Vamp

Wonder if they'd be tempted to do 2 weekends of WrestleMania. 1 in London, 1 in the US. 

Nathan Jones was great. Awful, obviously, but great. Had the look and had a weird sort of charisma to him. I'm not convinced that they couldn't have worked around his shortcomings and still had something if he'd have stuck around. Although he probably wasn't worth the bother. 

There's a (better) universe out there where he's a special appearance megastar. 

On RAW becoming a WCW show, I suppose its possible they could have considered doing it for a couple of weeks as an angle. They take over RAW for a couple of weeks, WWF guys appear anyway to cause trouble, spin it off into Shane moving WCW to Saturday nights as Hot Box or whatever. There's a chance that people are curious about a couple of episodes of WCW Nitro under a WWE banner and it's a good way of hyping up your new Saturday show. 

If you look at the CSTs numbers there's undoubtedly a rise in antisemitism that's happened during this period. That's demonstrated in everything from threats and abusive behaviour to damage of property and assault. That rise started after the Hamas attacks but before Israel's response to it. So whether you agree with Israel's response or not (and, as mentioned, there's plenty of Jews who don't) the rise in antisemitism started before it. 

Even in the cases CST logs about the phrase "Free Palestine" (which obviously isn't antisemitic by itself) it argues that each of the cases it recorded was targeted specifically at a Jewish people or institutions or were part of overtly antisemitic comments. 

Unfortunately, televised news being what it is, it needs a face for it. Personally, I'd rather it be someone who seeks attention because it probably saves some unsuspecting person from stepping into a shit storm of abuse. 

6 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Jeez that's a hell of wild lineup, I wish Funaki (not that one) had someone better than Bulldog Jr though.

Indeed.

By that logic he should be on The Rock's one match every 8 year schedule by now! 

Normally I'm of the opinion that you should cast whoever the best person is for the role, but I'm less sure about James Bond. 

I think there's absolutely room in the market for action movie franchises with a black lead. But I'd be worried that narrow minded studios would think Bond has already ticked that box if Bond were to do it and I think you could do something far more interesting than "Bond is black now."

It feels like whitewashing.

If the movies are going to continue to be navel gazing, than it'd be more enjoyable if they leant into the ridiculousness of the white British super spy that critics identified and understood back in the 60s. That joke was in the films from the start.

If you're a book fan, part of the joy (at least now) is that they're partly a result of a paranoia about a decline in upper-class British white heteronormative men and their power. That's even funnier now. 

And perhaps, most importantly, I find the more recent Bond movies more politically troubling than the older ones. The older ones, maybe excluding oddities like License to Kill, were aware that they were a joke. The newer ones are heritage movies and have all the baggage that comes with that. They genuinely feel mournful of the idea that Bond is ridiculous rather than understanding that Bond has always been ridiculous. There's a weird sort of nostalgia about Britishness and white masculinity (I'd argue the two concepts are very intertwined in the Bond movies and books) which makes me uncomfortable with the idea of them now producing Bond movies with a black actor as Bond. They'd either do nothing with it, which feels ignorant, or handle it badly. 

1 hour ago, I Bent My Wookie said:

All I could think of during Sheamus' match was that it felt like a real life version of Randy Marsh vs Batdad at the kids baseball in South Park. 

2 big guys in their pants having a punch up after being on the beers all day. 

I know he's been off with a serious injury but if he's coming back in that shape, he probably should have kept the vest, braces and bottoms. 

Wasn't everyone on here recently clamouring for more fat lads in wrestling? Not that I'm calling Sheamus fat.

Besides, he's closer to end the of his career than the prime. They're not pushing him as the sexy face of the company. He's a utility player. Someone old ice hockey teams would hire because they look like they could hit hard and take a beating. Plus they need someone Gunther can stiff every now and then. 

4 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

What did he even say about Ospreay? I missed it, but surprised he'd reference him directly.

Nothing. 

He said something about freelancers not wanting to put the grind in which could have been about anybody. People seem to want it to be about Ospreay. And I've always got the impression that Ospreay probably isn't the hardest guy to wind up. 

3 minutes ago, JNLister said:

I think it's generally a workplace rule that if you're in a fight with colleagues where you're the first to get physical and you get suspended and then you come back and less than a year later have a fight with a colleague (three feet in front of your boss) where you're the first to get physical, you're probably not getting the benefit of the doubt.

To be fair, Jungle Boy could have pointed out that Coca Cola is vastly superior to Pepsi.

Okada is a guy who's excellent in an epic. He's also a guy who's great at doing very basic moves when they matter. 

NJPW rebuilt themselves around him. I don't think he's actually that easy to book if you're trying to slot him into a different company and expect the same results. 

I've no idea why (maybe it's the blurred faces) but it reminded me of the footage that TNA showed of the James Gang showing up at the studio where the WWE were filming a Royal Rumble video. 

Still, Punk's a prick. Who knew?

I'm not sure you couldn't pick just as many holes in Austin appearing as you could Undertaker. His feud with Rock is years ago. The Rock is the final Boss and Austin has a history of teaming up with bosses at WrestleMania.

But, probably more importantly, Undertaker confronting Rock doesn't feel like a tease. Austin confronting The Rock would. 

This isn't Jericho himself so much, but I always thought the way he won the title at the start was a bit shit. 

Just the idea that Kenny and Jericho have a singles match to face the winner of a battle royal to decide the first champion.

And then his whole faces of Jericho "I'm like the David Bowie of wrestling" entrance. And his initially shit finisher. 

1 hour ago, TheBurningRed said:

Cocaine strength. 

On the whole showing the footage, it is a bad time to be doing it. But it makes me laugh how peoples view on it have changed. When it came out what happened, people on twitter and the like were saying “release the footage. We need to see it” etc. Now it’s allegedly being shown, the same people are saying it’s petty and shouldn’t happen.

To be fair, it's 8 months later. Why would those same people still care? The relationships over, move on.

Personally, I find it hard to divorce her views from her Enid Blyton approach to teenagers, the lazy antisemitic tropes in her world building and the suggestion that longer and duller equals more adult. 

I do also think that she just went too far down the wrong rabbit hole and didn't want to lose face by climbing out of it so just keeps on digging. But then  when you've had that much smoke blown up your arse you either develop one hell of an ego or lung cancer. 

I seem to remember that being a being "smarky" crowd with signs for Super Dragon and things. 

Having the same problem. Gave up in the end. 

I know wrestling is always behind popular culture but naming the current era after the Renaissance seems a tad insulting. 

1 hour ago, JLM said:

 

They also know full well that they will see how a person presents and make the call on whether they think they’re a man or woman without asking to see their genitals or carrying out any tests, so there is clearly more to it than chromosomes. 

I dunno, telling a transphobe you can't know what gender they are till you've had a quick gander at their genitals seems like a good way of getting out of some circular arguments. 

I feel like Tajiri would have had a good run in either AEW or WWE if he came along now. I think I prefer the reality we got though as he was a fun midcard act. 

7 hours ago, 2Xtreme_lives said:

I think it as people have said above exposure and relevancy is everything.

As noted take a Bossman, Earthquake etc I think that golden era of large characters and gimmicks is what killed these guys careers longevity 

There's a few 'indy' guys who I considered the future of wrestling now like Kenny Omega, Finn Balor who yes have been around some time but not seen by the masses

Then you get Bryan Danielson had a tough/lon career, hard hitting style and stopping full time this year ar 42 and seen an icon and AJ Styles who is 47 still believes in flat earth but seems to have been on national TV forever 

No gimmicks just doing what they do

 

AJ's had loads of gimmicks. He's been flippy floppy, Russo's bestie, mini Ric Flair, Sting without the makeup, an adulterer and a soccer mum.

Finn Balor had "little man having it large" in NJPW, cosplayer, demon and goth who likes purple. 

You wait till he turns heel and cuts  promo saying he always was the American Nightmare. 

It's just one of those examples where a wrestler gets a cool nickname and the cool gimmick that could have been attached to it evaporates. Like how we could have had a wrestling architect but now we can't because it's associated with Seth Rollins. 

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

I'm sure the obsession with numbers and ratings and success exists in other media, but never to the extent that it does in wrestling, and I'm convinced it comes from two places - an obsession with the "Monday Night War", and people thinking that wrestling's default state is two rival promotions trying to outdo each other by metrics that largely don't make sense any more, and wrestling fans needing to be seen as "smart". Too many fans still seem absolutely terrified of just admitting that they like wrestling, or that they want to see their favourite wrestler win more matches, because to do so suggests that they're just a mark, and there's nothing worse to be than that - so they have to wrap it all up in arguments that sound business-y and insider instead. You can't just want your favourite wrestler to win, you have to argue about how the creative direction is better if they win, and how if they don't win, it's because someone in the office is holding them down. You can't just say that this promotion, or this style of wrestling, is your favourite, you have to argue that it's the best on some kind of quantifiable business ground - that this company's ratings are better, that this wrestler is a bigger draw, or that this style of wrestling "turns off casual fans", as if the barrier to your enjoyment of a bit of telly should be whether an imaginary other person is enjoying it or not!

I think it depends which corner of fandoms you're in. There's definitely corners of the Doctor Who fandom, for instance, who obsess over ratings, whether it's worrying that ratings are too low or using them as arguments to say one writer/doctor was better than the other. 

I think it's natural to be a fan of something and then become interesting in how bits of it works. 

Plus wrestling doesn't provide the same statistical fix that other athletic endeavours do. People can't obsess over how many completed passes someone has made in a season so they talk about how much wrestling time there was on a show or what the TV ratings are. They want some numbers. 

Wasn't Booker there that time Punk tried to pull his "I'm a locker room leader, look at my big boy pants" the last time Punk was in the WWE?