Robert S

Question is, how much "you know"s ended up on the cutting floor, probably enough for hours and hours. I have watched the first two episodes and am too a bit disappointed on how WWF/WWE centric there is. I realize that there is only so much they can do in 6 hours so you concentrate on what people will probably want to see the most, but there were no mentions at all of the name he lived by for maybe 20 years, North Carolina, everything he said in the Playboy interview or his early business failures like the Snake River Canyon jump. Besides a couple of pictures, there is also very little on the family side so far.

So far I have only watched the first episode but the talk before the Sato vs. Ueda match about if there would a predetermined winner or not almost completely lost me. Wrestling TV / movies in 2024 should not try to keep kayfabe. I suppose one reason for this choice was that kayfabe was never that explicitly and widespread broken in Japan as it is in the US, but still.

Just a nitpick (as I have seen you doing that spelling mistake a couple of times): the German name of Vienna is "Wien", "Wein" is the German word for "wine" (and even though the Roman name for the town was "Vindobona" and the Old High German word for wine was "win" (derived from the Latin word "vinum"), "Wein" and "Wien" are false friends). I guess native English speakers tend to make that kind of mistakes as the pronounciations of "ei" and "ie" switched between English and German (at least kind of, German "ei" and English "ie" are the some sound; German "ie" is just a long "i" (not as in "I" but as in "India"); see the common WCW production error spelling the Steiners "Stiener".

That's not really what they concentrate on here. The main question the makers of this try to answer is why people go to those shows, why they like what it and most people said something like that it's fun ("a Hetz" in Viennese German), one man meant that it's better than any "Bauerntheater" (very low level theatre doing very basic comedy). One woman also said something like "they don't hurt each other". Some women add that it's also about seeing good looking men. Even the promoter meant that this is a place where people can relax, forget about their daily life for some short hours (while making a very outlandish claim that the proceeds of the show are used to finance amateur athletes like ice skaters - workers gonna work). The announcer sums it up, "Only a minority takes the matches super serious but that does not hurt the show at all, in the end we also go to the movies or the theatre with the intention to see an illusion." Ergo: kayfabe was not a thing in early 60ies wrestling in Austria Oh yes, and they give a very suspect figure of what the wrestlers were making (600 to 1200 Austrian Schilling per night, which, adjusted to inflation, is about $330 to $660)

So the talking heads are Hogan, Cena, HHH, Rock, Austin & Jimmy Hart? Yeah, even if they cover his current legal issues properly, there will be a lot of Vince-washing of wrestling history.

This was probably the worst Gunther / Walter WWE match that I have seen. Slow, methodical, boring, as Randy Orton a match as it gets. All time great my ass.

So far the crowd has been more busy celebrating themselves (in the main event).

He looks to be on everything that money can buy. I also thought that he looked blown up a bit just by his entrance.

That's what I meant. yes, the WoS spots looked like slow motion movement, 65-year-old Johnny Saint did that stuff way slicker. And yes, it might just have been a combination of ring rust and nerves, time will tell.

I thought he looked pretty bad to be honest, at least the early stuff with OC and Okada. The segment with ZSJ looked good though, but I tend to credit ZSJ for that.

I loved "Buddy" Danielson hunting confetti - in the middle of the ring in front of 55k people.

Notable things to add: Nash could care less about this feud, in the pre-match promo he meant (on the question if his elbow is close to 100% due to the surgery) that even 50% would be enough to deal with Sid; Bigelow tries to safe that doing some Steiner math (something along the lines that they are both 110% motivated which adds up to 220% motivation). Nash also calls Tatanka "Pocahontas" in the pre-match promo. They blew a false hot tag: Sid has Bigelow in a front facelock, Bigelow pushes Sid towards his own corner, Tatanka comes in etc., you know the deal. But Earl Hebner sleeps on Tatanka entering the ring (I guess Tatanka is also a bit late) so the tag from Bigelow to Nash happens right in front of his face, ergo Nash has to come in. They found a good way to deal with it, though (Nash throws an elbow drop on which he sells his elbow and tags out immediately, Bigelow goes straight back into FIP until the real hot tag a couple of minutes later).

Nowadays? Maybe not the average German, but a decent percentage of the younger population would (the people who regularly watch movies, TV or Youtube videos in English). Back in the 80ies? No chance in hell. Before the rise of the internet, most people did not encounter much English in their daily life after high school and if any, than either it was in a written form or by trying to find a common language with another non-native English speaker in some vacation destination (with both sides just speaking a couple of words). I am actually surprised that they did not translate Haystack's promo here.

I would add the Takayama match (9/7/02) to that list above. I also remember people raving about Ogawa's first match against Doug Williams (11/14/03). Ogawa, I think, was a mark for British wrestling and always seemed extra motivated when he faced Williams (e.g. in six man tags).

They lost me at "Austin, show me some respect". EDIT: Wait, the show was in Austin, TX? I first thought Kross (that's Kross, right?) was using Xavier Woods' shoot name there.

I agree with your point reg. Nazi imagery, I still think the name "Gunther Stark" was just bad luck as that was such an obscure officer that I am sure no serious historian would have recognized that name. They just threw two German names together (Stark meaning "Strong" which I suppose is why they came up with that name). Looking at an index, there were 1401 people serving as commander of a U-Boot at one point or another during WW2. And he was commander of a type of U-Boot of which apparently 661 units existed. Should they have googled the name? Yes, but who knows what would have been the first results that would have popped up at that point. LinkedIn lists 10 people of that name, for example. Actually, going a bit deeper into the Google search results, there was another guy with that name, who was a witness in the 1960ies in a trial reg. Auschwitz (defendent in that trial was the brother of that "Günther Stark", looking at the transcript, he was only there to establish some timeline). Here the brother of that "Günther Stark": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Stark

So were a lot of other countries during WW2 (like Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, France (partly), Italy ...) - obviously do so less willingly than Austria (but even there was a military component) - and you would not confuse those countries with Germany. If you were thinking about the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation you would also be off (as that was an Empire on paper only, Habsburg Austria was a completely independent empire).

Must not make Joe Biden joke. Must not make Joe Biden joke. Must not make Joe Biden joke.

"The name on the contract does say Khan. However, the contract reads Nick Khan." alternatively "The name on the lawsuit does say McMahon. However, the lawsuit reads Shane McMahon." Hmm... yeah, not perfect, I guess have to workshop this one a bit.

No way Orton's shoulders were close to being on the mat for most of the three count, that was definitely botched. I am surprised that the ref actually counted the fall, at least a couple of years ago they were told to call it as they see it, ergo if a cover is botched, don't count the fall.

Nah, they will go full SS-skulls - at the very least on HHH entrance. Seriously though, WWE going much further with Nazi aesthetics for the Berlin show could get them into big, big trouble. If not legal trouble than so much bad press that they could lose whatever TV deal they still have (as much as TV matters in 2024).

Depends on which Kaiser, as Austrian he should be the Austrian-Hungarian one and there I think you have to go back to Napoleon to get to armed warfare between the countries (or was there any WW1 front where K&K soldiers and French soldiers were killing each other? - also from what I read about WW1 and especially the two decades that preceded it, there were no innocent major countries drawn into the war; if at all then maybe UK). Anyway, after writing my post I realized that Marcel Barthel currently wrestles as Ludwig Kaiser, so no Kaiser Gunther I.

So I guess Gunther is going to win and proclaim himself as the Kaiser of the Ring?

Jesus, at least on this photo she looks completely like him.

His tan here is a Donald Trump-level of orange.