Huffy Flounce

It's basically a soap opera with made up fighting isn't it?

So's Star Wars.

Space opera. Key difference.

Mal Shot First wrote:I used to watch pro wrestling back in 1994... I'm pretty certain that I didn't follow it longer than a year. What I liked about it then was how flashy the characters were: it was basically a bunch of men in costumes pretending to beat the crap out of each other. I haven't kept up with wrestling at all, but it seems like it's moved away from some of the ridiculous costumes and personas (personae?). Most of the wrestlers are just buff guys in tight pants - there doesn't seem to be much variation in their looks. I guess even Kane had to get rid of his mask to get with the times.

I wonder if it would be preposterous to a ten-year-old watching wrestling these days to imagine a wrestler like Yokozuna competing in one of the major wrestling federations.

Well, Kane only dropped the mask a couple of months ago and I can't imagine him not putting it back on at some point. He's currently a bad guy who everyone is calling "Corporate Kane," hence the suit.

Yokozuna would probably still work today. There was a guy named Rikishi wrestling for quite some time who was basically a skinny Yokozuna (or as it's also known, a Beau Watkins. Heyyyyoooo) and he was pretty popular. Nowadays the most nontraditional looking fellas by FAR are The Wyatt Family.



The one in the middle is named Bray Wyatt and he's one of the best talkers they've had in quite some time. Helped get me back into wrestling again, not gonna lie.

Oh and their entrance is so damned cool. Just a great gimmick. He's the leader of a hillbilly cult. But...y'know...a cool, badass hillbilly cult!

So they're essentially cashing in on the Duck Dynasty look, beards and all?

I....hmmm. I wanna call that a coincidence. The most popular wrestler by FAR these days is this guy.



But...y'know...he's a good guy with a beard! But none of them do anything close to a Duck Dynasty character, so I'd say the beards are just...well...facial hair.

Except for those two weeks when he joined The Wyatt Family. Then he was a bad guy with a beard.

Because ZZ Top are lovers not fighters.

Exactly!

And this ends today's edition of "Adam Needs A Girlfriend." Carry on with the non-annoyance thread as you were.

Nope. I'm calling it. Duck Dynasty is popular. Full beards are popular. Full beards are now a thing in professional wrestling. The Wyatt Family even identifies itself as a family. Might as well call themselves the Robertsons.

Professional wrestling follows cultural trends more often than it sets them. (It does set them from time to time. Don't getta me wrong-o.)

I think back to the early aughts, when Kid Rock was popular and The Undertaker became American Bad Ass. Boy, was that dumb.

I think back to the nineties and Sting's dumbass Crow getup.

I think back to the late eighties, when being an egghead was popular and Macho Man's baby bro became The Genius. Boy, did I feel sorry for poor Leaping Lanny Poffo--what with his having to carry around that fake diploma and wear the cap and gown.

In the eighties, the only way you could be in professional wrestling and grow a full beard was to be a foreigner, a heel, a Poffo, or a Junkyard Dog.

Or Mr. T.

Mr T rocked that beard and Mohawk so damn hard.

Oh, I agree, Goiter. But the beards are the only similarity. Bray Wyatt is essentially a Southern Charles Manson and the other two are his entirely silent, but very loyal followers. They aren't a family in the way that the Robertsons are a family. With all of the other pop culture homages, they were far more similar to what they were homaging. My all time favorite, for the record, was when they relentlessly went after the Parents Television Council with a heel stable called Right To Censor (RTC). The Godfather turned into The Goodfather. Val Venis and a couple others all started wearing white shirts and black ties and kept trying to cover up the scantily clad women and yelling about the violence. It was fantastic.

But anyway, go to YouTube sometime and pull up one of Bray Wyatt's vignettes. Dude is arguably the best talker to come along since the Attitude era.

The Manson Family calls itself the Manson Family. Kudos to them for their pop culture hybridization. They're like the Lady Gagas of wrestling!

Ladies Gaga?

I fixed your code, Adam.

Thank you. I hit the youtube button and it didn't make it youtube. I hit the video button and that seemed to work? Or was that you fixing me?

He fixed you good!

When you use the YouTube tag, all you need is the unique-to-that-video string of letters at the end of that video's URL.

Ahhhhh, slick! Good to know!

Adam54 wrote:I....hmmm. I wanna call that a coincidence. The most popular wrestler by FAR these days is this guy.



But...y'know...he's a good guy with a beard! But none of them do anything close to a Duck Dynasty character, so I'd say the beards are just...well...facial hair.

Dude looks like a buff Jesus. He should call himself Jesus X, or something.

He went with Daniel Bryan instead.

So...y'know...close to Jesus X. But he didn't have the beard when he got started, so he would've needed to switch names midway through his rise to superstardom. People would've asked questions.

In a real fight, a beard that long is an invitation to your competitor to break your neck with minimal effort.

Adam54 wrote:But he didn't have the beard when he got started, so he would've needed to switch names midway through his rise to superstardom. People would've asked questions.

From what I gathered above, wrestlers change their names all the time, so it probably wouldn't have been such a weird thing to do.