Comments that don't warrant a thread

[jdw]

Yeah... I'm not even going to the statutory card. More along the lines that it's Jake, and I'd take it with a big grain of salt.

 

My thought on the "marriage that neither wanted" is that Smith was a wrestler. It's not terribly hard for a wrestler in the 50s to simply skip town and go do business elsewhere, leaving a pregnent woman/girl behind if he didn't want it. Of all professions in the country, it's one of the easiest to skip town on. Just doesn't make a great deal of sense that anyone could force him to marry. No... I wouldn't buy that Local Law Enforcement was involved in a shotgun marriage either. If they gave enough shit, they would have shotgunned Smith, and the kid (Jake) would have been raised by the grandmother as her own... which wasn't an uncommon practice in those days. Instead, Smith and Mrs. Smith batted off a second kid.

 

I do recall the Robin comment. I also think that Sam Houston talked about the claims/accusations in his shoot, but haven't seen it written up.

 

All that said, the notion that Smith or anyone else in the business had a taste for underage girls isn't terribly surprising. We've heard enough of that out of the business over the years.

 

John

[Jingus]

With all the distraction over Danielson, it's easy to overlook another stupid future-endeavouring this weekend. TNA randomly fired Roxxi Laveaugh for no reason again. This marks the third time they've done that over the past year. Apparently when she showed up for the PPV last night, they were all like "oh btw, you're losing a retirement match, lol". Seriously, looking back over her tenure there, they couldn't have booked this woman worse if they tried. Even aside from the retardation with the head shaving, you couldn't have deliberately done a better job of having a midcarder and perennial title contender who was seen as less of a threat. They kept treating her like a jobber but pretending that she wasn't, thus ending up with a bunch of heatless matches where the audience knew that Roxxi was just gonna choke again.

 

And ODB quit today, possibly over this. TNA keeps acting like as long as they have some sort of Diva types in some version of the Beautiful People in the center of the division, then the rest of the workers don't matter at all and they can stick any random chicks in the same spots and achieve the same results. Supposedly that's why they inevitably refuse to give any of the women raises when contract negotiations come up, which allegedly played a major part in why various folks such as Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, and Victoria are no longer there.

[Bob Morris]

It amazes me that the folks at TNA can't figure out what it was that originally got The Beautiful People over when they turned them heel. They became the antithesis of what TNA was promoting the women's division as. The division was promoted as female athletes who aren't just about showing off their looks, and The Beautiful People were all about putting looks above everything else.

 

In the Impact episodes I caught a few months ago, they had Angelina Love still dressing up like a member of The Beautiful People, and that's your problem with the booking right there. For Love to work as a face and the Velvet Sky-led TBP to work, Love needed to not just declare that, somehow, Sky betrayed her when she brought in Lacey Von Erich, but that when she won the Knockouts title, she soon came to realize how important it was for her to emphasize her athleticism over her looks, and thus, she needs to dress accordingly to get the character change over.

 

Instead, it's basically coming down to what TNA accuses WWE's Divas of being: Just a bunch of interchangable bimbos who get by on looks alone.

[kjh]

Apparently when she showed up for the PPV last night, they were all like "oh btw, you're losing a retirement match, lol".

I'm not sure letting her go was that all stupid, but how they handled it makes the company looks like real assholes.

 

Instead, it's basically coming down to what TNA accuses WWE's Divas of being: Just a bunch of interchangable bimbos who get by on looks alone.

Not surprising that the Knockouts division has devolved to this, given who is now in charge. Hogan, Bischoff and Russo never took women's wrestling seriously in the past. Hogan and Bischoff weren't paying attention when the Knockouts were a success, while Russo will never learn.

[rovert]

Guys this clip is absolutely brillant :

 

 

FINLAY WRESTLING FAMILY TO BE PROFILED IN NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT WRESTLING IN IRELAND, VIDEO CLIP OF DAVE FINLAY DISCUSSING PROTECTING THE BUSINESS

By Mike Johnson on 2010-06-15 12:48:21

For those of you who are fans of wrestling documentaries, a new one to keep an eye out for will be coming out of Ireland.

 

"The Fit Finlays" is a documentary about the history of wrestling in Ireland, using WWE star Dave Finlay and his family's history in wrestling as the prism to tell the story. While most fans are aware of Dave Finlay's long career in Europe, WCW and WWE, his father and grandfather also wrestled, while his sister worked as a referee in Ireland.

 

There is no word on a release date or distribution for the project yet but Billy Krotchsen sent along the following clip that has surfaced online:

The glee on Finlay's face is fantastic.

[El-P]

Ah, old-school wrestlers. They broke the mold. Finlay would have been at home in Mid South...

[Jingus]

Two things come to mind there.

 

1. Can you imagine any other business on the planet where this sort of thing is tolerated, let alone encouraged? Imagine if Tom Cruise went around breaking people's thumbs if they didn't like his movies or thought Scientology was bullshit. How do you do that sort of thing "hundreds of times", presumably not in the confines of a wrestling show, and get away without being jailed for it?

 

2. I had no idea that Finlay is an Eddy type who can speak nearly accentless English, but racists his speech up on TV for purposes of the gimmick. I admittedly don't know many Belfastians, but his speech sounded almost like more of a Liverpool accent than an Irish one.

[Bix]

Well, this is different in that it's his original accent and Eddy was born and raised in the US, but yeah, that surprised me.

[El-P]

How do you do that sort of thing "hundreds of times", presumably not in the confines of a wrestling show, and get away without being jailed for it?

Well, pro wrestling is, you know.... crummy.

That, and Finlay is probably full of shit too. Yeah, you surely broke hundreds of thumbs like that. Sure. I guess it has happened a few times, and like any old school guy it becomes "hundreds of times". Love them carny old wrestlers. Does Mattel goes along that sort of behaviour ?

[Sean Liska]

I don't think enough attention is given to how damaging kayfabe has been to wrestling's public perception in this country. It's the reason every wrestling fan has to endure the, "You know that stuff is fake, right?" taunts from non-fans. Because guys had to strenuously insist that it was completely real when they were thrown into ropes and bounced back off them at full speed.

[Bix]

I'm scared, yet intrigued: Randy Orton's "Voices" theme mashed up with Depeche Mode's "The Sinner In Me."

[rovert]

In terms of timeframe do you think he is referring to WCW/WWE?

 

2. I had no idea that Finlay is an Eddy type who can speak nearly accentless English, but racists his speech up on TV for purposes of the gimmick. I admittedly don't know many Belfastians, but his speech sounded almost like more of a Liverpool accent than an Irish one.

As an Irish man Im tickled by your analysis of his accent. His accent is very much a Ulster Protestant accent.

 

Here is one more clip of Finlay's father is surprising young and active for his age:

 

Needless to say his accent is a bit more native than global trotting Dave Jr.

[Jingus]

We Americans picked up everything we know about Irish accents from Lucky Charms commercials.

[Guest Slickster]

I'd presume Finlay's thumb-breaking was in the 80s during his work in Europe. I'm under the impression that kayfabe was protected for a longer period there than in North America, especially since no European promoter ever declared wrestling was a work in order to get tax breaks.

 

Could someone point me to a clip of Finlay using an exaggerated version of his accent? I thought he didn't do that.

[El-P]

I'd presume Finlay's thumb-breaking was in the 80s during his work in Europe. I'm under the impression that kayfabe was protected for a longer period there than in North America, especially since no European promoter ever declared wrestling was a work in order to get tax breaks.

Wrestling was already pretty dead in Europe. I don't know at which point it died in the UK, but I'd say by the mid 80's it was really past the point of meaning anything. In France the only time wrestling was big was in the 50s and 60's. Well, US wrestling is really big now here , which is a thing I really can't explain. France is so behind the times sometimes. Europe was pretty much Otto Wanz's CWA.

[rovert]

This podcast thing is getting surreal:

http://whosslammingwho.podomatic.com/entry...T06_01_22-07_00

 

A non-standard interview worth a listen.

[Strummer]

Batista was in attendance at last night's Strikeforce: Los Angeles event, and spoke with Dave Meltzer about leaving WWE. He stated that he left the company because he was unhappy with the direction the company was going, and that it wasn't the wrestling that he enjoyed (mentioning the Rock/Austin era). He also noted that he did not see himself going back anytime soon, but he did not rule it out. Batista said that he was in LA looking for work, and that he was unemployed. Batista has shown interest in MMA, and has done some training, but at his age, going into an MMA career isn't very likely.

 

Credit: Dave Meltzer

does anyone have their Larry Csonka to English dictionary to translate this? The poor guy just can't make any sense of Meltz's double talk.

[kjh]

That's actually a fair paraphrase of what Meltzer said. I thought the funniest comment was Batista saying to Meltzer "Just don't compare me to Chris Jericho", when asked about whether he planned to return down the line to WWE like Jericho did.

[KrisZ]

I guess Dave didn't like the young guys getting pushed.

[Strummer]

That's actually a fair paraphrase of what Meltzer said. I thought the funniest comment was Batista saying to Meltzer "Just don't compare me to Chris Jericho", when asked about whether he planned to return down the line to WWE like Jericho did.

that it wasn't the wrestling that he enjoyed (mentioning the Rock/Austin era).

what did he mean by this?

[Dan]

That's pretty much what Dave M. said. Either he misspoke, or Batista was still growing up at age 31. (Wasn't it Ted Dibiase who said being in wrestling is like being in eternal high school?)

[Ronnie]

That's pretty much what Dave M. said. Either he misspoke, or Batista was still growing up at age 31.

Oh, come on, that doesn't mean that at all.

 

There was no mention of "when I was growing up". The wrestling that Batista liked when he decided to get into the business was the Rock/Austin style.

 

No need to twist things with the usual sorry attempts at "haha, Meltzer got it wrong."

[Dan]

It was really more poking fun at Batista. He did say (per Dave) "the wrestling he grew up liking" is gone. (well, duh) The part about Austin/Rock was in the next sentence.

[kjh]

what did he mean by this?

Probably that wrestling isn't the cool in thing anymore. For a guy who got into the business for the fame and the fortune, it's not surprising that he's grown disgruntled and slightly embarrassed with the business as its popularity has declined, overtaken by real fighting.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

The always-accurate Wikipedia lists Kevin Nash's pro debut as September 14, 1988. I was always under the impression that the Master Blasters squash at Clash XII was his pro debut. Does anyone know if Nash worked anywhere before WCW?