Dark Side of the Ring

[MoS]

The guy who played Gunther on Friends said he received a lot of threatening phone calls cuz he was the reason Ross and Rachel broke up. 

Maybe they could explore the Feinstein scandal in a future season? Or is that too obscure?

[PeteF3]

The most amusing of these stories to me is what caused Jason Alexander to get the most hate-mail of anything George ever did on Seinfeld: not brushing off Susan's death, not breaking up marriages, not desecrating Yankee memorabilia, not trying to use his girlfriend's aunt's funeral to get a plane ticket discount...it was for eating the eclair out of the trash.

[funkdoc]

yep, as someone who's been exposed to a bunch of Discourse(tm) surrounding fandom culture for other fictional works, i can 100% confirm that wrestling is far from unique in terms of fan toxicity

tho in the modern era the direct physical violence has mostly been replaced with false accusations of pedophilia and the like - you could argue the potential long-term impact on one's career (not to mention actual survivors of child abuse!) makes the latter *more* dangerous in some ways

[El-P]

Well, right now I would like to slap the fuck out of Jacques Audiard for crapping on my beloved Bureau des Légendes TV show and ending it the worst imaginable way possible. Kinda like after Gedo booking the whole thing, Vince Russo shows up and throws all out the window with a shitty finale that doesn't make one lick of sense in the context of the series. So yeah, you can get mad as fuck because of fiction.

[NintendoLogic]

Did anybody try to shoot or stab this Audiard fella?

[El-P]

9 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Did anybody try to shoot or stab this Audiard fella?

He's getting eviscerated on Twitter, at least. Well deserved too.  Fuck, I'm so mad and feel so sad right now. 

[cactus]

Herb Abrams episode was a hoot. It's nowhere near as dark as some of the other episodes. Although I feel bad to the people close to him, he lived life to the full for the short time he was around. Brian Blair saying, with a straight face, that he died doing what he loved (cocaine and hookers) cracked me up. 

[El-P]

Well, that line was certainly the highlight of the show because otherwise, what a complete waste of time. Worst episode by a wide, wide margin. Mostly because there's no story to tell, really. A cokehead money mark promoted a failed godawful promotion for a short while and died because he was a cokehead. 

But this episode made a nothing story into something actively annoying by trying to paint Herb Abrams as some sort of "competition" to the WWF. The worst of all was Foley saying UWF in 1990 had more star power than WWF and then calling Herb Abrams a legend at the end (also, having him talk about Snuka as his idol a few weeks after the Snuka episode was not the best idea I thought). And after they got done with the actual UWF stories, it was basically 20 minutes of talking about how he loved coke and hookers and how coke is bad for you. How riveting... That's why you need a strong and intriguing topic for this show to work. Herb Abrams is barely a footnote and was only good for a few anecdotes on shoot interviews in the 00's.

The one thing I thought was funny though, is the promo about "making pro-wrestling like it used to be". Yep. Always the same kind of bullshit, in any era. 

[Tenese Sarwieh]

Nothing I didn't already knew about Abrams, he did a lot of coke. 

What really stands out on this season of dark side is how connected Vince is to every story they've told so far. 

 

[Bix]

Y'all realize these aren't being made for diehard newsletter readers, right?

[El-P]

35 minutes ago, Bix said:

Y'all realize these aren't being made for diehard newsletter readers, right?

So what ? It was still a whole lot of nothing from a totally anecdotical figure in pro-wrestling history. Half of it was totally uninteresting : he did coke, was paranoid, fucked hookers. So compelling.

[Dale Wolfe]

Great show god bless Herb

The industry would be in far better shape if mad bastards like that were still involved

Maybe not financially but i would certainly enjoy it a lot more

[C.S.]

5 hours ago, El-P said:

Worst episode by a wide, wide margin. Mostly because there's no story to tell, really. 

I thought it was a fun episode.

But I will agree that the story was a bit thin - evidenced by the fact that they wasted airtime on a silly Andy Kaufman-esque conspiracy theory that Herb faked his own death. WTF?

B. Brian Blair was so deadpan and savage. It felt like he's seen some crazy shit in his life, and Herb's coke and hooker escapades were just another day at the office - and not even the most memorable day at that.

Mick Foley seemed a little too happy-go-lucky, but I guess he was there to provide a lighthearted balance and show the "fun" side of this wild and crazy ride.

I had no idea Andre the Giant was ever in the UWF, so that was new - to me.

I actually used to own UWF Beach Brawl on VHS (yes, I'm dating myself) and the only thing I remember about it is Sonny Beach. It's a shame he didn't get a second chance somewhere else.

[CarpetCrawler]

The Herb Abrams episode was fantastic.  They spent just the right amount of time on each aspect of his career and run.  The stories of his paranoia absolutely fit in this documentary.  I know it seemed like a stretch, but I completely believe Herb was involved in a "rivalry" with Vince McMahon that was in all eyes except for his own, completely one-sided.

[Dooley]

I actually enjoyed the Abrams episode much more than last week's Schultz episode. It was heavier on levity, but that was to be expected given the subject matter.

It seemed like the overarching theme was this guy who basically came to the show with nothing was able to grift his way into a semi-serious promotion that had A-level talent, a deal with a major cable network and being able to run the MGM Grand based on nothing but charm and flashing a little initial cash. That's something. I don't know if it says more about the low barriers of entry to pro wrestling or how much charm Abrams could portray, but it's definitely something.

In a business littered with small time con men, Herb at least had the audacity to go big

[Log]

Vice has done a great job of keeping these episodes from being “Ooh! Look at the weirdos!” or just sensationalizing murders. They have a lot of heart. The women killed in the Snuka and Benoit episodes were flushed out and not just painted as victims. Last night’s episode showed how much people cared about Herb the person. I think it shows that whoever is in charge of this series has a real love of pro wrestling. 

[The Thread Killer]

I also enjoyed the Herb Abrams episode.  It obviously wasn't as dark in tone as the Benoit, Snuka and Bravo episodes, but that's not a bad thing.  (Or even the New Jack episode, come to think about it.) There wasn't a whole lot of meat on the bone in terms of how complicated the story was, but it's also true that your average fan would probably never have heard of Herb Abrams or the UWF.  I considered myself a fairly well informed fan and I only first learned about the story in Mick Foley's first book.  It's one of those stories where on one hand, it's tragic because somebody died, but on the other hand the image of a guy coked out of his mind, naked except for a pair of cowboy boots, oiled up and running around smashing up his own office with a baseball bat...that's just entertaining, I'm sorry.

[RingoPlaysDrums]

I knew very little about Herb Abrams and thought the episode was a blast. 

[sek69]

I got a chuckle at Foley, when asked if it was possible Herb could have possibly faked his own death,  correctly stated there's no way he did because it wouldn't have been possible for him to go this long without drawing attention to himself.

[C.S.]

New article by Bix about the Snuka/Argentino case:

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/jimmy-snuka-girlfriend-nancy-argentino-death

Update: Good read. But the layout of MelMagazine.com is terrible - every few paragraphs, the article is interrupted by a series of links to the site's trashy tabloid stories: "I Stopped Growing My Ass Hair — And My Tolerance for Men Who Want to Change Me" - Really?!

[El-P]

One fascinating tidbit of the last few weeks told by Meltzer is how it's because he bumped into Eddie Mansfield and his girlfriend in a store sometime in the early 90's that the Argentino Case resurged. Basically Mansfield's girlfriend approach Meltz and told him she was... Nancy's sister. And that Snuka had killed Nancy. And so Meltz talked about what she told him to Irv and that's how things got started.

Reading that article, it's crazy Vince basically got away with covering a murder, got this guy his job back and honored his death on TV, and people are still debating whether this guy is a complete piece of trash...

[NintendoLogic]

I thought the Abrams episode was a bit of a whitewash. As has been noted, the notion that the UWF was even remotely a threat to the WWF is preposterous. And if they were going to spend so much time discussing his dalliances with hookers, it was probably worth mentioning that he was married. Speaking of which, does anybody know the real story behind this match?

I've seen it alleged that Abrams paid Williams extra to rough Ray up because he mistakenly believed that Ray was fooling around with his wife. Or because Ray screwed him on a drug deal. Or both. I've also seen it suggested that it was simply a matter of Williams not liking how stiff Ray was working and stiffing him back as a receipt. Watching the match, the latter explanation seems more plausible to me. When Williams took Ray down a couple of times after Ray tagged him with some kicks to the head, it seemed like he was trying to warn Ray to loosen up. That evidently didn't work, so Doc started laying into him. That doesn't explain Ray taking a swing at Abrams when Abrams whispered something in his ear after the match, though.

[William Bologna]

I just today rewatched the Wrestling with Wregret video about the UWF, which goes into the Williams/Ray incident. According to Ray, the long-suffering Mrs. Abrams did make a pass at him, which he told Herb about. They decided to turn it into an angle and have an extra stiff match.

Agreed on the whitewash. They talked to a lot of people who liked Abrams, but it couldn't have been that hard to find someone who got ripped off and was still holding a grudge.

[DMJ]

I had not seen any episodes of the show before today and started with the Herb Abrams one. I thought it was cool - but I'll also readily admit that part of what drew me in was that I didn't know all that much about the UWF. I'm looking forward to watching the Dino Bravo, New Jack, and Schultz episodes too. My friends have all told me that the Benoit and Snuka episodes are great, but I feel like I already know those stories. Ditto for the Screwjob. 

I also think, to a "non-fan" or even someone like myself who didn't witness it first-hand (I was 6 when it started), they did a good job of spinning things to how the UWF could've been a success - except it was run by an out-of-control cokehead and, if you scratch at the surface, it was already clear that in 1990, most of the "big names" were well past their Sell By date. We have hindsight too, though. And, really, if you think of what Paul Heyman was doing in 94'-95', he also brought in a bunch of these stars to buoy ECW's cards. 

If you picture it the way a non-fan would, someone who didn't know where these talents were in their particular careers, its amazing to think that there was a wrestling company that featured Cactus Jack, Andre the Giant, Jimmy Snuka, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Sid VIcious. In a mythical world where all these guys were 100% healthy and at their prime, its a real-life video game of outlaw bad asses. I think that's maybe what Foley was implying when he said the UWF had star power and he's not wrong. 

[sek69]

Any group getting a TV deal has always been the line where they go from "under the radar" to "must squash now" in Vince's eyes, so in that aspect the UWF could be considered somewhat of a threat. As mentioned above, had there been someone in charge who wasn't completely out of control, the pieces were there for it to be somewhat of a success.