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Tried looking to see if there was a S1 thread to continue but I can't find it, so...here we go. Season 2, with Chris Jericho as narrator (they needed a Canadian to help secure funding for VICE/CanCon reasons) starts Tuesday night with the two hour/two part episode on Chris Benoit. Part 1 is available for free on YouTube (though only in the U.S., I think) right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkUsAztC4Xc The other episodes coming this season, most of which sound awesome, are: Dino Bravo Brawl For All New Jack (Focusing on him in general with Mass Transit, Vic Grimes, and Gypsy Joe as the focal points.) David Schultz (Heavy on John Stossel but not completely about that, IIRC.) Jimmy Snuka/Nancy Argentino The Road Warriors Herb Abrams (I don't know if they're gonna end up using it, but I sent them some documents for this one.) Owen Hart (Trailer shows that they interviewed Martha, who hasn't talked in who knows how long.) As for Benoit part 1? It's significantly better than anything from season 1, and I *liked* season 1, even if I agreed that it was uneven in parts (the weird Moolah ending, some rough edits for time especially in the Gino episode where it felt like you missed something, etc.), but this was absolutely fantastic, no doubt about it. They got interviews with basically everyone you could hope for other than Kevin Sullivan, Martina Benoit, and Vince McMahon. They got tons of access to photos and home videos from David and/or Nancy's sister, so the look and feel is much different, too, with minimal fuzzy dreamworld reenactments in part 1. The hour ends with everyone finding out about the deaths of Chris, Nancy, and Daniel. What will probably end up being one of the most talked about things is that they *explicitly* accuse Kevin Sullivan of beating Nancy during the tail end of their marriage. Sandra Toffoloni (Nancy's sister), Vickie Guerrero, and Julie Simon (Dean's wife; they call her Malenko but it feels weird to write that in this context) all give detailed accounts of what Nancy told them, seeing black eyes, etc. When the show reached out on the record, Kevin denied (off-camera) that there was any abuse. This is noteworthy because while it was known/suspected to some degree, nobody with direct knowledge had ever come out and said anything publicly. Meltzer danced around it by only saying that the only "Nicole Brown Simpson-like photos" Nancy had taken that were found were "from a previous relationship." Matthew Randazzo did report in Ring of Hell that Kevin badly beat her in Japan in an incident that sent her into Chris's arms elsewhere in the hotel, but that was it. It's also made pretty explicit that on top of the weird shoot angle with Chris and Nancy pretending to be in a relationship and Chris and Martina having issues leading to the affair, that Chris was a major help in helping Nancy leave Kevin for her own safety. The impression you get if you know the larger story and the basic timeline is that Kevin became physically abusive when his drinking and drug problems got really bad.
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Mar 21, 2020 08:54
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looking forward to season 3 featuring Dennis Stamp and how such a promising talent was never booked
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Mar 21, 2020 10:16
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I'm not someone that really cries much at all but when Chavo was describing how Eddie literally died in his arms and how visibly affected everyone in the documentary still was about that situation and the funeral, and how Chavo said Benoit reacted to the news...man, that had me real weepy 
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Mar 21, 2020 12:00
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Paper Lion posted:I'm not someone that really cries much at all but when Chavo was describing how Eddie literally died in his arms and how visibly affected everyone in the documentary still was about that situation and the funeral, and how Chavo said Benoit reacted to the news...man, that had me real weepy The stuff about Eddie's death was heartbreaking and that photo they showed of Daniel and David Benoit absolutely destroyed me
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Mar 21, 2020 13:06
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Jesus, narrating the Benoit episode for Jericho must have been tough
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Mar 21, 2020 13:12
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I thought it was really good, wonder if part 2 will go more into detail of how the warning signs were all there before Eddie died, like they kind of gloss over that he was pretty sociopathic and his role as a lockerroom hazer. Wasn't there some other show that talked about the Benoit murder suicide recently?
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Mar 21, 2020 15:13
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I think it's in Part 2 but at one point Jericho makes an insanely absurd statement that under the Wellness Policy it was literally impossible to do any drugs. Like, I know that people (Evan Bourne comes to mind) got busted for weed at various points but then, like now, your punishment was clearly a matter of where you were on the card. The Ring of Hell guy also goes hard into the steroid angle before also lending credence to the CTE aspect. I never finished that book so I don't know which theory he ended up landing on. Other than the above comment I liked what Jericho added to the doc. Describing how he found out about the deaths as well as detailing some of the behaviour changes in Benoit after Eddie died provided a lot of necessary details to the story. Vickie, David, and Sandra are the best of the interviews though. Even if you know and have heard every detail of this story, Vickie will break your heart. I think the doc works well because it almost works as a piece about Eddie too, since you really can't tell Chris's story without Eddie or vice versa. achillesforever6 posted:I thought it was really good, wonder if part 2 will go more into detail of how the warning signs were all there before Eddie died, like they kind of gloss over that he was pretty sociopathic and his role as a lockerroom hazer. IIRC there isn't anything about him hazing folks in the locker room. They talk about how his mood/mind changed after Eddie died as it relates to Nancy and Vickie but I don't recall anything about what he was like backstage. One thing I do like is that it traces the diving headbutt from Harley to Dynamite to Benoit and how Harley begged wrestlers not to do that move anymore, then you saw what happened to Dynamite and Chris. flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Mar 21, 2020 |
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Mar 21, 2020 16:03
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Really didn't need to know about Vicki and Eddie's antics in bed.
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Mar 21, 2020 17:57
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Davros1 posted:Really didn't need to know about Vicki and Eddie's antics in bed. It wouldn't be a wrestling thing in 2020 if it wasn't at least 3% horny. Seriously thinking about the Three Amigos as a sexual position tho flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Mar 21, 2020 |
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Mar 21, 2020 18:52
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I didn't know Chris Benoit was literally not functioning any longer as soon as Eddie Guerrero died but I sure wish he had been able and willing to get help for it.
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Mar 21, 2020 19:02
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Cavauro posted:I didn't know Chris Benoit was literally not functioning any longer as soon as Eddie Guerrero died but I sure wish he had been able and willing to get help for it. On the RAW is Eddie they panned to Benoit and the guy was ugly crying during the 10 bell salute. I think Victor Mar (another close friend, a liaison for NJPW ) also passed around the same time. Guy was a wreck.
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Mar 21, 2020 19:07
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Wrestlers doing their moves in bed has got to be one of the worst-kept secrets out there
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Mar 21, 2020 19:07
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Benne posted:Wrestlers doing their moves in bed has got to be one of the worst-kept secrets out there Oh god Orton's poor wife
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Mar 21, 2020 19:11
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Someone please check on Zack Sabre's sexual partners
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Mar 21, 2020 19:15
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Benne posted:Wrestlers doing their moves in bed has got to be one of the worst-kept secrets out there I mean the best move has to be a sit out powerbomb, right?
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Mar 21, 2020 19:40
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Dell_Zincht posted:I mean the best move has to be a sit out powerbomb, right? Stretch muffler
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Mar 21, 2020 21:09
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Bix, what were the issues leading to the breakup of Martina and Chris? It's really not touched on much at all and may not have been anything very serious but I did wonder if he had a history of abuse prior to Nancy.
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Mar 21, 2020 21:17
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I just got to the bit where Vickie is showing photos from Chris & Nancy's wedding & I'll be honest, barely avoided crying. And some of that home video footage. God.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:16
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flashy_mcflash posted:I think it's in Part 2 but at one point Jericho makes an insanely absurd statement that under the Wellness Policy it was literally impossible to do any drugs. Like, I know that people (Evan Bourne comes to mind) got busted for weed at various points but then, like now, your punishment was clearly a matter of where you were on the card. El Gallinero Gros posted:On the RAW is Eddie they panned to Benoit and the guy was ugly crying during the 10 bell salute. I think Victor Mar (another close friend, a liaison for NJPW ) also passed around the same time. Guy was a wreck. And Meltzer, I believe, wrote something about how Chris, even more than most wrestlers, was just *surrounded* by early, tragic death from pretty early in his career. I think there may have been even more who he mentioned, but the ones that I remember were that Larry Cameron, Brian Pillman, and Owen Hart were all really good friends of his. They all died prematurely over the course of just over five and a half years. And not young deaths, but Stu and Helen Hart's passings would have hit him hart, too, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He probably needed it anyway, but dude should have been in some serious therapy just for his grief issues by 2000 at the latest. Hell, even if he had no other issues, I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose your very best friend in the whole world suddenly and then lose another TWO of your very best friends within four months of that. That will take a massive toll on ANYONE. flashy_mcflash posted:Bix, what were the issues leading to the breakup of Martina and Chris? It's really not touched on much at all and may not have been anything very serious but I did wonder if he had a history of abuse prior to Nancy.
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Mar 22, 2020 03:19
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So the whole "Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce" thing is, uh, a lot less funny in retrospect
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Mar 22, 2020 03:38
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It was already a really morbid concept considering why it actually happened so no one should let that stop them
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Mar 22, 2020 03:42
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davidbix posted:Where did you get to see part 2 already? Have there been CanCon airings or something? I reached out to Vice and requested a press/review screener and they gave me one! I wrote up a review of it a few weeks ago but it was embargoed until last Friday. quote:I'm not aware of anything specific, but someone, I think it was Sandra, says in part 1 that Chris and Martina were having issues circa '97 and that made it a lot more likely that he and Nancy would inevitably get together under the circumstances. (Both the affair shoot angle part and the helping her escape an abusive husband part.) Yeah that's the part I was referring to but Martina is never mentioned again so my assumption was that it was just an unhappy relationship with Chris and not abuse.
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Mar 22, 2020 03:47
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flashy_mcflash posted:I reached out to Vice and requested a press/review screener and they gave me one! I wrote up a review of it a few weeks ago but it was embargoed until last Friday.
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Mar 22, 2020 04:06
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davidbix posted:They've been really weirdly stingy with media this season, at least from my own experience and who I've spoken to, so I'm surprised you got through. Got a link to the review? And were they able to provide any other screeners yet? I know that they're still working on the season as it airs this time and that it couldn't be every episode. I can DM you the review on Twitter since I don't really like putting my actual name on here but it was surprisingly easy to get it! I did a little preview post for the season on our site and linked Vice to that, and they got in contact with me. No other screeners yet though.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:55
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As a happily married lady goon and mother the Benoit wedding photos hit me like a truck. I had to stop watching and do something else for at least 30 minutes before I got back from every "commercial" break. I know the general story and each passing segment meant I'm getting closer to the murder suicide. Later I did the math and realized Vickie was the same age as me (37) when Eddie passed. My family is driving me crazy with the quarantine but I'm going to hug and kiss them more. I teared up with Benoit when the original tribute aired and seeing it again after learning all of the back story, well, 
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Mar 22, 2020 06:57
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animeluva1 posted:As a happily married lady goon and mother the Benoit wedding photos hit me like a truck. I had to stop watching and do something else for at least 30 minutes before I got back from every "commercial" break. I know the general story and each passing segment meant I'm getting closer to the murder suicide. And now thinking about that made me angry all over again about how Vince handled giving her a job so she could support her kids, keep her house, etc. From the bullying to grossly underpaying her to getting angry when Eddy's brothers wanting to do a benefit show for her (because only WWE can support Vickie!)...there was a lot of openly pathological poo poo going on, and outside of the onscreen stuff, it's been forgotten.
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Mar 22, 2020 07:09
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WWE turning Vickie into a fat-shaming cartoon villain while paying her peanuts is lowkey one of the grossest things they've done this century.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:11
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Benne posted:WWE turning Vickie into a fat-shaming cartoon villain while paying her peanuts is lowkey one of the grossest things they've done this century. I've always hated that poo poo. I always wondered how you would take the wife of one of their beloved stars and make her a villain and shame her and then get the crowd to go with it. People can say Vickie was a good performer but I'm more willing to say the fans were assholes.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:14
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TheKingslayer posted:I've always hated that poo poo. I always wondered how you would take the wife of one of their beloved stars and make her a villain and shame her and then get the crowd to go with it. People can say Vickie was a good performer but I'm more willing to say the fans were assholes. It's equally insane when you see her in interviews and she comes off as the sweetest person alive with a heart of gold, and could be such a great babyface in whatever role you wanna give her on TV, whether as an interviewer or manager. Instead, they did ... that. If there's anyone I'm hoping AEW rehabs and turns around careers, give Vickie a salary job and just let her be a Cool Aunt on TV. It's the role she was born to play and would get over loving huge.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:23
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So I watched part 1 of the Benoit one and I did like how it tied Eddie's tragedy into Benoit's breakdown and their history which lead up to the murder suicide. I assume part 2 is more about the drug testing, the CTE and fallout of Benoit's actions. I also went and binged Season 1. I watched the Brody one when it was released, and while most of it was stuff i knew, hearing it from Tony Atlas was heart breaking, Abby still working for the documentary sucked rear end and he comes off like a prick in it, which from what i remember isn't far off. The Moolah one was hit and miss, the Sweet Georgia Brown, Wendi, and Princess Victoria's early part of the interview were good, but that closing part was weird and seemed to contradict her previous statement. I wish they interviewed more women against Moolah than for her like Mad Maxine who spoke out against her when the Battle Royal was named. The Von Erichs one was pretty cut and dry with nothing that new or elaborated on besides it coming off more as Kevin's final say about his family. They kind of sugar coated Fritz being a piece of poo poo though. The Gino Hernandez one was good and a story i didn't really know much about, though it felt a bit rushed with the ending and kind of off tone with the John Royal & the anonymous friend of theirs who apparently knew what happened. The Montreal Screwjob and the Savage/Elizabeth ones were kind of the weakest of the group The Von Erichs, Moolah, Gino, and Brody ones all have a darker, sadder, and realer tone that I think would make them more interesting to non-wrestling fans than something about a bad business and Macho/Elizabeth kind of brushing over the rampant rumors of domestic violence with Savage. I think the weakest ones of this season are Brawl for All & Road Warriors, besides Hawk's downward spiral. I'm interested to see if there is more to Dino Bravo's life than the murder and how much it goes into it possibly being a mob related thing. David Schultz one is kind of whatever to me, i dont really know how much more of Schultz's life is controversial enough to have a near 44 minute episode about him, unless its more about wrestlers trying to protect kayfabe and assaulting people/reporters, like Vader did.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:44
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Benne posted:It's equally insane when you see her in interviews and she comes off as the sweetest person alive with a heart of gold, and could be such a great babyface in whatever role you wanna give her on TV, whether as an interviewer or manager. Instead, they did ... that.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:45
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There was the story about Owen's funeral, where the WWF sent a giant wreath, and it, of course, had the WWF logo in it. The story goes that Martha immediately had it trashed.
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Mar 22, 2020 08:46
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I lost interest in the Montreal episode once it became clear that it was just Prichard and Cornette shilling the company line, with only small snippets of Bret giving his side of the story. By the time they put Russo on screen I switched it off cause it just felt like a hatchet job at that point. Say what you will about Bret, his strong stance was way ahead of its time even today, and Montreal was such a blatant contract breach that he had every right to fight it. Saying that he should've "taken one for the team" is gross corporate bootlicking.
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Mar 22, 2020 09:57
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I don't blame Bret a bit for putting his foot down and not continuing to let Shawn have his way like he had every time until then.
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Mar 22, 2020 10:09
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which wrestler immediately thought benoit killed his family? i remember hearing someone correctly assumed the truth and gave a real distant interview for the tribute show
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Mar 22, 2020 19:12
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WatermelonGun posted:which wrestler immediately thought benoit killed his family? i remember hearing someone correctly assumed the truth and gave a real distant interview for the tribute show You can tell Regal knew something was up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp3OQAL22T8
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Mar 22, 2020 19:22
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The thing I still can't comprehend (in regards to Bret) is that Vince gave him any measure of creative control. And as much as I hate to play Devil's Advocate on the Vicki thing she was a dull-rear end face and a terrific heel. But learning that WWE paid her peanuts while putting her out there to get humiliated was just...well it was in the NY64 for a reason.
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Mar 22, 2020 19:28
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dsriggs posted:You can tell Regal knew something was up that’s it! thanks dude
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Mar 22, 2020 19:41
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dsriggs posted:You can tell Regal knew something was up In this case the company had already been informed it was a murder investigation and Regal would have also known about the texts and voicemails, plus Dave Taylor's visits to the house so he wasn't assuming anything.
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Mar 22, 2020 19:46
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In the case of Vicki - and this is only referring to heel/face dynamic - I thought she had a lot of fun being a heel? Especially since she was so over and got such a great response with EXCUSE ME
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Mar 22, 2020 21:04
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