Good Wrestling Twitter 2024

[LaGoosh]

I love that Punk still does the hard man act even after being completely exposed in the UFC. But no, he's still desperate for everyone to think he's a tough guy.

[Chili]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Ha, love this. Pillman had his fake hard man act sussed. The guys in the locker room who were supposed to be the genuine hard cases like him, Rude and even his old partner Spivey could probably tell he wasn’t the real deal from a mile off.

Tracy Smothers couldn’t stand him either. Talked about him in pretty much any shoot interview he did and he didn’t slag a lot of people off from what I remember. Didn’t have much good to say about Taker or Shawn Michaels though. I remember one story he told from when they were in WCW and he said Taker tried to jokingly grab him and fight with him in the locker room one night and Tracy took him down and tied him up and wouldn’t let him up or something. He said he thought it was all in good fun  but he didn’t think Taker appreciated being embarrassed in front of ‘the boys’.

Then of course, the more well known story. Fast forward to 1996 when Tracy’s in the WWF as Freddie Joe Floyd and they’re in the dressing room and Taker’s incessantly moaning about Cloudy the male valet for the Body Donnas, the big tatted up bloke who was dressed as Sunny. Taker’s banging on about it and going “fuck, some guys’ll do anything to get in this business”. And Tracy fires back with “Yeah, how long you been dead now?” Classic. Apparently Dead Mark, the mark, didn’t take it well. 

What I always found absolutely fascinating about Taker having a fucking moan as if WWF had absolutely no choice but to book the Cloudi character, as if the mob or something made them do it by force. Literally your boss is to blame for it, don't blame the actor.

It really is a shame nobody ever sparked him out, I've always assumed because he is actually liked by a lot of workers including Bret etc, that when he's not doing Wrestling Court or trying to be a brooding hardcase, he was probably pretty chill and not a headache. I do find his modern evolution into the wrestling version of the Four Yorkshiremen bit brilliant though. 

Weird bloke, really wish DDP wasn't so nice and just chased him about with a cucumber until he was sacked.

We've got the Foley and Jericho threads, do we have a Taker is a nobber thread yet?

Edited October 20 by Chili

[DCW]

12 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I love that Punk still does the hard man act even after being completely exposed in the UFC. But no, he's still desperate for everyone to think he's a tough guy.

At least Punk went & gave UFC a go, even though his body was knackered from wrestling. More than self-proclaimed hard man Mark ever did.

[Chili]

1 minute ago, DCW said:

At least Punk went & gave UFC a go, even though his body was knackered from wrestling. More than self-proclaimed hard man Mark ever did.

I do think Punk and Taker are different cases purely through the eras though. Taker doing MMA in 2006 is absolutely hilarious, but he was never going to do UFC back when you had kickboxers fighting big Samoans etc, especially as he had a safe gig as a wrestler. Punk gave it a go but as much as I think it's admirable he tried, he was completely deluded in even trying it, so he's a bit of a thick melon with a flimsy hard man act. Taker might be soft as shite possibly, but I'll actually credit him for not being thick enough to try.

[d-d-d-dAz]

33 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I love that Punk still does the hard man act even after being completely exposed in the UFC. But no, he's still desperate for everyone to think he's a tough guy.

I mean, I *sort* of agree. In that, he was proved not to be an elite level fighter so his presentation probably shouldn't be as a striker. That ship should have sailed.

That said, getting a spank in the UFC isn't the same as not being hard. There's levels. There are Championship footballers who are better than anyone you've ever known, and they'd look like absolute nobs in the Champions League.

Because I had my mid life crisis early, I used to train a lot in my early 20s. I was pretty good too, and trained with decent people.

The best guy I ever trained with regularly, by some distance, was a lad called Yannick Bahati. Absolute fucking beast. Trained for far less time than me and the others in the gym, yet he'd beat the ever living fuck out of all us. He gave us all our own 'oh, this isnt for us' moments. We were absolutely convinced he'd be UFC champion or whatever, because we were idiots without much frame of reference for the levels, but he only ever got as far as regional MMA and a Bellator fight he was there to lose.

Is CM Punk UFC hard? Obviously not. Could he beat up Johnny Gargano? Probably.

But, crucially, Punk... like Batista, Undertaker and all the other wallies who were concerned that wrestling wasn't masculine enough for them and they wanted to prove how hard they were, should have just stuck to wrestling.

You'd never get any of this from Cody or Roman. Real graps.

Edited October 20 by d-d-d-dAz

[IANdrewDiceClay]

36 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I love that Punk still does the hard man act even after being completely exposed in the UFC. But no, he's still desperate for everyone to think he's a tough guy.

He is a hard man. Hard man to like. Kinda like my mother in law.

*adjusts tie*

[wordsfromlee]

One thing I always wondered about Taker is that all the other members of the BSK (apart from Yokozuna) were basically jobbers and mid-carders who never really went anywhere - did he ever go to bat for them and try to use his backstage standing and main event status to gets his mates a push or anything? Or is it like the high school mean girl trope where the leader hangs around with people lower on the social totem pole to make themselves look higher and better?

[Chili]

9 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

One thing I always wondered about Taker is that all the other members of the BSK (apart from Yokozuna) were basically jobbers and mid-carders who never really went anywhere - did he ever go to bat for them and try to use his backstage standing and main event status to gets his mates a push or anything? Or is it like the high school mean girl trope where the leader hangs around with people lower on the social totem pole to make themselves look higher and better?

It was more a social group boys club compared to The Kliq being a more politically based group. They were hardly jobbers who really did much mind in context to the Kliq. The Godwinns was a naff gimmick but so was Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Waltman is awesome but he was never a top pushed name much like Savio Vega was, just a better worker. Crush also received sustained pushes whilst in the company even after being busted for drugs and firearms brah. Fatu was probably the lowest, and he got two attempts at repacking during the BSK run instead of just getting sacked off when the company was losing money. Diesel, Razor and Shawn were cases where they were already over and heavily established before the dominos gang started. Basically always thought the BSK was just a load of fellas who just really got on and hanging out kept them slightly more sane when they hardly had a pot to piss in around 1995.

Edited October 20 by Chili

[MachoLibre]

1 hour ago, DCW said:

At least Punk went & gave UFC a go, even though his body was knackered from wrestling. More than self-proclaimed hard man Mark ever did.

I mean, they're not particularly comparable situations...with it being entirely hypothetical with Undertaker and the opportunity actually presenting itself for Punk, with a nice payday, following burning the bridge that provided a similar pay. I certainly think Undertaker says these things just to keep the illusion up, but he may well have had a go if the opportunity and circumstances presented themself...because he was probably just as deluded about his chances as any of the other guys, if the last several years of his career are anything to go by.

 

59 minutes ago, Chili said:

Punk gave it a go but as much as I think it's admirable he tried...

Is it that admirable to waltz in and take the spot on that stage, exposure and payday away from others more deserving of it to just get battered and embarrass yourself? Rather than entering at a different level?

 

46 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

But, crucially, Batista and all the other wallies who were concerned that wrestling wasn't masculine enough for them and they wanted to prove how hard they were, should have just stuck to wrestling.

I don't think that's all that fair on Batista, has he really displayed traits of that kind of paranoia? He feels pretty far removed from that to me and as others have pointed out, it was more a bucket list thing for him and something he fancied giving a go before it was truly too late. He'd succeeded and achieved as much as was worth doing in wrestling, wanted to move on, branch out and try other ventures. Fair play to him, don't think concerns over his masculinity much came into it.

Edited October 20 by MachoLibre

[Chili]

2 minutes ago, MachoLibre said:

Is it that admirable to waltz in and take the spot on that stage, exposure and payday away from others more deserving of it to just get battered and embarrass yourself? Rather than entering at a different level?

Dunno, I'd blame whoever took a punt on him as a business money making thing and held the talent back. Workers rights etc

Edited October 20 by Chili

[wordsfromlee]

10 minutes ago, Chili said:

It was more a social group boys club compared to The Kliq being a more politically based group. They were hardly jobbers who really did much mind in context to the Kliq. The Godwinns was a naff gimmick but so was Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Waltman is awesome but he was never a top pushed name much like Savio Vega was, just a better worker. Crush also received sustained pushes whilst in the company even after being busted for drugs and firearms brah. Fatu was probably the lowest, and he got two attempts at repacking during the BSK run instead of just getting sacked off when the company was losing money. Diesel, Razor and Shawn were cases where they were already over and heavily established before the dominos gang started. Basically always thought the BSK was just a load of fellas who just really got on and hanging out kept them slightly more sane when they hardly had a pot to piss in around 1995.

Oh yeah I get that they were a social thing. I think I always wondered why we didn't see more of his mates inexplicably in feuds and programs for titles that they shouldn't have been anywhere near, purely because they're domino buddies with one of the big boys. Surely one of the upsides of being in Takers gang was that he would be able to put a good word in for you with Vince.

[d-d-d-dAz]

25 minutes ago, MachoLibre said:

I don't think that's all that fair on Batista, has he really displayed traits of that kind of paranoia? He feels pretty far removed from that to me and as others have pointed out, it was more a bucket list thing for him and something he fancied giving a go before it was truly too late. He'd succeeded and achieved as much as was worth doing in wrestling, wanted to move on, branch out and try other ventures. Fair play to him, don't think concerns over his masculinity much came into it.

I love Batista as much as the next guy, he's a proper good egg; but if I think Undertaker is a wally for thinking he could fight MMA because his boss let him wear fingerless gloves and do a gogoplata, and I think CM Punk is a wally for trying to jump in the deepend because his white belt had a stripe on it, then I have to hold Batista to the same standard. Even if he's a good egg and, even if to be fair to him, he seemed to get over it pretty quickly.

But it was them all getting swept up in the same trend towards hyper masculinity and fighting and 'being legit' that swept through wrestling. Batista had no real historic combat sports experience, but got swept up like everyone else and thought he could get one of those post-Lesnar pay days.

I love Batista, but any wrestler taking up professional MMA at 43 in the hope of securing a massive pay day and showing they're a 'real fighter' has to be held to the same 'no thanks' standard.

The acting? Now that was a career left turn that made sense and that he's put the work in and it's turned out for him. That I can get on board with.

Batista gets a huge pass because he's liked, not because it's any less embarrassing.

Edited October 20 by d-d-d-dAz

[Chili]

9 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Oh yeah I get that they were a social thing. I think I always wondered why we didn't see more of his mates inexplicably in feuds and programs for titles that they shouldn't have been anywhere near, purely because they're domino buddies with one of the big boys. Surely one of the upsides of being in Takers gang was that he would be able to put a good word in for you with Vince.

I think that, but then I think about Justin Credible being a satellite member of the Kliq and look at what he got.

[Devon Malcolm]

I would say both Batista and Punk were wallies for trying MMA because MMA is crap.

[wandshogun09]

33 minutes ago, MachoLibre said:

Is it that admirable to waltz in and take the spot on that stage, exposure and payday away from others more deserving of it to just get battered and embarrass yourself? Rather than entering at a different level?

While you’re right that it’s easy to be brave and ballsy when you’re banking $500K paydays for a bit of a kicking, Punk wasn’t taking the payday away from others. If he never fought in the UFC, it wasn’t like that money he made was gonna be dispersed to other fighters on the roster. It would’ve more likely been spunked up some casino wall in Vegas by Dana and pals on one of his jollies. And there was never an option for him to enter at a different level. Nor should there have been. Whether he’d ‘paid his dues’ in MMA or not, he was bringing in more interest and eyes for his fights than a massive chunk of the roster. They were never gonna make him work his way up through the untelevised prelims, nor was Punk gonna fight for the shitty numbers UFC prelim jabronis get paid. So it was always gonna be a case where they’d have to pay him handsomely, and in turn they’d put his fight on PPV to try and get back some of that money through the revenue from buys.

I don’t even particularly like Punk. Great wrestler and I can see the appeal but I don’t find him likeable. That said though, I never got the bellyaching from MMA fans about him being positioned and paid the way he was on UFC cards. What were they gonna do, put him in their version of dark matches? I can see why some fighters might’ve been a bit pissed off if they’d taken the long road and made a fraction of the money Punk did but it’s just the way it is. And that’s still not a case of Punk taking money off their table. Dana wasn’t gonna give them more if he didn’t sign Punk. An attraction always gets paid more in prize fighting. It’s why Brock Lesnar made way more money in the UFC after his first WWE run than he ever would’ve if he’d just gone straight from the NCAA singlet to MMA without all that fake rasslin exposure.