sek69

Well part of the issue with keeping people who should have moved on is a lot of them don't want to go to the main roster and get geeked out like everyone else who ends up there. I know Ciampa straight up said he'd retire before going up but that was more due to his neck issues rather than booking. Also in spite of everything, NXT is still better than Raw and anything not involving Roman on Smackdown most weeks. It just has a very late stage JCP "same guys over and over" feel to it, plus a real sense of not always being able to feel when it was time to put someone over who was getting popular.

I think it really can't be understated how much prestige HHH probably lost in Vince's eyes when NXT not only failed to stop AEW but got trounced by them. I can't imagine anything that would sour Vince on someone faster than a failure like that.

I assumed it was the headbutt spot, since it looked like her eyebrow was split at just the point it would if someone laid in a headbutt a little too much.

LOL Holy Jesus, Charlotte just going full ECW out here....

To be fair, I think it would be neat to have some kind of showcase where different nations could show off their style of pro wrestling. Not something a legit sports sense like the Olympics, but like just showing off how it's different but yet still similar in various parts of the world.

Reggie is here to save the show!

I love how the original plan for Kross was to have him keep losing until Scarlett shows up, but then Jeff Hardy got rona-rated and they put him with the one other guy on the roster who got mishandled worse than he did.

There is a whiff of 2000s WCW to this, yes. WCW was so terrible in new and inventive ways it's been held as this unattainable level of bad no one else will ever obtain. And yet.

WWE really trying to compete with a hot competitor with Goldberg out here like the overaggressive dad at a little league game.

Doudrop looks like she's dangerously close to having a wardrobe malfunction every time she has a match.

Charlotte annoys me, but she's good at shutting down the crowd when they try to hijack her segments.

Saw it pointed out on Twitter, but what does it say about the state of WWE when 72 year old Ric Flair who can just take the money and ride it out is like "this shit sucks, let me out of here"? Apparently he was not happy with the Lacey Evans storyline and how it played out, which is saying something considering he's the guy who danced with a mannequin on WTBS pretending it was Precious.

SRS just reported Cole's deal actually expired at the end of July so as of 8/1 he's technically a free agent but agreed to keep working until after SummerSlam so he could "re-evaluate" things. Appears to be another case of WWE forgetting how their contracts work since they thought it was up in December.

so SRS is reporting that pretty much no one is buying the "budget cuts" excuse in WWE, and that long time stars don't feel their jobs are safe regardless of their position on the card. Sounds like it's a fun place to work at right now for sure.

Well in the context of WWE pulling the same bullshit they did with JCP and WCW, it makes a little more sense but yeah it was very Dave.

Daniels and Nakazawa are agents, QT and Dustin are involved in training and I think are also agents too.

Most people who work for AEW generally can work indie dates as long as it doesn't conflict with any AEW ones.

I'm not going to pretend Bray was some sort of secret superworker or anything, but a ton of the Fiend stuff that people hated was due to how the character was booked more than any failing on his part. Like someone who was a horror movie character come to life in the land of 50/50 booking is going to come off lame no matter who's doing it.

It's a statement on WWE that I had to look up who the last two Universal Champions before Roman even were, since I had no memory of it. Also it's been kind of weird to see a lot of causal WWE fans I follow who I wouldn't expect to have much opinion on this that are upset about Bray.

Nick Khan is 100% installing the corporate "we don't want just some of the money, we want all of the money" mindset and things like salaries are just inconvenient speedbumps. Like when you see video game devs laying off hundreds of people after announcing they had a record profit year. It's gross and completely dehumanizing to anyone who works there.

Of course the book on Vince forever has been that if you want him to go along with something you want to do, make him think it was his idea.

Another downside of the cult mentality WWE is fostering, they don't seem to realize/care that it creates toxicity for their own performers as well.

Speaking of, Alexa seems pretty shook about him getting released and made her Twitter private.

Also they were advertising him to return soon, so another dagger to the "plans change is just an excuse for when they lying dirt sheets are wrong" community.

I suppose it's possible, but that would require WWE to give a shit about talent beyond the money that can be made from them. After all, there are multiple instances of WWF/F looking to let people go because they were afraid they would die on their watch, so I would hope something has been improved.