the Day WrestleZone Died; a Retrospective

[EnviousDominous]

I'm a bit late to this occurrence, but I'd like to offer my two cents because I really did enjoy the catharsis that being an avid poster on the WrestleZone forum provided for me.

Shoutout to SlyFox, you're criminally under-appreciated for your contributions to that forum and without them I would have been a much more miserable person. You're, to me, a true tough-love artist whose only biases are facts and logic. For what it's worth, I have the utmost respect for you and I'm very thankful for what little I'm able to comprehend of your hard work.

Now, an explanation on my part for why I'm acknowledging this roughly three years later. So this won't be TOO distracting, I'll put it in a spoiler box.

Click for Spoiler:

I had endured the absolute worst six months of my life while deployed to Africa. My boss was a royal dick, my flight home was delayed a fucking MONTH, my replacement arrived literally the day that I left, and (no joke) I spent the entirety of the month of September 2017 building a fucking military base with no days off and my hours were roughly from dawn to dusk (remember, these are African days we're talking about.

We all have a "plan A" in terms of someone who we would like to be in a permanent relationship with. While deployed, I started reaching out to my "plan A", she is my age and we relate very well. We split up around six years prior because I told her, point blank, that I wanted marriage and kids. She wanted nothing of the sort, so we amicably split and I spent the next three days (no ioke) crying my eyes out. Fast forward to late 2017, I'm reaching out to her and she admits that she still has feelings for me. The funny thing about these conversations we started having, she started saying "Look, I'm not getting any younger. Do you want to get married eventually, or what? I ain't playing no games sucka'". Now, in my mind I'm cheering and jumping for joy, but I knew at this point in my life that I had to play it cool.

When I FINALLY got home in January of 2018, she was at the airport to pick me up. She said she would be there, but I honestly thought fate might gut punch me with a reality check. We stayed at my modest apartment, which I had granted her access to prior to my arrival so she wouldn't have to stay at a hotel. Our conversations eventually turned to how often we could see each other, and I suggested that when she returns home in February that we could plan for April. She looked shocked and humorously shouted "APRIL!?". We quickly realized that we REALLY liked each other, and began planning to have her move in with me.

She was from Phoenix Arizona, and had a job lined up that would pay $80K a year. She declined the job, and cleaned out her savings so that she and I could fly to Phoenix and move all of her things in a giant Penske truck all the way to Fort Walton Beach Florida. We were house-hunting while we were traveling, and managed to find a great place.

Not long after, I asked her to marry me and she said "yes" in a very "duh" tone. We were married in Tampa aboard a Carnival Cruise, the marriage occurred at the port. When everything was done, we could just relax into our week-long honeymoon.

So, that's what I was doing when ALL of this went down. We're still happily married, and our son was born in December of 2019.

I recall hopping on WrestleZone, and being blown away by the lack of activity. Shin and I had been talking a lot around that time, and I noticed that he had been posting from this forum. That was all the encouragement I needed, so I wandered over here and didn't put too much thought into why any of this happened.

Apparently if you search "steelcageforums" on Google, which is one method I use to access SteelCageForums from work and avoid their network restrictions, you can scroll down to find the thread on WrestleZone where this forum is advertised as a forum that won't make you sick and kill you. I will admit that I feel much healthier since I joined SteelCageForums.

That thread pretty much explained it all.

So, my impression, and I apologize in advance if I grossly misrepresent someone, is that Yaz lost his cool with someone. BUT! Yaz still engaged them in respectful conversation, which is to say that he entertained their points and offered his own well thought-out points as rebuttals. I'm only shocked at how this occurrence led to such a massive upheaval, but -- as is implied many times by SlyFox in the thread -- this was most likely a result that several mods from the front page had been planning for anyway and now they had a reason. I would also like to note that I believe SlyFox when he mentions that, because the writing was on the wall foretelling the demise of WZ, he was already in the process of creating a more well maintained forum.

Anyway, back to Yaz. I feel that we're far enough past this occurrence to where I can safely mention that Yaz was dealing with PsykoHurricane55 (then known as WrestlingMasters55). I never butted heads with WrestlingMasters55, because I saw absolutely no substance or referent credibility to anything he ever shared. I couldn't read any of his posts without running into ten grammatical errors and three logical fallacies before getting through a few of his run-on sentences. Then it happened, the day the Earth stood still. Yaz, as a prelude to his painfully thorough acknowledgment of WrestlingMasters55's points that were hidden deep within the rambling mess of non-sequiter word salads that made up his post, said (clutch your pearls now) "I swear you are fucking retarded."

Now, what do we do these days when confronted with a word like that? We figure out how to virtue signal in a way that promotes us as being altruistic because of our one-track interpretation of what was said.

SlyFox, rightfully, interpreted the word as being used in terms of the medical condition. Look, two of my best friends have Cerebral Palsey, so I'm not someone who would just shrug his shoulders at the callous use of that word. Yaz, reacting to someone who I would argue makes a VERY stong case for having a mental disability on the spectrum of mental retardation, stated that he strongly feels that WrestlingMasters55 is "retarded". Albeit, the observance was made out of anger, but it wasn't an effort to use ad hominem to dismiss him. Yaz still forced himself to argue the points that were made, which is a VERY respectful task when you consider that he could have just blown him off and saved his energy for something more worthwhile. I saw that the debate (more on that later), when directed against SlyFox's capabilities as an Admin, attempted to portray him as someone who advocated for the hateful use of the word. Umm, no, he absolutely didn't.

Now, I feel that when Yaz wants to infuriate you, he will. It'll be obvious, and it's likely because you pushed his buttons in some low-brow manner and he can't resist pulling you into a state of misery that's brought on by your own moronic attempts to attack his character. To outside observers, it's all a hilarious spectacle. This wasn't Yaz pushing someone's buttons for fun, this was Yaz being challenged with a congealed mess of logical fallacies that he took absolutely seriously in his response. The debate raged on, and I personally saw no reason for Yaz to be reprimanded for his use of the word.

I feel that offensive words reside at different points of a vast spectrum. SlyFox mentioned this, that the word in question can be used in a manner that should not offend someone due to the obvious context of its use. I mention that there's a spectrum in all this, because this doesn't mean that certain other words have the same privilege. To any decent person, these are just the rules, and this example is what happens when idiots try to dictate a new set of rules that make absolutely no sense.

On to Rob Taylor, that guy. What I gathered was that he and WrestlingMasters55 had appealed to SlyFox to have Yaz punished solely for using the word at all. SlyFox rebutted that attempt, and I believe that he clearly explained his reasoning for not punishing Yaz. The word wasn't in the realm of words that were stated as being forbidden on the forums, and that instance wasn't -- by any stretch of the imagination -- and example of flaming or bullying. Bullies don't argue points in a manner that's meant to promote more conversation, as Yaz clearly did.

So, apparently Rob decided that there had to be punishment. Yaz had to be punished for using a potentially offensive word, and if that punishment was the complete removal of his status as a forum mod then so-be-it and stuff. Hoo-boy.

Rob "how in the fuck do you have so much god damned free time?" Taylor, sent a message to someone at the front page, and it made its way to Nick Hausman, who I imagine dolled out the punishment of relinquishing SlyFox's and Yaz' forum capabilities inbetween calling automated telemarketer operators in Bangladesh so he could hear "yes" as a response to the question of "Can you find my dick with a microscope?" for the few times that someone would ever admit as much.

I would rarely visit the Bar Room at the WrestleZone forums, because I think if it was a literal bar it would have as its only rule that EnviousDominous stay the fuck out at all times. The forum thread where all this unraveled raged on while I was probably rocking out to Boy George.

Rob felt compelled to join in the conversation, and he made it abundantly clear that his position was that he felt slighted and that all should suffer for it. I imagine that his rage was more a result of being told that his fury was pointless by SlyFox, and less a result of seeing a particular word used ever. Sly humored him, and eventually Yaz chimed in with his two cents. Yaz revealed the thread that started all of these shenanigans, and it all came to fruition with me.

Now PsykoHurricane55 is apparently the only active user of the WZ forum, and we're all much happier over here.

I only discovered all of this yesterday, and I couldn't hold back my perspective. Here are my final thoughts:

SlyFox: Hard worker and one of the few people in this world that I admire.

Yaz: The funniest and most intelligent troll that I've ever encountered. From the bottom of my heart; I like the world more with you in it.

Wrestlingmasters55: Keep doing what you're doing. *salute*

Rob Taylor: For the love of God, get a fucking girlfriend.

WrestleZone: Buh bye now.

SteelCageForums: One of the few places I can behave like I want to behave.