My Onion headline for all of this would be "Low Sales Of Ugly Fake Beards Prove Eyes, Ears Deceiving Us".

 

LOL!

Exactly. His merch doesn't sell because it's shitty. Even by wrestling merch terms.

My Onion headline for all of this would be "Low Sales Of Ugly Fake Beards Prove Eyes, Ears Deceiving Us".

26 days in... post of the year.

That's the problem with Bryan. People love him but they won't spend the money on him so he doesn't get the push. Little kids are out there buying Cena shirts and Batista pops the big rating. That's where WWE is looking towards. People that bring in the money either in advertising or merch. Pretty simple.

 

Not saying it's the right mentality at all or anything. Just saying that WWE believes in their stars making the money to go along with their push. They don't want to push someone they don't think will bring in as much money as other guys.

Do they sell fake beards? Hardin sold a shitload of them in the NBA.

Imagine though if he had been in the match and got thrown out by someone like Big Dave....the crowd would've been even more chaotic

"Everyone pops but he doesn't move the financial needle" is pretty much what they wrote on WCW's tombstone before it carried on as a member of the walking dead for a while there.

So now, they have a different problem, which is how are they going to get people excited about the WM lineup this year?

Bryan's tweeting about being held out of the Rumble by "the machine" and for fans to keep it up.

 

There's no way he's doing that on his own. They're going to try to spin this into something. They really have to.

It was more like, "Let's keep the same guys on top and give them millions while burying our only marketable homegrown star and give away the company's biggest match on Free TV."

WWE would rather not fail then take a chance at success. If this Vince was running the company he would never have gone after Hogan, etc, gone national and we'd probably be watching a Ted Turner owned wrestling world right now.

 

Alternatively Austin would never have been pushed and there wouldn't be a major wrestling company at all.

 

The only way things ever change is a legit god honest riot in the arena WHEN Vince and HHH are in the ring. Other than that nothing will change, they simply lack the courage to succeed. Vince lost his eye of the tiger years ago.

 

I still think Rocky III is one of the most profound movies ever. I'm drunk and still possibly serious about that.

Where are the numbers to show that Roman Reigns isn't just someone people are popping for, thus making him worthy of a push? What about Bray Wyatt?

Do they sell fake beards? Hardin sold a shitload of them in the NBA.

Yeah, they do. I think some kind of prop/glove/what have you for people to lift when chanting "YES!" is the way to go, rather than a fake beard. Some decent shirts would be a plus too; Punk always manages to have decent designs and the new Lesnar shirt is a nice simplistic design too. Bryan's have pictures of goats and the old "YES!" shirt is just that.

Where are the numbers to show that Roman Reigns isn't just someone people are popping for, thus making him worthy of a push? What about Bray Wyatt?

Roman Reigns: 6'3" 251 lbs.

 

Daniel Bryan: 5'10" 210 lbs.

All night, and for the past few weeks, this crowd had been saying "Give us someone NEW. We want change." WWE competing against someone would have said "OK" and figured out how to make it work. This WWE says "You'll want what we tell you to want" and moves full-speed ahead with something no one wants but them.

Imagine though if he had been in the match and got thrown out by someone like Big Dave....the crowd would've been even more chaotic

I think Bryan entering like 25 and lasting until the last 6-3 people before he got thrown by Reigns, and then Batista throwing Reigns to win it would've been a disaster too. But it wouldn't have been this bad, I THINK.

I get that not everyone buys a Daniel Bryan t-shirt or whatever, but does buying tickets to shows and chanting your ass off not count or something?

Roman Reigns is also part of "wrestling royalty" in their eyes and they think he can be the next Rock aka his "cousin"

And the fact that no one can put together a company and give these insecure buffoons a run for their money is really sad. Vince McMahon has made pro wrestling worthless in the last 12 years.

 

And nobody likes old school WWF more than me here except maybe MIA Jerry. But it's the truth.

All of that is of course allowing us to overlook how bad Punk's elimination was.

I get that not everyone buys a Daniel Bryan t-shirt or whatever, but does buying tickets to shows and chanting your ass off not count or something?

how much of the composition of the ringside crowds the product of pricing out some segments of their fan base in favor of having dudes from other states traveling for PPVs?

 

The crowd has to be hilariously split between the people with enough disposable income to get ringside at PPVs and the random kids/parents crowd, doesn't it?

Do they sell fake beards? Hardin sold a shitload of them in the NBA.

They were over huge in Boston too this past year with the BoSox beard craze. Facial hair does to be en vogue right now when I go out to clubs. It is not impossible to get them sold, but I don't think they actually sell them. I could be wrong. My brother and I actually thought his "Goat mascot" shirt was one of the better wrestling shirts. I still wouldn't buy the thing, but as far as wrestling shirts go it was pretty good.

Part of me thinks the WWE really does hate their fans right now. They're trying to push back mainstream for the Network launch and Mania XXX and they've got bizarro Canada crowds in every city cheering for some unmarketable goofball and trying to make the show about them instead of about the product they're trying to present.

 

I could absolutely see them seeing it like that.

 

Is Raw in Philly tomorrow? That'd be great.

Where are the numbers to show that Roman Reigns isn't just someone people are popping for, thus making him worthy of a push? What about Bray Wyatt?

If this board had likes, I would register a million socko accounts so I could like this a million times.

 

It's the self-fulfilling prophecy at work. They've decided that they want Reigns to be a top guy, so he's pushed and protected until he's over enough to justify the push.