The Idiot King

Not wanting to sound like one of her enormous army of fans, but Sasha Banks 100% has IT. She has capital-S Star potential in a way that Charlotte (for example) just does not, outside of wrestling. Her gimmick instantly clicks with people (especially women!) who don't have any particular interest in wrestling, she's charming and funny in interviews and is, as others have mentioned, related to America's uncle. She will be fine in whatever she does. She does not need the WWE as much as the WWE needs her. I doubt she gets released, and I could see her trying to quit but I kind of doubt it, as she (if I had to hazard a guess) understands the power and reach the WWE has in terms of continuing to 'build her brand.' I think her booking has been mostly fine, if uninspiring, but it doesn't go unnoticed that when it comes to stepping out of the main event scene, she's the one to do it and not Becky or Charlotte, so much. They've never earnestly tried to put the division on her back, which I think is a real missed opportunity. As for the walk out, I am always on the side of the workers, period. Glad she and Naomi acted as a unit and as a team. Solidarity! No idea how it will all shake out, but this is (as we have seen in the past, with mixed results) a perfectly legitimate means of exerting whatever limited power you have as an 'independent contractor.'

Not that this is especially germane to any of this previous conversation, but I just want to say that I have by total accident been down the rabbit-hole of this guy's youtube channel and while I can't make any claims to the veracity of his data or numbers, what I do know, with 100% certainty, is that his life's work is exonerating Kevin Nash from anything rude anyone has ever said about him on the internet. His channel is all deep-dives on how he actually wasn't the worst drawing champion of all time in WWE, how he didn't kill WCW, how he was a great booker, actually and things like that. Which, hey, maybe that's all true! But just to give some perspective into the mind of that particular wrestling nerd (said with all affection).

I voted Cash. I think there are some really interesting possible match-ups for him in the tournament, and the last time I watched FTR, I remember thinking, "Wow, the guy with the hair can really go."

$30 if you want Vince ahegao.

I mean, in a sense, Vince McMahon is findom-ing the entire WWE Universe.

One of my friends while we were watching it suggested that "he burned himself flat-ironing his hair."

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Is “Van Vader” a first name and a last name? Like “Big” Van Vader? Or is he simply Vader and his nickname is “Big Van?” Is Van Vader a last name like Von Ratschke? I have to assume nobody wanted us to believe his first name was Big. I am sure there is a canonical answer somewhere out there but even as a huge fan of his, I realized this morning that I’m not 100% sure. So glad he is finally in but heartbroken it’s posthumously, and trying not to attribute that fact to malice.

I just watched this the other day, based on the Youtube algorithm's (correct!) assumption that I would be into it. Not even counting the horrific botch by La Resistance where Spike's head bounces off the side of a table, it's a collection of complete anarchy. I can't imagine anyone being allowed to pinball bump these days with the kind of "Fuck it, I'll survive" approach Spike had. I think he also really did a neat trick where despite his size and his use mainly as a crash-test dummy, he always felt legit. He always seemed like he could hang through sheer toughness, and could absolutely score a win after taking a beating in a way Marko Stunt or Colin Delaney never did. There's a lot of art to his masochism!

I don't know that I have a lot more to add that hasn't already been said: Not great stuff! Doudrop/Becky was really good and Roman/Seth was about as good of a match as those two are gonna have when the winner is so clear. The women's Rumble didn't do a ton for me considering how thin the roster is, but it did really underline that at least they have some stars there: Ronda, Charlotte, Sasha, Bianca, Rhea and to a lesser extent, Naomi and Sonya all had a lot going for them and the crowd responded. Whereas, as someone else said, the men's Rumble looked like a bunch of geeks. I don't think the firings would have made much of a difference in terms of quality because ultimately, they just don't have any full-time star power in the men's division outside of Roman and Rollins due to how badly everyone's been booked. I guess there's AJ and RKBro? But even then, Orton and Styles are 41 and 44 respectively, and Riddle was dumped pretty unceremoniously. Poor Big E was a complete afterthought. It's duller, for sure. 99-00's WCW felt a lot more like a sinking ship with each passing week, but it always had a glimmer of, "Okay, fuck it, we're starting from scratch, maybe THIS wild idea will work." 2022 WWE just feels like it will endlessly coast, never dying or ever getting any better. Kind of like the Simpsons.

Y'know as much as I selfishly hope for *more* when it comes to Zayn (and Owens) and would love all of my favorite wrestlers to be in one organization because I am a lazy consumer of wrestling, I really get what he's saying here. As the roster continues to thin out at WWE and the number of people who could reasonably be considered veterans teeters on nonexistent, Zayn and Owens have both been consistently featured and used and kept busy doing this or that for most of their time with the company. They're not exactly neglected or underutilized, even if I think the ceiling on both of them is a lot higher than what's been given to them. A reboot couldn't hurt anyone (see the discussion around what a post-WWE Orton would be like), but for two guys who at this point probably are not ever going to be positioned as the face of the company (if they ever were), they are about as high up the totem pole as you can get, and there's not a lot of sense in walking away from that to be shuffled around in the limited space of AEW's main event scene.

It's hard to believe that Albert, X-Pac and Justin Credible never reunited for an indie trios event, just for the reaction that song would get.

I think this is genuinely the most likely thing when it comes to the whole Gunther Stark thing. It 'sounded cool' and someone didn't bother to google it. The WWE is too corporate and cautious these days to be out here being like, "Check it out, this guy is a Nazi." This is a really fair question and I am not 100% sure. I think because it's wrestling, everything is usually in these broad strokes and often trafficking in stereotypes because of the medium itself and also, hey, it's always worked before, so what conveys a scary German? This stuff. I would say WALTER's gimmick is mostly that -- scary German who chops people. It just has a lot of aesthetic trappings to suggest that a scary German is a Nazi which, I mean, not wrong! I only find it strange that nobody seems to acknowledge this, and will argue very, very loudly (not here, you're all lovely!) about how CLEARLY that's not the case. If you showed 10 non-wrestling fans the Imperium entrance and asked them what they thought their whole deal was, it might be more obvious. That being said, he worked some version of this gimmick IN Germany, so I have no idea how it was received or viewed there vs. how it comes across to an American audience. The only time I've ever thought it was a shame that the Fabulous Moolah is dead.

This is what a lot of people say in defense and I get it! I am 100% a dumb American. But like, if Alex Wright came to the ring and talked about dancekampf, he would still look like a fun-time German party boy (not talking about Berlyn here, which for all the talk of THAT being fascist-looking, really came off more like a German Industrial Goth thing). It's the ringkampf-as-personal-philosophy, it's the hair, it's the JACKET, it's the theme music (it's not Wagner, but...), it's the military-style posing, it's all of that together sort of just SUGGESTING something. I'm not saying he should even change the gimmick -- I genuinely don't care, I think it's way less dodgy than a lot of other things even in recent memory -- just that I think it's funny when people are like, "Oh, WWE are gonna make him a Nazi because it's such low hanging fruit," and it feels like, well, y'know, we're 3/4 of the way there already.

I don’t mean this as a slight to the performer himself (who I enjoy) or an endorsement of whatever is going on with the new name aesthetically or otherwise, but hasn’t WALTER’s gimmick always been a little uhhhhh Nazi-suggestive? Nazi-flirtatious? Am I crazy?