Old Lives Matter

[tiger_rick]

Bit of chat in other threads about this but it's worth a discussion. Daft old cunt The Undertaker has been opening his gob on Joe Rogan. Obviously had some comments about not watching WWE which are in the other thread but also got some backs up with this:

 

Noticed Xavier Woods tweeted what appears to be a response:

His comments on WWE strike me as pretty laughable. He's been there for a million years and we saw from his doc that he's no interest in anything other than showing up for his one program a year. He had the ear of everyone, what's he ever done about it? WWE are an easy target because they produce abysmal TV but someone who's been on the inside having a go seems pretty low. You were happy to take their money.

This other stuff is pretty irresponsible. Sure, men were men back in the day. Lived life to the full. Good job, half of them died before they got to see most of it.

Taker's a funny one. I've always thought people who like him like him too much, all this greatest of all-time nonsense, while people who pan him go in too hard. He was generally good, occassionally bad, sometimes great. Hugely memorable regardless. Outside the ring, he went on long enough that people seemed to forget that he was a massive cunt. But the last couple of years show he was probably very, very wise to "protect his character" to such a degree. Because he's reminded everyone that he's an absolute dickhead.

[garynysmon]

19 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Taker's a funny one. I've always thought people who like him like him too much, all this greatest of all-time nonsense, while people who pan him go in too hard. He was generally good, occassionally bad, sometimes great. Hugely memorable regardless. Outside the ring, he went on long enough that people seemed to forget that he was a massive cunt. But the last couple of years show he was probably very, very wise to "protect his character" to such a degree. Because he's reminded everyone that he's an absolute dickhead.

Yes!!

For as long as his tenure was, I can hardly remember a time when he was 'THE man' that led the company. He was always meandering on the upper end of the midcard, semi-main event level with the odd title challenge, but never carried the company on his back. Always someone they could slot into the main event if they had to.

If anything he became more important once he was semi-retired which is bonkers really as he was around full time during the mid 2000's when star power had fallen off a cliff, yet I can't think of many memorable post-Attitude moments involving him until the HBK retirement angle.

I've mentioned this before but I sincerely think that the Wrestlemania streak etc has been blown out of all proportion and was a quirk that they happened to stumble on and obviously ran with.

But hindsight being what it is, there's been a lot of revisionist history when it comes to the Undertaker and newer fans seem to lap it up.  Not knocking his tenure but elevating him the way they have has been convenient and almost a reward for never ditching the company when most of contemporaries did at some point.

Edited January 22, 2021 by garynysmon

[BomberPat]

He's spent the better part of 25 years desperately trying to convince people that he's an MMA hard man and not a bloke in a shit drag queen's make-up pretending to be a zombie wizard. It's such an inferiority complex that he thought wrestlers were the public face of hard man fighters, and then UFC came along and suddenly they've got their backs up against the wall and you get knackered old showmen saying, "well, if UFC was around back then we'd have all done it instead of wrestling". 

The "everyone just plays video games now" argument has been around for decades. Kane was one of the guys that used to get singled out for playing games rather than partying. "Half of them had guns and knives", fuck off mate, half of them were dead by 40 too.

He also complained about modern WWE being too much style over substance, with people focused too much on "looking pretty" and not enough on fighting, as if he wasn't a career gimmick worker who spent thirty years in shit make-up, with big fuck-off theatrical productions for entrances that lasted longer than half his matches. 

And, finally, he complained about how WWE "didn't make any stars", because his generation all left at around the same time. Except they didn't, and they all had plenty of opportunities to make stars. But maybe the bloke who's only lost four times in the last decade, one of those to someone in the same state of semi-retirement as himself and two to part-time Brock Lesnar, might have been able to offer a little more in the "star-making" department. 

 

I'm not even particularly ragging on the Undertaker, it's just the laziest "back in my day" shite.

Edited January 22, 2021 by BomberPat

[The Gaffer]

The problem - other than his views - is the fact that this is also his first real foray into mouthing off through social platforms and new media. He hasn't had that crash course of slumming it out on Twitter for a few years and having people get back in his ear. You wouldn't get this out of Austin. The two probably share most views on the business, but Austin's had years interacting with the outside world and has a more progressive shade of red on his neck. Or at least a more self aware one. Undertaker's coming along now with stuff like this that he probably reckons is dead clever, but just sounds like the kind of mumbly shit you'd get out of a 2002 RF Video shoot. 

And it still doesn't shake how boring he is. We've spent years waiting for his treasured recollections, and it turns out he just doesn't have much to add. 

[Onyx2]

9 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

a more progressive shade of red on his neck

Outstanding.

[Supremo]

It’s nice he’s finally dropped kayfabe entirely and we can judge what a twat he is based on what he actually thinks and says rather than just ascertaining it from his shit T-shirts.

Isn’t there talk of him coaching at the Performance Center? Looking forward to him helping NXT talent not get squandered when called up by advising them to carry weapons. If only Ricochet was packing heat! Things could’ve been so different!

[PowerButchi]

NXT already are full of Proud Boys, so it'd make no odds.

[SaitoRyo]

Not at all surprised that a big fifty-something bloke from Texas, who has been a wrestler for practically all of his adult life, would have these sentiments. 

But this strikes me as something that is totally cyclical. Everyone does the 'back in my day' speech when they've been doing it long enough and see the business change. Seth Rollins is going to be talking about 'his generation' within the next five years, I guarantee irt

I'm sure a load of the old boys were shaking their heads when Mean Mark joined up with Vince's wrestling circus to portray a zombie undertaker as well. 

His whole 'men were men' thing is hilarious though.

As pointed out, a lot of those manly men didn't live to see their fortieth birthdays and if they did they were broken down druggies or divorced alcoholics, likely to be found selling 8x10s at some tinpot indie show. 

You do need veterans in the locker room and they can be valuable, but if today's crop would rather play GTA than actually live it, good for them.

I'm honestly surprised more hasn't come out about 'Taker and his backstage dealings. He was the locker-room leader on Smackdown in the mid-2000s, which was notoriously the worst time to be a rookie or lower-card wrestler. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

When men were men, and the 16 year old girls were still 16 year old girls.

[Tommy!]

I don't think anyone has blown as hot and cold over the years as Undertaker. 

He was good from debut until summerslam 94 (excluding everything at mania 9 but the entrance, obviously) then he sucked a dirty great arsehole for 18 months until foley turned up.

A good to great 2 year spell then he shit the bed again after summerslam 98 until he he fucked off in late 99 and turned back up on his bike.

I enjoyed that run for 2000 until he got all defensive and spent all his time burying people in shit matches after mania 17, which makes the below from Pat all the more interesting. 

8 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

And, finally, he complained about how WWE "didn't make any stars", because his generation all left at around the same time.

I enjoyed his run with Orton but really he didn't get interesting again until he got the hump with Vince and wanted to prove a point in his run with batista. 

After that it's just a blur of a good run with edge that tailed off, a period of him in a vegatative state with anal bleeding, his 2 corkers with Shawn and his jolly with HHH as far as I'm concerned. 

He was never the guy, he was always the special attraction. As a result he'll always be held highly because of tenure and the nature of the special attraction but ultimately he's never in discussion about who was "the guy". 

Him lamenting the business isn't full of drug fueled rapists or brain dead cunts carrying a knife is so fucking stupid it's untrue. Especially when it was him going to "have a word" to the locker room on behalf of Vince when they were getting drugs flack in the late 90s because he'd "seen the damage it did first time around" . 

In a way I do miss the myth of the past, a little schadenfreude I guess, where the exaggerated road stories made them feel like large than life characters out of the ring too. However I wouldn't want that back for thier health. I'd love to be able to go back to peaking behind the curtain rather than having it completely drawn back like we get now, but that's part of broader changes and social media which I guess can't be undone. 

To cap it all for Taker he's always seemed to a have a massive inferiority complex, the root of which I can only assume is because he's got an incredibly small micro penis. Getting BSK tattoos, burying and bitching about anyone new he could get away with and having to constantly try and prove how hard he is despite it often doing nothing but making him look a twat or exasperating an injury all stack up to him being a right bellend. 

Ultimately though I'll always enjoy re-watching those good spells when, with the right person on the other side of the ring, he could look and feel like something special. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

1 minute ago, Tommy! said:

He was good from debut until summerslam 94

Well to be fair, Brian Lee was shagging his wife during that period. It's bound to put you off course somewhat.

[PowerButchi]

She wanted to go Prime Time. 

[Hoptimus]

Remember £350 for Inside The Ropes to meet Mark. When all this social media bollocks starts the mystique of him wears off. It won't be before long The Undertaker will be flying over here doing social club meet and greets priced at only £20 for whatever post Covid world wrestling promotion s are still going. £10 extra for picture with Michelle McCool.  

[BomberPat]

13 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

But this strikes me as something that is totally cyclical. Everyone does the 'back in my day' speech when they've been doing it long enough and see the business change. Seth Rollins is going to be talking about 'his generation' within the next five years, I guarantee irt

This is absolutely true. Shawn Michaels was a "spot monkey" who couldn't tell a story, Ric Flair was making a mockery of wrestling by bumping too much for a champion, Hulk Hogan would never last because a babyface shouldn't throw punches, Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch thought Harley Race was too acrobatic and over the top to be believable. I read a wrestling history book released in the mid-30s, and the author bemoaned then that the wrestlers of the day were too flashy and acrobatic and more concerned with a good show than a fair fight - Jim Londos didn't know how to work, he was no Frank Gotch, brother.

What's so frustrating is that people who have heard all that about their own generation can't stop and have the sense to recognise it when their mates start chatting shit about the next lot. The thing that annoys me most about guys like Jim Cornette when they talk up how wrestling should or shouldn't be is that their idea of wrestling getting it exactly right just so happens to be in the very narrow chronological period, and geographical location, that they happened to first get involved in wrestling - what are the fucking chances? 

On that note, and harking back to my comments on Undertaker cosplaying an MMA fighter because of his big old inferiority complex, there's a bit in Jonathan Snowden's Ken Shamrock biography that made me laugh out loud - when he went to Japan to wrestle for UWF, and eventually Pancrase, the reason the Japanese wrestlers were so excited by them because in their experience there were no American wrestlers who knew how to fight for real. That's in 1990, smack bang in the middle of Undertaker's manly men who were all hard cases and would definitely be fighting for real if they weren't doing the fake and gay wrestling, brother.

[gmoney]

There's a Wrestlemania Axxess clip package from one WM, maybe 18 or 19, where they show him meeting a fan who's clearly overwhelmed and in tears to be meeting her hero. You can see him looking at her as if she's pathetic and he even says something like "There's no need to cry about it". What a fucking weird bloke.