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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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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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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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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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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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MassRafTer posted: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 21:43
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El Gallinero Gros posted:I don't doubt this but where'd this come from ? It's news to me.
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Mar 22, 2020 22:17
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One of the more weird/memorable stories from the aftermath was that one day, Benoit called Regal out of the blue after not hanging out for a very long time, and asked him to come over and watch AJPW tapes. Regal went over and Chris refused to let him in the house, acting like he had no idea why he was there.
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Mar 23, 2020 02:53
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Just finished watching part 2. I'm really, really glad that David and Sandra are back in touch, if nothing else. Grief does terrible things to people. but whatever family member lied to her and Chris's surviving kids, telling them that the other wanted nothing to do with each other...that's a terrible thing to do someone. That said: I was absolutely not prepared for the part about Sandra witnessing the aftermath of an incident where Chris was abusive to Nancy and refused to elaborate about what he did past that "...he hurt her..." out of sensitivity to Chris's surviving kids.
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Mar 25, 2020 07:17
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El Gallinero Gros posted:I won't be watching the Benoit one for emotional reasons (grief issues of my own), but is the Moolah episode worth watching? I watched the Gino episode and agree it flowed strangely. I also felt the end was kinda weird, his mom just kinda accepted the explanations she got then decided to have a margarita? Honestly, once this season is put to bed, I'd love for Jason to go in and do director's cuts of season 1, because it seems like he has a MUCH better handle on what the show should be now.
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Mar 25, 2020 20:13
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It just occurred to me that the whole "why are Benoit and friends acting like Sullivan is gonna screw with them as booker when it seems like he genuinely has zero plans to do so?" thing makes a whole lot more sense now. When you know not just that Kevin was physically abusive—which there were whispers of, albeit nothing clearly sourced—but also that Benoit and friends and their wives went through the whole ordeal of helping Nancy leave Kevin? You get why "Kevin's gonna make Chris world champion!" meant absolutely nothing to them.
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Mar 25, 2020 20:48
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punk rebel ecks posted:Everyone keeps saying that Tony Atlas is completely full of poo poo. People never elaborate why though.
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Mar 27, 2020 03:50
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Something to keep in mind with Mass Transit/Erik Kulas is that New Jack didn't use a regular wrestling blade. He used, depending on the source, either a surgical scalpel or an X-Acto knife. He would have still hosed the kid up with a regular blade, but not nearly as badly. (There were rumors at the time that the knife was something collected into New Jack's "fans bring the weapons" trash can at the door, with a story of a fan yelling "Hey! That's my knife!" being out there. But I don't think that's ever been close to confirmed.)
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Mar 28, 2020 02:16
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I should note that while I don't doubt that Benoit's brain was hosed up, the slides shared publicly of his brain tissue bear noticeable similarities to the ones where Dr. Omalu zoomed in extra far to make more questionable brains look riddled with CTE. Compare them with what's laid out here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/sports/cte-bennet-omalu/ WWE has also long claimed that Omalu didn't keep any chain of custody records and that there's thus no scientifically certain proof that it was Chris Benoit's brain. I've pretty much given up on trying to determine if that's true. The lawyer from the WWE concussion lawsuits disputes this, citing Omalu's pathology report: https://wweconcussionlawsuitnews.com/memory-of-chris-benoit-cte-wrestler-mistreatment-haunt-mcmahon-wwe-legacy/
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Mar 29, 2020 07:37
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Bizarro Kanyon posted:I think he is generally tired of discussing it. He was not in WWE at the time that this happened and so he became the non-wwe guy to speak on shows. I remember him arguing with people about steroids, roid rage and wrestling causing people to be violent (kids imitating it). After 13 years, it has probably just become something that he can toss out some responses because that is all he has left.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:23
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Ganso Bomb posted:I really have no concept of Herb Abrams and the UWF. I've always heard the names bounced around but I didn't grow up with it and never did any research on it. Would I be better served to wait for this episode to come out, or should I prep with these videos folks have posted? https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1246109341947658241
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Apr 3, 2020 17:17
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MorrisBae posted:Oh my god. How have I never seen this before... I have the Nevada State Athletic Commission file for Blackjack Brawl, which, like any event file they have, has the event's "Club Report," a detailed breakdown of the tickets sold and circulated including price tiers. There were 640 tickets sold to the UWF Blackjack Brawl for a gate of $13,362.
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Apr 4, 2020 08:34
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Macrame_God posted:I'm curious if they'll do an episode on the WCW discrimination lawsuit. A lot of things factored in to the fall of WCW and that, in my opinion, was one of them. Racism is rampant in pro wrestling but a lot of the stories that came out of that lawsuit were extremely disgusting. EDIT: This reminds me...does ANYONE have the Stevie Ray podcast episode with the Title Match Wrestling people where he was asked who "the most racist person in WCW" was, answered Terry Taylor, and explained why? Audio or video, doesn't matter. It disappeared from the internet six months after it was released and there aren't that many traces of it, period. davidbix fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Apr 13, 2020 |
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Apr 13, 2020 06:49
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Davros1 posted:One thing I didn't like was how they made it seem like Snuka's career went downhill after the incident. I mean, he was with the WWF for 2 years after the incident, was a character in the WWF cartoon, had an action figure made of him, was brought back full time in 89, was inducted into the HoF in 96, and had his last Wrestlemania match in 2009.
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Apr 15, 2020 16:55
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He had literally just started in the territory (in wrestling period, actually) as Samoan #4 a week or so earlier. He never, ever appeared on TV as Samoan #4, and became Tonga Kid after about three months. He was a 17 year old kid who was new to the area and had just broken in. I'd be shocked if he wasn't making the TV tapings just to show his face and help out the other Samoans. The Snuka car trip thing is a *little* weird because Sam was a heel, but being that he had literally just started and wasn't on TV, that may not mean much at all.
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Apr 15, 2020 19:56
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OFFICER LIGER posted:hes just saying he didn't wrestle, it's probable that he was told to go travel with jimmy to get some road experience and had nancy not been there, he probably would have been his driver.
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Apr 15, 2020 22:00
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punk rebel ecks posted:Tonga Kid is also super in denial. Who gives a poo poo if Jimmy was nice AROUND YOU, that's how domestic abusers work.
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Apr 19, 2020 05:20
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Mob posted:That was the first one of these where I felt like I learned actually nothing at all new about the story
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Apr 22, 2020 21:41
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Seams posted:What relationship do the producers of the show have with WWE? None of the episodes so far have really painted WWE in a truly negative light. I'm worried that the Owen episode is gonna be a whitewash.
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Apr 23, 2020 00:33
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sportsgenius86 posted:I just watched the Snuka episode and I don’t say this to be mean, but watching them question Sam Fatu was like watching the police interrogate a slow person. He was mostly just repeating back the question and mentally I wonder how much he’s really there.
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Apr 24, 2020 03:24
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GERDALDO. RIVERA. https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1255370703517425665
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Apr 29, 2020 06:43
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He's a big fan of cousin marriage, too: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124241&page=1 I did think this was the most sober and honest and human he's looked talking about the wrestling expose and lawsuit, even if he still came off sleazy and unlikable.
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Apr 30, 2020 02:40
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By the way... https://twitter.com/BTSheetsPod/status/1255647818263547906 MorrisBae posted:Oh my god Macrame_God posted:I actually had a lot of thoughts after the end of the most recent episode...
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Apr 30, 2020 07:32
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MorrisBae posted:The date says February 10, 1996 , which was a Saturday. Zoogz Rift was back in the company at that point and said in interviews he was pushing Herb to be more like ECW. Sid's WWF contract ended in January 1996, and there wasn't any ECW shows the weekend of February 10th, so that explains the timing. Herb deciding to finally book this because Sid had become available again over a year later is just FANTASTIC.
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Apr 30, 2020 23:31
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CHEAP PLUG. What's probably the only Herb Abrams UWF deep dive podcast that I believe was probably used as research by some of the DSoTR producers is now FREE: https://twitter.com/BTSheetsPod/status/1256229705696632832 https://twitter.com/BTSheetsPod/status/1256232089327996928
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May 1, 2020 15:50
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Dr. Clockwork posted:I've enjoyed every episode of this, but there's a wide range of "darkness" in this show between Benoit and other murders, and the time a guy slapped a reporter.
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May 3, 2020 03:05
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Rick posted:I don't really like the light ones because they're the ones they're the loosest with the facts on. You can't really bullshit on life and death stuff but they'll happily pretend that David Schultz was main eventing in WWF before the slap for the sake of making the show.
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May 5, 2020 06:25
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Troy Queef posted:Steve Ray breaking up at how Herb believed in him and was willing to give him a push got to me. didn't Bix say on his podcast that Steve was a mid-card guy in the foundering Central States promotion before UWF?
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May 7, 2020 00:19
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I dunno which thread this should go in, so let's start here! https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1258721603552247813
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May 8, 2020 15:38
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I got a screener of the Owen Hart episode for something I'm working on. It's really, really good. If you know the granular details, then there won't be much in the way of new information, but it lays out enough that people's reactions are going to be VERY interesting. The real story is FAR from having ever hit hardcore fan critical mass, and there's enough of it here, although the full timeline/details of the rigger changes wasn't something they had room for, even if it's makes the WWE negligence more egregious. It's an especially strong look at the emotions surrounding everything and especially Martha and the kids's side of the WWE HOF bullshit. Its as simple as not wanting to company that killed him to "honor" him, or, as Oje says, "put his name on a piece of silver" just to say they did, as well as how they feel the Owen Hart Foundation is his real legacy. Martha also shows them the clip/snap shackle, which is tinier and opens with less apparent force than you could have ever imagined. All of the talking heads give good insight. Cornette even breaks down crying on camera; he clearly had not ever fully reckoned with it before filming. Well worth watching.
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May 12, 2020 05:45
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MorrisBae posted:Does WWE still edit Mel Phillips out of old footage, or was that just done on DVD's?
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May 14, 2020 22:42
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I guess I'll put this here? https://twitter.com/davidbix/status/1263157748893650944
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May 20, 2020 18:52
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349,000 total viewers (previous high was 320,000 for Benoit). 0.18% rating in the key demo (previous high was 0.14% for Benoit; last week's NXT did a 0.15% rating in the demo). 31st highest rated premiere on cable in the key demo all day Tuesday. (Previous high was 68th place for the Road Warriors episode last week.) Yeeeeeeaaaah, it looks like we're getting a third season.
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May 20, 2020 21:53
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MJeff posted:I hear there was a fake blood spot with the Hardys and the Brood earlier in the night and that might've been the stain in the ring but I've also heard that it was done on the outside. Can anybody confirm one way or the other?
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May 21, 2020 00:21
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thatguyclint posted:I just pulled up Roy Lucier's copy of the 5/23/99 Heat on Dailymotion, and there's one stain left where Matt puts his "bloody" arm on the apron, but it's near a different corner than the one Owen came down in.
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May 21, 2020 01:33
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