Either/Or: Rod Stewart/Ric Flair

[sulfur)addict]

When Piper tried to interfere, the armed guards pointed rifles at his head.

So you're talking about what it takes to create the art, rather than the art itself. To me, that's irrelevant.

My comparison was between WWF/WWE shows and, say, The Bachelor: Scripted so as to maximize the false drama being presented, while maintaining the polite fiction of being "real". At least wrestling fans understand what's what, where reality TV fans do not, based on what I see on the covers of the checkout stand magazines.

You're correct. WWE television shows and reality TV aren't too far apart from one another.

However, a wrestling career is not based on the weekly television shows. Especially Ric Flair's career. That man has seen enough ruddy touring vans, bologna dinners, and sleeping in small hotel rooms with half a dozen other guys to make Black Flag look like Rod Stewart.

[buzzsaw]

Reality shows are short-lived exploitation programs who at best sensationalize trashy shallow people and hook viewers who love watching a freight train take a dirt road.
Wrestling is modern day vaudeville. It has its own language and its own applied technique. The scripts are very much sitcom-like in that there are finite amount of variations on a theme, but wrestling can be fascinating in multiple ways:
- a great new storyline where even the diehards are not sure where it is heading
- an inexperienced juicehead trying to perform dangerous moves on another human that may kill or seriously injure their opponent and this person constantly walks that line
- two veteran wrestlers tangling and putting on an incredible display of physical prowess and technical skill and making it look easy.
- high flying acrobatic stunts
- hardcore matches where two people beat the holy hell out of themselves with lightbulbs, staplers, chairs, tables, etc just to garner a huge crowd reaction.
- old wrestlers that drag their overdone carcasses around and muck up their previous greatness. they are the train wrecks
- the behind the scenes stuff is great. the stories of the old days. the murder/death/suicide associated with wrestling is insane
I can understand why people think that it is trashy and low-brow. It is sometimes
WWE wrestlers wrestle 5-7 days a week with no break or off-season. they travel the world in a grueling schedule and never stop, sometimes even when injured.
Reality television exploits ugly people. it amplifies the American stereotype

[Andy]

Especially Ric Flair's career. That man has seen enough ruddy touring vans, bologna dinners, and sleeping in small hotel rooms with half a dozen other guys to make Black Flag look like Rod Stewart.

Again, the rigors of touring have nothing to do with the art. Otherwise, you'd have to put every shlub touring band on the same pedestal. Being a road dog might make an interesting story, but if in the end you're Nickelback, who cares?

[Andy]

My comparison was between WWF/WWE shows and, say, The Bachelor: Scripted so as to maximize the false drama being presented, while maintaining the polite fiction of being "real". At least wrestling fans understand what's what, where reality TV fans do not, based on what I see on the covers of the checkout stand magazines.

TV shows are the centerpiece of major promotions, but are only one facet of wrestling as an art. That you're limiting your comparison to WWE shows illustrates how out of your element you are discussing it.

So educate me. What should I be watching nowadays?

Back around 1972, my dad and I watched wrestling on TV all the time. We'd cheer for the Crusher and Dick The Bruiser and Wahoo McDaniel, who were the Good Guys, and jeer Nick Bockwinkle, who was a Bad Guy. If they were called heels and faces back then, I didn't know. To me, it was just good guys and bad guys. "We want whoever the Crusher is wrestling to win, right, Dad?" Couple of times we drove from our little trailer park in Eagle Lake, MN up to Minneapolis to go see matches. One time Dad and his friend John went up to a match and John came back with a gash across his forehead from taking a folding chair to the head in the audience. I was glad I wasn't there for that one.

When I was living in the Chicago area in the late 70s, I'd watch channel 44 every Sunday morning for the wrestling sponsored by Ben's Auto Sales. I'm less clear on names than the early AWA stuff, but I watched it all the time.

So yeah, I loved wrestling.

And then the 80s came and it just seemed like it all turned into glitz and TV saturation and Hulkamania and Wrestlemania #N and wasn't there some big match with Mr. T involved? And then they got the women in for the obvious tits 'n' ass aspect, like wrestling itself wasn't enough. How could I be interested in any of that? I didn't care about bullshit storylines of who was marrying who. I wanted wrestling.

So tell me, what is there now in 2012 that I should be watching that brings back some of the awesome?

[DrAwkward]

Especially Ric Flair's career. That man has seen enough ruddy touring vans, bologna dinners, and sleeping in small hotel rooms with half a dozen other guys to make Black Flag look like Rod Stewart.

Again, the rigors of touring have nothing to do with the art. Otherwise, you'd have to put every shlub touring band on the same pedestal. Being a road dog might make an interesting story, but if in the end you're Nickelback, who cares?

BULLSHIT.

BULLSHIT.

BULLSHIT.

Oh my god, what a bullshit statement. EVERYTHING a band does informs its art. You don't objectively quantify things like touring in a mathematical formula, you goofball. "Touring 6 months out of the year automatically makes band A better than band B that tours two weeks." No, no, no, no, NO. A studio project that never plays live, like Pink City, is not inherently better or worse than a band of road warriors like Trophy Wives, but the amounts that they tour do inform their art in different ways. Any artist understands this. Stop being so obtuse.

[DrAwkward]

My comparison was between WWF/WWE shows and, say, The Bachelor: Scripted so as to maximize the false drama being presented, while maintaining the polite fiction of being "real". At least wrestling fans understand what's what, where reality TV fans do not, based on what I see on the covers of the checkout stand magazines.

TV shows are the centerpiece of major promotions, but are only one facet of wrestling as an art. That you're limiting your comparison to WWE shows illustrates how out of your element you are discussing it.

So educate me. What should I be watching nowadays?

Back around 1972, my dad and I watched wrestling on TV all the time. We'd cheer for the Crusher and Dick The Bruiser and Wahoo McDaniel, who were the Good Guys, and jeer Nick Bockwinkle, who was a Bad Guy. If they were called heels and faces back then, I didn't know. To me, it was just good guys and bad guys. "We want whoever the Crusher is wrestling to win, right, Dad?" Couple of times we drove from our little trailer park in Eagle Lake, MN up to Minneapolis to go see matches. One time Dad and his friend John went up to a match and John came back with a gash across his forehead from taking a folding chair to the head in the audience. I was glad I wasn't there for that one.

When I was living in the Chicago area in the late 70s, I'd watch channel 44 every Sunday morning for the wrestling sponsored by Ben's Auto Sales. I'm less clear on names than the early AWA stuff, but I watched it all the time.

So yeah, I loved wrestling.

And then the 80s came and it just seemed like it all turned into glitz and TV saturation and Hulkamania and Wrestlemania #N and wasn't there some big match with Mr. T involved? And then they got the women in for the obvious tits 'n' ass aspect, like wrestling itself wasn't enough. How could I be interested in any of that? I didn't care about bullshit storylines of who was marrying who. I wanted wrestling.

So tell me, what is there now in 2012 that I should be watching that brings back some of the awesome?

With all this live, first-hand experience, i'm amazed you're being this willfully obtuse about the culture of professional wrestling.

Christ, you're in Chicago. You could go to any Ring of Honor, CHIKARA, DragongateUSA or Revolution Pro (yes, Billy Corgan's promotion--their first show was INCREDIBLE) show and see plenty of awesome.

[Andy]

Oh my god, what a bullshit statement. EVERYTHING a band does informs its art.

Of course. 100% agreement.

You just can't hold up that non-art parts of an artist and say "See, this makes the artist awesome."

[DrAwkward]

Oh my god, what a bullshit statement. EVERYTHING a band does informs its art.

Of course. 100% agreement.

You just can't hold up that non-art parts of an artist and say "See, this makes the artist awesome."

Not by itself, but it contributes.

[Andy]

With all this live, first-hand experience, i'm amazed you're being this willfully obtuse about the culture of professional wrestling.

You keep saying "willfully", as if you can read my mind. You can't.

If I was being "willfully obtuse", why would I ask for recommendations?

Christ, you're in Chicago. You could go to any Ring of Honor, CHIKARA, DragongateUSA or Revolution Pro (yes, Billy Corgan's promotion--their first show was INCREDIBLE) show and see plenty of awesome.

I've never heard of any of these. How would I? But now I have.

[deep.BTUz]

Eh, Ric Flair was great because every guy doing it wanted to be Ric Flair, but somehow only Ric Flair got to be Ric Flair. I'm sure somewhere there is a Ric Flair of reality show talent that I'd feel the same way about. If you don't like the medium you're not going to be swayed, but Ric Flair was the absolute best at what he did. Can you say that about Rod Stewart?

[DrAwkward]

I'm sure somewhere there is a Ric Flair of reality show talent that I'd feel the same way about.

[buzzsaw]

So tell me, what is there now in 2012 that I should be watching that brings back some of the awesome?

Not from 2012, but here's modern wrestling that you should enjoy:


Although those of us who know the back story enjoy it much more...

[DrAwkward]

So tell me, what is there now in 2012 that I should be watching that brings back some of the awesome?

Not from 2012, but here's modern wrestling that you should enjoy:


Although those of us who know the back story enjoy it much more...

To quote Joey Styles, "OH...MY...GOD."

I never saw the 2005 ECW ONS PPV, so i didn't realize how much they went for it old ECW-style on that PPV. Fuuuuuuuck! How does Tanaka not have dementia?

[mazacultura]

So tell me, what is there now in 2012 that I should be watching that brings back some of the awesome?

Not from 2012, but here's modern wrestling that you should enjoy:


Although those of us who know the back story enjoy it much more...

To quote Joey Styles, "OH...MY...GOD."

I never saw the 2005 ECW ONS PPV, so i didn't realize how much they went for it old ECW-style on that PPV. Fuuuuuuuck! How does Tanaka not have dementia?

If current research on CTE tells us anything, he probably does.

Also, I had no idea Mike Awesome was dead. What a horrible fucking industry.

Still voting for Ric Flair.

[Andy]

How is it that Deej hasn't opined on "The Wrestler"?

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41041

[The MayorofRockNRoll]

Three pages. All this compare and contrast. And yet, nobody suggests the title of this thread be changed to Feather Boa-dome.

[SecondEdition]

Honestly, for all the similarities between independent wrestling and DIY punk rock (long travel hours for shit pay, family members questioning your "hobby," etc), i don't know why more indie rockers aren't wrestling fans.

Not many indie rockers are wrestling fans as far as I know, but I've certainly encountered a few punk rockers who are real wrestling fans.



This starts off with Tony Erba and Wedge doing a wrestling style promo, complete with Tony Erba shouting "Me and the Lake County Sheet are gonna put a whippin' on all you North Tonawonda fuckin' ham-and-eggers!" Later some of the kids break out wrestling moves in the pit.