Hulk Hogan reinstated into the Hall of Fame, maybe making an appearance tonight

[fakeplastictrees]

On 7/17/2018 at 12:03 AM, SPS said:

I'm familiar with the others but what did Lufisto do/say to lump her in with the people mentioned?

After Lio Rush made his Emma "joke" and wasn't fire, Lufisto took to Twitter to tweet how unfair it is that some people (Jessica Havok) are fired/not allowed certain opportunities for telling "bad jokes" (aka consistently using overtly racial slurs) on Twitter while others (Lio) get a slap on the writst. Lufisto used her spare time to help normalize racism to her thousands of followers on Twitter.

[flyonthewall2983]

WWE said there were no cameras present for the speech he made to the locker room

[Al]

Redemption from doing awful thing is always a bad look.

[Loss]

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not visited." -- C.S. Lewis

[C.S.]

Titus and Kofi break their silence on Twitter:

Kofi: https://twitter.com/TrueKofi/status/1019464748566482944
 
Titus: https://twitter.com/TitusONeilWWE/status/1019715254257737731

 

 

[sek69]

While the messages of support are the vast majority, it's still depressing to see the "you guys are the REAL RACISTS for not welcoming back my childhood hero" style comments.

Like it would be different if Hogan has at any point shown one bit of remorse for anything other than being caught, but he hasn't. And yes, it is also fucked up he was being filmed without his consent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to bear any responsibility for what was heard. 

Another thing that kind of gets lost in all this too is the black guy he was talking about was the son of the person helping Brooke with her music career, and someone who thought he was friends with Hogan. Instead to him he's just a wealthy n-word who's only purpose is to bankroll his talentless daughter, and his son better stay away. 

[Fando]

Oh boy, am extremely interested to know how much Hogan went over what he planned to say to the roster in this meeting and what was approved beforehand, the whole point being to smooth things over with talent ahead of the reinstatement announcement. What he said about not knowing he was being recorded, as if that makes him look good, is not substantially different from how he's been trying to justify himself for 3 years, so did he ad lib it or were there sympathetic ears and people who've been "caught on tape" before, that actually agreed with and okay'd that bit?

 

[Hawkeye12]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

While the messages of support are the vast majority, it's still depressing to see the "you guys are the REAL RACISTS for not welcoming back my childhood hero" style comments.

Like it would be different if Hogan has at any point shown one bit of remorse for anything other than being caught, but he hasn't. And yes, it is also fucked up he was being filmed without his consent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to bear any responsibility for what was heard. 

Another thing that kind of gets lost in all this too is the black guy he was talking about was the son of the person helping Brooke with her music career, and someone who thought he was friends with Hogan. Instead to him he's just a wealthy n-word who's only purpose is to bankroll his talentless daughter, and his son better stay away. 

 

In fairness, there is an entire relationship though for you to judge on instead of just a couple minute conversation.  Stack$ is a kid that ended up having a pretty lengthy relationship with Brooke afterwards (I think they publicly acknowledged their breakup in 2011) and was very welcomed by Hulk during that time even when Brooke was no longer under contract to his dad's label, which speaks way more to the real Hulk than a couple of drunk words said when he was upset before he was even sure if they were a couple.   Her boyfriend was definitely included on both Hogan Knows Best and Brooke Knows Best TV shows over the next couple years.  Linda Hogan even used their close relationship against Hulk when she tried to bury him and Brooke during the divorce because she didn't like how close Hulk was with Stack$.  If he actually meant the things that he said on the tape, certainly Linda would've brought that up during her publicity against him (and I know they were already separated by the time of the recording, but they still talked during that time), and instead it was actually the opposite.  And should make note that at no point does he refer to Cecile Barker as the n-word either if we are going to parse every word of the conversation of the tape.   He calls him a black billionaire, he doesn't ever use the other term about him unless there is more to the conversation than was released.   As for if Hulk has shown remorse, I guess I and many others think he has shown plenty, for others  it'll probably never be enough.   It has to be strange when eight years later (his life in 2015 was like a lifetime ago from 2007 with Linda's divorce, Nick's accident, getting married again, American Gladiators, TNA, WWE return, etc) you hear a leaked conversation of yourself that you don't even remember saying, and trying to go back to that bad time in your life when you'd already moved so far past that and are in such a positive place.

[Hawkeye12]

33 minutes ago, Fando said:

Oh boy, am extremely interested to know how much Hogan went over what he planned to say to the roster in this meeting and what was approved beforehand, the whole point being to smooth things over with talent ahead of the reinstatement announcement. What he said about not knowing he was being recorded, as if that makes him look good, is not substantially different from how he's been trying to justify himself for 3 years, so did he ad lib it or were there sympathetic ears and people who've been "caught on tape" before, that actually agreed with and okay'd that bit?

 

James Ellsworth talked about the meeting and said that before Hulk was introduced to talk, the entire focus of Triple H's speech was about being careful about being recorded and that was a major point of having the meeting in the first place, even before Hulk was able to apologize to the locker room.  He thought the apologize was genuine and well received by the locker room.  

[Johnny Sorrow]

As far as HHH's bit there goes, it boils down to, " You are all public figures working for a huge corporation. Don't be fucking stupid now that everything can be recorded." That comes off to me as HHH using Hogan as a lesson to everyone. If you run a huge company, you're going to have employees of various political beliefs and possibly fucked up views. Keep your mouth shut, cause this is also The company that fired Cass for a lot of reasons. And one of them was arguing with Sami about his Syrian refugee charity.  

[Johnny Sorrow]

And I love knowing that Hogan has to kiss HHH's ass, as well.

[Coffey]

Hulk Hogan was a hero of mine when I was a child & is almost solely the reason why I became a professional wrestling fan. That being said, Hulk Hogan is a character that was on a TV show. The person playing Hulk Hogan, by all indications, seems to be a pretty shitty person. I would not even attempt to try to defend any of the shit that has went down. Honestly, the fact WWE brought him back at all - seemingly out of the blue - was shocking to me. I definitely don't think he's going to be welcomed with opened arms by the entirety of the roster. Even before any statements were released on Twitter. The shit Hogan said - regardless of his awareness of being recorded or not - was vile & should not be uttered by anyone in our society, on or off camera. That is inexcusable & indefensible. Drunk, sober, angry, confused, off-camera, in private, whatever. Those words should have never been spoken.

Hulk Hogan deserves to be in the WWE Hall of Fame because he's one of the biggest stars that they've ever had, if not the biggest, but that doesn't mean we have to pretend he's a good dude. Put him in to acknowledge his career & how he helped build WWF during the cable era & then ignore everything else about him. He doesn't need to be on TV anymore or within the WWE family.

And for the love of god, don't release any footage of some half-assed, insincere backstage "apology."

[Fando]

6 hours ago, Hawkeye12 said:

James Ellsworth talked about the meeting and said that before Hulk was introduced to talk, the entire focus of Triple H's speech was about being careful about being recorded and that was a major point of having the meeting in the first place, even before Hulk was able to apologize to the locker room.  He thought the apologize was genuine and well received by the locker room.  

Wonderful. Fuck this company.

[El-P]

"Welcome to beautiful progressive Jeddah !"

"Be careful before you say stuff like "fucking niggers", brothers, you might get recorded. Anyway, sorry about that and all."

That's contemporary, modern, 2018 WWE. In a way, it's more out front in its seediness than it's ever been.

[Loss]

Dave said something the other day that I thought was on point and probably a good thing to remember when talking about WWE and Vince McMahon, who can probably credit a lot of his success as a promoter to being a sociopath.

"Nothing this company does isn't a marketing ploy."

There is no doing the right thing. That concept doesn't exist. Every single decision they make is based on what they think is right for business. It raises an interesting question that's bigger than this discussion -- if Vince did the morally right thing every time he probably should have, would he even still be in business?

[Loss]

A non-fan friend of mine was asking me some stuff about this the other day and it prompted an interesting question I've been mulling over: Are wrestling fans more nostalgic than the general popuation? He felt like it was odd to even want redemption for someone like that, no matter what they meant to someone's childhood. But I think nostalgia is pretty potent in pro wrestling.

[C.S.]

I don't see why everyone is up in arms that Hogan allegedly used part of his speech as a PSA for being careful what you say, when and how you say it, and who you say it around, because you could be recorded, when:

1. It was likely at the urging of the company (Triple H).

2. It's pretty smart fucking advice in this day and age.

I mean, it's not like we don't have examples of this kind of shit causing major damage - Hogan's own recording, the Paige-Xavier-Maddox video (not Paige/Xavier's fault, but still), etc.

I completely understand Hogan being criticized for everything else: his actual racist words, his usual non-apology "apologies," etc. But the "be careful, brothers" part of it hardly seems like something he should be raked over hot coals over, when it's actually sensible advice.

It's cute that everyone thinks the company issued a mandatory meeting so Hogan could apologize for his racism. That's the PR reason. The real reason they did it is so the entire roster understands the grave implications of getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.

[Al]

21 minutes ago, Loss said:

A non-fan friend of mine was asking me some stuff about this the other day and it prompted an interesting question I've been mulling over: Are wrestling fans more nostalgic than the general popuation? He felt like it was odd to even want redemption for someone like that, no matter what they meant to someone's childhood. But I think nostalgia is pretty potent in pro wrestling.

Given that Netflix recently ran Fuller House and Roseanne was one of ABC's biggest hits (and a dozen other examples), I think there's a huge market for nostalgia in general. Always has been really, the '90s were full of movies based on '60s sitcoms like Beverly Hillbillies, Addams Family, Flintstones, etc.

[Fando]

29 minutes ago, C.S. said:

I don't see why everyone is up in arms that Hogan allegedly used part of his speech as a PSA for being careful what you say, when and how you say it, and who you say it around, because you could be recorded, when:

1. It was likely at the urging of the company (Triple H).

2. It's pretty smart fucking advice in this day and age.

I mean, it's not like we don't have examples of this kind of shit causing major damage - Hogan's own recording, the Paige-Xavier-Maddox video (not Paige/Xavier's fault, but still), etc.

I completely understand Hogan being criticized for everything else: his actual racist words, his usual non-apology "apologies," etc. But the "be careful, brothers" part of it hardly seems like something he should be raked over hot coals over, when it's actually sensible advice. 

It's cute that everyone thinks the company issued a mandatory meeting so Hogan could apologize for his racism. That's the PR reason. The real reason they did it is so the entire roster understands the grave implications of getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.

The emphasis on not knowing he was being taped as an excuse is the "non-apology" part. Read Titus's statement again.

[BigBadMick]

1 hour ago, Loss said:

A non-fan friend of mine was asking me some stuff about this the other day and it prompted an interesting question I've been mulling over: Are wrestling fans more nostalgic than the general popuation? He felt like it was odd to even want redemption for someone like that, no matter what they meant to someone's childhood. But I think nostalgia is pretty potent in pro wrestling.

Nostalgia is pretty big in everything. Too big, I think.

[dawho5]

The person who got scrubbed from the network before Hogan is the guy who murdered his wife and child before killing himself.  And Snuka is still a part of the thing.  So if murder may or may not (depending upon how recent and shocking it is) get you disavowed, why would a series of racist remarks really be viewed by management as the most terrible thing in the world?

I tend to agree that Hogan's apologies are not apologies.  But I also agree that the true purpose of the meeting was "cameras are on you a lot, watch what you say." 

I also think that the WWE realized that, like it or not, they are living in the house that Hulk built.  Regardless of the changes that have taken place over time, it's not there without him.  So pretending like he doesn't exist would, at some point, become very difficult to maintain.

[Fando]

10 minutes ago, dawho5 said:

I also think that the WWE realized that, like it or not, they are living in the house that Hulk built.  Regardless of the changes that have taken place over time, it's not there without him.  So pretending like he doesn't exist would, at some point, become very difficult to maintain.

This never really happened and he's been mentioned on their TV going back to late 2016 now.

[flyonthewall2983]

Someone on Twitter speculated about the Andre doc as being WWE's attempt to rehabilitate Hogan's image. From the WWE side maybe, but I can imagine there was more urgency on the HBO/Bill Simmons side to get him on it, because he is a big part of that legacy. I do think the film spent far too much time building up why Hogan became big in the 80's (namely using the Rocky III footage as opposed to stills), but think just as much that it could be a flimsy attempt to add heat onto this already smoldering situation.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, Fando said:

The emphasis on not knowing he was being taped as an excuse is the "non-apology" part. Read Titus's statement again.

Except, that emphasis was the real purpose of the meeting IMO - WWE wants everyone to be very, very careful.

Everything else - the "apology," the "contrition, etc. - is all P.R. bullshit.

[Fando]

19 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Except, that emphasis was the real purpose of the meeting IMO - WWE wants everyone to be very, very careful.

Everything else - the "apology," the "contrition, etc. - is all P.R. bullshit.

So...why are you confused that people think that's insulting or inappropriate? You can have that meeting any day of the week and Hogan doesn't need to be there. Having him there co-signs on his bullshit that what he said "doesn't count" because it was private (no shit, he wouldn't ever say that in public). The message they're putting out is be careful you are not caught outing yourself as a racist accidentally because, in Ellsworth's paraphrasing, "social media is judge, jury, and executioner" and not to remind everyone this is a different era, the most diverse roster in the company history, and it doesn't have a place in the company, privately or publicly.