PRO wrestling thread

[MrCrowesGarden]

Read that yesterday. Really hope he continues to stay healthy and find success. I think Mox's public entry into rehab may be a turning point in wrestling's relationship to mental health. It's an industry that has exploited the mental and physical health of it's performers for decades, so I hope that this is a good sign that grinding these people to the bone and tossing them aside like spare parts when their lives unravel the way Vince has won't continue forever.

AEW is also kinda weird right now, where we get CM Punk congratulating Mox for getting help and 30 minutes later we get Jericho making misogynistic and transphobic jokes like it's still the Attitude Era.

[thrill]

Read that yesterday. Really hope he continues to stay healthy and find success. I think Mox's public entry into rehab may be a turning point in wrestling's relationship to mental health. It's an industry that has exploited the mental and physical health of it's performers for decades, so I hope that this is a good sign that grinding these people to the bone and tossing them aside like spare parts when their lives unravel the way Vince has won't continue forever.

AEW is also kinda weird right now, where we get CM Punk congratulating Mox for getting help and 30 minutes later we get Jericho making misogynistic and transphobic jokes like it's still the Attitude Era.

I'm a big Dan LeBatard show fan and I just watched an in-studio appearance they did with Tony Khan yesterday on youtube. Tony Khan is definitely smart, cool, self-aware, and "one of us" but he's also definitely got that billionaire mindset of being able to justify terrible things by the people he employs (Urban Meyer) as long as it fits his goals, and he's clearly in that stratosphere where rich people will still identify and support other rich people, regardless of how reprehensible they are. Like, I think he has "good" morals judging by today's more progressive standards, but he's definitely not going to let those morals get in the way of aligning himself with those who will accomplish his goals. IDK if that makes any sense. I guess I'm just saying that billionaires are billionaires first and last, before they're anything else.

As for Jericho, for some reason he's one of the last people from my childhood that would actually bum me out if he becomes cancellable. He's always walked the line between meathead and thoughtful/self-aware and I just hope he doesn't cross over too far into meathead zone before he walks away. It's hard to age gracefully as a public figure and I just hope he makes it through without doing something that makes me regret being his fan since I was in 5th grade.

[MrCrowesGarden]

He might have done that already, but YMMV. Some of the things I learned about him in the past year or so were a big ol' bummer.

[Jocephus]

what are some of the things?

my only recollections with jericho was i thought it was cool when he came over to WWF from WCW, the whole countdown thing (even though i only knew him as a name, i didn't watch WCW) and then he carved out a career there. i stopped watching in 2003ish so i dont know how things went after. then fast forward to like, 2018 and a new co-worker who i sit next to is a wrestling fan and in particular jericho and he lends me a biography of jerichos (auto bio i think) and while i didn't ask to read it i did and it was fine i guess and made him seem like a decent dude with a long career in the biz, etc.

[MrCrowesGarden]

His politics aren't especially great. He claims not to be political but donated to the Trump campaign. He is, to some degree, a COVID denier. His wife was almost certainly at the January 6 insurrection.

He really does do some very good stuff for other people-- the Dark Side of the Ring about Benoit and what he did for David Benoit afterward certainly seems to highlight this. But, there's other stuff that just seems disappointing.

I've read the autobiography you're talking about if it's the one I'm thinking of. Probably came out about 10-15 years ago? He also has another book out now about his 30 years in wrestling that I still want to read in spite of everything.

He's just such a complex figure for me for many reasons.

[Jocephus]

i have to assume this was the book i read - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lion%27s_Tale

i suppose some of that isn't surprising. i assume most wrestlers are right wing/christ-y, like most sports it seems.

[MrCrowesGarden]

That's the book. I enjoyed it. I was probably in my early to mid 20s when I read it.

I think for the most part wrestling, wrestlers and its fans are apolitical. There are definitely right wingers (Kane unfortunately is like a billion times worse than Jericho, that's the one that really broke my heart), but now you have guys like Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Mustafa Ali in WWE.

I definitely think the culture has improved so much in the past decade (that's not really a political thing, though.) The locker rooms of Undertaker and JBL sound truly awful.

[Jocephus]

[MrCrowesGarden]

I love Hangman so much. He's really the perfect champ for the millennial generation. It sounds like Full Gear was a great show, perhaps just a fraction of a step behind All Out.

[SHOW]

It absolutely sucks though that they had their pick of the litter of Ring of Honor guys and chose Jay Lethal.

[MrCrowesGarden]

WWE has had 78 matches end in DQ, double DQ, double count out or no contest in 2021.

AEW has had 2.