Wrestling is the home of some of the bootstrapiest of bootstrap mentalities. "I had nothing, was homeless and broke, and I worked my way to where I am through my own hard work" is a common refrain that transcends gender and race in the wrestling business. Because quite frankly, "if I can crawl my way through this river of shit to get to where I am today, then everyone can" is a pretty seductive mentality to justify why you have success and money and others don't.
It's hard for some people to admit that maybe they just got lucky, or that someone gave them an inroad that others could never get, or anything that would imply that they got help that others did not. To them, everything they got they earned through grit and training and sheer will, and nobody can take what they earned from them.
It's a poisonous mentality, and one that's all too prevalent in wrestling.
It's also a mentality that Bruan doesn't even really deserve compared to other people that really had to work for their spot, as this Reddit poster points out:
Allow me to give some context to Braun Strowman's career.
In the early 2010s Adam Scherr was a strongman competitor, and a damn good one admittedly. He went from amateur to pro in record time. Let's not downplay this part of events, because the upcoming parts of this aren't just because he was lying on the couch and got his name picked in a raffle.
So he makes friends with Mark Henry and a few years later, roundabout 2012, he approaches Adam and tells him to come try out for WWE. As in, he was specifically scouted to come down and be there, and given the stamp of approval of Mark Fucking Henry. When Braun talks about driving to Florida in a Kia Soul with $150, he wasn't some hopeful just going down on a lick and a promise, this was more like when Bruce Pritchard drove Mark Calaway to meet Vince and sign.
Okay, so now Adam Scherr signs. He bounces around the PC, shows up as a Rosebud, and his very first match is at the tail end of December 2014. This is important. Adam has seven matches over the next few months. Five of them are at live events, and two of them are at TV tapings and go so badly that they don't get aired, including one on Main Event. Braun did so badly he couldn't get shown on Main Event. Afterwards he bopped back down to NXT for 2 more matches there.
Alright, so that's 7 bad matches. So what? Well guess what happened after his 7 bad matches? He debuted on the main roster, in August of 2015, in a feud with Roman and Dean. Braun's 8th match, the first televised match of his entire life, less than 8 months into his career, was against Dean Ambrose on Monday Night Raw. Braun's whole life wrestling experience was the same that Dean had that week. What was his 9th match? A pay-per-view main card match with the Wyatts against Dean, Roman, and Jericho. This guy with less than ten matches was in the ring with three legendary workhorses and two incredibly solid legacy performers.
To put it another way, those 7 matches weren't to see if Braun had what it took to be on the main roster, they were there to help get him as prepared as possible for a main roster push that Vince had already decided he was going to get. Braun's situation was never about working to earn his spot, the spot was preordained, everyone around him was just working to make sure he wouldn't totally botch it when he went out on TV. His matches were all customized to hide how green he was, because Vince had plans for him to be main event no matter what.
Braun took the opportunity and absolutely ran with it, but for him to act like he got to where he is thanks to his own elbow grease and dedication is absolute dogshit. He was specially selected, with zero wrestling experience, to be a main event performer. He wasn't given those matches on the back of anything related to his ability as a wrestler. Not his ring work, not his promos. Braun was gift-wrapped a main event role, and for him to come out now and act like he's there because of bootstraps and everyone in a panic over losing indie dates is just lazy and entitled is fucking laughable.
ChillyWilly on
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I like Brodie and Dean, but I would never describe them as 'legendary workhorses.'
I'm not sure Jericho is a workhorse either. Jericho is a consummate performer, but he doesn't make people look good with how hard he wrestles, but because he knows how to highlight an opponents strengths and hide their flaws.
Not that any of that matters to the larger point, which is unsurprising about Braun.
ESPN is airing WrestleMania 30 right now, which stands as this monument to the idea that WWE can occasionally get things incredibly right at a level that no other company can really compete with.
And then you look at the current landscape and remember that the reason there’s so much wrestling today is because those images of perfection from WWE are so few and far between.
So this is as heartwrenching as you might expect, and as it is part one, it ends with the announcement of Chris Benoit's death. Most of it focuses on his and Eddie's careers before hands, the death of Eddie, and all of the emotions and events around that. As a head's up.
AEW seems to be loosely acknowledging there WILL be a Dynamite this week... they've gone from "next Dynamite" to using an actual date (March 25) in their promotional material
Wait holy shit he can put up his AAA belt on AEW? Are they....are they cool with that?
Also, great matchup!
EDIT: Well they retweeted it so I guess so!
This will be his 2nd AEW defense, iirc. The first was on a Dark last year.
That's interesting. I suppose to Lucha Libre it's promoting their brand to a potentially larger audience who doesn't know about them? But I wonder if they're okay with the belt actually dropping on AEW at all?
If they can do more cross-promotion championship matches like this rather than invent mid-tier belts that'd be pretty sweet.
Wait holy shit he can put up his AAA belt on AEW? Are they....are they cool with that?
Also, great matchup!
EDIT: Well they retweeted it so I guess so!
This will be his 2nd AEW defense, iirc. The first was on a Dark last year.
That's interesting. I suppose to Lucha Libre it's promoting their brand to a potentially larger audience who doesn't know about them? But I wonder if they're okay with the belt actually dropping on AEW at all?
If they can do more cross-promotion championship matches like this rather than invent mid-tier belts that'd be pretty sweet.
Fenix defended the title 4 times in a year of holding it. That belt doesn't matter much to AAA.
Matt Hardy says his AEW contract allows him to wrestle in New Japan
I can't imagine why NJPW would want him. He's not that good of a wrestler.
Let's be honest, he's pretty Greta now. However New Japan give no fuck about talent in their foreigners and it's all about name value so he could easily get a couple of tours out of them.
While Braun's busy bragging about showing tough love, actual good examples of what people who've made it should do include:
Jon Moxley, who donated over a grand to OTT's crowdfund after their biggest show of the year got cancelled due to coronavirus;
David Starr, who's spent years consistently pushing for unions and better working conditions for wrestlers, even at the risk of being blackballed from companies over it;
Mustafa Ali, who spent over a week promoting Freelance Wrestling's warehouse event on social media (because indy wrestling surviving any hardship it could any way it could was a cause he believed in), and then when it got cancelled earlier today due to the Illinois governor's shelter act, still took time to let the company and its scheduled talent know he'd make good on his promise to donate to cover all the talent's pay for the event
March 30 - April 6 (the originally scheduled Mania week), Lio Rush is going to do weekly livestreams (3 a day) with special guests from the indies, including wrestlers, refs, announcers, etc, whose schedules are currently free due to the coronavirus situation making their short-term and long-term future more questionable. At the end of each stream Lio will provide a link to the talent's CashApp, Paypal, or merch page, encourage fans to donate, and make his own donations
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One thing (among many) that I enjoy about AEW is that they aren't as concerned that everyone looks like a roided up meat mountain, just as long as they can actually work. Vince wouldn't even have someone else give a guy like Chuck Taylor the time of day but the dude can obviously go.
Cool! Have they figured out how to give health insurance to people who aren't management yet?
I thought they had that sorted out a while ago? I remember reading an interview where Khan, I think, mentioned that most of the talent would have two jobs, wrestling and some backstage role like training or booking or what have you and would get health insurance through the latter.
Last I knew, Khan had been cornered on it and everyone's getting different deals depending on their role in the company. Didn't give a straighter answer than that.
I'm not going to be his apologist, but part of it, I think, is that they look at the other things they do differently from WWE such as giving lots of time off, giving the wrestlers a lot of freedom, and paying them all (at least everyone who's talked about it) really well, and include that as part of the discussion. They also pay for any injuries that occur.
Thus far the picture I get is that everyone wanted to go straight to making all of the wrestlers employees, giving them health insurance, etc., and I think when it came time to making it happen they found out it's a lot harder than they thought. Maybe I'm an easy mark, I dunno! But what I do know is that the WWE Independent Contractor situation evolved straight from wrestlers being in multiple promotions simultaneously back in ye olden times, and that's the case for a considerable amount of AEW talent.
I'm sure a bean-counter or two cocked their head to the side when Moxley joined AEW and went to New Japan right away to be put through a table, when health insurance was undoubtedly brought up as a package option. On the one hand, AEW should stick to their mission statement and give that guy health insurance anyways. On the other hand, maybe they're paying him so well and he's gonna go do stuff with other promotions anyways so who gives a fuck? I dunno! That's kinda another thing, is that your group health premiums maybe take a huge hit if the insurance company knows you're not responsible for every dangerous thing they do? Just a lot to this that we don't know. Would be nice if Tony Khan would sit down and explain sometime.
actually I wanna address the idea of Tony explaining further, why should he have to?
He was clear if you also have a backstage role you get health insurance, he shouldn't have to make an itemized list of who does and doesn't have an extra role to get insurance.
actually I wanna address the idea of Tony explaining further, why should he have to?
He was clear if you also have a backstage role you get health insurance, he shouldn't have to make an itemized list of who does and doesn't have an extra role to get insurance.
He doesn't have to tell us anything at all.
But there are a nonzero number of fans concerned for wrestlers' health and safety, and are into AEW specifically because they're addressing those concerns. And what you've said in two posts is more, and more specific, than what I can find when I google "tony khan aew health insurance" and read his interviews, so either I'm blind or the information isn't as readily available as believed.
Personally speaking, until a wrestler comes forward and tells us AEW's health and safety is horseshit, I'm going to assume that everyone's being taken care of one way or another.
Right now I'm mostly concerned about it because hosting even a crowd free wrrstling show in this environment is wildly irresponsible, and AEW has set a higher standard for itself than WWE has. Like, I know the WWE is fucking this up. This is the perfect storm of all the ways that company sucks hitting at once.
AEW is supposed to be better, and theyve built themselves on a promise of being better. This is the time to prove it.
SDs for the rest of the month were taped on Saturday
NXTs were on Sunday
Today and tomorrow are the remaining Raws
Wednesday and Thursday are the Mania nights
Seems risky not just for corona, but for injuries, to have that many people working together and that often in such a short timespan
If the PC shows they've put on so far have been any indication, there won't be that much actual wrestling on those Raws and SDs. Some of the talent might have to wrestle 2 or 3 times in that week, which is pretty much a normal schedule for them.
If the PC shows they've put on so far have been any indication, there won't be that much actual wrestling on those Raws and SDs. Some of the talent might have to wrestle 2 or 3 times in that week, which is pretty much a normal schedule for them.
PwnanObrienHe's right, life sucks.Registered Userregular
NXT's recap show going into Mania weekend was a pretty clever solution. They have years of footage that the USA Network viewers haven't had access to. WWE's video packages are the one constant high quality aspect of their shows and editing videos can be done from home or at the very least in social isolation at an office. Hell the talking head bits seemed to be mostly pre-taped often in the cavernous void of the Performance Center and the backstage netherverse populated entirely by Finn Balor and some production equipment.
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It's also a mentality that Bruan doesn't even really deserve compared to other people that really had to work for their spot, as this Reddit poster points out:
I'm not sure Jericho is a workhorse either. Jericho is a consummate performer, but he doesn't make people look good with how hard he wrestles, but because he knows how to highlight an opponents strengths and hide their flaws.
Not that any of that matters to the larger point, which is unsurprising about Braun.
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I doubt it will have a clean finish
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And then you look at the current landscape and remember that the reason there’s so much wrestling today is because those images of perfection from WWE are so few and far between.
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So this is as heartwrenching as you might expect, and as it is part one, it ends with the announcement of Chris Benoit's death. Most of it focuses on his and Eddie's careers before hands, the death of Eddie, and all of the emotions and events around that. As a head's up.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic calms down and life returns to normal, all future OSW Patreon content will be free for everyone
Steam
I can't imagine why NJPW would want him. He's not that good of a wrestler.
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Unless I've missed something, they might not be? Last I saw, they were promoting a "face off," which could mean a promo or something?
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
Steam
Also, great matchup!
EDIT: Well they retweeted it so I guess so!
This will be his 2nd AEW defense, iirc. The first was on a Dark last year.
That's interesting. I suppose to Lucha Libre it's promoting their brand to a potentially larger audience who doesn't know about them? But I wonder if they're okay with the belt actually dropping on AEW at all?
If they can do more cross-promotion championship matches like this rather than invent mid-tier belts that'd be pretty sweet.
Fenix defended the title 4 times in a year of holding it. That belt doesn't matter much to AAA.
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Let's be honest, he's pretty Greta now. However New Japan give no fuck about talent in their foreigners and it's all about name value so he could easily get a couple of tours out of them.
Add Lio Rush to the list
March 30 - April 6 (the originally scheduled Mania week), Lio Rush is going to do weekly livestreams (3 a day) with special guests from the indies, including wrestlers, refs, announcers, etc, whose schedules are currently free due to the coronavirus situation making their short-term and long-term future more questionable. At the end of each stream Lio will provide a link to the talent's CashApp, Paypal, or merch page, encourage fans to donate, and make his own donations
Steam
Cool! Have they figured out how to give health insurance to people who aren't management yet?
I think its everyone who has a backstage role and they were trying to give as many people jobs as they could.
Like I assume a good example is Cutler who also does seamstress work with his wife.
Corbin, Breeze and Spears were playing CoD together and gave away a Xbox One X, Brodie Lee joins and wins it. Breeze isnt thrilled lol.
I'm not going to be his apologist, but part of it, I think, is that they look at the other things they do differently from WWE such as giving lots of time off, giving the wrestlers a lot of freedom, and paying them all (at least everyone who's talked about it) really well, and include that as part of the discussion. They also pay for any injuries that occur.
Thus far the picture I get is that everyone wanted to go straight to making all of the wrestlers employees, giving them health insurance, etc., and I think when it came time to making it happen they found out it's a lot harder than they thought. Maybe I'm an easy mark, I dunno! But what I do know is that the WWE Independent Contractor situation evolved straight from wrestlers being in multiple promotions simultaneously back in ye olden times, and that's the case for a considerable amount of AEW talent.
I'm sure a bean-counter or two cocked their head to the side when Moxley joined AEW and went to New Japan right away to be put through a table, when health insurance was undoubtedly brought up as a package option. On the one hand, AEW should stick to their mission statement and give that guy health insurance anyways. On the other hand, maybe they're paying him so well and he's gonna go do stuff with other promotions anyways so who gives a fuck? I dunno! That's kinda another thing, is that your group health premiums maybe take a huge hit if the insurance company knows you're not responsible for every dangerous thing they do? Just a lot to this that we don't know. Would be nice if Tony Khan would sit down and explain sometime.
actually I wanna address the idea of Tony explaining further, why should he have to?
He was clear if you also have a backstage role you get health insurance, he shouldn't have to make an itemized list of who does and doesn't have an extra role to get insurance.
He doesn't have to tell us anything at all.
But there are a nonzero number of fans concerned for wrestlers' health and safety, and are into AEW specifically because they're addressing those concerns. And what you've said in two posts is more, and more specific, than what I can find when I google "tony khan aew health insurance" and read his interviews, so either I'm blind or the information isn't as readily available as believed.
Personally speaking, until a wrestler comes forward and tells us AEW's health and safety is horseshit, I'm going to assume that everyone's being taken care of one way or another.
AEW is supposed to be better, and theyve built themselves on a promise of being better. This is the time to prove it.
SDs for the rest of the month were taped on Saturday
NXTs were on Sunday
Today and tomorrow are the remaining Raws
Wednesday and Thursday are the Mania nights
Seems risky not just for corona, but for injuries, to have that many people working together and that often in such a short timespan
Steam
So they've not changed Raw and SD at all, then.
#gottem