sek69

They are missing the boat beating people over the head with the $9.99 gimmick. Other than PPVs, they aren't telling you what you get for that price. From what they mention on TV, you'd get the impression the only thing they show on the network are PPVs and a new season of Slam City starting soon. One thing I've always had branded into my brain in my years of working jobs where you had to upsell is to never lead with price, lead with value. Tell 'em all the cool features your widget has, then knock 'em over with the low low cost. Come to think of it, WWE's approach to the network is exactly the same as co workers I've had who weren't meeting their sales quotas and get desperate.... "come on, why don't you wanna buy this, it's only $9.99!"

Oh my god, a Heyman and Cena heel pairing would be off the charts.

I know they've done the "Cena overcomes the monster" deal a million times, but I don't recall him so explicitly stating he's going to use heel tactics to win before. I did like how they covered Cena winning before by stating Brock wasn't 100% and it took everything Cena had to win, so with Brock healthy Cena is facing certain doom.

WWE tried to enforce non competes internationally until Brock defeated them in court when he went to New Japan and they tried to stop him.

AAA sure seems to be under the impression that ADR doesn't have a non-compete, which even if he doesn't WWE still owns the name.

I love that Paul Orndorff looks like Zeb's little brother these days.

Oh FFS, they're going to do their own Claire Lynch angle with Daniel Bryan's therapist.

So I guess we should expect JBL to make random comments about Deadspin being full of basement dwellers if Vince gets sight of this. It's nothing new to those paying attention, but it's nice to see someone calling out pro wrestling on its bullshit.

The third hour of RAW usually dips no matter what is on.

Summerslam's been one of the best promoted shows they've done in months. Every match from top to bottom has reason to exist, and Brock being awesome in PURE SPORTS BUILD~! videos. People seem to be miffed that the Steph/Brie match is getting pushed as #2 on the card, but considering it's a continuation of the Authority vs Bryan feud it kind of should be. It comes off a lot of times like people being all "He-Man Wimmin Haters Club" that a women's match is getting a serious push.

I'm not expecting a five star classic, but I fully expect Steph to do her damnedest to have the female version of her dad's matches where there's enough smoke and mirrors for it to be decent. Of course it could also end up being the female version of a HHH match where she ends up booking something beyond the capacity of her opponent and it's a disaster.

How should a Hispanic star be booked? Serious question because we discussed this very topic on a soon to be released podcast of Booking the WWE. I still want you to answer this question. Honestly I always think how Loss once talked about how refreshing it would be if a wrestler could be gay without it being part of his gimmick, and think that could apply to Black/Hispanic wrestlers. Why couldn't Alberto be pushed like any strong heel, just one who happened to be Mexican? No Speedy Gonzales style exaggerated accents, no one beating it down your throats that he's MEXICO'S GREATEST EXPORT, MAGGLE! It also doesn't help the writers seem to have no idea how to write for a Hispanic character despite them insisting that's the core of his gimmick. Agreed with everything up until that last sentence which you kind of forces me to ask the same question again. I'm not sure what you're expecting me to say. As far as I know, the only non white guy on the writing team is Dave Kapoor, My thing is if they insist on making his ethnicity part of his gimmick, the people writing for him should have some idea what would appeal to a Hispanic audience. Rey wasn't a megastar to the Hispanic audience because they pushed it down people's throats, it was because he was this cool little dude who did all kinds of crazy moves and found a way to beat guys twice his size. Yeah, he'd bust out Aztec themed gear for big events sometimes, but being Mexican was never the main focus. Same thing with Eddie, he got way more over when they dialed back the LATINO HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT stuff and focused more on him being a great wrestler. Whenever he was doing the over the top stereotypical stuff he always did in in a winking fashion like he realized this was silly but at least he was in on the joke. Alberto as a babyface came off way too much as "this is what white people think latinos would cheer for" . tl;dr version: what fakeplastictrees said

How should a Hispanic star be booked? Serious question because we discussed this very topic on a soon to be released podcast of Booking the WWE. I still want you to answer this question. Honestly I always think how Loss once talked about how refreshing it would be if a wrestler could be gay without it being part of his gimmick, and think that could apply to Black/Hispanic wrestlers. Why couldn't Alberto be pushed like any strong heel, just one who happened to be Mexican? No Speedy Gonzales style exaggerated accents, no one beating it down your throats that he's MEXICO'S GREATEST EXPORT, MAGGLE! It also doesn't help the writers seem to have no idea how to write for a Hispanic character despite them insisting that's the core of his gimmick.

Dave only has sketchy details but from what he's hearing the guy said something about cleaning plates in catering being Del Rio's job. If that anywhere close to true it's a horrible attempt at a joke at best, and possible lawsuit material at worst.

Probably didn't help that it was written (IIRC) in the deepest darkest points of the Benoit aftermath when a lot of people were in a "fuck wrestling" frame of mind.

Looks like he slapped someone who works for wwe.com, seems like kind of a bitch move for someone with legit credentials to be beating up a web geek.

It was on WWE 24/7, so it's ready to go. Them wanting to add it is another issue.

I'd say it was mainly due to them wanting him to be the next Hispanic superstar, then booking him the exact opposite way a Hispanic star should be.

Didn't he get into a fight with Sheamus not too long ago? I remember him doing the not-at-all-requested-by-management denial on Twitter.

To me (and Dave) it was that they went so far as to have Russo meeting with the writers in person away from the view of any other personnel. It was one thing to have it be strictly via email and still have the plausible denial of "hey we were just asking him to look over some stuff", but to fly him in and then still pretend he wasn't officially on the payroll was a new level of stupid.

My god, the write up on this in the new WON. The lengths they went to cover this up would have made Richard Nixon blush. Dave's barely contained incredulity that all this was dove over Vince Russo is the cherry on top of the sundae.

I know a thread with a title like that could spark quite a psychological debate, but I know we have some folks here who have some Lucha insight, and I've always wanted to ask a few questions knowing full well there may be no answers so some of these. Why did they spend all last year building to Atlantis/UG for the 80th Anniversary show only to bait and switch at the last possible minute? Dicking over the highest paying crowd in company history doesn't make any business sense. Did someone have cold feet about jobbing? Payoff wasn't high enough? Now that the match is happening (probably....maybe) this year, they wouldn't dare pull it again, would they?

So if all accounts have Bryan returning around the Rumble, what's going to keep Reigns from becoming Batista 2.0 and getting booed out of the building for winning?

Yeah that was disappointing, you'd think he'd come up with something more crazy than that. As it is, this screams angle advancement. Either the Authority somehow gets people they want as the lumberjacks or its a big flashing red light that someone's going to turn.

Hart-Lawler was good in '93, but by '95 they were into the "kiss my foot match" territory and Bret feuding with Lawler's dentist. Flair-Savage seems like a solid pick thought, especially up against Axl/Ian and the rest of a weak field. S'plain. 1995 Raw (at least up to July) is a weird time that's half goofy ass cartoon gimmicks that got pushes that went nowhere and half guys who would end up being huge stars but were jobbers/newbies at that time. The same show with the Waylon/Jeff match has the "American Blue Blood" Hunter Hearst Helmsley making his Raw debut against a short haired jobber Matt Hardy.