"Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Ultimate Collection"

[jdw]

"Don't know."

 

 

John

[Bob Morris]

I tend not to believe the rumors that Savage was banging Stephanie at age 17 or 18 or whatever.

 

I do, however, believe it's possible that Vince McMahon won't do business with Savage because he's heard this story so many times, Vince believes it to be true.

 

Not saying it must be true or it must be the reason why Savage was gone from WWF back in 1994.

 

But if Vince believes the tale of what Savage was doing to be true, it would then explain why he wants nothing to do with the guy. Yes, he reportedly wanted to do an incest storyline with Steph, but in Vince's delusional mind, he likely thinks there is a difference between a storyline and a real-life ordeal.

 

A lot of stuff doesn't add up, true, but Vince's current state of mind means he'll put two and two together and come up with six.

[Jingus]

in Vince's delusional mind, he likely thinks there is a difference between a storyline and a real-life ordeal.

...what? There isn't? I somehow doubt that Vince would in reality be cool with Mark Calloway sacrificing Stephanie on a cross for the purposes of a Satanic wedding, for example.

 

I think Vince's crazyness is being overstated here. Some of you guys are literally acting like he's the type of babbling asylum inmate who wears a tinfoil hat and throws his own poop everywhere. He's still micromanaging a multi-million dollar international corporation, with an incredibly complicated web of deals with television networks and other partners, which has remained relatively profitable even in the current economic recession. For a geriatric steroid abuser and alleged coke addict who's been hit in the head really hard a lot of times, I'd say he's doing pretty damn well. It's a hyperbolic falsehood to accept any weird rumor about him and just go "well, Vince is crazy, so it's probably true that he contacted NASA to ask if they could freeze his sperm and transport it to other planets in the future in order to carry on the legacy of the genetic jackhammer". Pretty much all of his lies and delusions are things which relate directly to his business dealings, like the "I taught the fans to chant E-C-W" sort of thing.

[sek69]

Vince also has an inner circle of trusted people who handle a lot of the business deals you mentioned. Also I don't think anyone's comparing Vince to a mental patient, but he does have a track record of irrational decisions and thoughts over the years. It's not a logical leap to suggest that once Vince is convinced of something, no matter how unlikely or far-fetched, nothing will dissuade him.

 

Hell, WCW has been dead for 8 years and he still won't let go of his hatred of Ted Turner for daring to compete against him and thinks he only did it to put him out of business and destroy his family. What's so impossible to believe that he heard the rumors at some point and decided they were true?

[Jingus]

Not saying it's impossible to believe. But we certainly don't have enough of a complete picture here to assume something like that is true. Firstly, why wouldn't Vince just ask Stephanie himself? There are all kinds of reasons why he might not, sure, but none of us have any idea if they would be anything close to the truth. Do any of you know exactly how close Vince is to Steph? Exactly what sort of things they talk about, what subjects might be taboo, in what circumstances she might lie to him? I sure as hell don't, and I doubt anyone here has ever even spoken to the McMahons. Even Meltzer hasn't said that Vince himself has either said or thought that Randy fucked Steph, so this is all speculation on the level of backstage fantasy booking. "Savage didn't fuck Stephanie, but for some reason Vince thinks Savage fucked Stephanie, because Vince is certifiably insane" is a theory which requires you to meet it much more than halfway. It might be the truth, but there's very little evidence suggesting that is the case. Just explaining everything with "Vince is crazy, so it doesn't have to make any sense whatsoever!" is a copout.

 

EDIT: and yeah, how did that "Savage locked up Liz backstage" thing work anyway? Any time he was in the ring or shooting a promo or anything, she was always right there with him. When were they ever separated backstage? Maybe more importantly, how many arenas have some kind of prison cell type room in which the door can't be unlocked from the inside? Even if Liz was locked inside, why couldn't another wrestler unlock it from the outside? If it took a key, how the hell would Savage get a key to this mysterious locked room in every city they visited? Did he go around the country nailing a padlock on some random door backstage in every building? This is a story which everyone believes and has been repeated many times, but on closer examination the details seem too illogical to be credible.

[kjh]

One thing that doesn't add up about the "Vince has heard the rumor so many times he now believes it to be true" theory is that supposedly nobody dares bring the story up around him, so where did he hear the story so many times from.

 

With regards to the Savage locking up Liz backstage thing, it's probably one of those stories that has been exaggerated over time, due to his overprotective and jealous nature. Locking her up in their hotel room while he went out to party is more credible.

[S.L.L.]

Also I don't think anyone's comparing Vince to a mental patient, but he does have a track record of irrational decisions and thoughts over the years.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have outright said this in the past....

 

Vince is so far removed from reality at this point that I don't know whether to hate him, laugh at him, or pity him. With all the talk over the state of wrestler's brains, Vince's might be the most fascinating of all. Not so much because of the physical damage, but the man seems to be completely mentally unstable. I don't mean to play armchair psychologist here, but his actions scream antisocial personality disorder, and a pretty severe case at that, and likely severe hypomania as well. In all likelihood, the man belongs in a straitjacket, locked away in some place where society is safe from him - and where he is safe from himself.

No, I am not a trained psychologist, I do not personally know Vince McMahon, and none of the above should be treated as serious psychological analysis. It's the views of a layman who knows a thing or two about psychology and applied that knowledge to a guy based on second and third-hand accounts of his behavior. It is, in and of itself, bunk, and I wouldn't want to send Vince off to the funny farm based only on what I know now without examining the man personally. But all of the man's observable behavior - including all of the glimpses we've had into the "real" Vince, the one who had an awful childhood loaded with sexual abuse, the one who was chill enough with said sexual abuse that he bought his mother a tennis court later in life, the one who saw nothing wrong with running an angle where he would be the father of his daughter's child, the one who is observably a rampant drug abuser, the one who has taken a decidedly callous approach to dealing (or rather, refusing to deal) with the mounting body count in his profession for which he is at least partially responsible for - as well as the mountains of anecdotal evidence suggest that the man is nuttier than a Stucky's log, and to ignore that seems naive at best and delusional at worst.

[kjh]

the one who has taken a decidedly callous approach to dealing (or rather, refusing to deal) with the mounting body count in his profession for which he is at least partially responsible for

To be fair, it's not like Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter ever did anything of significance to deal with the problem either.

[Jingus]

In all likelihood, the man belongs in a straitjacket, locked away in some place where society is safe from him - and where he is safe from himself.

You seriously believe than in a literal sense?

 

But all of the man's observable behavior - including all of the glimpses we've had into the "real" Vince, the one who had an awful childhood loaded with sexual abuse, the one who was chill enough with said sexual abuse that he bought his mother a tennis court later in life, the one who saw nothing wrong with running an angle where he would be the father of his daughter's child, the one who is observably a rampant drug abuser, the one who has taken a decidedly callous approach to dealing (or rather, refusing to deal) with the mounting body count in his profession for which he is at least partially responsible for - as well as the mountains of anecdotal evidence suggest that the man is nuttier than a Stucky's log, and to ignore that seems naive at best and delusional at worst.

Except possibly for the drug use (the only visibly obvious sign of which we've seen is his muscular body suggesting steroids), absolutely none of that would hold water in any sort of legal dealings actually relating to factual definitions of insanity. He had a shitty abusive childhood? Happens to the best of us. He bought his mama a tennis court? I'm not sure what that's even supposed to imply. He's absolutely cutthroat in his business dealings and unwilling to take blame in areas which could hurt him financially? In other words, he's the president of a typical corporation.

 

People aren't declared incompetent or committed unless they are utterly incapable of operating in society. As noted, Vince runs a large profitable company. Sure he has plenty of people helping him, but we've had mountains of anecdotal evidence that Vince is such a micro-manager that he puts his own stamp on everything and personally reviews all but the tiniest details. If he were really a drooling nutjob like you're making him out to be, he couldn't have done all this.

 

SLL, weren't you the one who once said that Vince is literally building up an army of drug-fueled psychopaths like a comic book villain? I know that you have made statements to the effect of "you must be legitimately insane in order to become a professional wrestler, period". I think you're taking this shit a wee bit too seriously. While of course it is bad to bury one's head in the sand and pretend that wrestling doesn't have many serious problems, I think it's also bad to exaggerrate them in such a purple-prose fashion. You almost sound like a political talk show host on the radio, Chicken Littling about how the opposing party is gonna destroy America if they win the next election. The hyperbole doesn't enhance your points.

[Bix]

His mom was who molested him, hence the tennis court being a weird action.

[jdw]

I think Vince's crazyness is being overstated here. Some of you guys are literally acting like he's the type of babbling asylum inmate who wears a tinfoil hat and throws his own poop everywhere. He's still micromanaging a multi-million dollar international corporation, with an incredibly complicated web of deals with television networks and other partners, which has remained relatively profitable even in the current economic recession. For a geriatric steroid abuser and alleged coke addict who's been hit in the head really hard a lot of times, I'd say he's doing pretty damn well.

The most powerful man in the world over the past 8 years was (and still is) a paranoid delusional wack job. People who knew him closely prior to the past 8 years have openly wondered where the fellow they once knew went, and comment how lost he's gotten in his own delusions.

 

Lots of people mad as a hatter are "successful" or are able to "run things".

 

John

[jdw]

Not saying it's impossible to believe. But we certainly don't have enough of a complete picture here to assume something like that is true. Firstly, why wouldn't Vince just ask Stephanie himself?

And who is to say Steph didn't tell Vince that Savage banged her?

 

That still doesn't mean that Savage molested her or banged her at 14... or 17 if the story ever becomes consistent.

 

John

[jdw]

With regards to the Savage locking up Liz backstage thing, it's probably one of those stories that has been exaggerated over time, due to his overprotective and jealous nature. Locking her up in their hotel room while he went out to party is more credible.

I never bought the story the way it's been written up. It always came across as one of those Wrestling Stories that was based on True Event A that got twisted into Wrestling Stories X, Y & Z in their retelling.

 

John

[jdw]

He had a shitty abusive childhood? Happens to the best of us. He bought his mama a tennis court? I'm not sure what that's even supposed to imply.

That Vince is lying about his abuse. He's probably so far gone that he actually now believes he was abused.

 

The brain does that some times. You tell yourself a lie for so long that it becomes the "truth".

 

We saw Ari Fleischer do that last week where he talked about Sadam never attacking the US *again* after we took him out. Reailty: it was those AQ guys who attacked us. But Ari spent so many years selling the Iraq + AQ = 9/11 angle that he's completely lost in the punch of it. If you really get his attention and correct him on it, he *might* go along with the correct just to get out of the interview. But the next day he'll say the same thing if it comes up. His brain is now wired to it.

 

Reality/Fiction is pretty well morphed for Vince it has been for quite some time.

 

 

John

[Al]

I don't get the "Vince is so delusional..." angle when he's never even claimed (at least openly) what we're accusing him of believing.

[jdw]

I don't get the "Vince is so delusional..." angle when he's never even claimed (at least openly) what we're accusing him of believing.

I don't think people in the thread are accussing him of believing anything.

 

Meltzer was the one who said Vince Believes, or words to the effect.

 

I think the rest of us are pointing out: If Vince Believes, it really means nothing because Vince is mad as a hatter.

 

 

John

[S.L.L.]

In all likelihood, the man belongs in a straitjacket, locked away in some place where society is safe from him - and where he is safe from himself.

You seriously believe than in a literal sense?

Well, this time I was sensible enough to preface it with...

 

No, I am not a trained psychologist, I do not personally know Vince McMahon, and none of the above should be treated as serious psychological analysis. It's the views of a layman who knows a thing or two about psychology and applied that knowledge to a guy based on second and third-hand accounts of his behavior. It is, in and of itself, bunk, and I wouldn't want to send Vince off to the funny farm based only on what I know now without examining the man personally.

...but I would still say that there is a fair chance that it's true.

 

But all of the man's observable behavior - including all of the glimpses we've had into the "real" Vince, the one who had an awful childhood loaded with sexual abuse, the one who was chill enough with said sexual abuse that he bought his mother a tennis court later in life, the one who saw nothing wrong with running an angle where he would be the father of his daughter's child, the one who is observably a rampant drug abuser, the one who has taken a decidedly callous approach to dealing (or rather, refusing to deal) with the mounting body count in his profession for which he is at least partially responsible for - as well as the mountains of anecdotal evidence suggest that the man is nuttier than a Stucky's log, and to ignore that seems naive at best and delusional at worst.

Except possibly for the drug use (the only visibly obvious sign of which we've seen is his muscular body suggesting steroids), absolutely none of that would hold water in any sort of legal dealings actually relating to factual definitions of insanity.

 

Perhaps no one individual trait listed - or even any one of the mountains of unconfirmed traits - would be enough to put him away on it's own. That said, actual psychologists don't usually treat individual traits of a patient as being somehow unconnected to one another, but rather look at them altogether as a whole. Lots of people have a few traits commonly associated with certain types of mental illness and are not actually mentally ill, but when you have a whole lot of those traits, it tends to raise some red flags.

 

Let's crack open our DSM-IV handbooks and see what we can find....

 

I initially "diagnosed" Vince with antisocial personality disorder and hypomania. For those who didn't pick up on the hip psych lingo, antisocial personality disorder is defined as "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood". Most of the time, when you see people talking about "psychopaths" or "sociopaths", this is what they're talking about, although they're not really the same thing, strictly speaking. Hypomania is, according to our friends at Wikipedia, "a mood state characterized by persistent and pervasive elevated or irritable mood, and thoughts and behaviors that are consistent with such a mood state". It's honestly not the worst thing in the world. As the name itself states, it's "below mania" in terms of severity, basically the heightened mood and energy of mania, but without the psychosis, though sometimes it might lead to irritability or poor judgement. It tends to be associated with bipolar disorder, but since we only ever see the manic elements of Vince's behavior, I don't want to speculate further on that.

 

Let's start by looking at the hypomania, because that's probably the more agreeable one to a Vince sanity defender. The DSM-IV gives the following criteria for a hypomanic episode:

 

A. A distinct period of persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting throughout at least 4 days, that is clearly different from the usual non depressed mood.

 

B. During the period of mood disturbance, three (or more) of the following symptoms have persisted (four if the mood is only irritable) and have been present to a significant degree:

 

(1) inflated self-esteem or grandiosity

(2) decreased need for sleep (e.g., feels rested after only 3 hours of sleep)

(3) more talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking

(4) flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing

(5) distractibility (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli)

(6) increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation

(7) excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., the person engages in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

 

C. The episode is associated with an unequivocal change in functioning that is uncharacteristic of the person when not symptomatic.

 

D. The disturbance in mood and the change in functioning are observable by others.

 

E. The episode is not severe enough to cause marked impairment in social or occupational functioning, or to necessitate hospitalization, and there are no psychotic features.

 

F. The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication, or other treatment) or a general medical condition (e.g., hyperthyroidism).

Obviously, I have no way at all to prove "A", so right off the bat, I don't have enough to deliver a legitimate diagnosis, but this is all just meant to be speculation, anyway. Every single one of the "B" symptoms can be attributed to Vince, and only one relies on corroboration through anecdotal evidence (POWER NAPS~!). "C" is hard to confirm because he seems to be this way 24/7, so I'll just err on the side of caution and say "no". I can observe the hell out of "D". We all seem to agree on "E". "F" actually stands a good chance of proving my hypothesis wrong, but while Vince is certainly an addict, I can't claim to know his drug use inside out. Honestly, this feels more like a "maybe" than it did when I first wrote that up. I think I put too much emphasis on "B" since it had all the observable symptoms. Sloppy work on my part, but that's why I'm not a real psychologist, just a dude who's interested in the subject.

 

Now, antisocial personality disorder....

 

A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

 

(1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest

(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure

(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults

(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others

(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations

(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

 

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.

 

C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.

 

D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.

We have him dead to rights on six of the "A" symptoms: he's flouted the law, he's a chronic liar, he's impulsive as all hell, he's irritable and aggressive as all hell, he has absolutely no regard for the safety of anyone, and he has shown no remorse for any of his behavior. "B" is kinda obvious. The whole "crushed leaves" thing - amongst a whole lot of other stuff - gives us "C". The only thing needed to sew this up is to confirm that he's not schizophrenic and that his whole life isn't one big long manic episode. Considering this is already way deep into TL;DR territory, I'll just say that I can't disprove schizophrenia, but it strikes me as unlikely, and mania, like hypomania, is a "maybe", but leaning more towards "no".

 

He had a shitty abusive childhood? Happens to the best of us.

 

True enough, but....

 

He bought his mama a tennis court? I'm not sure what that's even supposed to imply.

 

....usually "the best of us" don't reward their abusers for their behavior. They also wouldn't even think about suggesting to their pregnant daughter that they should run an angle where they would turn out to be the father of her baby. Not everyone who is abused in their youth grows up to be a monster, but Vince's observable behavior seems to be sending the message that the abuse he suffered - at least the sexual abuse - was A-OK. That's not a healthy outlook on life.

 

He's absolutely cutthroat in his business dealings and unwilling to take blame in areas which could hurt him financially? In other words, he's the president of a typical corporation.

 

Typical corporations don't have the body count that professional wrestling does. There's being cutthroat, and then there's being indifferent to an epidemic of deaths that you are partially to blame for. The former can certainly be morally questionable. With the latter, there is no question.

 

People aren't declared incompetent or committed unless they are utterly incapable of operating in society.

 

As noted, Vince runs a large profitable company. Sure he has plenty of people helping him, but we've had mountains of anecdotal evidence that Vince is such a micro-manager that he puts his own stamp on everything and personally reviews all but the tiniest details. If he were really a drooling nutjob like you're making him out to be, he couldn't have done all this.

No one is making him out to be a drooling nutjob. A nutjob, sure, but not all nutjobs drool. Mental illness comes in many forms, and just because Vince McMahon isn't living in a cardboard box and wearing a pirate hat while ranting about how Jesus told him Randy Savage conceived the new messiah with his daughter doesn't preclude him from being crazy. That's not how this shit works. Ted Bundy appeared to all the world to be a clean-cut law student. Ted Kaczynski was an assistant professor at Berkeley who had a PhD in mathematics who moved to a remote cabin Montana ostensibly to learn how to be self-sufficient - an eccentric move, but not insane in and of itself, and his prior reputation kept him from suspicion until his brother read the Unabomber Manifesto and saw the similarities between it and Ted's earlier writings. Elizabeth Bathory was a countess of Hungary who handled her husband's business affairs and defended his estates while he was off fighting in the Long War, was well-educated, was considered to be a loving mother, and who was the most prolific female serial killer in human history. Harold Shipman had a brief stint in rehab near the beginning of his criminal career, but bounced back to become a successful general practitioner and was a generally respected figure until people started to pick up on the notion that he was killing a shit ton of people. Gilles de Rais was a commander in the French Royal Army and later became a theater promoter. And there's all those dictators over the years who "got the trains to run on time" - which, as anyone living anywhere near New York City can tell you, is a hell of a feat - while crushing countless innocents under their heels. And there was that Benoit guy, who seemed to be doing his job just as well as he ever had right before he offed his family. I mean, I could just go on and on and on, and I guess I already have, but long story slightly less long, you just don't know what you're talking about.

 

SLL, weren't you the one who once said that Vince is literally building up an army of drug-fueled psychopaths like a comic book villain?

 

Is he not taking crazy people and making them crazier through methods that include (more or less) company-mandated drug use? I mean, I doubt this is his intention, but it's certainly a side effect of his methods, and one that he is pretty indifferent to.

 

I know that you have made statements to the effect of "you must be legitimately insane in order to become a professional wrestler, period".

 

I don't think I ever said "legitimately insane". I definitely said "insane" or "crazy" or something like that. Might have even thrown in a qualifier ("you have to be kinda insane", "you have to be at least a little crazy", etc.). "You have to be at least a little crazy" is probably closest to the truth, and if what I said wasn't that or didn't come off that way, my bad. I should also impress on people that there's nothing wrong with being a little bit crazy. Personally, I find it makes life more interesting. But there are limits.

 

I think you're taking this shit a wee bit too seriously.

 

I'm still a wrestling fan. How seriously can I possibly be taking it?

 

While of course it is bad to bury one's head in the sand and pretend that wrestling doesn't have many serious problems, I think it's also bad to exaggerrate them in such a purple-prose fashion.

I've made some silly hyperbolic comments here and there, and I have dipped into purple prose more than once, but I don't see how I've actually exaggerated the severity of what's going on.

 

You almost sound like a political talk show host on the radio, Chicken Littling about how the opposing party is gonna destroy America if they win the next election.

 

And you sound like the opposing party's spin doctor telling us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

 

The hyperbole doesn't enhance your points.

Thankfully, the points tend to stand on their own.

[Sean Liska]

I think Vince is pretty remarkably sane considering he's spent the last 30 years deeply entrenched in the wrestling bubble. That's 30 years spent surrounded by and trying to stay a step ahead of some of the finest con men in the world. 30 years spent never being able to trust anything you hear. 30 years of trying to placate and manipulate the egos of nut jobs like Warrior, HBK, Piper, Hogan, and whoever else he's interacted with. Heck, most people that are as successful as he's been in business are crazy. He's completely sane compared with certain stories you hear of corporate CEO's.

 

Did his mom sexually abuse him? I thought it was always his step-father. Yes, he's watched over an industry littered with deaths, but I believe he's convinced that they're not his fault and are 100% the result of poor individual decisions. And I know he doesn't believe that steroids are bad for you. He wouldn't even concede that point to Congress. His family isn't *that* screwed up, all things considered. It's not like he's been isolated from Shane for decades or like Stephanie has been in and out of rehab and jail. They seem like decent enough hard-working folk that have a hard time living up to their father's expectations. His ability to forgive and forget when it comes to business is impressive. I'm not trying to say that he's the portrait of mental stability, but I do think the industry could be in much worse hands when you consider the life the guy has lived.

 

Meltzer talks to everybody and must have heard the Savage story from a bunch of Vince's closest aides. I don't necessarily buy the story either, but I bet he's heard some interesting details from some well-placed people. I doubt he's completely lost his ability to sniff out BS.

[Jingus]

SLL, why is it every time I get into these arguments with you, they somehow wander off on a tangent to a tangent of the original point?

 

way deep into TL;DR territory

Great, you proved that Vince might be a raging psychopath. As previously noted, there's not much in there which would convince a judge that he needs to be locked up. Seeing as I don't have a copy of the DSM-IV handy and it's been long years since my own psychology classes, I'm not even going to try to debate the specifics. And your tendency to come back with a 5:1 text ratio on everything I'm saying, yeesh, I haven't done loooong post dissections like that since I was a terribly idealistic young smark. And yes, your hyperbole does hurt your case, especially how you seem to imply that "did happen" and "might as well have happened" are equitable concepts.

 

The only point I was really trying to make here is that it's pretty unlikely that Vince refuses to deal with Savage because he mistakenly thinks in his crazy haze that the Macho Man deflowered young Stephanie. It could be the case, sure, but there's little evidence supporting that theory. "Vince might be delusional enough to believe it, and anyway there's no other explanation" is not nearly enough justification to claim the theory is true.

[kjh]

Personally, I think we only know the tip of the iceberg of Vince's craziness and most of it goes unreported outside of Dave Meltzer laughing that Vince is in another one of his moods.

[S.L.L.]

SLL, why is it every time I get into these arguments with you, they somehow wander off on a tangent to a tangent of the original point?

Just following the path of the conversation. Your last post was about my thoughts on Vince's insanity. What did you think I was going to write about? The DVD? We left that a long time ago. Not my problem.

 

Great, you proved that Vince might be a raging psychopath. As previously noted, there's not much in there which would convince a judge that he needs to be locked up.

 

So we agree?

 

And yes, your hyperbole does hurt your case,

 

The very, very short version of my argument is "Vince McMahon's observable behavior suggests antisocial personality disorder". Stripped of hyperbole, do you agree with this?

 

especially how you seem to imply that "did happen" and "might as well have happened" are equitable concepts.

They're not equivalent, strictly speaking. That said, the price of fame is that everyone knows what you're doing, and thus will naturally make certain assumptions about you. They don't see everything that you're doing, so they don't have the complete, fully nuanced picture. But they see enough to get ideas, and if your behavior reinforces those ideas enough, there's usually something to it. Vince's observable behavior suggests he's crazy, and he's given us enough of that behavior to reinforce the idea to the point that most people who aren't hyper-defensive about the biz are inclined to think there's something to it. There's a shadow of a doubt, as there always is when you're talking about someone you've had no first-hand experience with, but you can say that about 99% of things in the world and practically all of human history, yet I don't see you saying "Hey! How do you know the Roman Empire conquered Egypt in 31 BC? You weren't there, man!" Yeah, our beliefs about history and public figures and a whole bunch of other stuff turn out to be wrong sometimes, but when all the evidence points towards something, people tend to believe that it's true until it's proven otherwise.

 

The only point I was really trying to make here is that it's pretty unlikely that Vince refuses to deal with Savage because he mistakenly thinks in his crazy haze that the Macho Man deflowered young Stephanie. It could be the case, sure, but there's little evidence supporting that theory. "Vince might be delusional enough to believe it, and anyway there's no other explanation" is not nearly enough justification to claim the theory is true.

If you hate wild speculation so much, what are you even doing on the internet?

[jdw]

SLL's "diagnosis" post of Vince is one of the funniest things I've read on a wrestling message board, in a good way...

 

"... which covers a lot of ground."

 

 

John

[Death From Above]

and just because Vince McMahon isn't living in a cardboard box and wearing a pirate hat while ranting about how Jesus told him Randy Savage conceived the new messiah with his daughter doesn't preclude him from being crazy.

I am going to have great difficulty shaking this image.

 

YARR YARR I'M A PIRATE LINDA COME AND GET ME

[tomk]

I can’t believe people are still having the “Ring of Hell” are “the stories told by professional liars and psychopaths worth anything?” discussion.

 

Does the truth content of any wrestling story really matter?

 

In the mid nineties I was fascinated by the complex social "navigations" between indigenous herbal healers and actual narcotrafficers in Mexico. It was very difficult to gain entry to both groups. Both groups wanted nothing to do with the other. Both are closed groups with secret knowledge who are distrustful of outsiders.

 

Every herbal healer I met told me almost the exact same story. ”Everyone else who knows how to use this plant will insist that to properly experience it you should combine with the sensory depravation technique of going into a cave and piercing the head of your dick with a thin needle and then ingesting this”

 

No one is going into a cave and piercing the head of their penis in order to better experience a drug. The fact that it is a complete BS story doesn’t make it any less culturally important or psycholgocially powerful to the story teller (or the intended audience). Narcotrafficers moving scopolamine through the Yucatan told stories that are as consistent in their form (although far more violent) and probably as BS.

 

People in secret societies tell stories. They tell stories among themselves, tell stories to outsiders. Sharing of those stories is an important way of establishing cultural norms and testing each other. Stories of “hazing” rituals to gain entrance into a secret society can be as important (or even take the place) of actual rituals.

 

Historical truth content isn’t important. It isn’t even of secondary importance.

 

There is a story that Vader left Noah when he got into conflict with the local Yakuza who ritualistically stabbed him multiple times.

There is a story that Vader ritualistically stabbed himself multiple times and lied claiming the Yakuza did it in order to leave NOAH.

 

The historical truth content of the story doesn’t matter. What matters is that these are stories that are told and thus have some sort of cultural relevance within wrestling society.

 

There is a story that Scott Levy is hated because he gave Shane his first drugs and was one of the firwt people to fuck Steph.

There is a story that he’s hated because he gave Steph her fist drugs and fucked Shane.

 

The historical truth content of the story doesn’t matter. What matters is that these are stories that are told and thus have some sort of cultural relevance within wrestling society,

 

For all we know Stephany has some sort of busted IUD lodged in her twat and it would be impossible to fuck her unless you had a corkscrew dick. Even if Vince knows that, knows that Savage fucking Stephany is a physical impossibility…what matters isn’t the truth of the story. All that matters is that there is a story being told. I don't hang out or talk with wrestlers but I know enough about "deviant" subcultures to know that for the most part "is talked about" matters far more than questions of if "did happen", "might as well have happened" or is "physical impossibility that it happened".

[jdw]

We know all that.

 

We also are not inside the "deviant" subculture of pro wrestling. We're just dumb fans of the product. We don't have to play along with it's bullshit that it doesn't matter whether something is true or not, just that it's "story that's told". We have the ability to call "bullshit" when we see it.

 

 

John