sek69

Val made a turn from pothead libertarian to pothead MAGA transphobe so gradually most people didn't notice until the Nyla Rose stuff. Also most of Glenn's popularity with the boys seems to come from being a guy who was a "night off" when you worked with him.

Reminder that Glenn apparently got that rep because he read books and talked about Libertarian politics. That's pretty much the same level as someone in a first year Poly Sci college class.

Of course the obvious flaw in all these alternative ideas is believing WCW would have been able to carry out any of them without stepping on their own dicks, which they were doing at an alarming and hilarious rate at that point in time.

I'm not saying turning Goldberg heel would have been the best idea, but if you're going to make a big deal about ending the streak it works better from a psychology standpoint to have it be a babyface chasing the cocky, undefeatable heel. Otherwise you're painting yourself into a corner where you have to do some bullshit to try to "protect" the previously undefeated babyface.

IMO the best way to do it would be to have Goldberg turn heel and have a babyface chasing it like a title. Having him stay babyface made it weird since you're making it so a heel gets the "rub" unless you do some kind of wacky bullshit finish that helps no one (aka what ended up happening). Then you can do something like having DDP win on a Diamond Cutter Outta Nowhere and it works for his scrappy babyface character. The moment WCW started inflating the streak past the point of believability (they've have him getting something like 20 wins between Nitros) should have been the start of the heel turn, have someone casually mention "hey Bill, that win total seems kinda suspect", he takes offense in that "heel obviously trying to get away with something" way, and off you go. Instead you had a situation where heels in both kayfabe and IRL were racing to be the first one to beat him and the psychology was just all wrong no matter what they would have ended up doing.

The idea at the time was they were being broken up to give Peyton a singles push so it's what was *supposed* to happen. What actually happened was we found out who was the Shawn and who was the Marty.

Also how the fuck did Vince look at the IIconics and decide Peyton was the one with potential? Billie Kay does everything WWE likes about a 100 times better.

SI also does puff pieces for WWE, and while Sasha has been great this year, this is as about as legit as the heels always winning the coin toss for War Games in JCP.

I love slimy Paul getting Adam Pearce put in the gauntlet match.

Can't fault a guy for securing the bag, but man it would be sad to see him wasting prime years in the covid pit when we've seen him progress so much in NJPW. At this stage, I can't see why someone who is an established top guy that surely is getting offers from anyone would want to go to WWE unless they give him an absolutely stupid Brock level deal.

BULLET CLUB INVASION!

Man, who knew what I needed after the hellscape that was today is seeing Snoop hit a splash on Serpentico

Funny you should mention the Fat Chick Thriller, just saw where Arn mentioned on his podcast that the usual suspects felt threatened by Mike Awesome joining WCW that they immediately began working on giving him dumb gimmicks to undermine him. Plus I guess we should hand it to him for being the first person to publicly call Hogan out on his bullshit. Of course he did it in the most Russo way possible, but still.

Russo was good at coming up with ideas for folks up and down the card. Not saying they were all great or anything, but the effort was made. You have large chunks of the roster that go unused because the guy everyone's trying to please doesn't give a shit about anyone other than the main event guys so the writers stopped caring about anyone not on that level. Seems like there's about a million different interviews with ex WWE creative team members where they all have some variation of "I kept pitching ideas for *mid or low card guy* because I thought they were talented, but after being shot down so many times I stopped"

So it looks like in their neverending thirst to be culturally relevant, WWE had Lacey Evans tweet at Cardi B (who was confused why WWE stans were in her mentions after Torrie wilson name dropped her on Raw) as if they were working a program, which caused Cardi to go off on her. Peak 2021 WWE to have the white woman doing the Southern Belle gimmick calling Cardi B a "nasty" without realizing she wouldn't know it's part of her rasslin' gimmick.

Russo is the very embodiment of "you're not wrong, you're just an asshole". Dude's such a toxic shitheap I don't blame anyone for not taking the time to parse through it all to find the stuff that makes sense.

Drew's done so well he deserves better than to have to put over Grampberg in 2021. It's one thing to have him do matches against other old timers or gimmicks like the Fiend, but he shouldn't be facing top guys and winning at this stage.

Teams and stables only exist in WWE to break up it seems. The Hurt Business should be running things for years but WWE can't resist it.

Chase Owens is just a guy to work six mans with Young Lions and to take the pinfall in any even somewhat meaningful match. iMO Fale's peak was as the guy who's shoulders Prince Devitt would ride on to the ring.

New Japan hasn't really had a great track record with gimmicks as of late, Jay White seems to be the only one who's been able to make it work as of late. Master Wato isn't exactly setting the world on fire and the last couple of posts were spot on about O'Khan.

lol at the payoff being Goldberg coming back and challenging for the title because reasons.

I wonder why WWE thinks the people who do turn in to see legends want to see them be portrayed as sad, doddering old people who only exist to get heat off of.

They're video screens, the fans are all on like a Zoom call type deal.

So if you're WWE and you honestly believe the legends stuff is a draw, why would you have a segment like this opening it up to kill off any interest someone checking it out would have.

We're getting Desperado/Kanemaru vs Taguchi/Master Wato for the Jr tag team titles too. Should be a decent enough match that won't set the world on fire or anything. The top two matches are def. carrying day two for sure, I wish that the Stardom matches would air but I suppose that won't happen because of different TV deals made before both promotions were under the same umbrella.