Lio Rush WWE 2020?

[King Pitcos]

38 minutes ago, David said:

WWE are "getting away" with turning a blind eye to the kind of thing we're talking about. 

So WWE are letting the wrestlers “get away” with it. There’s a difference between “WWE should clamp down on wrestler behaviour” and “WWE are getting away with it.”

[David]

1 minute ago, King Pitcos said:

So WWE are letting the wrestlers “get away” with it. There’s a difference between “WWE should clamp down on wrestler behaviour” and “WWE are getting away with it.”

WWE are getting away with not taking responsibility for the environment that they provide for their employees. As an employer it's on them to take ownership of that situation, don't you think? 

What about your point that "The concept of Evil Bigbad Corporation vs Downtrodden Workers" doesn't really apply? Do you seriously believe that to be the case? Because the employees in question are being "dickheads" to each other?

[Tamura]

Lio Rush should go all British Bulldogs and take a dump in any bag he's asked to carry. I can guarantee he won't be asked to carry them again...

[textonly]

On a separate note, I would love to hear what someone like Zack Sabre Jr. thinks about all this. On one hand, he's very open about his progressive views and I expect he's fully on board with workers' rights etc. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that anyone who's been about wrestling for a while hasn't dealt in some of this, and maybe they see some value in it despite how it looks from the outside. It'd be fascinating to hear.

Cultural differences are interesting too. America's always been pretty weak on workers' rights, so I presume for a lot of the roster there's less expectation of protections we would take for granted. Japan's work culture is pretty notorious but I don't know what rights they're offered as standard. Maybe a UK perspective is way out of line with the norm (although I'd be pretty surprised, albeit pleasantly, to hear that our companies operate much differently).

[Mr_Danger]

What was the opinion of the neck beards and Jerichos of the world when CM Punk refused to go in for this kind of thing? Be interesting to compare.

[The King Of Swing]

1 hour ago, Tamura said:

Lio Rush should go all British Bulldogs and take a dump in any bag he's asked to carry. I can guarantee he won't be asked to carry them again...

He has to pay his dues first. A lowly cruiserweight hasn't earned the right to partake in bag shitting.

[Love-Wilcox]

I think Lio is well within his rights to stand up for himself if he is indeed being bullied... but on the other hand, bag carrying and dishing out water bottles to your veteran colleagues as a show of respect is hardly the same as getting threatened with bum rape from JBL in the showers.

I think this issue really hinges on how Lio himself is handling it. If he's politely declining because he feels its demeaning then fair enough, if he's telling everyone to fuck off because he's a superstar and can't be taught anything then I can see why that might rub people the wrong way.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Love-Wilcox
spelling

[The King Of Swing]

I'm sure a young black man carrying bottles and bags around for a mostly white roster, will make a lovely visual for the Be a Star campaign.

[unfitfinlay]

22 hours ago, 5pints said:

Due to the travelling nature of the employment im sure management allow the workers to self govern themselves to a point, not expect them to. Think about why wrestlers court was invented in the first place! Vince would certainly have known about it and as long as it didn't get out of hand he wouldn't have stepped in and stopped it, because it worked.

It only works because, as we've established WWE wrestlers have very little in the way of recourse when it comes to harassment and bullying. If the mainstream media ever pick up on it then it'll get stopped quicker than you can say "Bill DeMott".

The whole thing is bollocks. It's clearly a hangover from the ultra-kayfabe "We must treat the rookies like shit to protect the business" days, which is ridiculous now that it's 2019, everybody knows wrestling is pre-determined and Lio Rush has been wrestling for years.

It's not even like it applies to everyone either. For example, the Hardys HAD to vandalise Don Callis' car as an initiation and to prove themselves to "the boys". Rene Dupree accidentally gets Bob Holly a speeding ticket and it's seen as a lack of respect worth a public beating.

I'd bet money that the likes of Brock Lesnar or Kurt Angle weren't carrying anybody's bags after they got called up either.

Quote

 

Lio's issue is that he's taking his title WWE Superstar too literally. He thinks the hard graft can stop.

If Triple H didn't have an issue carrying Shawn Michaels bags and the stories I've read of other NXT stars who were called up to the main roster handing out towels and water to the other wrestlers behind the curtain on tour, why can't Lio.

Drop the ego, listen and learn from others. 

Too bad we never heard anymore of that Triple H fella, I heard he would have had quite the career! Said no-one ever, but will we be saying this about Lio Rush?

 

Has the Triple H stuff actually been confirmed by anybody besides Shane Douglas.

Aside from that, what exactly is the advice he's been ignoring? Is it even valid? Who is it from? It might sound harsh but there's a ton of "vets" on the WWE roster who probably aren't worth listening to. I mean, would you take advice from a guy who has been floating around the midcard for years and doing nothing of note?

7 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

What was the opinion of the neck beards and Jerichos of the world when CM Punk refused to go in for this kind of thing? Be interesting to compare.

Good point. As I recall most of the internet fans were always solidly behind Punk. I'm sure someone on here went as far as to claim "He's a bigger star than Arn Anderson ever was!" when it came out that Arn didn't like him, and was behind the end of his winning streak.

Punk's a good one to bring up though. Remember when he apparently had heat for going out with Maria when they were in OVW, because "She's too hot for a developmental guy". Wrestlers really are fucking weirdos.

[Kamaras-Tash]

He can go back to the indies getting powerbombed off a ladder through a table only to stand straight back up, apart from being Lashleys mouthpiece has he done anything of note since being signed?

[Keith Houchen]

30 minutes ago, unfitfinlay said:

The whole thing is bollocks. It's clearly a hangover from the ultra-kayfabe "We must treat the rookies like shit to protect the business" days, which is ridiculous now that it's 2019, everybody knows wrestling is pre-determined and Lio Rush has been wrestling for years.

Yep, it ties in to that hyper masculinity that older wrestlers felt they had to show because, deep down, they knew they made a living from play fighting with oiled up nearly naked men.

[HarmonicGenerator]

29 minutes ago, Kamaras-Tash said:

He can go back to the indies getting powerbombed off a ladder through a table only to stand straight back up, apart from being Lashleys mouthpiece has he done anything of note since being signed?

I’m not a Lio Rush fan at all as far as his matches go, but he got people to care about Bobby Lashley, and the combined forces of Mr McMahon and the President of the United States couldn’t manage that, so I’d say he’s definitely done something of note there.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

Yep, it ties in to that hyper masculinity that older wrestlers felt they had to show because, deep down, they knew they made a living from play fighting with oiled up nearly naked men.

This reminds me of my all time favourite post on this forum, from a young lad who was harassed by wrestlers acting hard backstage at a show after him and his mates committed a perceived faux pas, I wrote a fairly long post just now detailing what I remembered of the story but I'm pleased to say I found it, so here it is in all it's glory.

On 9/15/2014 at 10:46 PM, beyondtheMATT said:

Hi, this is my first post on the site, although I am a long time lurker.

The Alex Shane podcast talks about an incident where some fans were slapped backstage at a Hammerlock Show. I was one of those fans, and this is what happened...

 

Me and my friends Dave and Adam had been wrestling fans since around 1990 and had been to a few live WWF shows including Summerslam 92, and also met some stars like Bulldog and Big Daddy on the British circuit. It was the mid nineties when we heard from an acquaintance of Adam's named Mike White that The Anvil was appearing at a Hammerlock show. Mike was working the show as a referee and could get us some good tickets. Anvil was also doing a photo op, so we opted for the works and waited for the big day to arrive.

 

At this point I should mention that we had been to one other Hammerlock show before this where we were vocal members of the crowd. We hadn't long left school, so we were just cocky kids really. We thought it would be funny to boo the faces and cheer the heels. I must point out that we never swore. We were sensible enough to realise that in a crowd of eighty people, made up of many kids and old folks, that bad language would have got us thrown out and rightly so. We just tried to be clever, in a way that my middle aged self now looks back and thinks "what a dick". One example was Andre being involved in a weapons match and us repeatedly calling for such instruments of destruction as the spatula to be thrown into the mix.

 

Something about this first trip to Hammerlock should have set the alarm bells ringing. During one of our banter sessions, Andre, who was wrestling in a tag match, decided to completely pause the action, lean on the ropes and shout abuse at us. He called us little shits, and said that he had wrestled hard men, like Dan Severn in an Iron Man match, and that he would jump the barrier and sort us out. Please bear in mind he was playing a face (albeit miscast) up until this point. Needless to say, we were shocked, but laughed it off as we were the crowd and could express our opinion how we liked within the boundaries of decency and good taste.

 

On to the infamous night. We did indeed get good seats, not front row, but nice central ones a couple of rows back. Mike White had come through for us and really was a good bloke. Or so we thought. More on that later. It was just the three of us in our group and we were all around nineteen years old, immature for our age, just got our first proper jobs, all stood at about 5ft 7in tall and weighed about 10 stones apiece. I mention this so you can imagine how we looked a bit later in the story kneeling down crying in front of an entire dressing room of big tough wrestlers.

 

The show started well enough, the first couple of matches came and went with us supporting the heels and booing the favourites. We did get noticed by the crowd and crew alike as we were very passionate in our musings. I think The Anvil had his match just before the interval. Possibly a tag match teaming with, or against Andre Baker, I can't quite remember. Andre did look a bit pee'd off during proceedings, but to be fair he had one of those faces. Then we had our picture taken with the Anvil. I still have it somewhere and may be able to dig it out.

 

After we got our Polaroid we were approached by Mike White. He seemed a bit nervous as he told us we'd been invited up to meet the guys including the Anvil. We honestly didn't think anything was amiss. We were friends of Mike and believed that all wrestlers love the fans, especially ones who had shelled out a tenner for a bad photograph. We followed Mike up some stairs, where he paused to open the door and let us go in first. I remember Andre was sitting with his back to us, like how you see Marseilles Wallace in Pulp Fiction when talking to Bruce Willis, only still in his gear with a towel around his neck. All around the room were wrestlers in various states of undress, pre and post match. "Are these the ones?" he said, getting up, turning, and immediately slapping each of us really hard across the cheek.

 

I'm not saying he hit us as hard as he could, but he certainly hit harder than anyone had hit me before, open handed or otherwise. He then threatened us. He said he knew lots of bad people. He said that he hadn't got where he was in life without dealing with lots of bad people. He told us to get on our knees where he again slapped each of us around the face. We were snivelling and were told to be quiet. I actually felt the old sphincter muscle give way a bit, I'm not proud to say. I still didn't exactly know what we had done wrong.

 

He told us that we were confusing the fans. The fans came along to cheer certain wrestlers and boo others. He said that we made others around us unsure of who they were meant to be supporting. He then made us write down our addresses. I don't know what the others put, but I was so stunned that I put down my actual address. He then said that he had wrestled hard men including Dan Severn, and asked if we had seen the match. We all said no. We were WWF fans and whilst we knew of Dan's legacy, our limited exposure to him painted him as some sort of 70's throwback porn star with a dodgy 'tache. He told us he would send us a tape of his match against Dan to the addresses we provided. Conversely, we expected the mob to turn up at our doors rather than "The Best of Andre Baker Against Hard Men".

 

I'll take this opportunity to tell you what I saw of others in the room, and their reactions. Mike White was looking very sheepish and guilty. I think he has posted here, before? Well, I've not seen him since that day and I think he's a piece of shit for putting us in that position. The one other person in the room as angry as Andre was a ginger haired wrestler, possibly 25 at the time. I've no idea who he was but he was egging Andre on, a real nasty piece of work. Maybe others here can ID him? The Anvil looked really embarrassed by the whole sorry incident. He was used to working for a professional outfit and visiting sick kids, rather than making them sick with fear. Andre referred to Anvil by saying that he came all the way over here and didn't expect this nonsense to be going on. Anvil just mumbled something, shook his head and went back to stroking his beard. My friend remembers Doug Williams being in the room, blocking the door, making sure no-one else came in or out. At least he did not look happy to be part of this intimidation.

 

At his point I asked if we could stay for the second half if we kept quiet (what a wimp). He said we could make as much noise as we liked and that we were welcome. He made everyone shake our hands but there was a big young guy called Titan who wouldn't. He said he didn't shake hands with shit. We were told to go back to our seats which we duly did and became automatons for the remaining hour or so. From that day, I vowed never to go to a BritWres event and I never have. I am still friends with my fellow victims, one of which I went to Wrestlemania 28 with, so as you can see I still love my wrestling. I would have spent a lot of money over the years at British events if not for this incident, but who cares really? I now have two kids who I also won't ever take to anything from the British scene. I didn't exactly shed a tear when Andre snuffed it as you can hopefully appreciate. I never got my compilation tape of his greatest matches, but on the plus side my family were never ritually slaughtered in the middle of the night either.

I found found it by searching "he said he didn't shake hands with shit" which is the best thing I've ever read on here.

[SuperBacon]

On 5/4/2019 at 8:06 PM, Keith Houchen said:

Older wrestlers are like the older guys at your work who blame PC snowflakes because they got bollocked for calling someone a paki while at work.

I know you’re using that word in the context of making a jokey point, but it’s still fucking rank whether printed or said, so please don’t use it. 

If you wouldn’t say it, don’t write it.

[Accident Prone]

6 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I know you’re using that word in the context of making a jokey point, but it’s still fucking rank whether printed or said, so please don’t use it. 

If you wouldn’t say it, don’t write it.

T-t-t-t-thats me fffffucked then.