Youtube Thread 2000

[Merzbow]

I wish Dreamer had went through with it...

The fact that so many people he ripped off are still blowing him and making excuses for it is wild, he has such a hold on people who haven't worked for him in over two decades.

[tiger_rick]

Heyman has undeniably been a great TV performer for pretty much his entire career. Peaked in the Dangerous Alliance but as a version of himself on ECW TV, he was great, as a commentator in the WWF and then most of his stuff as a manager in WWE has been of excellent standard. I think he suffers, like almost everyone there from doing the same schtick for years and years after it's tired. A few turns and the same stuff but with different people haven't helped hide how old hat it is. Fortunately, he works in front of a crowd who will accept a lick of paint on any tired old surface.

As a person, he's yet another carny c**t who somehow has people fooled into thinking he's the smartest man in the room 30 years on. He was genuinely talented. He found a space to innovate, had ideas that were fresh or a new spin on things that had worked, had an incredible work ethic and inspired the same from people around him. He was exposed as a booker years ago and particularly as someone who deserved the blind loyalty he'd inspired from people. He was Charles Ponzi with the gift of the gab and two safety nets for himself only thanks to his Daddy and his big mate Vince. 

He used to be an interesting alternative voice because of his experience but he's been such a grifter and a company man for so long that if you believe anything he says is even 5% his own opinion, you're as stupid as anyone who ever gave him a line of credit.

[BomberPat]

37 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

He used to be an interesting alternative voice because of his experience but he's been such a grifter and a company man for so long that if you believe anything he says is even 5% his own opinion, you're as stupid as anyone who ever gave him a line of credit.

This is it, really - that he still occasionally tries to sell himself as a disruptor or outside influence, when he's worked for the industry leader for the last thirteen years, and for a good ten years of that had an absolute stranglehold on the booking of the top title. Just this run in WWE has been longer than the entire time he spent booking ECW. Add in his initial WWE run, and he spent more time in the industry leader than he did in ECW and WCW combined, even putting aside the time the WWF were helping bankroll ECW.

He was good booker and a better promoter - he was able to sell some pretty ropey product because he had it tied up in the right package. A lot of ECW has aged really badly, but that's in part because he's one of the few wrestling promoters who had enough of an eye outside of the bubble to have actually been able to tap into the zeitgeist - in terms of major promotions, Vince Russo might be the only other - and as a result so much of it is as of its time as every other bit of the '90s we'd rather not think about. Something I find very funny watching old ECW is how he managed to convince a Philadelphia, and later New York, audience that he was offering something uniquely suited to their tastes, and completely innovative and new, while serving them matches like Tracy Smothers vs. Tommy Rogers, having Tommy Rich knocking about - it was Southern wrestling rebadged, but done so successfully that you have to respect the achievement. 

What he has done very smartly since then, though, is not had himself tied creatively to a wrestling promotion. Nothing cracks the credibility of someone who has built up the reputation as a great wrestling mind than actually having to book wrestling week-to-week. He can do these sit-down interviews and audiences with, where he waxes lyrical about how if ECW had survived he would have pivoted it to being more like the UFC, and he would have signed Bryan Danielson and giving him a big push, he would have signed CM Punk and Low Ki and AJ Styles...yeah, all really easy to say after the fact, years later, having never actually done any of those things. 

[JNLister]

YouTube adjacent (it's embedded videos): I got Google's AI coding tool to knock something up. It's never going to replace itvwrestling.co.uk (mainly because it would be far too much  hassle to fix the remaining limitations and errors, and there no way I can monetize it without legal issues), but it's a fun little proof of concept of what ITV could do with their footage:

https://wosflix.netlify.app/

[Snitsky's back acne]

Footage from one of the last ever events at the Dallas Sportatorium in 1997.
Apparently the building was beyond derelict at this point. Homeless people and drug addicts had taken up residence and the whole place was unsafe and wholly undesirable to be in (hence the lack of crowd).
 

 

[davertfnewman]

So like the ECW Arena, then?

[Snitsky's back acne]

4 hours ago, davertfnewman said:

So like the ECW Arena, then?

Apparently the Sportatorium made prime ECW Arena look like a 5 star hotel. 

[davertfnewman]

There's a Strange Kentucky People moment towards the end where the guy with the camera focuses on a middle-aged guy looking towards the ring who then turns his head not knowing he's being recorded and you see that he's either been in a fire or received a gunshot to the face because the entire left side of his face is both stroke-afflicted and reconstructed without an eye any more. It's kind of shocking and then the cameraman makes a joke about it straight after when the tape quality breaks up.

[Chili]

Mean Gene and Kamala having a grand old time fucking about on a promo day for the WWF in 1984.

 

[TheScarlettChad]

WWE posting this is just trolling. They know they aren't doing it so why post this?

[Snitsky's back acne]

Early TNA favourite Shark Boy once wrestled without the mask as Dean Baldwin in the HWA.

Interesting to see, I thought.

[Snitsky's back acne]

Only existing footage of Andre the Giant v Ultimate Warrior from Cesena Italy in 1998 which, I believe, was the only clean job Warrior ever did.   

No idea if he was meant to lose or Andre just thought "Fuck it!" and sat on him knowing there was no way he could kick out but still a cool little find in my opinion.
 

 

[davertfnewman]

I don't think it's a screwy finish, just a rarity.

Can't bear listening to Dan Peterson, the American guy who did Italian commentary. Really annoying voice. He's actually still alive at age eighty-nine.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

1 hour ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Andre the Giant v Ultimate Warrior from Cesena Italy in 1998 which, I believe, was the only clean job Warrior ever did.   

Even more impressive considering Andre had already been dead for 5 years.

[herbie747]