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APRIL 2019 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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Imaging never seeing wrestling before and then you're shown random clips like the one where HBK kicks his boss Vince in the face and then starts stripping/gyrating over him. 

I enjoyed John Oliver's segment on WWE there but he did the same thing around the time of Blood Money II and nothing came of it. 

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Here it is.  FYI, it's majorly about the performer's Independent Contractor status. 

It's funny, brutal, but nothing the majority of us didn't know. Also, it's very clear that there are fans of wrestling working for them, but it is written primarily for a non-WWE audience. 

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I feel like a hashtag or something directed at WWE's Twitter account, or Vince/Stephanie/Triple H could do more than encouraging fans to bring signs or start chants next weekend. I mean, what do you figure the crossover is between people going to 'Mania and people that watch Last Week Tonight (or care about the employment status of wrestlers)?

When Oliver did a piece on the Saudi Arabia stuff, it wasn't a full blown 20+ minute segment, I don't think. Pretty sure it was just a couple of minutes long, not like this where over half the show was dedicated solely to the topic.

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The 20+ minute segments are obviously researched well ahead of time. The Saudi stuff was brought up when it was in the news, not as a full-blown segment.

Nothing in the segment that would be news to us, but I did appreciate the editing team making Joey Styles sound as obnoxious as he always has been two times.

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2 hours ago, John Austin said:

It was but the WWE portion of the topic wasn't talked about much.  Most of it was on why we now call any WWE event in Saudi Arabia Blood Money.

I like the subtitle options, myself.  Did we ever call Blood Money II "Electric Boogaloo"?  Missed opportunity, if not.

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26 minutes ago, nate said:

I like the subtitle options, myself.  Did we ever call Blood Money II "Electric Boogaloo"?  Missed opportunity, if not.

I definitely did.

Next I'd go with either Saudi Blood Money 3D or Saudi Blood Money III: Season of the Witch.

For November's show, Saudi Blood Money 4: King Salman in Space

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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Not to be grouchy - but does John Oliver have any real influence? I feel some of the breathless "how will this affect Mania" takes I'm seeing are overrating how many people watch the show and its influence over anything more than a very niche bubble audience that already agrees with him. 

But I'm grouchy.

Touching back on the Billy Gunn discussion from last month's thread - I do think one of the things guys like him can teach wrestlers is about reinvention and how to get over. This is a guy that had several gimmicks, some of them historically bad like Rockabilly, but managed to survive and get over in a lot of scenarios. FWIW - I also like that Billy has apparently cleaned up some of the attitude issues (and/or whatever substance issues he had) and seems pretty positive about modern wrestling in a way a lot of other guys aren't.  

Cody's WWE arc was probably gonna end up very similar to Billy's if he had stayed around actually. 

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6 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Not to be grouchy - but does John Oliver have any real influence? I feel some of the breathless "how will this affect Mania" takes I'm seeing are overrating how many people watch the show and its influence over anything more than a very niche bubble audience that already agrees with him. 

No - you are right but it expands beyond Oliver into more what I would call a "social media bubble" where I think a lot of folks on Social Media thing everyone is going to be THIS IS THE TIPPING POINT!!!! and 24 hours later everyone has moved on

And I think the 2016 election also proved how many people aren't on social media

Now - the other side of that coin though is - everyone once in awhile there is something that suddenly everyone grabs onto and it effects change. Someone earlier in this thread mention Hannibal Burress re: Bill Cosby which is a good example. Or you could argue something like the Ice Bucket Challenge.

But yeah - the only people Vince listens to is the sponsors so maybe is Snickers got cranky again something will happen

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2 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

But yeah - the only people Vince listens to is the sponsors so maybe is Snickers got cranky again something will happen

I'm not sure they would care as much last year if sponsors had an issue with something.  It worked out when Snickers made them take Moolah's name out of the women's battle royal.  But with that Saudi money they got coming in plus Fox coming up I can see Vince not giving a crap.

But on the chance Snickers's issue with something does lead to change I'll send the video their way anyway.

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57 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I'm not sure they would care as much last year if sponsors had an issue with something.  It worked out when Snickers made them take Moolah's name out of the women's battle royal.  But with that Saudi money they got coming in plus Fox coming up I can see Vince not giving a crap.

But on the chance Snickers's issue with something does lead to change I'll send the video their way anyway.

So if Snickers needs a Snickers something might change.

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2 minutes ago, Playa Shunna Ver 3.0 said:

So if Snickers needs a Snickers something might change.

There was this one time, back in 1999, where I had a serious case of the snickers, and...

Shit, lost my train of thought.

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Rippa brings up a good point about sponsors, in particular, Snickers. Are the sponsors that blind to Vince's history or even WWE's history? If sponsors drop like flies from dickbags on Fox News, then how is WWE and Vince so fucking bulletproof? Any one of us could spend, what, 5 to 10 minutes and come up with a hours worth of videos to show to sponsors that would make them say "what the fuck is going on here?"

So are the sponsors dumb or are the willfully deaf and blind?

I was so happy John Oliver showed the clip of Vince saying "My n****!" I was happy the 2003 Real Sports interview was brought up. Stuff like that can make John Oliver's audience go out and find even more crazy Vince shit because enough of it is out there. And if they dig into that, how soon do they find even crazier shit. I've gone down far less interesting or fascinating rabbit holes just because I saw something somewhere. WWE might be one of the most interesting and most fascinating rabbit holes because you can start with Vince dropping the n-word on live TV, find a clip of him pissing his pants, stumble onto the Real Sports interviews, then you see the Benoit shit, and at some point you wind up seeing a picture of Michael Hayes dressed like a techno pimp and reading a story about how he's a racist pig backstage.

I think that's the real risk here. It would be so easy for anyone to fall down the WWE rabbit hole because all of this shit actually happened and it's all on YouTube. It's all very easy to find. If I'm Vince, or anyone else in corporate, I'm hoping people forget about this in 24 hours time.

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21 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Rippa brings up a good point about sponsors, in particular, Snickers. Are the sponsors that blind to Vince's history or even WWE's history? If sponsors drop like flies from dickbags on Fox News, then how is WWE and Vince so fucking bulletproof? Any one of us could spend, what, 5 to 10 minutes and come up with a hours worth of videos to show to sponsors that would make them say "what the fuck is going on here?"

So are the sponsors dumb or are the willfully deaf and blind?

 

A few theories:

1) Wrestling is considered crass entertainment so a lot of the tastelessness is baked in the cake. 

2) This is the one I subscribe  too. A lot of what we see on TV can really be summed up as theater and performance art. So, it's not Vince McMahon the person saying a racial slur - it's the character who is supposed to be an evil deranged billionaire. Paige the real person didn't mock Reid Flair's death, it was the character Paige as part of a scripted entertainment show.  Now, we know that there is a lot of blurring between reality and fiction but I find the focus on the on-screen stuff to be misguided. I don't totally buy into it but I can see it plausible that a lot of problematic stuff is handwaved as being part of the performance. The business practices, the IC stuff, and the, until recently, the systemic lack of opportunity for women and people of color is far more relevant than on-screen portrayal. 

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58 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Rippa brings up a good point about sponsors, in particular, Snickers. Are the sponsors that blind to Vince's history or even WWE's history? If sponsors drop like flies from dickbags on Fox News, then how is WWE and Vince so fucking bulletproof? Any one of us could spend, what, 5 to 10 minutes and come up with a hours worth of videos to show to sponsors that would make them say "what the fuck is going on here?"

 

 

"It's just wrestling.  It's just guys pretending to fight to entertain dumb people who don't know it's fake."  That's why sponsors don't care.  Wrestling is easy to dismiss, even when real-life issues are brought up. 

 

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