WON awards front-runners for the first half of the year

[Tim Evans]

Cena works for Vince Mcmahon. Thus he has to lie when told to. You should know this. It's the United States of Vince and he's all 3 branches.

[kjh]

I just don't understand why Orton is thought to be no worse than average, when he's had many more known difficulties than the majority of others.

Ask yourself this Jingus. Why do we know so much about Orton's difficulties, when people who are obviously much more troubled than he ever was, like Chris Benoit, we are oblivious to their problems until their lives spiral completely out of control?

 

Maybe, it's because he's an egomaniacal prick like you say and is widely hated in the lockerroom, so people love to bury him to all the sheet writers. If he was well liked and respected behind the scenes, then we probably would not have heard about any of his discretions and they would have all been conveniently covered up.

[Loss]

Wrestlers can overlook anything if they think they can have good matches and do big business.

[Guest *FH*]

Just to point out a few things instead of wearing out the "Quote" button:

 

*This week's WON reported that Lashley had a bad muscle tear, NOT a torn rotator cuff. So, sorry Jingus, but that's steroids.

 

*Who's wife did Edge sleep with? Are you arguing that he shouldn't get title runs because he took a ride on the town bicycle?

 

*Right, JBL is a piece of shit for being a locker room policeman but Benoit bullying Matt Striker on numerous occasions is just fine. Snowflakes make smarks more forgiving.

 

*I'm happy some of us are understanding the issue of workers with agendas leaking news.

 

*Jingus, play the "I was sort of in the business" card all you want. If you don't understand that wrestling is completely different from normal life, with different norms and mores, and fucking anything that moves and smoking fields of weed are as normal to them as eating Hamburger Helper is to you, I really don't know what else anyone can say.

[Jingus]

What's worse, costing some Mariott in Italy a few hundred Euros, or lying to the American public about wrestling's drug problem?

Regardless of what's "worse", one's illegal and one isn't. As politicians have repeatedly proved, it's damn near accepted practice to lie to the American public at this point.

 

Why do we know so much about Orton's difficulties, when people who are obviously much more troubled than he ever was, like Chris Benoit, we are oblivious to their problems until their lives spiral completely out of control?

Because the symptoms are much more obvious and blatant in the case of an Orton as compared to a Benoit. Randy's lawbreaking lapses just seem much worse than hearing that Benoit made his kids dress in suits, forced noobs to do squats, etcetera. The only serious sign we had with Benoit was Nancy's attempt at getting a divorce and restraining order back in '03, but 1.that was apparently really hushed up, I don't remember hearing about it back then and 2.she later changed her mind anyway, so to an outsider it would look more like a mental problem with her than him.

 

*Who's wife did Edge sleep with? Are you arguing that he shouldn't get title runs because he took a ride on the town bicycle?

And why do you disparage Lita in such a manner? Was it something you heard from a newsletter, leaked by Workers With An Agenda?

 

*I'm happy some of us are understanding the issue of workers with agendas leaking news.

You seem to be implying that every single backstage story that's ever been reported by anyone is not worth believing, since those darn workers had agendas. If so, then why bother ever reading a newsletter or visiting a website?

 

*Jingus, play the "I was sort of in the business" card all you want.

Ah yes, snide little "you weren't really in the biz so you don't know more than me" insults, that never gets old.

 

If you don't understand that wrestling is completely different from normal life, with different norms and mores, and fucking anything that moves and smoking fields of weed are as normal to them as eating Hamburger Helper is to you, I really don't know what else anyone can say.

SOME wrestlers are like that, sure. Maybe even LOTS of them. But to say that all of them are like that is a blatant lie. To say that Orton is no worse than average is demonstrably wrong, because the average worker hasn't been known to have done this much bad stuff. And finally, once again, if you think the business is entirely populated with raving nympho alky lunatics, why the hell do you watch it?

[Guest *FH*]

And why do you disparage Lita in such a manner? Was it something you heard from a newsletter, leaked by Workers With An Agenda?

Who are you to doubt El Dandy?

[Bix]

Why do we know so much about Orton's difficulties, when people who are obviously much more troubled than he ever was, like Chris Benoit, we are oblivious to their problems until their lives spiral completely out of control?

Because the symptoms are much more obvious and blatant in the case of an Orton as compared to a Benoit. Randy's lawbreaking lapses just seem much worse than hearing that Benoit made his kids dress in suits, forced noobs to do squats, etcetera. The only serious sign we had with Benoit was Nancy's attempt at getting a divorce and restraining order back in '03, but 1.that was apparently really hushed up, I don't remember hearing about it back then and 2.she later changed her mind anyway, so to an outsider it would look more like a mental problem with her than him.

Wow.

 

If you don't understand that wrestling is completely different from normal life, with different norms and mores, and fucking anything that moves and smoking fields of weed are as normal to them as eating Hamburger Helper is to you, I really don't know what else anyone can say.

SOME wrestlers are like that, sure. Maybe even LOTS of them. But to say that all of them are like that is a blatant lie. To say that Orton is no worse than average is demonstrably wrong, because the average worker hasn't been known to have done this much bad stuff. And finally, once again, if you think the business is entirely populated with raving nympho alky lunatics, why the hell do you watch it?

Chris Benoit:

 

- Had a DUI that we didn't know about.

- Had a divorce filing that we didn't know about.

- Had a protection order against him that we didn't know about.

- Intimidated Matt Striker into doing brown pee-inducing amounts of Hindu squats because he "disrespected Shawn Michaels" in an incident that we didn't know about.

- Beat his wife regularly enough that she took photos of her bruises and hid them in the house, which we didn't know about.

- Was injecting his son with an unknown substance, which we didn't know about.

- Invited William Regal over to his house to watch All Japan tapes out of the blue after they hadn't hung out in years, then refused to let him into the house in an incident that we didn't know about.

 

Note how most of Orton's offenses were around tons of other wrestlers, required punishment, or were harassing non-wrestling women who quit the company and were willing to talk, thus they all got reported. What Benoit did around multiple other wrestlers wasn't reported because it was considered normal by the fucked up ways of the WWE locker room. Add that to the bad shit a bunch of wrestlers have done over the years that took forever to come out, and Orton's stuff seems small in comparison, just more visible.

[Jingus]

Note how most of Orton's offenses were around tons of other wrestlers, required punishment, or were harassing non-wrestling women who quit the company and were willing to talk, thus they all got reported. What Benoit did around multiple other wrestlers wasn't reported because it was considered normal by the fucked up ways of the WWE locker room. Add that to the bad shit a bunch of wrestlers have done over the years that took forever to come out, and Orton's stuff seems small in comparison, just more visible.

You guys keep making the "we knew about Orton but not about Benoit" point, and I'm not sure why. Yes, what Benoit did was worse than what Orton did. No, nobody outside of Benoit's circle of trust had any idea that anything was that seriously wrong. But, well, so what? If you're trying to make some sort of "ANY wrestler could do that" argument, I'll see your point and raise it with an "any PERSON could do that given the right circumstances".

 

How does any of that excuse Orton from consistently acting like a dipshit, and excuse the company from pushing such an immature person with such little self-control instead of just firing them? Especially now, since they've been caught in a media storm and looking at a Congressional inquiry and everything, I don't understand why they'd want to have guys with bad records as their top-pushed stars. The watchdog atmosphere is so tight now that even things like Brian Adams dying wind up in the mainstream press, when that wouldn't have been so prior to Benoitgate.

 

And of course Orton isn't the only one, or even the worst example, I'd go with someone like Bradshaw. But Orton got caught in a public manner more than Bradshaw did. And with the kind of media furor that's surrounded the Benoit deaths, truth obviously doesn't matter to people in high places; just perception.

[Loss]

How does any of that excuse Orton from consistently acting like a dipshit, and excuse the company from pushing such an immature person with such little self-control instead of just firing them?

Pro wrestlers who are not dipshits, are mature and have self control do not exist is the argument being made, regardless of whether we hear about their infractions or not.

 

Orton is a scumbag, but so is every single other person involved in wrestling with absolutely no exceptions to the rule, because a good person would never be involved in wrestling in the first place, because wrestling is completely built on deception.

 

The reason we watch is because of this, not in spite of it. The appeal for many is that it's a freakshow where you see despicable people doing despicable things to each other to make money. Human cockfighting if you will, that appeals to everyone's darkside.

[tomk]

Don't want to put words in anyones mouth here. but it feels like people are arguing completely different things.

 

Jingus was inside the biz.

 

Orton's problems create a bad backstage atmosphere.

Benoit's problems help to maintain backstage cohesion.

 

Orton's problems suggest that you can do whatever you want and get away with it.

Benoit's suggest that if you don't tow the line someone will tie you up and choke you.

 

From the point of view of the biz, the first is the more problematic.

[tomk]

While we are discussing Benoit and this was originally WON award winners thread...

 

Who gets best technical?

I doubt anyone will voting Benoit.

Danielson was out most of the year, and am behind enough on ROH that don't know what he's done high end since return.

Combined PPVs has meant Finlay really hasn't gotten a PPV showcase match.

Little in the way of mat work from either EMLL or AAA in 2007.

Does anyone get Muga tapes?

I loved Sano v Misawa, but I think I was only American who felt that way.

 

Is Urijah Faber winning it?

[Resident Evil]

This scares me here. If I could exaggerate here for a second, I'm seeing the common problem of people here wanting to tear down good guys and build up bad guys. (I'm not commenting on who's good or bad but just making an observation) It's also the same problem some people have here when discussing wrestling. It's like when you legit have a good person and a bad person. However, once in awhile the good person gets in trouble and the bad person does something good. So, what happens? THis stands out more because of their personalities and people latch on to this. Add that on to people wanting to be smart and all of a sudden the good person is EVIL and the bad person is GOOD. The reality is though that the good guy is still a good guy and the bad guy is still a bad guy no matter how anyone wants to rewrite history.

 

As for the awards, I'd vote for the Steiners if I was able to. Rey too and the Rock. Ventura was the best commentator of all time (didn't like everything he did politically) who was a big part of the WWF pie so he's in.

[Guest KCook]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here but I don't think it's rewriting history to say that the evil child murderer is evil, while the coddled frat boy who smoked a joint and shit on the carpet at the Red Roof Inn sounds like lots of other dudes I know who are unpleasant to be around but little more.

 

Also, Benoit was, we've learned, always an evil psychopath. It's just that we didn't know it.

[kjh]

And of course Orton isn't the only one, or even the worst example, I'd go with someone like Bradshaw. But Orton got caught in a public manner more than Bradshaw did. And with the kind of media furor that's surrounded the Benoit deaths, truth obviously doesn't matter to people in high places; just perception.

It's very interesting that you mention JBL, because I don't see him as that much of a liability. Sure, he's a meanspirited bully behind the scenes, but I can't see the mainstream media ever really caring about his cruel hazing. What they care about is steroids, drugs and premature deaths. On those counts JBL is a safe pair of hands. He also handled the stress of being on top and eventually losing that spot a lot better than most.

[Bix]

Kevin beat me to it.

 

And if that's not your point, RE, I have absolutely no idea what you're saying.

[Jingus]

Pro wrestlers who are not dipshits, are mature and have self control do not exist is the argument being made, regardless of whether we hear about their infractions or not.

 

Orton is a scumbag, but so is every single other person involved in wrestling with absolutely no exceptions to the rule, because a good person would never be involved in wrestling in the first place

How could that possibly be right? Every person who was ever involved in wrestling is evil? That's not statistically possible.

 

Also, Benoit was, we've learned, always an evil psychopath. It's just that we didn't know it.

How do we know that for sure? Isn't it entirely possible that he was an ordinary guy who turned bad? I personally think that's a much more frightening idea, that absolutely normal people can change into killers.

 

Sure, he's a meanspirited bully behind the scenes, but I can't see the mainstream media ever really caring about his cruel hazing. What they care about is steroids, drugs and premature deaths.

Yeah, that was part of my point in my last post, the media care way more about over-the-top public stuff like Orton tends to committ rather than the behind-closed-doors insider horrors that guys like Bradshaw (and pre-murder Benoit) routinely get away with.

[Resident Evil]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here but I don't think it's rewriting history to say that the evil child murderer is evil, while the coddled frat boy who smoked a joint and shit on the carpet at the Red Roof Inn sounds like lots of other dudes I know who are unpleasant to be around but little more.

 

Also, Benoit was, we've learned, always an evil psychopath. It's just that we didn't know it.

What I"m saying is that people are often in a hurry to knock down the good guys in life and praise the bad guys if possible. I sense that in this topic.

 

 

Benoit was a psychopath.

 

Did we know it? No, but it always reminds me of that conversation I had with my friend years ago. We were talking about how succussful people can be really strong in one area hence their being famous for soemthing but on the other hand be weak in another area giving them all sorts of problems. Than we started talking about how lucky some guys were that they were strong mentally in one area and not in another way which would lead them to insanity, jail or something else. Two of the guys we talked about that day among others were Benoit and Kobashi. 2 of the most driven superstars ever in an activity that is among the hardest you can find on this earth. "What if they were born a different way?" we mentioned. Than everybody would hate them and they'd be the exact opposite of heros.

 

I always knew Benoit was wired differently than others. His training outside of the ring proved the guy was a nutcase and different from all others. I personally loved that about him although it did worry me some. In that sense, he was a psychopath already. I hope I"m using the word somewhat correctly there.

However, I don't think Benoit was a psychopath murderer from the get go. In 1989, for example I don't think Benoit would have murdered his kid and wife if he was indeed married. Maybe he could've. I don't know. Maybe the roots were there because he was obviously a different kind of person than your average Joe. Drugs change people and I've seen what drugs can do to people. Brain damage changes people. Life changes people. We don't know exactly what everything did but it does seem Benoit was detoriating mentally over the last while. That indicated something was changing with him. This is not an excuse but just an observation. I just feel so sad over this.

 

I have two psychopath uncles who compound things with their drug problems. One of them I got into a nasty confrontation yesterday after he was drugged up. The other one is unbelievably insane. He shows problem signs all the time and it would be crazy to trust him at all even if he's acting okay for a bit. The signs are there and you have to look at them, not ignore. If someone shows signs in wrestling, than you have to look at them too which there has been some avoidance of in this thread. For example, who would let Lawler around their kids? Who would go in a shower with Bradshaw? If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, than you have to be extra careful to make sure that duck doens't do anything duckish around you.

[Guest *FH*]

How does any of that excuse Orton from consistently acting like a dipshit, and excuse the company from pushing such an immature person with such little self-control instead of just firing them?

If they fired all the immature dipshits who lived like rock stars instead of mature adults, who would be left? I'm being quite honest here.

 

 

 

Especially now, since they've been caught in a media storm and looking at a Congressional inquiry and everything, I don't understand why they'd want to have guys with bad records as their top-pushed stars. The watchdog atmosphere is so tight now that even things like Brian Adams dying wind up in the mainstream press, when that wouldn't have been so prior to Benoitgate.

WWE is being called on the carpet for steroids and their link to the death toll. I'm pretty sure Congress' line of questioning won't go into which employees made poopy in girls' bags.

[Jingus]

If they fired all the immature dipshits who lived like rock stars instead of mature adults, who would be left? I'm being quite honest here.

I think it'd be worth a shot to find out. If someone gets caught doing something blatantly illegal or grossly unethical, they should be fired, just like at any job at any other company in the world. They shouldn't smoke crack and get their job back, as it were. Why do they seemingly arbitrarily fire a few people for drug use, but not others? Why are Test and Angle shown the door while guys like Orton and RVD are kept on?

 

WWE is being called on the carpet for steroids and their link to the death toll. I'm pretty sure Congress' line of questioning won't go into which employees made poopy in girls' bags.

I wish they would. The entire freewheeling attitude of the industry, and the way in which the veterans and higher-ups tend to indoctrinate the rookies into assuming that sort of lifestyle is normal and okay, should be what outsiders are looking at here.

[Guest *FH*]

If they ethics/immoral conduct were grounds for firing, goodbye Vince McMahon.

 

I guess I should just requote myself here:

 

If you don't understand that wrestling is completely different from normal life, with different norms and mores, and fucking anything that moves and smoking fields of weed are as normal to them as eating Hamburger Helper is to you, I really don't know what else anyone can say.

Seriously, man. One simply cannot look at pro wrestling and say "my word, that behavior wouldn't fly in corporate America!" (which is hilarious in and of itself, as if "any job at any other company in the world" doesn't have it's share of disgusting bullshit) If you're going to pollyanna this and you think that wrestling would be better if all the ne'er do wells were gone, maybe you need to rethink your fandom. I won't go as far as Loss and say I watch because of the scummyness, because that's not true. I enjoy matches, I enjoy storylines, promos, all that shit. And I understand that, like probably every other form of entertainment, it's brought to me by many, many unsavory characters. It's just something you need to accept and live with. Scapegoating Randy Orton, Edge, and the blatant bad people you've heard about and acting like wrestling would be better off, by gosh, if we could just be rid of the bad apples, is ridiculous. It's 90% bad apples, just deal with it.

[Jingus]

So you missed this part?

The entire freewheeling attitude of the industry, and the way in which the veterans and higher-ups tend to indoctrinate the rookies into assuming that sort of lifestyle is normal and okay, should be what outsiders are looking at here.

And now I say that wrestling should be held to the same standards as any other corporation in America, and you disagree... why? Sure, there are other examples of people and companies doing bad shit, Enron and such. But just because someone else did something bad, it doesn't excuse you from committing your own wrongs.

 

Wrestling's prevailing attitude has always been that if a giant media firestorm didn't occur over it, it never happened. Even serious problems like known drug use tend to be overlooked or denied until it becomes too big a problem to ignore. And it's scary to think that the WWE over the past several years is easily the most strict wrestling company in recent history, in terms of policing its employees.

 

Just saying "wrestlers are bad people" ignores the details of the problems, the root causes of the symptoms, and the complexity of the situations. It's like how people explain Benoit's crimes by just saying "well, he was crazy, he was always crazy!", and while that might technically be right, it's a shallow method of explaining away a problem while still remaining in ignorance over the real deep motivations.

[Guest KCook]

Jingus, I literally don't understand what point you're trying to make. This started with you saying WWE shouldn't reward Randy Orton with a world title run because he's done bad stuff and is liable to do bad stuff, which is fair enough. It was then pointed out to you that every other person you could put in his spot has either done stuff just as bad or worse or is liable to, and that most everyone else in the company, including guys like Fit Finlay, Dean Malenko, Chavo Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio, once thought to be reasonably normal types, have been revealed as shockingly morally bankrupt scumbags. Now, after going on at length about the evils of smoking pot and shitting on the carpet at Motel 6, you're both advocating that pro wrestlers be held to the behavioral standards of corporate executives and claiming that we should not judge these wrestlers harshly, but rather understand the root causes of the fact that they're morally bankrupt scumbags. What is your point here, exactly?

[Jingus]

Hell, I'm not sure now, since the discussion has gone off on so many tangents. But I do think that the simple fact that Orton has proven that he can't control himself in public makes him a bad choice businesswise to put the title on right now, since the media scrutiny of the WWE is at an all-time high. (In a similar vein, they should also count their lucky stars that the Nancy Graces of the world have never heard the name "Brian Ong".) And yes, I do still think that he is a worse choice than just Random Wrestler X. Hell, look at the guy he'd be getting the title from: beyond doing some shitty rapping and acting, Cena seems to spend most of his free time doing charity work, and has never been caught doing anything illegal. There have just been too many stories about Randy's behavior, over too long a period of time, for me to understand why they'd want to keep pushing this guy.

[Tim Evans]

Orton didn't kill a kid so Nancy Grace or Congress don't care.

[sek69]

Honestly, there's probably at least a hundred Randy Ortons on every major college campus. He's the wrestling equivalent of that buddy of yours that turns every night out with the boys into Animal House: The Home Game.

 

If his dad and grandpa weren't famous rasslers, he'd probably be another frat boy goof posting videos on YouTube of him teabagging his rommates.