sek69

WWE really didn't have a choice here (I mean, other than not signing a ten year deal with a problematic government in the first place), once the deal was made they painted themselves in this corner. If they don't go they take a financial hit bigger than this show as the investors would freak out and the stock would plunge. Between the upcoming midterm elections, bombs being sent to various opponents of the GOP, and them being that rasslin' company, WWE is just banking on people no longer paying attention to their show after a week or so. Really, they have no reason not to. What's the worst that can happen? Bix writes another piece calling them out, people wag their fingers at them on social media, and then they collect those fat TV checks next year.

The JR stuff was always fascinating to me. I know that in any field when there's a new boss they want to put their guys in, but he want from a fairly high executive position to out on the curb in record time.

Dave mentioned on the show today that Samu is battling liver cancer as well now. This poor family is taking a pounding at the moment.

It was mentioned in the Q3 investors conference that the show is indeed still going on as planned.

It hasn't been a good look for a lot of folks online feeling the need to couch their support of someone diagnosed with cancer in terms of their feelings toward the product. It goes both ways too. People shouldn't feel the need to preface their sympathies with "I never liked him/his push but....", nor does it do anyone any favors be like "I bet you feel like shit now, Roman haters!" It's like someone getting upset at an athlete getting injured because how it will effect their fantasy team. It's gross when it's a running back with a torn ACL, it's ghoulish when it's something like this. On a positive note, it has been uplifting to see other companies like New Japan and ROH offer their support. Maybe it's my turn to be the asshole here, but something tells me if Okada was diagnosed with a terrible disease we probably wouldn't get any comment from WWE.

I bet I could make a pretty educated guess why both of them would no show.

I also think that UK stars of the past suffer some of the same curse of a lot of US territoral stars, in that because their company eventually went under it's used as a club against them.

That makes sense, it's just amazing that a guy can go through two of the most gossipy careers possible and word never got out before now.

I just get the impression, right or wrong, that it's impossible for any UK star from the past to get any traction since until recently there was no way to get footage. Plus I recall back when people first started discovering shows like World of Sport, some folks were kind of off put by the rounds system as some alien form of wrestling. Plus there's an inherent bias in voting for guys you grew up with, sometimes unknowingly. I would suspect a borderline candidate that the voter was aware of growing up is going to have a thumb on the scale compared to a UK guy.

I was surprised he was able to keep stories of his past battles quiet, especially considering he was a guy who might have been on some NFL teams radar (as a lower round pick, but still) and they are always spoiling to get dirt on guys. NFL writers have nothing on dirtsheets when it comes to SCOOPZ. I hope he'll be able to recover fast from this, not even in terms of a wrestling comeback, but in terms of a guy with a wife and 3 kids. When they were doing that campaign about how to be a dad, there was a billboard of Roman and his daughter having a tea party on my way to work. It was always a reminder that no matter what nonsense happens in the stupid rasslin' world, these are people with lives and families.

There was in Angle's promo where he went over his opponents in the World Cup, but it was clearly pre taped so that's not necessarily a sign of anything.

LOOK AT ALL THOSE ENTERTAINING SMILES WWE HAS PUT ON THEIR FACES Next week on Raw opens with Michael Cole stating "We had two tragedies last week, Roman announced his leukemia and Dean turned on his Shield Brother"

WOW

Either Alicia Fox is low key 6'6 or everyone else in that segment is short as hell.

Wasn't expecting an Elias face turn here, but they did end up paying off the "always interrupting his song" gimmick.

If you had to distill WCW's essence down to one sentence, I can't imagine a better one that this.

Three way for the Universal title at Crown Jewel now just a straight singles match between Brock and Braun for the title.

They are pros for sure, but for real fuck the company for putting them in that position if they were blindsided by the news.

It doesn't seem they knew what he was going to say, all three looked like they were hit by a truck when they came back from commercial.

Well this is just completely awful news.

I get the impression that Dave wants to keep the show at an hour or so and tells Bryan to keep things on track.He does the same thing to a lesser degree on his shows with Lance Storm, but that's probably due more to Lance having a million classes to teach and needing to squeeze time in. He's always been more of a "these are the subjects we need to discuss next" guy on those shows. He's also been fairly open with the fact he kind of purposely plays heel on the B&V type shows since him and Vinny have good comedy chemistry as the "loudmouth little guy and his much larger friend who gets his shots in" type. I actually think the shows they do with Craig are even better since he tends to make jokes that everyone but Bryan get and let him do whatever the comedy equivalent of heel stooging would be.

Regardless of why, it was bold since it was JBL's idea and also the ultimate Vince McMahon patriotism jerk off.

To me the biggest issue is how ROH thinks guys will pay for the opportunity to tryout, but no one of any reasonable talent will bother because they just go and work elsewhere to build up their name.

During shows too? Does he lock himself in the bathroom or something?

Well RVD did refuse to go to the Tribute to the Troops shows that were in Afganistan (IIRC), so I could see him both refusing to do this show and not giving a shit if he got fired over it.