward) that Superstar Billy Graham might be a steroid abuser...but Hulk Hogan wasn't.

 

That made Graham nuts...because aside from the fact that Hogan ripped off Graham's whole look and act (hell...with the tye dye and two color goatee now, if you squint you'd swear Hogan WAS Graham) but also that Graham actually had to TEACH Hogan how to cycle his roids, because before Graham showed him, Hogan thought you took them every day. On top of this, there are a couple of Hulk Hogan promos where he literally ripped off Superstar Billy Graham WORD FOR WORD. Billy Graham had no issue with Jesse The Body, because Jesse freely admits that he stole from Graham. Both Graham and Ventura think that Hogan stole their style and wants uninformed fans to think HE created it.

 

Hogan being Vince's former lap dog, and slagging Graham made him go nuts, as I said. When the Federal Government brought charges against Vince for supposedly making his workers use steroids, Billy Graham actually contacted the prosecuter and ASKED to testify. He was flat broke, and was hoping that in order to avoid having Graham testify, Vince would buy him off. Vince didn't.

 

When Graham testified, he used the fact that he was crippled and his liver was failing as PROOF that using steroids made you sick. That worked, but then under cross examination he had to admit that he started taking steroids LONG before he ever worked for the WWF, and that Vince had never asked him to, or even spoken to him about steroids.

 

Right around this time, the ring boys scandal broke. Donahue decided to have Vince on his show, along with a panel of people who hated Vince, Bruno Sammartino, that female ref that claimed Vince forced himself on her, some announcer that got fired...and Billy Graham.

 

Graham claims that at this point he was getting desperate for money, and to get even with Vince. So once he heard about the ringboys scandal, and the announcer claimed that Pat Patterson made a pass at him, Graham claimed that he had personally witnesed Pat Patterson molest a ringboy. As I said earlier, Mel Phillips and Terry Garvin were both fired for this scandal, but Vince stood by Pat Patterson because he believed that Patterson never did it.

 

Superstar Billy Graham now claims that he thought that Vince would have to buy him off to shut him up about this...so he did every interview show he could with these allegations...A Current Affair, Hard Copy...whoever would talk to him. Vince wouldn't back down, because he felt that Pat Patterson was not guilty. Graham even claims his wife almost left him because he became so obsessed with getting even with Vince. Pat Patterson had been a friend of the family, but Graham lied about him just to get even with Vince.

 

Graham's lawsuit against Vince finally got to court, and Vince won. Graham continued to spiral downward, he went totally broke, continued to be drug addicted, etc. Finally, he hit rock bottom and sobered up. He wrote Vince a letter and asked forgiveness for lying. He also has publically apologized to Pat Patterson many times, however Patterson refuses to speak to Graham, to this day.

 

Vince and Graham never spoke, even after the lawsuit was over and Graham apologized. However, when Vince heard that Graham was about to die because his liver shut down, and there was no replacement, he did call Graham and forgive him. At the last minute, a transplant donor was found, and Graham's life was saved.

 

Vince brought him back, and inducted him into the Hall of Fame. He signed him to a legends deal, and agreed to promote the book and DVD. He even asked the Triple H be the one to induct Graham into the WWE Hall of Fame, since Triple H is a family member, which indicated that all was forgiven.

 

Jim Ross even states in the book that there is still a large segment of the current WWE roster who will not speak to Superstar Billy Graham, or even go near him when he is in the arena. This is out of loyalty to Pat Patterson.

 

I think Vince McMahon is a total scumbag, and I have no sympathy for anybody who works for him...but in this case, I do actually believe that Billy Graham made up the Pat Patterson stories in an attempt to get money and revenge on Vince.

[sek69]

Was Mel Phillips that black ring announcer who always seemed to be at the Spectrum shows? Since most of my 80s WWF came from watching Prime Time (where they'd go to the match after the introductions most of the time) I have no recollection of that name growing up watching WWF TV, and the only thing I could find via Google was a refrence to some angle where Dory Funk beat him up for wearing his cowboy hat and it was described as racist.

[The Thread Killer]

Yep, that was Mel Phillips. He used to do the ring annoucing on a bunch of WWF shows back in the day. Sad as it is to say, I can actually remember the show when Terry Funk beat him up for putting on the cowboy hat. If memory serves, it was during Funk's feud with JYD and I can only assume it was done to further the racial aspect of the feud. (As if the fact that Terry Funk wanted to BRAND JYD with white stamp from his branding iron was somehow too subtle for wrestling fans.)

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

Interesting, that's actually the first I've heard about the Billy Graham thing.

But don't let that get in the way of a good bit of abuse though, eh?

 

So you're saying we should only be annoyed about things that have happened recently? I don't think we should go easy on Feinstein at all, but he did something wrong, got caught and lost his job and most of his livelihood. How long do you want to punish him, given that as far as any of us know, he's not done anything similar since? The comment from Cam Chaos is either stupid or from a fundamentalist Christian background- we live in a society that says after a certain while, criminals are allowed back into the mainstream of society. You seem to be saying we should punish all criminals forever for the most minor of crimes- I'm saying he was never charged or convicted of any offence, but still lost his job and will be subject to abuse for the rest of his life. He pretty obviously did wrong but on a scale of crime, having consensual sex with a minor is far less bad than many crimes involving wrestlers over the years. Therefore he deserves to be able to get on with his life after a shorter period of time than a rapist or a paeophile who preys on pre-school children. Why is this so difficult to understand? Michael Jackson's career is far from ruined, by the way, flick through the music TV channels for a few minutes and like as not you'll see something of his. He'll never be as popular as he was, but since the first allegations about him came out he's sold a fuck of a lot of records.

 

If this isn't homophobic, then where are the threads calling for Lawler's head all over the IWC? Or Snuka's? Or the many many other incidents involving underage sex and wrestlers that we read about? There's two differences...one, it happened more recently, and two, RF is gay. If you're saying we should go easy on stuff that happened some time ago, then how long are you intending on punishing RF for something that happened 3 years ago?

 

Rather than this, why not talk about all the other shit he did wrong? He ripped off a bunch of people over footage, his tapes are usually shitty quality, he stole the idea of shoot interviews off Bob Barnett, and so on and so forth. I just think, he did wrong, he's suffered plenty (for causing no suffering to anyone else, as far as I can tell, as it was a sting) and he should be given the chance to try and make some money. If you're boycotting stuff produced by reprehensible people, throw away all the albums you've got that were produced by Phil Spector, and every single thing owned or produced by Vince McMahon. If you've also boycotted WWE, more power to you, but I doubt you have, or did when you first heard about one of the many rotten things he 's done.

[Mad Dog]

If this isn't homophobic, then where are the threads calling for Lawler's head all over the IWC? Or Snuka's? Or the many many other incidents involving underage sex and wrestlers that we read about? There's two differences...one, it happened more recently, and two, RF is gay. If you're saying we should go easy on stuff that happened some time ago, then how long are you intending on punishing RF for something that happened 3 years ago?

You completely missed the point. There aren't threads calling for their heads because most of the people out there don't even know about those two incidents. You can't go around screaming homophobia at a bunch of people that are only familiar with 1 of the 3 incidents. Also Dan Maff has been essentially blackballed from wrestling on the east coast due to heterosexual activities. So stop playing the homophobia card already.

 

People hate pedophiles. To a lot of people it's the absolute worst thing you can do. Even other prisoners who have done awful things themsevles look down on pedophiles and try to kill them. They usually have to be isolated in prison.

 

Rather than this, why not talk about all the other shit he did wrong? He ripped off a bunch of people over footage, his tapes are usually shitty quality, he stole the idea of shoot interviews off Bob Barnett, and so on and so forth.

And there you have the reason why he takes so much heat for being a pedophile. It has nothing to do with him being gay. It has to do with the fact that he ripped off a ton of people over the years and he's given them a huge reason to rip him apart.

[Mad Dog]

Also the Perverted Justice stings usually never lead to people in jail. It's about publicly embarassing pedophiles into not doing it again.

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

This isn't the average group of wrestling fans we're talking about- I mean people like us who do know about what's gone on. Surely virtually everyone who's a member here, or at DVDVR, or SC, or wherever, is clued up enough to have heard these stories, and still there's no whisper of anything bad when their names are mentioned. And bringing up Dan Maff doesn't prove your point- wasn't what he did to do with a family member of Homicide or something? So they had a choice of book Homicide or book Dan Maff. If it'd been some random girl we probably would never have heard of it.