cpst

That model will work pretty well unless they get greedy and burn through their feeder system, especially if they keep the Network price low to prevent any competition from gaining a large nonlocal following via Internet distribution.

Or this literally happening tomorrow: One of the best women's wrestlers on the roster, on the show that Hunter and Stephanie apparently have more influence over, with a gimmick change entirely based around sex appeal rather than anything having to do with wrestling. Yeah, I guess appearance is irrelevant in WWE in 2016. Anyways, in Chris Hero's case, I doubt there's anything to be worried about. Here are his own comments on the matter. He's been there before and he knows what's expected of him if he goes back. He's not going to go back and pretend he can just look like he does right now on the indies.

Hojo's English on Stardom World is pretty good, and you can tell Io is at least interested in speaking more. Hana Kimura busted out a pretty clean English accent in a prematch promo with Kris Wolf, but no clue how much of a conversation she can hold. In Lucha Underground she got herself over pretty quickly with her athleticism and ridiculous spots, but I'm not sure if WWE will go for that. I wonder if we'll see a Queen's Quest garbage match in this current run.

When they launched they had Final Battle listed on their site, and people who claimed that they knew about it happening ahead of time through the Twitter DM pipeline (e.g. the Voices of Wrestling crew, although I'm pretty sure there were others) also claimed that Ring of Honor was part of the prelaunch rumors and was going to be announced soon.

It would be nice to see him get a run on the main roster while he's still in his 30s, and he is pretty tall for an indie guy. I still somewhat suspect that he's going to be in NXT. Given the booking philosophy that NXT has shown, I don't see them making either Roode or Aries the next champ after Nakamura.

According to their 10K, only descendants of Vince and Linda can become holders of Class B stock with 10:1 voting rights, and if anyone else holds Class B stock it is automatically converted to Class A stock.

He owns 47% of all shares but 85% of all voting shares. He could give those to either of his children.

It's going to be interesting to see where WWE goes as a business in the next 5 years. Despite launching the Network, television contracts are still the most substantial portion of their business, and with ratings dropping USA was apparently unhappy enough to request that WWE take Smackdown live on Tuesdays. They'll be renegotiating in 2018/2019, and it's hard to see them getting a better deal than their current USA one. A few months ago there was a meme on a lot of the smark podcasts that ratings don't matter and that things like YouTube views are what's important today, but the numbers continue to say the opposite. The article touches on how the Network launch hurt their last round of negotiations. Is Vince a genius for buying into the Network concept early and charting a path to (currently unfulfilled) financial independence from other media companies, or did he make a huge strategic error in launching it before the television negotiations finished, costing the company a few hundred million dollars? At any point, Vince could no longer be in control of the company (be it death or severe illness). Since the McMahons control the vast majority of voting shares, they'll be able to choose the next CEO. Will investors really accept another McMahon without someone else that has stronger business experience? Say what you want about HHH's involvement in NXT as a wrestling promotion, but it's not an independently profitable business unit inside of WWE. Wrestling fans might get a different perception from that than investors.

I think the threads are pretty positive when warranted, e.g. most of the PPVs and Takeovers that have happened recently. With NXT, it went from being considered the hottest American wrestling promotion a year ago to its lessened current state. I used to be excited to watch NXT TV after work every Wednesday, and now I'll forget to watch it by the end of the week until somebody brings it up here. I think all of the people posting criticisms would love to see it be as good as it was in mid-2015.

That's a fair assessment. I still think Takeover London ended up being a pretty good show (at least to watch as it happened), partially because of the unique crowd.

How many months does it last?

Ryan Ward was head writer of NXT longer than that. He only went over to Smackdown in March. I think calling up all of the women with a name besides Asuka and the Balor title reign started the decline. Lots of things after that didn't help either. Balor's reign was followed up by Joe, his partner-in crime for much of his boring reign. American Alpha got called up to Smackdown and left the tag-team division as two teams plus some other guys. I'm curious what they're going to do going forward if neither Nakamura nor Asuka get called up. Is the men's singles division just going to be ex-TNA guys losing to Nakamura? They have the women's tournament coming up, which will hopefully build up some of these new women coming in and maybe lead to another signing or two. It's also unclear whether Io Shirai or Kairi Hojo will actually end up joining.

I wonder if she'll drop it to Io or they'll drag this thing out another month or two. Stardom has been pretty good since the last Korakuen show.

I hope that whatever the WWE board decides they have a worked match between the two to decide on the winner.

It was the first thing they discussed during her entrance at HIAC. And it was Cole, so you definitely know it was a point they wanted to drive home.

Apparently, no. I'm sure the Ironman match will be good, but they really need to build somebody else up in that division. Meh I think its just a matter of they need a filler match for December. I would think Charlotte either wins it back (god I hope not I'm sick of the hot potato), Sasha wins out and then turns on Bayley before WM, or Sasha/Bayley go to WM as buddies, Sasha loses and then turns. I'd rather not see Sasha turn since they are kind of already setting up Jericho/Owens for one of them to turn on the other so I'd rather not have two feuds heading into WM kickstarted by someone being turned on. Either way I think Bayley is walking out of WM as the champ this year. Even if the crowd was dead as hell for her tonight or atleast her entrance I didn't catch the rest of her match. She doesn't seem to be getting the reactions she got in NXT though thats for sure. The problem with the Fast Lane match is that they're kind of screwed both ways. If they do another title switch it continues the hot potatoing of the belt to the point of ridiculousness. If they have Sasha break Charlotte's PPV streak, it probably shouldn't be on Fast Lane.

Even if FloSlam's rumored relationship with ROH pans out, it seems difficult for them to get enough subscribers to make this thing work. It'd be one thing if they were just a clearinghouse for content that other people were already producing, but they're paying multiple people to curate and produce content, as well as footing some of the cost of recording and livestreaming these events in the first place (evidently not House of Hardcore, judging by Dreamer's comments). It sounds like it's just another market for FloSports and they can kill it if it doesn't succeed to their expectations. The story with WWE here is strange. The probability that a random indie wrestling fan already has a WWE Network subscription is extremely high, so even if they went for a $5 premium package for indie content they would be able to out-price anyone else. It sounds like they've been interested in this prospect for a while, mentioning it in a few surveys, yet from everything Meltzer has said the WWE was caught off-guard by WWN signing with FloSlam. You'd think that Gabe would've mentioned it to WWE, especially given that the contract locks him in for 5 years.

I guess what I meant is that she has a toned body and is physically attractive in the way that WWE wants, rather than any particular look. Even though she's a good worker, I don't think Kellie Skater is going to get hired by WWE and pushed any time soon. They have the same criteria for men, don't they? They definitely have some criteria. I'm not really qualified to say whether they are the same. There's also a wider range of roles for men, e.g. Kane and the Wyatt Family. The current 'monster' of the Raw women's division is a former model.

I guess what I meant is that she has a toned body and is physically attractive in the way that WWE wants, rather than any particular look. Even though she's a good worker, I don't think Kellie Skater is going to get hired by WWE and pushed any time soon.

Apparently they signed Heidi Lovelace, Evie, and Kimber Lee. Evie is a pretty good worker and has the look they want, so I hope she goes far.

Apparently, no. I'm sure the Ironman match will be good, but they really need to build somebody else up in that division.

This video package has me really hyped for this match.

What a strange year 2016 has been, where a WWE chairs match was that good.

This match is an argument for the culmination and last chapter of ladder matches.

Is Ziggler's punch better than I remember it being?