February 2012
57 posts
Rumor about people wrestling someday, maybe
Wrestlers might wrestle, might not like each other backstage, women, botches, burials, bears, beets, battlestar gallactica. We all have nothing better to do than read obvious lies and wild guesses about things we really know nothing about.
—The Observer this week, and everyone who posts rumours about wrestling, generally.
Eve explains her actions →
This is just like when they brought Kane back as a villain and had him explain his actions on a WWE.com exclusive clip.
Joking aside, it’s less weird to have this sort of stuff on the website considering how much more they value it as a competent storytelling tool than Raw. It’s also a great place to put a five minute monologue: Totally opt-in, and fast-forwardable. But there’s...
Fair to Flair: Predictability Is Hardly the End of... →
TH:
One of the big complaints about Elimination Chamber Sunday from those who watched was that it was too predictable. Everything that happened could be seen coming from a mile away. Why should they pay $60 to WWE for something that wouldn’t keep them guessing at every turn? Maybe they do have a point. Why pay to tune into an event where the way the stories play out are apparent before they...
❖ Personal and Artistic Dividing Lines
During the flurry of discussion spurred yesterday by a perfect storm of WWE’s insipid slut shaming on Monday mixed with Chris Brown’s entrance into the WWE Canon, a topic was brought up on Twitter: How do we judge people with terrible personal issues when their art may be really, really great? This is a fantastic conversation to have, because everyone is going to stand on different...
Shaq will not compete at Wrestlemania →
It’s pretty rare for WWE to flatly come out and say that a thing will not happen in a universe where “anything can happen,” but I have a feeling they’d like you to stop spreading this rumour.
Fun facts about the WWE Championship you might not...
The current spinner-style (though it hasn’t really spun since 2007 or so) has been around since April 2005, which makes it almost seven years old.
The Attitude Era-style belt, with the oversized Eagle on a big circle, lasted from 1998-2002. It’s outlasted that one. The Undisputed-style WWE Championship lasted from 2002-2005, so it’s outlasted that one too. It’s even...
CM Punk responds to Chris Brown →
I’m glad he’s on our side.
broskis before hoeskis →
Brandon Stroud:
It makes the crowd go “oooh” and get a little behind Cena, because they want to see the slut punished for being bad to the guy they like. That’s what it accomplishes. The guy in the Rise Above Hate shirt who tells you not to bully people is openly and unabashedly hating a woman for being a whore she’s never actually been. And at home, Zack Ryder — the loveable guy who spent the...
WWE's Trouble with Women →
Razor:
WWE, you’re my team, but like seeing a Bengal get arrested every week or the rampant sexual harassment that goes on during halftime of a New York Jets game, this stuff makes me embarrassed to be a fan. I can’t excuse it like I did when I was 14 and thought it was “edgy,” because it’s not edgy, it’s stupid.
Growing Up →
From Kayfabe Comedy:
So yes, we can all agree that the segment in itself was bad and destructive and misogynistic. That should not be discounted. But even in terms of a narrative it’s poor. If we watch wrestling to learn how to be adults then this is a bad story because no one changed during the journey. No one learned how to grow up.
❖ How I think WWE thinks their fans think about...
Numbers aren’t everything. But hey, here’s one. Number of females on the WWE writing team: 0.
Stephanie McMahon may be the vice president in charge of creative, but Stephanie McMahon became a popular character on WWE television by getting a few of those “slut” chants of her own.
Consider a) there aren’t enough female voices in WWE creative, because 0 is way too...
FemmeJoMo's Haven: In Defense of Eve - Raw,... →
crimsonmasked:
femmejomo:
Edge used Vickie Guerrero to win the World Heavyweight Championship back in 2007-2009 by taking advantage of her romantic affections for him. How is that different than what Eve did? In fact, Edge took it much farther than Eve did by kissing, marrying, and having sex with Vickie. However, he wasn’t embarrassed and called names on television by the company’s main face...
Santino Marella & Cognitive Dissonance →
TH:
One of these days, they’re going to throw Santino more than just scraps, and they’re going to give him a run at a PPV main event or semi-main event slot. I am going to laugh when I see some of these critics trip over themselves to decry it because comedy doesn’t sell or because they think Santino’s lame, especially when the crowd just explodes for him. Instead of...
WWE Wrestlefest →
Would you look at that. WWE’s awful “Bring it Back” segment actually brought something back.
Elimination Chamber 2012 review →
sugarazor:
Match order is important.
Those four words sum up Elimination Chamber 2012 better than any full review.
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❖ Will any story conclude at Elimination Chamber?
I’ve been writing this feature article since Night of Champions, which is actually crazy consistent for me.1 But since I’ve begun, I can tell the premise goes over the heads of some. These aren’t match predictions, because I think those are a) boring, and b) often not at all indicative of quality. I believe a more valuable thing to predict is whether or not a story will conclude...
Fair to Flair: Let's Kill Wrestling Commentary: A... →
fairtoflair:
A little over a month ago, I wrote a piece on International Object about wrestling commentary. I argued that in its current state it served almost no purpose (in fact, I called it harmful), and that one may very well enjoy the show more without it. As a general rule, I’m a theoretical journalist: I observe, posit new ideas, and let people think about them. And while there were...
"Bring it Back! WWE Wrestlefest" →
“Bring is Back” is the worst thing WWE does.
First off:
“But now, in present day, with video arcades on the decline, its unlikely that another classic stand-up arcade grappler will hit the scene like WrestleFest.”
Arcades aren’t on the decline: they’ve been dead in the ground since, like, 1998. Secondly, WWE WrestleFest was awful. Don’t even try...
Wrestlemania XXIX at the Metlife Stadium →
1) I’d bring a coat.
2) The wiki says that Metlife can hold 82,000, but that’s Football seating. WWE is going to do everything they can to boost that number past 93,000, even if they have to lie through their teeth (again).
3) I’m torn on the logo. It’s visually striking, but also misleading: go ahead, try to find the Chrysler building anywhere near Metlife Stadium.
...
Soundless wrestling.
crimsonmasked:
On the first episode of Crimson Mask (right there please download it’d be cool, guys please!), KSP brought up that because of the burden of commentary, he watches his action essentially on mute. I’m going to file a minor little report to put this to the test as far as deriving pleasure/narrative from the experience. I’m going to watch a full episode of NXT soundless and see what I...
Fair to Flair: I Miss (WW)ECW →
TH:
What I miss is WWE’s third brand, the one called ECW in name only, the one that the fanboys sneered at like it was anathema that someone dared take the name they held sacred and paraded something that wasn’t low rent under that banner. Heh, as if anything in wrestling is really worth holding sacred. I miss the show WWE put on every Tuesday night, the one that gave the world Sheamus and...
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The problem with the Elimination Chamber →
starofsavage:
The Chamber makes sense when you have either six guys all wrapped up in one major angle, or you have a champion the authority figure wants to punish by putting his title at risk in such an unpredictable environment. Likewise, Hell in a Cell is (was?) the natural endpoint when a feud could not be settled in conventional encounters. It is effective as a quasi-surprise, less so when...
Fair to Flair Quarterly Winter 2012: Women &... →
We want to have a serious, multi-threaded conversation about women in wrestling here at Fair to Flair, and there’s absolutely no better way to do that than make a literal issue out of it. The fourth issue of Fair to Flair quarterly is all about women & wrestling. We want to explore this issue as thoroughly as possible. We feel that women’s wrestling is unfairly criticized, unfairly...
I need a screengrab of Cena and Eve kissing and I...
help?
WWE pushing Tamina →
wwemedia:
Meanwhile the Hart legacy goes out in a flurry of fart jokes…. The Hart family is just being shitted on by the wwe, after everything the Hart’s did for the company as well.
It’s probably important to remember a little scale, here. Bret Hart had a “kiss my foot” match with Lawler and spent a summer feuding with Kane when he was a dentist. Owen Hart had to...
Rethinking the WWE PPV schedule: Jason Mann →
wrestlespective:
What I want out of wrestling (besides goodness) is to be able to watch and remember everything that is important. Pretty much impossible in a 12 (or more) PPV schedule with four hours of TV a week.
So, the question there becomes how much of this is WWE’s responsibility. You can totally argue for a WWE that produces only enough so that we can digest it all, but I...
❖ Rethinking the WWE PPV schedule →
starofsavage:
My philosophy is simple: I like when weekly TV builds logically to a pay-per-view, and when one pay-per-view builds to a bigger pay-per-view. The simplest example is when guys have to fight to get a spot in the Royal Rumble, because we all know if you win the Rumble you earn a title match at WrestleMania.
I have to wonder if predictability is part of the problem. Because we...
What Wrestling Means to Me: The Documentary →
dragonsleeper:
As I think most of you know, Ginny (writtenwrestling) and I are going to Miami for WrestleMania 28 and we’re going to be documenting the entire experience. And I got to thinking, I could make this into something for all of us. Why are we going on a 14 hour road trip? Why is wrestling so important to us? What does wrestling mean to us?
And more importantly, what does wrestling...
Wrestlespective: Review my podcast on iTunes, and... →
wrestlespective:
I’d like to get more iTunes comments from listeners, so I’m proposing a deal: If you leave a comment, any comment, then I’ll spend at least two minutes on the new podcast talking about any subject you want (within reason).
iTunes ratings and reviews immensely help great podcasts get noticed. It literally takes thirty seconds, and it helps visibility more than downloading and...
Kayfabe as a unit of truthiness
Examples:
“Eh, the next Starbucks is like 2 kayfabe blocks away”
“My new phone has like 20 kayfabe apps I use all the time instead of just Twitter.”
“My taxes are kayfabe fair this year.”
“Rick Santorum is a kayfabe legitimate candidate for President.”
“I’m totally in a kayfabe monogamous relationship.”
Quick thought
If they go with Jericho vs Punk for WM, they’ll have the guy who admired Ricky Steamboat against the guy who admired Randy Savage.
“It’s a Kayfabe 5 minutes.”
– Will Pruett, talking about the Elimination Chamber entrance timing, during the last Wrestlespective podcast.
I like how Kayfabe is slowly becoming to mean “utter bullshit nobody takes seriously” as opposed to “this fake stuff is real, marks.”
John Cena and Kane battle during Abu Dhabi press... →
Does any major media company put on a press conferences as well as WWE? One part major news, one part smiling photo op, one part guy going through a conference table.
The Bruiser and the Butcher →
I like all of David’s pieces, generally, but this one is particularly good.
Abdullah the Butcher is one of those guys I never saw in a match for years, but knew of him through magazines and tales my friends would tell. That made him far more terrifying than any televised match.
I was a guest on the Wrestling Podcast →
TH and I talked about the Fair to Flair Quarterly’s next issue’s theme for an hour. Women’s wrestling is a thorny-as-all-get out topic, and it was nice to get a chance to set down in audio some of the problems I have with how women are presented in wrestling, and why it should be so much better.
There were a few fun easter eggs at the end when we went off-topic, too. I...
Only 25,000 Homes Have Neilsen Boxes →
We’ve been over this over and over and over, but it just keeps becoming more and more and more true: ratings are an indication of nothing. Stop reporting on them.
❖ Fair to Flair: Crowd Noise →
My first Fair to Flair article in about two months.
Star of Savage: An introduction of sorts →
Welcome to the TWC.
Fair to Flair: John Cena: Good guy, bad guy, or... →
fairtoflair:
Is John Cena’s split reaction a good thing, a bad thing or just a thing? This was recently discussed over email by Fair to Flair co-editor Jason Mann of Wrestlespective, Joe Drilling of On the Stick and the Action Cast, and Scott T. Holland of Star of Savage.
It’s like a transcription of that awesome wrestling panel show that we absolutely have to make now.
John Laurinaitis not fired →
A wwe.com exclusive, because Raw was two hours of instant replays and retreads, and they couldn’t fit everything in.
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Looking for a WWE Dream Job?
droptoehold:
One that pays you to:
Maintain and organize the massive WWE Media Library?
Review, evaluate and catalog classic WWE/WCW/NWA/ECW/AWA footage??
Keep current with WWE programming, products and services???
Looks like you’re in luck as the WWE is looking for someone to be a Media Inventory Assistant.
Sounds snazzy, huh? Hit the link at the bottom for all the info.
WWE Looking...
Mikey Llorin's live WWFX report →
If you loved Raw in 2007 this sure sounds like the show for you.
Quick thought
Regarding my previous post about Natalya, Ring Belles’ point about Hulk Hogan, and turnbucklezine’s reblog:
There is a huge benchmark for “wins dont matter” in wrestling, but I’d like to append this statement to make it as complicated as it needs to be. Sometimes wins matter, sometimes they dont, but aggregate wins and losses are awfully telling about a promoters’ belief in the wrestler.
Natalya's Doomed →
You can criticize the farting routine, or defend it as harmless physical humor in a business full of it, but reading this article by Ring Belles sparks a different concern: Natalya has barely won a match in six months.