Murphy vs Takahashi, then if possible vs Ospreay and vs Ibushi. Please.

Ruby to AEW, Lana to social media platforms, Black can go jump.

I'm surprised they released Strowman. Does he need money / have the knees / love performing? Or will he be happy to shut shop and do whatever it is behemoths do for fun?

For whatever it's worth, the next AEW PPV is 93 days away.

By the way, SRS is reporting that talent is increasingly speculating about a potential sale. If that's the case, then dumping Braun makes a lot more sense. A seven-figure contract for a non-draw with shot knees is the kind of thing you'd want to take off the books to make your bottom line look better.

7 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

By the way, SRS is reporting that talent is increasingly speculating about a potential sale. If that's the case, then dumping Braun makes a lot more sense. A seven-figure contract for a non-draw with shot knees is the kind of thing you'd want to take off the books to make your bottom line look better.

They almost have to be at this point. Nothing else makes any sense.

I hope to see Black and Murphy in AEW. I think both of them would fit in well there.

Sale, and also it seems like they want AEW to sign their castoffs.  I think they look at them taking Big Show, Christian and now Henry and figure they don't have to feel bad about cutting someone like Braun

For the record.....I like Black, I like Ruby....I like Braun kinda......I don't want to see ANY of them in AEW right now.  The roster is overloaded as is, and the talent they have needs a chance to get over with the crowds.  If they add more down the line, fine, but I wouldn't necessarily want to bring in any of these releases right away

That said.....Jericho and Braun are friends.........*shudder*

Also, is Vega already signed back......?   Because if so, that really is fucked up

I was actually excited for Black and Big E too.....WWE is so stupid sometimes.  I guess it's par for the course with them tho to book a rising star (who's been around for like a decade, but that's another topic) into an angle that never pays off whatsoever.  Not the first time it's happened

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.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So did any of these people who signed "big keep em away from AEW" deals get it in writing?  Did the "Heyman guy" get good contract advice?

1 minute ago, cm funk said:

Yeah, that's a good point.

So did any of these people who signed "big keep em away from AEW" deals get it in writing?  Did the "Heyman guy" get good contract advice?

It's in writing but the contracts are usually terrible and have out clauses (Gallows and Anderson discussed this, I believe).

I kinda want to see Black in New Japan, feels like a perfect spot for him and they're lacking in that Lance Archer-type slot.

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. 

I wouldn't be even surprised if there were more cuts coming.

I wouldn't expect any bigger names than Braun getting released but I could see them make some more cuts in NXT and NXT UK. I don't even think some NXT UK talents have been cut yet.

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. 

2 hours ago, cm funk said:

For the record.....I like Black, I like Ruby....I like Braun kinda......I don't want to see ANY of them in AEW right now.  The roster is overloaded as is, and the talent they have needs a chance to get over with the crowds.  If they add more down the line, fine, but I wouldn't necessarily want to bring in any of these releases right away

This problem can be solved if AEW were actually willing to release anyone. Their roster is giga-bloated & they could easily get rid of about 15-20 people. But seeing as how it doesn't exactly go over well during the pandemic, I like & understand that they have not done that. I think it's a positive that up to this point they haven't as this has been rough times for a lot of people & we all see how much bullshit it looks like when WWE is making all these profits & cite "budget cuts" are their reasoning for releasing people. But yeah, like a lot of the Dark & Elevation talent & a lot of the "extras" (like in the Dark Order) or the people that accompany other people... a lot of people just taking up space in AEW.

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. 

45 minutes ago, Coffey said:

This problem can be solved if AEW were actually willing to release anyone. Their roster is giga-bloated & they could easily get rid of about 15-20 people. But seeing as how it doesn't exactly go over well during the pandemic, I like & understand that they have not done that. I think it's a positive that up to this point they haven't as this has been rough times for a lot of people & we all see how much bullshit it looks like when WWE is making all these profits & cite "budget cuts" are their reasoning for releasing people. But yeah, like a lot of the Dark & Elevation talent & a lot of the "extras" (like in the Dark Order) or the people that accompany other people... a lot of people just taking up space in AEW.

Agreed that cutting anyone during the pandemic would have been terrible optics to say the least. And yeah, now that the US at least seems to be well on its way to put the pandemic behind, they should definitely release some talent on their hugely bloated roster. There were many wrestlers who were needed as warm bodies when AEW was just starting, but they are reasonably established now and have outgrown the need for many names on their roster

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. 

Aleister was on Zelina's Twitch stream today. He said that Vince was always high on him but his character just never clicked on the main roster for some reason and he doesn't know why. Looks like that son of a bitch Johnny Ace strikes again.

Found it interesting that he also mentioned that Bruce Prichard went to bat a lot for him, which seems to reinforce the notion that Vince wasn't as low on him as some dirtsheets have made it to be.

Also sucks that we won't be able to hear that new theme song they had for him.

I am guessing all the anonymous writers are the fall guys now for Vince and Bruce. It's not as if they kept trying with him. Weirdly, one of the times they did try with him was like a couple of weeks back, right? This particular round of cuts came out of nowhere 

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. 

A holiday but Raw did its worst ever rating on Monday. 1.168 (!) million viewers in the third hour

To be frank...why would people tune in if they know they're gonna get the rematch on the very next RAW?

You should want the viewer to have a different and exciting viewing experience every week. They're not accomplishing that on RAW at the moment.

A great read...

 

 

53 minutes ago, Strummer said:

A holiday but Raw did its worst ever rating on Monday. 1.168 (!) million viewers in the third hour

holy shit

i mean i've said that raw was basically on repeat and that was three weeks ago

nothing's changed

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.