Saturday, April 14, 2007

I HATE KAYFABE

I'm watching this Four Horsemen DVD and it is driving me nuts. If I have to listen to Arn Anderson (or Michael Hayes or JJ Dillon for that matter) deliver one more kayfabe explanation about the Horsemen I'm going to throw my TV through the window. In 2007 it's beyond insulting. Every damn person buying the DVD knows it's a work and just wants to know the real story. Maybe in the 80s keeping kayfabe had some meaning. And by all means don't flaunt that it's a work on your own TV shows. But if you've got a few thousand people buying these niche DVDs, they don't want to hear you pretending the whole thing was a shoot any more than people renting a documentary on Al Pacino aren't going to want him to pretend that he's Michael Corleone and talk about why he did the things in the scripted movie that he did. There was a time when you were being respectful to the business with that stuff, but now you're just being a disrespectful jackass to the audience Arn. So can the bullshit or just shut up.

8 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

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9:03 PM  
Blogger Todd Martin said...

Normally I would delete this, but this one was just too funny. I'm glad you're fascinated by my interest in photography.

9:08 PM  
Blogger Al Tyson said...

next thing i know you're gonna tell us there's no santa claus.

why tell arn anderson to 'shut up'??

10:27 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Besides the kayfabe issue, how is the DVD? I am contemplating picking it up, but was curious about the overall content.

9:18 AM  
Blogger Todd Martin said...

Arn is too smart of a guy to not know that the business has changed. Talking kayfabe on DVD releases that are explicitly not about kayfabe is an "FU" to the audience, an "I'm not letting you idiot fans into my world." And Arn doesn't even just kayfabe. He does that annoying Apter Magazine stuff from the 80s when you talk about things going on behind the scenes that didn't actually happen: "Well, I got in touch with Ric the week before and we came up with a plan to set up Sting." And then he goes on to explain how they put together this booked angle. It's unbelievably insulting to the audience, and if they want to do that on the DVDs then I'd rather they just shut up.

The DVD overall is pretty good. Obviously the kayfabe stuff drives me nuts and there is plenty of that, but there is also lots of fun classic footage. It's worth picking up, but the DVDs have taken a tumble for the worse as they go more kayfabe. And the irony is as people figure this out they are going to buy less.

1:04 PM  
Blogger Houston Mitchell said...

Do you have any photos of the DVD you can share? Your photography is outstanding.

7:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip about the Horsemen DVD, Todd.

Not that one single person alone has any real weight, but I won't be picking up this DVD specifically because it's in kayfabe mode as opposed to somewhat realistic. I'll be voting with my wallet as they say, and as you very correctly pointed out, as they continue down this road, I (along with others I'm sure) will buy less and less.

I almost never buy the WWE DVDs, unless they're something relating to wrestling's past, such as this case in point. I guess I'll just take my money and pick up some extra ROH DVDs instead...

~Ryan

10:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In my review I said the same about Arn. It almost ruined a rather good DVD. Arn and Teddy both stayed in kayfabe and the others didn't so it made it even worse. I was really disappointed in the match selections. At least they did have the 17 minute of Flair on Nitro.

5:29 PM  

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