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MARCH 2018 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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7 hours ago, FluffSnackwell said:

Undertaker has had the High Plains Drifter aura for most of his career. Sure, he had his cult leader phase, which was about as spooky and mysterious as the Dungeon of Doom. However since the Streak began, it has been nothing but having to address little pricks' wishes for him to have one last gunfight with them. I always saw Bray as more of a Mason the Mutilator garden variety lunatic, who got educated enough to realize he'd rather lead his own cult than be some mortician's gimp. I have no idea what Bray's Mr. Socko will turn out to be if his character ever takes a similar turn to Mankind. Perhaps he shits in his hat and Ganso bombs his foes into his bowel leavings. Husky Harris sure ain't no Cactus Jack.

Uh... what the hell?

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Story wise I linked Bray Wyatt's origin to Husky Harris getting punted by Randy Orton. He had been a loyal member of CM Punk's New Nexus and Punk left him for dead. He struggles with what happened and realizes it is better to be the cult leader than the follower. If you want to count non WWE, his dad was a follower of Kevin Sullivan and went from identity to identity trying to find worth. 

About three years ago Bray starts believing his own lie and entered a downward spiral. 

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Seeing the Black Wedding mentioned earlier, has Stephanie McMahon been diagnosed with PTSD yet? She's been kidnapped multiple times, she faked being drugged, raped and forcibly married just to get back at her father for her first kidnapping, she faked a pregnancy to keep her husband, she had to fight her dad when he wouldn't stop his second public affair, when her father was having his first public affair, she was okay with that one as long as she got to abuse his mistress, she found out her father had a bastard child, she was RKO'd and forcibly kissed just to enrage her husband , she had her crowning moment ruined by her "prodigal son" brother ruin her award ceremony and be welcomed back as if he had never left the family business.

Also how is she allowed to be a chief executive in a company when all that has happened to her? Or is WWE not a publicly traded company in kayfabe

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Honestly I used wikipedia to remember all she went through. It sounds like somewhere WWE retconned the whole thing to make Stephanie a willing participant because they didn't want one of their bigger stars to be a sexual predator.

EDIT: After I hit post I remembered they also had him pretend fuck a corpse and throw fake brains at the camera so I'm not 100% sure they care if Hunter is a sexual predator.

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13 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I was wondering if we have any LGBT folks on the board who might be comfortable giving their opinion on this article? 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/03/kenny-omega-and-kota-ibushis-relationship-is-a-cru.html

I'm not of the requested demographic, but, if I may, this smacks of the same line of thinking that was going around when "Captain America: Civil War" came out and people were clamoring for Cap & Bucky to come out as a couple.

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45 minutes ago, nate said:

I'm not of the requested demographic, but, if I may, this smacks of the same line of thinking that was going around when "Captain America: Civil War" came out and people were clamoring for Cap & Bucky to come out as a couple.

It's not really that similar at all, honestly. Back in the DDT days, Kenny talked about them moving to the US and getting married in an interview; he's mentioned dating men and women in several "canon" New Japan features and BTE; he suggested newer fans read a twitter thread recapping the whole thing as a "gay love story"; and he's been pretty open about the fact that he likes it that some queer fans see themselves in the story, or at least take some comfort in the fact that it exists.

I do think fans extend themselves too far when trying to extrapolate what is real from the fiction, and in that regard resemble more (let's be charitable) ambitious shippers; but if we limit ourselves to the story that's been/is being told, the queer subtext for this angle is pretty clear, perhaps to the point that you'd just call it text, and drop the prefix.

Anyway, having said that, it's difficult to say too much about the article beyond "That is the author's sincerely expressed experience, and it's valid". There is no uniform queer experience, and though I'm of the OP's requested demographic, I'm never really comfortable acting as a spokesperson. Similarly, a story having queer (sub)text doesn't mean it's only queer, which is where we get the "Don't label it; it's a universal story of two people who were once close overcoming the wedge they drove between themselves to come back together", which is very classic pro wrestling. I think, fundamentally, that is what the author of the Paste piece is getting at--and I do feel plenty comfortable agreeing here--that the story is important because it is specific without being segregated, inclusive rather than othering.

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30 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

It's not really that similar at all, honestly. Back in the DDT days, Kenny talked about them moving to the US and getting married in an interview; he's mentioned dating men and women in several "canon" New Japan features and BTE; he suggested newer fans read a twitter thread recapping the whole thing as a "gay love story"; and he's been pretty open about the fact that he likes it that some queer fans see themselves in the story, or at least take some comfort in the fact that it exists.

Well, that's cool.  This entire part I was not aware of, and I had to read the Paste article pretty quick (at work) so I don't recall if I saw that in the original article.  If it wasn't in the article it should be, because yes, that does add a different element.  But taken at the face value of the article parts I recall, I got my initial impression.  I'll re-read it at lunch, within the context of this new (to me) info.  Thanks.

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6 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Wait, did she fake the wedding/kidnapping? My memory is that was all (in story) legit but she decided to stick with Hunter to get back at Vince

I thought she had to be in on it. That the wedding as shown on TV could not have stood. But I have not seen the post Armageddon promo. One smart thing was having Steph directly attack Test, since if it were just Vince, she would have every right to hate him. Test did nothing but support her thru the entire sorry mess. Even if Test should have known better. Did he think he was going to Stephanie's side piece. Was he okay with that?

Hunter's intentionally bad ventriloquist act does still crack me up. 

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Revisiting that article:

I really think that the writer of that article does the article a disservice by not including the angles and contributions by Omega' s contextualization that @Beech27 brought up.  I would think that info would be crucial in appreciating the other facets of the rivarly/relationship.  My read of the article was far better for knowing what I didn't know in my first glance over it.  Without the clarification, though, it really does seem to swing a little wider than the point it's trying to sustain.

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54 minutes ago, nate said:

Revisiting that article:

I really think that the writer of that article does the article a disservice by not including the angles and contributions by Omega' s contextualization that @Beech27 brought up.  I would think that info would be crucial in appreciating the other facets of the rivarly/relationship.  My read of the article was far better for knowing what I didn't know in my first glance over it.  Without the clarification, though, it really does seem to swing a little wider than the point it's trying to sustain.

Yeah, that's fair. It could seem a little "So they hugged for a long time...?" without the years I've so wisely invested in Japanese indies and New Japan story machinations. Frankly, this storyline does require some work. A lot of it has played out over social media, Japanese TV shows, the BTE web series, ROH, etc., over many years. I think New Japan is happy enough to leave that be. If you only watch their big shows, and see it as a relatively conventional babyface turn/tag team reunion, cool. If you invest beyond that, you get the aspects they might find controversial to really directly address (but hey, you went looking, so you probably wanted to find it). This is Kenny's retweet of the twitter thread I mentioned, which covers a decent bit it:

 

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I get the need to evolve wrestling storylines into social media, but I'm so old school that I hate it sometimes.  That's not directed at this storyline, or you or anyone, just a reflection.

I did like that summary of the Golden Lovers' tale.

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I have no real opinion on the article, not being anywhere near its target audience, but I did wanna brag on my buddy Brian Bell. He's the author, and he was my co-host on college radio back in the day at Kennesaw St. Good on him...

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Thank you so much @Beech27 for all the insight on this, big ups dude. I don't really follow much NJPW outside of the occasional AXS episode or big show, and after I found the article I thought to myself jeez this should (socially? Societally? Not sure of the right word) be a bigger deal so I really wanted to ask someone who is a part of that community what they thought. And the author touched on it, but its probably especially important after sitting through years of Goldust, Kwee Wee, Billy and Chuck etc. 

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8 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I was wondering if we have any LGBT folks on the board who might be comfortable giving their opinion on this article? 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/03/kenny-omega-and-kota-ibushis-relationship-is-a-cru.html

They probably just like to piss on each other. They are the Golden Lovers by golly

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9 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I was wondering if we have any LGBT folks on the board who might be comfortable giving their opinion on this article? 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/03/kenny-omega-and-kota-ibushis-relationship-is-a-cru.html

I'm of the demo and think it's interesting. My immediate reaction to any gay related, wrestling storyline brings up uncomfortable feelings of being a queer kid fan in the age of Adrian Adonis and early Goldust but times have changed (kinda) so it's cool to see this stuff. And I agree that, as long as it's presented respectfully, I've got no beef with it. 

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49 minutes ago, Shibata Is My Homie said:

They probably just like to piss on each other. They are the Golden Lovers by golly

Did you suffer a severe head injury like your namesake, or were you born this way?

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Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie
10 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I was wondering if we have any LGBT folks on the board who might be comfortable giving their opinion on this article? 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/03/kenny-omega-and-kota-ibushis-relationship-is-a-cru.html

I'm okay with it as long as it's respectful. This seems respectful. I don't trust WWE's track record on getting anything right re: LGBT representation. I would be horrified if they tried to do a trans character because they would likely be lazy about it and go straight to stereotypes.

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