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The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries


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I've seen WWE defenders on the topic say that they had to keep the show going because of the title switch, because it would have ruined the booking plans. Granted I haven't seen the argument in a long time but I've also not gone any where other than here for wrestling talk in close to 2 decades so I don't know how much that still holds but some people are really too far into the wrestling bubble if they think that is a  rational reason to not stop a show when someone dies in the ring.

I haven't watched the episode yet but am going to get to it once my work week slows down or more likely the weekend.

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18 minutes ago, Sublime said:

I've seen WWE defenders on the topic say that they had to keep the show going because of the title switch, because it would have ruined the booking plans. Granted I haven't seen the argument in a long time but I've also not gone any where other than here for wrestling talk in close to 2 decades so I don't know how much that still holds but some people are really too far into the wrestling bubble if they think that is a  rational reason to not stop a show when someone dies in the ring.

I haven't watched the episode yet but am going to get to it once my work week slows down or more likely the weekend.

If I remember right one of McMahon's excuses was the fear that the crowd was "going to riot" if they cancelled the show, one would assume they didn't cancel the show was so they wouldn't have to refund the ppv buys.

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1 hour ago, hammerva said:

The one I was thinking of was in TNA around 2002 or 2003.  I mean it wouldn't surprise me if he did the same thing in 1999 in WCW but don't remember that

You may be right. It all blends together to be honest.

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Welcome to the ShowBuzzDaily graphic, Dark Side of the Ring

349k viewers, highest ever. #31 in 18-49 for the night. The male 18-49 number (0.24) for DSOTR last night was the same as male 18-49 for the #4 Little People Big World.

DSOTR also beat the ESPN replay of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series by 100K.

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-tuesday-cable-originals-network-finals-5-19-2020.html

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OK, I just finished the Owen episode, and these are my thoughts:

Fuck this company, fuck Vince McMahon, fuck anyone else who had a rigging guy with little experience put that tiny-ass clamp on a 230-pound human being to lower them like that. 

Martha Hart came off as a completely amazing human being not letting this company get away with this shit and doing her own investigating. She just seems like a good, honest person. 

I can't even with this shit, these wrestlers need to get off their asses and unionize so that they're not out here killing themselves for some demented piece of profiteering shit. 

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3 hours ago, happjack said:

one would assume they didn't cancel the show was so they wouldn't have to refund the ppv buys.

I wonder if they'd have to pay anything for cancelling the show as well. We saw it this year with them refusing to cancel WrestleMania and instead waiting on the city to do it so they wouldn't have to pay insurance costs or whatever.

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6 hours ago, Sublime said:

I've seen WWE defenders on the topic say that they had to keep the show going because of the title switch, because it would have ruined the booking plans.

The easy counterpoint is that 1999 WWF wasn't exactly a reservoir of long-term booking

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1 hour ago, HumanChessgame said:

I don't have any new thoughts to add to the others expressed here, but I am curious to know if that Owen/Tenta match they showed clips of at the beginning is online anywhere?

If you are talking about the Stampede footage they showed early on, Owen's opponent was Mike Shaw as Makhan Singh. 

Tenta got his start early in Vancouver, but sadly never worked Stampede during his early years. Lord knows him vs Owen and Pillman in those years would have been incredible.

That said, Owen vs Makhan Singh is still worth going out of your way to check out. Probably the best in-ring work of Mike Shaw's career as well. 

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19 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Secondly. I can't say this with certainty, but I have reason to believe the "blood on the canvas" was possibly the Brood's stage blood from Sunday Night Heat on the same night. Michael Hayes and the Hardys got a Blood Bath by the Brood. You can see in this video that Matt Hardy had some on him and it got stained on the canvas. Now, don't quote me on this. Also let me be clear, I'm not saying definitively none of Owen's blood was in the ring, but it's also possible some of it was the leftover stage blood from the Brood. 

Ok so it starts at about 8:55 of this clip. Again, just saying the footage has made me question if that was Owen's blood in the ring. Keep in mind I don't even remember watching Heat 21 years ago. I do remember watching the event and the blood being in the ring. I remember Nicole Bass having blood on her shirt and shoulders after her match. I thought it might've been from Owen.

In this, that needs to be said- the "Owen's blood was still in the ring" thing was disproven years ago, and there was proof years before that the blood on the canvas was the stage blood from the Brood's bloodbath. 

The Bloodbath happened on Sunday Night Heat on the pre-show,  and the same bloodstain everyone claims was Owen's blood on the canvas was seen on the mat during the matches that happened before Owen's fall occurred. It wasn't his blood. 

14 hours ago, StarChief EagleDemon said:

I've never been in a writer's room before, but if the whole idea that they need a quick release to avoid wasting TV time, couldn't they have written around it? Would it have been that hard to think of something? Cut to the announcers or throw it to a video package. Bryan Alvarez brought it up the other day, if you want to up the parody aspect of it, give him even more carabiners to release and lean into the over the top absurdity of it. 

But Vince had to have his way and get in a meaningless jab at WCW. I remember somebody putting it this way: Owen Hart was a casualty of the Monday Night Wars.

Even with that, it's more of a question mark to do the angle. 

The Blue Blazer angle had nothing to do with taking cheapshots at WCW...unless you go as far as claiming "drink your milk, do your homework, etc." was a parody of Hulk Hogan, which is tenuous in itself. Having Owen go up there to take a jab at Sting's entrances made absolutely no sense, even in context. 

Even WORSE than that: what DID make sense in context?

The whole crux of the Blue Blazer gimmick was "Owen Hart is obviously the Blue Blazer, but he keeps denying it left and right and having random schmoes pretend to be the Blue Blazer when he's around to prove they're two different people." That makes the Owen fall even more blatant, since there was an obvious out if you absolutely had to do the segment and Owen was uncomfortable with doing it: Have a trained stuntman come in, do the descend from the rafters, then fall onto a crashpad (which they had used for things like the Hawk suicide angle a few months before). The stuntman does the fall, then Owen shows up from underneath the pad in the Blazer outfit none the worse for wear. Same exact benefit of the segment, no one dies, and it actually works better for the storyline.

 

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I always got the sense that reviving the Blue Blazer gimmick was a way to poke fun at not just Hulk Hogan, but WCW kind of being stuck in the past and now having all the old-timers at the top. WWE had long moved on from the Rock N Wrestling era of the 1980s and WWF was the more hip modern product at the time. And here was Owen pretending to be this goofy superhero gimmick character from a bygone era because he was the "nugget" and he couldn't get any respect or mileage as Owen Hart. Like Russo and Ferrara were getting a kick making fun of that stuff. 

But what can you expect out of schmucks like Russo and Ferrera who people mistakenly believed were creative geniuses forever? A good and sensible storyline for Owen Hart? 

I try not to agonize about the what if scenarios. At the very least, I'm grateful this documentary got made and Owen's family appeared in it because they finally got to tell their side of the story. I think all those things needed to be said in this format. I think a lot more fans understand where Martha Hart is coming from now.

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I've watched this three times.  I keep going back to the clip.  Which I never knew about until now.  Fucking disgusting.  Owen died because Vince wanted to save some money.  And I'm not going to single out one person, this shit was obviously dangerous, and NO ONE said, at least enough to matter, this is dangerous.   And then they hire someone who doesn't know what they are doing.  And apparently doesn't care.  

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IMHO it wasn't just Vince. It was a bunch of people who made bad decisions and were not acting with the talent's safety in mind and first and foremost.

It was was Event Operations manager Steve Taylor, who wasn't even mentioned in the episode. It was Bobby Talbert, who was only mentioned briefly, who designed the stunt. The people who supplied the equipment. It all coalesced and ended in a loss in life. So there's plenty of blame to go around.

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7 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

I've watched this three times.  I keep going back to the clip.  Which I never knew about until now.  Fucking disgusting.  Owen died because Vince wanted to save some money.  And I'm not going to single out one person, this shit was obviously dangerous, and NO ONE said, at least enough to matter, this is dangerous.   And then they hire someone who doesn't know what they are doing.  And apparently doesn't care.  

I literally gasped when Martha pulled that clip out.  Fuck.  Martha, Oje, and Athena deserve all the praise they get and then some.  Fighters, all of them.

Great episode.  As someone else said, if this version of Jim Cornette had a podcast, everyone would be listening to it.

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5 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I literally gasped when Martha pulled that clip out.  Fuck.  Martha, Oje, and Athena deserve all the praise they get and then some.  Fighters, all of them.

Great episode.  As someone else said, if this version of Jim Cornette had a podcast, everyone would be listening to it.

All of this. Well said.

I remembered the clip wasn't fit for purpose and that's an understatement, but seeing THE clip and how it unlatched with little pressure. Words fail me, man. 

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12 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

IMHO it wasn't just Vince. It was a bunch of people who made bad decisions and were not acting with the talent's safety in mind and first and foremost.

It was was Event Operations manager Steve Taylor, who wasn't even mentioned in the episode. It was Bobby Talbert, who was only mentioned briefly, who designed the stunt. The people who supplied the equipment. It all coalesced and ended in a loss in life. So there's plenty of blame to go around.

Vince apologist. ^^

Vince has the final say on everything if your not on the payroll stop defending him everywhere.

Never understand the Vince fascination on here. Ooooooh he calls people PAL let’s all harp on that for a thousand years or hey he doesn’t like people sneezing OMG what a man of mystery and intrigue. 

 

Anyways on a lighter note I hope next season they do an episode of who took Lex Luger’s DMX cd back in WCW so we can put that mystery to rest. 

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