So, "Ring of Hell"...

[Jingus]

What's funny about this one is that you're clinging to it being jdw vs. Snowden. The reality is a half dozen other posters have pointed out your nonsense as you keep trying to "explain" and morph. It's not like you can write those posters off as my proteges - I don't think most of them even like me.

Yeah. I had to fight back the urge to post a facepalm jpeg. Just didn't seem appropriate for this relatively mature board.

[floyd]

I'm About a third of the way through the book "Ring of Hell" and it's a pretty fascinatingly read. It's all bout Chris Benoit but instead of dwelling about the murders, it's more of a psychological profile of all the fucked up things Benoit went through to achieve his dream and eventually drive him insane.

 

The chapters are divided into the bricks that started the wall of insanity that finally tumbled and crashed down in the final days of his life.

 

Chapter 1: "The Mark" - Quick introduction to Chris Benoit's mindset at the time of the murders.

 

Chapter 2: "A Small Man" - Description of quiet, small Benoit's obsession of the Dynamite Kid and his mimicry of him. Dynamite Kid is painted as not only one of the best wrestlers in the world, but also a sadistic self-loathing sociopath.

 

Chapter 3: "Kayfabe" - Talks about Stampede Wrestling and Benoit's training in the Stu Hart "Dungeon" and the Harts craziness.

 

Chapter 4: "This is New Japan. It is like Soldier" - Bad News got Benoit in the New japan dojo to be trained in the hardest and most intense wrestling style on the planet. Only around 1% of the trainees make it to graduation, the majority leave after the 1st session. Stories of humiliation and detachment to emotional and physical pain are found here. Also the histroy of Japanese wrestling and it's Yakuza ties are introduced.

 

Chapter 5: "The Boots of the the Dynamite Kid" - After graduating Benoit is sent back to Stampede to get bigger. By this time Dynamite was the booker and hopeless drug addict. Benoit continued to idolize him.

 

 

The thing that's been staying in my mind throughout this book is this. Right before starting the book on another forum I read what a sell-out The Rock is for not staying in wrestling and instead snubbing the industry that started him. After reading a few chapters of this book, I'm convinced the Rock may be the smartest wrestler who ever lived. Despite such a huge mega-sucess he was able to shake it off and leave wrestling and will end up being able to walk without chronic pain at 40.

[Guest jushin muta liger]

After reading the thread, I can't wait for my book to come in the mail and I was wondering what the reaction is to Karl Stern's response to the book.

 

But with the stuff that happened in the New Japan dojo, the only thing that I have come close to the abuse is the stuff that guys do to get in a fraternity. I have heard many wrestlers say that being in the business is like being in a fraternity. I have heard of people getting pissed on (literally) and being punched in the face just to get in a frat which sounds awfully familiar to the abuse in the New Japan with the exception of the sodomizing. Hopefully, I do not offend anybody who is in a fraternity but the abuse in wrestling is pretty much the same to fraternities as they have this secret society complex going on.

[blueminister]

After reading the thread, I can't wait for my book to come in the mail and I was wondering what the reaction is to Karl Stern's response to the book.

I don't subscribe to F4W any more, was there anything especially significant about his take?

[Guest totalmma]

Standard Snowden.

 

He writes something that doesn't make sense.

See, I think it does make sense. Just not as a single sentence isolated from the whole. But since you're incapable of approaching anything that way, the conversation is damned to a jdw-style breakdown.

 

 

The defense is pointed out to be wrong.

Is this where other socially dysfunctional people made lists with dates where Benoit jumped off the cage or talked about other things not related to the central point?

 

He tries to morph it: "What I really meant was..."

 

The morph is wrong as well.

I broke it down for you in a style even you can understand. Was Jewett so important to your gimmick that you can't even discuss things without his guiding hand?

 

 

What's funny about this one is that you're clinging to it being jdw vs. Snowden.

 

I'm not really super interested in "jdw vs. Snowden." I fully concede that you know more about wrestling than I do. Probably know more about porn and Lord of the Rings too. It is known. Hell, I would throw my wrestling knowledge on the woodpile. I can't bring the high end posts with dozens of date spots or lists of five star matches. I wasn't even on a plane with Meltzer. Not even a domestic flight.

 

The reality is a half dozen other posters have pointed out your nonsense as you keep trying to "explain" and morph. It's not like you can write those posters off as my proteges - I don't think most of them even like me.

A half a dozen other posters wrote things that weren't responsive to the overall article I wrote or to Matt's book. Which should surprise no one. The bigger picture has never been your strength and it isn't surprising it isn't really present in the wrestling "conversationalists" you've spawned.

 

You don't think Heyman helped spawn a destructive style of wrestling? Really? Whether ECW wrestlers left for that reason or not, did the faster and harder style not shorten what had in the past been relatively long careers?

 

 

Look at the ECW cast. How many of them are still in the business in any significant way? How many of them would still be in the business pre workrate/stunt show style? I still maintain that Heyman played a huge role in making both of those styles palatable to the mainstream wrestling fans.

[Benbeeach]

I don't think most of them even like me.

. . . I like you John

[Resident Evil]

In all seriousness, I like JDW too. He has a sensible head on his shoulders.

[Guest totalmma]

In all seriousness, I like JDW too. He has a sensible head on his shoulders.

This seems about right.

[Guest jushin muta liger]

After reading the thread, I can't wait for my book to come in the mail and I was wondering what the reaction is to Karl Stern's response to the book.

I don't subscribe to F4W any more, was there anything especially significant about his take?

 

Stern's response is on the front page of the website. I don't subscribe either, so I don't know what Randazzo said to make him say this.

 

Karl Stern's Ring of Hell Interview Response

By: Karl SternThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

First off I want to thank Matthew Randazzo V for coming on Bryan Alvarez's Figure Four Daily Show and speaking openly about his book Ring of Hell. There has been a great degree of controversy about his book in the wrestling community and I admire the fact that he would be willing to be cross-examined by Bryan on the contents.

 

Mr. Randazzo made several remarks about my criticisms toward his book which I posted at The Board on Figure Four's website. It has been suggested that I should respond to some of his statements and clarify my feelings about his book.

 

First of all, you essentially imply that you don't know me. I don't expect you to, my background in the wrestling business is as follows: I was a fan, in the mid-1990's I wrestled independently for about three years, I followed that up by promoting shows in the deep south. In the late 1990's I started a historically focused wrestling newsletter called DragonKing Wrestling Newsletter. You make a comedic remark about that name, it was in fact, a joke based on the name of an indy wrestler with whom I worked.

 

My only national "claim to fame" was with issue 17 of the newsletter where I presented a detailed study on the possibility of racial discrimination within the wrestling business. Based on the findings of that detailed study, Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter published the results and elaborated on it. After reading about that study in Observer I was contacted by the law firm Cary Ichter runs in Atlanta, GA (the same attorney involved in the Chris Benoit case) to help him compile facts and figures for use in a law suit against Turner Sports where several minority wrestlers sued (successfully) the company. Oh yes, and a lot of those "under 40 death lists" that were floated around the internet and talk shows when the Benoit story broke. Those originated in my newsletter also.

 

So, I am not now, nor have I ever been one who had "protected the business". I was a journalist, it was not my job to protect the business, why would I? I stopped taking bookings as a wrestler in 1998. I stopped promoting in 1999. I now have no ties to the wrestling industry other than the audio show I do reviewing classic wrestling at F4W.

 

But enough about me.

 

My criticism of your book can best be summed up as follows: You had an excellent opportunity to expose the problems within the business, many life threatening. You had a book with wide distribution where you could have championed reforms within the business. You had a chance to expose the many demons the wrestling business is plagued with. Instead you wrote an over-sensationalized book focused on name calling instead of problem solving.

 

Many of the problems you allude to in the book are legitimate but the venom with which you treat the wrestlers and the fans causes those legitimate points to become lost. By stating that one who pursues a wrestling career is "fundamentally too stupid, irresponsible, and silly to ever allow for victimhood" (page 17) is so crass than any legitimate point you may have had gets lost in the bally hoo.

 

You refer to wrestlers as "Tyrannosaurus Rex" armed, "bird armed" (in reference to Honky Tonk Man, and you and I must be seeing different wrestlers), "pansy", "incompetent", and my favorite "slovenly, homely, and laid back". That's just a few of the unflattering adjectives you throw at most of the wrestlers named in your book. I will not even begin on the adverbs describing every event in the most despicable hyperbole imaginable. Your legitimate points get lost in the sensationalism. Honestly, by the end of the book I was reading it just to see how much foul language you could use in one paragraph to describe any event or person. I will not reduce myself to reprinting some of them here.

 

Finally, my harshest criticisms are likely the fault of your publisher and not you. The book was terribly proof read. Misspellings abound and your use of the words "doting" and "popcorn entertainment" are repeated ad nauseum throughout the book. Again, that was the job of a proof reader so I don't lay that one at your feet.

 

In the end, to quote Dr. Evil, "we're not so different, you and I". You look at the wrestling business, and from the tone of your book I walk away feeling that you have nothing but hate and contempt for the wrestling business and everyone in it. If that's not how you feel, then that's certainly how I read it. I look at the wrestling business and I see a business full of a lot of good guys with a lot of very bad apples, which if weeded out, might save lives. I have no love for Vince McMahon and how he has handled the repeated opportunities to legitimately clean the business up, but I don't believe as you put it, that everyone who chooses to enter the business is fundamentally too stupid, irresponsible, and silly to ever allow for victimhood.

[MikeCampbell]

Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else.

For all of your snide remarks and complaining, you have yet to say anything to even attempt to back up your statement. I've already discussed how unlikely it is that his work in ECW had anything to do with Benoit going to WCW. JDW already pointed out that they left for greener pastures, not because they couldn't keep up. Can you name one ECW wrestler that Paul 'replaced' they couldn't keep up the pace?

 

You mentioned before that a lot of ECW's wrestlers are out of the business now because of the style of wrestling. Why is it that Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman, Spike Dudley, and Raven, four guys who were pretty big names in ECW and who all worked the stuntman style, are all still around and still wrestling today?

 

It seems more reasonable, to me, to assume that they're out of the business now because they weren't good enough to get picked up by WWE. And they weren't good enough, or a big enough name to make a decent living on the indy circuit. Why is Roadkill, who never worked the stuntman style, nowhere to be found, while New Jack, who dove out of balcony's, is still working indy shows?

[Guest totalmma]

Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else.

For all of your snide remarks and complaining, you have yet to say anything to even attempt to back up your statement.

You're right. That statement is wrong. Although Heyman's booking and style may have shortened careers, it did not drive people out of ECW. I stand corrected. That sentence, one of many, taken on its face is not correct. I think that has been established beyond a doubt. No way people left the Bingo Hall for more money because they were tired of using their bodies up for pennies.

 

You mentioned before that a lot of ECW's wrestlers are out of the business now because of the style of wrestling. Why is it that Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman, Spike Dudley, and Raven, four guys who were pretty big names in ECW and who all worked the stuntman style, are all still around and still wrestling today?

Oh wow. These are guys still barely hanging in there on the fringes of the industry. These guys are all casualties in some ways, of course not on the level of Bigelow, or Mike Awesome or countless others. None of those guys were capable of sustaining the style of wrestling that made them famous. It's actually rather damning. Who from ECW is still a mainstream star in the industry?

[Loss]

Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else.

I honestly think this is completely correct, and don't really understand where the initial argument came from, nor do I see the problem with the original quote. "Couldn't continue at that pace" doesn't mean that they were crippled into retirement necessarily -- it can also mean that they could no longer justify taking such huge risks in front of such small audiences for relatively low pay. I would be surprised if anyone honestly felt no one ever left ECW for that reason.

 

Regardless of what the exact reason was for each wrestler leaving (read: leaving for another promotion), the reasons were all symptomatic of the same root cause of risk versus reward. When Heyman lost Benoit, Malenko, and Guerrero to do those demanding token wrestling matches on the same show, he immediately brought in Rey Misterio, Juventud Guerrera, and Psicosis. I'm pretty sure that exchange took place in a ridiculously short window of time -- I think I've read even one day in the past. ECW didn't skip a beat in the transaction, which sounds like "disposable" to me.

 

I also read it as a statement about the promoting style in ECW that later carried over to WWE, where the company name is the big draw and the wrestlers are all fairly interchangeable and the storylines are largely inconsequential. More of a promoting style where it's about the overall experience (even if WWE doesn't use that language in the way ECW often did). If you want to see where that promoting trend started, you look back at ECW, and you can still see it being played out in some ways today.

 

Since pro wrestling started, promoters have had to deal with talent coming and going, but prior to Heyman promoting in ECW, they all lived and died on who was in their territory at that point in time. ECW didn't, hence Paul Heyman being the first promoter to treat wrestlers like the disposable commodities they are.

 

Where is the disconnect?

[MikeCampbell]

Who from ECW is still a mainstream star in the industry?

It depends on your view of 'mainstream star' but the Dudley Boyz/Team 3D are still one of the most recognizable teams in the business. Also, there was Rob Van Dam, before he got busted.

[blueminister]

After reading the thread, I can't wait for my book to come in the mail and I was wondering what the reaction is to Karl Stern's response to the book.

I don't subscribe to F4W any more, was there anything especially significant about his take?

Stern's response is on the front page of the website. I don't subscribe either, so I don't know what Randazzo said to make him say this.

Now that I've listened to his radio show I can't keep from hearing a thick southern drawl in my head as I read it. Mr. Irregardless lecturing somebody on proofreading is pretty funny, as well as the fact that he feels an outsider has some obligation to champion reforms to the industry. As if there were any reforms past WWE's recent "don't fall on your fucking head too hard" initiatives and Gabe's revolutionary "no cussin'" policy to champion. Still, in terms of radio shows with one person talking about shit for over an hour he smokes Mike Coughlin's series of overdramatic MMA thoughts.

[Resident Evil]

It's true that on average ECW created an atmosphere that pushed people into a more destructive working style. It's ture that workers would feel an obligation to be extreme and to take more risks than normal. It kind of reminds me of the WCW in years past before that being the workrate/real wrestling fan promotion. One could say WCW created an atmosphere that pushed people into a more destructive wrestling style especially compared to the tamer WWF. Than there was the extra money thing to whoever had the best match. A move which everyone praises which is kind of weird because ECW did a similar thing in promoting the bar to be raised but they get criticized for it. I guess because they went too far.

 

However, looking at it from the other side of the coin -- in ECW in its beginning years they had a bunch of wrestlers that wanted to push themselves past their own personal pain barriers. They were largely responsible for creating the ECW atmosphere of all out or nothing at all. You put 2 Cold Scorpio, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Terry Funk, Sabu, Rey Mysterio Jr., Chris Benoit (who actually had it easier in ECW than what he was used to), Chris Jericho, Cactus Jack, Mikey Whipwreck and others on a card and you've created an atmosphere already. These people in particular would set the bar higher than any wrestler promoter could possibly do. They're going to push themselves. And when you people pushing themselves, it causes others to work harder. You will see this in sports and in physical labour in particular. It's contagious. Ricky Steamboat in the WWF alone caused this effect. Imagine what all these guys could do together especially if they're more featured in a promotion.

 

 

 

We saw it in WCW too. The Steiners, Sting, Pillman, Luger, Steamboat, Austin, Flair and others all created a harder working atmosphere. You see it in Japan a lot. Hard workers make others work harder.

[ohtani's jacket]

I found an interview with Maxx Payne where he talks about dojo life -- http://www.pinfalls.com/maxx.html

[Johnny Sorrow]

Having a Southern accent is somehow relevent to someone's opinion?

[Jingus]

To people not from the South, sadly all too often.

[ohtani's jacket]

So, I read Chapter Four: This is New Japan. It is like Soldier. I don't doubt the validity of what Matt wrote, but you have to take into the story he wanted to tell and how he presented the information. Read the full Maxx Payne interview, which Matt quoted from in the chapter, and you'll get a fair idea of what I'm talking about. Having said that, I thought he gave a pretty fair portrayal of the mentality behind the training. Some of the points he dwelled on were stupid and I'm surprised he wrote about them given he lived in Japan for a while, and I didn't like the way he summed up post-War Japan and the relationship between Japan and Korea in such an overly simplistic way, nor anything he wrote about Japan or Japanese people to be honest, but again, it was pretty obvious the slant he was taking on that.

 

Nevertheless, I do think the chapter illustrates how open to abuse the senpai/kohai relationship is. Personally, I didn't find the stories sadistic or violent, I came away with an impression of how moronic wrestlers can be. Not that the mentality is limited to wrestling mind you. It reminded me in part of Kamp Staaldraad.

 

I suspect Matt is right that this kind of training wasn't healthy for a person like Benoit and it doesn't seem like he learnt particularly good lessons from it (not the lessons you're supposed to learn, anyway), but how much a part it played in shaping Benoit is a little unclear given how many people pass through it OK. Though I guess those people aren't lifers like Benoit was.

[blueminister]

Having a Southern accent is somehow relevent to someone's opinion?

i've lived in the South my entire life and speaking as somebody who is probably More Southern Than You Karl's got one of the thickest drawls I've ever heard, wanna challenge me to a duel over it or something

[kjh]

I also read it as a statement about the promoting style in ECW that later carried over to WWE, where the company name is the big draw and the wrestlers are all fairly interchangeable and the storylines are largely inconsequential. More of a promoting style where it's about the overall experience (even if WWE doesn't use that language in the way ECW often did). If you want to see where that promoting trend started, you look back at ECW, and you can still see it being played out in some ways today.

 

Since pro wrestling started, promoters have had to deal with talent coming and going, but prior to Heyman promoting in ECW, they all lived and died on who was in their territory at that point in time. ECW didn't, hence Paul Heyman being the first promoter to treat wrestlers like the disposable commodities they are.

I really think you're overplaying ECW's influence on WWE's promoting style, as Vince McMahon always promoted his brand name above his wrestlers and treated his wrestlers as disposable commodities. He'd take a regional or even national wrestling star, repackage them with a new name and gimmick, push them hard if they got over and start the process all over again when they inevitably left his company, theoretically damaged goods as they would be buried on their way out and couldn't take their names and gimmicks with them to opposition promotions.

 

It's also an exaggeration that ECW didn't live and die on their talent, as so many stars leaving them in late 1999 - early 2000 did hurt them badly and they'd have been dead in the water a lot more quickly if RVD quit earlier. If RVD was disposable, why did Heyman fight so hard to keep him and give him a lucrative six figure contract that he knew he would struggle to pay.

[Loss]

I really think you're overplaying ECW's influence on WWE's promoting style, as Vince McMahon always promoted his brand name above his wrestlers and treated his wrestlers as disposable commodities. He'd take a regional or even national wrestling star, repackage them with a new name and gimmick, push them hard if they got over and start the process all over again when they inevitably left his company, theoretically damaged goods as they would be buried on their way out and couldn't take their names and gimmicks with them to opposition promotions.

Hulk Hogan would disagree. Vince relied on him to carry the company to an overwhelming degree. He tried doing the same with Bret, Michaels, and Diesel, all to lesser results. His father had always done the same with guys like Sammartino and Backlund. Until the past few years, the top star had always been the absolute most important aspect of the company, and it used to matter much more than it does now who was in that spot. Now, anyone could leave WWE (except for Vince himself) without doing any damage, which makes them disposable.

 

It's also not just WWE that does this today. Ring of Honor also sells itself on being Ring of Honor, more than it does who is on their roster.

 

It's also an exaggeration that ECW didn't live and die on their talent, as so many stars leaving them in late 1999 - early 2000 did hurt them badly and they'd have been dead in the water a lot more quickly if RVD quit earlier. If RVD was disposable, why did Heyman fight so hard to keep him and give him a lucrative six figure contract that he knew he would struggle to pay.

I don't think I'd personally cite Paul Heyman's business decisions as proof of anything, because it was those business decisions that ended up killing ECW. ECW was horribly mismanaged, but Heyman was a great motivator and manipulator, which is why they hung in so long. Losing the talent obviously didn't help anything, but ECW's problem in late 1999 and early 2000 was that the WWF and WCW had taken all the things about the booking style that made it original and done them on a bigger scale to better results. It's not something the presence of Rob Van Dam could have stopped, and it would have happened even if Benoit or Malenko or Eddy or Rey or Juvi or Psicosis or whoever else you want to name were still around.

[sek69]

I was reminded of this thread while watching RAW and hearing them sell the HHH vs Cena feud as "two guys who were big fans growing up watching WWE" as if their fandom as kids was the main focus of the feud. Not to mention they're two of the biggest stars WWE has had for the last 5 years at least and both have missed significant time without the company really missing a beat.

[Bob Morris]

When it comes to the ECW/Heyman argument and who/what promoted the wrestling style, I can see the argument to some extent. Raven is the perfect example... he was working a safer style prior to starting his ECW career. Did Scotty Flamingo ever resort to multiple table, chair and other foreign object shots and a reckless style?

 

But I think the point that is being missed is that, when it came to Chris Benoit, he was already wrestling a style that was going to lead to the injuries he accumulated. Working in ECW certainly didn't help, but even if Benoit had never shown up in ECW, he likely would not have stopped doing the flying headbutts and multiple suplexes that took their toll on his body.

 

Would a wrestler like Raven have kept the same styles he worked prior to his ECW run if he had never been in ECW? Perhaps, perhaps not.

 

But I think a better way to put it is this: Heyman's booking style and approach encouraged some wrestlers to work a more dangerous style, but some wrestlers were already doing just that, so who Heyman affected really depended on the wrestler in question.

 

EDIT: I will add, though, that the statement that Heyman recognizing "wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are" causes some people to infer that "Heyman made the decision to no longer use certain wrestlers" when, in reality, that was not true for the most part. It would have been better to say that Heyman recognized the importance of stressing brand over wrestlers, knowing that there was no guarantee a wrestler would be working for the company, whether by the wrestler's choice, Heyman's choice or some other factor.

[MikeCampbell]

Raven is sort of a tricky example though. Because he created Raven to completely overhaul himself in the business to update with the times. If he came out as Raven, same character and same attitude, and wrestled like Scotty the Body or Scotty Flamingo, he'd have been booed out of the building. How far did he got with the stuntman style? I'm recalling the famous chairshot from Dreamer, and when one of the pitbulls bounched his head off the table with the superbomb. Raven himself has stated that his career lasted as long as it did because he got lazy in the ring.

 

On the flip side of the coin, what about Dean Malenko? I'm at a loss for any situation where he took a big risk, unless one wants to count a pescado.