sek69

"Vince as a desperate, hapless, boob" is a bold choice Cotton. Let's see if it pays off.

Vince looking like he's moments from just running around yelling "EVERYTHING IS FINE, NO CAUSE FOR ALARM"

In previous times, there was always an ace they could pull from their sleeve. Since they haven't created an actual difference making star since Cena and burned out the "Vince is on TV" bump, there's basically nothing they can do to pop a rating these days and that's probably the scariest thing of the current era.

He's really only banned from CMLL, Paco holds grudges for life + 10 years*. AAA just doesn't do business with him because he's a pain in the ass to deal with (and his wife/business manager is said to be just as bad). *CMLL did work with LA Park who was also on Paco's "dead to me" list and it didn't end horribly (it was more AAA's doing than Park's) so maybe there's a chance Santo could come back.

So La Mascara announced he left AAA and is a free agent, there's probably zero chance he goes back to CMLL due to the nature of his departure there. It seemed like they wrapped up his angle with Maximo already and had nothing else for him. I never would have expected him to end up the lucha version of Bret Hart, where a company gets handed a big star from the competition and totally dropped the ball.

Also I feel like any discussion of the Von Erichs should include a link to the Irv Muchnick Penthouse story.

Probably the same way "Psychics" work, educated guesses and cold reading. "Hey young boy who's brother died tragically, are you by chance having bad dreams?" is a question that tends to produce one kind of answer.

In all the fuss over people mad at Lio's claims of not getting paid well on the main roster, it kind of flew under the radar that Ricochet had to run a GoFundMe to help his mom out after her house got damaged.

The thing about curses is they are as real as the person being "cursed" believes they are. That being said, it's a pretty f'ed up thing for Jules to say to a young kid who already lost a brother.

Hell, in the 80s you'd have jobbers like Pete Dohery and Iron Mike getting over to a degree because they actually had a personality despite losing all the time.

Yeah, it's always a bit LOL when a guy with tenure thinks everyone on the roster is treated equally or at least the same as they are.

Something I just thought of listening to Bryan and Dave talking about services like DAZN: A lot of the content they are currently showing have contracts that end around the time WWE's latest TV deal ends. Unless a drastic shift happens, these services are probably going to lose their asses in that timeframe, which means all the properties like Bellator will probably be back looking for TV deals. WWE got their deal in part because Fox needed content to replace UFC and WWE was more or less the only major group left not tied up elsewhere. There's a better than good chance that WWE can do absolutely everything correct and fix their issues, and still lose out on the next round of TV contracts if there's more competition next time.

I dunno, I kind of see both sides here. Lio seems like a guy who will wear out his welcome quickly, but also WWE should either be covering folks' travel expenses or bumping up the low end of the scale so that guys don't go broke doing their jobs. He's far from the only person to point out you can end up losing money going to WWE since most major indies cover expenses and WWE doesn't.

Considering it was basically Kevin recounting the tale, it's not surprising Fritz would have escaped a lot of responsibility. I think it was telling when he was talking about Fritz pointing the gun at him when he was addled with brain cancer, he said "I'm glad he died" and almost as if he realized how that sounded, added he didn't want him to suffer anymore. There was just something about the way he said it that sounded like for a second the mask slipped and you heard an angry son who loved a dad that couldn't stop pushing his kids no matter the cost. The low point of the show for me was David Manning. It's one thing for Kevin to minimize his family's issues, but was embarrassing watching Manning still kayfabing for his boss all these decades and deceased Von Erichs later.

Things like overscripted promos are most likely the result of a bunch of TV writers trying to validate their existence, but the overall root cause lies at the top. When plans get thrown out last minute and shows don't get finished until minutes before airtime, it won't matter who's putting pen to paper. Bruce was brought in because he "speaks Vince" and is better than anyone at relaying what Vince wants to the creative team, but the question I have is does Vince even know what he wants anymore?

The show was 3 years old, but it was just a continuation of how they presented their show from about 1988. Raw in 1995 and Raw in 1997 might as well be shows from two entirely different promotions.

It's key to remember, WWF was in similar doldrums in the post Hogan years, and it wasn't until WCW was dunking on them regularly that they finally started making wholesale changes to the product in terms of presentation. Getting pressure from a competitor again might just be the thing the company needs to finally freshen up the look of both shows.

If AEW ends up on a Turner station like it seems is going to happen, that along with the Fox deal should hopefully provide a much needed boot to Vince's ass to get motivated again. Honestly I'm not sure what else could it doesn't.

Well of course not, but I can't imagine the ratio would be that good in the royal family.

What's odd is MBS (or some other prince) decide who's on these shows, which is why they tended to go so heavy in 90s-00s stars. I wouldn't have pegged anyone involved as potentially being a Goldberg fan.

There's a reason bookers normally cycle out after 5 years are so, even the greatest minds get burned out after enough time in the role.

It wouldn't surprise me if that promo was the breaking point for casual fans. Who wants to be told the show they watch is trash and the people who produce it have no idea how to fix it?

Pretty sure that Rey was the one who thought about trying to deliberately fail a drug test to get fired back when they were holding him hostage.

Agreed in the sense of it's clear he probably ran afoul of some WWE Locker Room Rules horseshit that no real adults care about, but I hate when wrestlers bash "the dirtsheets" in one sentence and then go on to basically confirm everything they said in the next. It's just adding to the annoying "fake news" narrative that people who actually do reporting have to deal with all the time.

Per Meltzer, Vince didn't want to let Dustin go either but Hunter talked him into allowing him to leave. As far as the business goes, everything else is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic without acknowledging that Vince is deep in "am I out of touch? No, it's the kids who are out of touch!" mode.