The Thread Killer

If Fightful is to be believed, Fenix is now officially free and clear of AEW, and it’s basically a matter of when, not if he shows up in WWE. We will see. I would assume if he actually is coming, they may be holding off on guys like him, Black and Miro for the traditional Monday after Wrestlemania surprise debuts?

It's funny, I was watching this show with one of my oldest friends...the guy who I literally started watching Pro Wrestling with when I was a kid, back in 1983. While we watched the show, we were talking about the various possible outcomes of the Men's Elimination Chamber, who we wanted to win, who we thought might win, and how they would match up with Cody. When it came to John Cena, we agreed we absolutely didn't want him to win and fight Cody for the Title in the Main Event at Wrestlemania. We figured either Cena and Cody would do the typical babyface vs. babyface angle, with plenty of boring "I respect you but I have to beat you" promos...or that Cody would take The Rock up on his "Sell Me Your Soul" offer and be the heel vs. Cena. We agreed that there will eventually some mileage in a heel Cody run, but he's not quite there yet...and besides, if they did it this way, it would end up being more about The Rock, not Cody. My point is...it literally never even crossed either of our minds that John Cena would turn heel as part of this angle. And we've both been watching Pro Wrestling since 1983. I know Cena has said in interviews a bunch of times over the years that he wished he had a heel run at some point, and I remember him even saying he bought new ring gear and had a new entrance theme done, to try and convince Vince McMahon that he could do it, but Vince wouldn't go for it. But I'd never have guessed that they would finally let him do it on his much ballyhooed "Retirement Tour." Hell, just based on the potential reaction from kids and the potential loss of merchandise sales alone. I am absolutely not a WWE fanboy, but I have to admit...that is two straight shows where they made a creative decision that I totally did not see coming. I never saw Jey Uso winning the Royal Rumble and doing a rematch with Gunther after they just fought on SNME. And I definitely never saw Cena turning on Cody coming, not one little bit. So fair play to WWE, they must be doing something right creatively. Did they pull it off 100% perfectly? No. I freely admit that I have literally no idea who Travis Scott is. I don't think I'd even seen him before he appeared on WWE TV. I have no idea what purpose he was supposed to be serving during this angle, dancing around like an idiot, waving burning sage in the air. And I certainly hope that Cody gave him permission ahead of time to punch him in the head like that, otherwise that was incredibly irresponsible. The flip side is, I'm a middle aged white dude. As far as I'm concerned, they stopped making music in 1999 or so. I am not the target audience for appearances like this. Much like with "Bad Bunny" (whom I had also never head of) I can only guess that these people are meant to appeal to the infamous 18-35 year old demographic and make WWE more "relevant" whatever the hell that even means now. Also, if they were to strap Michael Cole and Pat McAfee to a rocket and shoot them into deep space, I would be a happy man. Michael Cole always has been and always will be an oblivious, clueless, obnoxious prick and he has proven that yet again recently with some of the media appearances he has been making. He pays lip service to Jim Ross being the greatest Pro Wrestling play-by-play guy of all time, but then trots out the same old tired "this isn't Pro Wrestling, this is entertainment" talking points from the Vince era. This maroon has been working in WWE since time immemorial, and he still managed to come across as clueless and totally unimpressive during the Cena heel turn. Just think of how JR in his prime or even Tony Schiavone would have handled the call during this angle. Cole could have added to this and made it even more memorable, but of course he didn't, because he doesn't have the skill required. There was no "Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell" or "With God as my witness, he's been broken in half" here, because Cole just doesn't have the chops, and he never will. He's a corporate shill, and that's all he's ever going to be. He brings nothing to moments like this. And as for McAfee? Argh. He's a very poor man's Don West, just without the personality, charm or likeability. Screaming stupid shit doesn't make you a good Color Commentator, it just makes you look and sound like a jackass. As far as the violence and blood aspect of the angle, I'm inclined to give them a pass there. I assumed that either Cody tried to blade and messed it up (which is highly unlikely considering his heritage) or they committed ahead of time to doing it the proverbial "hard way." I honestly think Cody was supposed to get busted open with the watch (the watch that Cody had given The Rock last year after Wrestlemania, which was now being used against him as a weapon, that Michael Cole totally failed to push as part of the angle - he thought the watch was brass knuckles?!) the problem is that he either got punched in the wrong place (like his ear) or it just didn't draw the blood they expected. Yeah, Cena's face was kind of hammy when he hugged Cody...but so what. This ain't Shakespeare, and at least it was no "I'm sorry, I love you." One thing I absolutely loved was that I had just said to my friend: "Great, here is where we get a long, drawn out, 20 minute speech from Cody" and instead he tells The Rock to Fuck Off. I popped, I admit it. I hear you...but to me, it's more that the differences between AEW and WWE have never been more distinct than they are right now. I'm looking at the next AEW PPV and I see that Kyle Fletcher is fighting Will Ospreay and Omega is fighting Takeshita. I haven't been following AEW at all really, for the past few months. But I am betting I will be able to watch that show and those two matches will be absolute bangers. It might be an arguably safe bet that from the standpoint of the in-ring quality, one or both of those matches could end up being better quality than anything WWE ends up putting out there for Wrestlemania, even. WWE has changed so much, especially since being acquired by Endeavor and folded into TKO. One of the things I absolutely hate about watching UFC, especially on TV is the interminable downtime between fights. Between the ring entrances and the interviews and the endless hype for upcoming events, there are always so many delays. And more and more, WWE has really become just like that. More corporate than ever. WWE was never all about the actual wrestling and that honestly hasn't changed all that much. As JR always says, they are selling the sizzle, not the steak. I don't love that, but I can live with it. Especially because they are finally presenting stuff from a creative standpoint that I find enjoyable and entertaining. I can see how it isn't for everybody, especially the hardcore fan...but the flip side is that I would take this WWE product in a heartbeat over the crap they were producing as recently as 2-3 years ago. The WWE product to me has become a lot more fun than it used to be.

Boy…they brought out Trish, wearing a Maple Leafs jersey no less, and this crowd is still kinda dead. I hope the crowd is hotter tomorrow. The Rogers Centre (fka Skydome) has acoustic problems as it is, (unless the crowd is molten, the sound tends to go straight up) but if they are this subdued tomorrow, it could really take away from the atmosphere of the show.

I know it’s never going to happen because he’s on the TKO Board, but I kinda wish The Rock would just go away, and stay gone.

I'm not terribly surprised about this story. Pretty much the exact same thing happened when Endeavor purchased the UFC back in 2016. The only difference being, the previous owners of the UFC (Zuffa) were pretty notorious for being cheap already, but the sale to Endeavor certainly didn't help the UFC's reputation any. Dana White and the Fertita Brothers already had a reputation for being stingy when it came to fighter pay, but Dana White was surprisingly sentimental when it came to having loyalty to fighters who he thought had helped put the UFC on the map. He had given "lifetime" jobs (which were pretty much ceremonial in some cases, or at the very least didn't seem to involve doing a whole lot of work) to guys like Matt Hughes, Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell and others. One of the first things Endeavor did when they bought UFC from Zuffa was fire all of those guys. I remember when Endeavor first bought WWE, before they even formed TKO or Vince got forced out, Ari Emmanuel made it clear in the interviews he did, that between UFC and WWE, there was a lot of duplication of duties between the two companies, especially when it came to administration and production. Emmanuel said that they would be merging the companies on the administrative and production end, and that people would either be losing their jobs or at the very least, taking a pay cut. Ever since I saw him say that, I had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for news to break of layoffs in the production and administration departments of WWE. You would hear about the odd person getting fired here and there, but nothing like the bloodletting that occurred when Endeavor bought UFC. Sounds like maybe WWE people have been able to keep their jobs, but they are finding out that TKO is not as generous as WWE used to be. Considering how much money TKO is raking in right now, I do find it somewhat hard to believe they are being stingy with their backstage personnel. Then again, they have made their fortune by being cheap since day one, I guess. And I always find it hard to muster up too much sympathy for people who work for companies like TKO, considering that even those who feel they are being short changed are pretty much guaranteed to be making a whole lot more money than I ever did during my career. At least WWE appears to be paying their talent a more than fair wage (although Tony Khan is pretty much forcing them to do that) unlike UFC, who have their fighters over a barrel because they really don't have anywhere else to go. The only competition they have right now seems to the PFL and that is already starting to look like a joke. Nobody ever seems to be able to compete with UFC...so many have tried, and they always end up getting swallowed up.

The details are HERE and they’re hilarious. I don’t even know where to start. Some of the assertions in the filing are just…wow. And there are factual inaccuracies as well.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I know everyone is joking about the nepotism thing (as they should) but if you think about it, either The Tonga Kid, Haku, or The Islanders as a team, or The Samoan Swat Team could all potentially go into the WWE HOF. And any of them would be more legitimately qualified than Michelle McCool, honestly.

I always get those guys confused… There was a “Tonga Kid” who teamed up with Jimmy Snuka during the Roddy Piper feud in 83/84. That is Jacob Fatu’s father, I’m pretty sure. Was he the same guy who teamed up with Haku under the name “Tama” as “The Islanders?” Meanwhile, Samu and Fatu were the Samoan Swat Team, but those were two totally different guys, right? Fatu ended up being Rikishi, I know. I’m pretty sure that Samu was the same guy who wrestled as The Great Samu in the old Montreal “International Wrestling” territory when I was a kid. I remember him feuding with Dr. D David Shultz in Montreal and this was actually after Shultz got fired from the WWF for slapping John Stossel. The thing is, I am 99% sure that Tama and Fatu are actually twins. So I frequently get confused as to who is who. But I’m pretty sure nobody from either team have been inducted yet.

Ricky Saints?!

I get the distinct impression that I am going to regret starting this topic for a couple of reasons. Either everybody is going to ignore it, and I am going to be the only person posting in this thread, or as per new tradition, this thread will immediately veer horribly off-topic and become yet another forum for airing grievances about the current political climate in the United States. However, being the eternal optimist that I am, I figured I would see if anybody has actually bothered to watch the new network TV series on A&E called “LFG” and actually felt like discussing it? If you have seen it, I wondered if anybody had an opinion? For those of you that might not be aware, this show is replacing Biography in the A&E Sunday Night lineup. It is basically a reboot and revamp of “Tough Enough” concept. The show takes place at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, and all of the participants are current trainees who have been signed to developmental deals, but have not shown up on TV yet. Some of them have been in training for as long as a year and some of them have only been there for a couple of weeks. They are divided into four teams with the coaches being Mickie James, Bully Ray, Booker T and The Undertaker. Shawn Michaels, Matt Bloom, Fit Finlay and Terry Taylor have appeared on screen so far as well. I guess the idea is that they will show the participants training every week, and at the end of each show there will be a match at the PC, which will be called by Jeremy Borash and Vic Joseph. Then the judges will decide who looked better in the match and that person will move on in the competition. They are also doing skills, competitions, for example, on the first episode they did promos. Some of the trainees did surprisingly well with their promos, and some of them were extremely cringeworthy, as you might expect. One of the interesting trainees is the son of legendary boxer Evander Holyfield. They also have a former Olympic gold medallist in Greco-Roman wrestling, a young lady whose name I forget, but she seems to have a ton of charisma and raw athletic talent. One thing that surprised me in the first episode is that a lot of these trainees are much older than you would expect, some of them are in their late 20s and early 30s already. Whoever wins this whole deal is apparently getting upgraded from a developmental contract to a full NXT deal which means they will end up on TV. The main problem with the original Tough Enough concept to me seemed to be that they were taking people with absolutely no athletic background or real interest in the business and then putting them on TV which was a recipe for disaster for the most part. I know we got John Morrison, Chris Nowinski and Jackie Gayda out of the deal, but for the most part, it seemed to be pointless. This show may actually work better because the coaches seem willing to work with the talent in the PC and the main roster talent will probably be more likely to accept people that came through that system, since a lot of of them did. Anybody see it? Any thoughts?

It was funny hearing Brian Last go absolutely ballistic about this induction on Cornette’s podcast. He seemed more upset about this than Cornette did. There is absolutely no doubt that this is purely an induction done for two specific reasons. Firstly, it’s a quota thing…they want to induct a female superstar pretty much every year, and they are starting to run out of viable options. Secondly (and probably more importantly) she’s married to one of their most decorated and venerated stars of all time…who is still active in the company and happens to be a major part of a network TV program that they are promoting as we speak. (LFG on A&E) I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard that Michelle McCool will actually be showing up on LFG later this season as a guest trainer. I just don’t get people getting their noses out of joint too badly about WWE HOF inductions. It’s a joke. It is literally not an actual Hall of Fame. It’s just a TV special at this point. It’s not like anybody looks at the WWE Hall of Fame with the same amount of respect that they would look at the MLB or NFL Hall of Fame. (I don’t know anything about any of the other major sports and their respective halls.) And look at some of the names that are already in there. As hard as this might be to believe, Michelle McCool probably deserves to be in there more than some of the people that are already in. It sounds funny, but I think they are running out of people to induct that would actually show up and make a speech. They are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The only time I am ever glad to see anybody get inducted is if it’s an older superstar that I think deserves recognition or more importantly the paycheque that comes with it. I am also happy when you can tell that the person getting inducted is actually honoured by it, that’s nice for whoever the inductee might be. It’s kind of a “If they are happy, I am happy for them” situation. The hot rumour is that Demolition are finally getting in this year now that you-know-who is gone. TKO does not seem to care that Bill Eadie and WWE had a long and storied history of acrimonious litigation. Apparently TKO don’t hold grudges about that kind of thing. It would be mildly pleasing to see those guys get some recognition and a payday. But at the end of the day, I think the only place that really has any sort of prestige or integrity to it would be the Cauliflower Alley Club.

Glad to see Roxanne Perez qualify for EC. She and Rodriguez had a really solid match there tonight. She is already way more polished and professional than a number of the women on the main roster.

Julius Creed is going to be a coach on The Ultimate Fighter, that should be interesting.

One of the interesting things is that Ellering helped negotiate the Road Warriors deal with All Japan, which ended up being for an insane amount of money. When Bruiser Brody found out how much money they were making, and that it was significantly more than he was, Brody decided to walk out on Baba and that’s why he ended up going to New Japan. (Which he also ended up walking out of because he was expected to actually lose some matches.)

If Jim Cornette is to be believed, Paul Ellering was apparently very smart with the money he made during the heyday of The Road Warriors (and they made a ton.) Apparently other wrestlers would actually go to Ellering for investment advice. He is supposedly set for life and has only made comebacks through the years because he loves the business, not because he “needs” to. So I guess he will be okay, even if he doesn’t work again. Which is good, because the dude is 71 years old and I’d hate to think of somebody still going out there and scrounging for work because they have to, at that age.

My only guess would be because Ethan Page is not really Page’s name (Julian Micevski) and I am assuming he probably signed over the rights to the name Ethan Page when he signed with WWE/NXT. Whereas Ricky Starks is Starks’s actual legal name, so they might want to give him one they can copyright/own. I know they haven’t been doing that as much lately, but as you said…you never know.

Well…that didn’t take long. Ricky Starks in NXT, although I noticed they did not call him Ricky Starks.

Eventually they are going to move up Trick Williams and Oba Femi and I would expect big things from at least least one of those two guys.

See, you say that, but I saw what you said in the TNA thread. I don’t think you actually BELIEVE in Joe Hendry. Even though I have it on good authority that they love him in Paris (and Tokyo, America, Scotland and Canada, and Mexico.)

You’re not wrong there, they could probably line up a bunch of guys who could complain in great detail about his body odour. I almost died laughing when JR talked on his podcast about it being so bad that guys would literally come to the office to complain about it. That must’ve been some serious stink. Well, I guess there was the time he slapped that reporter in Kuwait and got arrested and detained for it. He also temporarily paralyzed an enhancement guy by being too stiff with the guy. By all accounts, he was a horrible bully to a lot of of the backstage production staff and especially the enhancement talent. Let’s not forget the fight with Paul Orndorff. Plus, when he found out he was dying of congestive heart failure. He basically started begging to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame before he died, and for whatever reason they wouldn’t do it, which at the time struck me as weird. He could literally prove he did not have long to live, and he just wanted to get in before he died, he even had guys like Foley publicly advocating for him to be inducted, but they wouldn’t do it. Then things got really weird, Vader asked DDP for help, he thought that maybe DDP‘s fitness program could help prolong his life, but then they talked and for whatever reason either DDP refused to help him or Vader refused to do what DDP asked of him in order to complete the program. I distinctly remember Vader commenting on social media that DDP was refusing to help him. As I recall, he died shortly after. I might be remembering this wrong, but I’m pretty sure Mick Foley said that he was the only person from the entire Pro Wrestling industry that even showed up to Vader’s funeral, because nobody wanted to travel to Denver.

I have to be honest, when I first saw him in Billy Corgan’s NWA, I thought Ricky Starks was great. He showed up in AEW, and in my opinion every time he got a chance to shine, he always made the most of the opportunity. He had some great matches and cut some great promos. But I do not disagree with people that think the ceiling for Ricky Starks is definitely going to be the IC/US Title level at best. I see him as probably being somewhat like an LA Knight or even Kevin Owens at best. An upper midcard guy who you can slot into the occasional Main Event on TV or on one of the less high profile PLE’s, but he’s never going to be “the guy.” There is just too much established Main Event talent already in WWE, and too many guys who are on the verge of breaking through (Breakker, Fatu) for him to do that. And I do totally agree that it won’t help him much that he looks and acts like The Rock. Who knows…maybe AJ Styles or Randy Orton will teach him their secret and he will learn how to “bulk up” (wink wink.) Maybe they will give him a different name or a different gimmick and he will get that over, he certainly has the talent to do it.

If you are a talent and you make it crystal clear to the boss that no matter what they say or do, you are leaving once your contract is up, then I totally get them taking you off television and not giving you any more exposure. Honestly, that is exactly what FTR did in WWE. Vince offered them what was apparently an extremely lucrative contract to get them to avoid jumping to AEW, but they knew that they were always going to be treated as an afterthought, so they refused to sign and he pulled them off TV and made them wait out their contracts. They were not even allowed to work house shows (which were still a thing back then) for their last 90 days in WWE. I guess all of the guys mentioned above, Malakai, Miro, Starks and Fenix made it clear to Tony that they were not going to be sticking around in AEW, regardless of how much money they were offered. I think all four guys have a reputation to varying degrees of refusing to do jobs as well, so maybe all of them sitting at home waiting out their contracts was inevitable. On one hand it seems weird that Tony Khan should pay them huge money to just sit there for over a year and do nothing with them, but on the other hand, I can see why he didn’t just want to hand them over to the competition on a silver platter either.

Or maybe it’s his Dad’s money. I saw on the news last week that Shad Khan showed up to the Super Bowl in a 360 Million Dollar yacht. Daaammmnnn. That family definitely has “Fuck You” money.

Maybe these WWE releases were done to make room for new or returning faces? I keep seeing reports that Roxanne Pérez is due for her long awaited call up. Add to that the speculation about Josh Alexander being available as of February 15. Plus…Malakai Black, Miro and Ricky Starks have all been removed from the AEW roster page, apparently. Some fairly reliable sources are actually reporting that all three have been released and are free and clear now. I’m not sure how reliable these reports are, but if they have been taken off the AEW roster page that’s a pretty good sign you will not be seeing them again on AEW TV. I read somewhere that Fenix gave an interview in Mexico recently where he basically implied that he still has quite a lot of time left on his AEW contract due to the injury extension. He even intimated that he would be willing to go back to AEW and work out the rest of his contract, but we all know how likely that is. I can’t see him not wanting to join his brother in WWE once his contract is up, so I highly doubt Tony Khan will put him back on TV.

I have no idea if this is true or not, but I read somewhere online today that between the new “ID” program, NIL and NXT, that WWE have over 50 women in their developmental system. It sounds like an insanely high number, but I guess it could be true. If it is true, it’s a small wonder they are starting to release some talents to make room.