Apparently so. Well, blows to the head anyway.

excessive head trauma

Bang Bang...

it makes sense now when a couple of weeks ago on RAW when Batista was blasting Cena with that chair he never hit him in the head with it

so the MITB ladder or any ladder match will next be a match where there will be no ladders just guys scrambling for the briefcase/belt at eye level and the match will last about 30 seconds?

I was just thinking about that. I'm cool with these fines personally chair shots are awesome yes but my thinking has always been "you're supposed to put your hands up" and as a kid I when that didn't happen I thought it was dumb, sure it increases the realism but the payoff at the expense of a performers health is too steep a price. As far as Beniot goes he was by and large one of my favorites still is actually the circumstances of his death and reading about the research done after had me hoping the WWE would start taking the safety of its performers a lot more seriously. I don't care if it was Lindas political ambitions or the fact that the media was breathing down the WWE's throat after so many wrestlers deaths I'm glad the company is being responsible for its workers.

Banning the chairshot to the head outright and issuing fines anyone foul of the rule is a step too far. The fine is unnecessary - the wrestlers should be reminded simply not to use them. A more friendly approach would simply be to restrict their use, but allow them for major spots or storyline developments just as the piledriver/tombstone is now.

Take the example of the Undertaker, who until around 1999 used his tombstone every other week. Now that it has been restricted, whenever it is brought out, it's a key moment - such as during last week's Smackdown when it was used along with the chokeslam and the (even rarer) Last-Ride to send a message to HBK.

Well said.

There is no point to unprotected chairshots to the head:

1. You can hit a guy in the back of the shoulder and with a good sell, it looks like it's to the head.
2. You can hit the ground next to their head at the right angle, it looks like it's to the head.
3. You can hit the guy who brought his arm up to protect his head, it looks like it's to the head.

You can make it look like your caving his head in with a chair without, you know, ACTUALLY CAVING their head in with a chair.

This is fucking lame. :eek: A chair shot to the back just doesn't seem as devastating. They shouldn't out right ban it, it should be allowed during a special occasion or so.

And before anyone picks apart my point, I understand that this move is for appearances only in order for Linda to appear more credible in politics. However, the public will always have preconceptions of wrestling being trashy and violent. No matter how much Linda tweeks the WWE's product, that stigma will remain.

The only hope she has is to challenge and convince the whole industry to change, and that's just not going to happen.

EXACTLY:y:

I don't think that matters. All Linda really wants to do is say, when questionned about her background in "Sports Entertainment", is "the WWE hasn't allowed our entertainers to smash steel folding chairs over another's head for 16 months now", but the truth is that it still won't matter because wrestling will always be looked-down upon as a hick past-time.

The only people who will notice will be the fans and those involved in the industry, and generally the ven-diagram that is life rarely has 'wrestling fan' and 'potential voter' overlapping (and even if it did, she might have lost herself a few votes with this move anyhow)

well if it's been banned for 16 months and no one noticed until she came out and said it, what does that say about it?

it says that they weren't necessary to begin with, and an unnecessary health hazard to wrestlers.

Finin' the school canoe, oh you bet thats a finin'

I never realised that chair shots meant so much to people.

Things like the conchairto look great without the need to take a heavy shot. A sustained chair attack to the body seems more debilitating than one to the head anyway. I haven't even noticed them not being used.

As for Benoit, it's too easy to describe him as evil rather than the possibility of having brain damage due to repeated untreated concussions for years and years even being considered.

you are kidding right? my grandmother can swing a chair harder than that

Ya know.... I'm gonna take BDC's side with this, and I'll do it in a way we haven't seen before.

Maybe, not just maybe.... the lack of chair shots to the skull MIGHT increase the longevity... And with less "hardcore" action, we MIGHT see more WRESTLING ON A FUCKING WRESTLING PROGRAM!!!!!

Wrestling fans watch wrestling shows to watch wrestlers wrestle. It's quite simple.

I hope they don't stop the match to stitch up vince if bret makes him bleed

What is it with people thinking chair shots = wrestling?

So how long will it take for a match be just 2 guys enter the ring and stand there

or put up a safety net

poli = many
tics = blood-sucking creatures
politics = many blood-sucking creatures

I think it has to do with the generation of kids who were introduced to wrestling during the Attitude era. Chairshots were as common as an arm drag back then. It seemed somebody was always getting walloped with a chair every other week. Hell, Mankind v Rock I Quit Match may have set a record for most shots on one match during that era.

But I agree, and FourFifty touched on it as well. Wrestling shows are for fans who want to see wrestlers wrestle. I could give a shit about a head shot with a chair being banned. i watch for the actual atheltic performance and storytelling. While a chair has its special place, it's not essential to a great match.

This likely would have happened eventually even without Linda's political aspirations. They've been progressively stripping the "danger" out of wrestling for quite some time now.

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This doesn't bother me at all. I can never remember seeing a match or event and being disappointed there weren't chairshots.

All that matters are great matches, and great storytelling. This doesn't effect either. It's just not needed. They've pretty much been out of wrestling for years now, and I haven't missed it at all.
It's a prop to attack an opponent with. There are other things that can be done.

Surprised we're having a discussion about unprotected chair shots to the head and this hasn't been posted yet.

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wait so are protected headshots (when the put thier arms up) banned as well?

I guess Mark Henry had a really good reason why he didn't whack Cena with the Bell the other night on RAW.

Also wondering if this applies to sledgehammer shots...?

Doubt it. Admittedly, I don't watch much wrestling nowadays, but doesn't Trips go for abdomen shots with Sledgie?

The other two things that make me think 'it'll be okay' is that Trips usually places his hand over the hammer and if he aims for the head, he'll try to hit them with the handle rather than the hammer.

Trips has a pretty good track record with not injuring anyone with it anyway, the only time being with a foam hammer that busted Taker open at 'Mania.

Maybe you'll get a tattoo that represents something other than popcorn philosophy.

Nah, the wrestling's more likely.

I mean, really. Maybe we'll see more wrestling? No. We'll just see more "sports entertainment," while the wrestling moves are further stripped to be safer for their "superstars."

Chair shots are almost completely unrelated to the amount of wrestling in WWE. It not an either/or deal, and hasn't been for ages. We'll see more wrestling only if WWE decides that technical wrestling is somehow a marketable art--Which will happen just after I stop being a snarky misanthrope.

On the other hand, I don't really miss "hardcore" wrestling. I don't really miss blood, either. If there was solid storytelling, compelling characters and good ring work, they could ban all foreign objects and I wouldn't bat an eyelash. what's missing now is the same thing that's been missing for years. banning chair shots won't bring wrestling back to WWE, though.

Come on man. You're not being reasonable. The motives of the WWE might not be in the right place, banning the chair shot, but it's protecting their wrestlers regardless, and if you are in the slightest humane the fact, you would enjoy the fact that your favourite wrestler isn't getting fucking blasted in the skull by a steel chair. These guys are people too, they aren't JUST tools of your amusement. The fact that you would complain about them banning chairshots shows how selfish you are.

And no, banning chairshots will neither make the product better, or worse... it's just going to lessen the amount of untreated concussions these guys get.

You guys are acting like we've been getting shots like this. They've already been pretty damn safe with chairshots for probably the last 6 years. This just sets the rule in stone.

Seriously, when was the last unprotected headshot? Gonna guess One Night Stand 1.