organizedkaos

He's great fun in Miracle Workers and incredibly game for whatever weirdness they threw at him episode to episode (the boulder fetish / having sex with a boulder is probably the peak). I realise that poking fun at yourself and looking silly is kinda celebrity 101 these days but there's this earnestness to it all that is very endearing

Oh I thought it was a play on "Hey You" and the 90s teen expression of distaste for something.

But you're absolutely right, brackets confirm it really..

Meltzer definitely has way more focus than critics of other mediums (for assorted reasons in the previous posts) but people obsessing over critics viewpoints and more specifically the arbitrary metric they use to grade things is certain not specific to wrestling.

There's something, maybe in all our psyches but especially so in nerdy circles where people really want their taste to be validated externally (I realise this isn't some sort of deep observation, we like to think we're smart and have good taste). Maybe if you already like the more niche "serious" versions of things (music/film/tv/wrestling) you tell yourself you like the smarter better version of things unlike all those rubes who like the popular thing. Thus you want the critics (professional opinion havers! they must have the best opinions) to validate this thought.

Before it went to shit The AV Club had a couple of film critics who's tastes were fairly in line with mine (smaller more adventurous and personal films over big cinematic epics).  However if those reviewers gave a marvel film a fairly average grade (which, in my opinion, is about the right grade) the comments sections would be filled with tantrums about how the reviewer could possibly have some sort of differing opinion.  Half of the comments would just fixate on the grade and not the 2000 accompanying words that explained the critic's subjective viewpoint.  The fans just wanted to see that the critic gave the film they liked an "A" and then move on, feeling vindicated that they like the right things. No interest in the discussion about why the critic didn't like it, no interest in the idea that different people like different things. It felt like they saw the grade as rating their taste, not a movie

Also surely people can just go through every message that's @'ed him in Twitter?  There's only so many details he can change and surely there's an absolute tonne of messages she sent him (and the show insinuates the messages displayed on screen are real right? i'm only a couple episodes in so might have got the wrong impression, as others have said it's not exactly a binge watch!)

If he created the show without thinking she'd be identified then that's very naieve..  I can't imagine thats the case though given he acknowledges he's using this mentally unstable person for material in show (although I realise part of that links to the whole victims blaming themselves thing he's looking at)

AEW have a 21'000 capacity venue in Washington state booked for Wrestledream in October. I think there's a fair chance that's Danielson's last match as a full time wrestler

To be fair the internet allows for greater understanding of others viewpoints too.  I'd argue a decent chunk of the fervour around all this is because people are suddenly hearing what it's like to be <insert minority> and understanding better how the system still lets people down along with how even with the best of intentions our language and actions can contribute to a problem.  Whilst I do know trans adults (who transitioned as adults) my understanding of what it's like to be a trans child and the parent of a child has in part come from this thread (and in whole come from reading people's experiences either online or in other media)

It's arguable that the internet allowing people to understand the difficulties others face has led to more urgent attempts to rectify things that can seem outlandish to those for whom <insert minority> is still a confusing thing (along with the general "these people are coming to attack/rape/murder you/your wife/your children" rhetoric that people love to use to drum up hate)

It's the companies vying to be your only mechanism of experiencing the internet that becomes the problem. They control what you see along with controlling the form through which you express yourself (thou shalt not use more than 260 characters to have a converation). They're the ones who using outrage to gain your time and money. 

Sure without these giant machines of money making you'd still potentially be exposed to hate and horror but the original idea (or one of the original ideas) was stuff like this. People setup a space where people can communicate. Sure they can instill rules and regulations and decide what is said but it's arguably run by people for the love of doing it.. Instead we gave so much of that up because massive tech companies offered us an easier solution - the cost simply being that they would encourage outrage and arguments rather than genuine conversation

(Obv this is all a little idealistic but it makes me sad reading tech stuff from people involved in the 60s/70s... they had such high hopes for what could be)

Tintin in the Congo is pretty wild. Tintin kills a lot of animals in increasingly inventive splatterfilm ways. And loads of racism.

Remember stumbling across it as a kid (a french copy, i'm not sure it was published in english at the time? i certainly remembering thinking this was curious because i'd not seen this Tintin book before) and even then realising it didn't seem OK.

46 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Genuine question, how is this any different from when Vince McMahon was running WWE?

I don't think it is? I stopped watching WWE around Chris Benoit and outside of maybe a couple of shows I've not watched since. Myriad of reasons but as time passed and I was tempted to start watching again the fact the general concensus was bad wrestling + no confidence in storytelling I never went back. I kinda assumed what I said applies exactly the VM era of WWE but also i've not watched so can't comment.

I'm invested in AEW being good because it's the only wrestling I want to watch and when it's good it's a delight. There's so much there to like but as someone who digs long form storytelling and like you, doesn't want petty real life fights on screen I worry about these things cos if continues like this I'll stop watching and no more wrestling again.

46 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

There's always this weird criticism of Tony Khan that he's just a "kid playing with his toys" or whatever that I've never really understood. What part of a billionaire spending his fortune on creating his own completely mental wrestling promotion which has resulted in some of the best wrestling in history is a bad thing?

It can pay some great results but it doesn't install much confidence in the audience - we're completely at the mercy of the what Tony Khan wants and whilst he wants an audience he only wants them on his terms...

That feeling when a TV show is hitting on all cylinders, the excitement of "oh my god, I can't wait to find out what happens next"? That's often because the writers have instilled a trust in the audience. That confidence that the person has the abilities and ideas is a powerful one be it in TV or live music, standup, whatever - knowing the captain of the ship is sorted allows the audience to relax in the confidence/hope that they're going on a journey and it's going to be excellent.

Tony Khan has some good ideas but there's also clearly flaws in the way he writes. To some extent when he's just writing normal wrestling shows it's less obvious because he has so many good performers that much of the experience is coming from the wrestlers more than the bookers. That's great fun, lots of us like good wrestling and it's awesome to have it weekly, for free, with high production values.

But this latest thing is a reminder this isn't someone who's honed their craft, there's no reflection on their process, whatever they want to do they're going to do because the reason they have this position is because of the money they have. If the child suddenly decides they don't like a toy, that toy isn't TV anymore. If the child suddenly decides they want to re-enact some vendetta against a school bully, we have to watch that.

This analogy is extra when it comes to TV as the creator is supposed to be invisible. I'm not watching a fictional reality with AEW, suspending disbelief and getting invested in the story. I'm simply seeing Tony Khan and hoping his writing creates a good performance...

It also makes it hard to get invested because there's a sense we're just experiencing the whims of the emporer. They might bestow on you favours because of their mood but conversely they might decide to burn everything down. It might produce something entertaining, it might not and I can't trust Tony Khan to consider what's entertaining to us only what entertaining to him. It reduces any excitement in the future of the product and that's a less fun experience even if the product may still produce good things.

15 minutes ago, buba3d said:

Since cctv is protected by law and is under GDPR in the uk and in europe, ole TK broke the law by releasing cctv footage.😆

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1bycove/im_a_professional_wrestler_and_have_a_question/

uncertain

Heart in mouth when I opened the thread and it skips straight to last post

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

I’ve lost a fair bit of respect for the company, when only this time last week I was debating putting my hand in my pocket to attend All In 2. 

Yeah it's significantly dropped my interest in the company. I know that might sound a bit hyperbolic but i think there were two narratives I had when thinking about AEW. One is of wrestlers getting to do the wrestling they want to do (to be more pretentious, artists getting to create the art they like). The other is a spoiled billlionaire playing toys with his petty childish friends. Both are true, this doesn't change that. But it really reminds me I'm watching Tony Khan's product rather rather than the wrestler's product and the former is less interesting.

And I'll echo what @LaGoosh said, I have no desire to watch actual conflict on the nice fun fake conflict TV show I watch to unwind. This Dynamite sounds completely skippable anyways (never done that before but now feels as good a time to start)...

21 minutes ago, Dead Mike said:

I spoke to someone called 'Rim' the other day

 

I assume they made some excellent wrestling compilation tapes?

It's a bit the problem with social media again isn't it.  Everything is a statement, either people actively making one or others assuming everyone is doing something to present a character. So you get people making jokes about people who have their pronouns in their bios or suggesting it's OTT to do such a thing and thus it becomes all about some perceived grand gesture. Dickheads can then weaponise this to suggest that people are being disingenuous or trying to hard to something that is anything other than... this is quite useful and normalising it is good.

I work for a multinational corporation. You enter your pronouns into the work database just like you enter your date of birth. Most people have then in their  e-mail signature along with their name and other basic human information - if it's not there it can be looked up in the employee database. Cos it's useful and avoids grief. Normal thing to do in the workplace, not woke gone mad or bullshit like that.

I'm not sure

"AEW has a great track record on delivering what we advertise, and it is real footage,” said Khan, who remained guarded over the specific content that will air from All In. “The Young Bucks will show backstage footage from All In, the most important event in AEW history"

is explicit?

I still think the wording they're using is all leading to this being a sweve. Although really don't see either outcome being a positive for AEW. Its either petty bullshit of the highest order or a combination of carny bullshit and the smug bte humour that doesn't play on TV

33 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I'm probably way off base, but I get a feeling like he's the CM Punk of films - he appeals to a certain demographic, seemingly a bunch of blokes who fancy themselves as fans of "alternative cinema", and has made the most out of that demographic by pushing himself as much as his films, bolstered by going into other "alternative" fields, i.e. writing comics, etc., while the kind of work he became famous for is now being done better by newer directors.

I think you have to be the right age and the right sort of teenager here.  Finding Kevin Smith in the late 90s early 0s felt like a revelation. These low budget slackery comedies that actually felt real (even though they're completely heightened and cartoonish). Characters talked like how I imagined me and my friends talked, about subjects we talked about. It made being dissafected bored teenagers doing boring jobs or hanging out somewhere seem cool and magical. The shared universe gave you all the "secret handshake" things you could spot that made you feel like you were getting something others weren't (always a powerful feeling when you're 16)

Then Judd Apatow does the comedy/hangout bit better, with actors better suited for these roles. Community and a million other things do the meta nerdery stuff better. The bit of me that remembers being 16 still sees the original view askew films as something of value (still got a couple of the figurines on shelves in my flat). However adult me realises there's just better versions of it all out there, and thus the only value is nostalgia. And as things can be with nostalgia I'm quite happy with the original things, I don't need to see those characters
 

On 3/26/2024 at 8:30 AM, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I know this really isn't the time but is that the bridge that the Greeks killed Frank Sobotka under in The Wire?

It's the internet, it's always the time for some sort of pop culture reference/secret handshake

Surely there's an interesting part of this where if some of the people listed here had come along now the wrestling landscape might be fairly different due to the fact they didn't exist in the past? 

Does Dynamite Kid/Owen Hart/Jerry Lynn have a place in today's wrestling world if they're not there to influence the style so heavily? Or is the general shift in wrestling caused by enough different people's styles that if you remove Dynamite Kid and have him be born in the early noughts you still get roughly the same Bryan Danielson?

Arguably people are more open to more varied styles these days and that's as much on the rise of VCRs and the Internet as technologies and yeah no one wrestler is likely the reason wrestling is in it's current form but yeah an "interesting" thought that occupied me whilst i wait form something to compile

56 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

What are we saying here? Because "it's wrestling" that we shouldn't read even the slightest meaning into anything? What a shallow and boring way to view it all.

Also seems an antithetical attitude to posting on an internet message board for wrestling

Amazing! Last I'd checked (which would've been years ago) they hadn't released the show.. I'd forgotten the entourage he had. Will have to watch in full some point, see if I can spot 19 years old me

Was a pretty good show, early Kevin Steen and El Generico made an impression and the main event was nuts - I'd never seen a deathmatch live before and Sexxxy Eddy was p mindblowing (this was pre TOD where he got recognition but it was a similar experience going from "what is this idiot in stripper trousers doing here?" to "OH MY GOD THIS IS THE MOST LUNATIC WRESTLER I'VE SEEN")

Quote

 

Just looking at Psycho Sid's stats, and it occurred to me that he essentially retired in 2001 after WCW folded.  Apart from that wonderful Raw squash with Heath Slater he's done a handful of indy shows since.

So he retired aged 41.  41!  Got in, made money, WCW and WWF heavyweight champ, watched some softball, retired.  Great career.

 

Quote

has a broad/safe menu to appeal to as many people as possible

This is a pretty important part of the "best selling = quality" conversation.  It's the rotten tomatoes thing, the aggregate appeal being seen as a mark of quality when quite often it means "wasn't seen as bad by the largest number of people".

WWE/Coldplay/McDonalds offer an easily accessible product. They reduce the things that turn people off, often homogenising other work within the same field to make the most palatable version of things. There is an incredible quality to this creation, it's takes skill and work but it's a different quality to the more traditional artistic idea of quality. The thing is the concept of "quality" is subjective... To get more into my personal opinion I feel it one definiton prioritises comfort and I prefer the opposite but therein lies the problem, when faced with people having different perspectives from us we often reduce their's because it's less comprehensible then ours...

I guess if you want to define "best" in an objective way then "most successful" is the only definition. However you'll just find a lot of people who take issue with that fact, the problem is you're now arguing basically different concepts of reality. The internet/humans love to take that rather complicated element of human interaction (that people think and see the world differently) and then reduce the opposing viewpoint. People who like films different from the ones you like are "dumb" or "pretentious". Wrestling fans opinions differ because "tribalism". Everyone who voted for brexit is "racist".  We've got to accept people have different fundemental ideas of "quality" or "how to make our country better".

Quote

Props to Cope for his dedication to the bit. Looks like he was out there with signs from the moment they played Elton John at the start.

Ahh I just realised he would've be the one with the Mariah May sign she posed with - I was wondering why that person seemed intent on fully staying behind their sign.

Person of Interest (also Jonathan Nolan) managed to maintain p strong plot/themes/characters over the course of it's entire run. It probably helped that it had to act like it was a procedural "case of the week" for 2 seasons which means they couldn't burn through stuff as quickly.  

They also weirdly ripped themselves off by copying a bunch of it's better ideas for late Westworld and doing them less good.

As I said in another thread I just don't see him being good enough to be at the top of the card. He's clearly improving his promos (finally, he used to be straight embarassing) and obvious he has a good look and athleticism but as LaGoosh said, he rarely actually has good matches. In retrospect the MJF thing, whilst satisfying, should really have been an opportunity for them to try him out at doing a more complicated match (i'm not saying it should have been presenting them as equals as much as letting them do anything beyond 10 of the same move)

I just never much understand their booking of him (which isn't an unusual thing to say of AEW). TNT title holder would've been a perfect spot for him. Makes him look important, have him defend against loads of people, use the fact your roster contains some of the best wrestlers on the planet as to improve him whilst keeping him visible and strong with TNT belt.

Instead (and I'm guessing maybe due to injuries) he kept winning and losing it mostly to other hench people.

Now they're pushing him towards World Title and I just don't see how that works. He's not good enough to put on AEW main event matches. Sure, Samoe Joe isn't exactly top of his game either but he's a legend and essentially his reign is going to be about transitioning the belt from MJF to probably Swerve. Wardlow is supposed to be one of their break out homegrowns, you need to make a World Title reign about him not about moving chess pieces around.

So, either he wins the title and AEW shows get noticeably worse/he gets exposed or he loses again and yet again momentum is killed just as it was seeming like he could get it back...