MARCH 2021 Discussion of Wrestling.

[Craig H]

2 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

Also, if NBC really cares about representation, actions in the present speak louder than actions in the past. Get Hogan off tv and boot Trump from the HOF please.

No shit. If you want any evidence for how tone deaf WWE still is and forever will be, then it's shit like Crews and shit like Hogan hosting WM.

BTW, in the most recent New Day podcast, Big E still refuses to even say Hogan's name so it's not like Hogan's racist bullshit is water under the bridge.

[Niners Fan in CT]

1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I think we're at a point where if WWE isn't going to do something about offensive content then somebody has to.  Call it cancel culture, call it being too PG, but ultimately I think it's the right move especially as kids over time start checking out older stuff when they grow up. 

i agree with you..   From the reaction of others on the board i realized that my comment about wanting them to not edit out content was offensive.  My belief or 'fear' was that NBC would go the WWE 2009 TV-PG route and start editing out bloody brawls etc..   

But that was a shortsighted take on the matter.  Had nothing to do with 'cancel culture' as @Casey brought up..   Many things and people deserved to be cancelled. 

[Coletti]

I've got no problem with them deleting half of their fucking library. Maybe people decades and decades from now, having not seen the offensive stuff, might think about the company in a better light than we do, but at the same time Disney has buried Song Of The South deeper than Jimmy Hoffa and yet it is still talked about to this day. Some things permanently stain a company, and I'm pretty sure WWE's legacy of racism, sexism, and homophobia won't be forgotten no matter what they do to scrub history.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Listen I think there's a rational middle ground between the two sides represented here.

Black face is highly offensive and I agree with Piper vs Brown & the DX / Nation segment being scrubbed. Vince dropping the N word as well.

But Niners is going further down the path of what if and I don't think that makes him a bad person wondering out loud. We all agree black face has no place being celebrated. But then all the Goldust segments were mentioned. Nicole Bass. Bra & Panties matches. Overly bloody matches. Steph drugged and married. I don't find Eugene and George Steel stuff very tasteful at all in hindsight. If we start taking entire chunks of things off the network based on the past offending people in the present it starts getting pretty incomplete. If we scrub Goldust and Eugene and George Steel & attitude era women & massive blade job matches from history... well there goes WM3 Savage v Steamboat classic, almost all of Flair's amazing catalog, the majority of Trish Stratus' career among a bunchhhhhh of others.

At a certain point it gets to be the more level headed sophisticated answer is do what Disney & Warner Brothers do. Put content warnings on there. Say hey this was different era and there's some unsavory things but we're keeping it in here and letting you decide what stuff you want to watch with the proper historical context. Changing and erasing the past doesn't fix our mistakes in the present.

(And just for the record I fucking hate the term cancel culture. There's no such thing as cancel culture. It's literally just society weeding out the shit bags. If you don't want to get "canceled" don't do vile disgusting shit. Pretty simple way to live life.)

[Hagan]

It's not just WWE though. Mid-South has language and representation that is offensive by today's standards. Most of ECW has language and misogyny that is reprehensible. WCW has problematic issues . 

The issue is that it's not one company. The entire industry (then, now, forever) is filled with stuff that is going to offend people now and in the future. You may as well just say wrestling history begins the day Peacock bought the Network (though even then you have the Apollo Crews stuff). 

And I mean, getting rid of this stuff is fine because if it offends people, it offends people. No one has the right to tell people what they should or shouldn't approve but none of this affects Vince McMahon AT ALL. Dude got his money. Dude will continue to get his money. Nor will it improve the reputation of wrestling because it by nature will always be what it is. 

The real loser is all of us because when you throw the baby out with the bathwater a lot of wrestling history we grew up on it is going to only be found on sketchy torrent sites and like Billi Billi. 

And that is fine but until this week when the last time anyone thought about Piper's bullshit. He's dead. Wrestlemania 6 gets watched by like 15 people every year. If life has become better for that show being edited, I think that's wonderful but, historically, once you go down the path of editing off content that could upset people you end up encountering unintended consequences that don't make anyone happy. 

[Web Conn]

20 years ago today on March 26, 2001 the final Monday Nitro was held

 

[Technico Support]

39 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

40 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

JR's constant homophobic comments every time Pat Patterson was on screen?

It goes back further than that.  Monsoon would make gay jokes about Patterson and Terry Garvin on commentary all the time.

1 hour ago, Smelly McUgly said:

I just call it "having some goddam respect for people who are different from you," myself. Maybe that's too many words for a campaign slogan or angry hashtag, however. 

 

The term "cancel culture" is getting close to "SJW" and "PC" when it comes to terms that, when I hear them, it's a red flag that the person saying it is garbage.

[Elsalvajeloco]

27 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Peacock can do whatever it wants with its content but now that the editing has started it's far more likely that the majority of it ends up getting memory-holed. It's great that people want wrestling to be better than it is morally but 1) it never will be fundamentally because being low-brow is a feature and not a bug 2) the movement to atone for its past really just means that a lot of the history has to be erased. 

I dunno - sometimes when I hear people be so offended about what they see in wrestling I just wonder "why did you start watching? What did you expect?" 

I was going back and watching a lot of late '86 WWE and the build to Wrestlemania a few weeks back. The Piper face turn and feud with Adonis and Muraco is so awesome but should also NEVER BE SEEN BY ANYONE because it is blatantly, horrifically homophobic. I'm cool if it gets relegated to the dustbin of history but just realize that once this movement starts it doesn't stop and things you liked, or thought fondly or are not personally offensive to yourself are going to go be erased forever. 

Anyway - whatever - there's plenty of wrestling to watch in the world. 

 

1) Wrestling doesn't have to be low-brow. There is a safe middle between Downton Abbey and pro wrestling. It's clear wrestling fans internalize all the scrutiny and project it out as a way to process it. You don't have to do that. 

2) That's a false dilemma though cause it's not like 99% of wrestling history is Vince doing the "I took wrestling out of smoky gymnasiums and put it in arenas and packed stadiums". Even with that, I was discussing how this dude was doing NATIONAL television from a high school gym in the mid 90s just two weeks ago. That's not something that's considered a memory but it took me all of like five seconds to look up. The internet age has allowed us to be proactive to the point where shit that should NOT be brought back up is now almost pop culture fodder. We're all talking about stuff that happened relatively recent. It didn't happen a century ago. It didn't even happen sixty or seventy years ago. If it happened in the last thirty or forty years, people remember it. Shit, this board is proof people remember the most useless shit NO ONE should remember. So it's not going to get erased. Like at all. Hell, the problem now is actually trying to erase it. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

21 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

But Niners is going further down the path of what if and I don't think that makes him a bad person wondering out loud.

Here's the thing and you will figure this out in the real world: Most things I would say should not be______ out loud anything. Said out loud. Wondered out loud. Thought out loud. If you never said anything, I would have never known you were a fool. 

Second, just to not quote everything for space purposes, all the stuff you mentioned (save for the bra and panties thing) specifically Goldust and Nicole Bass it should be clear why those things are terrible. It's not nitpicking. Go back through my examples because I spell them out for you (the Goldust stuff might be in an earlier monthly thread so you might need to use the search function here). It's completely horrible. And if you don't know why it's horrible, you discuss it with someone who might see it as horrible (namely anyone who may be trans or women in general). I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking for them on those issues. Do that extensively and THEN come back and see if you still feel the same.

However, on the blackface thing, Niners was and is deadass wrong. I can say that confidently.

If your priority is viewing wrestling content over eliminating problematic things, then you're either a fucked up person OR hopefully just someone who needs to do a much better job at prioritizing things. 

[Technico Support]

You mention Vince's constant claims of "taking wrestling from the smoke filled gyms" and whatever his bullshit narrative is for making it mainstream, but Vince's mentality never left those places.  Not in the 80s.  Not in the 90s.  Not today.  Vince has always conducted himself just as the carny 60s and 70s scumbags he learned from taught him.  Wrestlers are no better than racehorses; meat to be drugged up to perform and then used up and discarded.  Your customers are rubes just waiting to be separated from their last dollar and eager to be told what they should like.  Nothing that could possibly make a dollar will ever be a bad thing.  There are no distasteful angles because you're already in the garbage business, pal.  If you're not white, that's your gimmick.  Even in a "women's revolution," the big titty blonde is always your best bet.  And so on.  It's not going to end until he's in the grave. 

Shit, this is a guy who put in extra hard rings because his media partner told him they look better on TV.

It's amazing.  We have a publicly-traded multinational entertainment company, whose content is purchased and distributed by media giants, and it's run by a guy whose approach to his business never grew past 1960. 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Technico Support

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Niners thinking out loud saying hey they started editing A, wondering if this means they will edit B, C, D, & E now too does not make him a bad person. Write as many paragraphs as you feel necessary. But he isn't saying anything vile or hurtful by wondering if the flood gates are open now and they will edit everything, since the process has begun.

Any instances of slurs should be edited out of commentary. The Nicole Bass quote of JR's you mentioned is disgusting. Erase the audio. The problematic part is the slur. So my point is let's not erase whole segments and matches. Does cutting Nicole Bass' existence out of WWE history help anything? No. Just cut the shitty thing JR says. Same with Goldust. But are you of the opinion that the entire Goldust character should be erased from existence, just because there were a lot of unsavory issues with it? Because once you start down that path you realize that's all pro wrestling in The United States has been for 30 years. Capitalizing on the shittiest segment of society with stories and characters designed to piss people off enough to pay money to see the resolution.

Once you start down that track, what is the point of the network? Who wants 15 minute Raws from 1999? Who wants PPVs with 6 matches edited out? Taking them out doesn't erase it from history. Pretending it didn't happen doesn't make it so. Wrestling has done some fucking shittyyyyy things. But that's true about every aspect of society in a time period. Put content warnings on in. Have a sit down PSA before you play that event. Film someone eloquent like Titus explaining why things are the way they were for Goldust (just using him as an example). "In 1995 being gay was seen differently. In the 90s people wrongly judge based on your orientation. That's why Goldust's opponents acted the way they did in the following event. In 2021 we know how wrong that is. But in media in the 90s this was seen as okay. We've come a long way, but still have a ways to go to be a well rounded inclusive society. For more info go to yada yada yada" Wouldn't that be more helpful? Doesn't solidifying why something is wrong help us learn from it?? Especially vs just trying to pretend it didn't ever happen in the first place?

Edited March 26, 2021 by NoFistsJustFlips
typos

[NikoBaltimore]

2 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

Niners thinking out loud saying hey they started editing A, wondering if this means they will edit B, C, D, & E now too does not make him a bad person. Write as many paragraphs as you feel necessary. But he isn't saying anything vile or hurtful by wondering if the flood gates are open now and they will edit everything, since the process has begun.

I don't think Niners is a bad person and I get the idea of a slippery slope happening when it comes to editing.  But I'd rather that we not discuss B though Z and still focus on editing A because it runs the risk of losing the point of what's initially discussed.  The other thing too is that this is all WAY too early to tell how they're going to do things so I think we may need to pump the brakes and see how things play out.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

43 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

If your priority is viewing wrestling content over eliminating problematic things, then you're either a fucked up person OR hopefully just someone who needs to do a much better job at prioritizing things. 

And just to reiterate, I am in favor of erasing the black face segments. I have zero issue with those being erased from history. And the audio of any slur.

My issue stems with who gets to decide what is problematic? There's 7 billion people on this planet and we all have a different scale of what is problematic. Do we get the person who has the highest standards of what's considered problematic? If so there's not much left on the network outside of Brad Armstrong matches. (Well except from 1999 on, because Buzzkill is a drug reference and those are problematic).

I don't want to diminish the original issue. Black face is fucking gross and wrong and should be gone. Period. We agree on that. I think everyone universally agrees on that.

[Hagan]

1 minute ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

And just to reiterate, I am in favor of erasing the black face segments. I have zero issue with those being erased from history. And the audio of any slur.

My issue stems with who gets to decide what is problematic? There's 7 billion people on this planet and we all have a different scale of what is problematic. Do we get the person who has the highest standards of what's considered problematic? If so there's not much left on the network outside of Brad Armstrong matches. (Well except from 1999 on, because Buzzkill is a drug reference and those are problematic).

I don't want to diminish the original issue. Black face is fucking gross and wrong and should be gone. Period. We agree on that. I think everyone universally agrees on that.

 

The poor interns stuck watching 17,000 hours are going to be the arbiter. As has been noted, I'd bet more money that the archive gets quietly killed before I'd bet that they are going to have thoughtful, diligent conversations about what should and shouldn't go. No one watches the archive anyway. 

Maybe that's a good thing. Get rid of terrible things, let the world know they are terrible and move on. My think is - it's actually not going to change one thing in the industry, Vince still gets his money regardless and it's just going to annoy me that I can't watch Saturday Night's Main Event whenever I want.

All First World Problems but we are also a bunch of people on a message board spending time posting about professional wrestling, which is a privilege in and of itself. 

[Technico Support]

19 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

My issue stems with who gets to decide what is problematic?

Peacock does! 

Seriously, though, WWE has been lowest common denominator entertainment since before it was even WWF.  What did Peacock think they were buying?  Shit, the build to Hogan/Slaughter was tasteless, too.  Shameless plug for @odessasteps' podcast...you had Slaughter, Sheik, and Adnan playing up phony friendships with Saddam Hussein as he was invading a sovereign country and the US was ramping up to war.  There's just so much stuff that may not meet the Piper/Bad News bar but Peacock might decide is too offensive.  What about Piper/Snuka?  Isn't taunting a Pacific Islander with coconuts racist?  What about using the term "midget?"  How about Kamala?  Akeem?  Slick?  You can probably look at every Wrestlemania and find something that shouldn't be seen in 2021.  I'm not arguing against censoring this shit AT ALL.  What I'm saying is there is so much stuff in their archives that someone with fresh eyes might look at and say, "no fucking way."    As @Hagansaid as I was writing this, maybe Peacock just cuts the Gordian knot here and doesn't put up much of the old stuff.

The problem with "slippery slope" arguments is that they're often intellectually dishonest, deployed by people who really just don't want to do anything.  I recall talking to a, *ahem*, gun enthusiast coworker about the NRA.  I was asking why they're against any and all legislation.  I said, "you don't need a machine gun to hunt deer."  And he told me they're hardline because of the slippery slope argument.  That's where this kind of thing gets us.  Nothing gets done because people, genuinely or fake, feel like one thing leads to the next.  

Edited March 26, 2021 by Technico Support

[Burgundy LaRue]

1 hour ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

At a certain point it gets to be the more level headed sophisticated answer is do what Disney & Warner Brothers do. Put content warnings on there. Say hey this was different era and there's some unsavory things but we're keeping it in here and letting you decide what stuff you want to watch with the proper historical context. Changing and erasing the past doesn't fix our mistakes in the present.

So Piper doing blackface in 1990 was some bygone era? Vince dropping the n-bomb in 2005 happened during the good old days?

[Eoae]

Just want to throw in my support for Niners too.  I’m fine with Peacock censoring content if they feel they need to.  Things like the Piper black face should definitely be removed.  I don’t really agree with Niners but I think his position is reasonable.  He seems capable of thinking for himself, so I don’t think he needs my permission to have an opinion.

Elvis has articulated a lot of his points very well.  I’d be in complete agreement with him if he wasn’t so interested in making sure (over and over) we know we’re shit people if we disagree with him even slightly.
 

This thread probably needs locked until April 1.  Or maybe January 1. 
 

Have a good weekend.

 

[The Natural]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

No shit. If you want any evidence for how tone deaf WWE still is and forever will be, then it's shit like Crews and shit like Hogan hosting WM.

BTW, in the most recent New Day podcast, Big E still refuses to even say Hogan's name so it's not like Hogan's racist bullshit is water under the bridge.

I like Big E even more now.

Edited March 26, 2021 by The Natural

[NoFistsJustFlips]

3 minutes ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

So Piper doing blackface in 1990 was some bygone era? Vince dropping the n-bomb in 2005 happened during the good old days?

This is actually a very good point. This isn't a movie from 1966. This was Vince McMahon in 2005. Fucking yikes lol. Thank you for putting that in the right context.

[Spontaneous]

https://youtu.be/SshwZBGdDeg

It won't let me embed it for some reason. IWGP style intro for the 24/7 belt "reigns".

[NikoBaltimore]

13 minutes ago, Eoae said:

This thread probably needs locked until April 1.  Or maybe January 1. 

I mean we're a few days out from April so unless we can all of a sudden shift discussion such as to who had the best hot tag then we might as well close it.

Actually you know what, why not?  I say John Silver has the best hot tag in current wrestling.

[The Natural]

5 minutes ago, Spontaneous said:

https://youtu.be/SshwZBGdDeg

It won't let me embed it for some reason. IWGP style intro for the 24/7 belt "reigns".

 

Good find, @Spontaneous. Cheers.

[Hagan]

Here's the thought experiment:

Slippery-slopes arguments are fallacious because they ultimately are arguments in bad faith. However, there is a very logical chance that the end point is the archive gets nuked. That's not pie-in-the-sky conspiracy. Logically, you can look at what they are editing, what they are looking for and all of us can easily name HOURS AND HOURS of content off the top of our head in the archive that is racist, sexist, homophobic and misogynistic. 

So, show of hands: if Peacock decides to just nerf the archive or put up shows that are so heavily edited as to be basically old VHS clip jobs, are you okay with that? I can certainly accept that maybe it's a better overall for a lot of reasons but it's not bad faith to suggest that that's what we're ending up with AT BEST. . 

[NoFistsJustFlips]

9 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

...who had the best hot tag...

In recent memory Cesaro when he was a babyface had the hottest hot tags I can remember in awhile. Charging uppercuts, dives to the outside, top rope double stomps, rolling through to springboard uppercuts... yeah Cesaro is my answer.

[The Natural]

3 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

In recent memory Cesaro when he was a babyface had the hottest hot tags I can remember in awhile. Charging uppercuts, dives to the outside, top rope double stomps, rolling through to springboard uppercuts... yeah Cesaro is my answer.

 

Still remember this hot tag. What a sequence.

Daniel Bryan's hot tags increased his popularity in 2013.

Edited March 26, 2021 by The Natural