sek69

From what I've seen written Road Dogg was always in charge, he just got a change in title to make it official.

Every promoter stole music, Heyman was just the last one to do it.

Previously anything on the main roster (and obvious jokes aside 205 Live is the main roster) was Vince's domain. HHH getting control of anything beyond NXT seems like one of those things that you look back on and realize was the start of a major change. For Vince to allow someone else creative control like that is kind of unheard of.

When you think about it, it's kind of amazing major companies would use actual music on TV/video releases and seemingly never think there would be a problem with that. Sure, you can say 80s WWF would not have been able to predict DVDs, streaming, OTT and all that but did they think having Ricky Steamboat come out to Sirius would never become an issue? JCP never stopped to think that having guys come out to popular music on a show airing on a nationally available superstation would not come back to bite them? ECW could almost be excused since their whole persona was being the rebel underground promotion that didn't give a shit about things like music rights, but almost all the other edits that happen are solely due to promotional arrogance.

Funny thing about Lashley, is that there's a good chance he only existed in the WWE in the first place because they got turned down by Bob Sapp and seemingly decided to "create their own".

Sometimes with rare stuff you take what you can get, but something like ECW is so widely available unedited it's hard to watch the Network versions. Most of them honestly aren't too bad, but someone like New Jack or Sandman loses everything that made them unique with their original music dubbed out. Like Boogie Woogie's music being dubbed out isn't too bad because it's just happy music for him to come out to, but New Jack's whole match being done without Natural Born Killers defeats the whole point.

Mookie did a breakdown on what "exceptionally cleared" means on the Wrestlenomics podcast and the only two options are that the State Attorney found conflicting testimony or that they flat out didn't want to proceed on the case. Considering the police report made it clear the cops felt the case was solid enough seems to imply the latter.

Spud giving the 205 crew the "Ric Flair yelling at Carlito" treatment was very telling in light of the change in creative. Edit: to expand for those who don't watch the show: Spud (who is basically playing the role of HHH's avatar) is telling guys they're too talented to be wasting time doing comedy stuff and he wants them to knock it off and be the stars they are capable of being.

Booker wasn't great, but he was the unpolished non-corporate voice WWE TV badly needs when everything is scripted to death in WWE lingo. Coach is better in terms of announcing ability but he's just WWE announcebot #708908 out there.

Coach became extremely smarmy and holier-than-thou once he started working for ESPN. He just sounded like he thought he was above everyone else on any show he did, which is funny because for most of the time he was there he was a fill in host on the radio side. His tweet after Ronda's losses that WWE would never touch her because she's now damaged goods hasn't aged well, and I hope he gets shit about it on a regular basis.

Rajah? That's a blast from the past.

The Alexa Bliss collection is up now, and it's amazing how her "sparkle princess" era in NXT already seems like Hunter's blue blood phase in terms of something that seemingly was a million years ago in a different timeline.

Not really, he pretty much lets Bryan do his own thing. As long as it doesn't interfere in his shows he doesn't seem to be bothered by it. FWIW, I think it's a smart move. Bryan gets a side hustle and doesn't have to listen to people bitch that something they don't want is added to the cost of their WON sub. If people want it they can get it separately, and by the way he's talking about it on Twitter apparently it's been a hit so far.

Why not both? It seems like Booker legit doesn't like him and Corey is just trolling him about it on Twitter now.

Cole would make fun of Booker way more than Graves did, I wonder if it's a case of Booker thinking it was "disrespecting the veteran" for a younger guy to be busting balls like that. I mean, it could be all a work but why would they run an angle with a guy who's only on commentary because he can't get clearance to wrestle due to concussions?

Ronda's going to be signed for more than one year. If they are hoping that having her will increase their next TV deal, she has to be under contract for at least two years since the current TV contract ends in September of 2019. Also while I don't know if Heyman should be her on screen advocate he definately should be her advocate backstage. By all accounts he was the reason Goldberg's second WWE run was a success since he had a hand in the creative.

How much is available with their Ringside program? Are there any archives or is it just their TV?

From the WO site: That's.....actually not to bad. They aren't completely cutting their throats on PPVs like WWE did while beating them to the punch with different tiers.

I think they know Ronda has the type of personality that people tend to dislike after a while, so it's smart to position her as a heel after the initial "holy shit, she's really going to do this wrestling thing" buzz wears off. It makes booking sense too. Have all the women against her for "stealing their moment" at the Rumble, then she runs through the low level women until Mama Bird Steph has to defend the honor of the division she single handedly bore from her womb or whatever.

Feature, not a bug. Of course, but it's why some folks didn't like it.

IMO the move itself is fine, but like all WWE signature spots it had to be in every match which led to some really ridiculous setups just for him to get the move in.

Because there's no little people in the McMahon family, that's why.

There's a dude that comments on every article on the WWE Network News site that is adamant WWWF TV is the classic drop for March. There was a lot added to WWE On Demand so it's ready to go if they choose to.

God damn, that's a perfect descriptor of him. He's what would have happened if Steve Corino would have bothered staying in shape and got a WWE deal at some point.

Adam Cole is a guy who can be a top star on the indy level but it just doesn't translate to WWE. I think Fish and O'Reilly are great even if O'Reilly comes off as the dude at the gym who thinks he's an MMA expert because he took a ju jitsu class once.