sek69

Even if there was someone savvy enough, to the outside world WWE = Vince, so when he's not around I could see the business/economic world having no faith in anyone else.

Considering the XFL went from "Vince is budgeting 3 years of losses" to dead in one year, I tend to think Vince is worried about potential cash flow issues. Even more so after the snap decision to start airing TV shows live instead of taped out of fear they'll lose TV money. The stock was taking a beating before everything went to shit, so everything that happened since just screams the choices of a guy trying to save as much cash as possible.

You would think that something worth as much money as a TV deal would have some sort of "we''ll probably never have to use this, but here's what happens in case of a giant, world-changing catastrophe" language included as a CYA measure.

It is, I watched the video. Apparently she felt the unnamed person was taking liberties against someone smaller/not willing to speak up to management and get a bad label and that's why she did it. Which I get, at least the things Nia has done weren't deliberate.

So some interesting things happening with the WWE women, Nia went on a Zoom chat with Paige (and others) and told a story about when she took it upon herself to complain to management because Alexa was getting beat up every night by someone not named and widely assumed to be Ronda. Then Ronda did a rambling interview calling the fans who turned on her ungrateful and it's why she left and she's not sure she's coming back (which lead Alexa to post the "shocked white guy blinking meme" pic as a response). So either this is some weird meta world building for Ronda to return as a mega heel, or Ronda just won the all time Gotten To world championship. Normally I would say this is 100% setting up an angle, but she's so notoriously thin skinned it's hard to say what the deal is.

Juice was in matches with young boys but not really in that role himself. He was just in the lower card to see what he could do, and then when he responded he got moved up.

Bucks/Revival/Lucha Bros/Dark Order (I know everyone hates their gimmick but their in ring is solid)/Best Friends/Dustin/QT (as the veteran guys who make everyone look good) is a hell of a group though.

I don't think it's quite fair to scold WWE talents with "you knew what you were getting into" when they get their heads filled with hype about being the next game changers in the industry, only to have every attempt made to advance their characters and/or creative gets passed on or given to someone else. If someone complains then resigns, that's on them I agree, but we should be supporting folks who call BS on WWE being the land of opportunity for the brass-ring-grabbers.

I will say I am intrigued at the possibilities with Evil Candace (it was kind of weird she was still a face when Johnny went so hard heel). Plus I popped for her wearing HBK inspired gear to make sure she got maximum heat on PWO

It wasn't as bad as I was fearing, it was really just like most of their other matches only with an extended dance sequence on top of a semi. I still can't get over one of the guys in the new monster tag team used to pitch in the Pirates' farm system.

Tony's basically stated they won't be offering stupidly large WCW level money deals, but if someone they think is a difference maker becomes available they'd make an offer.

Vince spent that money to try to keep AEW from happening. Having the Young Bucks collect dust in Orlando would have been worth whatever the cost was to not have another company on national TV again to him. Now that it's too late to prevent that from happening, I doubt he would be as interested in giving a blank check to what he surely thinks are a bunch of bland geeks.

I mean, I figured we all knew what it meant when the match was booked.

If Tony's feeling frisky, I could see TUE being the modern day Radicalz. I know people don't like Cole around here but there's no denying he'd be a much better fit in AEW than his eventual fate of chasing the 24/7 title on the main roster. Would Vince be willing to get into a bidding war for folks he most likely doesn't see any appeal in?

Roman's a guy who seems to be aware of his situation and won't care if he pisses off Vince, and Vince for all his....quirks.....knows Roman has options and he can't go full punishment mode on him. Even if he thinks Roman would never go to another wrestling company, all he has to do is call the Rock and be at worst the Hollywood equivalent of an upper midcarder.

I was talking about the Brawl for All episode, it seemed like they learned their lesson from that and made sure this one let both guys make their points without it totally breaking down into watching old men piss on each other's faces. Also Godfather might be becoming my favorite person in wrestling. I love how he just was all "yeah that was my fault, I totally didn't take Bart serious and my wife got pissed at me". It's refreshing to see a guy who so fully enjoyed his time in wrestling (outside of being in this tournament of course). It was also nice to see Droz doing pretty well all things considered, his story was so suddenly tragic and nothing else was ever heard about him.

Well it was pretty well balanced I thought. It showed why Russo was indeed a breath of fresh air and a new voice when the WWF badly needed both, and it showed why Cornette took it so personally while at the same time taking it to a level that seemed excessive. I lol'ed pretty good at the idea that Russo came up with the Brawl for All just to shut up JBL's big mouth. As much as my natural inclination is to not believe a word Vince Russo ever says. his take on JBL lines up with pretty much everyone's who's name isn't McMahon so I supposed it's a case of a broken clock being right. JR kinda came off looking the worst in a way, continuing to insist that it wasn't all a setup for Dr. Death to have a program with Austin when all available evidence suggested it was. I suppose there's a chance (Vince being Vince and all) they just *assumed* he was going to win and didn't officially set it up that way, but putting Bart on ice after winning it only to serve him up to be killed by Butterbean is still the all time "the company is pissed someone they didn't plan for got over" moment. Either way it's clear everyone in the locker room believed it was all designed for Dr. Death to win to the thing so it might as well have been the plan. Funny thing is Bart's career in Japan afterwards was more successful than anything that would have ever happened in the WWF, and it was due to the fact he KO'd Dr. Death in a legit fight.

I know WWE's gonna WWE, but Otis was actually over - not comedy character over - but OVER over with the crowd before everything went silent. Yeah he's goofy looking but the dude has the "it" everyone looks for so why not push the guy and see what happens? Being a comedy character should be a fallback rather than a main goal IMO.

Everyone on Wrestling Twitter made that joke when it happened so I suppose they knew they didn't need to make it themselves.

So I fell into a rabbit hole of Kevin Sullivan in Florida, and the whole Army of Darkness stuff was quite the ride. The angles they did were brilliant: Luna being introduced as a nearly unrecognizable interviewer looking like every woman in the 80s giving an award to Kendall Windham, which led to Kevin and his army crashing the party and Luna getting slapped (hard) by Kevin which somehow leads to her wanting to join his crew. Kevin trying to gouge out Blackjack's eye with a broken bottle, the NWA giving him "the largest fine in history" and Kevin's response being to take the letter it was written on and turn it into a paper airplane. All great stuff. Everyone played their roles perfectly, and you can even see where he'd get the idea for the Varsity Club years later with Bob Roop as the Olympic wrestler turned evil by the sinister mastermind. However....holy crap do Kevin's promos not hold up AT ALL. Watching a compilation you can see how he just recycles the same points over and over about taking the cosmic cookie (a not so subtle drug reference) to enter the Amazon River of his mind (what?) to speak to Abbuda Dein and/or the Chairman of the Board (which in the ICW footage was shown to be King Curtis, not sure if that part ever made it to Florida or not). That was literally every promo he did during the entire run. Which would be fine in a "people in the 80s would not have been watching it all in one lump like this" if it wasn't for the other part: the running themes of abusing women and racism. I'm not talking stuff that just doesn't look good with 2020 eyes, but stuff that didn't really fly in the 80s either. The whole deal with Luna turning to the darkside was basically Kevin saying she put her hands on him (she was trying to break up the melee) so he treated her like he would a man in that situation. It goes on to be a recurring theme that Kevin believes women need to be handled roughly and that they all secretly enjoy it, and all the while Nancy is right there and it's just too UHHH to handle with modern eyes. Then there's the feud with Tyree Pride, the Bahamas champion and a black man from Haiti. Kevin cuts a promo saying he normally wouldn't put his hands on "his kind of people" before devolving into the typical 80s southern promotion using race to get heel heat, brother. In all it was quite a strange trip. Kevin Sullivan might be one of the best brawling type wrestlers I've ever seen, with an amazing mind for booking, and quite possibly the worst promo ability of anyone ever given a major push in any territory.

Someone pointed out that Rhea looked like Vegeta's daughter coming for revenge and I can't unsee it.

I wonder if CM Punk gets like a 2 cent royalty check for being in that montage of Cena's history.

Y'know, all that stuff in the Funhouse match, and none of it was as weird as John Cena with hair looking like ripped JBL.

Dolph Ziggler looking like he cares about patching things up with Mandy when his character (and in IRL probably) would just move on to the next one is probably the most non-believable thing of the weekend.

It should, it's legit the best thing he's done in years.