El-P

Missy's article on Luna is quite good. It's so sad she was never used to her full talent in the WWF, they never even gave her a cup of coffee with the belt while she made Sable look like a million bucks. She deserved better.

This is really sad her last days must have been so stressful and bleak. RIP Fuck ! Not Luna ! I loved the girl the first time I saw her, which was in 93 at WM 9. Great character, good little worker for the US. Man, it's depressing... Repose en paix Luna....

Booker T was anything but safe. Ask Rick Martel. As far as axe kicks, it's a tricky move. Mima Shimoda (who I love still), had a pretty shitty looking one, but I doubt she ever hurt anyone with it.

The lack of evolution in WWE's product presentation is amazing. Think about how different things went from 84 to 97. The thing is about wrestling history, is that wrestling has become post-modern during the last decade. It's become totally self referencial. The funny and odd thing about it, is the more MacMahon is acknowledging wrestling history on one hand (and rewriting it), the more he's trying to distance himself from anything that evoques "pro-wrestling" at the same time. It's totally schyzophrenic.

I hadn't noticed it. It's spooky.

But of course, WWE still has no responsability in its employees (oups, FORMER employees, don't forget to get the dates right in the eulogy) dropping dead at young ages.

I thought this was by far the best match of the night, the best Taker vs Austin match ever, and the closest thing to a legit MOTYC the WWF could deliver. Yeah, the heat was down because the crowd had been drained by the ladder match (which wasn't very good when you think about it, and although Rock was over like hell, he wasn't a very good worker at that point), and because a face vs face match wouldn't draw the same heat but that wasn't the fault of Austin nor Taker. It was a rare no bullshit wrestling match, which I guess is why Russo hates it, but as far as the work goes, it was great. Russo and his idiotic booking then saw fit to re-book Austin and Taker for the two next PPV with the addition of Kane and stupid overbooking, which led to terrible boring matches.

The behaviour of a WWE employee *outside* the realm of his work has nothing to do with "reminding every chance you get" that it's fake. It's not like the straight edge girl is showing up wasted to work, is it ? So, anyway, I think it's petty bullshit, as always. There's a huge difference between exposing your product as fake on your own TV show, and wrestlers not living their gimmick in public when they aren't working. You think kids really are able to get to the places where this girl is partying ? I think not. Since it's for KIDS mostly, who cares about what she does in bars, since no kid will be able to see her drink anyway.

Undertaker is a unique case. He's a 20 year old gimmick, that was created in a time were there was still some kind of kayfabe. Really has nothing to do with him not making appearance in the last decade. At best it's a cutesy post-modern gimmick in itself. Everybody knows that Taker is good old Mark, the biker guy who had "Sara" tattoed on his neck before he fucked some diva, and not some mystical creature. Which makes no difference whatsoever. There can't be "a little" kayfabe. Either there is, of there isn't. It's like a magic trick. Once you know the trick, you know the trick and you can't go back. I love how WWE try to distance themselves from the very notion that they are "rasslin'", yet they still fire people over that old carny kayfabe concept that has no meaning whatsoever in 2010. I don't think my nephews who are 7 and 5 year old care about how the wrestlers act in public, because they just aren't aware of it. Only the little kid can "believe" in a kayfabe way now. Really, do the people who see this girl party care that she's not living her gimmick ? Will that prevent them from enjoying, if they do, that part of the WWE product ? I don't think so. They're also "cleaning up their image" by distancing themselves from all the workers who died after spending years busting their balls from them. There's nothing in all of this that the WWE should be praised for.

What ? In 2010 ? In a public shared entertainment company ? She *portrays* a straight edge girl but does not act like a straight edge girl when she's not working, and that's sufficient to fire her ? Does Randy Orton has to live his gimmick in pubic too ? It's ridiculous. Not that I care, but it's ridiculous.

So basically, she's fired because she is breaking kayfaybe. In 2010. In corporate WWE. Nice...

After all these years I'm still amazed by how much a bunch of dirtbags the McMahons are.

SummerSlam 98 was the apex on my WWF fandom. There was some stuff I didn't like with the new direction of course (for instance, the retarded use of Kaientai), but all in all the build to this show was terrific and it delivered. After, it was a painfull downward spiral, with the Survivor Series being the first extremely Russoesque show with zero good matches and all stories and swerves. The Royal Rumble 99 ended my relationship with WWF for ever. I stopped being a fan right there, never looked back since.

Man, Bischoff is just asking for a bitchslapping here... Between him, Russo and "She's Hardcore" Dixie, TNA may have the most idiotic leading team a "major" wrestling company ever had.

She probably tooked roids at this time too.

In which way ?

Memories... I was such a heat magnet in this one. Saying Triple H sucked in 2001 (I think it was in 2001) wasn't the most popular opinion. I kinda miss those times when I really cared about it. Plus I was young. I wonder if that stuff got saved somewhere, I would be curious to see what the hell I was writing back then. Probably being a complete dick too...

Flair looked like Flair up to 96 to me, with Woman & Liz on his arms. He looked older and his work was already way down from his peak, but he was still the Nature Boy. I thought when he came back in 97, that's when age set in. From 97 to 99, Flair had some good and fun stuff on occasions despite looking *old*. Like you said, from 00 and on, it's freaking horrible. I can't understand the Flair fans parroting the WWE gospel that "WWE gave Flair his dignity back" when Flair looked just awful during his entire WWE stint, terrible work, aged 15 years, got booked like HHH's bitch. Flair should have quit when WCW went under, this last decade is just a huge, long, painfull disgrace for a guy that was so good in the 80's...

The thing with Funk is that he made age a whole part of his act after he passed 50. The whole ECW angle in 97 was that he was an old man trying to recapture the gold one last time. Flair is just doing Flair at 60, which is pretty pathetic to watch, and absolutely painfull when you're a fan of the 80's Flair. I can watch Terry Funk in 79 and Terry Funk in 97 back to back and find tons of good thing to say about 53 year old Funk.

Flair chewing tobacco was so wrong on so many level. First it's disgusting. Then Flair is supposed to be a champaign drinking man, not a tobacco spitting dirty old redneck. What struck me the most in Flair's interview, was the part where he said he would be Ric Flair until he died because he didn't know who Richard Fliehr was and couldn't be that Richard Fliehr. Also, Flair admitting that a lot of his spots didn't make sense was nice to hear.

Dawn steroid abuser ? Why would she take steroids ? Lose some fat ? She supposedly never cared for traning hard, so that could be it. Dawn did aged terribly and way quickly during her WWE stint. Compare her face when she entered ECW and when she left WWF, it's not a pretty thing.

And she's a fan of the Hitman.

Jeez. And I actually thought her being fired while being pregnant was pretty low. Turns out she's as scummy as the people who fired her pregnant ass. What a cunt. Wrestling truly is a depressing environment. The Steve Williams part is particulary terrible.

What a mark Tommy is...

Agreed. 99 WCW was so full of entertaining bullshit like that. Stuff that wasn't supposed to get over but did (West Texas Redneck). Stuff that was thrown against the wall without any thought but worked (Hak's hardcore matches).