Really Big Shoe

 

Profile of The Franchise in a 1990 WWF Mag, there was a short feature on him on one of the old Supertape videos too. 

 

WWE really should stamp down on the homophobic stuff since they have an openly gay wrestler on their roster & they have done stuff for the Gay & Lesbian charities before, so it's hypocritical if they let one of their employees say stuff like that.

 

Also, because it's wrong and all that jazz.

 

The only place for homophobia in wrestling is if they wanted to use homophobia as a trait for one of the heels in a "what a fucking cunt this homophobic cunt is" kind of way, but they won't do that, because it would require a gay protagonist, and no wrestling company is prepared to encourage its fans to cheer for benders for fear that their fanbase might contain (read : DOES contain) backwards types who would boo any openly gay character and ruin it.

 

Wrestling, sadly, is not a form of soap opera that is ready to try and give you believable homosexual male characters that you are expected to like, although perhaps that's a touch understandable since a lot of fans have had to put up with "You like the wrestling? You gay or something?" all their lives, and would be more comfortable if more fuel wasn't added to that particular fire. Because you get plenty of backwards twats outside wrestling fandom too.

 

 

Yep, unfortunately your right. I think historically WWE & wrestling in general have used more effeminate and/or gay characters to be ridiculed & to get easy heat from the fans. Even going back to Gorgeous George, the heat was on George because of his antics in the ring & his OTT costumes and such. One name which comes to mind is Goldust and IIRC he used to get a ton of heat when he worked against Warrior, Ahmed, Piper & Razor among others. The premise with the Goldust character was that he was gay & IIRC he was hitting on Razor et al and the WrestleMania match between Pipes & Dust was Roddy beating the crap out of him because of his antics. So in that instance, Roddy Piper was playing the homophobic role you're referring too, but was getting face cheers for it. This is Lance Storm's review of their match:

 

 

 

Next up we got the conclusion to the Piper vs. Goldust match. Both guys returned to the arena and ended up back in the ring fighting, and things just got weirder and weirder. (I’m pretty sure Russo was part of the creative team at this point and would bet money he had a hand in this mess. Again there were no rules so I have no idea what we were suppose to hope happened in this match. Goldust got heat on Piper and the story of the match was (I think) Goldust was Gay and Piper was a gay bashing homophobe baby face, who was going to beat him until he became a man (seriously). After beating on Piper, Goldust eventually kissed him, which pissed off Piper who fired up and made his comeback, which included grabbing Goldust by the balls, kissing him (I have no idea), and then stripping him out of his ring gear revealing very inappropriate lingerie. At this point Goldust just left and Piper’s music hit and he celebrated like he won. This was awful.

 

Thing is and this is probably why WWE and pro-wrestling gets away with it, most of the gay &/or effeminate characters are played by straight guys. WWE could use Darren Young as a spokesperson and help the younger members of their audience who might have questions over their sexuality. It's actually something which, if they think about it, could actually be good PR for them. But like you say, WWE, TNA or any wrestling company can't really develop a character where fans will feel empathy for or would even support in some instances. In Eastenders the character Christian got beaten up by homophobes and the writers of the show got the audience to feel sympathy for him. I don't really know if the whole crowd would root for or turn against a openly gay wrestler like D-Young, but you'd get the minority (who would probably be the vocal minority) and would shut an angle down before it had any go in it. Really it depends on how they book them and the storylines they are involved in. Also do they mention their sexuality on screen or do they gloss over it. Say they have the next Hogan, Rock or Austin in NXT regardless of their sexuality would they get a major push and a WWE championship, I don't think that would even be in the question. I think Tony Atlas said this one of the Legends roundtables where they were talking about the Soul of Wrestling, he said something about the promoters didn't see him as a man of color, but someone who was green (not meaning he was a rookie, but that he drew money for them). So if and as WWE is PG, they have a chance to change attitudes towards peoples sexuality and get the message across that homophobia, racism etc. are all wrong. But whether WWE will do anything about Bill DeMott, PS Hayes or about the other issues is all up to them.   

Going back to DeMott, I think he worked in Japan as Crash the Terminator and in Japan they are renowned for treating trainees over there like garbage. IIRC in the GAEA Girls doc they beat the crap out of the rookies on there. Plus they are treated similar to how the old football apprentices used to be where they have to do all the menial work & such. So maybe Bill DeMott picked up that type of attitude from working in Japan. WWE really should stamp down on the homophobic stuff since they have an openly gay wrestler on their roster & they have done stuff for the Gay & Lesbian charities before, so it's hypocritical if they let one of their employees say stuff like that. Also if Bill DeMott is slapping people around with concussions (doesn't WWE have something to do with the Sports Legacy Institute now which looks into the affects of concussions?) then keeping him around is just sending out the wrong message. 

 

 

 

it's shocking the Demott or Michael Hayes are still employed.

 

Yep. Speaking of PS Hayes, allegedly he made a racist comment to Mark Henry at a WrestleMania 24 party and is also allegedly well known for making similar comments in the past, plus if you analyse their "product", the WWE have & still do in-directly racist stuff or stereotypical stuff like Cryme Tyme, Slick, Akeem among others, plus more recently they've had Truth dress up as a confederate solider and lately he's been talking almost in Ebonics when he's on the mic or at the announcement table to the LOL's of the other announcers. Plus and almost forget it but even Vinny Mac came out with the N-Word to John Cena on a WWE PPV, in front of Booker T who then said his trademark "Tell me he did not just say that" line. McMahon maybe didn't say it with any malice (or so we can presume?) and apparently it was an in-joke between Vince & Book but it's still in very poor taste (if the audience hadn't seen the Harlem Heat promo to Hulk it would fly over most people's heads) and is again hypocritical as WWE are supposedly so pro-Black History. 

I've always found the wrestling logic of the training being really tough and brutal to be ridiculous. Thousands of stories over the years of trainers doing all kinds of rough stuff just to prove "wrestling ain't ballet". It makes no sense. If you start MMA training, if you do something wrong I'm pretty sure the coach doesn't rip your t-shirt off and call you a faggot. If you're doing boxing and get hurt I doubt your coach will smack you around the head. If you play for Arsenal and get something wrong in training I doubt Arsene Wenger is going to tell you that he hopes you die and slap you in the face. It doesn't seem a logical way to run a training facility for ANYTHING, let alone something that isn't even a real sport.

 

Yeah, it actually used to be worse. Like it's been mentioned Hiro Matsuda broke Hulk's leg to see if he was tough enough to want to be a wrestler. Also can't remember it was in Bill Watts book or someone else's but they (or one of their trainers) knocked some guys eye out (think it was an ex-american football player or something similar) and stood on it, which I guess was to prove that 'rasslers' are tough. I know Stu Hart used to stretch guys and hurt them bad like make them pass out & such but I don't think he'd intentional break a leg/arm or stand on someone's eyeball. I would assume that mentality all goes back to the carny days where they had to be shooters & take care of business if someone jumped them or the other guy(s) wouldn't do the job. I think it even went into the 80's too when Verne Gagne was allegedly offering to pay Sheiky to break Hogan's leg and take the WWF belt to the AWA. But in the modern day, that stuff should be eradicated. I mean back in the day if IIRC Del Rio & think it was someone else (Sheamus?) who got beat up in a bar fight and turned up on Raw with two black eyes that kinda thing wouldn't have gone over well back in the territory days. Back then they had to act like hard men to protect the business, now they don't really need to bully rookies and run them through tough drills and stuff because it's un-necessary. Time's have changed & whilst I think they have to put the element of respect into the training, it's the wrong mentality to go about it the wrong way. Maybe sit down the trainees and tell them stories about the old territory days & stuff that way you've gained their respect without resorting to hazing, insults & such. 

 

 

 

There's plenty of hasing and ribbing in all kinds of training in every sport. Man United's famous class of 92 all were made to fuck a mop when they were coming through. David Beckham had to pretend to shag Clayton Blackmore's calander. Paul Scholes was thrown in a tumble dryer and had a panic attack when he was breaking in. If you have a bunch of excitable lads, there's going to be roughing up and bullying. I've no doubt it happens in boxing, MMA, rugby, the lot. Doesn't make it right, but its far from exclusive to wrestling. I'd probably rather be trained by Hugh Morrus than play alongside Roy Keane in the late 90s and do something wrong. A lot of successful people rule by fear.

 

Yep I've read/heard that before. In other football books I've read, football apprentices/trainees were made to sing karaoke, had their clothes & shoes cut up or padlocked to the floor/ceiling, in one football autobiography I read they made someone put boot polish all over themselves and then run laps around the training pitch. Also wasn't JBL known as a bad guy for hazing rookies?

Yeah it's a weird build for WrestleMania. I can't really recall any previous Mania when in 3 of the big matches that the other opponent isn't around to build a storyline. No Brock & Stinger because they have limited dates on their contract and Taker's probably getting in shape for Mania because he didn't look like himself when they had the photo of him & Michelle McCool were he looked skinny etc. If Kane was a 'face then maybe Bray could have done something with him to pique Taker's interest or something because right now it's like the Undertaker-Wyatt stuff has come out of no where and it makes no real sense why Bray has any beef with Taker. Taker-Sting would have made much more sense instead of Trips being the WWE guy against the WCW guy Sting. I mean they should have done that back in 2001 as 14 years later that doesn't really have any bearing now. So it's scatter-shot booking and throwing loads of mud at a wall and hoping it sticks. 

Interesting topic. Was there any plans to release the Coliseum videos which weren't put out over here (like the Best of the WWF series etc.)? Which is the rarest VHS & DVD release(s) and was there any release which was planned but they had to pull at the last moment. 

Will there be any differences between the Sky 1 & Sky Sports showings of Fast Lane?, as I'd assume there could be ad-breaks on Sky 1.  I also see Sky doing this again down the line and maybe just the big 4 being on PPV. 

Looks like it could be Mark Henry maybe ?

Does anyone have an episode guide for TNA Unfinished Business they've been showing on Challenge?

Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theories show is airing on TruTV at the moment at the weekends. Watched a interesting one recently about the Bilderberg group.  

Can anyone remember in the late 80's and 1990's if any other satellite channels showed wrestling?. I vaguely recall seeing a coal miners glove match and I think that was from a southern wrestling promotion, maybe it was the USWA?.