As a Mexican-American that grew up in Texas, seeing the JBL character do his thing was a little weird. But I was in my mid 20's when it happened. I understood what the character was doing and realized it was a character. Never took it personal.
Indeed, Billy and Chuck was a travesty. Can we also celebrate Billy Gunn for joining AEW and teaming with the Acclaimed, a beautiful way to make amends to the fans he hurt back in the RA era! Thank you, Billy!
One infamous Ruthless Aggression storyline that wasn't on the list that I remember well is everything with Dawn Marie, Torrie Wilson & Al Wilson especially the wedding of Al & Dawn Marie on Smackdown & the honeymoon footage on the following episode. Another infamous storyline that I remember from the RA era is everything with Eugene in which WWE took advantage of nearly every stereotype that exists about people with intellectual disabilities. How both of these storylines made TV I will never know.
I genuinely can’t imagine wanting a murderer to be commended as a “hall of farmer”. His entire legacy is tarnished because of his actions and just for that, he doesn’t deserve it.
I've always felt that the Attitude Era was insanely overrated, and most of these Ruthless Aggression controversies actually relate to why: to me the Attitude Era was cringeworthy storylines being carried by transcendent talent, and the Ruthless Aggression era showed how things would have gone without that talent at the top: their ratings and reputation _plummeted._
The ruthless aggression era was just the Attitude Era but with less of the viewership and none of the competition from WCW. Although I admit that the in ring quality drastically increased
My friends and I talk about the #1 all the time. Like for a while there professional wrestlers were dying at an alarming rate. Something like 3 every month for 5 years. Crazy!
I once saw the sex in the coffin segment, the moment Triple Kane said "I just f*cked your brains out" I read a comment saying "Still a better love story than Twilight" and I f*cking lost it 😂
You point out all of those that died of drug overdoses and CTE related tragedies, but you don’t mention all of those from this era who were so shamed out of the business that they committed suicide. (That list may be even bigger.) That was the environment of pro-wrestling at this point. Let’s not gloss over those that suffered and took that way out.
The Mohammed Hassan character was a big missed opportunity and a fairly big what if for the WWE. The man was great on the Mic and was a decent wrestler with the limited experience he had.
I could be wrong, but didn’t Billy and Chuck go on to say that they knew the whole “pretending to be gay” story was wrong, but they felt that they had to do it to get screen time? Which actually made it an interesting story (although still exploitative).
"IT shouldn't and will never happen." Welp, somebody get Snuka out of there. And if we can be a little bit more empathic, get Stone Cold out of there too since the only person he was actually beating up was Debra. If Benoit shouldn't be there because of that tragedy, fine. But let's not put the Hall of Fame on some moral pedestal.
Until they start cleaning some of the monsters out of the Hall of Fame, I will never discount Benoit. What he did at the end was monstrous, but there are far worse people secure in their places.
Well about Billy and Chuck... at least we got the Golden Lovers now. As for Jim Ross, it might be his Southern roots. Vince hates Southerners, because he was one and he was abused. So I think he low key hates any Southerners who are intelligent or charming or successful because it reminds him of his stepfather and their neighbors.
The Ruthless Aggression Era will always hold a special place in my heart. That's when I really got into WWE for a good few years for the first time, starting a little after Wrestlemania 19. I think a lot of my enjoyment of that time came from completely missing the beginning of it. I didn't hear about the whole Katie Vick thing until over a decade later. I also never had a problem with JBL being the top guy because I never knew of him as Bradshaw of the APA. To me he wasn't a midcarder given the top strap, he was the racist heel you tuned in to watch hopefully get beat down, every single week.
The image you used when mentioning Arab Americans at 3:10 is an image of Sikh people. Sikh people are not Arab and are from the punjab region of northern India.
I remember seeing Bradshaw at a house show shortly before the JBL character debuted. The crowd were completely indifferent to him whereas i was booing him unrelentlessly. After his match, he looked at where i was sitting and very clearly wasn't happy and he swore in my direction. The next time i saw him was on Smackdown as JBL. Now, i'm not saying that i inspired Bradshaw to become JBL. Im just not not saying that didn't 😉❤️👍
True. But it's significantly more rare these days. Those two were both sort of victims of the right (or more accurately, the wrong) medical circumstances all coming together.
Yes cause patriotism is horrible thing. Wrestling should never go into the realm of politics or social issues. Either in a Democrat virtue signalling way or in a making a statement way..
Idgaf what Booker T says too slaves would fight for the person who had them even when they had better lives waiting for them they still would fight for them
Unfortunately now, after all the stuff that came out, he'll like be a Benoit thing. We know Benoit was a fantastic talent that made an awful mistake, ruining everything in the past.
Chris Benoit deserves to be in the HoF! The man who murdered Nancy and Daniel and himself was not Chris Benoit anymore and the WWE should be ashamed for erasing him. A companie's central task is to protect their employees and no wrestling company did that before 2007 and Chris Nowinski was the point of change as he had to end his short career because of concusions, but they just went on and this is how it ended. And those are only the big news....wonder how many cases of brain damage there really are... @Miller Funny you say he should never get into the HoF, but 10 seconds later you praise all those who died too early....most for similar reasons, like steroids and who knows how many had brain damage too that just wasn't checked? Oh and isn't Jimmy Snuka in the HoF? I hate hypocrisy!!!!
1 - Steroid use does not make you a murderer. You’re comparing people who used a performance enhancing drug and paid the price to a brain damaged killer. There is plenty of evidence to show that steroids played no part in that tragic event. 2 - unfortunately, there is no evidence that Jimmy did anything. It’s probable but he’s innocent until proven guilty. Chris Benoit WAS guilty of murder suicide. 3 - What a dumbass statement. That WAS Chris Benoit. He had CTE due to lack of knowledge at the time but HE still committed those terrible acts. He will never be in the HOF and anyone who says otherwise is an absolute clown
"10 seconds later you praise all those who died too early...most for similar reasons," Let me know if anyone of them killed their wife & child, then we can talk hypocrisy. WWE definitely bears some culpability in the Benoit tragedy, between how dangerous the work was at the time, and how rampant the drug abuse was. But at the end of the day, he killed his wife & child. That's it. Full stop. There's no getting around that. There's no justifying or rationalizing it. Period.
One is a literal proven killer while the other died before a proper trial could be held. Innocent until proven guilty. And you’re comparing people who use steroids to someone who killed his whole family. Get over it, he’ll never be in the HOF
@@SuburbanProperty So Benoit came back from the dead to stand trial? You people have to look for the reasons something happen, but you only see what happened. That's a big problem of today's society.
