sek69

I always saw it as Vince seeing dollar signs in Warrior and wanting to move on, only for that plan to fail spectacularly and falling back on his security blanket like he always does. Plus having him so definitively squashed by Yokozuna seemed like a "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" move.

He was definitely being phased out in favor of Warrior, and then the steroid trial stuff happened.

My theory always was his ego was so bruised by getting kicked to the curb by Vince that it turned all of Hulk's worst traits up to 11 as overcompensation. Not that Hulk was ever accused of being a guy willing to put anyone over, but even by his standards that 93-96 run was unbearable,

The original Rusev and Lana pairing was probably the best use of her, but Vince just can't leave well enough alone and has to break up every pairing in the company. Which would be fine if there was a plan for both, or even if one ends up the Marty and the other becomes a star, but 9 times out of 10 it's just done to do it and both parties come out of it worse off. Plus the times he was trying to break them up IRL for Vince reasons. I would wager them being paired back up outside of WWE would work great, since I would assume they wouldn't be asked to do any more cuck angles.

He also mentioned top guys can negotiate a no cut deal if they push for it, while it would be a non starter for anyone below that level. I would assume Edge has the stroke to get a no cut deal, but then again he's done enough acting gigs he might not care if they did cut him. He wanted to come back so he could finish his career on his terms, and I would suspect if he got cut today he would probably feel he's done that. Braun is the interesting case for me. He seems like a guy who could be molded into a pretty big star if he's paired with the right people anywhere he goes, but he also gave the impression he bought in completely that anywhere not WWE is low rent trash so it might be hard for him to shake that.

I love that for some reason Mr. Hughes would randomly appear in every major company in the early to mid 90s. I forgot about his time in ECW and nearly spat my drink out when I showed up on the random ECW show I pulled up on Peacock.

A really significant way that Vince changed the business that no one really ever talks about is how wrestling changed from actual independent contractors fully aware most promoters were looking to F them over and as such looked after their interests first, to a complete "company (and Vince) uber alles" mindset that everyone there seems to have where it seems most of the people there would chop off an arm or leg if Vince asked them to. It's easy to see how nonsense like Qanon and right wing conspiracy theories can take hold so easily since they create the perfect mentality for it.

You don't have to shit on WWE or Vince, but it's weird and cult like to see people who just got fired after being ignored/unused for months still going out of their way to praise the All Powerful Father Vince. You just thank them for the opportunity and go about your life's work. You don't see athletes in actual sports maintaining a slavish devotion to the team owner while saying it was the GM's fault he got cut from the team very often.

Yeah unless there's a mega dump between now and then (and Summerslam isn't until mid August so I guess it's technically possible) it's not looking good that they will make that goal. It's really discouraging since I've been going back to watch ECW PPVs and there's so much that was available before that is still missing.

While most wrestlers of this generation have the dream to go to WWE, I don't think any of them were thinking "man, if I can just get to WWE and cash checks while doing jack shit in catering for years, that would be sweet". Considering pretty much all of them state frustration with creative (or lack thereof) in their post WWE interviews, I would say that the talents are just as precious about shitty booking as the fans are. Maybe they take a slightly different angle than a fan would, but it's definitely there.

Drake's not a covid denier, but he's anti everything to help stop the spread of it. Between violating quarantine to saying masks aid child traffickers, he might as well be a denier at this point. Just like he denies being part of Qanon, he just parrots all their talking points and is booked to be on a q-adjacent wrestling event to SAVE DA KIDS. Proper right wing mentality to blame everyone else for finally facing the consequences of their actions tho

So many people leaving WWE sound like someone who just left a cult, and it's honestly scary. Even people who know what the deal is still can't seem to completely shake the "Vince is the loving father who does no wrong, anything bad is someone else's doing" mindset.

Braun contains multitudes, he was a can't miss WWE prospect who was mind bogglingly botched, shared his battle with mental illness on a WWE doc, and was also a dickhead on social media to indy wrestlers who started GoFundMe's during the pandemic basically saying they should all just walk into the PC and go right to Raw like he did if they really wanted to succeed in DA BIZ.

Interesting to see someone as intelligent as Tommy End (I guess we can call him that again) talk about how Vince didn't really get him made him feel shackled, and release him right after he was told the next step in his Big E feud would be this week...........and say "plans change" is a BS cop out from the sheets. WWE Kool Aid mix stay strongest.

It really seems like Nick Khan looked over the roster and said "why are we paying this much money to people who are barely being used". A pure "we want to make all the money no matter the cost" move that smacks of someone 100% business focused. Everyone's going crazy speculating a sale is imminent but it's just the same profit over people mindset you see in every corporation in the world.

My understanding is a lot of the folks on Dark/Dark Elevation are working on per date deals anyway so it's not like they have a ton of people under contract, I would not be surprised to find out more deals will be allowed to run out since Tony wanted AEW to be a place where folks could get work during COVID and they really haven't released anyone who wasn't first being a shithead.

Kong and Shanna seem to have proven my theory that AEW is just going to let a lot of contracts expire without being renewed. That way they don't have to be the bad guys and proactively cut people, and they can let the roster bloat issue solve itself.

NXT UK puzzles me. Like, I don't want to see anyone lose their jobs but the whole reason NXT UK even exists is because WWE wanted to kill the World of Sport reboot before it could get off the ground. They succeeded in that and now the brand is like some sort of weird zombie shuffling around with no purpose.

WWE contracts historically have been hilariously one sided, and the only time anyone ever challenged them on it (Brock, when they tried to enforce their non compete world wide to keep him out of New Japan) the company backed down quickly.

Vega apparently never officially signed back. Also Brandon Thurston made the point that most if not all of the cuts made since last year were people who signed big "don't go to AEW" deals and this is probably less about a potential sale and more the company realizing that talent was getting negotiating power that had to be nipped in the bud. Gonna be harder for non main event level folks to ask for raises if they instill a fear that doing so will move you up the list when cuts come.

Interesting they would cut a guy like Braun, who seems to be everything WWE looks for in a wrestler, and also the biggest star fully created by the current development system.

WWE hired Jamie Horowitz to be a VP, a guy previously known for ruining ESPN by turning all their shows into Fox News style shouty heads and also for being accused of sexual harassment while working for Fox Sports. I guess he won't be assisting Steph with creating feminism.

Main events/ title matches warrant 20+ minute time limits, there really isn't much else that would warrant that much time. Dave was talking about how everyone in AEW is out to have the best match on every show, which on paper is good, but sometimes it leads to over-long matches because both parties are trying to get all their AJPW 90s homage spots in.

I'm OK with it if it's a manager or a bumbling second doing it, but yeah wrestlers doing it makes them all look like goofs and not in the "dastardly heel gets their comeuppance" way.

Yeah as much as I wanted to see her get one last shot in the big leagues it was clear she had nothing left in the tank. Hopefully her performance in GLOW opens the door to more acting gigs since she was really good on that show.