sek69

Vince is gonna make her into British Bertha Faye and it makes me sad to think about it. Also I noticed the last few weeks that watching four hours of wrestling on Fridays (Smackdown and Dynamite) is a far easier task than watching three hours of Raw. I don't blame the folks who think different people are running Raw and Smackdown, they really do feel like separate promotions at times. If it wasn't for the frequent rematches Smackdown wouldn't seem like WWE at all.

Was anyone claiming he was set for life? Maybe he was being paid higher than his position on the card (and I kinda doubt even that), but set for life? I wouldn't take anyone seriously who made that statement. I thought it was a great bit of pro wrestling. Gage was talking shit about him on Twitter (which in retrospect was clearly setting this up), Cardona got the crowd to believe it was Mox for a moment, and the crowd reaction going from "OMG ITS MOX" to "HOLY SHIT ITS MATT CARDONA" to "WTF IS THE ACTION FIGURE GUY DOING HERE" to "OMG NICK GAGE IS GOING TO MURDER THIS GUY" was great.

This. Dave mentioned the whole deal came done to Vince not getting him so you're probably spot on here. I get him wanting to prove his ideas were worthwhile, but he's coming off as desperately trying to prove how much Daddy Vince loved him while trying to shit on the people who were pointing out the obvious is where it veers into "things you get dunked on for" territory.

They seemed to have another mini burst of uploading, now ECW TV from 93-96 is all up and they added more WCW shows.

It's not as bad since everyone knows basketball players are mostly all freakishly tall, what was really funny is when they went to do a photo opp with the Yankees and Aaron Judge towered over everyone. Then again, Lebron letting Taker wait outside the locker room in full gear like a mark was a pretty good LOL moment.

The only thing I can see that warrants him getting dunked on is him continuing to give examples that Plans Changed despite him saying that's just something the dirtsheets came up with.

There was a gif of Embiid doing the DX chops that went kind of viral on Twitter, and HHH saw it. Being the thirsty attention seekers they are, you know they had to capitalize on it.

Well they moved HIAC so that they could use a big name PPV for the first non Mania PPV with crowds, but it did end up being a happy accident that they have a feud tailor made to do it.

I thought the Inner Circle segment was fine, you can argue that continuing the feud with the Pinnacle isn't the best idea, but the segment itself was fine. The Britt stuff was something I'd expect to see on Raw tbh. Not as bad as a Raw segment would be, but it really stood out in a bad way on Dynamite.

The photographer hijinks seemed like Vince throwing him a bone so it wasn't a straight up squash, but it was as decisive as Hogan was going to lose at that time without needing to use a shotgun.

Not having a video seemed to flatten the reaction a little, due how they have the ramp sideways the crowd probably couldn't tell who it was at first. Once they could see who it was it felt like a real "holy shit" moment. Andrade of course came off like a star, and wouldn't bet against him becoming a top guy quickly.

Not to mention Ezra's issue wasn't anything to do with being asked to help set up the ring, but with Drake talking grimy to him when he wasn't in a position to be doing that. Wording it that way makes Judge look like he was being an uppity brat (which I'm sure that isn't the word Drake would use) instead of telling someone acting like he's the boss to STFU.

Her match on the PPV pre show was one of the best women's matches of the year, maybe *the* best, and it was worked 100% the way Jim would like a match to be worked. He'll never watch a second of it because it involved Riho who he hates because of her connection to Omega.

That's situational to me. If a big guy/giant is doing the move, a back bump could work to put the move over. If it's an average sized guy it looks silly indeed.

I'm not sure if she still does, but I believe Gail Kim was working with the women at some point as well.

Yeah I thought I knew what I was getting into, then Robin told the story of Grizzly showing up at her house unannounced with a 9 year old girl. Jesus.

I always saw it as Vince seeing dollar signs in Warrior and wanting to move on, only for that plan to fail spectacularly and falling back on his security blanket like he always does. Plus having him so definitively squashed by Yokozuna seemed like a "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" move.

He was definitely being phased out in favor of Warrior, and then the steroid trial stuff happened.

My theory always was his ego was so bruised by getting kicked to the curb by Vince that it turned all of Hulk's worst traits up to 11 as overcompensation. Not that Hulk was ever accused of being a guy willing to put anyone over, but even by his standards that 93-96 run was unbearable,

The original Rusev and Lana pairing was probably the best use of her, but Vince just can't leave well enough alone and has to break up every pairing in the company. Which would be fine if there was a plan for both, or even if one ends up the Marty and the other becomes a star, but 9 times out of 10 it's just done to do it and both parties come out of it worse off. Plus the times he was trying to break them up IRL for Vince reasons. I would wager them being paired back up outside of WWE would work great, since I would assume they wouldn't be asked to do any more cuck angles.

He also mentioned top guys can negotiate a no cut deal if they push for it, while it would be a non starter for anyone below that level. I would assume Edge has the stroke to get a no cut deal, but then again he's done enough acting gigs he might not care if they did cut him. He wanted to come back so he could finish his career on his terms, and I would suspect if he got cut today he would probably feel he's done that. Braun is the interesting case for me. He seems like a guy who could be molded into a pretty big star if he's paired with the right people anywhere he goes, but he also gave the impression he bought in completely that anywhere not WWE is low rent trash so it might be hard for him to shake that.

I love that for some reason Mr. Hughes would randomly appear in every major company in the early to mid 90s. I forgot about his time in ECW and nearly spat my drink out when I showed up on the random ECW show I pulled up on Peacock.

A really significant way that Vince changed the business that no one really ever talks about is how wrestling changed from actual independent contractors fully aware most promoters were looking to F them over and as such looked after their interests first, to a complete "company (and Vince) uber alles" mindset that everyone there seems to have where it seems most of the people there would chop off an arm or leg if Vince asked them to. It's easy to see how nonsense like Qanon and right wing conspiracy theories can take hold so easily since they create the perfect mentality for it.

You don't have to shit on WWE or Vince, but it's weird and cult like to see people who just got fired after being ignored/unused for months still going out of their way to praise the All Powerful Father Vince. You just thank them for the opportunity and go about your life's work. You don't see athletes in actual sports maintaining a slavish devotion to the team owner while saying it was the GM's fault he got cut from the team very often.

Yeah unless there's a mega dump between now and then (and Summerslam isn't until mid August so I guess it's technically possible) it's not looking good that they will make that goal. It's really discouraging since I've been going back to watch ECW PPVs and there's so much that was available before that is still missing.