Dave Meltzer stuff

[goc]

The only value Brodus has is to be a bodyguard to another wrestler and lose when he has his rare match.

[sek69]

With Finn Balor's NXT debut tonight, it should be mentioned how odd it was Dave made a couple mentions of him not liking the direction they were going with KENTA. He was upset they had the Ascension beat him up a few times in a row, with the implication they were going to use him as a job guy or something. i mean, he had to have read the tapings result and knew it was all leading to something.

[rovert]

I don't think it was a job guy per se but that doesn't really matter. Itami running in and getting slaughtered ran a week or two too long. He came across stupid and/or comedic (Kaientai running in on the Royal Rumble in 2000). I could write a lot about the chants Itami is receiving in NXT but last week he got "please give up" chants on his run in. It was largely edited out for TV.

 

As a sidebar Itami has gotten a lot of racist/racial abuse at NXT this far both at the TV tapings and some live events. It is rather grim. There was one segment a month ago with Itami where the crowd was completely removed from the sound mix it was that bad. I don't think the booking of him so far helped him in this department.

[goc]

I would have thought having their tapings on a college campus would essentially negate that sort of thing. Off the top of my head I can't even recall any WWE crowds chanting racist things.

[sek69]

I can see the argument that it went a week too long, but it would have been silly to have one guy clean house on the team that was pushed as Road Warriors 2.0 for over a year and are moving to the main roster.

 

I'm surprised to hear about the racist stuff considering what a huge reaction he got for his debut. Especially since the NXT crowd seems to be a lot more tuned in to the non WWE world (see also: Sami still getting the Ole Ole chants).

[Tim Evans]

More and more of the impact regulars has invaded Full Sail. The chants and putting themselves over has gotten worse. Itami isn't the only one that gets the racial stuff. Kalisto gets it too. I'd say it's a small section of the crowd but they are the most vocal.

[rovert]

I would have thought having their tapings on a college campus would essentially negate that sort of thing. Off the top of my head I can't even recall any WWE crowds chanting racist things.

Me too it is really disappointing. I don't want to get into a semantics game of what's racist or racial. But simply they are being very disrespectful with the stupidest chants from like Jackie Chan to chopsticks to Tokyo Drift.

[PhilTLL]

College-age white dudes are racist as hell sometimes, usually of the smug haha-just-joking variety. Shouldn't be a surprise.

[KrisZ]

Being a TNA fanboy may be worse than being an actual racist

[sek69]

Plus if they're chanting Jackie Chan at him they can't even be racist correctly.

[pol]

Dave LOVED the Ishii/Goto match from today's New Japan show. I was actually surprised by how much I liked it myself, though a good part of that was the incredibly hot crowd. That said, I will never understand the superlative praise for matches that could be simulated by a 5 year old smashing action figures together.

[NintendoLogic]

I thought it was mainly the house show crowds in places like Jacksonville that were doing the racist/sexist chants.

[Tim Cooke]

Does anyone have a scanned copy of Grant Z's WON Index?

[Lee]

Irrational hatred of the day - Bryan's regular reaction to Dave sitting up until 4am to watch live shows like he's some kind of out-of-his-mind iron man. Yeah, try living in the UK if you want to watch regular live wrestling pal, then we'll talk.

[BigBadMick]

Wow. I haven't sat up for wrestling since university days in '98. I have the 'advantage' of not personally knowing any fans, so the chances of spoilers are minimal.

[EvenStevenBooking]

Irrational hatred of the day - Bryan's regular reaction to Dave sitting up until 4am to watch live shows like he's some kind of out-of-his-mind iron man. Yeah, try living in the UK if you want to watch regular live wrestling pal, then we'll talk.

Dave works mainly from home too. He works hard, but it's not like he needs to drive 20 miles to the WON HQ every morning.

[NintendoLogic]

From the paragraph on Teddy Long's shoot interview in the current issue:

 

He said that Ole Anderson was a bad human being, and that Anderson and Ric Flair, used the n-word. Wrestling was always way behind the times on that one because that was a business term for black wrestlers through the 80s, long after it was considered unacceptable pretty much everywhere else. It’s not defending it, because I’m sure nobody liked it just like the Mexican wrestlers didn’t like the jokes being told, but even as late as this year, the jokes were prevalent enough that everyone privately admits them ever since Del Rio and Rodriguez went public with them. It’s not so much racism as environment with the n-word and people trying to tell jokes and not aware until after the fact that there were people who didn’t like the jokes.

 

I don't even know where to begin.

[Loss]

Ric Flair recently said on Steve Austin's podcast that Charles Barkley is able to say things in the media that he agrees with but could never say out loud. It's racism.

[Phil Schneider]

From the paragraph on Teddy Long's shoot interview in the current issue:

 

He said that Ole Anderson was a bad human being, and that Anderson and Ric Flair, used the n-word. Wrestling was always way behind the times on that one because that was a business term for black wrestlers through the 80s, long after it was considered unacceptable pretty much everywhere else. It’s not defending it, because I’m sure nobody liked it just like the Mexican wrestlers didn’t like the jokes being told, but even as late as this year, the jokes were prevalent enough that everyone privately admits them ever since Del Rio and Rodriguez went public with them. It’s not so much racism as environment with the n-word and people trying to tell jokes and not aware until after the fact that there were people who didn’t like the jokes.

 

I don't even know where to begin.

 

It's not racism, it just an environment where racists frequently say and do racist things.

[elliott]

 

From the paragraph on Teddy Long's shoot interview in the current issue:

 

He said that Ole Anderson was a bad human being, and that Anderson and Ric Flair, used the n-word. Wrestling was always way behind the times on that one because that was a business term for black wrestlers through the 80s, long after it was considered unacceptable pretty much everywhere else. It’s not defending it, because I’m sure nobody liked it just like the Mexican wrestlers didn’t like the jokes being told, but even as late as this year, the jokes were prevalent enough that everyone privately admits them ever since Del Rio and Rodriguez went public with them. It’s not so much racism as environment with the n-word and people trying to tell jokes and not aware until after the fact that there were people who didn’t like the jokes.

 

I don't even know where to begin.

 

It's not racism, it just an environment where racists frequently say and do racist things.

 

 

Some of WWE's best friends are black.

[sek69]

What's really disheartening is how once again WWE gets away with shit behavior. I don't fault Alberto, all he wanted was to be able to do what he wanted with his career, but at the end of the day WWE can keep on being racist shitheads and all it really cost them was letting someone out of a non compete to work places not directly competing with them.

[Loss]

This is also not the first time something like this has happened, nor is it the first time a settlement was reached to keep the wrestler from saying anything publicly.

[sek69]

Also was I reading that wrong or did it seem like Dave was saying WWE was expecting Rey Misterio to speak out on their behalf as if he hasn't been telling them to fuck off as loud as possible for nearly a year?

[rovert]

This is also not the first time something like this has happened, nor is it the first time a settlement was reached to keep the wrestler from saying anything publicly.

MVP has said in the past he can't talk about certain things that involve racial situations in WWE given what he signed leaving WWE.

 

WWE have become excellent at crafting compromise/non disclosure agreements. They killed off every Creative writer blabbing to the Torch or Observer publicly and they hushed up all sorts of things in NXT. Besides the weird cluster of spinal/neck injuries in NXT and whatever happened to Corey Graves. I know someone who was a very below the radar name in NXT who can't publicly disclose what dangerous drill Demott wanted him to do as one of the terms of his release. Essentially the wrestler who was unhappy there anyway just told Demott to "fuck off" in those words and refused to do the insanely unsafe drill which would have most likely injured him and his ex-College football player trainee Wrestler partner. The Wrestler in question was coming off a second concussion too.

[Matt D]

Really, there's only one top notch WWE source left in this cold, harsh world.