Vamp

Not sure i agree (and to be honest id nwver thought about it that deeply)

 

To be honest I feel the same way myself about a lot of psychoanalysis. That's why I sound pretty hesistant in the post, its such an easy thing to over apply. To paraphrase from that Austrian bloke; sometimes a lighttube is just a lighttube. Talking of which I should really actually get around to watching some of the clips in this thread.

I'd like to do some more research on it really when I get a chance. Credit goes to Richie for starting the thread because I'd never really thought about applying any of that to deathmatches. But you're definately right about interpretation, that's partly why I brought it up, it'll be interesting to see what different interpretations we get of those ideas and of deathmatches from them. If I get a chance to read an article later there might be a few ideas from that which could stimulate conversation on deathmatches and wrestling in general if people are interested?

Oh, you made me realise another thing I should have made clearer, when I say queer sexuality I don't mean in the slang term where queer stands for gay, I mean it more in its actual sense of any sexuality that goes against the traditional percieved 'norm'. I only bring this up because I'm not sure how much of a latent homosexuality there is to it. I suppose there might be an act of repression to it. I might have a think about that later. But I'm not sure that the reason for it mostly involving men isn't more to do with issues regarding masculinity. There's lots of writing on bodybuilders (I'm sure everybody knows about this kinda thing by now) and how they start to develop breasts and display what's usually prescribed as a feminine trait for worrying about personal grooming and appearance to excessive levels. Bodybuilding is often seen as an excess of masculinity. If we take the masculine code as being about being active, being able to withstand pain and so on then it's probably not hard to apply that to deathmatch wrestling. Its an excessive desire to appear masculine. It might be interesting to map the peaks of deathmatches and its origins to what was happening in society at the time.

 

Actually, issues of masculinity would be quite good to look at in relation to the deathmatch scene. It's worth bearing in mind though that even though deathmatches are an obvious example of queer sexuality it is something that you can find pretty much anywhere. Although I am someone that will argue that all films *can* be queer so that that statement for what it's worth.

I'd never thought about Deathmatches as being more about BDSM than about wrestling. It actually makes an enormous amount of sense.

 

It doesn't really. BDSM has a sexual element, deathmatch wrestling doesn't. Or at least I think it doesn't.

 

I think that's oversimplifying queer sexualities to be honest. I won't go into it too much becuase I'm not an expert on the topic myself (I'm really, really not) and it goes into a lot of psychoanalysis bollocks which you either believe or you don't. The first thing that's striking about deathmatches is the very title. The death element. The death drive (according to Freud, who spoke a lot of bollocks to be fair) has very similar functions to love, it is about restoring the original unity we have with the mother. Death breaks the symbolic world that we live in and allows us to get back to what we had originally. So I dare say the high risk of all this and the notion of being involved with something with 'death' in the title is really a demonstration of such a perversion. If you believe in this sort of thing we all have the desire to get back to the original unity. Its gets expressed in different ways though. Love, for example, is supposedly a desire to be one with the Other but there's always a lack there which leads to anxities in relationships.

 

Masochism is as much about the suspense as it is about the pain. What quite often pisses people off about death matches, and its already been mentioned in here, is the fact that 'wrestlers' just wait to be hit with a light tube, attacked with a syringe, etc. I would argue that not only would the performance of them fighting back prevent them from just waiting for the moment of gratification but it would also interfere with the audience's enjoyment. Obviously there's a sadistic element to watching deathmatches but there's also a mashochistic one, somebody mentioned earlier having to watch a clip through their fingers. The bit where a wrestler stands there openly waiting to be hit let's us know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it's going to happen, and that's part of the masochism of the whole thing. You mention it doesn't have a sexual element, but that's just a further example of the suspense. The lack of sexual involvement or orgasm is a part of the disavowel.

 

The reason they don't care about the money is, I would have thought, because of the need to do this in front of an audience. Masochism is performative in nature, ritualistic, I'd imagine there's an intrinsic need for many of the people involved to do it in front of a crowd. The "bring the weapons" death matches are probably a top example of this.

 

I mean, I'm always cautious when discussing psychoanalytic theory, because a lot of it either gets applied poorly (and I haven't done a good job here, I've barely touched the surface because deathmatches don't really interest me) or isn't something I personally believe to be true. I certainly would say there's a sexual involvement here though. Its a perversion. I mean, that's probably not the only reason people are involved in the scene, I'm sure there are those within it that have some form of mental illness but I'd be careful of just putting deathmatches down under mental illness.

 

Ultimately anyone who tells you their sexuality is simple and they just wanna fuck her/him because they're hot is wrong. Sexuality is a complicated mess all the time. Its a big puddle of blood with glass, barbwire and whatever other debris you can think of in it.

 

I've bored myself talking about that. And I've annoyed myself for not even having done it very well.

 

Edit: Should be noted that when I suggest there's a sadistic element for thsoe who do enjoy it, I'm not using the term with the negative implications it has. In case anybody gets pissed at me for calling them a sadist. Aslo, there must be someone on here way better at this topic than I am.

I've seen some fantastic Dusty Rhodes' promos, probably some of the best promos ever, but its only really dawned on me that I haven't really seen him in too many matches, and those that I have seen have tended to be rather boring affair,s whether because they don't hold up or because they were at the time. Now I know Dusty's more of a promo guy than an in ring worker but what are the best Dusty matches?

They had the same talks about a spin off with Tomorrow Never Dies.

 

Also, the ice palace in Die Another Day is fine. They didn't use it to its full potential though.

Hey, at least it wasn't Anchorman...

Supposedly the show where the Jake Roberts incident happened was in Brent Town Hall. Whether any of it is true or not I don't really know. The show did start late, although that was standard FWA proceedure, and did have an open tag challenge where I'm pretty sure one of the guys who answered was a security guard (trainee). It did seem a little odd.

 

The only FWA show in Acton I can remember (though I'm pretty sure there would have been shows before) was one where they drew quite a small crowd, checked people for weapons as they went into the building, and had a pretty good show. The only person who seemed drunk that night was one of the St Johns women who was well up for a night of the old wrestling.

I'd forgotten all about that. I figured it was something recent.

What's all this fuss about Chilli Dog copying people? Is it tongue in cheek? Or am I missing something?

I still like him more than that gobshite Laura Mulvey

 

I had a lectuer who who started one of his early lectures by insulting her work, which didn't go down well with her nephew who was in the audience.

Except I meant the post that was on here.

It was something like that.

I tried googling it and nothing came up. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong in my head.

Wasn't there a thing on here ages ago about someone working in Sainsburies who got sent a letter about tiger bread? Just wondering since Sainsburies have apparently changed the name of the bread.

You're right about the ramp. I remember the arguments that it was purely there for the benefit of the older guys with dodgy knees and fake hips but you only need to look at CMLL to realise how good the ramp could be for the X-Division guys.

This has gotta be the year where they get all the Bonds lined up on a stage right?

About a tenner.

Is the Vive Guerrero tribute DVD worth a buy?

Was it the UWA who had some show at a festival where Jonny Storm wrestled in front of a bunch of decidedly ugly people?

 

I can say that as an undecided ugly person...

Hmm, I suppose hanging about with a bunch of exoticos (I'm not saying that all cross dressers are gay...) before going out there to set up a Rob Terry beatdown and the return of the corpse of Vampiro in front of a crowd that really doesn't give a shit about him might not be the highlight of his career.

Have there ever been any examples of AJ Styles having a shitty attitude? I've been watching his match from last month with El Mesias and it drags and drags with AJ applying constant rest holds for the first ten minutes before they've even done much. And we're talking lazy rest holds not wearing down a body part or anything like that. I suppose it could be that they booked it to go twenty minutes but Mesias was too unfit to go that at any pace, he doesn't look his fittest here, but I'm actually inclined to think it's Styles. He gets no reaction when he comes out and just doesn't quite seem to have his working boots on. Normally I think he's capable of having an exciting match but I really can't stress how boring this thing was.

Probably been posted before but it deserves a bump up. Great little promo from Regal.

Everything about that angle was awesome. In terms of being the overall package Regal's probably one of the best to go from the UK over to America. I know Davey's probably the bigger star and had the better look but Regal's actually able to cut a promo.

Hulk Hogan getting ready for Stan Hansen:

 

You know what I'd have done to get ready for Stan Hansen? Left.

Do we have any gay members? Besides the new guy who started the thread I mean. I mean there's obviously a homosexual audience for wrestling, the same as there is with male epics like Spartacus and so forth, and this is quite a large forum so presumably we do. And presumably ones who don't come across as so pervy. Although then again there's been a fair few pervy posts about women over time so I don't know why I bring in that divide.