sek69

Did Bret ever say himself why he didn't sue, even just to extract a token settlement? The somewhat obvious reason everyone always mentions is that Bret attacked Vince afterwards, so he was afraid of the countersuit. Because he trashed the monitors and other equipment after the match and damaged WWF property and Vince could have counter-sued for that. It would have just led to everything being tied up in court forever.

WWE goes out of their way to avoid having their contract clauses tested in court since that tends to end badly for them.

Not to pull a Dave On Twitter and be all "reading is your friend", but the back issues of the WON from this time are fascinating reading.

He was offering several alternatives, all were being vetoed by HHH who got in Shawn's ear. I know that sounds to some folks like "OMG HHH CONSPIRACY" type shit, but it was reported at the time that Vince, Bret, and Shawn all agreed to do a DQ or some other non finish at Survivor Series and Bret would drop it at the next PPV or some Raw in the meantime. Hunter got Shawn all riled up about not beating a guy on the way out and all bets were off and we got what we got.

That was amazing, it was like someone mixed Hustle with a meth lab.

It wasn't made up in recent years, it's been pushed hard in recent years as the justification for Vince doing what he did. Based on the multitudes who keep @'ing Dave on Twitter about it, it seems a lot of the younger generation is convinced that Bret was 100% going to show up on Nitro with the belt and poor Vince had no other choice but to do what he did. No matter how many times it's pointed out that there was zero chance of that ever happening, each time they release a new documentary it just cements it further in the minds of people who weren't following at the time. Yes it makes Vince look desperate, but it also makes him look right in the eyes of the fans. I'd wager that's more important to him. Just like they push the narrative that WCW was the evil empire bent on sending the McMahons to poverty.

Make up a story that makes him sound like a paranoid mess to...make him not sound like a paranoid mess? Make up a story that makes it sound like Eric was actually planning on doing it instead of the truth that even if he did want to (and lets be honest he probably did), there would be a hundred Turner lawyers shutting it down before it happened.

The official excuse for Montreal now is Vince was forced to do what he did because he was afraid Bret would show up on Nitro with the belt. That ignores the fact that Bret had several more weeks left on his contract (he offered to drop the belt at the December PPV) but that Vince's own lawsuits would prevent WCW from doing anything with the belt. Remember that the first lawsuit over belts was WCW's from Ric Flair showing up on WWF TV billed as the Real World Champion with the big gold belt. Then there was also WWF suing them over portraying Hall and Nash as WWF invaders in their initial appearances on Nitro. It was clear at that point that neither company would do anything implying usage of the other's intellectual property after that. The Madusa excuse is just another example of history being written by the winners and making Vince seem like anything than the paranoid mess he was at the time.

Dave mentioned that the Rock N Roll Express will show up so there's that.

My main takeaway is that the known bag-shitter Orton is now considering himself a gatekeeper of RESPECTIN' DA BIZ.

Interesting tidbit in the new WON, apparently Randy Orton doesn't think the indy veterans in the company kiss enough ass backstage or something:

WCCW's bigger shows were usually in Reunion Arena, and they had a few supershows at the Cotton Bowl.

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. By itself it's not a big deal but month after month it adds up. Plus they can't just increase what they charge cable/sat providers to make up the difference forever, when even the sports leagues themselves are starting up options to watch games without needing to be tied to a subscription. So even if you're right and the monthly loss of subscribers isn't a killer, they're the middleman that the foundation is being laid to work around soon anyway. Either way is bad news for anyone looking for a big payout from a TV network in the future.

It's not just what the tech sites say, it's what the network's own numbers say. The current market of paying boatloads of money for TV rights fees is not sustainable long term. Believe me when I say TV is very much a quarter-to-quarter industry and at some point they're going to have to pay the toll for thinking things will only go up.

But people are cutting the cord, ESPN is losing millions of subs, and at the rate they are losing they won't be able to afford the cost of live sports. It's not that people aren't watching, but are changing how they watch in large enough numbers to start to make an impact.

The much bigger worry as far as TV goes would be the sports bubble bursting entirely, and based on how fast ESPN is shedding subscribers it's going to happen much sooner than everyone thinks. Basically ESPN set the tone for everyone getting higher TV rights fees by paying billions to the NFL, NBA, NCAA, et al. They're getting dangerously close to being at the point they won't have enough subscribers to cover the costs of the checks they wrote. When that particular shit hits the fan, it's going to trickle down to companies like WWE who are going to take a bath on their next contract talks. Every network is going to be able to claim poverty and lowball the hell out of everyone looking to negotiate a new deal. The cold truth is that they could be doing Attitude Era TV ratings and it probably wouldn't matter since the money most likely won't be there no matter what. If that in fact happens, Vince is going to look like a genius for having the Network to fall back on so the company would at least have a life raft to hold on to.

Yeah, it's not like we have 30+ years of them in the public eye to draw on or anything.

Another interesting point is in the breakdown of ownership, I believe Linda only owns 8% and Shane and Steph each own 2%. Vince's share is like 48% or so after the last sale he did, it could come down to how his estate divides his portion when the time comes. Wouldn't it just be the most Vince thing ever for him to spend the last years of his life grooming Steph to take over, only to will his entire ownership stake over to Shane?

The only guys who should be doing holds are guys like Jack Gallagher who's gimmick is being a technical wrestler. Otherwise it's just a third hour of regular WWE programming with purple ropes. The cruiserweights on Nitro were doing shit no one had seen before in 1996, and they had the benefit of being on a show main evented by guys who by and large hadn't left their feet in decades prior. A flippy guy show in an era of main event flippy guys is not going to wow anyone. And I'm saying that as someone who's a fan of most of said flippy guys.

I wonder if the issue with that episode was the "Lombardi Trophy" bit that ended up being a Brooklyn Brawler gag. The NFL is notoriously insane when it comes to anything even close to resembling their Super Bowl IP.

Watching it now, the Raw Bowl match itself isn't that bad in terms of how wacky 1996 WWF can be. The commentary with the endless forced football puns made me envious of the deaf though.

The brand split didn't help either. They had to fill rosters so now we have American Alpha on SD as complete nothingburgers every week instead of being stars on NXT. They had to fill 2 women's divisions so now we get too green for TV women's matches on NXT.

STOP THE PRESSES THE RAW BOWL (#141) IS FINALLY UP!

Shane (rightly) feels Hunter stole his legacy as the heir apparent and Hunter is the most insecure person possibly in the history of wrestling. I wouldn't be surprised to see a post Vince world end up being Steph/Hunter and Shane/Dunn running two separate companies. I just don't think they'd all be able to work under the same roof without Vince around to keep them from strangling each other.

Well it would be in the family regardless of who took over, but I'd wager Shane having boys to carry on the McMahon name means a lot to Vince.