Sports Entertainment, Wrestling and Rasslin

[redrumloa]

I haven't followed wrestling hardly at all in roughly 15 years. WCW went belly up and sold to WWF (now WWE) in 2001. With no competition, WWE got lazy. It also didn't help that WWE in late 1999, then the final straw was when they went PG in 2008. The product has just been getting worse and worse. Any time i do try to turn it on, I am shocked how much worse it has gotten. I can't sit through more than a few minutes. TNA, or whatever it is called these days, never really was competition. Of course, since around the late 90s the "protect kayfabe at all costs" pretty abruptly stopped. Vince McMahon was forced to testify that wrestling outcomes were predetermined, and the industry stopped being regulated as a sport.

Wrestling in the US has been around for over 150 years. Live show attendance in current year is the absolute lowest in history. In history!!! I don't see the cat ever being put back in the bag. That being said, just MAYBE there is one last chance. There is a brand new upstart company called All Elite Wrestling (AEW). It is owned by Shahid Khan, billionaire owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team. There is a ton of hype around it. Their first pay per view is later this month, with the live attendance tickets long ago sold out, and they have inked a TV deal with TNT. One thing that really caught my attention is that interviews, promos etc will NOT be scripted! That's part of what used to help blur the lines between fiction and reality. Real life drama would bleed into story lines.

Have you heard of AEW? Do you plan on giving it a chance at all? i used to love wrestling in the 70s through 90s. i really, really hope AEW turns back the clock and goes old school. I doubt it, but I will give it a chance. Here's hoping.

 

[redrumloa]

For the longest time, wrestling was a big deal. It bled over into other parts of society. Gorgeous George's was the inspiration for both Liberace's flamboyance, and Muhammad Ali's braggadocious behavior.

 

[redrumloa]

Twenty years on, Owen Hart’s death is still painful for WWE fans
This week marked 20 years since the most tragic moment in wrestling history — and new revelations have shed more light on Owen Hart’s death.

Paramedics work on Owen Hart after his tragic fall. (AP Photo/The Kansas City Star, Todd Feeback)Source:AP

Twenty years ago the biggest in-ring disaster to ever hit the WWE, or as it was then known, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), shook the industry to its core.

Owen Hart, performing as The Blue Blazer, fell 23 metres to his death, live on the Over the Edge pay-per-view at Kansas City’s Kemper Arena.

To say it was a dark day would be an understatement — Hart was known as a prankster and some would say the best wrestler in the entire Hart wrestling family, which included his brother Bret, a seven-time World Champion.

 

[redrumloa]

I think this falls in the rasslin category. For most of it's history, Pro Wrestling was thought to be legitimate. While not often caught on camera, the heels (bad guys) getting heat (angering fans), would cause a near riot, or at times a full riot. The heels often would have to fight for their life leaving shows and just in daily living. I stumbled upon one example actually caught on film. The title says 60s, this is more like 73-74.

For a little background, Ox Baker was using his signature "Heart Punch" that he always claimed killed 2 men he faced in the ring. Sounds silly right? Well the truth is stranger than fiction. Ox Baker actually had 2 men die in the ring wrestling him. It is believed to be a coincidence and they had underlying medical issues, but those coincidences were turned into an angle. Wrestlers dying in the ring was not common at all, even back then. So one wrestler having it happen twice? And using it for heat?

Sports Entertainment is clearly fake, but Wrasslin was not.

 

[redrumloa]

Oh yeah, if Ox Baker looks at all familiar...

 

[redrumloa]

Back when Wrestling was "real" and culture was not over the top PC. Try watching from 18 seconds on without laughing.