International Object

Rumor about people wrestling someday, maybe

ksawyerpaul — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:47:31 -0500

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

ksawyerpaul — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:40:44 -0500

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 nothing here you need to fast forward. Eve, like many wrestlers, shines as a villain.

Fair to Flair: Predictability Is Hardly the End of the World

ksawyerpaul — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:24:08 -0500

Fair to Flair: Predictability Is Hardly the End of the World:

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 happen?

I hate it every time I go see Hamlet and everybody fucking dies.

❖ Personal and Artistic Dividing Lines

ksawyerpaul — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:54:00 -0500

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 ground, and we can talk like adults about the importance of artistic output vs personal morality. It’s a thick, juicy, bloody talking point, and I’d love to drill down on it with everyone.

There are lots of wrestlers out there who would fit into this argument. The biggest example is, as we all should figure, Chris Benoit, a man who exists with two absolute parallel truths: he was perhaps one of the greatest wrestling performers in history, and he murdered his wife and son. Your stance on how much you compartmentalize those two truths is an interesting thing to discuss, because it forces you to take a stand on personal morality, the importance of cultural output, and how well or poorly we treat and are treated by the people who are paid to entertain us.

I want to have discussions like this. Wrestling journalists could do well to think harder about issues like this. Does a guy like Benoit belong alongside a painter like Caravaggio, a supremely talented artist who was exiled for murder? Furthermore, if we were to simply eliminate all the art in the world made by people who did morally and ethically dubious things, we wouldn’t be left with much of interest. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also the world we live in.

I do believe a person’s talent and contribution to society has to be taken into account when discussing their importance to the world. I think it’s wrong to ultimately eliminate them from discussion because they have done terrible things, but I think it’s equally wrong to dismiss the terrible thing so that we can peacefully discuss the art. I don’t think the two can be separated. But I feel the quality of the work is the only thing keeping that person from being utterly eliminated from public discourse.

But what I have little patience for is terrible people in society who contribute nothing of artistic worth. If a substandard wrestler had murdered his family, it would not be as difficult a dilemma to eradicate his work from the canon. That’s one of the reasons so many people have a problem with a guy like Chris Brown: he has done a terrible thing, and he has utterly no talent to keep his name in circulation. I went back and looked through Metacritic for old album reviews, and found not one that scored consistently well. He is not only a heinously substandard character to write about, but a substandard icon of pop music. It is not a dilemma for most people to separate Brown’s artistic work from his personal heinousness, because his work simply isn’t that good in the first place.

Brown’s fame is entirely based on controversy, and yet without real talent his star will dissipate, and he will eventually become for everyone the bland, illiterate neophyte most of us already know him to be. And including him in our discussions will seem silly, unless we use it as a jumping off point for better things.

I would love to speak in intelligent terms about difficult issues involving art & violence. I am interested in the aggressive arts, separately and together. Let’s make things difficult for those who can’t keep up. Let’s make this discussion and intelligent one. Try, people. I know you can do it.

Shaq will not compete at Wrestlemania

ksawyerpaul — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:41:18 -0500

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 have realized

ksawyerpaul — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:34:15 -0500

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 outlasted the Hogan-style one, worn basically entirely by the Hulkster from 1984-1988.

The only belt in the modern era that’s outlasted the spinner is the classic eagle, which WWE used from 1988-1998. That will change if WWE doesn’t redesign the WWE Championship before 2015, which probably has everything to do with where John Cena is.

CM Punk responds to Chris Brown

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:06:20 -0500

CM Punk responds to Chris Brown:

I’m glad he’s on our side.

broskis before hoeskis

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:59:45 -0500

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 last several months pining over Eve and repeatedly expressing how much he loves her — types “broskis before hoeskis” on Twitter and makes it trend.

And that’s what we’re left with. Even the best of our characters are reducing women to objects, then condemning them for being objects when they get misrepresented or rejected.

WWE's Trouble with Women

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:51:54 -0500

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

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:36:19 -0500

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 women

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:02:00 -0500

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 small a number, and b) the people who are there may not consider female shaming to be a particularly bad thing. This doesn’t have anything to do with that they think of women, but how they think wrestling fans think. They might think that a crowd yelling “slut” at a female character may lead to memorable characters like McMahon, or a great wrestler like Trish Stratus. This is terrible math, but it adds up just fine.

It’s why Beth Phoenix thinks women are in trouble in the locker room because they’re “just girls.” It’s why Kelly Kelly is written as utterly imbecilic and yet cheered. It’s why every WWE “Diva” popular enough ends up naked in Playboy (or did until the PG shift). It’s why Trish was made to bark, Lita was made to fuck Edge in the middle of the ring, and why they humiliated Mickie James about her “weight.”

WWE thinks that reactions are good and shaming women gets a reaction. Therefore, unfortunately, that’s a thing they do. It’s not that they hate women. It’s not that they don’t respect women, or their employees. It’s that WWE’s creative output is based heavily on crowd reaction. Wrestling journalists up and down will tell you that reactions are all that matters. Well, sometimes there are side effects to that.

WWE treats women poorly because they think that’s what their fans want. And unfortunately, they’re probably right. There are a lot of us who are appalled that this is a continued practice, but there are even more wrestling fans who think that women have it coming, that they shouldn’t be wrestling, and shouldn’t even be on the show in the first place. To a large portion of wrestling fans, women are at fault for entering this world. They’ve asked for it. When I say that wrestling fans are idiots, I’m almost definitely not talking to someone who’s reading this site. But wrestling fans are fucking idiots sometimes, and they get what they deserve, and they ruin it for the rest of us.

If you have ever:

called a women’s wrestling match a piss-break contest
suggested a female wrestler has fucked Vince or anyone else to get her spot
suggested a female wrestler can’t wrestle simply because she hasn’t been given the opportunity on Raw, even if she’s got a ton of great matches elsewhere
suggested that strong, confident female wrestlers are ugly and worthless because they aren’t “fuckable”
done anything less than spew venom at worthless scum like Chris Brown or anyone else who’s beat up a woman, even if that woman is treating it like it’s no big deal

Then you are the reason WWE treats women like this. Because they want your money, and they respect your insipid, small, pathetic views on women and women’s wrestling, and they don’t think there are enough people who think differently to think twice.

Because, unfortunately, WWE is a company that values attention and reaction over actual values, and gratification over vision. And unless the entire company has a change of heart about their value system, the only way to ever get this behaviour to stop is to go out there and support women’s wrestling.

FemmeJoMo's Haven: In Defense of Eve - Raw, Whores, and Shaming

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:54:17 -0500

FemmeJoMo's Haven: In Defense of Eve - Raw, Whores, and Shaming:

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 and spokesperson. Cena took pleasure is shaming Eve during his opening promo and encouraged the crowd to do so as well.

The difference between Eve and Edge? Eve is a woman. The way that the WWE has presented and treated women has been the subject of much criticism and rightfully so, when we are still seeing women being shamed for actions that would be applauded or admired in men.

Another important critique of WWE’s double standards. I also hope more women come out in deserved anger about this situation.

If only there was an upcoming quarterly for Fair to Flair where women’s wrestling was a subject, where people looking to write intelligently about this or any other women’s wrestling topic could be addressed.

Santino Marella & Cognitive Dissonance

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:19:35 -0500

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 admitting that they personally don’t like Santino’s act, or instead of acknowledging that two of the four biggest catalysts for the Attitude Era worked as more realized versions of comedic characters, they’ll continue to try and throw out bullshit reasons as to why Santino is not a draw.

“Santino? Huh. That’ll put butts in seats.”

Kids love guys like Santino. Adults, at least adult wrestling fans, seem to hate everything.

WWE Wrestlefest

ksawyerpaul — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:05:12 -0500

WWE Wrestlefest:

Would you look at that. WWE’s awful “Bring it Back” segment actually brought something back.

Elimination Chamber 2012 review

ksawyerpaul — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:51:59 -0500

Elimination Chamber 2012 review:

sugarazor:

Match order is important.

Those four words sum up Elimination Chamber 2012 better than any full review.

❖ Will any story conclude at Elimination Chamber?

ksawyerpaul — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:30:00 -0500

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 at a show, because a) nobody else does it, and b) it’s actually rare, so getting it right feels better than simply calling a winner. Plus, it gives you, the prospective PPV purchaser, an overall idea if you will be satisfied by plot developments, not just match rankings.²

But the format doesn’t really work on such a sideshow like Elimination Chamber, right? I mean, how could any story end now, weeks before the supposed climax show, Wrestlemania XXVIII? Well, you’d be surprised. Since 1999, Wrestlemania has been used less as a blowoff show after a year of build, to a huge beginning to several months of stories. Instead of a huge match ending a huge story, it’s often the place to see the first match between two major stars. And because of that, Elimination Chamber (and No Way Out before it) would often act as a clearing house for stories that needed to conclude before setting things up for the big night.³ Of course, it also acts as just another chapter in already-begun feuds, so it really can be a toss-up. That’s why this article exists.

WWE Championship Elimination Chamber match: CM Punk vs Dolph Ziggler vs Kofi Kingston vs The Miz vs R-Truth vs Chris Jericho

The story for Wrestlemania has already been set: Chris Jericho and CM Punk are going to feud over who the best in the world is. That means there are three questions up in the air for this match: how much will Jericho and Punk interact, and should the title change hands to Jericho as a chapter in this story? The third question, which is more interesting, is whether Jericho and Punk need a belt to have their feud, and whether the WWE championship can simply create a feud by itself with the other four guys? I’d be pretty okay with a four-way at Wrestlemania involving Ziggler, Miz, Truth, and Kingston for the WWE Championship. But it is a stretch, and it does make sense that a “best in the world” feud involves the most valuable macguffin in the game. My prediction: lots of beginnings, no endings.

World Heavyweight Championship Elimination Chamber Match: Daniel Bryan vs Great Khali vs Big Show vs Randy Orton vs Wade Barrett vs Cody Rhodes

Bryan is a lock to win because he’s the only logical foil for Sheamus at WM. This is Big Show’s last championship match in this run, which he will lose. This will also be Khali’s last main event match for a while, which he will also lose (probably early, too). This will also be the last time Orton and Barrett are in the ring at the same time for a while, because they’ll both be doing different things for Wrestlemania. The only real question mark here is Cody. What’s he doing right now? Will a prospective IC opponent take him out?

Kane vs John Cena in an ambulance match

This has got to be the finale for this odd story, because Cena and Rock require laser focus for the build to the real and only main event of Wrestlemania. It doesn’t matter who wins, what happens, and how many more creative injuries Zack Ryder endures: this match will be conclusive.

Tamina Snuka vs Beth Phoenix, Divas Championship

People complaining about the lack of traditional wrestling stories should have been paying attention to Phoenix and Snuka the last month. Snuka was made to look dominant, Phoenix took notice, and, as all great successful villains do, began complimenting her new challenger. It’s the first time Phoenix has done this since becoming the central figure in the division, but it’s also the first time she’s faced a woman that will actually test her. And because she’s happy about this, we can assume her character is actually deeper than we thought: it’s more “Ric Flair thinks you’re great but but as great as him,” and more of that is always welcome.

But it’s the first match between the two in what would hopefully be a few, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless Tamina is going to win by something like DQ, setting up a climatic contest at WM, which would mean this is the Divas division’s story for the next while. I’m totally fine with this, but I have to wonder if they can save Kharma for after the biggest show of the year. I’m not sure they can.

And…that’s the show. As almost always happens with shows with only a couple announced matches, there may be a filler US or Tag Title match, or, of course, something funky. But since nothing is in stone, I can’t really speak on them. Enjoy the show, everyone!

Okay, so I missed Survivor Series, but the only story that ended there was the “Awsome truth” tag team, created for the sole purpose of having villains for Rock and Cena. ↩
Nobody has ever been satisfied by match rankings in the history of this great fake sport. ↩
A few examples of this: Austin VS McMahon, HHH VS Cactus Jack, HHH VS Austin, HHH VS Scott Steiner, Shawn Michaels VS JBL, and Miz VS Lawler. ↩

Fair to Flair: Let's Kill Wrestling Commentary: A month without audio

ksawyerpaul — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:33:37 -0500

Fair to Flair: Let's Kill Wrestling Commentary: A month without audio:

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 quite a few people who did just that, I’m not sure anybody turned the volume down to watch wrestling because of the article. But I did.

This article is the result of an idea I had a month ago. The lack of comments and response to it can really only mean one thing: people who absolutely love Michael Cole and wrestling commentary in general are a vast, powerful, silent majority.

This is catching on.

ksawyerpaul — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:56:24 -0500

This is catching on.

"Bring it Back! WWE Wrestlefest"

ksawyerpaul — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:18:37 -0500

"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 to sugarcoat it. Lastly, there is a modern day version of it: WWE All Stars, which was released less than a year ago.

Wrestlemania XXIX at the Metlife Stadium

ksawyerpaul — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:51:00 -0500

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.

4) It’s probably safe to assume that since it’s so close to New York, WWE is not going to do WM XXX…wait…WM 30 at Madison Square Garden, traditions be damned. They’re probably going to drop the Roman numerals for that one, too.