FMKK

Hollywood is a carny business too.

For what it's worth, I've heard that this story has basically been a misinterpretation of WWE wanting to sell PPV rights or even the Network itself to an outside party.

Ziggler outside of WWE would depend on his motivations. If he still does the stand-up comedy stuff he might just want to pursue that full time and do some North-Eastern indy shots a few times a year working nothing matches with Carlito for some spare cash. Or maybe he would want to show that he could have been a bigger star, in which case he would need to look to AEW, New Japan and maybe like PWG or even NWA for a bit of buzz. But he's a pure WWE system guy so we don't know how much he can work outside of that formula. He might still want to do his chinlock spot.

I know what you mean in that someone who's in the second match of the night should work like they're in the second match of the night. A midcard six-man tag should just be a midcard six-man tag. People playing for the 'this is awesome' chant instead of trying to tell a story with their match is annoying to me. But I think you can have all those things while still having good, entertaining matches instead of the same old patterned stuff. You can do characters and good matches. But I think WWE is so out of touch with the fanbase and the general zeitgeist that they don't know what a compelling character looks like in 2020. And I honestly cannot remember the last time they told a good story from start to finish that made sense and resulted in character development for anyone. And I don't think that's on the roster for trying to work PWG matches. That's on Vince for having the attention span of a moth and for creating a product that is totally bogged down by alienating verbiage and aesthetics and endless self-reference that makes it impossible for someone to jump in and start watching from fresh. The average WWE fan is so starved of good and compelling characters that they try to convince themselves that The Fiend is a work of artistic genius instead of a geek who watched a couple of low budget horrors on Amazon Prime! The absolute lack of hierarchy on the roster is also a huge issue in that regard. How can you tell if your favourite character is progressing through the ranks when everyone in trapped in the midcard vortex of doom?

There are so many guys there that I think are better suited to being in tag teams but because the division isn't taken that seriously, they're only ever briefly in them. Rollins and Ziggler are prime examples. They would make a good sleezy gaijin team in New Japan, although they haven't exactly taken tag teams that seriously until recently either.

I think the endless Corbin feud last spring/summer also helped to kill his heat but it's just kind of forgotten about because the Fiend stuff was even worse. I also think everything on WWE kind of suffered last spring from the excitement around Double Or Nothing. It wasn't a perfect show but it was a super hot show and made people excited about wrestling just as WWE was having a really dull stretch of rematches on top that people didn't want to see. The fact that he reacted to that by being a prick online further dented his credibility with the sort of fan who got behind him the prior year.

Yeah, Miz is the perfect WWE guy. There was definitely a period a couple of years ago when they could've pushed him into main events again, even just for a B level PPV programme. Not doing that again after 2011 has probably typecast him as a forever midcarder as opposed to someone like Jericho who could move up and down the card when he was there. But I really can't imagine him anywhere else. His promos and his work were built for WWE. And, while he's become decent and sometimes even good in the ring, I don't think he'd be up to the working standard of AEW, let alone New Japan. I know MJF is in some ways similar and isn't a great worker but at least at his age there's an implicit sense that he'll be improving for a long time. Current Miz would probably get a TNA world title run if they were still at around the level they were when they signed Christian and Kurt Angle. I wonder do people think Dolph Ziggler fits into this category. He's the kind of guy that some people thought was a super worker like ten years ago. I don't know whether he lost that status because the standards changed with all the indy guys coming in or whether he's just been so overexposed to the point that no one could care about him anymore.

Drew and Jinder beating the shit out of each other for ten minutes is definitely preferable to twenty minutes of Seth getting his shit in.

Everyone else no sold this but I popped. I know it isn't really his fault but I get a kick out of the ratings absolutely dying any time Seth Rollins is in the post-Mania main event programmes. Really, they need to keep him in the midcard forever. Beef up Zelina's Los Ingobernables rip off complete with the Naito-ish attitude and make Andrade the top heel. Though maybe they've already been too stuck in the midcard vortex of doom to be pushed up.

Guys who are pure WWE products like Curtis Axel or Heath Slater or whoever are the types you wouldn't expect to do much outside of WWE because they were essentially bred to give you a dependable ** WWE TV match complete with a reverse chinlock and a commercial break when someone falls out of the ring. But with the last few years of international signing sprees, it's hard for that kind of pure WWE guy to even find a place on their roster. Heath is cut now obviously but I could see him being a decent little act on NWA Powerrr and getting more exposure there than on WWE TV for the last few years.

Shit workers, nepotism cases or people who can do Vince comedy. I mean, Charlotte isn't a pure nepotism case in that the quality of her performances more than justify a place on the roster and a strong push but being Ric's daughters means she'll always be afforded that extra bit of protection that someone like Sasha Banks would never get.

Just his irritating voice has change the channel heat with me

Honest question. Is there a single person signed to WWE who wouldn't be better used elsewhere? Other than people who are shit like Baron Corbin, I struggle to think of anyone where WWE is the ideal place for them.

Well you see, he had Cody Rhodes' phone number so they had to sign him really

What a great investment that Velasquez signing was.

HHH was a smart worker who can't get out of the way of his own insecurities when he was a wrestler and it's somewhat similar in his booking run. He built NXT the way he did because he knew he had to gain the trust of wrestling fans who didn't trust Vince anymore so when he eventually took over, fans would be willing to give him a chance and maybe come back into the fold to see how the new regime went. But the running on NXT has exposed some of his limitations as well. Without the luxury of call-ups and constant roster refreshment, he's actually pretty bad at closing out storylines in a satisfying way. And you're right about the same guys being on top forever. That's made worse by the style descending into self-parody with the HBK melodrama. AEW emerging as an alternative to WWE that's outside of the umbrella has really exposed NXT and HHH's limitations to the point where he probably has to reinvent himself once again to stay in the good books with fans long term. I think NXT as a promotion peaked as far back as 2014 with Zayn winning the title then Owens turning on him or in 2015 with Sasha vs Bayley. There have been bright spots since then but to me, it just hasn't been the same. I wonder if Dusty no longer being around is a big factor in the falling off of the storytelling. People used to always talk about Ryan Ward being the genius booker behind it all but I've literally not heard his name in years. Is he still with the company? It's an amusing twist of fate that Dusty Rhodes could end up being the most important patriarchal figure for this generation of wrestlers almost more so than Vince.

In spite of all the evil shit he's pull recently, I'll give Vince my £9.99 for some WCW Pro. That doesn't seem like too much to ask for.

From what I've read elsewhere, those guys seemed to anticipate a lot of criticism that they were pushing themselves too much and tried to overcorrect out of the gates. I think Meltzer has mentioned that they didn't want to be seen as similar to Hogan, Nash etc. in WCW. But really, Jericho got that balance right and proved that you can be the top star and be protected in the booking while still elevating others. He's played a big part in Darby and Sammy getting so over in the early days of the promotion. I think Cody has come closer to getting that balance right than Omega and The Bucks, but the Hangman feud was heating up so well that I think they weren't far away from being as hot as they were if only we could still have shows with crowds and the full crew. If they were able to keep things going as they had been, I think the inevitable Omega vs Page singles match would've been the hottest in the promotion.

I've never seen people get so bent out of shape over such a nothing match in my entire life. It was a six minute TV filler squash where he pinned the guy with a secondary move and it apparently invalidates him as a star to the point where it's seemingly more important than headlining two out of their four PPVs and the Tokyo Dome twice.

Look at the crowd reaction for Omega coming out at the last PPV and tell me he's not a star. That audience adored him. He's played an integral part in making Hangman a star and once he inevitably has a match with him in front of a crowd, the atmosphere is going to be great. This is anecdotal but my brother is a casual fan who only watched Dynamite and old WCW with me. Had no idea who Omega was really before this and the only thing he had to say about the match on Wednesday was that it was cool when people win without using their finisher.

"What's the Velvet Nightmare doing here at the Impact Zone?!"

There also seems to be a voice recording of him asking someone what school they go to. Tbf, the stuff isn't actually verified atm I guess but if it is, then surely he has to be fired. How the fuck does anyone think they'd get away with posting dick pics on Instagram without getting exposed?

The hair has got to go. Is he trying to join Gallus?

I'd rather someone give me Covid-19 than have to work a squash against Nia Jax.

Late to the party on this but I think that was a 4 star match if there was a crowd and probably the best Hager/Swagger match I've seen.