Wrestling In The Time Of COVID-19: the new thread

[thecuriousorange]

I've been enjoying the OSW episodes on the early New Generation PPVs and hope they continue, covering the years of Wrestlemanias XI, XII and 13. I don't know much about this era, apart from the really famous matches.

[amateur]

What's a good OSW to start with? Been meaning to give it a go.

[Old Thrashbarg]

They benefit from being watched from the beginning in order, as there are so many in-jokes that build up over time. Having said that, the first one I saw was Wrestlemania 9 (http://oswreview.com/media/oswreview30/), which is possibly still my favourite. And it's early enough in the run that it doesn't lose too much from not having watched what came before. It's also a bit more of a standalone episode than the ones that came before, as it isn't really part of any long-running storyline.

[thecuriousorange]

I'd say the earliest ones don't really have the rhythm/production quite right, but the best entry point is any show you remember/know. I think my first was Wrestlemania 8, but the 2001 run is a highlight.

[Moribunderast]

So Bar Wrestling is finished and Joey Ryan has now been accused by multiple women of varying degrees of assault and rape. It's one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight and he was hiding in plain sight with that gimmick but it's still very disappointing and disgusting.

The Will Ospreay stuff has basically been proven now too. What a cunt.

[Mobius]

Yeah Ospreay whilst not involved in the horrible rape/assault stuff has been confirmed to be an awful person. Disappointing, he was one of my favourites. I doubt it'll affect him in NJPW. Will has always been a moron, but didn't realise he was actually a prick. Bea doesn't come across well either.

Jack Gallagher released from WWE. El Ligero has deleted his twitter so probably on the way out. Matt Riddle, Travis Banks, Wolfgang, Jimmy Havoc, Austin Aries all accused of creepy and awful things meanwhile Dave Lagana is gone from NWA, Progress making big changes backstage. Too much to keep up with really.

The indie scene is going to look very different post COVID. Wonder if WWE will bin NXTUK?

[amateur]

They benefit from being watched from the beginning in order, as there are so many in-jokes that build up over time. Having said that, the first one I saw was Wrestlemania 9 (http://oswreview.com/media/oswreview30/), which is possibly still my favourite. And it's early enough in the run that it doesn't lose too much from not having watched what came before. It's also a bit more of a standalone episode than the ones that came before, as it isn't really part of any long-running storyline.

I'd say the earliest ones don't really have the rhythm/production quite right, but the best entry point is any show you remember/know. I think my first was Wrestlemania 8, but the 2001 run is a highlight.

Thanks both. Looking forward to getting stuck in.

[elliszeroed]

I had to stop listening to The Lapsed Fan a few years ago, when they were doing their Starrcade series. They just became so egotistical, and seemingly couldn't go ten minutes without shouting "In that ass!" A shame because their Wrestlemania series with Dave Meltzer's comments were brilliant.

Have they matured since then?

[Mobius]

Yeah I went off of them when they started to spend the first 90 minutes of each podcast reading emails from listeners and doing the in that ass stuff way too much

[up_the_hampipe]

Not sure if he'll be fired or anything, but there's the goodwill for Sammy Guevara pissed away https://twitter.com/dubyacbub/status/1274992813705437184?s=21

[Deanjam]

Not sure if he'll be fired or anything, but there's the goodwill for Sammy Guevara pissed away https://twitter.com/dubyacbub/status/1274992813705437184?s=21

The replies are a treat as ever. My favourite was the guy (presumably) saying wanting to rape her was a compliment.

[peanutbutter]

So Bar Wrestling is finished and Joey Ryan has now been accused by multiple women of varying degrees of assault and rape. It's one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight and he was hiding in plain sight with that gimmick but it's still very disappointing and disgusting.

Joey Ryan is one of those things where the bit is so monotonous and there's so little to both the premise and the quality of the performance around it that even if he wasn't doing awful shit, he was eventually gonna sell himself on doing some awful shit under the bullshit notion it was in character.

Utterly shit character, have no clue how it was over in 2020. Surely anyone who wasn't a creep would make moves to get away from that character once it got tired for them.

Not sure if he'll be fired or anything, but there's the goodwill for Sammy Guevara pissed away https://twitter.com/dubyacbub/status/1274992813705437184?s=21

22 at the time four years ago, he should've known better but he should pull through unless more comes out or he spectacularly mishandles the response.

I had to stop listening to The Lapsed Fan a few years ago, when they were doing their Starrcade series. They just became so egotistical, and seemingly couldn't go ten minutes without shouting "In that ass!" A shame because their Wrestlemania series with Dave Meltzer's comments were brilliant.

Have they matured since then?

It varies, I'd say JP's gotten worse and Jack's gotten better? I think they got rid of most the letter reading stuff into the Patreon side of things, or I just got very good at skipping it. I don't even think it's ego (from Jack at least), it's just this awkward loop where someone sent an obnoxious email and they played up to it, which led to more arriving trying to get read, and them playing up to those too... attempts to appease a vocal minority dictating the tone of the podcast.
Imagine OSW if they kept doing all the shit OSW tattoo request shows? You've gotta push back, your biggest fans are gonna be morons at best and psychotics at worst.

I think the reason the Von Erich episodes worked so well was because Jack obviously put huge legwork into researching them and that's very much the case with the Von Erich's series too. It's really hard to get across how much of a prick Fritz was, a 10+ hour podcast digging into it gets you some of the way though. If it's anything JP's too familiar with to actually be able to offer like the benefit of a totally blind perspective JP tends to take over the show with bullshit and it's a bit of a write off for me (e.g. Hogan/New Generation era stuff).

If you liked the wrestlemania ones I'd really consider giving Between the Sheets a chance, just utterly insanely deep wrestling geekery, go through one week's worth of wrestling newsletters a week and analyse the contents with the benefit of hindsight.

[magval]

Joey Ryan is one of those things where the bit is so monotonous and there's so little to both the premise and the quality of the performance around it that even if he wasn't doing awful shit, he was eventually gonna sell himself on doing some awful shit under the bullshit notion it was in character.

Utterly shit character, have no clue how it was over in 2020. Surely anyone who wasn't a creep would make moves to get away from that character once it got tired for them.
22 at the time four years ago, he should've known better but he should pull through unless more comes out or he spectacularly mishandles the response.
It varies, I'd say JP's gotten worse and Jack's gotten better? I think they got rid of most the letter reading stuff into the Patreon side of things, or I just got very good at skipping it. I don't even think it's ego (from Jack at least), it's just this awkward loop where someone sent an obnoxious email and they played up to it, which led to more arriving trying to get read, and them playing up to those too... attempts to appease a vocal minority dictating the tone of the podcast.
Imagine OSW if they kept doing all the shit OSW tattoo request shows? You've gotta push back, your biggest fans are gonna be morons at best and psychotics at worst.

I think the reason the Von Erich episodes worked so well was because Jack obviously put huge legwork into researching them and that's very much the case with the Von Erich's series too. It's really hard to get across how much of a prick Fritz was, a 10+ hour podcast digging into it gets you some of the way though. If it's anything JP's too familiar with to actually be able to offer like the benefit of a totally blind perspective JP tends to take over the show with bullshit and it's a bit of a write off for me (e.g. Hogan/New Generation era stuff).

If you liked the wrestlemania ones I'd really consider giving Between the Sheets a chance, just utterly insanely deep wrestling geekery, go through one week's worth of wrestling newsletters a week and analyse the contents with the benefit of hindsight.

Come on boss, his age has nothing to do with it. A 22 year old man is a man.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Joey Ryan is one of those things where the bit is so monotonous and there's so little to both the premise and the quality of the performance around it that even if he wasn't doing awful shit, he was eventually gonna sell himself on doing some awful shit under the bullshit notion it was in character.

Utterly shit character, have no clue how it was over in 2020. Surely anyone who wasn't a creep would make moves to get away from that character once it got tired for them.

Weren't most people supporting Ryan because the dick flip upset Jim Cornette?

To that end, he's been mostly redundant since Cornette has such a bug up his arse about AEW now.

[up_the_hampipe]

I was 22 the same time as Sammy was. Don't think me or anyone I knew would have thought that was just a normal thing to say. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with him losing everything for what I hope was just a really stupid joke, but it's certainly something to be pulled up on.

[BeardFaceMan]

I was 22 the same time as Sammy was. Don't think me or anyone I knew would have thought that was just a normal thing to say.

I'd say that was indicative of the wrestling culture that he came up in, that he thought that was a normal thing to say. That he thought he could go on a podcast and say something like that in public and not get pulled up on it. And he was right. Whether he said it because he was young and trying to fit in to a shitty culture orif its because hes a shitty person, only time will telll on that.

[peanutbutter]

I was 22 the same time as Sammy was. Don't think me or anyone I knew would have thought that was just a normal thing to say. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with him losing everything for what I hope was just a really stupid joke, but it's certainly something to be pulled up on.

For sure, it's pretty fucking pathetic and it's a flag against him that'll make weathering anything bigger coming out really difficult, but the idea of someone "losing everything" for a 9 second audio clip from years ago really strikes me the wrong way.
He needs to make efforts to personally apologise to her first (which he's hopefully doing right now), issue a statement of contrition, and not have any other shit hiding away or dumb shit on the horizon.

RE "22 isn't an excuse", I dunno... I was certainly better than that at 22, but I feel like a lot of people can be pretty stunted up into their mid 20s and still have a lot of room to grow. I can only imagine spending your entire adult life in the indie wrestling scene would double that, hanging out with random old embittered veterans instead of normal people your age.
The whole industry is a cess-pit, and it's probably far worse at a local level than national where you'll have those embittered toxic vets effectively acting as the gatekeepers (as referenced in that post a couple of days ago), the notion that wouldn't spread onto younger generations entering the business cos they're playing playstations instead of popping pills (or whatever it is they always say) is naive.

[Deanjam]

[peanutbutter]

He was also apparently caught liking a bullshit attempt to excuse to his comments though, so very much a one step forward but two steps back deal... If he's dumb enough to do that I can definitely see him being like "I've already apologised, can't we move on!" in response to criticism within a few days.

[Ja'moke]

Some people saying the liked tweet was fake.

Anyway, AEW has suspended him without pay and sent him to sensitivity training.

[Deanjam]

That AEW response.



Edited to include 2nd Sammi tweet



And Sasha's response.



All very reasonable and mature by everyone involved I would say.

[Deanjam]

Of course the most disgusting thing in wrestling this week was Taichi beating Tanahashi in the New Japan up. #CancelGedo

[up_the_hampipe]

Didn't think it was possible to say this many cunty things in under a minute, but David Starr manages it https://twitter.com/BellaKeeble/status/1275408443223035904

[Deanjam]

Didn't think it was possible to say this many cunty things in under a minute, but David Starr manages it https://twitter.com/BellaKeeble/status/1275408443223035904

Well that was unpleasant.

[Gurke and Hare]

I'm so pissed off that I fell for that fucking cunt's act.

[Deanjam]

Well the inevitable has happened.

[Deanjam]

Also Marty Scurll has released a statement.



I did a bad thing, but it's the system's fault. Whatever.

[Deanjam]

Also Jon Moxley's been pulled from Dynamite, presumably because he lives with Renee Young who was at the tapings.

Edit for this image:

[Ja'moke]

PWInsider reporting there is at least a couple of dozen people in WWE (wrestlers and other staff) that have tested positive.

[Deanjam]