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The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries


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38 minutes ago, elizium said:

The wrestling episode of The Chris Gethard show is absolutely amazing, second only to the what's in the dumpster episode.

I prefer all the episodes I am on. 

I hope I am not spilling any beans. But my brother’s biggest dream guest for his show was Roddy Piper. It was actually close to happening and they talked a few times on the phone before Hot Rod passed away. We were Piper fanatics as kids.

Not sure if it will come up in the thing about New Jack, but Chris and I went to see ECW in Asbury Park in 1997 or so. Chris actually managed to get part of a table Jack dove through from the mezzanine. I have it beat though because the same show I was in the bathroom. I heard the unmistakable voice of Referee Bill Alfonso say “it’s clear, no one is here” and RVD walked to the stall next to me, pulled up the right leg of his singlet, turned to the side and peed. 

As far as the Benoit documentary goes — I really think it is award worthy. There were so many parts I never considered, like how Vikki and Nancy had a very close friendship. I also think the producers did a very good job at showing that Woman was really talented herself and more than just a murder victim.
 

They are completely right, too. Just in ECW alone she had such a big impact. Everyone remembers the Shane NWA belt thing. But the first really big ECW angle I remember hearing about was when Tommy accidentally swung a cane and it clicked Sandman’s cigarette into his eye and he was blind. Nancy did such an awesome job and people at the time legit thought it was a shoot. She also got Dreamer over huge. Dreamer in those early days of ECW was just some chubby snooze. The whole angle with The Sandman got him over, especially when he had to take a bunch of cane shots and Woman tormented him the entire time. That really put Dreamer over as “extreme” and was the angle that made his career. I also don’t know how over Sandman would have been without her as a second. His act was so unique he could have been fine but she really added a lot to it. I also was such a huge mark for Doom. Their debut match at some random Clash is one of the best ring intros ever. If memory is correct, there is some sort of giant skull background and a lot of dry ice and “Her Strut” by ZZ Top and a lot of bad attitude all around. 

She was really really talented.

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1 hour ago, Greggulator said:

I heard the unmistakable voice of Referee Bill Alfonso say “it’s clear, no one is here” and RVD walked to the stall next to me, pulled up the right leg of his singlet, turned to the side and peed. 

That doesn’t shock me. RVD always looked like he had a Fiji water bottle tucked in there.

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Okay I knew that Mustafa was a goofy crazy motherfucker but when you think that smoking pencil shavings is a good idea that you are REALLY  a crazy motherfucker

This is probably the most coherent Sandman in the last 10 years that I have seen and he is still pretty fucked up

Jesus that Vic Grimes bump off the scaffold will never not be horrifying.  And he was trying to throw him out of the ring  

 

 

Edited by hammerva
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Loved this one. Then again I always love hearing Jack talk, he just cracks me up. The pencil shaving story was hilarious and Mustafa doesn't seem to mind being on the panel despite that. The stories about Jack's childhood are new to me... fucked up. 

13 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I didn't realize how much coke-talk there would be from New Jack

At the beginning I was like "they're probably not gonna get into any coke talk" and then bang whole rest of the episode after every incident haha. They also showed the whole Kulas thing so be forewarned. The stabbing actually doesn't look bad in comparison! 

Oh and one more thing that was hilarious, the promoter saying Jack was a great cook, they ask what dish did he used to make and dude just says "spaghetti" ?

Edited by Curt McGirt
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That was a billion times less depressing than last week, but, somehow, not much less disturbing.

He flat out admitting he was trying to kill Grimes is... something. I mean, I knew that was probably the case, but...

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4 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

The stories about Jack's childhood are new to me... fucked up. 

He goes into much greater detail on the shoots on Youtube. You really need to watch it. His mom basically abandoned him for a nursing job in upstate NY when he was like 15 or 16, which is likely why he said they didn't get along towards the end of the episode.

"And OJ had just kilt everybody..."

Also:

"Jack Jack, I can't feel my legs!"

"You ain't gone need 'em"

I know I shouldn't laugh at shit like that, but I was ROFL. Straight gems.

For all the talk here about whether or not Kowalski trained Kulas, they basically steered clear of that and focused on the age lie.

I don't get the New Jack never had shot at WWE because of the liability stuff. He was suppose to get a tryout with WWE in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2005 (there was a Raw there on January 10). Keep in mind, the first One Night Stand was five months later. FWIW MVP was there too and ended up making his TV debut as a police officer at a Smackdown taping the next night in Tampa. The rumor is Jack did a workout with Val Venis, and WWE wasn't that impressed. Here is New Jack's side of the story. 

Not to judge D'Lo too harshly, but after hearing him speak on this show, I can see why New Jack feels like he was cutting Cornette's grass. I can't imagine New Jack and Mustapha hanging out w/ D'Lo. Like oil and water.

 

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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After watching that I don't feel much sympathy for Kulas at all. Throwing up the birds and being stupid enough to take off that bandage is just eye-rolling. 

Christ, after watching what feels like hours of those shoots there are still things I've missed.

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6 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

He goes into much greater detail on the shoots on Youtube. You really need to watch it. His mom basically abandoned him for a nursing job in upstate NY when he was like 15 or 16, which is likely why he said they didn't get along towards the end of the episode.

"And OJ had just kilt everybody..."

Also:

"Jack Jack, I can't feel my legs!"

"You ain't gone need 'em"

I know I shouldn't laugh at shit like that, but I was ROFL. Straight gems.

For all the talk here about whether or not Kowalski trained Kulas, they basically steered clear of that and focused on the age lie.

I don't get the New Jack never had shot at WWE because of the liability stuff. He was suppose to get a tryout with WWE in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2005 (there was a Raw there on January 10). Keep in mind, the first One Night Stand was five months later. FWIW MVP was there too and ended up making his TV debut as a police officer at a Smackdown taping the next night in Tampa. The rumor is Jack did a workout with Val Venis, and WWE wasn't that impressed. Here is New Jack's side of the story. 

Not to judge D'Lo too harshly, but after hearing him speak on this show, I can see why New Jack feels like he was cutting Cornette's grass. I can't imagine New Jack and Mustapha hanging out D'Lo. Like oil and water.

 

They wanted him on the first ONS but he had an outstanding warrant in NY so that prevented it from happening. This would come into play several years later when Extreme Rising ran their second ever show (after just about the most disastrous debut show ever) and it was in Queens. They announced The Gangstas vs BlkOut for the show, but then realized that Jack still had the warrant so that was a real bad idea. They then announced that he was off the card. Of course when the show happened they had the match start as a 2 on 1 until Jack showed up unannounced, did the match and got the hell out of there.

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That was the least depressing episode of Darkside of The Ring. I’ve always said you could probably get a great dark comedic HBO sitcom about ECW because most of the cast of characters are based on guys who’s attitudes were “Ehhhhhh... I’ve got issues”.

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I like how the guy who got stabbed told Jack he wanted to do the Florida circuit like he's Dusty Rhodes working Pak Song for Eddie Graham. Was this motherfucker thinking about selling out every Days Inn across the Redneck Riviera?

We don't need further evidence this is the most carnie profession ever.

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46 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

For all the talk here about whether or not Kowalski trained Kulas, they basically steered clear of that and focused on the age lie.

I don't get the New Jack never had shot at WWE because of the liability stuff. He was suppose to get a tryout with WWE in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2005 (there was a Raw there on January 10). Keep in mind, the first One Night Stand was five months later. FWIW MVP was there too and ended up making his TV debut as a police officer at a Smackdown taping the next night in Tampa. The rumor is Jack did a workout with Val Venis, and WWE wasn't that impressed. Here is New Jack's side of the story. 

Honestly, it's more surprising @sabremike 's reasoning for why New Jack didn't get a shot at WWE was never mentioned in the documentary when they talked about how New Jack's career started to dry up after ECW went under.

If you're mentioning the assault charge New Jack had before and his arrests, it would fit the documentary far more to mention that the reason New Jack never got a chance in WWE and that his career started to dwindle was less "he was a liability for his extreme style" and more "New Jack has outstanding warrants in a number of states, and if he ever wrestled in those states he would immediately be arrested the second he made it to the arena"- and how his career didn't dwindle because of his extreme style, but because he can only take bookings in states which he doesn't have an arrest warrant in.

As far as the age lie- it did bypass the "did Kowalski train Kulas?" thing, but even then the documentary did say beyond the age lie spoke more volumes for my case for Kulas than bringing that argument up ever could, since the documentary did say, flat-out, "Heyman saw videotape of Mass Transit fighting minis, and Heyman was interested in potentially bringing him in because of those matches." That not only gives credence to my "Kulas was a small-time trained wrestler who was in way over his head", and with the "he asked for too much offense in the match and that pissed New Jack off claim", it sounds even bigger than my case and sounds a hell of a lot like the story could have been as big as"Mass Transit was a guy on Heyman's radar, he got a tryout match with ECW, but pissed off the locker room and failed to latch on- and then the Kulas family played the 'he was secretly 17 and lied about his age' card to get revenge on ECW for rejecting him."

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As I was watching this episode, I went to the Observer that would cover this (the 12/2/1996 issue). What's kinda hilarious is the part discussing the Mass Transit incident comes right after Dave talking about the turkey battle royal in USWA.

Quote

One of the strangest deals in a long time, a combination angle and non-angle, took place on 11/23 in Revere, MA. A 17-year-old named Eric Kulas was put in the ring with The Gangstas and New Jack juiced him, apparently with an Xacto knife. Apparently Kulas, who had never had much in the way of formal training and probably had never been gigged before, moved as he was being sliced and it hit an artery and blood flowed like a faucet. Kulas, who used the name Mass Transit, subbing for no-show Axl Rotten in a tag title match teaming with D-Von Dudley, needed 50 stitches to close the wound. Supposedly Kulas came to the building with some midget wrestlers and thought he was going to do something with them, and then they bailed on him. The idea of the angle was for him to where a uniform like a public official and get destroyed by The Gangstas, and New Jack asked him before the match if he wouldn't mind bleeding and he apparently said that he wouldn't. He wanted to cut himself, but New Jack wanted to do it since he was more experienced. The show was held up after this incident for a long period of time because various people, including Kulas' father, were freaking out and because it took 25 minutes to clean the ring up from all the blood. The father was screaming about suing the promotion and later claimed that when he brought his son to the hospital, that they wanted to press charges of child abuse against him because the authorities were alerted because of how bloody he was, and nobody believed that something like that happened in a pro wrestling match. To get their babyface character over more, New Jack after the incident on the house mic said that either for all he cared the guy could bleed to death or even he hoped the guy would bleed to death, depending upon which version one chooses to believe.

From the episode, it sounded a bit weird because the mini (Tiny the Terrible) made it sound like Kulas volunteered to take Axl's spot which meant the minis wouldn't be on the show. 

If Paul actually told a coked out New Jack he can do whatever to the kid, then a lot of that is on Paul. I know that ECW had this brutal initiation attitude and had guys like Big Val Puccio and later on Sal E. Graziano, but what was the likelihood of this kid ever having a real shot in ECW?

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12 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

From the episode, it sounded a bit weird because the mini (Tiny the Terrible) made it sound like Kulas volunteered to take Axl's spot which meant the minis wouldn't be on the show. 

If Paul actually told a coked out New Jack he can do whatever to the kid, then a lot of that is on Paul. I know that ECW had this brutal initiation attitude and had guys like Big Val Puccio and later on Sal E. Graziano, but what was the likelihood of this kid ever having a real shot in ECW?

For the mini, it also helped show the underarching "the Kulases were kind of scumbags to that theory", since the "Heyman was interested" seemed to make it look like "he wanted Mass Transit vs. the minis to see if it'd work in ECW", but when Axl left, the minis got thrown under the bus to try and see if Kulas could get a bigger, less comedy spot."

As far as real shot...it seems unlikely. The closest person to Kulas ("comedy worker with fun gimmick") would have been Nova (who got into ECW based on Raven getting a kick out of his superhero gimmick and telling Heyman to book him solely on that)...but it's pretty apparent Kulas was nowhere near the in-ring talent Nova was. Throw in that the Ralph Kramden gimmick he used was so backwards that there's no hope of it working in a cutting-edge promotion like ECW was, and he probably would have had to be repackaged somehow...and even then, it likely wouldn't be better than Sal E. Graziano or, best case scenario, a parody hanger-on for the BWO or one of the less important Dudley Boys. Ultimately, he probably wouldn't have been able to be a big ECW star.

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