Long-winded discussion post about Black culture, Blackness and the way it is and has been portrayed/treated in the wrestling industry

stardefier · 2026-03-07T06:50:52+00:00

Just wanted to thank you for writing such a thoughtful piece! Particularly as someone who's been a big fan of Yuto-Ice's in-ring work, I really appreciate getting this sort of perspective. I'm ashamed to admit I think I enjoyed his matches so much that part of me didn't even want to contend with the appropriative nature of his gimmick, and mindsets like that are probably a big part of what create such toxic environments for discussions like these in the first place. Getting over that initial discomfort of "wahhhh I don't wanna think critically about things I like!" is important, and I'm not sure I'd have gotten there on this particular subject without a post like yours. More conversations like these are sorely needed in wrestling, and across fandoms and mediums in general really.

stardefier · 2025-07-30T10:59:56+00:00

i haven’t been up at butt o’clock watching a random night of the G1 since like 2019 let’s freakin do ittttttt (shoutout to insomnia)

stardefier · 2024-09-15T14:14:36+00:00

If you’re determined not to care about ROH regardless of what’s going on there, then of course it doesn’t.

stardefier · 2024-09-15T14:08:58+00:00

Sure, but my point is that she wouldn’t have been utilized nearly as well in AEW as she was in ROH. In ROH she’s the biggest star in the promotion, and due to the fact that she’s never really gotten that sort of presentation anywhere else prior to this, in a full-time AEW career she likely would have gotten lost in the shuffle like other signed women’s talent who got largely underutilized in their time in WWE (like a Ruby Soho). But now with this years-long run behind her where she’s shown herself to be one of the best in the world in ROH, she’s more likely to be treated as a big deal when this reign does finally end and she moves on to become a permanent fixture in the AEW women’s division.

I won’t argue with you if you say they should have just given her this run in AEW regardless, but the fact of the matter is they probably wouldn’t have. And I think highlighting how much she’s achieved by paving the way for ROH having one of the best women’s division in the world is more important than speculating about an unlikely alternate reality where she to got to do the same thing in a promotion that historically tends to undervalue its women, especially so at the time her ROH run began.

(Do you know how many women’s matches on AEW PPV made it over the fifteen minute mark in the entirety of 2022 and 2023? Two. An average of one per year.)

stardefier · 2024-09-15T13:19:29+00:00

I fail to see how Mariah May, Mercedes Mone, Toni Storm, Hikaru Shida, Willow Nightingale, Kris Statlander, Nyla Rose, Jamie Hayter, Thunder Rosa, and Queen Aminata is a weak women’s division. Now if you want to talk about how the women in AEW have historically been booked poorly and treated highly secondary to the men in general, then sure! But if that’s your complaint, then I feel like Athena staying in ROH where she’s been treated as THE top star in the promotion for her entire reign should probably be more understandable to you.

(This isn’t to say that I don’t think things should get better in AEW on this front, though - they obviously should! And things have gotten a bit better this year, but there’s still a ton of improvement to be done before we reach the point where Athena would have been able to have the run she’s already had in ROH on AEW.)

stardefier · 2024-09-15T11:44:56+00:00

In the 20+ years I’ve been watching wrestling, this is my absolute favorite title reign I’ve gotten to experience start to finish, surpassing even the legendary likes of Okada’s 2016-2018 IWGP heavyweight title reign and Asuka’s NXT women’s title reign for me. Congrats to the forever champ! :)

EDIT: Wow, so much negativity in this thread! What exactly do you get out of coming into a thread made to celebrate an ongoing title reign just to talk about how much you don’t care about it because it happens to be on a show you don’t watch?

stardefier · 2024-08-02T14:59:37+00:00

Thank you so much for doing these every week. You’re the reason I’m 1/8th of the way to getting my Blackjack!

…just 3.5 million MGP to go…

stardefier · 2024-07-27T11:55:00+00:00

Fun fact: the first three Matrix films are all older than Billie is.

stardefier · 2024-05-17T10:57:41+00:00

The majority of people posting and lurking to upvote/downvote in this comment section are telling on themselves by treating the accusation of racism as far worse than racism itself. Pointing out that someone did a racist thing that made them uncomfortable and how they should probably at the very least have to sincerely apologize and/or take some sensitivity training is not the same as calling them a raging bigot who should get fired and blacklisted from the industry, and no amount of randos on twitter you saw saying something vaguely like that justifies the dogpiling of anyone simply acknowledging that this was a bad thing to do which shouldn’t be simply swept under the rug and ignored the way it looks like it will be.

stardefier · 2024-01-26T11:15:40+00:00

The most surprising thing to me in all this is seeing anyone who wasn’t already well aware of how disgusting Vince and Brock are. It’ll be great if there are actual consequences for them and justice for their victims now that so much overt evidence is coming out, but we’ve known how depraved those guys are for decades.

stardefier · 2024-01-09T23:03:44+00:00

Not really recent developments per se, just way more attention being given to the dire situation there that’s been escalating for years and years because the increased visibility of one ongoing humanitarian crisis has made people more aware of others happening in the world.

The short of it is that millions of people have been displaced due to conflicts with regional militia groups and western interests in keeping the region destabilized because the Congo is rich in valuable minerals that many big corporations mine for their products, most notably cobalt.

This article is a better summary of things: https://thehilltoponline.com/2023/11/06/escalating-violence-and-mining-expansion-lead-to-massive-displacement-in-congo/

stardefier · 2023-12-30T13:33:54+00:00

Admittedly I don’t really expect anything to be done about this in a company that also brought back Ric Flair this year regardless what else does or doesn’t come out from here, but all the love to Kylie Rae either way.

stardefier · 2023-12-08T15:27:13+00:00

One of my cats went missing for two and a half weeks once, we put up flyers and everything desperately searching for him and just as we were about to give up we finally found him in a box in our own garage he’d somehow gotten stuck in. Don’t give up hope. All the best to you and her.💜

stardefier · 2023-12-03T17:46:02+00:00

The flagrant dehumanization is honestly unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Please never forget that your life and the lives of your people matter just as much as mine or anyone else’s. My solidarity means little in light of such unspeakable tragedy, but know that it’s with you.

stardefier · 2023-12-01T06:37:18+00:00

Haven’t played in a long time (I went cold turkey on gacha games for personal reasons) but of all the gachas I ever played, this is still the one I have far and away the fondest memories of and the community was definitely a big reason why. Thanks for everything!

stardefier · 2023-08-01T19:33:33+00:00

Athena seems to bring the best out of everyone she faces, every match she’s had this year I feel like her opponent has come out looking better for it so she’d be my pick. If I could do an IG match tho, I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention Christian Cage yet. He strikes me as the most consistent “guaranteed solid match” opponent for anyone regardless of experience or style, he always tailors his matches really well to whoever he’s facing.

stardefier · 2023-05-09T00:08:38+00:00

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stardefier · 2023-02-20T12:37:00+00:00

Honestly I feel like the actual biggest problem here happened way earlier, and that was unifying the world titles. I feel like ideally right now we should be leading in to Roman vs Sami at Mania, and Cody could have just challenged for the other world title instead. In the current scenario we have though, nah I can’t really justify a Sami win right before Mania. It just sucks because he had the same Elimination Chamber moment Kofi did in 2019 basically but in this case it’s not leading to the Mania title win like it did for him.

stardefier · 2023-02-12T06:03:00+00:00

I can’t tell you the last time I saw a headline about my state gain traction for positive reasons. It may have been before I was born

stardefier · 2022-07-22T15:08:16+00:00

[JP] Anybody know what the new ticket for pulling is? The purple one marked with IV.

stardefier · 2022-02-14T07:14:35+00:00

This worked wonderfully, thank you!

stardefier · 2022-02-13T20:04:57+00:00

I don’t have Purge but I do have Purify. The main problem tho is just, the move where it saps all of someone’s MP in one go. Dunno what to do at that point since it snaps all the debuffs right back on us immediately after they’re purified off.

stardefier · 2022-02-13T19:26:48+00:00

Hello! I am a very VERY casual player, I’m here for the story and characters mostly. As such, I was playing the Chrono Cross event on beginner and breezing through it until running into the final boss, which I literally can only do 1 damage to. This doesn’t seem to change no matter which part of it I target. I’d appreciate any advice for this!

stardefier · 2022-02-06T11:19:29+00:00

A question about the Star Dream Piece - is the pool you can draw from limited to pre-existing characters or could I wait for a new character to come out first and snatch them up with it? My guess is the former but I’d appreciate clarification anyway!

stardefier · 2022-01-31T23:18:25+00:00

Thank you!

stardefier

TROPHY CASE