I remember a time when pro wrestling fans, even in the late-90’s, were very closeted about their fandom.  Few every lead with “I’m a fan of pro wrestling.”  We’d be pummeled with audible musings; “It’s fake you know!” “Ugh, how can you like something that’s fake!”

Bitch, you jerk off to Game of Thrones, at least my favorite thing doesn’t involve hundreds of millions of dollars of CGI to make itself come to life.

As the years gone on, and partly because of MMA, fans stopped being so hidden.  As MMA grappled with more and more pro wrestling concepts like entrance music, hype packages, ‘staged’ feuds and ‘over the top’ personalities; pro wrestling started to seem different to many people.  Looked at less as football, it now began to take the same kind of critics and reviews of stage plays, ballets and extreme sports.  Something that wasn’t predicated so much on “wins and losses” but more about the story and characters.  Fans stopped trying to judge it like a sport, and started to judge it as a show.

Fans stopped hiding their fandom.  With the rise of TNA in the mid-late 00’s, NJPW’s American influence and even the WWE treating their women with more respect, pro wrestling stopped being a dark secret we enjoyed under our covers at night when no one else could see us.

It was in Hot Topic, Target, shown on The CW, game shows, covered on SportsCenter and Fox Sports.  It became something you have to take seriously, especially with the rising tide of new fans and the increase revenue flowing into the scene.

So it makes it so much harder for me and others to support, condone or even excuse the bullshit the likes of Joey Ryan and Priscilla Kelly have engaged in.  The two have again crossed the lines of morality and sensibility for the sake of internet-breaking shock value.

Last night at a promotion I refuse to name Kelly vomited on Ryan’s crotch during a match.  I won’t plug the video, because fuck them, and I won’t describe in any further detail because again; fuck them.

What Kelly and Ryan did was go blue because they have no other means of getting over.  Ryan has never been a great worker and only got over because he tapped into the ‘sleaze’ idea when the industry was noticeably PG.  He stood out.  He then made waves when he introduced the “penis-suplex” a move that starts with an opponent grabbing his crotch and he then flips them over.  Penis’ don’t work that way, not even in fiction.  We all know this.

Kelly has earned internet fame by sticking a “fake” bloody-tampon in her opponents mouth and vomiting on wrestlers.  She then complains that her attention-seeking acts are garnering too much attention.  Like a child.

The problem is that they get embraced as counter-culture and that is somehow being presented as “cool”.  All Elite Wrestling made the mistake by giving him the opportunity to roll up to All In and let him do parade of inflated penis’ to the ring.

In even more troubling realizations is that Brett Lauderdale and Joey Janela have turned Game Changer Wrestling into a brand that caters to this filth.  Janela is pile-driving fans, while booking men like Nick Gage in matches where he nearly kills men for fun.  Gage nearly killed David Arquette in a match not that long ago, and instead of being worried that he nearly ended a man’s life, Gage instead insulted him in the post-match.  Janela, and Lauderdale are big Ryan/Kelly fans.

Why? Because they think controversy and financial gains outweighs basic human dignity and respect.

So now we have to deal with this crap.  Again.  I hope IMPACT Wrestling pulls Ryan from their United We Stand show, because Ryan has no business being on that show.

Unfortunately for us, we live in an era where people don’t take responsibility for their actions, or even understand constructive criticism has value.  So instead of changing their gimmicks and antics for the betterment of the industry, they’ll get worse.  Double down on the insanity to top what they just did.  That’s the only way they know how to get over, and it’s the only way they’ll ever be known.  This is the problem we have today.

Fuck ’em both.

In Other News…

News broke yesterday thanks to Ethan Page that NOVA Pro was continually missing payments of their talents.  Things got magnified even more so when it was announced that Jordynne Grace, one of the top women’s wrestlers, announced she would be cancelling all of her bookings with NOVA Pro for the foreseeable future admit allegations of financial issues.  It was announced today that NOVA Pro was going on “hiatus” due to “personal issues” and the April 6th show they had planned for WrestleMania weekend will now be taken over by, ironically enough, GCW.  As I dislike all that GCW represents, I’ll decline from providing information on the event.

In interesting news regarding AEW, Cody Rhodes and Conrad Thompson filed some intriguing trademarks.  Rhodes is attempting to trademark “The American Nightmare” and “The American Dream“.  The former is his personal nickname while the latter is his fathers, a trademark thought owned by the WWE.  Thompson on the other hand trademarked ‘Four Horsemen‘, another entity the WWE allegedly had claims to.   Thompson might be in line to start a podcast with Arn Anderson, and may want to trademark the title.  He did something similar with The Undertaker.

Arn Anderson released a statement through Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, revealing he had no issues regarding his departure, saying;

I was fortunate enough to work with WWE for 18 years.  Certainly that provided my family and myself with a nice living, and I have no regrets. A lot of my best friends still work there. Everything has a shelf life, and I guess mine ran out.

He also alluded to his upcoming Starrcast appearance by saying that we’ll see if Anderson is still dangerous on a live mic.

Quick Hits – MLW has formally signed George Carroll Jr. and Jordan Liver to deals; Carroll will serve as a Senior Coordinator for the brand after working in NJPW, while Oliver will be a standard wrestler.  Billy Gunn has confirmed that when AEW starts their weekly TV, that he’ll be working for them full time.  In an non-update-update about the Anthem/Jeff Jarrett legal case, click here as Mike Johnson covers it pretty well.