delacroix

I was really hoping that the devil thing would just end up with Samoa Joe being revealed as the one pulling all the strings the whole time, and The Devil would be nothing more than another goon except he got to wear the cool mask. It would have been a dumbass ending, but it would have been an ending, which is what most everyone wants at this point. Whatever the original plan was, it’s beyond ruined already, and Joe has enough credibility to carry off being the diabolical-mastermind-who-orchestrated-an-elaborate/nonsensical-plan as much as anyone possibly could. Plus, in my head, I was imagining a scene where MJF pulled off The Devil’s mask middle of the ring, and it’s just some guy, which (in my imagination, at least) would have been genuinely amusing.

I was sort of thinking about this, too. I was thinking how I’ve never seen anyone make that argument and how even though it’s the internet and it’s foolish to be surprised by any half-ass, half-baked hot take, I would probably still be shocked to run across it, in this case. It would be like someone arguing against joy. If someone was really arguing that Terry Funk isn’t so great, I think my first reaction would be to wonder why in the world they’re even talking about wrestling to begin with, because they obviously don’t like it at all. It’s definitely a misanthropic tendency and I’m not proud of it, but I always am somewhat put off by the predictable routine whenever someone dies, with the inevitable and seemingly rote performance of everyone talking about their impact and all that. Everyone says the same shit almost every time, and it just all rings hollow to me. But in this case, all that grandiose, sentimental nonsense actually needs to be said, because it’s not nonsense this time— it’s actually the truth about Terry Funk.

obviously I’m not sure how much my memory is garbling things now, but I remember Wheeler’s sharpshooter looking much better than Harwood’s, which I was hoping they would point out and attribute to the legwork. that would lead directly to him being forced to drop the hold, then Wheeler dropping his can easily be explained by not being the legal man and there no longer being a need to neutralize the other guy. then Harwood reapplying the move more tightly was explained perfectly, of course.

i keep expecting Daniel Garcia to start coming out to a Westside Gunn song like any week now, surprised it hasn’t happened already. Gunn played “Dr. Birds” for his entrance live last year when he won the Pure Title, but i’m waiting for a recorded theme specifically for Garcia. Gunn does have a song called titled “Red Death,” but its a ten minute Griselda-style posse cut, so it’s not necessarily great wrestling theme material (at the very least not for this particular version of Garcia). but if the discussion is wrestling’s current presence in rap Griselda has to be mentioned, more specifically Westside Gunn, since he’s a superfan who has a whole compilation record of his songs named after wrestlers and had a dedicated line of wrestling themed merchandise (both called The Fourth Rope).

Hasn’t it been a familiar refrain/punchline, pretty much forever, that TV executives don’t know shit? Honestly, at least in this case, I can easily imagine their thinking: Dana White is widely credited with making UFC into a hugely successful business, and one notable part of how he’s seen to have made that happen is with a reality show that came on right after wrestling. So now here Dana White comes with a new combat sport that he wants to build, and oh look, he’s got a reality show, and we just happen to have a popular wrestling show. It makes sense. Well, business sense. I won’t attempt to justify the moral aspect. Pretty sure television executives aren’t known for their morality, either.

To be clear, it’s not my intention to accuse anyone, as the motivations of an individual when choosing one word over another are almost impossible to pin down and, frankly, not terribly interesting to me. (I’m not sure what the end goal of that would be, in this context, anyway.) I’m much more interested in focusing attention on larger questions about how we discuss this stuff, because it’s much more important (and, again, more interesting to me).

I guess I can’t argue with this

I’ll chime in on this and say I understand the complaint, and I’ve never liked the ‘Stephy’ stuff, either, and for the same reason. (I do feel a little self-conscious that I only ever post on here about this kind of thing, but whatever.) I don’t think ‘intent’ matters, because calling Abdullah the Butcher ‘Abby’ or Goldberg ‘Goldy’ is not the same, no matter how much you want it to be (though, to be honest, I have always understood the ‘Brucie’ stuff to be intended to feminize him, anyway). Saying that stuff to a guy can easily be taken as just a familiar, colloquial way of addressing them, but addressing a woman (that you don’t know and are usually criticizing, bt-dubs) with that kind infantilizing name can’t help but carry strong misogynistic baggage. We don’t just get to be above it because we want to be. (And claiming that being called out on this stuff is ‘virtue signaling’? Really now… )

Not intending to argue against the idea that people can and should be given the opportunity to evolve, but I don’t know that this is the key issue here. What I mean is, it will be a “learning story” one way or the other, and I feel like we’ve learned the lesson that people with privilege deserve second chances more than enough. I honestly don’t think that story is quite as inspirational to some as it might be to others. Another story that could be told is that saying vile things that target the vulnerable carries lasting consequences. That probably isn’t as comforting to many of us, but it’s probably a story that we need to hear more.

This makes sense, but I still want to say it’s still a matter of personal tolerance (or whatever; I’m kind of having hard time coming up with a way to refer to this that feels appropriate). The line isn’t as direct, obviously, but it’s also very possible to make the argument that the hyper-masculine culture of sports strongly contributes to the kind of homophobia displayed in Briscoe’s tweets. Besides, regardless of the specifics of these two cases, I think it’s still a personal thing, dependent on individual values.

I’d argue that it is. Unless you agree with or simply don’t care about the thing they did, you have to set it aside and choose, consciously or unconsciously, to not allow that action (which is more ‘real’ and consequential than a wrestling match or song or movie) to affect your enjoyment of their performance. Is this really any different than choosing not to watch a Jay Briscoe match because of his homophobia? Isn’t this just choosing to draw the line in a different place than someone else, because you’re not able to overlook that Benoit did something bad (i.e., the cognitive dissonance is too much for you)? If my point of no return is violent homophobia, it seems like, basically, we’re engaging in the same thing here. Similarly, I’ve never watched a Woody Allen movie because I believed it would make me a better person, and it’s not why I think I’m done with his films. For a long time, I’ve known about the gross stuff that he’s been accused of, but I chose to ignore it. And it was easy, because it was what pretty much everyone else was choosing to do, as well. Over time, though, it became more and more uncomfortably, partly because more information came out and I had more time to sit with it, but mostly because popular opinion forced me to think about it more, and, at this point, it’s not something I think I can set aside. I always have had the impression that this is what cognitive dissonance is (as it relates to this kind of situation): awareness of something that might compromise your enjoyment that you choose to ignore (at least inasmuch as it impacts to your enjoyment of the wrestler/artist/whatever). Logically, based on the values you believe you hold, it should matter, but it doesn’t.

As was mentioned, homophobia shouldn’t be a gimmick, because it has real-life consequences. Virulent, violent homophobia is a much greater transgression than breaking wrestling character. As a wrestling fan, I suppose you could say it doesn’t matter (though I disagree with that, as well), but as a human being I care quite a bit. There’s obviously an inherent, necessary degree of cognitive dissonance required to be a wrestling fan (really to be a fan of anything, though wrestling sets that bar higher than most things), and we all have to figure out where we, as individuals, draw the line, and I’m not interested in criticizing anyone whose habits of compartmentalization happen to look different from mine, but to suggest that this is like the Bushwackers popping off 30 years ago makes very little sense. The wrestling business, wrestling fandom and the larger culture have changed greatly since that time, so to bring up how fans would have reacted thirty years ago to a hypothetical similar situation seems pretty meaningless and, honestly, like some Jim Cornette shit. A common expectation, at this point in time, is that we all think more complexly about stuff like this. It might not directly affect you and me, personally, but it matters.

I don’t think that’s entirely fair— some of them do a fine Shatner impression.

Related to this, the nearly identical cadence used in the majority of promos makes me tune right out. It’s not just in WWE, but they’re certainly the most conspicuous with the unnatural, self-consciously dramatic style that everyone seems to use now. It’s that thing where there’s constant pauses for drama and emphasis. No one sounds like a real person talking, ever. When I first saw Matt Riddle, I wondered why people were so into him, and the first thing that occurred to me was that at least he doesn’t talk exactly like everyone else and maybe that was being mistaken for charisma.

@Log— ngl, i’ve always kind of taken it that way.