NOV 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION

[Surprisingly Sincere Man]

54 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Yo, Jim Carrey pretending to be Andy Kaufman on the set of Man in the Moon and trolling Jerry Lawler is LIFE. I can't tell who is working whom anymore at one point. 

This Netflix doc about Carrey on the set of Man on the Moon is great, but that stuff is especially a treat. 

I honestly got the sense that Lawler was in on the whole thing too. It's hard to believe that a worker like him would get all pissy about Carrey's behaviour and not recognise the work going on.

[RRR]

2 hours ago, sabremike said:

I didn't think I could love Dave Meltzer any more than I already do, but then he calls noted waste of human flesh Ryan Satin an asshole on Twitter and I love him even more.

Tried to find this but all I saw was someone arguing with Dave that Ric Flair is a bigger mainstream star then The Rock...Then I remembered why I don’t go on Twitter. 

[Victator]

1 hour ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Yo, Jim Carrey pretending to be Andy Kaufman on the set of Man in the Moon and trolling Jerry Lawler is LIFE. I can't tell who is working whom anymore at one point. 

This Netflix doc about Carrey on the set of Man on the Moon is great, but that stuff is especially a treat. 

Its a very interesting piece. Jim Carrey is mentally ill but manages to be functional. Jerry Lawler functions as Oliver Wendell Douglas of Green Acres. As everyone enables and placates a mega star, Lawler is the only one calling him on his behavior. At one point Lawler directly quotes something Robert Fuller said to him during a match in Memphis. Fuller put Lawler in some sorta shoot hold and whispered to him "I can do this to you anytime I feel like it." Fuller mentioned this incident in a shoot interview.

Its telling how little Carrey seemed to understand Kaufman. 

[(BP)]

I'm pretty sure Carrey was supposed to do an angle at Mania in 99 to promote the movie where he fell too far into the character resulting in a match with Lawler. I'd be surprised if he was working Lawler if that was the case. Although I guess the match could've fallen through because Carrey really was being difficult. 

I think a reasonable guess is that a lot of that stuff was a guerilla marketing campaign that fell apart when Carrey and his people realized it may hurt his Oscar chances. 

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, We Are The Robots said:

I honestly got the sense that Lawler was in on the whole thing too. It's hard to believe that a worker like him would get all pissy about Carrey's behaviour and not recognise the work going on.

Logic says that it was a work, but I don't know. Part of this is because Carrey is, as Victator points out, diagnosed with a mental illness, and that might have affected how he acted on set. The other part of it is that Lawler is an all-time great bullshitter, which is what makes him an all-time great wrestler, and his deadly serious face and how he said stuff like "Andy always called me Mr. Lawler" when pointing out that Carrey was just being antagonistic for no reason made me stop for a second. 

I'm likely just being worked by two guys who are great at working, but honestly, I enjoyed the work so much that I'm glad that I got to feel that kind of way about something wrestling-related again here in 2017. 

[Casey]

Asuka making jokes about Emma getting released - quick, prepare the angry Twitter posts, main roster workers!

[Brian Fowler]

Am I missing something? I don't see anything about Emma in there, just Asuka's catchphrase.

[Casey]

Also my post was dripping with sarcasm, but alright.

[Brian Fowler]

I got the sarcasm. I didn't get the reference, hence why I asked.

[Casey]

Really the only thing that connects the two is that little clown emoticon. I just found it amusing - but I'm probably the only one here that's excited about a potential Paige/Asuka program. So...

[Brian Fowler]

I'd enjoy it, but neither of them can really afford a loss right now

[Casey]

Asuka's first loss being a dirty one to Paige (and her two cronies) is exactly something WWE would do.

[Brian Fowler]

2 minutes ago, Casey said:

Asuka's first loss being a dirty one to Paige (and her two cronies) is exactly something WWE would do.

Would, yes. Should, no.

[Casey]

Likely, though? Almost a lock.

[Justin877]

15 hours ago, alstein said:

You had two nostalgia choices in the Triad last night- Starcade or Wrestlecade, hit the other show.   Cornette announced his retirement (He'll probably retire as many times as Terry Funk), Got to see Lawler use an iron claw, a fun but weird Dan Severn/Josh Woods match that was shat on unfairly for no reason, and Ivelisse and Taya really brought the hate well.

 

I was about to ask if anyone went to Wrestlecade this year.  I went last year and loved it but couldn't arrange it around a busy social calendar that was orchestrated by my better half.  Going to WrestleCon in New Orleans, that should be my Wrestling Convention fix there.

[piranesi]

Dealing with Paige's minions and then eventually her is enough to get Asuka through to the Rumble though, right? And that should set her up to have earned her title shot at Mania and a huge babyface win?

I mean, that makes sense...so I'm sure nothing like that will happen.

[Niners Fan in CT]

20 hours ago, Casey said:

I’m just trying to wrap my head around when it’s unique, I guess. All that happened was Dustin Rhodes working a match against a Revival member in his old WCW gimmick, Arn Anderson giving Dolph Ziggler a spinebuster, and appearances by Steamboat and the Rock ‘n Roll Express. Besides that, the matches weren’t anything that wouldn’t be on Smackdown Live - and the “unique” part was the event name and the (admittedly pretty awesome) match-up title card on the mini-tron during the matches.

None of that really screams to me, “this should have been on the Network, goddamnit, they’re burning money by not showing this!”

To be fair,  myself and others here would like to see all of the house shows on the network,  not just this one.  

[Eivion]

2 minutes ago, piranesi said:

Dealing with Paige's minions and then eventually her is enough to get Asuka through to the Rumble though, right? And that should set her up to have earned her title shot at Mania and a huge babyface win?

I mean, that makes sense...so I'm sure nothing like that will happen.

I'd rather see Asuak murder Bliss tomorrow and they build to Sasha vs. Asuka for WM.

[Casey]

Shouldn't the Paige movie be releasing around the time of WrestleMania? If so, I fully expect Paige to have a championship match since (presumably) Charlotte will be involved with Ronda Rousey one way or another.

And why would anyone want to see ALL house shows on the Network? The cards are generally the same for a few weeks - hell, tonight's SD house show were the same matches and finishes as at the Starrcade event, bar a few minor changes (no cages, Rusev singles match and Charlotte teaming with Naomi in a handicap match).

[Brian Fowler]

16 minutes ago, piranesi said:

Dealing with Paige's minions and then eventually her is enough to get Asuka through to the Rumble though, right? And that should set her up to have earned her title shot at Mania and a huge babyface win?

I mean, that makes sense...so I'm sure nothing like that will happen.

Nah. You don't want to kill off Paige and company yet either.

Building to Paige defending the belt against Asuka at Mania would fairly logical, but I don't know how you occupy the Empress until then.

[Jenalysis]

1 hour ago, Justin877 said:

I was about to ask if anyone went to Wrestlecade this year.  I went last year and loved it but couldn't arrange it around a busy social calendar that was orchestrated by my better half.  Going to WrestleCon in New Orleans, that should be my Wrestling Convention fix there.

First time ever going to one of these events.  A decent number of folks left early in order to hit Starcade.  Got to talk to three people a bit.

You can't really judge because it's just a snippet- but Johnny Mundo/Taya seem like really good folks, Cornette is incredibly sharp and witty, and Matt Striker's pretty nice and gracious also.  I generally want to believe good things about people I like though, especially given the lack of goodness in the world right now.

Brought a friend who had like zero wrestling experience to the thing because I had planned to gift this to someone, and he couldn't make it- so had a spare ticket.   George South really made him laugh- mostly because of the bible-thumping.  Being a Jesus freak makes you a really annoying and effective heel if you're a millenial- the Progressive Liberal would have been a huge face at the event.

 

I did feel bad that some of the LU folks didn't get as good a reception as I anticipated.   Johnny got one, but ex-WWE, Taya and Ive earned theirs by busting their ass and bringing the hate and violence, but the Mack (they had two Macks there, one was a local guy) and PJ Black didn't get a lot of love.  PJ looked really rusty out there too, but I"m going to cut him a ton of slack because of the basejumping injury and just returning to action.

Was also mad a couple of folks were shitting on Severn vs Josh Woods- but it wasn't for everyone. 

I think people are seeing a C-O-N-SPIRACY about Starcade trying to kill Wrestlecade.  I think these things were decided months in advance.

[The Natural]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

I'd rather see Asuak murder Bliss tomorrow and they build to Sasha vs. Asuka for WM.

This.

[SorceressKnight]

On 11/25/2017 at 5:44 PM, Brian Fowler said:

Partially, we were smarter. Cause holy Christ Henry was awesome. But part of it is also scarcity. We used to have rosters, especially in the WWF, that were 2/3s hoss, if not more. Now we only have a few, most of them are aging and stale, and nearly everybody works a style that is at least partially influenced by puro and WCW cruiserweights, so big bruising hoss fights stand out more.

Yeah- I always likened the rise of wrestling styles as similar to the rise of anime and manga in the US:

The first thing to remember for all of it is Sturgeon's Law is in place: 90% of everything is crap. 

As it started, not a lot of anime and manga was released in the US- so what did get released was, by and large, the best of the best. So anime and manga got popular.

As a result, people brought over more anime and manga. There was still enough of a backlog that there was still a lot of good stuff- but as it got popular, a little trickle of crap started to get through and come to the US. It was still a small amount, so it remained popular.

As it was popular, and there was so much good stuff coming over, then it got popular enough they'd bring virtually everything over....and then, slowly but surely, more and  more crap got released in the US. As this happened, things started to come to a head.

Eventually, we got to a point everything is released here...but EVERYTHING is released here. We get all the anime and manga we'd want, but we also get a steady stream of crap just as much as the good stuff, and it's lost a lot of its popularity as a result.

 

The same thing happened with wrestling styles. Cruiserweights, indy wrestling, puro style- we got so little of it that it became popular, and as it became popular more and more crappy cruiserweights, or crappy indy workers, or crappy puro-style workers got through the door- and now, hosses have gone into style because we get so few of them, so the hosses we get are the best of the best.

 

(And @odessasteps , I am a guy btw- the "SorceressKnight" comes from Final Fantasy VIII- hence my avatar.) 

[odessasteps]

My bad. 

[Jenalysis]

I remember Evangelion was what really opened the floodgates, with another floodgate opening when bittorrent became popular and killed off the era of VHS fansubs.

I remember hearing about some of the raw 7th generation VHS tapes some of the older folks used to have here from usenet back in the those days when I was too broke to have anything.