Dark Side of the Ring

[KawadaSmile]

1 minute ago, El-P said:

As a 31 years old fan, I ask myself that question too, very regularly when real bad shit pop up. But like I said, it's not inherent to pro-wrestling. You think things are better in Hollywood ? In the music industry ? In the TV industry ? In sports ? In politics ? Think again. I mean, this world is a failure, honestly. 

It absolutely isn't, but it kinda feels that the status quo is even more powerful here in wrestling. Harvey Weinstein, who also had a long but less known to the public history of abusing people, went to jail. Flair...... no real repercussion. In fact lauded as one of the best of the business.

[El-P]

1 minute ago, strobogo said:

50 something year old legend spinning his dick around, cornering a woman and forcing her to touch it and has a long history of such behavior with his dick out vs. Young rookie Brock flashing someone. Surely you can see why one is getting more focus than the other at the moment.

The comparison was not between Flair & Lesnar, it was between Dreamer & Lesnar. That's what my post was about. I did not even mention Flair.

5 minutes ago, sek69 said:

other than that one time in UFC he said he was gonna go home and fuck his wife in his post fight interview.

How this that even remotely a bad thing ?!!! 

8 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Even worse things have come out in the past couple of years (Ashley Massaro's story comes to mind) and really, besides stuff in the indies and a handful of wrestlers getting fired, nothing changed. It is disheartening.

The Ashley Massaro story certainly is that would need to be shed some light on.

[NintendoLogic]

A CarShield spokesperson told PWInsider that they're pulling the Flair ads while they conduct due diligence. Remember that Hogan got booed at Mania this year, so the days of people turning a blind eye to the transgressions of their favorite wrestlers could very well be over.

[strobogo]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

The comparison was not between Flair & Lesnar, it was between Dreamer & Lesnar. That's what my post was about. I did not even mention Flair.

How this that even remotely a bad thing ?!!! 

The Ashley Massaro story certainly is that would need to be shed some light on.

Oh, well probably because Dreamer was defending Flair and then victim blaming and veering into cancel/outrage culture shit and Brock was not involved in the production and so didn't have stupid shit to say and draw attention to himself.

[El-P]

1 minute ago, KawadaSmile said:

It absolutely isn't, but it kinda feels that the status quo is even more powerful here in wrestling. Harvey Weinstein, who also had a long but less known to the public history of abusing people, went to jail. Flair...... no real repercussion. In fact lauded as one of the best of the business.

JR said something quite interesting about Flair being a "made man". The fact he used a term that comes from the Mafia is quite telling to me. Pro-wrestling comes from a kinda secret society background, where people speak carny and do the flat handshake. There is definitely (or was) a culture of silence to protect "the boys". You can find the same culture in the military for instance (in France the army is called "The Big Mute").

[sek69]

3 minutes ago, El-P said:

How this that even remotely a bad thing ?!!! 

lol it isn't but it's the only controversial thing I can recall Brock being involved in (and even then it was more because of sponsors)

[KawadaSmile]

Just now, sek69 said:

lol it isn't but it's the only controversial thing I can recall Brock being involved in (and even then it was more because of sponsors)

It was 100% because of sponsors. Bud Light was sponsoring UFC 100, the first thing Lesnar says after winning is something like "They ain't paying me shit I'm gonna drink Coors Light!"

[El-P]

1 minute ago, strobogo said:

Oh, well probably because Dreamer was defending Flair and then victim blaming and veering into cancel/outrage culture shit and Brock was not involved in the production and so didn't have stupid shit to say and draw attention to himself.

Yes, I understand the process. But to me there's something sad about Terri Runnels telling her story and people go all up in arms about Dreamer... That's Twitter for ya. (I guess you can "blame" the documentarists for giving a platform to stupid opinions too, as they choosed to show that part of Dreamer's interview and he comes of like a complete idiot)

[sek69]

FWIW I have seen more than a few wrestlers (male and female) speaking up because of what Terri said, especially Maria Kanellis basically backing up what she said.

[El-P]

Well good. Speaking of which, might as well :

 

"We were all afraid in WWE"

That's from 2004 to 2010. AFTER the plane ride from hell. The Divas era. John Laurinaitis at the helm. 

In another tweet she says how she has loved her last stint thanks to the talent, which has totally changed (ya know, those soy boy who play video game and don't carry a gun with them). But that the office needed to change.

[Al]

The plane ride is one thing in a vacuum. The culture underneath it was/is the real problem. That Flair felt safe enough to do this on a flight where all his peers and his boss was on. Flair’s behavior was and continues to be condoned and/or dismissed to this day. 

[sek69]

Let's be honest, Dave probably has to shoulder some of the blame too. He often would try to play down Flair's antics as just drunken but harmless fun and sometimes go out of his way to even mention them unless it was too newsworthy to ignore.  His blind spot for Ric is legendary, and while he wasn't the only one (or even the biggest offender) he had the most reach. He low key (even if subconsciously) educated a generation of insider fans that Flair's behavior was acceptable.

[Chorros3]

Super late to all of this, but seriously, what the fuck is wrong with Tommy Dreamer?

I’ve never had a problem with vets going “this kids just play video games and go to their hotel rooms, I was getting hammered 5 nights a week”, that’s just part of their culture at the time. Being a victim shaming mark looking for reaffirmation from people a whole generation before him it’s something else. Guess he could’ve used RVD’s “never meet your heroes” advice. 
 

Perpetrators (Flair, and as EL-P pointed out, Lesnar) don’t see the downside of their actions, but defending that sort of thing with the certainty Dreamer does is just plain stupid.

[strobogo]

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

Let's be honest, Dave probably has to shoulder some of the blame too. He often would try to play down Flair's antics as just drunken but harmless fun and sometimes go out of his way to even mention them unless it was too newsworthy to ignore.  His blind spot for Ric is legendary, and while he wasn't the only one (or even the biggest offender) he had the most reach. He low key (even if subconsciously) educated a generation of insider fans that Flair's behavior was acceptable.

Everyone in the industry has to shoulder some of the blame, which is why no one wants to be the one to take down someone like Flair because it reflects poorly on basically everyone who has been in the industry in the past oh, 45 years.

[sek69]

Meanwhile the Coach seems to be the next one who wants to set themselves on fire in public, claimed the flight attendant in the show was lying and he knows because he testified at in the case that was brought, leading to Bix to pull the court docs to show that wasn't the case. 

[strobogo]

What a weird thing to lie about when it could be so easily proven 

[sek69]

5 minutes ago, strobogo said:

What a weird thing to lie about when it could be so easily proven 

Even weirder when called out he doubled down on Bix all "oh you're a researcher on that show, no wonder the facts are wrong" when he replied to the ACTUAL COURT DOCUMENTS. Jesus Christ, the stupidity. 

[Johnny Sorrow]

So I just watched it and the one thing that made me laugh out loud while watching with disgust was when they showed the court documents and all of Hall's AKA's were his various gimmick names. "AKA American Starship Coyote " was hilarious.

And while RVD came off pretty good, I do have to ask why he didn't go get Flair away from that poor woman if he was watching it happen. Maybe it's that " Made Man" bullshit,  I don't know.

[MoS]

4 hours ago, Al said:

The plane ride is one thing in a vacuum. The culture underneath it was/is the real problem. That Flair felt safe enough to do this on a flight where all his peers and his boss was on. Flair’s behavior was and continues to be condoned and/or dismissed to this day. 

The fact that Linda was on the plane and he still felt comfortable enough to do shit like this is revealing. A lot of younger fans who haven't listened to the old shoot interviews and read the stories are absolutely finding out for the first time just what the "party culture" and "being on the road with the boys" really meant. I saw clips of the old Brutus Beefcake RF interview doing the rounds too where he joked and laughed about Shawn and Jannetty drugging women on the road, sexually assaulting them, and then throwing their unconscious bodies out of their hotel rooms. It's not just the stories, as discussed, it's the way they were always told. Thankfully, that culture seems to be changing, although there is a long way to go. 

[Dav'oh]

What about us? How complicit does our fandom make us? We're in pro-wrestling up to our bottom lips, on the outside looking in, but still fully immersed. This is a board that is seriously considering a sex-offender (Flair) and a rock-spider (Lawler) to receive the Greatest Wrestler Ever honour, and any discussion of their pasts is met with "well if we disqualify all the shitcunts there'd be no-one left".

Is our silence and our willingness to ignore, just as insidious as Dreamer's vocalisations?

[Johnny Sorrow]

Dude, we all also love movies and TV Shows that have been full of pieces of shit. I'm a Trekkie and Roddenberry was no saint and Rick Berman is a creep. Many of us also love sports, also full of assholes. It's not on fans to have to navigate it and wonder what our complicity is. Most folks have more important things going on than deciding to just not be entertained by scumbags.

[C.S.]

Finally watched the episode...

Everyone has already mentioned Flair, Dreamer, and Brock - and rightfully so. Dreamer's bullshit - "she should've pursued this to the fullest extent of the law," or whatever the hell he said - was particularly odious. Fuck him.

I think Scott Hall gets too much of a free pass just because he was an out-of-control alcohol who claims he can't remember anything from the flight, but that's just me.

I'm surprised no one is really mentioning just how badly Mike Chioda came across. He acted like jock-sniffing frat boy who either wasn't smartened up that the show wasn't going to be a "comedic" stroll down memory lane, or - worse - he apparently views the whole thing as a crazy adventure and "boys will be boys." Dumb as bricks and tone deaf to boot - that's Chioda in a nutshell. 

6 hours ago, sek69 said:

Meanwhile the Coach seems to be the next one who wants to set themselves on fire in public, claimed the flight attendant in the show was lying and he knows because he testified at in the case that was brought, leading to Bix to pull the court docs to show that wasn't the case. 

Whatever happened there, Coach deleted the tweets and admitted he was wrong. 

 

[El-P]

5 hours ago, MoS said:

The fact that Linda was on the plane and he still felt comfortable enough to do shit like this is revealing.

If you believe stuff in shoot interviews, Micheal Hayes tried to piss on her too before punching JBL...

5 hours ago, MoS said:

I saw clips of the old Brutus Beefcake RF interview doing the rounds too where he joked and laughed about Shawn and Jannetty drugging women on the road, sexually assaulting them, and then throwing their unconscious bodies out of their hotel rooms.

Indeed. The Marty Jannetty interviews are so incriminating for Michaels (and himself of course). 

3 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

What about us? How complicit does our fandom make us? We're in pro-wrestling up to our bottom lips, on the outside looking in, but still fully immersed. This is a board that is seriously considering a sex-offender (Flair) and a rock-spider (Lawler) to receive the Greatest Wrestler Ever honour, and any discussion of their pasts is met with "well if we disqualify all the shitcunts there'd be no-one left".

Is our silence and our willingness to ignore, just as insidious as Dreamer's vocalisations?

This is all about cognitive dissonance. But then again, there's just plain ignoring it and there's at least being aware of those cognitive dissonances and from there having a reflexion on us fans and what our place in this is when we keep on supporting people who are or have been total scumbags.

3 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

It's not on fans to have to navigate it and wonder what our complicity is. 

Actually, it is, because being a fan means we give actual social power to these people, and that social and financial power is why they can act the way they do and suffer no consequence. It's too easy to just wash our hands off it. 

31 minutes ago, C.S. said:

I'm surprised no one is really mentioning just how badly Mike Chioda came across. He acted like jock-sniffing frat boy who either wasn't smartened up that the show wasn't going to be a "comedic" stroll down memory lane, or - worse - he apparently views the whole thing as a crazy adventure and "boys will be boys." Dumb as bricks and tone deaf to boot - that's Chioda in a nutshell. 

I agree and I actually mentioned Chioda coming off like a douchebag in my long-ass post a few pages ago.

7 hours ago, strobogo said:

Everyone in the industry has to shoulder some of the blame, which is why no one wants to be the one to take down someone like Flair because it reflects poorly on basically everyone who has been in the industry in the past oh, 45 years.

Agreed. I would make a comparison with how the entire legacy of the Tour de France for instance is totally flawed because of doping and you can't really talk about it nor its history without burying your head in the sand, because it was not just Lance Armstrong, the cycling system has been totally corrupt by doping for decades. So you have your bad guy standing as a scapegoat (of course Armstrong was a fraud and a despicable human being and deserves all the shit he got and more) and then you have all those "former champions" who were all pretty much involved in one way or another acting as TV commentators, trainers, team leaders and whatnot and journalist talking about the mythology of the sport and all those great champions of the past...

[KawadaSmile]

7 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

Is our silence and our willingness to ignore, just as insidious as Dreamer's vocalisations?

Probably not AS insidious, specially when Dreamer is basically equating assault to sporting a ponytail.

I think our responsibility lies more as consumers. Do we really want to attend an event which would directly benefit someone like, say, Lawler or more recently David Starr? Sometimes it's beyond our reach, like an offender being unadvertised or being a lesser part of the card.

 

[NintendoLogic]

As an aside, I had never heard the term "rock spider" before and although the meaning was pretty obvious from the context, I had to look it up to make sure (it's Australian slang for a child molester). I was reminded of this copypasta: