Rolling 2014 Haunted Rocking Chair Thread

my usual source of totally legality

Oh man, there's just too much to unpack with regard to the whole Daniel Bryan thing, as it's merely the most recent and probably most interesting example of a debate and a dichotomy that's been a part of pro wrestling forever, and some of the protagonists are whole other stories in themselves (HHH, Batista, Randy Orton, in particular). You've actually kind of hit the nail on the head with the hippie thing actually. In very broad brush strokes:

Looking right back through the history of the WWE / WWF / old WWWF all the way back to the dark ages of the 1960s and 70s when a guy called Bruno Sammartino was the top guy, the company has had a very clear preference for giving the spotlight to big guys who look like action heroes, inevitably at the expense of other wrestlers who were perceived to be more talented wrt athletic ability and in-ring smarts. These guys usually seemed to do better in territories based in the south of the USA, while the big hosses would do better up north.

As I say, this reputation has clung to the WWE in some form for donkeys years and it is now an inarguable and vital piece of wrestling lore Vince McMahon has a jones on for big guys and will give them exposure at the expense of more "deserving" or "talented" individuals.

At various points throughout history, smaller more athletic guys have made it to the top of the WWE, but that doesn't change the fact that this always seems in some way to be going against the grain of the way the people in charge want to run the company. The most famous examples of this would be the mid-90s when Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were the top guys despite being way smaller than any headliners had been in the WWE before. It is worth noting that during this period business for the company was in the toilet (not those guys' fault, actually, but in wrestling a headliner is always judged according to how much money they make and will always bear the brunt of the blame for bad business).

So that's POINT 1, I suppose - Vince McMahon likes big guys at the top, he's never been happy with giving small guys the spotlight.

The next point is related to the wider state of the wrestling industry in the last decade or so - since the decline of all meaningful competition and WWE's total monopoly of the market, the only other US companies that have been able to eke out a living are the ones who focus almost exclusively on niche aspects of the business, b/c playing the WWE at their own game is now impossible. Primarily this means focusing on providing superior WRESTLING (which WWE apparently, and perhaps justifiably, thinks its mainstream audience will find boring) as opposed to the broader ENTERTAINMENT variety show that the WWE tries to offer.

These smaller companies are collectively known as the independents, or the indies, and they cater for your hardcore wrestling fans, the sort who inhabit Squared Circle and the like. Most of their shows take place in gymnasiums, bingo halls and other small venues (at least that's the stereotype) attracting few but rabidly enthusiastic customers.

The independents are the domain of those who can't get a job with WWE - because they don't look right, they don't sound right, whatever - those that don't fit the stereotype of what WWE (aka Vince McMahon) thinks a pro-wrestler should look like. The flipside to that is that the independents are full of guys who are actually way better at their jobs than their WWE counterparts.

For many years, Daniel Bryan was the undisputed king of the indies. He wrestled everywhere, he worked with everybody and he always had the best match on every show he worked. Like, unbelievably talented, unbelievably consistent, and everyone thought he never had a shot at getting anywhere near the "big leagues" because he didn't look right, wasn't charismatic enough, etc. So he came to be adopted as the mascot and idol of the hardcore independent wrestling fans.

Of course he did eventually get his shot in the WWE (following in the wake of another independent legend who went on to become maybe the biggest star of the decade so far, CM Punk) and was pretty much evidently the best thing going from day one. And he has also pretty evidently had to overcome a degree of antipathy from the WWE higher-ups, who couldn't have made it more clear, on numerous occasions and in a variety of ways, that they didn't really want to make this guy a star if they could possibly avoid it. Some people in the WWE do nothing to deserve their exposure, but because someone backstage likes them they get chance after to chance to connect with the crowd. Bryan has basically had to work with what he's been given from day one, and not only has he made it work, but he's made it work to such an extent that he's now the most popular wrestler in the company (and possibly the world, at the moment).

There's way more detail to be gone into as to why the last 4 years or so have been such a crazy series of ups and downs for the guy, with the last 2 years in particular being a bit of a rollercoaster, but this post is already too long.

In summary:

- Daniel Bryan is short and odd-looking, but proved on the independent scene that he was the best wrestler going

- Vince McMahon HATES, and always has hated, giving the spotlight to people that don't look like action movie heroes, and that goes double for guys from the indies

- Daniel Bryan spent 10 years establishing his reputation and becoming the patron saint of hardcore wrestling fans

- when he finally did come to WWE, Daniel Bryan had to overcome a fair amount of bullshit in order to become a top guy, which actually enabled all of the hardcore fans (who might have deserted him had it all happened too easily) to stick it out in his corner, holding him up as a shining example of the hypocrisies and injustices of the system

- through the magic of the internet (which is a whole other conversation to have wrt this situation) the wider mainstream audience have become aware of this situation to such a point that the WWE were forced to make "Daniel Bryan is being held back by malevolent political forces" the whole thrust of his storyline.

- Daniel Bryan is now arguably the most popular wrestler in the world, bridging the gap between the hardcore fans and the mainstream audience. He is also still the best in-ring worker in the business, has a catchphrase, sells merchandise and is basically approaching the platonic ideal of what many people think a top wrestler should be.

- last month he got his biggest opportunity on the biggest show of the year, winning the title and beating 3 of the top guys of the last decade in the process (including HHH, which is pretty big news for historical reasons).

For the fans that have followed him for many years, I suppose this is the wrestling equivalent of a beloved local band that you first saw playing in a shitty bar in front of 30 people finally going number one and headlining a major festival without compromising any of their integrity. A feel good story for the ages, then.

Shit sorry, that was long and I still haven't started to cover why this is being treated as such a big deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsX1ATcyQxU

this in-storyline promo video for WM was good

slso provides some evidence that

- he was pretty normall-looking til he grew that stupid fuckin beard (and I guess he's kind of bloated and squat looking these days cos he's bulked up a ton)
- he works a style that will destroy his body and mind

feel like w/ that beard he should be coming out to a bon iver song

- he works a style that will destroy his body and mind

Yeah this doesn't seem to be spoken about too much (though I'm sure Bryan himself is more than alive to the potential dangers) but modelling your whole in-ring steez to form part of the Dynamite Kid --> Chris Benoit lineage is kind of questionable given how those two ended up, no matter how entertaining that style might be.

- Vince McMahon HATES, and always has hated, giving the spotlight to people that don't look like action movie heroes, and that goes double for guys from the indies

idk if this is true anymore. of course he did bring in the radicalz/jericho/rey and made stars of them all without it ever really being superhero types. on top of that, he has always loved a big big fatty - yr mabels, bossmans, yokos, kishis, etc.

also ive always wondered how much influence brisco has. he is notorious for his talent spotting, especially from amateur wrestling but i guess once someone has been spotted and signed he is in vince's hands and gets told to do 6 moves.

also always wondered how much of an influence monsoon had. books need to be written about vinces inner circle types from the past 30 years.

Yeah this doesn't seem to be spoken about too much (though I'm sure Bryan himself is more than alive to the potential dangers) but modelling your whole in-ring steez to form part of the Dynamite Kid --> Chris Benoit lineage is kind of questionable given how those two ended up, no matter how entertaining that style might be.

― Windsor Davies, Monday, June 2, 2014 7:24 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there has been a lot of talk about him changing his style for a while. i remember the austin podcast just after his concussion last year and how he needs to cut out the dropkick where he lands on his back&head.

Yeah yeah I know there's a lot more nuance to Vince's position wrt to bigger guys these days but I did say I was painting with broad brush strokes. fwiw I still think it's essentially a truism to say that he'd much rather push a big guy than a small one, irrespective of talent. The experiments tend to fail horribly but they still happen - Khali and Kozlov weren't that long ago. Should be interesting to see what happens with Rusev.

Anyway, the superhero thing of course isnt true across the board, but in the context of Bryan's ascent I do think the point about "look" is a vital one - Orton and Batista both representing different aspects of the vision of how WWE stars should look.

The Radicalz thing is a fair point but then how much choice did he really have? WWF's midcard was non-existent by the time those guys tipped up. Big fattys I lump in with the wider point about look though - they were still essentially just comic-book characters, the sort of guys that could look enticing on a poster opposite Hulk Hogan.

To be clear, I'm well aware that the smaller guys get their chances these days, I'm just talking really about the readiness of WWE to push the big guys, relative to how hard the smaller ones have to work to get their shot

it's weird cos by this time last year Bryan was at this unexpected point where he was winning 80% of his matches clean and if it was against a bigger guy he'd just do it via sneaky tehcnical superiority rollup pin, and it was like wow he is Bret Hart now, he is actually at the top of the protected booking mountain

then by like two months later he was doing ultimate warrior comebacks and winning 90% of his matches clean by knocking everyone from Cena downwards unconscious with a knee smash while screaming

like even if they never intended for him to be champion, at some point he clearly overtook Sheamus as the second most protected guy on the roster, at 5'8

Hmmm maybe, he's definitely rocketed up the pecking order in the last 12 months, even by the end of last year that was obvious.

I didnt really watch the TV stuff enough last year to keep up, but on PPV I certainly wouldn't say he's been noticeably heavily protected though - he actually lost pretty consistently on PPV for the year from WM29 through to WM30.

Admittedly there were important exceptions at Summerslam and Survivor Series and he's now one of the guys who is always allowed to look competitive with everyone, but still feels like he's been taking quite frequent losses on the main shows.

Sorry, that looks like I'm one of the crybabys that thinks he should be winning every match every time he goes out there, of course I don't think that. I think he's been used pretty spectacularly well for a long time now. Just arguing the point for argument's sake really

pffft when hes fit he should get like a 2 year long title run never losing. noone else is actually ready yet, reigns still cant cut a promo or do a singles match, cesaro secretly doesnt have a character, wyatt cant beat a cena i guess and everyone and their dog is bored to fuck of cena, orton, sheamus etc. - it would build up the person he does win it at wm32 to be p damn important too.

should i attend this event? http://www.2300arena.com/event/details/wrestling-with-disaster-2014-june-14/

(sorry, not real WWE i don't think, but real famous venue!)

you might as well hit up the ecw arena. i live in philly and always forget the damn thing still exists

what's the deal w/ john cena? is he a "face" that fans are just tired of / maybe represents older WWE pre-reality era? do most fans like or dislike him?

It's split between the kids that worship him and the marks who love to hate him.

the snarky crowd have loved to hate him since 2006 (think about one night stand 2006) and it most probably peaked in 2011 with the miz at wm and the punk stuff etc. but afaic, if you can get over the occasional boring superhero promo or awful comedy segment, he's like the 6th best wrestler on wwe.*

*sure hes no technician but hes like hogan, who could ramp up that big fight feel into something terrific. and unlike hogan, he can hang with anyone, an umaga, a bryan or punk, a luke harper, a cesaro or mark henry etc. and not just other powerhouses/fat guys.

There's nothing really wrong with Cena, but he's stale after being on top with the same character for so long. Nobody was staler than HHH with his evil manipulator character from 1999-2006 but once he reformed DX and wasn't fighting for the title on every PPV he became interesting again. Now it's seven years later and he's playing yet another character and suddenly he's wrestling in main events against all the top babyfaces (Shield, Bryan) and even the snarks are into him again. It also helped a lot that he wasn't a regular in-ring competitor from 2010 onward.

So basically Cena needs some combination of a) a new character (which doesn't mean he needs to turn heel), b) fresh matches against people he hasn't beaten 100X already, c) time away from the ring. In the ring, he always tries hard and has chemistry with just about any style of opponent, that's a big reason he's been the top guy for so long.

He's basically irreplaceable for them outside the ring is the thing. Like, maybe in an ideal world you could ask for more from your top star in the ring or on the mic, but he's such an incredible PR guy for the company, absolutely works his ass off to do all the public appearances / ambassadorships / Be A Star things, he's amiable and likeable, a model professional (I think? occasionally you hear some shit about him but it never seems to stick), a fantastic positive role model for children etc. etc. There's a reason the guy always wins and is always the main-event, it's not just bloody-mindedness on WWE's part.

to add to that- he said on austins podcast that hes been going to mandarin classes to do chinese pr, to add to that. for a guy who seemingly works 24 hours a day for the company, still films total divas, also does so many charity gigs and has to work out a ton, for him to be at the forefront of cracking china is fucking mental. ok the smarky fans dont like him sometimes but you cant really get a more perfect face of the company. austin and rock combined didnt do that much.

i'm really liking NXT

whos good/whats happening?

i watched one like a month ago with just shitty squash matches and wasnt too impressed.

well i just watched the most recent episode. i thought the title fight was kinda blah. i've been enjoying the women's matches - charlotte (ric flair's daughter) is NXT women's champion. she won last week to replace Paige. this week she fought Bayley who has some kind of loltastic hello kitty fangirl shtick. the aiden english guy is hilarious. um, also like jason jordan who is in a tag team w/ tye dillinger. i also love the fact that the show is only an hour long. i don't have time for these 3 hour RAW events. there's also this that makes a better case than i ever could: http://uproxx.com/sports/2014/06/the-wrestling-hipster-5-reasons-watching-nxt-makes-you-better-than-other-wrestling-fans/

I can't watch 3 hours of Raw either. Thankfully, the 90 minute Hulu version covers all the salient bits.

ok, new question. i get that NXT is the up-and-coming talents show. what's the difference between smackdown + raw? do they showcase different characters or have different kinds of storylines?

They used to be treated as entirely separate brands with their own rosters and titles but that stopped making sense years ago. These days I think Smackdown is just the B-show? Little of importance ever happens there now, but there are occasionally still matches worth checking out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMUFfIQfdE

lol I kinda like this guy but he's got lower-card comic relief act written all over him.

Incidentally, this had me in stitches in last night, I must have missed it the first time. Love a Dusty Rhodes impersonation.

http://m.webn.com/media/play/dusty-rhodes-looking-for-the-4-22926742/

i had a little RAW party tnite at my place and invited some friends over to watch. stuff i liked from tnite's raw:

1. russian dude taunting obama by comparing his workout video to putin doing tae kwon do and riding horses (felt like kinda subversive having the heel malign the president + thereby earning sympathy for him w/ the crowd?)
2. bo-lieve. i find that guy hilarious. i'd like to see him fight cena in some kind of bizarroworld match
3. alicia fox forcefeeding her buddy popcorn (tho i wonder how often they can go back to the fox losing a match and then throwing a tantrum well before it gets tired)
4. rollins new clean-cut corporate look (still w/ double hair coloring)
5. bray wyatt beating up cena in the ambrose/reigns/cena v. wyatt family fight

did not like cesaro v rob van dam - boring. or sheamus v bad news barrett. tho i did find it interesting that the barret/sheamus fight had a kinda english/irish subtext to it - esp when barrett mocked sheamus' accent. do they play that up at all? i don't get the whole goldust thing. swagger v. marella (i don't even remember this one at all).

sorry, i don't know the protocol for this so... spoilers?

i think spoilers are fine unless its like wrestlemania or something massive. half the fun in wrestling these days is the stories from backstage, speculating about future storylines etc. so this weeks raw the day after is fine imo. i cant remember the last time a raw was so spectacular you'd have to put spoiler tags on it. the rock as the wm guest host? the jericho trolling vignettes?

reading Abdullah the Butcher's wiki page:

An amateur martial artist, Shreve also has knowledge of judo and karate, often including this knowledge in his professional wrestling matches. This knowledge was mainly displayed by him using judo style throws, and karate chops.

As part of his training regime he used to eat raw chickens with the feathers still attached.

raw chickens?????

also lol when was fat abby a judo martial artist? he was the guy who sat on you and stabbed himself in the face with a fork

WWE has released ELEVEN people today: Jinder Mahal, Drew McIntyre, Aksana, Curt Hawkins, Teddy Long, Camacho, Brodus Clay, Marc Harris (referee), Yoshi Tatsu, Evan Bourne and...JTG.
The real streak has been broken. 7 years, 28 days.

https://scontent-a-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/l/t1.0-9/p720x720/10338251_805985379421065_4432100246754960366_n.png

also poor teddy long, no more playa play tag team matches

shoulda been Kofi

killing time until the football, i thought id pick a random show ive never seen: halloween havoc 93

so far tony schiavone have turned into a demon to scare children who said the main event isnt at all scary, jesse ventura made a joke about being a creepy gynocologist and the shockmaster got a maaaaaassive pop, a "whoop there it is" chant and pinned booker t clean.*

*no really, the shockmaster was OVER i guess.

Haha I watched the Shockmaster debut again last week, it just never gets old. Flair's "Oh God!" makes it

some stuff i liked from NXT this week:
1. Bo Dallas dressing up in a mask to sneak back into NXT. Half the crowd chanting "you can't fool us," the other half chanting, "yes he can," and then bo shouting from under his mask, "I'm not Bo Dallas! I'm not Bo Dallas!"
2. Adrian Neville, esp his red arrow finish - wow! It's at 1:40 in the video. esp the bounce and then the cover:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=31tBldYA-_g

3. the first appearance of Simon Gotch. i don't know a lot about him. just that he's an indie guy new to WWE and his shtick is an old-timey strongman. apparently him and aiden english are going to form a tag team called the Vaudevillains (!!!)

also rumor is that kevin steen is coming to WWE, so i went to watch one of his videos -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-m9UW4lTNk

the insane ladder package piledriver is at 7:40. crowd chanting, "please don't die, please don't die."

Steen is an old one. He's talented in ring, he can cut a nice promo but he's obviously not in great shape (rumour was his knees are p shot) and next to most of the wwe roster he looks like a schlub. Most I'd presume you can hope for, if he makes it past Chris Hero stage, is tag teaming with Generico again or tormenting midcarders and then easy fodder for a high card 'not cena or bryan' babyface? idk

otoh if he has a kevin steen zoo enthusiast midcard face gimmick he could be really fun to have on tv.

odd* one not old

Vaudevillains sounds awesome.

Anything happening with the SAWFT guys?

yeah i think one of them is injured and the other one by himself is so boring that i recognize the name but can't remember anything else about his act

i've heard ppl say about steen that a lot of what makes him wonderful is the extremely punishing ringwork he does - but that the WWE will probably not let him do most of it bc of risk of injury/death

http://i.imgur.com/lFrM0xE.jpg

i've only seen this one picture of them but i can already get on board with this gimmick, these guys look like they should be great fun

re: SAWFT: enzo amore is coming back within the next couple NXT episodes. about time, big cass doesn't really work solo

seth rollins looks like he just stepped out of a pool of garbage

lol bad news barrett just made a http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG joke

what does that fucking cat mean? ive needed to know for years.

not seen anything since before payback but the internet seems to think ambrose could legit be a face superstar? this makes me so happy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n47fv1wAqw

He certainly picks up an interesting angle for this promo - "Scumbag Dean Ambrose being a bad figurehead for the company, potentially getting near the title scene" would be a decent progression for the HHH / Stephanie authority angle, given that there's no way they'll take a step back any time soon. Besides, they should strike while the iron is hot on Ambrose and Reigns - since Rollins turned they've been getting real good pops