sek69

Apparently the issue was they wanted to get him on TV so fast they didn't get a chance to complete the usual paperwork they do to be able to license the name. At least per Fightful WWE was just erring on the side of caution and he's still being referred to as Ricky Starks internally.

I get it from WWE's side that Ricky Starks has been off TV for a long time, so starting him in NXT at least for a little bit allows them to reestablish him to folks.

Also interesting that not as if WWE cares that much about the indies, Starks just won the Defy title this past weekend and they are pretty close with AEW.

All valid points, but the crowd chanted his name and the announcers acknowledged the crowd knows who he is (even if they didn't say the name themselves), so having him come back with a name from that Key and Peele skit with the football players would be a level of stupid we really haven't seen post-Vince.

I hardly recall Malakai even having that many singles matches, he was almost always in trios or teaming wit Brody King. The whole Ricky Starks thing is weird, the only thing that makes sense to me is that they seem to be wanting to cut ties with anyone who was friends with Cody....except of course MJF who started a program with Dustin of all people.

Luchadores, especially ones who are top guys, know all the tricks to malicious compliance the promoters they want to get away from. Not that I've seen anything specific to Fenix to suggest he'd do that, but they have an entirely different view on "professionalism" in Mexico. There's really nothing stopping someone like Fenix from basically telling Tony to GFY, since worst case scenario he could go back to AAA and be a top guy there in the unlikely case WWE would suddenly not be interested in him. (not to mention there were those ominous sounding tweets from Fenix heavily suggesting some fuckery went down behind the scenes with AEW)

If its not 50, it's most likely not too far off. They have tons of folks at the PC who have either never been on TV or nothing more than Level Up type shows.

He was the victim in the DV case that got Jake Atlas fired from AEW back in 2022. She wrestled as Bea Priestley (which i think is her real name) prior to WWE and formerly was with Will Osprey.

Getting billions from Netflix, mostly.

The entire job of a wrestler is to get over. Some do it by being awesome in the ring, some do it by being a top notch promo, and sometimes a guy just connects to the audience. All are equally valid IMO. Even if someone isn't your cup of tea, if it's over it's over.

As soon as Scott's kid gets into the biz we need him and Bron vs the Creeds as soon as humanly possible.

Drew was the most vocal, but it is sounding like a lot of folks were pissed at LA Knight getting involved in his elimination sequence. Drew felt he was trying to get himself over in the middle of Drew's next program being set up, and the most charitable explanation would have been "he just got in the way" which is a bad look for a guy who's been around as long as he has.

Zelina suddenly being sent to Smackdown makes me think that's where Mr Black is going to show up at very soon.

Heyman sells better with his facial expressions than 90% of the roster do in the ring, and I'm not even saying that as a knock on the roster he's just that damn good. One thing that stood out to me, well two things actually: one was how WWE is a thousand times better booking babyfaces in the Hunter Era and two there weren't any entrants that were just filling a spot. Michael Cole even mentioned at one point when there was 6-7 people left that any of them could be a WM main eventer and he was right. (I guess technically IShowSpeed was filling a spot but at least that served a purpose in its own way)

Bron is a goddamn freak of nature.

We should all be as lucky to find someone who loves us as much as WWE loves Nu Metal.

I was just thinking that is why Nia was there until the end so people wouldn't be as mad when Charlotte wins.

Charlotte's bedazzled knee brace got a chuckle out of me

I'm guessing they are filling up the ring so Jordyann Grace can come in and clean house.

Roxanne really needs to be on the main roster at this point.

Kicking off with the women's rumble, will Charlotte pick up where she left off and have everything revolve around her again?

IMO the issue is they are supposed to be uncontrollable bad asses but none of them really convey that other than Mox. Pac can at times but it seems like he's only around some of the time. Yuta is just a geek who looks like a 12 year old wearing a fake beard, and Claudio spent so much time as the beloved underdog never allowed to shine in WWE that it's hard to even see him as a bad guy.

I don't disagree, but he *did* work some miracles like being able to mend fences with Bruno. Plus he was able to get WWE to pretty seamlessly transition into a post-Vince world, and I'd argue he deserves to be in the HOF just for getting rid of Kevin Dunn's nauseating TV production.

Speaking of, you think TNA realized WWE has turned them into the AA team in their farm system yet?

So there was a teaser at the end of NXT that was just color bars and "WWE TRANSMISSION" being erased and replaced with "VENGEANCE DAY" which is their next PLE. I guess it's time to do the math and figure out who's contract is up at the end of the month since the show is on February 15.