There are also some other stories about Quack, including a rumor that when someone let a female fan into the locker room, Quack anonymously sent the fan a rat with a knife through it (as if she should have known better to not enter the locker room when invited in).Thelone wrote: ↑Jun 25th, '20, 07:55I mean yeah, but just because you're a cheap-ass and a carny doesn't mean that you're a monster behind the scenes.Big Red Machine wrote: ↑Jun 24th, '20, 18:58They've been on life-support for a long time, mostly held up by Quack finding Danny Davis-like ways to save cash on everything from the production side, and Quack finding Quack-like ways to save money on the wrestlers side.
I don't doubt that Quack practiced voodoo magic to his trainees so they stay cheap and loyal to him, but it's not like any of those guys amounted to much in the last decade either, which makes you wonder how overrated Quack is as a trainer and how much people like Claudio/Hero/Death Ray/others I'm most likely forgetting actually helped him in the past.There have been accusations about Quack indoctrinating trainees to make them feel like it's okay to get paid basically nothing to work his shows for years.
Again, I don't really see losing a bunch of people because you're cheap as a sign that something wrong is going on, but the fact that almost no new up-and-comer comes in to replace them kinda does though. It could just mean that your promotion is becoming irrelevant of course (and CHIKARA did fall in that category), but also a toxic backstage environment (like ROH not long ago).With the shear number of people who have quiet fallings out with him over money every few years, you knew something was going to come out.
Hero's story about how he was kicked out of CHIKARA also fits the "manipulation" pattern.
And, in hindsight, the way the accusation about the Saturyne affair played into the rumors surrounding the Shutdown in the week or so before the show are probably the first example of gaslighting that I was aware of (I have no doubt that someone of the theories we saw online didn't originate with Quack himself and were spread by the clearly-too-close-to-the-promotion media types like Danielle Mathesson and Brandon Stroud (speaking of recent accusations) at his instruction. That podcast of Danielle's that got all of the attention for publicizing the shut-down theory seemed to disappear pretty quickly after it outlived it's usefulness for that purpose, didn't it?
Not to change the topic here, but during ROH's recent "irrelevant" period, a lot of the guys they brought in actually have turned out to have some upside. I still haven't gotten around to watching the three matches i need to do update my world title reigns ranking thread, but I have seen all of Taven's defenses and I'm pretty sure it's going to wind up in the top half, which is absolutely not what anyone expected going in, and that's not just because it's being padded by the recent short reigns of Rush and PCO, and Jerry Lynn-like short reign of Daniels (and the sh*t reign of Cody).
Shane Taylor has turned out to be pretty darn good, The Bouncers vs. Marseglia and O'Ryan feud last year was actually really damn good, and even Vinny Marseglia started to be an almost enjoyable character once Taven was out of the Kingdom. Maybe Delirious had a better eye for talent than we all gave him credit for.
That being said, he still utterly failed to capitalize on several fantastic talents over the previous few years (Jay White, Lio Rush, Dijak, Cedric, Sydal, ACH, and I'm sure I'm missing some others), but some of the guys he brought in have turned out to be pretty decent role-players (or, in the case of Taven, more than that). And it's not like guys with names weren't coming to ROH at that point (we got Kenny King back and Gresham came in, Sabin was used well when he was healthy, etc). Delirious' issues seemed to be more with utilizing his talent than anything else. Some people stayed away from ROH during that time because of it (Ethan Page immediately comes to mind), but I don't think it's fair to call ROH "irrelevant" during that period. That time of irrelevance was the time when Bullet Club was huge, and it's not long after Bullet Club leaves that we get the influx of big names like Brody King, PCO, Rush, Dragon Lee, Bandido, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins, etc. Delirious is a pretty poor storyteller, but he did bring in a chunk of the names that set up the groundwork for the so far promising Marty Scurll booking run, and 2019 was a pretty darn good year for ROH.