14 minutes ago, Coffey said:

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2020/09/exclusive-vince-mcmahon-threatens-to-punish-talent-engaging-674408/

 

...this... is going to piss off a lot of people. That is directly going to impact some peoples money. People like Xavier Woods & Paige stream on Twitch. 

Ok, who wants to work for this company in 2020 ? I mean, really ? Apart from kool-aid drinking conspis and washed-up MAGAs ?

1 minute ago, NintendoLogic said:

I'm no expert in copyright law, but that doesn't sound remotely legal to me. Especially for independent contractors.

*wink wink nudge nudge*

This edict from Vince will spectacularly backfire on him, I can feel it. You can't seriously sit there and tell me that Vince is actually truly believing that he believes that he owns the name of Joe Anoa'i as well as Roman Reigns'. That's being next-level egotistical. Also, it's clearly obvious that Vince's "the brand is bigger than the talent" strategy doesn't work at all. He's terrified at the idea of losing another big star to Hollywood and it shows.

The best WWE can do is trademark someone's real name so they can use it in stuff like video games, absolutely no way they can legally copyright someone's birth name and they know it. That's why folks get put through the NXT Random Name Generator so WWE has something they can own. 

Xavier Woods built up an entire brand with Up Up Down Down that has done very well, and he should straight up tell Vince to go fuck himself if he threatens to fire him over it. 

To my knowledge, UpUpDownDown is being promoted under the WWE umbrella on YouTube so I don't think that he should be worried about it. Personally, it's infuriating to think that Vince is once again taking away opportunities for talents to reach out and connect with fans outside of the company just because he doesn't make money off of it.

Honestly, I hope that talents band together and indeed tell Vince to go fuck himself over this.

AOP being released is frustrating, but not surprising. Between visa issues and constant injuries, they couldn't get a footing on RAW. They were put with Rollins, who's one of the company's biggest stars, like him or not. So someone saw their potential. But if they're off TV all the time, there's not much WWE can do with them. They're young and talented, they should land somewhere pretty quickly.

As for the third-party thing: WWE is treading on choppy water there. If this is true, they're probably cracking down because a lot of their top talent started doing Cameo and several of them--Roman, Alexa, Charlotte, Sasha--are making serious money that WWE can't hold claim to. WWE did their first-ever virtual meet and greets recently, so I'm wagering this decision is impacted by that. They'll claim conflict of interest. Which is hot garbage, but I can see that being the card played.

There's no way WWE can claim ownership of someone's actual name. I know there was something about Cena and Orton at one time because they use their actual names as wrestlers, but I forget out that goes. 

Part of me wonders if this has at least a little to do with the two recent stars they've had--Roman and Becky--obviously heading out the door. Becky may be already gone, depends on what she wants to do after her baby arrives. Roman is clearly on the Hollywood track. He's one good role away from part-timing it. So is Becky, for that matter. And the rumor that Vince was anxious to get him back on TV makes me suspect Roman put some demands on him. It's why the brand overrides the star-making system. If no one gets too popular, they're more inclined to stay where they know they have a pretty good check coming in regularly. Roman and Becky having strong options beyond WWE is the exception. And shouldn't have happened, really. They're slipping through the last cracks before WWE closes them for good.

It's madness. They're not doing house shows for obvious reasons, and that's taking money out of wrestlers' wallets already. Top-tier guys/girls will be OK, they can likely shake down Vince for something else. But a lot of these wrestlers need the extra income and WWE possibly messing with it reeks of sour grapes.

18 minutes ago, SirEdger said:

To my knowledge, UpUpDownDown is being promoted under the WWE umbrella on YouTube so I don't think that he should be worried about it. Personally, it's infuriating to think that Vince is once again taking away opportunities for talents to reach out and connect with fans outside of the company just because he doesn't make money off of it.

Honestly, I hope that talents band together and indeed tell Vince to go fuck himself over this.

Woods has mentioned that he purposely uses the  name "Austin Creed" there because it's his real first name and his pre WWE wrestling last name. He built it up so he didn't have all his eggs in the WWE basket. WWE did let him promote it, but I don't believe for a second Vince won't include it in this ban.

I would love to see what Vince thinks is "detrimental to the company" about folks who are supposed to be independent contractors having the gall to start side hustles outside of Papa WWE.

Last time I saw the boilerplate WWE contract language, it pretty much said that exclusivity was only for wrestling exhibitions and promotion of said shows. Trying to ban talent from services like Twitch is some Darth Vader "pray I don't alter the deal any further" bullshit. 

 

 

That would be dumb as fuck for WWE to literally ban a platform that brought more than 2 million subscribers to a channel under the WWE umbrella, quite frankly. I wouldn't even be surprised to read that Vince came to that decision upon hearing that AJ Styles talked about his positive COVID test on his Mixer account. Considering how pissed they were when Renee Paquette/Young announced her diagnosis on Twitter, just imagine Vince learning about what AJ did.

If they go ahead with this plan, they''ll lose whatever under 30 fanbase they have left. Meltzer's mentioned repeatedly that his son (who I think is a teenager at this point) and his friends know Xavier Woods more as the guy with the video game channel rather than a wrestler.

Another thing that makes some sense of all this would be if Vince's talk about the next step of WWE's rebuilding process involves WWE launching their own Twitch channel. That way WWE gets to control the money and also gets to force talent to close down any "competing" channels they run. It would both be extremely scummy thing to do and completely on brand for WWE to do such a thing. 

That's the only thing to me that would make sense with Vince's decision. They need extremely badly to have that younger demo and platforms like Cameo & Twitch can provide that to WWE. Just taking away the opportunity for fans to connect with your talent just for the sake of doing so because you don't get any money out of it is totally counterproductive.

I would hope that someone like Roman could talk some sense into Vince but I'm not wasting my breath. However, it seems like Paige has already made it clear that she won't follow suit with Vince's request and keep her Twitch channel open.

Vince would 1000% lose a case over preventing someone from using their real legal name. There is legal precedent for this, with Ultimate Warrior. Vince will just count on the fact that litigation is shit-expensive and he has the money. 

The bigger names who are looking to pursue Hollywood careers likely had their agents work out something with Vince/WWE already when it comes to name usage. It's the lower to mid-card talent who are going to get shafted.

Roman Reigns truly is the guy!

Also fuck Vince for doing one of his top 5 scummiest moves to date

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

WWE did let him promote it, but I don't believe for a second Vince won't include it in this ban.

Not a chance. There's official UUDD merchandise on the WWE Shop website, including a facemask. It's not going anywhere.

Just now, C.S. said:

Not a chance. There's official UUDD merchandise on the WWE Shop website, including a facemask. It's not going anywhere.

Then he's going to attempt to bully Woods into handing over all the rights to it. 

less absurd, but still scummy as fuck

So I saw someone making a good point elsewhere, is Brucie going to have to give up his podcast side hustle along with everyone else losing Twitch/Cameo money?

 

(of course he won't)

The Bucks are choking so hard. Giannis going to get turned on by fans worse than Roman ever experienced 

1 minute ago, MoS said:

The Bucks are choking so hard. Giannis going to get turned on by fans worse than Roman ever experienced 

If Orton's Brady, is he also Tim Duncan?

Also, Nia's true calling is as a tag wrestler.

That match was GNARLY. Nia and Shayna are a very, very dope team and deserve the name Miracle Violence Connection

16 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, Nia's true calling is as a tag wrestler.

I was just thinking she's very Seth-like in that being in WWE style tag matches forces her to not do the things she's not good at. 

 

Also if Bayley wanted to cement that turn on Sasha she should have snatched her wig.

26 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

If Orton's Brady, is he also Tim Duncan?

Duncan consistently stepped up in the big moments though

This Bayley-Banks culmination is the best thing they have done all year. Really hoping the feud is as good

2 minutes ago, MoS said:

Duncan consistently stepped up in the big moments though

Duncan's obviously a top 5 player ever, but he wasn't flashy and played "boring", yet effective basketball.

When it comes to having the best fundamentals in the game, there might be some comparison...

Roman as this arrogant mob boss is some dope stuff