sek69

The Shield was a WWE gimmick.

For all the love NXT gets, the debut of Adam Rose and pending debut of Bo Dallas made me wonder if NXT is really preparing guys for the main roster. In terms of in-ring they seem to be doing a solid job, but it seems like they do a better job of creating gimmicks to get over with the NXT crowd instead of the WWE one. With the notable exception of the Wyatts, everyone so far called up with their NXT gimmick seems to have not gotten over in the big leagues. WWE already seems to see Adam Rose as a flop after only 2 weeks, and as great as the promos have been for Bo Dallas, I see him being the next guy to get a start-and-stop push before being condemned to midcard hell.

Of course, since half his gimmick now is being a IRL internet troll.

It would have been a good way to cap off the story of him turning face because he respected Magnum for one. Plus it always seemed that since JCP had such a thing for heel champs, it kind of made the babyface challengers look like chumps to me when even if they did win the belt, it was only for a couple of weeks (or less) before they lost it back.

Meltzer mentioned in one of last week's shows that from what he's been able to gather from speaking to folks in the company, very few people in TNA are making decent money.

From how Dave was talking, it seems like Barrios is going to fall on his sword for this. They arranged all the TV rights and Network deals to specifically protect anyone in the family from any blowback. Probably going to see a Game of Thrones style slaughter of anyone not named McMahon come Monday.

Maybe they can do a Pitbull #2 deal and have Bryan come out in a halo that Kane can throw him around by.

WWE is in an unusual place in that obviously they aren't a real sports product, but at the same time they aren't the usual TV drama/comedy/soap opera either. I guess in a sense they are portraying the matches as athletic contests, but invoking kayfabe in 2014 just seems wrong. What I don't get is advertisers see wrestling fans as all inbred morons who don't spend money, but WWE is a billion dollar company. Where do they think that money comes from? Even if its parents buying stuff for kids, someone's still spending actual dollars in the process.

Kind of hard to blame the world when you can turn on RAW and see bad horror movie rehashes and evil Russian angles straight out of 1985.

cubsfan's site has all the goings-on in lucha, along with uploads of most of the TV shows/important matches.

No, but they keep trying and it's why they weren't able to get a bigger increase. Also I notice how they quietly moved the goalposts in that release mentioning a 3x increase world wide in TV rights fees where every investor conference call leading up to today stated they expected 2-3x increase in US alone.

They never bothered to attempt to do it to the folks who mattered. They spend all their time running away from real sports comparisons until they realize that's where the fat TV money comes from. Then they decide they want to be treated like real sports, only you have folks who cover real sports for a living like Colin Cowherd on ESPN regularly mocking wrestling fans for being "booger-eaters". Yeah, he's a douche canoe, but his voice is the one that gets heard by millions on TV and radio and he's not the only one re-enforcing the stereotype. WWE never seems to bother doing anything to change the impression of his audience to the folks he wants to get paid by. Racing purists don't like that NASCAR has evolved from the old days of moonshine runners and fights in the infield, but they get a blank check from every major network every time their TV deal is up for renewal. It didn't seem to hold them back that their fans had the same "poor white trash redneck" stereotype us rasslin fans do.

Wasn't one of the weird Vince directives for guys to intentionally not play to the crowd?

If I recall correctly, he was with another wrestler who got involved in a bar fight and got the black eye in the process of trying to break up the fracas. It's not the audience that matters, if Vince knows someone got their ass kicked it has a chance to change his mind on someone. Sheamus is probably safe since he's a Friend of Hunter, but plans change by the minute it seems.

I still say WWE stays put unless Fox Sports decides they want another tent-pole attraction for FS1 to go with UFC and backs a dump truck full of money into Vince's driveway. I'm pretty sure all they want from NBCU is enough of an increase of the rights fees to save face and perhaps a better network/slot for Smackdown. As much as the ratings would justify what they are asking for any other kind of programming, I just don't see them getting the level of increase they told Wall Street to expect. It's probably going to end up like the Network subs, not a bad number but disappointing based on hype levels.

When you put your world champion - who your fans literally hijacked months of shows to get in that position - into a Z level horror movie storyline, that's a pretty good reason to bash the current product. Intentional or not, it comes off as a giant "fuck you" to the paying customers for forcing them to change their booking when they clearly didn't want to.

Considering Sheamus's gimmick is Mr. AHH LOVES TA FAIGHT~! I could see Vince souring on him as a top level guy after getting beat up by a jobber level guy.

Unless I misheard, didn't Stephanie provide Bryan and Brie the car on Raw so they could escape Kane? Made sense given that it was tampered with to not start later on.

People saying that probably watched his NXT debut where the Full Sail crowd went completely apeshit for the entrance, complete with a "that was awesome" chant. Not to mention in NXT the announcers completely laid out and let whatever happen play out naturally instead of on Raw where Michael Cole sounded like a dad trying too hard to be hip saying how cool the dancing was.

Not to mention wouldn't a show in the PG Era run on a delay of some kind in case of any errant f-bombs or nip slips?

Meltzer was saying in the latest update that the recommend a friend offer and the programming guy leaving was not a matter of coincidence. He also stated the next WON with all the business news would be eye opening for current talent. I guess WWE is about to make it official that guys are going to take it in the ass payoff wise in the Network Era.

The way they were talking about Brie not being there on the wrap up show seemed to telegraph a husband and wife mixed tag at some point.

HOF and Network/DVD Talkiing Head gigs are pretty much a certainty, I wouldn't be opposed to him being an authority figure at some point. As much as I think the role is done to death, it's clear WWE will never get rid of it as a booking crutch so might as well have someone who can do it well. I'm curious to see how he gets placed in the official WWE version of history. He was pretty much the only guy Vince could never get, so I'd wager his dislike of offering superlatives to guys he didn't create might be tempered by finally getting the one that always eluded him.

So how does Ross balance bashing the "dirt sheets" on his show with never having problem with doing a show with Bryan or Dave when he has something to shill? The more you hear him outside the context of calling a wrestling show, the more you realize he's the guy who changes course based on who he's talking to.

I didn't get a chance to see it, but apparently there's something running on the network now (Warrior doc?) where in the background of one scene there's a PPV poster with a post-it note over CM Punk's face. If true, that's an awesome moment in WWE petty behavior history.