strobogo

I would imagine he's in a good position to get a very good offer from AEW and WWE.

I'm also pretty :what at the idea that Rock would need a WM main event and ownership of The Rock to join the TKO board like he hasn't been a dude doing everything possible to climb the corporate ladder for a decade and also spent much of the past 15 years trying to avoid The Rock moniker.

The new reports that they're trying to do a shitty booking in 2014 for Bryan thing to get Cody more over is lmao. Dude has far and away been the most over face since his return, and in about a decade. Shitty booking to get him more over when Cody and WWE is so hot right now is pure foot shooting nonsense.

Hook's hair looks completely silly now, too. There was a point during the Team Taz era where his hair was interesting and unique, but now he just looks like he has a bad bowl cut. Sure he can do suplexes and shit, but much of the most basic stuff in the ring he still looks extremely green. I know there was talk about Taz really wanting him to go to NXT and I think he's a guy that very much would benefit from training at the PC and doing his reps in NXT and random small Florida towns for a while. Also Tony Khan is a COWARD if he doesn't book a Kingston vs Scott Norton chopfest sprint at some point. I know that mf most likely is a member here and at least reads if not posts. Do a Norton vs Kingston triple crown man in Colorado you coward.

Rock joining the TKO board and immediately heavily pushing for and getting the WM main event with Roman screams of the same attempted takeover of the DCEU he thought he could do and ended up burning most of his good will in Hollywood. And now he's doing the same thing in the wrestling world. Really fascinating so see Rock just flop with everything all at once after the last 7 or 8 years.

Has there ever been a crowd so loud and hot in a half empty arena on television before? My goodness was that a great crowd.

Rough shape for the past decade is pretty generous. He's been a wreck since 1999 at least. Perhaps he could do a smoke and mirrors hardcore match at this point, but that's the kind of thing that would need to be on a Joey Janella Spring Break show at best.

I'm not going to be bummed if/when Buddy and Black go back to WWE, nor do I particularly care about people not wanting to do jobs (what happened to supporting worker's rights), but they've been involved in a bangers in AEW. Buddy in particular has really shined since Collision started.

I get the point you are making, but there is frankly a staggering amount of predators and scam artists that Oprah platformed over the years. As far of people having to know, basically all these dudes who got swept up in the past however many years were known creeps and people did talk about it, just not loud and serious enough to get traction. Comedians were talking about Cosby on podcasts for years before Hannibal went at him. There are Weinstein jokes in a bunch of sitcoms over the years, at awards shows, even blatant Weinstein expies in a few Weinstein/Miramax movies. There had been talk about Kevin Spacey for 25 years. In the case of someone like Jimmy Savile, that dude seemed to be pretty blatant about what he was doing and people around him knew and kept it going for some side action themselves. When it comes to Vince and Johnny Ace, rumors have been flying around about them for decades, too. To the extent of what is in the filing, no, but Vince does have a rape charge, a couple of indecent exposure charges, was very open about all the affairs he had and extremely weird sexual desires. Johnny Ace has those rumors that he was banging Mrs. Baba in the 90s and his entire tenure of working with women in WWE is about him being a creepy asshole. But when you see the filing and then track what Vince himself was doing on TV for so many years: Forcing himself on nearly every woman on the roster, who on screen and off were his employees, frequently directly in front of his wife, humiliating many of said women and holding his position of power over them to keep them sexually pleasing him, angles with Stephanie where it is implied he let or was going to let Taker rape and marry her, then during the feud with Stephanie she had that promo about him pimping her out to his business friends as a teenager, also straight up fighting her (days before her wedding no less), wanting either Shane or himself be the father of Stephanie's baby on screen. Not to mention the shit humor for 30 years, forcing men to kiss his ass, cuck angles, at least one actual rape angle (Kane/Lita, potentially Heidnreich/Cole as well). Now sure, circumstantial, artists can have things in their art they do not condone or engage in, but Cosby had a date rape joke in the 60s, Weinstein had movies he produced with scumbag producers sexually harassing women, Luc Besson and Woody Allen both wrote movies about dating or being in love with teenagers, and so on and so on. I think it would be impossible for more than a handful of people not knowing what was going on if the filing and Vince's own texts are anything to go by. Double raping on the conference room desk during work hours? No one on the floor noticed that?

I don't take personal joy in Punk being injured, but do find it funny that he gets injured his first TV match back in WWE, in a Rumble match where only the last 5 minutes was anything like an actual match. Dude is absolutely destined to never main event WM. One might say....it was written in the stars.

Jordyn Grace was by far the workhorse of the Rumble. Maybe Kevin Dunn was onto something with his camera bullshit, because I can't recall seeing so many completely whiffed spots and basic strikes in WWE ever than on this show. Seemed like cameras caught every single one of them in every match.

lmao record time

Burying talent on the way out always seemed counter productive to me anyway. Trying to lower a talent's value before they move on is damaging to the industry as a whole, which requires a healthy market for everyone to thrive. It also seems petty and something that could impact people wanting to work for you from other companies. I don't think it is much of a thing anymore to be worried about people leaving going over. Lose the last match, but no need to start booking people weak because they're on the way out. Andrade was known to be leaving, he was heavily featured in the CC and even got a win over Bryan. It didn't hurt anything.

HHH just said he only wants to focus on the positives of the past week to two different questions. Cody at least acknowledged the reports and filing and how everyone here read it at the same time as everyone else, but then talked about how the locker room is such a family now and he's never experienced that in his career. HHH was asked at least two direct questions about the Vince stuff and both times he just said shit like "I'm just focusing on the positives in the past week".

Lmao that Cody made a better statement about Vince stuff than HHH when directly asked.

I can appreciate that WWE is super hot, but man, every PPV I've tuned into in the past 6 months or so has mostly sucked and this was no different. The hottest things on this show were Jade debuting, Jordyn Grace being the workhorse of the Rumble, and Punk vs Cody while trying not to acknowledge AEW.

Think that's what slow down meant. Not physically slow down, but stop taking such horrendous bumps every match.

I think it's the other way around. All this stuff about investigations was starting to get out in 2022, Vince steps down, Stephanie takes his place, he forces himself back at the start of 2023, various corporate high ups leave (including Stephanie), company is suddenly on the market and a deal is made in an unusually short negotiation period. Sure seems like he was setting up his exit plan knowing there had to be a lot more stuff going to come out about him soon enough.

I'm quite pleased that TK didn't pick up Sami Callahan.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ctd.157647/gov.uscourts.ctd.157647.1.0.pdf There is some absolutely insane behavior in this. The amount of people implicated from Vince to other corpos to talent to production and TV crews. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who the other corporate officers mentioned are. Absolute straight predator shit start to finish. Can't even imagine if mid 70s Vince was this brazen and blatant AT WORK, with other co-workers, years after me too started taking these dudes down, how much of a horror show he had to be in the 80s. But what the fuck is Vince's deal with Johnny Ace?

Mauro/Pat Mac dream team lfg

You have to book arenas many months in advance, if you have a downturn in sales, it isn't something you can just jump back to smaller venues right away.

I know he's a big HBK fan and presumably would want to work with him, but he can hit up Orlando any time. Through that dude at WM with a crazy entrance you only get at WM. Fuck it, run Okada/Nakamura at WM.

Imagine getting Okada in the heat of WM season and starting him in NXT and not a massive debut at WM.

Suzuki popping up every 7 months out of the blue to do the greatest hits is always fun gtfo losers