Wrestling Thread [Archived] • Page 715

Yeah, Jericho spanking Trish, Christian pulling off Lita's top, Christian's general attitude in the match, and then fucking King on commentary spouting off about putting women in their place and all that nonsense made it really cringe-worthy.

 

Wrestling

 

Just read that Kevin Owens might have a leg injury. Hopefully it's just selling lol

 

Omg, that would be an awesome gimmick for him. He can go full heel Batista.

 

Yah I heard on Meltzer's show he had to get help getting carried to the back, ugh. Could definitely just be selling though knowing him.

 

good post

 

It's okay, sometimes

 

this guy was the man

 

Vince doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to respecting women in general. The fact that it extends to his wife and daughter is...complicated.

I was thinking about this last night while watching the pre-show. Spoiler warning, about to get deep, man. But they were showing the package for Jinder and Randy and I was trying to work through my feelings on how Jinder is portrayed on TV and how I would personally be portraying him if I had the book. But also, I recognize that WWE programming is an episodic TV show. There are other TV shows with despicable acts in them that I in large am okay with because I recognize that they're part of the story they're telling, right? There are terrible people who do terrible things and disrespect large swaths of people on Game of Thrones, but I'm okay with that. Why am I made uncomfortable more often by those same characters on WWE programming? And I think it's because 8 year olds aren't watching Game of Thrones (at least not as many 8 years olds compared to those who watch WWE). Those kids don't usually understand the intricacies that go into portraying a foreigner or a female character who has been disrespected, right? They're told that Jinder is a bad guy, and he is a bad guy in large part because he is brown. You are essentially teaching kids at a young age that brown = bad. That won't stick with every single young kid watching WWE, but I'm sure there is a portion of the young audience for whom it will stick with. That's troubling to me.

Apologies for how incoherent this post may be. Weirdly just trying to work through some thoughts with my wrestling budz.

 

Thing that made me laugh the most last night, about 20mins after Talking Smack ended, the WWE Network ran a video where Lawler was talking about how "Puppies" became a thing. It was this like 10min video with him mostly being unapologetic til the very end saying "it doesn't look great in retrospect". And most of the footage is b-roll of cleavage and bra-and-panty matches.

 

This makes perfect sense. I think the biggest difference between wrestling and stuff like GoT for me is that the prejudices, while mirroring real life, are of and against fictional races/establishments. Also, the characters tend to have backstories to supplement their motivations. Also, those shows aren't largely spearheaded by a 70+ year old carnie raised in a business once steeped in prejudice that only watches his own programming. Lol.

 

They were showing a Where Are They Now? segment with Tori Wilson before the kick-off show started, and Cristen was watching with me and was like, "Man, this Tori Wilson chick seems amazing and super inspiring." And then they started showing all the clips of her from when she was in WWE, and it was mostly her just in bikinis and stuff, being eye candy, but while they were doing voiceovers of how impactful and meaningful she was as a female wrestler. And Cristen was just like, "One of these things does not seem to be like the other..."

 

well the obvious difference IMO with the two things is (and this is why I always get frustrated/have an issue when things like GoT and other media for having characters do despicable things) is that no one talks about Game of Thrones culturally as a real thing - wrestling still gets treated like a real thing with only a subtle wink that it's all fake. Podcasts talk about wrestling like it's real, but GoT podcasts don't do that (brb taking this idea and running with it unless someone already did it)

 

Well, and even compare this to Lucha Underground, where women do intergender matches and get portrayed certain ways. There are still awful stereotyped characters (see Nurse Brenda), but, generally the women are presented as equal. And the most important part is LU has a narrative running throughout; I can get a character like Mariposa who doesnt have a ton of ring-time since she was introduced, but, the storyline makes it clear that she is strong.

Plus LU has dragons and aztec tribes and all sorts of mystical shit to keep the "realism" clearer to the fake side overall.

 

I think Jinder suffers from how extremely hard it is to truly book and write for a heel these days. You nearly HAVE to go cheap anti-american gimmick to draw any kind of heat from the general audience. Otherwise you have Kevin Owens who gets cheered by half the crowd.

 

my issue with jinder was that WWE was basically repurposing the heel heat from his sudden (and you know, still questionably steroid-related) rise to stardom to be anti-american heat. Like using the crowd footage from when he won the no. 1 contender

 

I mean, Jinder even said on Talk is Jericho that the original promo he was given after winning number one contender was going to be very different and much less trope-ish and anti-American. Vince changed it shortly before go time, and Jinder said he was bummed at first until he heard the reaction from the crowd. We could've gotten a much different, more tasteful character.

 

I personally think it's time for the WWE to address guys like KO getting cheered while guys like John Cena get boo'd in a different manner. Stop treating the business as if the entire audience is the barometer for good and bad. Evil people in history have always had their followers. That's not a foreign concept by any means. Address it as such via commentary. Don't shy away from it and resort back to lazy, stereotypical, discriminatory storylines/characters just to ensure the audience gives you one singular reaction. It's time for the business to evolve in that regard.

 

Id actually argue it the other way around. Their complete inability to write babyfaces well means that you kind of have to cheer the heel at a certain level. Miz/Dolph and Jeri-KO shows it can be done right, but something like Roman/Rusev shows how consistently WWE gets it wrong.

Seth vs Joe should have been such an easy storyline overall, for example. And yet they managed to turn that heat-less in like a month with bad writing for Seth. Cause Joe is getting heat again w/ Brock

 

There are really two constants with the complaints I have, really:
1. Poor, lazy writing.
2. Vince McMahon.

Triple H and his team at NXT have proved multiple times over that they can tell compelling stories without resorting to generic stereotypes (not a perfect track record, to be clear, but one that by in large is overwhelmingly positive). And what do you almost always get because of that? Better show quality. Better match quality. Better characters you can get invested in.

A lot of people talk about how the main roster is a different beast, and there is a truth in that. But I also think that's coded language to cover up for the fact that the main roster is the plaything of a man who has no real sense of culture outside of wrestling in the 70s and 80s.

 

Very good point, they are so so awful at writing babyfaces these days.

 

I only watch the NXT PPV's really, but have they had a true solid heel lately? I feel like because the crowd is all marks they just cheer for everybody? Does anyone really generate heat?

 

The characters need more interaction with other wrestlers besides who they feud with. And I don't mean like "aj is feuding with ko and Sami is feuding with Corbin so let's put em in a tag team"

Have Jinder and the Singh brothers randomly interrupt a different match and attack the babyface. Then gloat he can do whatever he wants because he's the champ and that's what he's gonna do to Randy or whoever.

Have some heels beating down a babyface and someone like Roman comes down to make the save. And it's not because he's feuding with the people that are giving the beatdown but because it's the right thing to do.

I mean Roman is too far gone now but it might have worked in the beginning.

 

The only people who get heat are homegrown guys like Velveteen Dream that the neckbeards can't get cool points for knowing their indie name and stuff.

 

I love the singh brothers. Out of this entire stupid experiment they're the big bright spot