Matt D

We're going to really miss Killjoys.

I'm not going all in on SK's last diatribe, but i think there's a lot of self-loathing and desperation for social acceptance with wrestling fans in general. It's easy to say "What, no? I don't like Hulk Hogan (John Cena, Roman Reigns). I like Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask (Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko, Cesaro and Daniel Bryan, etc.)." Or Misawa or whatever. It's a lot easier to downplay the folk art element for the prog rock element, or what have you. I mean, we're all guilty to it to a degree. Not a lot of people I deal with on a daily basis know I'm into wrestling. It's just more headache than it's worth.

In truth, I'm having a bit of a lark, and of course one major problem is WWE booking over the last, oh, fifteen(?), years. That said, I also think excess and escalation (especially as it pertains to choreography) are issues, sure. But I'm not totally facetious here. There are genres in this world that get broken by history or developments. I really like ERB's John Carter of Mars pulps, but part of what made them operate was scientific ignorance and what we've learned since prevents new iterations of that sort of Sci Fi. I'm not going to 100% say that it was 100% "hard" sci fi in 1912, but it was driven very much by what the public did not know about science and what they could simply imagine. You could write something similar today but the perception would be so different that you'd almost certain be doing a pastiche or parody or something to be winked at instead of something more earnest and genuine. Most likely, you just wouldn't write something that takes so much for granted and as matter-of-fact. That genre, in its initial form, is impossible and unreachable a hundred years later. Part of me really thinks that there are primal, necessary elements of pro wrestling that just can't exist anymore in 2019. Wrestling is a medium and not a genre (as we elaborated on at length in the beloved AEW thread) but so much of it is now inward looking and navel-gazing. Some of that is by design (that's WWE for you) and some of it is by the sheer fact that almost anyone who gets into the wrestling business in this day and age is a fan, and increasingly so, a fan of people who themselves were fans. You see it in other mediums/genres as well (you almost can't write a superhero comic that isn't about the entire history of superhero comics right now), but I think wrestling, more so than a lot of other mediums (except for maybe the circus and stage magic?) relied upon a distance between spectator and creator. With that so thoroughly bridged, something innate and primal is broken.

Oh, I'm pretty good at maximizing my joy and minimizing my misery. People were inquiring about the potential root of their malaise with the current state of affairs and I was offering helpful analysis to my ol' DVDVR message board pals.

My favorite Indy band is not Workrate.

I also find the other Matt problematic.

Six stars instead of visceral justice through simulated violence?

I can say this with a straight face: the fans are the problem. The difference isn't in suspension of disbelief but instead what fans in 1983 wanted relative to fans in 2019. Wrestlers react accordingly.

Kerry and Lawler doing the mirror image babyface shtick was great.

They should have gotten a wrestler (Jeep was right there) to play Bane in the 90s.

Modernity is for the birds. Progress is a pernicious fallacy.

This week we have what we think is a brand new Race vs Dibiase match from Japan, which is Race at his most video game-y Kurt Angle if that's your thing (and yeah, for some of you yokels, it's your thing; don't try to hide it), plus the last two matches from the AWA footage on the network. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-footage-friday-dibiase-race-lawler.html

Awesome experience finishing Ducktales S2 with the 7 year old. I'm not sure I've ever seen her so continuously entertained by any single episode of anything before. It was really good. Great season.

To be fair, no one was going to buy the PPV anyway so it's hard to say if we're collectively canceling him or not.

I thought that at first and then less so with every bit of new information about the movie given to us.