[posted 7/25/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
A Hartford Courant editorial, headlined “Rob Simmons Too Coy On GOP Primary,” wonders “what role will Mr. Simmons be playing? Active candidate? Grudge-holding spoiler? A still-ambitious politician frozen by indecision?” See http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-rob-simmons-0725-20100725,0,2022258.story.
Simmons may be all of those things. But the image I’m surprised no one has yet raised is that Simmons sees himself as Bill Russell.
No, not the basketball all-time great — the protagonist of The Best Man, Gore Vidal’s classic 1960 play about the jockeying of candidates for a party’s presidential nomination.
Like Russell — and like Adlai Stevenson, the torchbearer of a declining and presumably more intellectual and substantive political generation, on whom Vidal loosely modeled the character — Simmons apparently believes he represents a different and more formidable brand of integrity. The push and pull of the apparent options, however, make him come off as wishy-washy and Hamlet-esque.
And as with the fictional Russell, who had to take drastic measures to bring down his nemesis Joseph Cantwell, Simmons is finding himself making compromises of a higher order. Consciously or not, “Mr. Republican” may be doing the Democrats’ work for them. But only he knows what is behind the calculation that the risk is worthwhile.
Of course, Linda McMahon, who sits in the Cantwell chair, knows from low-rent drama. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Irv Muchnick
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Ricky Steamboat Out of the Hospital
[posted 7/24/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
According to journalist Dave Meltzer, quoting World Wrestling Entertainment’s Jim Ross.
According to journalist Dave Meltzer, quoting World Wrestling Entertainment’s Jim Ross.
Linda McMahon’s Opponents Think the Women’s Vote Is Her Kryptonite. Her Market Research Knows It’s Her Secret Weapon.
[posted 7/22/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
One faith I try to keep with blog readers is clearly acknowledging whenever I don’t bring to the table unique reporting or insight. This post is an example of that spirit of (hopefully) educated speculation.
Rick Green’s CT Confidential blog at the Hartford Courant has linked to a new Linda McMahon commercial playing off her dismissal of any negativity associated with her pro wrestling “soap opera,” and indeed attempting to turn that into a positive. The ever-intriguing Green snorts at the spot’s “Stepford wives” actresses, as well as at the SUV driven by one of them and the “Hermes scarf” doffed by the other.
See “McMahon Ad Targets Women Uncomfortable with WWE,” http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/07/mcmahon-ad-targets-women-uncom.html.
The tactic points to a familiar motif of the McMahon campaign. Her opponents seem confident – overly confident, I’ve always felt – that the “values” represented by World Wrestling Entertainment program content were toxic to her political ambition. We can see, however, that Linda – backed by the best consultants and focus-group machinery money can buy – has always been and continues to be just as certain that a businesswoman running on her business experience has a significant gender-gap advantage. Her TV ads and her mailers have been almost fetishistically female, and that is no accident.
And this all comes back to something I’ve been shouting toward Connecticut, from 3,000 miles, for months. Women don’t want to be told whom they “should” be supporting any more than any other unhomogeneous group does. Freud didn’t know what women want and neither do I. If women, or Republicans, or Christian rightists, are keeping two sets of moral books on Linda McMahon, that’s their problem. Hypocrisy isn’t what’s killing people in the wrestling industry Linda and her husband Vince supervise. What’s killing them are disgraceful, if not nonexistent, occupational health and safety standards.
So that’s one takeout for me. I’ve said it a lot of times in a lot of different ways, and I won’t belabor it here.
My second takeout is this: Green, raising his electronic eyebrow in what has become something of a tick of his political coverage, says of the new McMahon commercial, “Somehow, this has the feeling of something planned long ago.”
Green expressed the same suspicion of lack of spontaneity about the still-unidentified front group “Mothers Opposing McMahon.”
As Linda McMahon said back in January on Face the State, she is proud of her success “in a very testosterone-loaded business.” Those who scoff at this, just like those who underestimate the McMahons for any other reason, do so at their peril.
Irv Muchnick
One faith I try to keep with blog readers is clearly acknowledging whenever I don’t bring to the table unique reporting or insight. This post is an example of that spirit of (hopefully) educated speculation.
Rick Green’s CT Confidential blog at the Hartford Courant has linked to a new Linda McMahon commercial playing off her dismissal of any negativity associated with her pro wrestling “soap opera,” and indeed attempting to turn that into a positive. The ever-intriguing Green snorts at the spot’s “Stepford wives” actresses, as well as at the SUV driven by one of them and the “Hermes scarf” doffed by the other.
See “McMahon Ad Targets Women Uncomfortable with WWE,” http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/07/mcmahon-ad-targets-women-uncom.html.
The tactic points to a familiar motif of the McMahon campaign. Her opponents seem confident – overly confident, I’ve always felt – that the “values” represented by World Wrestling Entertainment program content were toxic to her political ambition. We can see, however, that Linda – backed by the best consultants and focus-group machinery money can buy – has always been and continues to be just as certain that a businesswoman running on her business experience has a significant gender-gap advantage. Her TV ads and her mailers have been almost fetishistically female, and that is no accident.
And this all comes back to something I’ve been shouting toward Connecticut, from 3,000 miles, for months. Women don’t want to be told whom they “should” be supporting any more than any other unhomogeneous group does. Freud didn’t know what women want and neither do I. If women, or Republicans, or Christian rightists, are keeping two sets of moral books on Linda McMahon, that’s their problem. Hypocrisy isn’t what’s killing people in the wrestling industry Linda and her husband Vince supervise. What’s killing them are disgraceful, if not nonexistent, occupational health and safety standards.
So that’s one takeout for me. I’ve said it a lot of times in a lot of different ways, and I won’t belabor it here.
My second takeout is this: Green, raising his electronic eyebrow in what has become something of a tick of his political coverage, says of the new McMahon commercial, “Somehow, this has the feeling of something planned long ago.”
Green expressed the same suspicion of lack of spontaneity about the still-unidentified front group “Mothers Opposing McMahon.”
As Linda McMahon said back in January on Face the State, she is proud of her success “in a very testosterone-loaded business.” Those who scoff at this, just like those who underestimate the McMahons for any other reason, do so at their peril.
Irv Muchnick
I Hereby Classify Death as the Ultimate ‘Chronic Injury’
[posted 7/22/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
Ever eager to distance himself from the more inane criticisms of Linda McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment, your humble blogger begs readers not to associate him with today’s entrant from The Christian Science Monitor, “Linda McMahon and the reality of wrestling’s sex and violence fantasy,” http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0722/Linda-McMahon-and-the-reality-of-wrestling-s-sex-and-violence-fantasy, by Jonathan Zimmerman, who “teaches education and history at New York University.”
According to Herr Professor Zimmerman, wrestling is gross.
Not only that — many “WWE veterans ... have suffered chronic injuries, including hearing and memory loss.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m very much opposed to chronic injuries. Especially when they involve — as has been the case for scores of wrestlers; let me be the first to inform Zimmerman — simultaneous and permanent loss of not only hearing, but also all four other senses. No breathing or heartbeat, either!
Irv Muchnick
Ever eager to distance himself from the more inane criticisms of Linda McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment, your humble blogger begs readers not to associate him with today’s entrant from The Christian Science Monitor, “Linda McMahon and the reality of wrestling’s sex and violence fantasy,” http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0722/Linda-McMahon-and-the-reality-of-wrestling-s-sex-and-violence-fantasy, by Jonathan Zimmerman, who “teaches education and history at New York University.”
According to Herr Professor Zimmerman, wrestling is gross.
Not only that — many “WWE veterans ... have suffered chronic injuries, including hearing and memory loss.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m very much opposed to chronic injuries. Especially when they involve — as has been the case for scores of wrestlers; let me be the first to inform Zimmerman — simultaneous and permanent loss of not only hearing, but also all four other senses. No breathing or heartbeat, either!
Irv Muchnick
Connecticut Columnist: ‘Is Anything Beyond Decency’ for Linda McMahon?
[posted 7/22/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
“Is anything beyond decency for McMahon?”
Chris Powell
Manchester Journal Inquirer
http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2010/07/22/chris_powell/doc4c4853c446577453976450.txt
“Is anything beyond decency for McMahon?”
Chris Powell
Manchester Journal Inquirer
http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2010/07/22/chris_powell/doc4c4853c446577453976450.txt
Watch Linda McMahon’s Wrestler Ricky Steamboat Get Beaten to Within an Inch of His Life Last Month on ‘Raw’ by Inexperienced Fellow ‘Soap Opera’ Cast
[posted 7/22/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
YouTube links to the video of the live incident on USA cable’s Monday Night Raw on June 28 are below. This is not the same as the video at World Wrestling Entertainment’s official YouTube channel, which was edited after it became apparent that Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat had sustained accidental – but real and life-threatening – brain damage.
Steamboat (real name Richard Blood, age 57) remains hospitalized in Tampa. His injury was first described by World Wrestling Entertainment as a brain aneurysm, and not attributable to what had happened in the Raw skit. Later doctors supposedly said the problem was a “burst capillary,” caused by “blunt force,” which was expected to heal within days.
Latest from Dave Meltzer, the leading pro wrestling journalist, in the new issue of his Wrestling Observer Newsletter: “Nothing really new on Ricky Steamboat other than he was still in the hospital and in great head pain. The fact that everyone has been completely quiet on the subject and that he’s been in for so long is troubling.”
The links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIW7rEglTRA&feature=related (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQGa4hTYTPc&NR=1 (Part 2)
The “invasion” by bad guys of the celebration of the release of Steamboat’s retrospective DVD starts at around the four-minute mark of Part 1. The beatdown of Steamboat himself begins in earnest in Part 2. Hard-core fans will be able to confirm that this is the full footage and exactly where the WWE rookies might have botched their moves and endangered their fellow worker.
Irv Muchnick
YouTube links to the video of the live incident on USA cable’s Monday Night Raw on June 28 are below. This is not the same as the video at World Wrestling Entertainment’s official YouTube channel, which was edited after it became apparent that Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat had sustained accidental – but real and life-threatening – brain damage.
Steamboat (real name Richard Blood, age 57) remains hospitalized in Tampa. His injury was first described by World Wrestling Entertainment as a brain aneurysm, and not attributable to what had happened in the Raw skit. Later doctors supposedly said the problem was a “burst capillary,” caused by “blunt force,” which was expected to heal within days.
Latest from Dave Meltzer, the leading pro wrestling journalist, in the new issue of his Wrestling Observer Newsletter: “Nothing really new on Ricky Steamboat other than he was still in the hospital and in great head pain. The fact that everyone has been completely quiet on the subject and that he’s been in for so long is troubling.”
The links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIW7rEglTRA&feature=related (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQGa4hTYTPc&NR=1 (Part 2)
The “invasion” by bad guys of the celebration of the release of Steamboat’s retrospective DVD starts at around the four-minute mark of Part 1. The beatdown of Steamboat himself begins in earnest in Part 2. Hard-core fans will be able to confirm that this is the full footage and exactly where the WWE rookies might have botched their moves and endangered their fellow worker.
Irv Muchnick
Muchnick’s Letter to Weekly Standard About Linda McMahon
[posted 7/22/10 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
As soon as its excellent article on Linda McMahon was published on July 14, I sent a letter to The Weekly Standard adding a few points. The magazine will not tell me whether it intends to publish the letter. The limited partners of Wrestling Babylon Blog LLP have authorized me to post it below.
The Weekly Standard piece itself can be viewed at http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/wrestlemania-connecticut.
Jonathan V. Last’s take on Connecticut Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon is, by a considerable margin, the most thorough and accurate I have read. I add only a few dissents and additions.
First, I caution against Last’s formulation that “the steroid problem” of the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertaiment is “not, as steroids usually are in sports such as baseball, about ‘fairness,’ with people worried that roided-up athletes had an advantage over clean ones.” Pro wrestlers who “juice” do have a competitive advantage over those who don’t – precisely because wrestling is not a legitimate contest and there is a premium on cosmetics. This is indispensable to comprehending the regime of steroid and prescription drug abuse, serial untreated concussions, and other systematic occupational health and safety hazards of the industry dominated by the McMahon family.
My second point is closely related: The pandemic of death in wrestling coincides with the generation of WWE’s global expansion and marketing. Some young wrestlers died while under contract to WWE, some died as a result of bad habits adopted or worsened while with WWE, and others died without ever having made it to the biggest company, but simply as a result of assuming, all by themselves, public-health risks that, thanks to the McMahons’ practices, became the industry standard. (And some deaths are not attributable to WWE at all.) So the idea that Linda and Vince McMahon have changed the health and safety culture for the better is the opposite of the truth.
Once you grasp these points, it is natural to move on to others not covered by The Weekly Standard – such as the McMahons’ obstructions of justice while they were under federal criminal investigation in the 1990s, and the mysterious failure of Congressman Henry Waxman to hold public hearings in 2007 after the staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in the wake of the Chris Benoit double murder/suicide, investigated WWE behind closed doors.
Irvin Muchnick
Berkeley, CA
Irvin Muchnick is author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death (ECW Press, 2009).
As soon as its excellent article on Linda McMahon was published on July 14, I sent a letter to The Weekly Standard adding a few points. The magazine will not tell me whether it intends to publish the letter. The limited partners of Wrestling Babylon Blog LLP have authorized me to post it below.
The Weekly Standard piece itself can be viewed at http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/wrestlemania-connecticut.
Jonathan V. Last’s take on Connecticut Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon is, by a considerable margin, the most thorough and accurate I have read. I add only a few dissents and additions.
First, I caution against Last’s formulation that “the steroid problem” of the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertaiment is “not, as steroids usually are in sports such as baseball, about ‘fairness,’ with people worried that roided-up athletes had an advantage over clean ones.” Pro wrestlers who “juice” do have a competitive advantage over those who don’t – precisely because wrestling is not a legitimate contest and there is a premium on cosmetics. This is indispensable to comprehending the regime of steroid and prescription drug abuse, serial untreated concussions, and other systematic occupational health and safety hazards of the industry dominated by the McMahon family.
My second point is closely related: The pandemic of death in wrestling coincides with the generation of WWE’s global expansion and marketing. Some young wrestlers died while under contract to WWE, some died as a result of bad habits adopted or worsened while with WWE, and others died without ever having made it to the biggest company, but simply as a result of assuming, all by themselves, public-health risks that, thanks to the McMahons’ practices, became the industry standard. (And some deaths are not attributable to WWE at all.) So the idea that Linda and Vince McMahon have changed the health and safety culture for the better is the opposite of the truth.
Once you grasp these points, it is natural to move on to others not covered by The Weekly Standard – such as the McMahons’ obstructions of justice while they were under federal criminal investigation in the 1990s, and the mysterious failure of Congressman Henry Waxman to hold public hearings in 2007 after the staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in the wake of the Chris Benoit double murder/suicide, investigated WWE behind closed doors.
Irvin Muchnick
Berkeley, CA
Irvin Muchnick is author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death (ECW Press, 2009).
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