Youur Thoughts about Rob Fienstein

[sek69]

Dan Maff allegedly had relations with Homicide's sister (or cousin, depending on which story you hear) who was underage. I don't know if she was 14 or 17 and 7/8ths but it resulted in Homicide telling promoters he won't work for them if they use Maff.

[Mad Dog]

And companies still work with RF. RoH had originally planned on bringing him back after it died down until they got caught in the act.

 

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.

You're vastly overrating the knowledge of the current IWC. There are posters that know of those events but the vast majority don't. As I've mentioned in here before, one of my last posts at TSM was me in disbelief that only 2 other posters knew who Wendi Ritcher was.

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

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.)

He also worked on the house show circuit, I believe. I remember going to my first WWF show in September of 1991 and being disappointed that the Fink wasn't the ring announcer, but rather, Phillips. He winked at me all the way up in the second tier of seating. Or not.

 

Good post on Graham, by the way. I wasn't entirely clear what the story was there, but the post changed that.

[sek69]

Like I said, I haven't read the book, but just seeing how the DVD presented the steroid trial as only occuring because of the lies Superstar told, I'm still skeptical of anything Graham takes blame for.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

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.

Fundamentalist Christian background... shit dude, you made me choke on my toke. No, I'm not a fundamentalist Christian, however I have known people that have been abused and been unfortunate enough to meet some nasty bastards like Feinstein and as a result I don't have much sympathy for his kind.

 

I don't care whether he was charged formally or not. The guy intended to meet what he thought was a young boy to fuck him and in my eyes that's pretty fucking scummy. It's not like paedophiles can "get better", go to "paedo rehab" or "learn from their mistakes" like other criminals, these people are attracted to minors and that is unlikely to change regardless of any punishment meted out or not. The transcripts at the time seemed to indicate he knew full well what he was planning on doing was wrong but was going to go ahead with it anyway which I feel supports this belief. I cannot blame anyone who doesn't want someone like Feinstein running shows in their area and drawing the interest of children to the promotion in light of his past transgressions.

 

Also, what the fuck is this "scale of crime"? You said yourself he didn't commit any crimes. I'm not saying he commited any crimes. Is he a criminal? No. Is he a scumbag? Well, I think so. The guy is clearly warped but able to project a tremendous front to the point people are willing to excuse his attempts to screw little kids. "Aww, poor guy, he only tried to, give him a break, it's been a while, let him run his promotion in peace". I'd really like to know if these same people would be saying this if it had been real and he had been busted in a hotel room with a kid rather than just being confronted by the PJ crew.

 

Te idea of an adult having consensual sex with a minor somehow being "far less bad" than other crimes "commited by wrestlers" is beyond me. I don't know if you're aware of the whole process of "grooming" and the tactics paedophiles employ to get their victims to comply but I personally think any grown adult trying to have sex with kids is wrong, whether the kid is fine with it or not. It's not a relative concept depending on the social circle or environment it occurs with in, paedophilia is wrong. Bottom line.

 

Incidentally, there's a difference between homosexuality and homosexual paedophilia. Men being attracted to men is one thing, men being attracted to little boys is a whole other kettle of fish.

[The Thread Killer]

Like I said, I haven't read the book, but just seeing how the DVD presented the steroid trial as only occuring because of the lies Superstar told, I'm still skeptical of anything Graham takes blame for.

The thing is, there were three trials. The first was the trial of Dr. George Zahorian, the doctor that the WWF used at their arena shows. This "doctor" would give the wrestlers their steroids and painkillers. Graham testified at that trial, and Zahorian got 3 years in jail. Graham told the truth at that trial.

 

Then there was the Federal case against McMahon for pushing roids on his workers. Graham feels guilty about that because he wasn't actually subpoenaed to testify. He tricked Brian Blair (who WAS subpoenaed) into telling him when and where the trial was and then basically forced his way into the trial. He did this for the sole purpose of trying to extort money out of McMahon. He wanted McMahon and his lawyers to pay him to go away. Blair (and a lot of other wrestlers reportedly) are still pissed at Graham for doing that. As we all know, Vince got off in that trial.

 

Then finally there was Graham's personal lawsuit against McMahon and the WWF for forcing him to take steroids to stay popular. Graham lied or distorted the facts at this trial. He didn't win a cent from McMahon.

 

Graham feels no sympathy whatsoever for Dr. Zahorian, who he feels is a drug pusher. He DOES feel guilty for tricking Brian Blair into helping him find out the details of the federal case against McMahon, and then going to that trial to try and extort money from McMahon...and then for his lawsuit.

 

McMahon's lawyer claims in Graham's book that he thinks that Graham should have sued all the pharmaceutical companies, because he would have won. Back when Graham started taking steroids...they were totally legal, and the drug companies knew or suspected the long term effects, but they didn't warn anybody about them. McMahon's lawyer claims that with his skills and Graham's ability to smooth talk on the stand, they would have won millions, but Graham was obsessed with getting even with Vince for firing him in 1989.