SorceressKnight

Honestly, the nature of CHIKARA was always weird enough that it'd be weird at the very least to see if WWE would be able to monetize CHIKARA on the network, since we have enough of a track record to know that what works on the Network for other promotions are promotions that have loads of recognizable WWE stars- and CHIKARA's charm was always that the characters there were so different that even if someone used the same name on the regular indies, you could compartmentalize the worker in CHIKARA was not the same as the worker on the greater indies. I'm not ready for WWE Network destroying that nature of the show because they need to tell casual WWE viewers why they should care about this Soldier Ant or Helios match (for two examples of CHIKARA names who are well-known in WWE sans the mask.) Heck, when you consider that nature- it's likely that wrestling has proven that CHIKARA had kind of finished its time even independent of this stuff. Quackenbush always had something to rub people the wrong way, but it was accepted "he's kind of a jerk, but he's a creative genius with characters"...but the rise of people like Orange Cassidy or Drew Gulak to be stars has kind of shown in the last year "wait a second- these guys are good anyway. Hell, Quackenbush's characters made from some 1980s glorified toy commercial animated show may actually be holding these guys back!".

In addition to all of this, another thing that has to be kept in mind is: This is pro wrestling we're talking about. Part of the pro wrestling experience is knowing that every single aspect of the sport is trying to sell you something. It's not so much an antisocial personality as much as it is a whole part of selling people this experience: You're trying to sell them "I'm a good person, I'm your friend and I'm one of us", so in turn you can sell them other parts of being in this experience (tickets to see you perform again, merchandise, etc., etc.) That is a little different for the friends and family instance, because more than "we see what we want to see", it's "we see what the person will LET you see." Joey Ryan claiming "it's not my fault, it's just me going viral letting me live a rock and roll lifestyle" explained so much more than anything else in his "apology" ever could: EVEN WHEN his back was against the wall and literally everyone knew "your career is over, you will never be allowed to be a professional wrestler again after this, you'll be lucky if you don't end up in jail for this shit", he was STILL trying to sell people an image of him as his character, even when it's connected to an act that makes sure that this character is effectively dead. Even when everyone saw way more of who Joey Ryan was than he intended, he truly thought he could still allow people to only see what HE wanted us to see- and that's just...even more insidious somehow.

Honestly, even with things like Tyson, that probably is another reason why "deny and attack" has taken hold over "admit wrongdoing and try to do better. Even if Tyson is a question, a better example would be Michael Vick: A person who was caught, paid the price for his actions, and his punishment truly changed him and made him do a complete 180 to a person who does tireless work for the Humane Society to try and prevent others from getting into dogfighting like he did....and to many people, it doesn't matter how much he changes. No matter what he does to change it, he'll always be "the guy who engaged in dogfighting." Even if he changed his life, to a lot of people, his very worst moment is who he is in the dark. It's all that Vick is, and more important, it's all that he ever WILL BE. With things like that in mind, eventually it goes to "deny and attack" ends up the endgame simply because: Once the mere accusation comes out, whether it gets legs, gets forgotten, gets proven false, you get exonerated for it, a big voice comes down and says "HE DIDN'T DO IT!"...a lot of people are going to hate you forever for it anyway. With that in play, eventually the only way to do it is realize "A lot of people will hate you forever for this, bending the knee proves you did it...best to just deny, fight it, and if you're going down no matter what at least go down swinging."

Gallagher didn't confess to multiple rapes I don't think, but it was said yesterday he did take responsibility for at least one of the rapes, and tried reaching out to the victim in an attempt to try and make amends (and in which the victim wanted nothing to do with him.) So it's not full confession of the multiple ones he was accused of, but he wasn't denying or claiming the victim was lying.

It's a good thing to clear out the fuckheads from the business here- but given the nature of some of these, it does seem like Gallagher being fired before the NXT UK'ers and/or Riddle shines a light that's...kind of a pretty shitty blind spot for the WWE's policy, all things considered. Gallagher deserved to be fired for what he did (and some more heads should roll from this), but you can see that the policy is kind of broken when, by the rules WWE instituted on this policy: Devlin, Riddle, and Ligero deny everything about the claims made about them (Devlin and Riddle outright attack the accuser and do these, with Ligero merely admitting to the "well, he's a manipulative bastard, but no law saying he can't be" and not admitting to the abuse/assault claims where there were), and because they denied everything, it boils down to a case of he said, she said and all three guys aren't subject to punishment by this rule. By contrast, Gallagher was the one person under the WWE banner to say "Yes, I will take responsibility for this" and try to make amends for it...but because he took responsibility, he confessed to doing it- which counts as undeniable proof that Gallagher did it, and so he gets fired because of it. Gallagher deserved his firing- but if this is the case, it kind of sends the exact opposite message that should be sent here- instead of "if you've done bullshit in the past, if it's out in the open, take your lumps, admit your wrongdoings, and try to do better", the message sent is "Deny, deny, deny. Don't give them anything here, if you admit any complicitness then you're proving you did it and can be fired. Deny the charges until they have to bring criminal charges and you can't deny it anymore, and then deny it a little bit more."

I forget where I heard the "Savage had the book when he jumped to WCW" thing- I think it was in claims of the tapestry to counter the Savage/Stephanie rumor (alongside how the simplest explanation of "When Savage jumped to WCW, he took the Slim Jim endorsement deal with him"). I'm sure I heard that as a claim, though. As far as the Joe/Angle thing- even if they had Joe and Angle, it'd probably have even worked better if they just swapped the results of the first two Joe/Angle victories. If you have Angle beat Joe first, then "Angle destroys Joe , the most dominant TNA homegrown, snaps his undefeated streak, and proved the best TNA homegrowns aren't in the league of the best WWE guys. The next month, Joe beats Angle, and suddenly Angle's buzz dissipates since- if Angle proved the TNA homegrowns aren't in his league, and then Joe beats Angle, how good must Kurt Angle be?" By contrast, if Joe beats Angle first, it's "Samoa Joe finally got solidified- he's the most dominant TNA name and he's every bit as dominant as the top WWE guys, and then Angle digs deep, fights hard, and manages to slay the dragon of Joe."

The Joe over Angle thing was bad, but honestly I am steadfast that push Kaz suddenly got to the main event against Kurt Angle was even worse, IMO. That, to me, was the more blatant one, because he was the one TNA homegrown who left TNA, went to WWE temporarily for three weeks and flamed out quickly, then went back to TNA, and suddenly gets a main event run. In the process, TNA basically said "nope, the homegrowns don't have it. If the homegrowns are so good, why aren't they in WWE? If a homegrown wants to be big, leave TNA for WWE, then come back and we'll push them."

The problem with Monty Brown as a specific What If? is that ultimately it was a symptom of a far bigger problem TNA always had, and because of that bigger problem, it honestly wouldn't have mattered if they gave him the title. The same What If? that didn't give Monty Brown the title could have also been said for AJ Styles, Ron Killings, Samoa Joe, James Storm, Bobby Roode, Chris Sabin, Eric Young, Abyss, Magnus...pretty much any TNA homegrown talent, and all those guys DID get a World Title reign. The big issue was less "TNA won't give them the World Title!" because in many cases, they totally did, and more specifically, TNA wouldn't give this homegrown wrestler THE CAR KEYS. TNA always was willing to push homegrown wrestlers- even make them World Champion, but they never quite went all-in with the wrestler and made it clear "this wrestler is a SUPERSTAR. They are every bit as good or better as the WWE stars, and they should be perceived as being on the same level as the top WWE stars." It says something for how little awareness TNA had when the "AJ Styles is going to leave with the TNA World Title!" storyline could be boiled down to, even in storyline, AJ Styles taking TNA to task and saying "wait, I've been the star of tomorrow for 11 years now, I've done literally everything there is to do in this promotion five times over...when do I get to be the star of TODAY?", and even then they continued to do the same thing even after it was a plotline. Compare that problem to the real issue, and Monty Brown's what if was less "he should've been the World Champion" and was the relatively reasonable "Maybe Monty Brown would have, but suddenly TNA lucked into locking up Christian, both Christian and Monty Brown had pretty equal resumes in 2005, pretty equal momentum in 2005, the fans were dying to see both guys as World Champion in 2005...so it was effectively a coin flip for which one you run with."

The story about the "The Saudi layoff was really a hostage situation!" story from Monday came out as part of a class-action lawsuit from WWE's investors claiming WWE misrepresented how much money the Saudi Arabia deal was going to get them. The Saudi layoff being a hostage situation came from the second of the case's witnesses, one of the wrestlers. Even if Sid didn't leave, it's still unlikely he'd be part of the boom anyway. Sid's possibly one of the weirdest wrestlers in history: There's a number of wrestlers who you could look at and know "there's no doubt about it. This guy is obviously a main event player and has to be one of the top stars. There's also a lot of wrestlers- usually failed experiments as main eventers- where it became clear "If THIS GUY is one of your main event players, your promotion is probably in the shitter right now." Sid was weird, because he might be the only wrestler in history where both of those things were true at the same time: Yes, Sid is absolutely main event-caliber, he always did well enough you couldn't exactly call him a bust as a main eventer...and yet at the same time, people could always kind of know "if Sid's one of the main eventers in this promotion, this promotion has some serious problems."

Honestly, an equal problem of this in addition is that, even though the original lawsuit gave enough information that if you put 2 and 2 2 together made it 100% crystal clear who the whistleblower is, it can't also be used for the statement legally even if it'd help their claim against the allegations. The lawsuit said flat-out that the whistleblower was "a wrestler who was one of the 20 people who was allowed to go back to the US", and "wrestled for WWE from 2012 until his release in April"- and comparing all the information given makes it 100% obvious TAFKA Scott Dawson was the person in question (even beyond the "he was on the SD afterwards, Dawson was the only release in April hired in 2012.) If that's so, they could have played the "the whistleblower works for AEW and is doing it to hurt a competitor" card- and whether or not it's true, it'd probably weaken the case more.

Even if it's the case, whether it's 30 or 34, I prefer the better stat for this one: At the end of 2019, Big Show was last seen as a heel working with The Bar. Big Show shows up in January as KO/Samoa Joe's ally vs. Rollins and his group. Big Show turns face, then leaves. Big Show has his WM/night after WM match with Drew McIntyre. Big Show turns heel, then leaves. Big Show shows up tonight to fight the ninjas. Big Show turns face again. Big Show has somehow managed to turn every time he shows up on WWE television in 2020.

Surprising- I didn't think people would be cowardly enough to not discuss it.

In defense there, however, the big part with Stephanie as a behind the scenes worker- we really don't know that much. All we know is "she was a mediocre booker" (and since we know that Vince rewrites shows over and over again up to the second it airs onscreen, quite frankly Shakespeare couldn't give you good shows in the WWE system). Even with it- she isn't a genius, but she isn't exactly completely inept either. (We know that- we've SEEN inept in the 21st century- look at Dixie Carter and it's night and day.) Which is kind of the point. Whether or not she's excellent, we CAN safely say Stephanie's not terrible at her job, but if this What If came to play, in all likeliness she WOULD be.

Well, considering that claims from around the time period said that Randy Savage was one of the top bookers for WWF when he left (and many saying as high as "Savage had the book when he defected to WCW"), that would claim that it would be pretty much be a "but the future refused to change" thing. All signs from those make it clear Savage basically HAD Triple H's power at the time independent of Stephanie being with him or not, and it didn't make a difference to Savage to keep him from going to WCW. If that didn't, it's likely that nothing changes on Savage's side- he still goes to WCW. If that's the case, more problems happen on Stephanie's side than on Triple H's side-if Savage goes to WCW, Stephanie presumably leaves the family and goes with him (and Eric Bischoff loved goading WWF so much he'd absolutely throw Stephanie a WCW contract just to say "we stole your own daughter from you".) Even if Vince takes Stephanie back into the family after this (which, presumably, he would if he accepted Savage and Stephanie's relationship), the Stephanie McMahon who returns is one who didn't go to college in order to follow Savage and, as such, would not be a shrewd enough businesswoman to do anything that she's done behind the scenes, inevitably making her "just a onscreen talent".

Knowing there were reshoots to the match may make the match seem a little worse. But knowing there were reshoots to the match, and the match we got still had at least one instance where we could see that a cameraman was either in the ring with Orton/Edge or at least was on the apron in the background? That is UWF/TNA/WCW 2000 level bad.

Honestly, I think the match's filming helped the match feel a lot better than it could have. It seemed like the Edge/Orton match could be boiled down to "A WWE Main Event-Style Epic Match [tm], if WWE let the cameramen from Lucha Underground film it." It helped make it feel a bit better in a number of ways. The filming choices failed in a couple ways, both involved with trying this filming (most notably the post-superplex bouncing of the camera, which was impossible to suspend disbelief with how they did it. Just the bounce and angle meant it could not have been filmed that way unless the cameraman was in the ring at the time) and through traditional means in wrestling. Randy Orton's Punt has always been one of the most well-filmed moves in wrestling. WWE always manages to get JUST the right angle to make it look brutal and deadly. ...so naturally they finish this match, built around getting great camera angles to try and make it much better to the point they even made that "2000s anime fan glomping a person dressed as their favorite character" Edge calls a Spear look badass and brutal...and of course they get an angle for the Punt that makes it look incredibly weak and incredibly fake for the finish. Either way, the match was...well, not the greatest wrestling match ever. And I can think of a few WWE matches I think were better than this just thinking main roster alone. But...it's up there on the list enough I'd say it's at least worthy of being in the discussion for "best WWE matches of all time."

In defense, that also takes away the inherent "this guy totally only got booked on the show because he's selling everyone else on the card drugs afterwards" vibe of the fake Hardyz. Much like Salvador Dali, DDT doesn't need drugs. They are drugs.

Considering how many of the small-time workers used pleather pants, it's more of a question if it counts as inspiring for a look. If you're going for shindy workers there, every small-time indie in the world has at least one "local drug dealer who owned a trampoline, buys pants at Hot Topic and has a sheer mesh shirt", but since most of those guys will never leave their local VFW hall, it doesn't exactly make Jeff Hardy particularly inspirational.

In defense, though, that is a bigger problem than just "A Mortal Kombat angle would be terrible." Yes, Blood Runs Cold was terrible as a Mortal Kombat-inspired storyline in 1996-97 and had all those problems. What other time did we get a Mortal Kombat-inspired pro wrestling promotion? Lucha Underground. And Lucha Underground was one of the most acclaimed promotions of the last decade. The issue is more a "how do you make it work in the kayfabe of the promotion?", not just "A Mortal Kombat angle would suck". Lucha Underground made it work because the whole kayfabe of the promotion was built around "this is basically Mortal Kombat with wrestlers", and so it was the defining point of the story. WCW couldn't, because again- there's no way to bring the wrestlers out of this angle and merge them with a greater WCW storyline- and short of something like "The NWO are financing Wrath in his attempt to get the prize here", there really is no way to merge Blood Runs Cold into regular WCW programming.

Even a "dump commentary and belts" would be more likely to be the final blow than anything- if there's nothing to make anyone special on the roster, then eventually no one will care. Even AEW's question marks of breaking through should make it clear: The only way you'll get a boom period is getting lapsed fans or non-fans to watch, and they don't care about "this guy's really really good at putting on a fake fight!" If they get more radical than that, it'd be less likely to happen for get rid of commentary or belts in ways that people in the bubble might like for getting radical and blowing up wrestling, and do things that would blow wrestling up in ways non-fans would take notice. I'd be more likely to assume radical like "Get rid of the wrestlers and replace them with celebrities", or something else similar to that.

The one positive to the Olympics thing would be that the NBA is so international now that if the NBA couldn't send its players due to the playoffs, every country's national team would have a disadvantage this time- maybe not to "the US willingly only sends college players vs. everyone else's pros", but still a slight disadvantage. Though, it would be interesting if it became "'only NBA players who missed the playoffs can join their national team" and how that changes the landscape of the Olympics, since the truly world-class players would likely be good enough their team makes the playoffs.

Given the news of the last week, I would say there's a pretty big reason that it would backfire there. To put it a better way- given the controversy that got Jim Cornette fired from NWA, how can AEW put out comments saying "Hulk Hogan has been blackballed from All Elite Wrestling for his racist comments 13 years ago and he will never work for AEW", while at the same time bringing in a guy fired from NWA for racist comments just a few months ago?

For wrestling games there, there is apparently a Kaiju Big Battel game in the mix, so there's a plus there as well. Wasn't sure on the way of it- I don't have a lot of space, but I have been playing a lot of games and could use some quantity as well for things I'm doing somewhere else.

Well, in addition to all those problems without the Wild Samoans, you also have to add the expanded problem of "No Wild Samoans in wrestling, the Wild Samoans don't open a wrestling school" that even makes things bigger. Do that, and the timeline changes even further than that...Batista? Never able to enter pro wrestling after the Power Plant rejected him, he's gone from wrestling (and presumably his movie career never happens too.) The movement away from Moolah's style of women's wrestling dies on the vine; Luna Vachon and Sherri Martel were two of the first women to do it while getting away from Moolah's grasp, and both trained there. Michael Hayes? Didn't get trained, he's out of the picture- both as a wrestler and as a booker, so you've just changed things dramatically on both sides of the coin.

Honestly, given some of the stats in Armstrong's doping (like, how it was so in-depth in the time period that in the last Tour de France Armstrong won, you'd have to go all the way down to 21st to find a cyclist who was never connected to doping), it may be down past "catch the doctor and hope he talks" and into "give up the ghost. Make doping legal in competitive cycling and see what happens then."