Jump to content

Darkside of the Ring season 3 discussion


IANdrewDiceClay

Recommended Posts

  • Paid Members

Haven’t seen the episode yet but I remember watching Scott Norton’s RF shoot years ago and he was on about it. Does he tell the story about being on the phone to his wife, saying ‘this place suc..’ and before he can finish, the phone goes dead and he’s got people at his door asking why he’s slagging their country off? The whole thing was barmy. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
11 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Haven’t seen the episode yet but I remember watching Scott Norton’s RF shoot years ago and he was on about it. Does he tell the story about being on the phone to his wife, saying ‘this place suc..’ and before he can finish, the phone goes dead and he’s got people at his door asking why he’s slagging their country off? The whole thing was barmy. 

Spoiler

He does

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, didn't find this one that interesting either. I only knew bits of the story and couldn't remember most of it but it basically went as I expected it to bar the Scorpio/Hawk fight that I didn't know about.

Spoiler

And I didn't think he was gonna try murder him. Was flat when it was just a fight with bravado.

 

Edited by Sphinx
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not discussed enough how much of a liar Eric Bischoff comes across as. He has to be one of the biggest bullshitters in wrestling.

I mean I enjoy the guy talking but I just never believe anything he says and at times just burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
38 minutes ago, FUM said:

It's not discussed enough how much of a liar Eric Bischoff comes across as. He has to be one of the biggest bullshitters in wrestling.

I mean I enjoy the guy talking but I just never believe anything he says and at times just burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

I loved his smug "I did it" at the end of this one. No, Inoki did it and you were suckered into it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just watched this. I thought Norton and in particular Scorpio were brilliant interviews. His description of the bus fight with Hawk was hilarious, especially his big fuck off kick to his chest. That pic of him they shown near the end mid flight under the giant portrait is such a strange image.

Honestly Bischoff being a bit of a troll is grand with me. He does it with a knowing charm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, FUM said:

It's not discussed enough how much of a liar Eric Bischoff comes across as. He has to be one of the biggest bullshitters in wrestling.

Fair play to Easy E as he did manage to turn a career as a commentator into fooling the higher-ups that he could run WCW.

But yeah, the dude is so full of shit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/25/2021 at 1:55 AM, Tsurutagun said:

I enjoyed the episode but the narrative that was peddled about Rikidozans death was just stupid. A simple wiki check from anyone can tell you about the events of Rikidozan's death. 

I may be misunderstanding you but I think they said that North Korean sentiment at the time believed the patriotic/tragic death of Rikidozan.  Not that I have any idea if that is true or not. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

It's almost certainly not true. I don't think they really took a side on it in general, more that Eric Bischoff was allowed to say, unchallenged, that he was killed for being Korean. 

Rikidozan was stabbed by a member of the Yakuza, and died when the wound got infected as it was healing. It probably had nothing to do with him being Korean (that wasn't public knowledge in Japan until after his death) and, despite him having more than his fair share of yakuza connections, likely had very little to do with him being Rikidozan either - most likely explanation is that he was a violent drunk who got into a fight with the wrong person, and a knife was pulled.

That hasn't stopped conspiracy theories popping up, though - there was/is a long-standing theory that Masahiko Kimura ordered a yakuza hit on Rikidozan as revenge for Rikidozan shooting on him in a match and muscling him out of the JWA (and wrestling in Japan in general) years earlier, as Kimura's book allegedly claimed that he received a number of phone calls from the yakuza after the match happened. So much so that a Japanese author actually published a book called "Why Masahiko Kimura Didn't Kill Rikidozan".

 

It's absolutely true that the North Korean version of events is that Rikidozan was killed for being North Korean, though, and they did allude to that - though without really offering an alternative version of events. There was a book published in North Korean - I own a copy, it's bonkers - which alleges to be the life story of Rikidozan, which he recounted to a Korean author. That book has him as a proud Korean who was such a strong warrior because he was inspired by the power of the supreme leader, and for someone keeping his ethnicity secret, seemingly never stops banging on about it. According to that book, he was murdered by a combination of Japanese imperialists and Yankee capitalists (it's always written as "Yankee", not American), who poisoned him after he recovered from the initial murder attempt. His dying moments, he spends with other Korean athletes and celebrities talking about his love of his fatherland. There was a North Korean comic that told a similar story of him being poisoned, and I think they made a movie that likely reaches the same conclusion too.

It's interesting that he basically served as a nationalist propaganda tool for two different countries, first as the Japanese national hero, and then posthumously as a North Korean one. His wife said he didn't support North Korea or Communism, and wanted a unified Korea, incidentally. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...