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For Hulk Hogan I find this animosity In no way a curiousity His actions are not anomalous For his bigotry is as titanic as a hippopotamus Therefore his apology must be bigger For Hulkamania needs a gravedigger All because the immortal one Espoused his hatred of an eight foot oh fuck

"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

The day he joined TNA, Corgan could be overheard saying, Today is not the greatest day I have ever known.

Ernie Ladd was pretty awesome. Let's talk about him for 26 pages instead.

Anyone else think of Flair in the mental hospital when they saw the Tully pic?

This is essentially the story of post-slavery American culture. If you look at all the cultural movements in this country since emancipation, they were essentially all started by black people. As soon as white people caught on the black people have essentially been pushed out. Seriously, I had a conversation with someone about cultural appropriation, and the person asked me sarcastically, "If a black person makes a rock record, are they appropriating white culture?" This person didn't even know that rock music was created by black people, because as far as they've ever known no black people make rock music. The only uniquely American culture is the post slavery African American culture. It is basically what happens when a group of people have to make up their whole culture from the ground up. Black people were freed, but isolated from the culture they had when they were shipped here. They were segregated from the rest of society and had to make up everything as they went along. Our country is essentially a never ending cycle of taking black culture while hating the people who created it.

One of those fools is dating Alexa?

Looks like we need another Racial Draft.

AJ is irreplaceable.

Shit, I'd take a Noelle with zero wrestling talent that shits the ring every night over AJ at any point in time.

Tell me that dude didn't just accuse a black guy of appropriating black culture.

We just call woman doctors "doctors." Doctor of Hugganomics would be the most adorable nickname in professional wrestling ever.

I don't even like Hogan's matches. His promos were always the same. He was a son of a bitch backstage and NOW we know he's a bigot. I'm all for throwing the piece of shit away. Did you guys hear the latest? Big Fresh is a racist.

That's just the basic version. "Shine-heat-comeback-finish" is the shorthand label for the general formula; and it's not just wrestling, you can see the exact same storytelling progression in most Hollywood movies as well.In reality, there's much more to a match than just that. A bad match can happen all by itself, but a great one always has a context. That's partly why the big climactic matches in All Japan in the 1990s are still considered to be so special; because Baba & Co. were pretty meticulously detailed in the way they built up long-term storylines. Things that happened years ago would still influence what was happening now. Paul Heyman's best-booked matches in ECW tended to have several different storylines happening to intersect at once, creating a multi-car pileup effect which could be spectacular to watch. Point is, the match isn't just the match. It's also the angle and the hype and the promos and the entrances and the announcing and the differing personalities and the differing body types and the contrast between their in-ring styles and a hundred other things. The Rock already has the people on their feet and "electrified" before ever making physical contact with his opponent. And if you ever want to hear a crowd roar in a manner to make your hair stand up, just go find any of the old Mid-South tag matches where Bill Watts is in one of his post-retirement comeback tag-team revenge matches and finally manages to catch Michael Hayes and punch him right in his stupid mouth. Oh, I totally agree. So much so, actually, that this sort of build and payoff in storylines built inside actual matches feels like something else entirely, like another level of the craft. Almost like comparing a fun pulp novel to something like LoTR. Yeah, they're both books, but one is working on a few more levels than the other (but this is not to say we should enjoy one more than the other). It's the reason why, though I enjoyed the Cena/Owens series, I felt like we missed a couple matches. That first match was such a spectacle because of all the moves and seeing Owens, a cocky upstart, match Cena move for move and eventually beat him. Part of this is the desperation and high stakes WWE main event style tries to build with multiple finisher kickouts, but I feel like that first match COULD have been something like those All Japan classics if we had gotten the first two acts. As it was, we basically got the same really good third act match three times with, I think, diminishing returns. Now, as far as that basic structure is concerned, I feel like it, like it was designed to over years and years, can do a great job of engaging and entertaining an audience as long as the parts are placed and paced well. A big criticism of the Reigns/Wyatt match at Battleground (aside of starting with headlocks and ignoring the story they'd built to start) was Bray's boring heat segments which relied a lot on a couple of long chinlocks. I really liked this match, but I feel like Bray certainly needed to build heat with different, impactful-looking offense, if only based on Reigns's character as someone who can take a punch. Bray, though, is AWESOME at cutoff spots and Reigns has developed into a really good hope spot and comeback guy, in part because almost all of his signature moves pop the crowd, look painful, and can be pulled off from a variety of set-up positions. This match has historical context with the Shield/Wyatt feud, previous singles matches between the two, and a storyline promoted on tv. But it pretty much ignored those things. Still, there is a way to dissect the match using its component parts that really makes me feel like I'm understanding what's happening on a fun, new level. Dean posted this match in the 2015 INTERNET MOTY thread, and I feel like it does a really great job of telling the story of that basic match structure without a bunch of context. Or, if it's there, as someone without that context, I still really enjoyed this match out of Quiet Storm, who I haven't seen wrestle since the early days of ROH, and Mikey Nicholls, who I've only ever heard mentioned on the board. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ylit0_mikey-nicholls-vs-quiet-storm-noah-sem_sport It tells a simple story, both guys do a good, not great, job of telling their part of the story, and I think it works. The Cena/Owens series is nonsense. There is no structure, no internal story, barely even an external story. It's a standard indie "let's hit all of our cool big moves and kick out". The first match started out like the 30th match in a long term always cycling feud. The second and third matches were slightly better at least due to SOME story of moves being countered due to familiarity and moves being teased before hit and kicked out of. People losing their minds of it can't even tell you why it was good or what story was being told. The only reason people are into the Cena indie sprints this year is because they're with actual indie guys they like. The match with Rusev at Fastlane was signifcantly better in every way to the Cena/Owens series, but people thought it was boring because they didn't get what was a very basic story and structure. I find that Japan has pretty much always been the best at clear structures that work. From the JWA days on. I love those JWA/early NJ/AJ matches which is basically the 70s NWA style at a faster pace. Most usually went 2/3 falls, first fall going to the face or native worker, generally focused on one or two holds and not trying for big moves. Second fall generally went to the gaijin or heel, usually with an impact move fairly early into the fall and generally the impact move was something built up the entire first fall. Fall three is more even with both guys trying to score the win any way they can, always selling the first two falls, often trying for what won their other falls. You get like...Inoki/Sakaguchi vs Thesz/Gotch and just study it. Or Baba vs Destroyer from JWA and AJ. Or even the hour long Bruno vs Baba match. I don't think it is a coincidence that every great NWA guy from the 70s and 80s would be even better in Japan. The structure was perfect from the start. Even when AJ went crazy with the head drops in the 90s, they still used the basic structure as the core of matches. WWE has never done matches like that. Their version has always been "do some chain wrestling and mat work for 5-10 minutes, then get back to normal signature moves trading and finisher kick out". Indie companies do the same thing, or try to emulate the Japanese still without actually have any idea of how or why it works.

She's got the look I go for, that's for sure.

Oh, he's preaching there. How disappointing.

Has technology reached a point where Vince can have John Cena slam Andre?

Seems kinda appropriate...

I've never had more faith in anything to fix a difficult situation than I have in the poetry of Brooke Hogan.

It's possible he still works there, and just hasn't bothered showing up.

I always thought Stone intentionally made it garish to look at. It's visually striking of course, but not necessarily in a good way, IMO. I would put JFK on this list, though. It's still probably the best edited film I've ever seen.

Who wants a serious discussion over such a sensitive issue when mocking Hulk Hogan for being a racist and a fucking moron is so much more fun?

From Facebook (huge): ​

Spoiled due to size--

It was...

STEROIDS INHIBITING ME BLOOD IN MY PEE ANABOLIC HORROR

Nice chance for Vince & WWE to publicly distance themselves from a racist and pretend they're not racist as fuck. Another nice chance for mass media to pick apart one tape where one person said some shit that clearly sucks, instead of constantly tackling systemic institutional and cultural racism that dominates the West.

Not familiar with Virgil Flynn, is he any good? ETA: Is it too much to hope he's a cross between WWE Superstar Virgil and Jerry Flynn?

He managed to grab the hot daughter of a former WWF Champion by dressing up as a clown and going to wrestling shows. He belongs in the fan wing of the WWE Hall of Fame.

Feel free to hate all clowns. They deserve it.

In all seriousness, the idea that the Rock counts as being "black" shows how fucked-up our perceptions about race still are in common society. He's half pureblood Samoan on his mom's side, and Rocky Johnson is pale enough that he clearly has plenty of European DNA in his genes. Yet we're still taught to look at people like Dwayne, with considerably less than 50% African ancestry, as being "a black guy". It probably all traces back to the One Drop rule of slavery: that is, if anyone had so much as one drop of African blood in their veins, they were legally considered black and could be owned as slaves. That attitude has never entirely gone away, and that's how you get a modern society which is still so weird about race that someone like Rachel Dolezal can pass for black with nothing but a spray-tan and a perm. I'm not quite sure why people got on you for this post. We accept more and more that gender is a construct, but we still don't quite get that race is a construct in this country. I had to check myself when The Rock wanted to be identified as Samoan because I was like, "What, is he ashamed of being black?" But it isn't about me, and to fall into that sort of stupidity just validates the way we think about race in this country as being part of your blood. Race is nothing but a cultural construct, and really, you should be able to identify how you want to without getting shit from everyone.

Well you don't have to care. But that also doesn't mean everyone else doesn't have to care.

It's just his towel.

Wow, beauty pageants in France in the 60's were weird.

These long form threads always take some interesting turns.

I blame Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, and Kurt Angle for the first part anyway.

Pasting links is an upper body business.

It ain't the same without you stout. Dan was stealth knifing guys in judging the jury, and I had to yell "damnit Dan you're not in a deathmatch" without you.

My only real regret is we can't see each others screens some times. I was having such a great time shooting grenades from the bucket of a bulldozer as it was driving down. I just wish I could have made the selfie work.

Really, we ought to be putting some of this on youtube. I put it up there against any let's play videos I've seen. Our motto: It ain't the fastest, it ain't the smartest, it probably won't work at all. But dalmit, we're laughing. Sorry I disappeared (assuming I did and didn't say goodnight). Between work kicking my ass and two beer, I remember playing and then waking up at 5 a.m. with the lights on, sitting straight up in my recliner with the worst "crick" in my neck that I've ever had.

His vision for NXT is not necessarily his vision for WWE, though. He's running it for a hardcore audience. Really, though? He's just picking up majorly experienced guys who know how to work, have very well developed in-ring personalities and are guaranteed to be able to bust out solid matches with anyone, and come with the added bonus of having this "underground superstar" aura they can push, which I'm sure clicks with most casual viewers. On the one hand I think it's super cool to have like, FCW, but with its own (non-local) TV and PPVs, but at the same time it's a total reification (hypercommercial imitation) of independent wrestling which is the opposite of independent, inevitably dumbs down and sanitizes everything, and is making friends of mine post like, screenshots of the first Joe/"Owens" stand-off like it's some groundbreaking shit and NXT is the best thing ever. It's just a way to draw indy fans to WWE, and most of all just sign awesome, crisp, solid workers with years of experience and firmly established ring presence.

Poor Brooke. Her pa doesn't have a "tender heart." He has an enlarged one, what with all the steroids and all.

Good god...I hate this company. So instead of John Cena's career, he may only have Chris Jericho's career. Poor guy.

Chris Bosh posted a picture of himself working out on a practice court on IG.

I'm personally looking forward to the mountain of lies that will be told when Hogan is recounting this incident years from now. "Brother, all that stuff went down, and I was deported to the jungles of Siberia, and then President Obama gave me the pardon, and told me with his dying breath "I forgive you brother".

There's a lot of people who owe Bobby Heenan an apology. The Brain was right all along.

Fine, I'll do it.