Speaking Out and Ranking Wrestlers

[Grimmas]

A lot of wrestlers are scumbugs and a lot of wrestlers have done some horrible things. How is that going to affect your ability to rank a wrestler?

Last time, people had issues with ranking Benoit but were pretty much okay with everyone else. After speaking out and social movements, I don't know if that he will be the only one this time?

There is two ways this could really affect your rankings, in my view. 

1) You don't want to watch this person, so you can't really rank them due to that.

2) You already know the wrestler well enough, so now you have a choice.

I have a hard time separating the art and the human, but I don't know where this will go from me. Will it just eliminate them from my list or just hurt how high I can put them? It's a struggle.

Where do you stand?

[Dav'oh]

Context.

The two main guys mentioned are Lawler and Benoit. The context of the Benoit tragedy is completely different to a lifetime of predatory sexual behaviour towards under-aged girls (apparently Dundee was as bad, if not worse, than Lawler).

I see Benoit's situation as an extraordinary set of circumstances and an utter tragedy for all involved. Lawler and the Speaking Out shitcunts are a different story. 

[NotJayTabb]

I would freely admit that I'm not very consistent on things like this, and I genuinely can't explain or justify why that is. Like, I still really like Chinatown and I still watch Woody Allen films, but I haven't listened to Lostprophets in a decade. I'm the same with wrestling - I still watch old CHIKARA, and Quack has a good shot for my list, despite being a scumbag. Same with Lawler, and I think that's in part because a lot of his offences happened before I knew who he was, it's easier to keep separate in my mind. Conversely, I can't bring myself to watch the likes of Jack Gallagher or Travis Banks now, they feel ruined for me. No real logic to it, sadly.

Regarding Benoit, that feels different because it's arguable that his issues were a result of his wrestling style. Watching Chris Benoit miss a diving headbutt or split William Regal open with a headbutt does feel like you're watching a man damage his brain to a tragic conclusion, so for that reason he's out.

[cubbymark]

I had Benoit on my list at 100 last time around. I can’t deny that he had such a large influence on my enjoyment of pro wrestling up until the point in time the modern/suicide tragedies occurred. I can’t pretend Benoit still doesn’t have some influence on the modern style presented today. That being said, I won’t vote for him any higher because of all those same reasons. I consider Benoit to be my scarlet letter of enjoyment of pro wrestling and he will probably stay at 100 for as many GWE lists as I end up being a part of. 
 

As for all the sexual assault guys and speaking out guys, it’s much easier for me to dismiss them out of hand with the exception of Jerry Lawler. It’s because of the Benoit tragedy that I started to enjoy the more, “less is more” approach from guys like Lawler. So for me, it’s likely Lawler will drop on my list this time around. 
 

[GSR]

Jim Breaks was pimped pretty heavily last time around, will people be voting for him after he was charged with murdering his girlfriend a couple of years ago?

People were talking about Invader I being a top 20-25 candidate.  Does his murder of Bruiser Brody in cold blood affect things for them?

[Matt D]

With Breaks, the court found him to be unfit to stand trial. It's tragic and could speak to elements of his character but I'm not sure it has a bearing on what happened in his career decades before. Do people hold what happened with Verne 40 years after he was done wrestling against him as a candidate?

I do think ultimately it's going to come down to whether or not people are comfortable watching wrestlers. If you can't watch the footage, you can't rank the wrestlers.

[Grimmas]

7 minutes ago, Matt D said:

 

I do think ultimately it's going to come down to whether or not people are comfortable watching wrestlers. If you can't watch the footage, you can't rank the wrestlers.

I think that is one aspect, but the other aspect is "are you comfortable ranking the wrestler" as well. A GWE list is basically honouring wrestlers, do I want to honour a rapist or a murder or a racist? 

I don't know, it's a struggle for me.

[soup23]

Will be ranking numerous bad humans including Benoit. I get the struggle for some but always something I have been able to compartmentalize and don’t feel it is honoring anything besides their contributions in ring. 

[Matt D]

12 minutes ago, Grimmas said:

I think that is one aspect, but the other aspect is "are you comfortable ranking the wrestler" as well. A GWE list is basically honouring wrestlers, do I want to honour a rapist or a murder or a racist? 

I don't know, it's a struggle for me.

So I can understand that sentiment, but it's not how I see this. I'm not honoring anyone. I'm trying to find some sort of truth based on specific criteria. With certain wrestlers, I will not be able to find that truth because I'm not willing to rewatch their matches and they're thereby unable to be listed. Otherwise the truth, based on my criteria (and i admit that my criteria can be unique, but it tends to be consistent), is going to be the truth, no matter how I feel.

Look, wrestling is a wretched, excess-laden business based on carny principles and manipulating people. If we're honoring anyone for anything, it's who's best at manipulating people's emotions and conning them out of their money through performances alone. It's built into the equation. It's full of hazing, bullying, misuse of power, adultery, drug use.

I'm not sure you can even find 100 decent people in any culture over any era to make a list of. Molly Holly, Daniel Bryan, and Tito Santana are an awesome WAR team, but...

If this is the weight you're carrying on your shoulders for the sake of this project, you're going to make yourself absolutely miserable in figuring out how to possibly exclude one wrestler for exposing himself on airplanes but keeping another one on who bullied younger wrestlers as part of the Japanese valet system (as they were bullied themselves previously) or whatever.

[El Boricua]

3 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Look, wrestling is a wretched, excess-laden business based on carny principles and manipulating people. If we're honoring anyone for anything, it's who's best at manipulating people's emotions and conning them out of their money through performances alone. It's built into the equation. It's full of hazing, bullying, misuse of power, adultery, drug use.

 

This is along the lines of my thoughts on what wrestling is. For the most part, except for cases where the work itself is impacted by or a cause of who or what the wrestler is or did, the issue at hand is not so much where does this person rank based on their output or work, it's what does it say about me if I am endorsing or accepting of the work/output from this person. 

[cubbymark]

Matt D mentioned hazing, and if my understanding of Japanese dojo’s is correct, they were notorious for hazing trainees. A lot of the Joshi names Grimmas is high on more than likely participated in hazing trainees or were victims of hazing themselves.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't have time for people who say they're never going to watch wrestling again and wind up watching it. To me that's just posturing. I don't know any of these wrestlers personally so who am I to judge them? Especially if it's based on hearsay or rumour. 

[jushin muta liger]

9 minutes ago, cubbymark said:

Matt D mentioned hazing, and if my understanding of Japanese dojo’s is correct, they were notorious for hazing trainees. A lot of the Joshi names Grimmas is high on more than likely participated in hazing trainees or were victims of hazing themselves.

 

I was about to say that. Forgot which interview I found a translation of but one of the 90s joshi wrestlers that started in the 80s said that she was bullied until she started to ride on the heel bus with Dump Matsumoto ironically.

Like others have said, wrestling is what it is. It's just like in life, there is levels of discretion when it comes to how you tolerate these things.

I remember Bomani Jones from ESPN making a great point when Bill Withers died and how so many people gave him praise for his musical career but didn't know he abused his wife. Same for James Brown and other entertainers. I understand people will make a moral stand and understand when people won't.

Luckily for me, I was never a fan of the people named in Speaking Out to begin with. But some wrestlers who are horrible irl, I will rank because I feel they are some of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Like others have said, this is list is not honoring them.

[Grimmas]

8 minutes ago, Cien Caras said:

Its either naive or willfully ignorant to let moral judgement play any part in this, just accept you are a fan of a horrible, scummy industry and pro wrestling is great because of that, not in spite of. 

I have no problem with others that want to vote for horrible people.

I may end up voting for some, but I am sure uncomfortable with it. It's a struggle for me personally. How am I naïve or ignorant in that case?

[Kadaveri]

I'm not going to rank Benoit but the other cases probably aren't going to affect me.

I think Benoit is peculiarly difficult case to separate the art from the person because you're constantly being reminded of what he did when watching his matches. I don't think there's any wrestler in history who was so constantly reckless and brutal with his own body. Literally even on random Smackdown matches he's crashing headfirst into the announce table on suicide dives, getting dropped on his head with brainbusters and regularly using the flying headbutt as a signature. Add on that his habit of taking particularly brutal unprotected chairshots to the head (sometimes to the back of the head). Now when you find out they did an autopsy after his death and he had the brain of a 85 year old Alzheimers patient, how can you not see that coming out of his work? We'll never know for sure if this contributed to him doing what he did, but it's likely enough that I just can't enjoy his matches anymore.

[Grimmas]

4 minutes ago, Cien Caras said:

I think it’s a good conversation to have.

My point is that rather than look at it as which individuals fail to meet an objective moral threshold, they are all products of the fundamental nature of the industry itself for the reasons I have mentioned. If you have issues with that (and that is entirely up to you), then it’s an issue with being a fan of pro wrestling.

Default position is to accept anyone involved is scum, whether it’s known about already or will come out in the future. No separation of art and artist.

If someone is known as a scum, it hurts my view of them for sure. If I don't know, then I don't know. I'm not going to assume anything about anyone. I'm not going to go into individual cases here.

Yes, though, if someone is an abuser it hurts and it might hurt their standing on my list and/or take them off my list. I can't look at two people, 1 a known abuser and 1 with no accusations, and not feel bad about putting the abuser above the one with no reputation for that.

I REALLY have a hard time separating the art from the person, so I'm not saying anyone else should follow this.

[Cap]

I'm not entirely sure if or how it will all impact my list. For the most part, I sort of agree with what seems like the prevailing sentiment so far. Wrestling is stacked with terrible people, some we know a lot about... some we know a little about.... some we think we know about.... some we don't know about.  It isn't to excuse shitty behavior at all, but I sort of think we all at least tacitly understand and accept some duality in this. I can't imagine anyone being on this board or participating in this project while NOT knowing about the dark side of wrestling. I'm also not sure I conceptualize this as a process of "honoring" people, but I guess  I can see that, especially at the absolute top of one's list. Regardless, it is probably best practice in my view to not think of it as a matter of honoring wrestlers. That risks muddling the criteria more than is helpful) Again... just me.   That said, for me it doesn't mean I can compartmentalize everything cleanly.

To Kadaveri's point, Benoit is probably not on my list because of how frequently I am reminded of what ultimately happened in the body of his matches.  I can throw on a random match here and there, but I don't enjoy it in the same way that I used to and I can't dive into him or even get a good refresher on his work. 

I've never been able to really figure out if I am just lower on Jerry Lawler than others or if his reputation (and his announcing work) just pull me out of it subconsciously. It isn't that I don't think he is good or that I will not rank him (I likely will), he will just likely be a good bit lower on my list than many others, esp those with similar tastes to mine. He strikes me as an example of how knowing what I know (or what I think I know) might affect my list despite my best efforts. I just genuinely don't know.

I'll probably also go back and forth on this a little bit in the next 5 years as I think more carefully about specific wrestlers and cases, but for the most part I think I can more or less compartmentalize things and feel fairly comfortable with doing so in a project like this. However, there are exceptions and I recognize there might be some just subconscious ways outside the ring stuff seeps into my evaluation of inside the ring stuff. 

 

[BrandonWagemann]

I think the only wrestler named in Speaking out that I would consider on my list would be David Starr so speaking out from last summer rally doesn’t really effect my list all that much unless we get a part 2 in these next couple years. I think a lot of people will be advocating for Ospreay especially since he is the IWGP champ now and seems to be the top Gaijin in New Japan going forward unless that fanbase goes entirely away. 

[Noah's_Savior]

13 hours ago, cubbymark said:

Matt D mentioned hazing, and if my understanding of Japanese dojo’s is correct, they were notorious for hazing trainees. A lot of the Joshi names Grimmas is high on more than likely participated in hazing trainees or were victims of hazing themselves.

 

Even under the protection of anonymity most joshi wrestlers don't discuss bullying and hazing but that's a symptom of strict hierarchy seen in many parts of Japanese society, from sports, theater troupes, the office, school, etc. One wrestler who was a rookie in the late 80s got smacked in the face with a shoe and bleed cause a senior felt she was blindly nodding her head when another senior was talking to them on the bus. In those instances it's a matter of should you hold specific dojos to task over what they, and the generations before them, feel is the correct way to train juniors into respecting seniors and institutions. 

[Clayton Jones]

Just listen to the CW Anderson episode of Dreamer's podcast if you want to hear some of the fucked up shit Yoshihito Sasaki endured in Zero 1. It's not exclusive to joshi.

I think as Grimmas talked about on the launch podcast these are very complicated very human problems and not everyone is going to be able to judge 100% consistently or logically. I think for me I'm just trying to focus on keeping the project as fun as possible while being as thorough as that allows. What that means for me is different than what that means for you and that's fine.

[Dav'oh]

I don't think this project would get very far if it was:

Who Would Jesus Vote For?

[Hobbes]

I can't fault anyone for not enjoying someone's work once they find out they've done awful things, and so likewise, I'll never fault someone for not ranking somebody in a list for that reason. If learning some horrible fact ruins your enjoyment of a wrestler's work, then how can you rank them in a very personal project like a list of favorites? I generally separate art from artists but sometimes even I will have to go "I'm going to have to take a break from this wrestler/musician/writer/etc for a while" right after I learn about some atrocity they committed.

What I will add though is I feel like it's pretty important for society, in general, to not conflate skill with being a good person. Talent in a profession does in no way prove any kind of personal character. You can be great at a profession and be a terrible person, you can be horrible at one and be amazingly kind and decent. I think in a world where people so often defend disgraced celebrities because they like their work, it'd be great if we could train people that talent and morality have little to no link. That's why I kind of like Meltzer creating the new Observer award that's basically "Wrestlers who actually did nice things this year", it's completely separate from awards for artistic achievement.

I think it's also easier for me to separate art from the artist because I know I have zero influence on their lives. If I give a scumbag a good match review on a podcast or a high ranking on a list, I'm not doing anything to improve their lives. If I was an actual tastemaker or in a position of power anywhere, it'd get more complicated, but it's an advantage to being a shmuck. No one's life is changing because I like or dislike them.

Finally, maybe this is cowardly, but separating art and artists just makes a lot of stuff easier for me. If I were to dock or ban people from reviews and projects for doing terrible stuff, where do I draw the line? If I set a moral standard you have to pass to get mentioned, what's my bar? Unpetentent murder and rape are easy to quantify and throw the book at, but there's a whole world of stuff beneath that. Also, how much responsibility would I then have to research the morals of every wrestler I talk about? Again, maybe it's cowardly, but it's just easier to say "I will cover everyone".

[Grimmas]

6 minutes ago, Hobbes said:

What I will add though is I feel like it's pretty important for society, in general, to not conflate skill with being a good person. Talent in a profession does in no way prove any kind of personal character. You can be great at a profession and be a terrible person, you can be horrible at one and be amazingly kind and decent. I think in a world where people so often defend disgraced celebrities because they like their work, it'd be great if we could train people that talent and morality have little to no link. 

 

I wanted to highlight this point, because it is important.

[Matt D]

Time does weird things too.

For instance, I doubt he'll get nominated, though he was very good, but here's Spartacus:

French wrestler from 1960, good KO punch, good strength, good mat technician, right?

What if I told you that later in life he was a contract killer? A hitman. Probably killed people. That he was arrested trying to kill the Gaston Glock? Since it's a crazy historical story and we only have black and white footage of the guy and you've probably never heard of him before, how does that make you feel?

How would you feel if, let's say, a strong, agile wrestler like Brian Cage got arrested four years from now for doing something similar?

See? Time is weird.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm kind of curious how far people go with this.

Let's pretend your favorite Japanese wrestler doesn't like foreigners, says disparaging things about them, and would likely treat you the same way if you met them, would you still rank them? If you found our your favorite Japanese wrestler made chauvinistic remarks towards women, would you still support them? Bullying? Hazing? Where do you draw the line?