Jimmy Redman Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 52 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said: Don't tell that to the opposition party supporters who think we've ruined the economy. They think we should have copied Australia. Pretty much every sporting organization is crying poor at the moment. It can't all go belly up. Or maybe it will and we'll return to the era of amateur sport. Take it from me: please, please don't copy Australia. We suck. What a fucken shitshow this was. IS. I'm sure there's more to come too, NXT, Smackdown... I can't think of anyone on the NXTUK roster they wouldn't deem expendable. I mean, I can't think of anyone on the NXTUK roster that Vince would even know existed. It's not like a garbage company doing garbage things is shocking to anyone anymore. But I dunno. Throughout this whole ordeal there is just some reminder every single day, if not every hour, about the gross, inhuman depravities of this late-stage capitalist hellhole we're wallowing in. Life is gross, and this is just another punch in the gut. Imagine being Rusev, already fucked over enough in this company, reaching into his pocket and offering $20,000 for his fellow employees that his BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY left in the lurch, only to then get rissoled himself at the first crack of the iceberg. Imagine being one of the numerous poor dopes who flew into an international airport and stayed in a hotel and travelled through God knows how many people to tape live TV against all sense and science, only to be fired moments after bumping your back off to save the fortune of a monster. Imagine being Roman, going through all he has, and still having to decide to take himself home to protect himself - and, if he's lucky enough to get away with it, would be just about the only one who could. And the poor souls who were so benevolently spared, still have to fly into Orlando every week to tape live TV for this ghoul. It can't feel good. At least at a normal event, in their darker moments wrestlers can always take comfort in performing for a crowd and making contact with fans. Doing it for them. Wrestling in an empty room to fulfill a billion dollar TV deal surely can't instill the same feeling of purpose. Wrestling should be an escape right now. Fucking ANYTHING should be an escape right now. And I congratulate anyone who is able to find comfort in anything. But it's hard. It's 2020, between social media, internet, 24hr everything, this thing is impossible to escape. We know too much. We can't sit down and enjoy Disney+ without thinking about what a scumbag corporation it is. And that goes for anything. TV is a constant barrage of information - updates, moronic Trump propaganda pressers, sports reports on the news that report on absolutely zero sport taking place, and celebrities bombarding us with content and thoughts and prayers, and all we can think of is how much fucking MONEY we pay a whole bunch of ultimately superfluous people. Sometimes they know how to help. Sometimes they're Gal Gadot and her band of merry millionaires singing while Rome burns. Escapism is the catchcry of wrestling. WWE is escapism! We put smiles on people's faces! We escape through the fantastic - seeing superheroes and zombies with magical powers, or through the fantasy - watching a redneck beat the shit out of his boss because we can't. We've always been able to excuse the gritty reality, because we want to escape in some bullshit for a while. And fuck, I laughed my ass off to Wrestlemania along with everyone else. It was fun, but it wasn't an ESCAPE. You can't. WWE may not mention the word "coronavirus" on TV, but they're having eerie matches that echo around an empty studio. You can't not know that something is off, and show by show you keep asking yourself, why? In a real crisis it suddenly seems as pointless as non-fans always deride it as. Especially now, seeing once again how utterly disposable the wrestlers truly are to the company. Wrestling hasn't been super fun for me for a long time. That much should be obvious considering how AWOL I've been for the last 12 months or so. I enjoy the odd match, the women, and hell I even enjoyed the 24 hours I spent thinking about my PTBN Greatest WWE Matches list that I accidentally started making a podcast (sorry Marty, we'll get there!). It's funny, because what I've seen of WWE is basically that meme of that woman screaming hysterically at the cat... "RHEA RIPLEY MEGA MONSTER PUSH!" "SHAYNA BASZLER WINNING PPV MAIN EVENTS!" "WHAT IF WE MADE ONE OF YOUR JOHN CENA THEORIES INTO A MATCH?!" And here I am, the unflappable cat, not blinking once. I enjoy what I see, and it still leaves me with zero desire to keep watching. I'm not hooked anymore. I have more time than ever to waste on wrestling at the moment, and I have the entire product library at my disposal, and I just... don't... want to. It's not as simple as me losing interest in the presentation or growing up or moving on. On some level, I've finally reached a point where I'm not comfortable just escaping and enjoying it for what it is. As wrestling fans we have always, to a man, made enough excuses to be able to watch WWE. To watch wrestling, really. It's a garbage business. We all know. We all don't care just enough. Some people reach a point where they care just enough, they quit. At least as far as WWE is concerned. They're on this board. For everything the company has done and stood for the past few years, I think I'm reaching my limit. I mean, I did my dash with the company a while ago. I always enjoyed and celebrated the advancement of the women DESPITE the company, despite Vince and Steph and the rest. I was happy for the wrestlers. The company is a soulless trash can. The wrestlers are real. But even now I'm at the point where I don't give a shit about the wrestlers anymore either. They signed up for this. They swallowed Saudi Arabia, even after the company STRANDED THEM THERE. They can't plead ignorance about the company, about Vince. We just watched a doco about how Vince literally covered up a murder. And they all buy in, just enough to stomach it. Some of them end up like Seth, a shrill, oblivious mark piping up to defend daddy whenever the kids in the playground say something mean about him. Or Braun, a cold, cruel moron who felt the need to publicly punch down, and then just lost his two best friends in the company to the forces of the Almighty Hustle. If something like this, after everything that's gone on, if something like Vince literally risking their lives needlessly in a global pandemic to try to save a buck doesn't make them all wake up and try to change this business for the better, in probably the one small window they'll ever get, when their lives are in danger, then what hope do we really have. I'm not about it. I'm not as angry as I was this morning. I'm resigned. This will blow over in a week and the show will go on and we'll have much worse things to worry about and some things just never, ever change. But I realise now that I have. Maybe just enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 Jimmy pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding the complicity of the wrestlers in all this. The networks have Vince by the balls, so they would have all the leverage in the world if they banded together. If they can't bring themselves to exploit it, that's on them. Drake Maverick talking about how thankful he was to be able to participate in the interim cruiserweight title tournament after they canned his ass was pathetic. If he had an ounce of self-respect, he would have told WWE to fuck off and went straight home (or whatever passes for home for him these days). Vince treats the wrestlers like well-paid chattel because he knows they'll take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 Hey Stacey, not a bother, dont be sorry! We will have plenty of time. Right now, pro wrestling is the low man on the totem pole no matter what the McMahons may think. If you need time to find your wrestling smile again thats fine. I have enjoyed our recording sessions. Nintendo Jesus dude! What is your major malfunction? Victim-blame much! Who are you to tell Drake Maverick how he should feel! It is fine if you feel that in that situation you would tell them to fuck off. I totally get that. But to call Drake Maverick, pathetic. I dont know man. That's pretty damn low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 7 hours ago, El-P said: And fuck Macron and his irresponsible government, too (yeah, it's been handled pretty badly here too, with some apex of bullshit like the spokeperson explaining that masks are not necessary plus it's too complicated to use because it's scientific and hell, she even does not know how to use it. Yeah. It did happen. Because you see, we don't have masks, so might as well tell the people that it's useless). To be fair, even scientists were (or still might be) going back-and-forth regarding the benefits of wearing masks (versus reduced awareness of keeping your distance, hand washing etc. because people might think they are safe just because they are wearing masks). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 30 minutes ago, Robert S said: To be fair, even scientists were (or still might be) going back-and-forth regarding the benefits of wearing masks (versus reduced awareness of keeping your distance, hand washing etc. because people might think they are safe just because they are wearing masks). Robert is definitely right. This is not a Macron issue, but scientists are struggling with the fact this is NOVEL and nothing is obvious. A lot of this has to do with can the virus be transmitted from inanimate objects and how long does it take for the virus to be inactivated without a host. I think the idea behind people not wearing masks was to keep the masks for the frontline workers. It clearly does not hurt to wear mask. I am pro-mask wearing but as a person in the scientific community for a shoot, nothing should be taken as obvious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Migs Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 16 hours ago, ButchReedMark said: He lives in Florida these days. I hope he stays there and gets picked up by AEW. He's a fantastic worker and mind. But the way he's been treated today by WWE is a fucking disgrace Given how far he goes back with Marty, I can totally see him in ROH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 That Jimmy Redman post is tremendous. There are some exceptionally well written people here on PWO. Thank you for that post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweet Brown Koko Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 So my question in all this is where is the line for the posters here regarding WWE? I don’t watch them anymore and haven’t for quite some time due to things they do that I don’t agree with. I’m just curious how we can be critical of the wrestlers for sticking by Vince no matter what but then nothing he does seems to pull anyone away here? It seems like posters here are ALWAYS close but never quite take the step to be done with WWE for good. What keeps you coming back?? I’m just curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsdmf Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 That Jimmy Redman post is incredible and very close to how I feel about wrestling these days. About the only enjoyment I get from wrestling is reading this forum. I had decided to re-sign up for the Network just to watch the marquee matches for WrestleMania. The discussion threads here are very entertaining. That said, I started rewatching stuff on the Network and realized it’s really joyless and given how awful this whole situation is, I decided I really should stop supporting it and support something else. Sorry for rambling but Jimmy’s post made me want to throw my 2 cents in. I think I’ll give the allotted part of my streaming budget to either Shudder or be smart and save it in case the economy completely tanks the way it’s looking. I miss when wrestling was fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 I'm done for now and have been since the Rumble, but I haven't had much love for several years really. Something may pull me back some day. Right now I really want nothing to do with WWE. The combination of lackluster product with so much Vince real world bs makes me really dislike the whole thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 1 hour ago, Sweet Brown Koko said: So my question in all this is where is the line for the posters here regarding WWE? I don’t watch them anymore and haven’t for quite some time due to things they do that I don’t agree with. I’m just curious how we can be critical of the wrestlers for sticking by Vince no matter what but then nothing he does seems to pull anyone away here? It seems like posters here are ALWAYS close but never quite take the step to be done with WWE for good. What keeps you coming back?? I’m just curious. Haven't watched a full episode of any WWE shows in maybe 4 years now. I'd watch bits and clips on YT whenever there's a big moment happening in the company, but for the most part, I don't think I'll ever watch a full WWE show again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akira maeda Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 5 hours ago, NintendoLogic said: Jimmy pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding the complicity of the wrestlers in all this. The networks have Vince by the balls, so they would have all the leverage in the world if they banded together. If they can't bring themselves to exploit it, that's on them. Drake Maverick talking about how thankful he was to be able to participate in the interim cruiserweight title tournament after they canned his ass was pathetic. If he had an ounce of self-respect, he would have told WWE to fuck off and went straight home (or whatever passes for home for him these days). Vince treats the wrestlers like well-paid chattel because he knows they'll take it. But hey, he's just happy to be there! Thanks for the opportunity! Makes me sick how far we've fallen. Wrestlers are just geeks now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMJ Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 For me, watching WWE is akin to fast food or why I've seen loads and loads of Law & Order (every variety), Criminal Minds, and even NCIS and Blue Bloods. I know that there is better shit out there. I know the WWE is an awful company - like McDonalds is. Hell, NCIS and Blue Bloods are stuck-in-the-Bush-years conservative wet dreams filmed and put on primetime for viewers twice my age. Courtroom/police procedurals like 9-1-1 and Prodigal Son are formulaic garbage. But they take zero effort to watch, are very convenient, and are still kinda fun to talk about it. Now, I don't watch the weekly programming and haven't for at least 15 years, but I do watch the monthly PPVs (usually while on an eliptical - again, its a brainless way to not just watching the counter and think "When can I get off this thing?") and continue to go back and watch shows I've never seen. And if I'm being completely honest with myself and everyone here, part of it is because, on boards like these, I can't debate or speak on NJPW or the territory days or the indie scene or lucha libre or RoH or even AEW with any authority. And so it is much, much funner for me to talk about the WWE in 96' or 06' or 2016 than it is for me to talk about eras and promotions that I have no clue about. Like with music, I've just reached that age or part of my life when finding "new" things (even old things that are new to me) feels like work. And so, instead, I put on the new record by the bands I know I already love - Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmus, Kurt Vile, Ty Segall - and watch Bret Hart matches I've never seen before on the Network even though I know there are vast universes that I am choosing not to explore out of sheer laziness. So the WWE gets my $9.99 which I'm no prouder of than the Double Quarter Pounder I ate earlier this week or the fact that I've seen more episodes of Franklin & Bash than Breaking Bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 There's definitely something in that idea you mentioned that it's too hard to find something new now. I have of course enjoyed wrestling from other places besides WWE, but I'm primarily a WWE-centric wrestling fan. It's the only thing I can speak on with authority (plus the only modern product I can easily follow from Australia). So when my love of WWE sours, it sours my love of wrestling in general. I'd like to have the motivation to just ditch WWE and go watch other companies or other footage, but I don't. They were things I watched while I kept up my weekly WWE schedule. Now that link is gone. I hate to come back just to be such a downer. But that feeling some people have said they got after Benoit happened, a dark feeling that wrestling would never feel the same for them. I'm getting that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 WWE is not pro-wrestling. It's never been easier to watch anything but WWE wrestling. And really, for years and years now, anyone with a decent Internet connection could watch anything from anywhere. WWE being a toxic waste of a promotion is nothing new. WWE could die tomorrow and I would not blink an eye. Pro-wrestling has never been more fun than in the last few years to me. Most pro-wrestling companies actually are dealing with this crisis in a most professional and decent way (even ROH and IMPACT, imagine that). Pro-wrestling is not, and has never been "WWE". Thankfully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsdmf Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 I will say for me, all wrestling not just WWE is kind of joyless with the exception of AEW clips I see on YT. I don’t have cable so I can’t watch Dynamite. The last thing I got really excited about in wrestling was Lucha Underground. I might go back and watch my season 1-3 dvds that I got when I get the wrestling itch, whenever that will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmare007 Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 3 hours ago, Sweet Brown Koko said: So my question in all this is where is the line for the posters here regarding WWE? I don’t watch them anymore and haven’t for quite some time due to things they do that I don’t agree with. I’m just curious how we can be critical of the wrestlers for sticking by Vince no matter what but then nothing he does seems to pull anyone away here? It seems like posters here are ALWAYS close but never quite take the step to be done with WWE for good. What keeps you coming back?? I’m just curious. Once Bryan goes on hiatus to be a father again, I'll be very surprised if I watch anything WWE related (maybe a couple of segments on Youtube if they sound interesting). I barely watch anyway but I keep up with news and most of the results, though RAW has been a blur for years now. I think that will stay no matter what. For some reason, even if I can't bring myself to actually watch the product, I can't bring myself to totally let go and not even bother reading what is going on in the company. To be fair though, unless it's Big Japan, I'm mostly a casual viewer of any wrestling nowadays. I gave AEW 2 shows and it was just not for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 20 minutes ago, Mattsdmf said: The last thing I got really excited about in wrestling was Lucha Underground. It was what brought me back and made me look toward the future. Honestly if I had my way, I'd take a great new product in the Lucha Underground form rather than AEW (which I really like a lot, mostly). Which is why I love some of the stuff IMPACT does which is straight out of the most fucked up (the whole Undead Realm stuff) or simply the most progressive (Tessa winning the world title) LU stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawho5 Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 Well, you could put a positive spin on it, wrestling-wise. We all have backlogs of stuff we have wanted to watch. Now with less new wrestling coming out you can go back and watch whatever it was you were saving for a rainy day (or stuck-at-home-three-months). I plan to acquaint myself with modern wrestling while working through the 1990s. And maybe hit up some of the old World of Sport I have laying around, love that stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dav'oh Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 6 hours ago, Mattsdmf said: I miss when wrestling was fun As someone once put it, "we used to watch wrestling to see it being done. Now we watch to see how and why it's being done." I think once the way we watched it changed, so did our enjoyment, as it was no longer a means of escapism, but rather something to analyse and dissect. Now we don't boo because a heel used a pilediver, we boo because a heel used a piledriver "5 minutes in", or "as a transition" or "after working the arm all match". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 It's always been a weird thing for me, being a fan of wrestling. I made my peace with wrestling being a shit business full of shit people early on, coming of age in an era where nearly everyone was coked up and banging ring rats of questionable legality will do that. I think it was when Brody got murdered that you kind of have to mentally separate things. Now certain things I still feel icky watching, like Benoit matches or Invader being pushed as a babyface post-murder in WWC. To me it's the wrestling equivalent of a Woody Allen movie. You can't really deny the artistic qualities involved, but it just feels wrong supporting something made by someone who's fucked up like that. It would be nice to distance yourself from all the scumbags out there producing entertainment, but the truth is to be able to do that 100% you damn near have to be Amish. The movie industry is full of people who make Vince McMahon look like a choir boy, and the recording industry was and still is built on the idea of screwing the artists as much as possible to gain all the money. It's very Matrix like in how once the knowledge is out there about how the sausage is made, it's very hard to go back to enjoying it as the same mindless entertainment it was before. "Ignorance is bliss", after all, and WWE's platitudes about putting smiles on faces comes off like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattsdmf Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 I agree with the last 2 sentiments from Dav’oh and sek. I myself have been trying to chase that dragon of going back to watching wrestling the way I used to instead of analyzing it to death but once that genies out, it can’t go back. I’m reminded of an old film teacher of mine that warned students about his class as it’ll be analyzing films. Once you start looking at it through the lens of how it’s made, you can’t go back to mindlessly watching it. “This might ruin movies for you...” I think my whole hang up is just boredom (not in real life as work is busier than the holidays since retail is considered an essential industry) and burnout with wrestling. I tend to turn off stuff halfway through. I’m just gonna set it aside for the moment and focus on another hobby of mine like movies and reading books. The itch will return, it always does. I agree with sek in that the film and music industries are filled with degenerates like wrestling is. While I may not watch Roman Polanski or Woody Allen films, I might enjoy a film that have been produced by a monster *cough*Weinstein*cough*. Or this morning I was listening to Motley Crue’s first album and the singer Vince Neil had killed his friend in a car crash and put 2 people in a coma during a bender and only served 30 days in jail and a bit of community service because he was famous. That doesn’t even touch all of the sleazy stuff the band admits to in The Dirt. That being said, I would have to try not to think about it or I wouldn’t have a whole lot to watch or listen to if that’s the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 Amazing post by @Jimmy Redman. Very odd criticisms of Drake Maverick by others in this thread. In wrestling, it has always been drilled in everyone's heads to honor their bookings no matter what. That is what Drake is doing. Is he right? Wrong? It's not for us to say. I sure as fuck wouldn't do it, but he's an adult who can make his own decisions. He probably thinks this will open the door to him eventually being re-signed. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but I do think it's bullshit that he didn't get the same amount of appreciation for saving the 24-7 division that R-Truth has. Truth deserves all the credit in the world, but so does Drake. The fact is, that was probably Drake's ceiling in the company, unfortunately, because he's "short." WWE needs to take a long hard look at who it pushes, why, and how talent is used in general, but that will never, ever happen. The real question to ask here is why racist, homophobic, gay porn star Lars Sullivan hasn't been released yet. He is a useless liability who brings absolutely nothing to the table at this point but shame and bad publicity. No one would care that Lars once did gay porn - well, okay, redneck Jim Cornette beef jerky jerking rasslin' fans would - but doing those videos while expressing blatant homophobic views is a hole he can't dig himself out of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiva Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if they had completely forgot Lars Sullivan is on the books. They have such a bloated roster that someone will slip through the cracks, WCW style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted April 17, 2020 Report Share Posted April 17, 2020 Is Lars on the injured list still? There's probably some kind of financial trickery where someone injured can be made to not count against the books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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