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Post by Ricky Jackson on Sept 20, 2024 18:02:48 GMT -5
I think catching bits and pieces of the Attitude Era when she was a teenager is what forever tainted our beloved sport in her eyes, so maybe Russo is to blame
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 21, 2024 7:34:00 GMT -5
I know a lot of interviews in wrestling magazines were kayfabe. Looking back, it’s amusing how one of the PWI family of mags would supposedly hook up wrestlers via phone or computer to settle their differences. It makes sense, I suppose. It’d have been bizarre for a PWI journalist to actually ring Terry Gene Bollea at home, ask him to get in character as Hulk Hogan - and then give them a quote. May as well just write a quote on his behalf, in character. We all get that. Some magazines, such as Power Slam did legitimate interviews, e.g. one 1994 interview with Maxx Payne where he made his feelings clear about Hogan taking over in WCW. That was not a kayfabe interview. PWI also does legitimate interviews now. But I often wondered about some columns and the like. Jesse Ventura had a column in WWF Magazine called “Body Language”. I’m sure Jesse could have penned something, but did he? Or did a staff writer write in “his voice”? Anyway, WWF Magazine did some Q&As in the 90s, asking wrestlers their favourite things such as foods, bands, etc. I’ve shared one below, but I wonder, did they actually ask Bret for his favourites, or did a staff writer just write what he thought might be answers Bret would have given?  |
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Post by Batflunkie on Sept 21, 2024 7:42:42 GMT -5
Really loved this promo. Gave me serious Lucha Underground vibes and I hope they do more of them
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 21, 2024 7:47:22 GMT -5
Video unavailable in my country, sadly. Which promotion is it, my friend?
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Post by Batflunkie on Sept 21, 2024 8:09:57 GMT -5
Video unavailable in my country, sadly. Which promotion is it, my friend? It's the Cody/Roman promo from last night's smackdown |
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Post by commond on Sept 21, 2024 8:59:13 GMT -5
Queen of Villains became the number one watched show on Japan Netflix.
I finished episode 3, and I have to say the best thing about the show is the amount of training the main cast did to learn how to wrestle. That part of the show is fantastic. There's a strange insistence on the frontrunner's part to have every match turn into a shoot, but the fighting looks good. Personally, I think they did Jaguar Yokota dirty. There was an amusing article about Jaguar's husband watching the show and stopping it every few minutes to ask her whether it really happened like that in real life. I've been trying to rack my brains over who Lovely Yoneyama is supposed to be. Some Japanese fans are speculating that it's meant to be Nancy Kumi. Nancy Kumi had a reputation for being one of the worst bullies among the wrestlers.
The weakest part of the show so far is the scene where "Dump" is born. That was totally over the top, the lightening effects were cheesy, as best I can tell, it was completely fictional, as was Dump coming to the ring, choking Chigusa out and acting like Nailz released from the psych ward. The disco story was a story Dump shared in some articles that the show is based on. Whether Chigusa's interview in the magazine ever happened, I'm not sure. It's definitely not how Dump because Dump. That wouldn't matter if it didn't come across as a cheesy horror flick, and once again everything being a shoot. I was far more taken with the jogging scene where Dump can't keep up with Chigusa and you see Chigusa running off into the distance.
The actress who played Devil was having fun. She's a little undersized but the voice and mannerisms are great.
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 21, 2024 18:55:10 GMT -5
I know a lot of interviews in wrestling magazines were kayfabe. Looking back, it’s amusing how one of the PWI family of mags would supposedly hook up wrestlers via phone or computer to settle their differences. It makes sense, I suppose. It’d have been bizarre for a PWI journalist to actually ring Terry Gene Bollea at home, ask him to get in character as Hulk Hogan - and then give them a quote. May as well just write a quote on his behalf, in character. We all get that. Some magazines, such as Power Slam did legitimate interviews, e.g. one 1994 interview with Maxx Payne where he made his feelings clear about Hogan taking over in WCW. That was not a kayfabe interview. PWI also does legitimate interviews now. But I often wondered about some columns and the like. Jesse Ventura had a column in WWF Magazine called “Body Language”. I’m sure Jesse could have penned something, but did he? Or did a staff writer write in “his voice”? Anyway, WWF Magazine did some Q&As in the 90s, asking wrestlers their favourite things such as foods, bands, etc. I’ve shared one below, but I wonder, did they actually ask Bret for his favourites, or did a staff writer just write what he thought might be answers Bret would have given? Inside Wrestling had the video-phone confrontations. They matted in pictures of the wrestlers, over old photos. The system was developed in the 60s, but never commercially marketed, until decades later, when newer technology offered some. That was part of the Stanley Weston line of magazines, which are what the "Apter mags" refers to. Stanley Weston was the longtime publisher. Bill Apter was the main editor and writer, along with Stu Saks and Craig Peters, plus a few others (and several fakes, like "Liz Hunter."). Most of the magazines (Norm Kitzer was the editor and chief writer for the biggest rival magazines) had stories and arena recaps. Few in the 80s, like the Starlog-published mags (with George Napolitano editing) had some interviews. I think Wrestling Eye had some with indie workers. As for the "official" publications, anything with a wrestler or announcer byline is faked by real writers. The talent didn't have time for that stuff, between road schedules and broadcast tapings or live filming. Bret did later have a column, in the Calgary Sun, around the Montreal Screwjob timeframe. Something like that profile might have been done with a writer submitting a standard questionnaire to the wrestlers, at a house show, or something, then printed in the next issue (or somewhere in the year). |
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 21, 2024 19:10:58 GMT -5
That “Liz Hunter” thing was weird. I’d built up a picture of her in my head only to learn that Apter was most likely the one writing the words.
“Matt Brock” was the biggest disappointment, I had visions of his grizzled veteran journalist status only to learn he wasn’t real.
And yet I presumed Eddie Ellner was a fictional columnist only to learn he was real. Isn’t he running a yoga studio nowadays?
I’m sure you’re right about that profile in the official publications. I remember wondering at the time, was Robert De Niro really Bret’s favourite actor, or was that the actor that a staff writer assumed might be Bret’s favourite actor?
I do smile when I think about those publications. I remember heel wrestler interviews often featuring insults, e.g. Vader telling a reporter that he was disgusted by him.
What a peculiar industry, eh? Where magazines featured “words” not actually spoken by the people whose faces were plastered all over the articles.
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 21, 2024 19:17:03 GMT -5
And on a slightly related note, I think these post-PPV press conferences are bloody weird, the way they conflate reality and fiction.
In the kayfabe era, Hogan and Warrior signing a contract and having a press conference about their upcoming WM VI match made sense, or that WM VIII press conference where Jack Tunney announced who’d be challenging Ric Flair.
But in our post-kayfabe era, that strange melding of reality and fiction is bizarre. I mean, you’ve got someone “congratulating Damien Priest on his successful world title defence” and then in the next breath, asking Triple H about booking plans and storylines. The ‘journalists’ should either stick to kayfabe 100% or stick to reality 100%, but melding the two makes them look absurd, I feel.
It’s not the best comparison because wrestling is unique, but it’d be as silly as Tom Cruise being at a press conference about the Mission Impossible films and having a journalist say, “Congratultions, Mr Hunt, on saving the West.” And then asking Cruise how he felt about the script.
I really don’t know what purpose these press conferences serve in a post-kayfabe world.
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Post by commond on Sept 21, 2024 19:29:26 GMT -5
Episode four is pure fantasy. Entertaining fantasy, but every single scene is fabricated. In most cases, it's more interesting than the event that actually took place, but it paints a somewhat distorted view of what Dump was really like. For some reason, they chose to make her unsympathetic, which was perplexing. The whole shoot thing is out of control as well. All Japan Women were not have matches decided on shoot pins in the 1980s. The series is entertaining, and I'm gad it's successful, but I wonder if this was how sumo fans felt watching Sanctuary.
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Sept 21, 2024 21:30:01 GMT -5
I think the Bret answers are mostly legit. Peter's Drive In is a legendary Calgary burger joint famous for its milkshakes
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 22, 2024 5:28:16 GMT -5
I think the Bret answers are mostly legit. Peter's Drive In is a legendary Calgary burger joint famous for its milkshakes Have you been there? Hard to find a good milkshake around here, I’ll say that. |
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Sept 22, 2024 9:39:19 GMT -5
I think the Bret answers are mostly legit. Peter's Drive In is a legendary Calgary burger joint famous for its milkshakes Have you been there? Hard to find a good milkshake around here, I’ll say that. Oh yeah. I grew up in Calgary in the 80s and 90s. I haven't lived there since 2005, but Peter's is still going strong   |
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Post by driver1980 on Sept 22, 2024 12:51:08 GMT -5
Great choice of milkshakes there, Ricky Jackson. Thanks for sharing that pic. Here we seem to be limited to strawberry, banana and chocolate in outlets - and in supermarkets, occasional variations like cookie dough and salted caramel. But nothing as extensive as that. Anyway, saw this on X:  |
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Post by commond on Sept 22, 2024 23:01:49 GMT -5
The final episode of Queen of Villains bordered on ridiculous at times. The idea of Dump going "off script" in the hair vs. hair match after being offered 10 million yen to lose was ridiculous and I can understand why Japanese fans on Twitter weren't really happy about it (if even those fans are labelled as pro-wrestling otaku by others.) The way they staged the fight made it bloodier and more violent than the actual bout, but they went a bit far with it as it made it seem like Dump was about to kill her. The match did cause a riot and there were a flood of complaints that led to the show being temporary banned in some regions. The show is pretty light with the consequences. Instead, we get a muddled timeline that eventually leads to the Dump retirement match (which was also Yukari Omori's retirement match, but they don't mention that on the show.) They use the retirement match to resolve things, but man is the part where they knock out the Matsunaga brothers stupid.
As for doing Jaguar dirty, the worst thing they do is make the 8/85 Budokan show seem like a failure because they didn't get the results from the Japan Grand Prix that they wanted. In reality, it was a hugely successful show for the promotion. Asuka got the big match with Jaguar that she supposedly wanted in the show. They just chose to ignore it. Just like they ignored the hair vs hair rematch, the title matches that followed Jaguar's retirement, and the fact that Chigusa, Lioness and Omori all held the Big Red Belt despite the show portraying them as being held down. Jaguar did get pushed out the door in part because of the mandatory retirement age, but for some reason they chose not to include the retirement rule in the show.
According to Dump she was estranged from her father for 50 years before they reconciled on his deathbed in 2019, so no emotional scenes with dad in real life.
Personally, I thought the final episode was disappointing. I don't think they got the beats right in the story. There wasn't enough motivation for Dump to turn "face" again in terms of how they wrote the show. It's not a bad show, but I would personally rank it behind Naked Director and Sanctuary for Japanese Netflix shows dealing with similar eras and topics.
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