When it comes to documentaries, one must take everything that's presented with a grain of salt. I've noticed on several episodes of Dark Side of the Ring, fabricated details are added here and there to give greater meaning to otherwise mundane occurrences. My commentary here is from the perspective of someone who has some awareness of the events that occurred in the episode in question (as I was a die-hard adult fan when it occurred), but foremost on my mind is giving a review based on an assumption that all depicted occurrences did indeed happen.
The Plane Ride From Hell. That plane ride, and the stupid shit that happened on it. The biggest issue that has apparently shocked the internet so hard that it's currently on a campaign to end careers, is that Ric Flair is said to have forced a female flight attendant to touch his genitals.
Yes, other stupid shit happened. But that incident, and commentary regarding it, is what we're all expected to be focused on.
What I knew prior to that episode's airing was that Ric had been parading around the plane while wearing only a robe, and had been asking female flight attendants to touch his penis. This information came from dirt sheets, and thus may as well have never happened at all. The commentary from the actual flight attendant, which was shown coming directly from her in interviews for the episode, indicates that Ric Flair forced her to touch his penis while he was cornering her in the plane's galley, and that Ric only stopped when Dustin Runnels came into the galley and told him to stop.
There we have it, an actual spoken accusation. Now, if the flight attendant's accusation wasn't true, my first assumption is that Ric would want to refute her claim (while not directly calling her a liar) while giving his best version of what actually occurred. Ric's only response -- which includes a note that the people closest to him had insisted that he not respond -- attempts to convey that this entire controversy comes from an interview with ESPN for which he willingly participated and that we all should choose to doubt parts of what was passed on to the producers at Vice for Dark Side of the Ring. Ric does not mention the incident in question where he had apparently committed sexual assault, and offers no apology to the flight attendant or insight into what he remembers had occurred.
Now, I don't fully agree with the current campaign to destroy the careers of Ric and Tommy Dreamer. More on that later.
I'd like to mention that I feel that Ric Flair is a normal, everyday type b personality, who accidentally wandered into the role of being an obnoxious type a personality thanks to professional wrestling. I recall when the WWE was doing their stupid filler for the network, and they decided to run some stupid animated films depicting comical representations of the wrestler's "road stories". Ric recalled how he had been on a flight, where all the gorgeous flight attendants were swarming around him to find out more about the great and mystical Ric Flair. One of them had found a robe of his, and asked with starry eyes if she and the rest of the harem of buxom flight attendants could see him wear it and parade around. Ric, being coy as a deluded type b sack of shit normally would be, at first attempted to refute their flirtatious ways by telling them that he didn't have his ring gear and that if he did wear the robe he would have to be nude underneath. The flight attendants all became completely unglued at the notion of seeing this physical Adonis nude and in a luxurious robe at that, and they begged him to strip nude and parade around in just his robe. Ric recalls doing just that, and how fun and wholesome the entire moment was.
I've met plenty of creepy perverted guys throughout my life, and they all have something in common with Ric. They imagine that they live in a world where the sexual affection of women isn't something that they desperately want, but is something that (almost inconveniently) falls into their lap and that they simply MUST do what they are expected to do by the over-eager women. Their stories go like Ric's, they're casually attending to something like their own leisure or perhaps something important like their studies, and the undeniable aura of sexual prowess beckons nearby women to abandon their inhibitions and persuade the creepy sacks of shit in question to abandon their apparent inhibitions as well. I find it very odd that Ric's animated "road story" seems very similar to the incident that occurred on the plane ride from hell, albeit Dark Side of the Ring seems to have provided the perspective of the actual flight attendants.
Now then, does Ric deserve to be cancelled? I would say yes. Does that opinion make me a member of the dreaded "cancel culture"? No, that's a very fucking stupid assumption. What we know today to be "cancel culture" is just a stupid mutation of what has occurred ever since the invention of media coverage by right-wing media because they've literally ran out of buzz-words to use to demonize the left. I'm not a member of the left, and I'm also not a moron. Not being a moron puts me at odds with what I see to be as 98% of the useless sacks of shit that claim to be conservative Republicans while also having no idea of what those two terms mean.
I feel that Ric, being unable to reckon with the idea that some women in this world do not want to have sex with him, knowingly forced a flight attendant to touch his penis with the attitude that she was only resisting because she didn't realize how amazing it would be to touch his penis. Well Ric, you're a fucking rapist, so kindly sink into whatever circle of like-minded shit-stains are willing to accept your company and pray to whatever misshapen deity shat you into this world that I never run into you. Your dumbass commercials for Car Shield were a fucking embarrassment, and being kicked off their ad campaign should be seen as a silver lining to the massive shit cloud that represents your life in my mind. While some remember you as a legend, I'll remember you as a paint-by numbers dork-ass whose best matches involved putting crowd's to sleep while pussy-footing around toward getting a time limit draw, and who pissed on the potential of future top draws because you either didn't want to lose your spot or you couldn't accept that fewer people wanted to watch you run through the same fucking act every god damned night. Cancel the sack of shit, and let's move on. "Oh, but what about the work, and the robes, and the 1992 Royal Rumble?" GO FUCK YOURSELF! Moving on.
Tommy Dreamer? I really don't think that he is deserving of the treatment that he's getting, because I feel that he's being unduly blamed for what viewers apparently imagine is him victim blaming the stewardess. Apparently at issue is that Tommy had said near the end of the episode something to the effect of "If you were really a victim of sexual assault, then you should have reported it." Now, without directly asking Tommy what he meant, I feel that it's a stretch to assume that his comment was an effort to imply that the stewardess who made the accusation was lying. It's already been suggested that Vice used "creative editing" to create a false impression through Rob Van Dam's commentary in the episode that he had seen Ric exposing his penis first-hand, Rob Van Dam has stated explicitly that he never saw Ric's penis and that he thus never saw it doing the "helicopter". Without asking Tommy exactly what he meant by his comments, he was fired from Impact Wrestling and he's apparently been ostracized from the wrestling world. I feel that everyone got hasty with Tommy, and that we should at least find out what he meant. Tommy has posted an image of his comments regarding the controversy, and he states that it was never his intent to victim shame anyone and that he understands how his commentary could have triggered their emotions regarding past emotional trauma.
I only want to know a few things. First; did Tommy mean to imply that the stewardess was lying? Second; was Tommy's comment a general attitude toward victims of sexual assault or was he just making a flippant remark while in conversation with the interviewer? I feel that most of us have varying attitudes toward any given subject, and that in conversation we might make a statement that seems contradictory to an opinion given as a direct answer to a direct question, and that we should regard the direct answer as more of an indication of how we actually feel toward a given subject. Vice has inspired a controversy that is granting them a wave of publicity and appeal, so it's unlikely that they'll ever try to clear the air and calm down the controversy that's destroying Tommy Dreamer's life. I get that enabling a rapist sack of shit like Ric Flair with flattering commentary regarding his penis might seem like an implication that the stewardess was just playing coy and secretly wanted to touch his penis, but I believe that Tommy was just offering random commentary at the time and wasn't speaking directly to the subject of the sexual assault that occurred. I really don't care if I ever see Tommy Dreamer on tv, though I feel that -- without the reasoning for his commentary being made clear by him -- he's an unfortunate victim in all this and that those that are condemning him should really go fuck themselves.
So basically:
Ric Flair; you're going to a special place in Hell little man, and Hawk won't be there to protect you.
Tommy Dreamer; hang in there, this is when you can easily figure out who your true friends are.
Vice; great job, and by that I mean that you made a passable documentary that incorporates enough bullshit to qualify as cancel porn.
Jim Ross; YES YOU STUPID FUCK! YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT THOSE LITTLE BASTARDS IN LINE! PUT DOWN THE FUCKING BOTTLE AND BE A FUCKING ADULT!
Originally Posted by Spidercanrana
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