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July Wrestling Catch-All


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Thats something I've always been perplexed about. It seems from reading bios, reading Twitter, etc that a lot of people in professional wrestling cease watching it once they become wrestlers. If you're a guy like Luger or whoever and was never a fan it's one thing but when you grow up as a huge fan it's just weird to me.I'm not saying they should be like me and watch nearly everything on TV plus shit online but to just not watch any of stuffing instead of potatoes once you enter the industry is so foreign to me.Same with wrestlers refusing to pay to see a WWE show or whatever. I don't get it.

 

What blew my mind was Jericho in his book saying when he had a match against Shelton Benjamin, he had to ask the referee what Benjamin's finishing move was.  He didn't watch the shows at all.  I can't imagine being in a wrestling promotion and having not watched the matches of some of the guys you would likely be facing down the road, if nothing else so you could get an idea of their style.

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Thats something I've always been perplexed about. It seems from reading bios, reading Twitter, etc that a lot of people in professional wrestling cease watching it once they become wrestlers. If you're a guy like Luger or whoever and was never a fan it's one thing but when you grow up as a huge fan it's just weird to me.I'm not saying they should be like me and watch nearly everything on TV plus shit online but to just not watch any of stuffing instead of potatoes once you enter the industry is so foreign to me. Same with wrestlers refusing to pay to see a WWE show or whatever. I don't get it.

I hear what you are saying, but think of it the way: You work for the WWE, which means that you are in an arena almost every night for a house show or TV program. You are SURROUNDED by wrestling. How much more can you pay attention to before just burning completely out?
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What blew my mind was Jericho in his book saying when he had a match against Shelton Benjamin, he had to ask the referee what Benjamin's finishing move was.  He didn't watch the shows at all.  I can't imagine being in a wrestling promotion and having not watched the matches of some of the guys you would likely be facing down the road, if nothing else so you could get an idea of their style.

 

By that time, Jericho had become a super busy guy.  I don't know if it was always that way with him.  There's also a joke in there about Shelton rarely ever winning.

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What blew my mind was Jericho in his book saying when he had a match against Shelton Benjamin, he had to ask the referee what Benjamin's finishing move was.  He didn't watch the shows at all.  I can't imagine being in a wrestling promotion and having not watched the matches of some of the guys you would likely be facing down the road, if nothing else so you could get an idea of their style.

 

Can you name Benjamin's finishing move at the time?

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Is there anyone else here who thinks the WWE has a very good product right now?I know it's not perfect. Things aren't executed perfectly 100% of the time (i.e., any comedy segment). I haaaate watching The 100,000,000th McMahon Power Struggle as much as everyone else does. But overall, I like the product more than I ever have.The in-ring talent and depth they have is fantastic. The PPV is so deep today that they can toss out The Shield vs. The Usos as the free match. Those are two legitimately great teams who could have a very high-end match. And they're in that spot not because of a "deemphasis of tag wrestling" but because they have a two ladder matches (completely unpredictable in terms of booking) and two world title matches, both of which have been pretty solidly well-built, heated feuds. Even the AJ/Kaitlyn feud has been great -- it's a very long-term feud now boiling to its apex. When was the last time the two divas (ugh, hate using that) in the spotlight had such a well-done angle?The only guys I really don't want to watch anymore are Randy Orton and Sheamus. They're just snooze fests at this point but they're snooze fests who have high-end matches on a very consistent basis.They have an ace in Cena who, at this point, has probably had as many, if not more, MOTYCs than the guys viewed as the best like Bret, Shawn, Taker, etc. His promos make my eyes roll at times but he's the hero for kids and actual marks. They have an amazing "new generation" of guys underneath in Bryan and Punk who have shown they can be the 1A to Cena. They also have NXT bringing in a lot of depth like The Shield and Wyatt w/ Kassius, Sami and Paige waiting in the wings.People point out regularly how Sheamus is a bully and Cena does heel things. I mean, they do. But the Attitude Era faces were all like that. Austin and The Rock hit their finishers regularly on anyone who they did a ring interview with. Eddie bragged about cheating.It's a really good product. We nitpick it too much. There's certainly flaws but if you let yourself enjoy it you will.I'm also partial to it because it's the only rasslin' I have time to watch, aside from Chikara puts online and the few Chikara shows I get to go to. But I don't have the interest in TNA or ROH or Japan or Lucha and I 100% don't have the money or space to buy DVDs.

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While I agree with most of your points Greg, one nitpick: While true Rock and Austin were assholes, and Eddie was a cheat, those were still vital parts of there character, in a time where being an asshole ruled. Sheamus is a gigantic bully, while being one of the faces of the companies anti-bullying campaign.

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While I agree with most of your points Greg, one nitpick: While true Rock and Austin were assholes, and Eddie was a cheat, those were still vital parts of there character, in a time where being an asshole ruled. Sheamus is a gigantic bully, while being one of the faces of the companies anti-bullying campaign.

 

That part's dumb w/ Sheamus. But I pretty much ignore anything he's involved with.Another reason why I like this era: I don't feel like scum of the earth watching it. No men are hitting women or putting girls through tables. I like PG since I'm a grown-up, which is kind of weird.I have no idea how I would feel about ECW now if it was a current product.

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- The WWE announcement Monday will include Ultimate Warrior being there to announce his participation in the WWE 2K14 video game according to multiple sources in the company.

Some buzz had gotten out since a photo of Warrior appeared in an ad that appears for the game in the August issue of WWE Magazine, with a big ad of Rock and smaller inset of Warrior.

Warrior, with face paint, filmed a commercial with a Los Angeles group called Zambezi within the last few days, according to one company source.  He is the big game surprise like Brock Lesnar in the 2012 game and Mike Tyson in the 2013 game. One person who works at a store that distributes the game has noted material to be released with his photo showing his face and underneath is saying you get it if you pre-order the game.

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While I agree with most of your points Greg, one nitpick: While true Rock and Austin were assholes, and Eddie was a cheat, those were still vital parts of there character, in a time where being an asshole ruled. Sheamus is a gigantic bully, while being one of the faces of the companies anti-bullying campaign.

 

 

With Sheamus they seem to be aiming for "noble savage" rather than bully...like he just can't be constrained by the rules of society because he's such a pure brawler.  He'll cheap shot ya', but you can cheap shot him too and it's all fine, fella'...We're just brrrrrrrawlin' and at the end of the day, we'll sharrre a beerr and a laugh and comparre brrrruises!

 

It's supposed to be lovable, you know the Irish, right?  They just can't be civilized, but they're good at hearrrrrrrrt! 

 

The problem is that, apart from a few elaborate sketches, it ends up just boiling down to him running in and cheap-shotting someone and leaving, interspersed with poopy kaka stinky buttface jokes.

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It was that weird T-Bone suplex gimmick.

 

I had to think about it to remember any of Sheldon's finishers, so I sympathize with Jericho.  I remember Bejamin using the T-Bone powerslam when he got his first singles push, and it looked like he was going to work a full program with Triple H.  And he started using the jumping DDT when he turned heel and started calling himself the "Gold Standard."  There are probably several years in between,  What the heck did he use as a finisher until the heel turn?  I don't think he used the powerslam all that time.  Superkick?  Jobbed out so much it didn't matter since he never hit a finisher?

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WWE is in a weird spot. The in-ring action is as good as it has ever been and they ARE creating more long-term storylines but because they have so many hours to fill we end up with a lot of stale matches and equal booking. I'm not sure what they could do to fix it because fans will shit all over squash matches and the like..

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To me, the 'Husky Harris' chants don't come off as people protesting the bad booking of the past, they come off as people going "Look at me, I know his old name!"  And so what if WWE gave him a bad name once, that gives fans carte blanche to shit all over everything involving said wrestler in the future?! We would never have gotten the Monday Night Wars/Attitude era (Whether you liked the wrestling or not, that was a goddamn goldmine for professional wrestling) if fans shat all over the NWO by chanting Razor Ramon at Scott Hall instead of reacting to whatever the storyline onscreen was, or if WWE fans refused to cheer/boo Steve Austin and The Rock instead chanting "Ring-master" and "Rocky Maivia!" at them. 

People didn't start booing things they didn't like yesterday.  The reason crowds didn't shit on the nWo was because it was riveting.  The Wyatt Family, while people on here seem to be half in love with it / half picking it as a hill to die on, is not a riveting angle.

 

Furthermore, in creative mediums, there are a lot of vague terms to describe understood elements of each individual medium.  In movies, for instance, there is a general idea of whether something works or not.  A movie could load up on exposition (a general no-no) but the movie still works or it could do its best to avoid exposition (a lofty goal) but the movie nevertheless doesn't work.  It's a useful vagueness to describe elements of a movie that are intangible or hard to explain.  Similarly, in many artistic mediums (movies, books, video games, music, etc.), there is a concept of getting the audience on the entertainer's side.  The difference between the puerile jokes in, say, There's Something About Mary and Meet the Spartans would be that the former had already won the audience over while the latter had wasted their time.  During the Attitude era, the WWF had certainly won the audience over, but they have long since lost that.  An audience back then might have been more receptive to a shallow cult gimmick, but the WWE has been wasting the audience's time with nonsense for so long now that the audience is understandably frustrated and cynical about what the WWE comes up with.  You guys have an admirable level of patience with the WWE's storylines (this > The Shield > Ryback > angles I've forgotten > Lord Hentai > more angles I've forgotten > The Nexus), but with the exception of the recent two, which are too new to comment and still in the parent's protective bubble respectively, they've all gotten lost in the wilderness at some point.  By all means, be excited about each new thing the WWE comes up with, but let's not pretend that other people's exasperation is anything other than completely understandable and even expected.

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Thats something I've always been perplexed about. It seems from reading bios, reading Twitter, etc that a lot of people in professional wrestling cease watching it once they become wrestlers. If you're a guy like Luger or whoever and was never a fan it's one thing but when you grow up as a huge fan it's just weird to me.I'm not saying they should be like me and watch nearly everything on TV plus shit online but to just not watch any of stuffing instead of potatoes once you enter the industry is so foreign to me.Same with wrestlers refusing to pay to see a WWE show or whatever. I don't get it.

 

Two different things here.  First, most wrestlers that are passionate about the business watch a shit ton of wrestling.  They just might taper off watching current television wrestling.  Most good wrestlers will go out of their way to watch as much of the shows that they are on as possible.  Especially on the indys, a lot of guys almost watch too much of their own footage, because they start picking up on things they do that maybe no one else notices.  It is a fine line.  Maybe a lot of guys in the WWE watch less, but that is understandable because of the travel and what not. But a lot of guys do watch from the curtain, or monitors in the back. 

 

The second part is kinda associated with the following quote:

 

 

In my (admittedly limited) dealings with Indy wrestlers I've picked up the idea that admitting you watch WWE or talking about wrestling "like a fan" makes you a mark.  It's probably just easier to not watch or say you don't watch and act above it than it is to get razzed about being a mark for the business or whatever.

 

I love wrestling, and some of the wrestlers I know personally I like a great deal as people, but it really and truely is a fucked up, weird, stupid business.

 

This is where the "I don't go to shows I'm not booked for" attitude comes from.  It is okay to be a fan of wrestling, and to love the buisness, but at a point you have to stop acting like a ticket-buying fan, and acting like a professional.  If you wanna watch Raw, no one is gonna give you any grief. However, if you watch it and wanna talk about how awesome something was or whatever, then you are gonna get ribbed for being a mark.

 

Furthermore, at one point when I was running a training school, I had training on Mondays & Wednesday nights.  The backlash I got from guys wanting to be pro wrestlers but having to miss Raw was ridiculous.  In turn, I have known guys that have turned down bookings because they had tickets to WWE shows.  Even worse, I know a lot of guys who bitch about being light on bookings, but then go and pay to attend other local shows in their area.  To me, that is crazy and unprofessional. 

 

I know to a civilian it might seem odd, but wrestling is an odd business, and thoughout its history, it is built on secrecy and tradition.  It is easy to say "Kayfabe is dead, those old ways are stupid and from a bygone era".... but look at how the business is now.  You get out what you put in. 

 

 

You get the audience you deserve.

 

Yup, usually. 

 

If you promote, hire solid talent, and use logic, things should work out. 

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Furthermore, at one point when I was running a training school, I had training on Mondays & Wednesday nights.  The backlash I got from guys wanting to be pro wrestlers but having to miss Raw was ridiculous.

 

Aren't those the guys you should want to take as much money as possible from before they lose interest and find another hobby?

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