The Wrestling Underground, WrestleCorp News

An Icon Retiring? ROH’s Parent Company Under Fire, Aro-Lucha Ran by Nazis? and More! – WrestleCorp News

 

The Great Muta Retiring? – The Great Muta may have wrestled his last matches almost two weeks ago as the iconic Japanese wrestling legend has undergone a double knee replacement.  Wrestle-1 made a point to post about his last two moonsaults as both his Keji Mutoh and Great Muta persona at events a few day prior, before he went into surgery the following day.  While Muta’s long term future is obviously in doubt, if not done at all, his longevity and abilities in pro wrestling are iconic, having worked with NJPW, AJPW, NOAH, TNA, WCW and others before founding Wrestle-1.  It’s unlikely we’ll ever see Muta compete again, but his impact in wrestling will not be soon forgotten.

ROH Parent Company Under Fire – The good folks at Sinclair Broadcasting, the parent company of Ring of Honor Wrestling, is under fire in recent days for running biased ads at attacking other news agencies for criticizing the President.  The group is know to employ Kristine Frazao,  who once worked with the Russian propaganda news channel, RT (Russia Today). In recent days (maybe weeks) all channels that Sinclair Broadcasting owns, ran this video message below;

As you can clearly see that regardless of the station, it aired this. Now for those not aware, Sinclair buys up small, local channels that have affiliates. Look at your local ABC or Fox station, and you’ll see that they have a second name, similar to radio stations. For Cleveland our ABC affiliate is Channel 5, WEWS-TV. They are NOT owned by Sinclair. Sinclair buys up regional stations and takes control of their news departments to start their own version of the truth. And they also get ROH Wrestling. While the internet is a far reaching and impressive force, many people still get their news, especially locally from regional stations like the ones in the video above. To have a nation-wide edict to control the information that comes out of hundreds of stations is horrifying, especially when it comes under the notion of these stations being ‘independent’.

To put it in proper perspective, that’s like if we and the Wrestling Sheet started posting the same articles verbatim that PWInsider or a site like CBR would post. Both the Sheet and us here at NerdCorp operate independently, so to see us falling in line with a major conglomerate that’s pushing a specific narrative would be a direct infringement on the ideal of us being ‘independent’.

The far more worrying aspect of this for wrestling fans, is how it may affect ROH Wrestling. There are many now who are starting to see this for what it is, a  monopoly on news.  The US Government may intervene and break up the Broadcasting conglomerate if this escalates further, and if they do in fact break up Sinclair Broadcasting and force them to sell their assets, what happens to ROH?  Right now they’re hotter than ever thanks to the NJPW talent, and men like Jay Lethal and Dalton Castle, but could ROH survive if half of their networks get dumped?  Would they be sold?  This is shaky ground for ROH because they’ve done nothing wrong, that we know of, and this is all coming down to the actions of a single group of people who are tired looking like fools in the media.  Supporting deranged leaders will make you look bad, and your inability to put aside party politics makes you look like zealots.  ROH may be in some serious trouble in the near future but that’s nothing compared to how in trouble we are right now.

Question everything.  Except the Earth being round.  Don’t question that.  For like, 6,000  years we’ve known it was round thanks to science.  Stop it.  Looking at you AJ Styles and Flip Gordon.   Stop it.

IMPACT Ok’ed Aries on ROH? – Despite what Dave Meltzer is claiming, ROH’s COO Joe Koff revealed that IMPACT Wrestling actually had to ‘Ok’ Aries appearances on ROH pay per view a few week backs, when Aries came out to challenge Kenny King.  Koff revealed this in an interview with Sporting News, saying;

I’ve always had a very good relationship with Impact Wrestling. I try to have a good relationship with all of the promotions because why wouldn’t I? We’re all in the same space. We’re all doing the same thing. It’s good for the business. That was a creative angle that came out. Austin Aries, who’s a former Ring of Honor wrestler, has never held the ROH Television Championship, and I think he’s on a quest to hold every belt he can. It seemed like a natural opportunity. There was no agenda involved. It was a good spot. It surprised the fans. That show had a lot of surprises. When the bear took off his head and it was Kenny Omega. That was unbelievably exciting. But our relationship with Impact, we’re happy. They had to agree to it. They did. It certainly doesn’t hurt their brand. It was a win-win for all.

Are AroLucha Employing  Nazis? – Aro Lucha is off to a bad start.  First their tapings relied heavily on other contracted talent, then they announced a crowd funding initiative to scam convince fans to pay into the promotion by touting not-so-co-owner Rey Mysterio as it’s most recent signing.  Yet, the promotion has been slow going so far.  Now a story that largely went under-reported last week has made it’s way to me and it needs to be mentioned.   Ron and Don Harris are co founders of the promotion and the group that owns them, and they have been long time believed to have been (possibly at one time) Neo Nazi’s.

Now, facts first, Don Harris once wore an ‘SS’ shirt to the ring during an old NWA-TNA weekly ppv, and Ron has an apparent ‘SS‘ tattoo on his left arm.  The ‘SS’ for you 8 year olds who haven’t covered World War 2 yet, is the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, some of the Nazi’s most elite soldiers.  It’s in more modern years been co-opted by Neo Nazi’s a sign of one’s allegiance to Neo Nazi principals.

However, Bernard E. Rollin (a writer with left leaning principals), writes that biker culture of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s were less about criminal enterprise and more about establishing a system of shocking bystanders with their demeanor’s and patches.  To do this, they did employ the use of the Nazi SS, but it’s mentioned that at no time were these outlaw gangs at all considered to be Nazi-sympathizers or Neo Nazi themselves.  (Authors Note: While I don’t buy this reasoning myself, I also never studied or wrote about biker lore, so there ya go.)

Because of it’s use in biker culture, allegedly, it makes sense that Ron and Don Harris would have that type of symbolism, due to their avid and current love of motorcycles.  Both men were in biker groups before they got into wrestling, which may explain the imagery.  However, there’s also the belief that while they aren’t any longer Neo-Nazi’s, that they weren’t at one time.  As Ron has gotten his SS tattoo covered up…sort of.

AroLucha’s CEO Jason Brown is adamant that he isn’t working with Neo Nazi’s instead claiming it’s biker culture (as mentioned above) and part of their ‘gimmicks’, saying

Ron and Don Harris were performers for the WWE and other popular wrestling promotions during their wrestling careers. When on TV, they were in character, referred to as “a gimmick”, where their character or gimmick were as bikers. They also worked at a time in the industry when there was something called “kayfabe”, which was basically saying that you never broke character. There are verifiable stories where the good guys, or “baby faces”, were not allowed to be seen after work with the bad guys, or “the heels”, so in essence if they were in a feud on television, they had to “kayfabe” that they were in a feud in real life and were never to break character.

The Anti-Defamation League lends credibility to Brown’s defense, as they claim that some outlaw biker groups appropriated several Nazi-related symbols decades ago.  So in that context, according to the A.D.L. the “…SS bolts in the context of the outlaw biker subculture does not necessarily denote actual adherence to white supremacy.”

Sure.

Brown follows up by saying;

The Harris brothers TV personas and gimmick were as bikers, but they are about as far from nazi sympathizers as the east is from the west and were in no way involved in that culture, behavior or activity. This was much like the wrestler whose character or gimmick was Junk Yard Dog, however, he did not work in a junk yard, nor was he part dog, just as the wrestler known as The Undertaker wasn’t in the funeral home business. The images you may have seen in your Google search were costume and TV personas that Ron and Don played while working for wrestling promotions during their career as wrestlers, including the WWE and TNA.

Brown makes sure to put over the fact that Ron does pro-bono work to support orphans from the  Joseph School in Haiti.  While also mentioning that Don has as mixed race family with an adopted Filipino daughter, and a daughter who’s dating someone who is significantly different looking than her father.

Personally, whether it was for a biker gang, a pro wrestling gimmick or they were actually Nazi-sympathizers at one time, I don’t see how they could justify it.  Even in the 70’s and 80’s Nazi’s were looked down on in disgust.  Not knowing or not realizing the power of that symbol is no excuse.   As the great-grandson of an Italian immigrant, I’d never wear the sword based design of the O.V.R.A.  I know it’s a symbol of oppression and hatred, why promote it?  So the excuse doesn’t fly, though it may allow their legacies not be tarnished. Especially if they have in fact moved beyond that life style.   Well, ….not anymore tarnished than their shitty ring work already has done.

 

Jay Brisoce is a Piece of Shit – Several cooperating witnesses have alleged that Jay Briscoe grabbed at and ripped a Gay Pride Flag from the hands of a wrestler sitting near the front row today at a Fight Club Pro event.

Some fans are claiming that this is just The Briscoes “acting like heels”, however Jay Briscoe was once famously suspended and stripped of the ROH World Championship belt for telling fans on social media that he’d anyone who tried to teach his kids there’s nothing wrong with being gay.

For those who claim “he’s a heel” , he was the companies top face at the time.  So that argument doesn’t fly.  Jay Briscoe has long been suspected of being homophobic (on top of other things), and with any other wrestlers yes, they’re just playing a part.  However, with Jay’s history, this is not an action that went over well in person or on social media.  It seems unlikely that ROH fires Jay over this though.  Mostly because (as seen above), Sinclair Broadcasting is notoriously pro-Trump and Trump is notoriously anti-gay.  So why would ROH fire Jay Briscoe?

 

Quick Hits – Jimmy Hart has been announced to induct Hillbilly Jim, despite Jim wanting Hulk Hogan.  The old home of SoCal group PWG, the American Legion Hall is expected to be torn down.  IMPACT has offered a two-year deal to free agent Jeffery Cobb (Matanza Cueto), who finished up with Lucha Underground recently.    Cobb is booked for the  IMPACT/Lucha Underground joint show, but not as Cobb, not Cueto.  Not only is Big Show re-signing with the WWE for a multi-year, easy as hell schedule, type of deal; but he’s also been announced as Mark Henry’s inductor for the WWE Hall of Fame