Embrodak

If Haitch were to be pushed out, for whatever reason, who would they pick for his replacement? There really is no heir apparent, as I doubt they’d keep HBK and boot Triple H. Would we have a Jim Herd situation where they appointed someone foreign to wrestling to run it?

I mean from a monetary and marketing perspective, not taking advantage of The Rock being available and willing to face Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania would be kind of absurd. There are absolutely lapsed fans who will subscribe to Peacock just to watch that, and they’re going to have to start building a portfolio of successful attraction of interest if they’re going to get Netflix to re-up after five years or find a comparably lucrative replacement if they don’t. In a world where mass media is going to increasingly become an archipelago of competing streaming services, the game is going to be demonstrating that you can either get people to subscribe for extended periods or pop big numbers for more limited periods. What’s funny is streaming may be bad for them in that the percentage of the audience that doesn’t *already* have Netflix that will subscribe or stay subscribed just to watch them may not be as large as Netflix hopes, which would not only kibosh that deal but demonstrate to advertisers that WWE fans are not reliable targets of marketing and damage the amount they can squeeze out of other networks and services. Edit: Also, I don’t think it’s wildly out of character or stupid for Cody to decide to prove he’s better than the guy he beat three times who’s now claiming to be the workhorse and backbone of the company, when that in fact is what Cody is right now. A babyface allowing a beloved conquering hero to come back and stick it to a cheating bastard like Roman Reigns in a much more personal, intimate way is kind of old school, in a sense. In terms of day to day booking of Cody while he’s still so popular, him being the champ that shows up on television every week might be better than having to compete against Seth or the guy who beat Seth while they try to expand or establish their own reign. I hate that there’s a second world title, but if there’s going to be one, it’s perhaps more useful that it’s sort understood as “the one that’s there every week” vis a vis the one that makes more infrequent appearances. Kind of a #2 with a bullet - not technically *the* guy, but the one tasked with the arguably more difficult task of sustaining interest week to week.

Letting the WWE get to one of its financially hottest points ever before this stuff broke feels like a Greek tragedian took control of the writer’s room of reality.

Punk would tear every muscle in his body trying to do a GTS on Drew.

The thing is it can simultaneously be true that Laurinaitis was structurally a victim of McMahon’s weird pseudo-Epsteinian kink *and* a despicable reprobate using his power and position to get his rocks off with younger women. He likely *didn’t* have much of a choice once Vince marked him out as his surrogate cock du jour, but I don’t believe for a second that he wasn’t super into it, unless there were private moments of regret he expressed to Grant that were elided from her legal filing. Re: Epstein, I just have this recurring vision of Vince reading about the shit that he was getting up to and getting wildly aroused, rather than disgusted, by it, and deciding he wants a taste. This is on a whole other level compared to the Weinstein-style stuff he was accused of earlier in his life.

Flashing back to a 411mania article from like 2005 where some dude said Ron “The Truth” Killings was the future of the wrestling business.

The thing is there are so many colorful/weird/fucked-up/eccentric tales about Vince McMahon, I can imagine a lot of people simply compartmentalized and assumed a lot of it was bullshit until like two years ago when they read in the paper that someone was alleging he made her blow him for a push. Wrestling is the absolute perfect industry to try and pull this kind of stuff in, because the people involved are used to treating stories they hear as tall tales and exaggerations.

There’s some slippage to the concept of “knowing” here. If there were a ton of people who knew about the specific reprehensible shit that was alleged in this filing, then burn the place to the fucking ground. I imagine that what most people “knew”, though, was that there were a lot of rumblings and rumors, and that Vince was extremely powerful and would fuck you up if he heard you were asking questions. Re: the rape in the office, the lawsuit doesn’t say that one happened in the middle of a workday. The rape that happened in the middle of a workday (perpetrated by McMahon alone, in his private locker room) is described as such right afterward, so I imagine they would have mentioned that the gang rape happened during a workday if in fact it did. It says she sent a message refusing that one at 7:51 am, so I suspect it was done prior to regular business hours.

Punk needs to become a manager or something, man. I’m sick and tired of him getting injured every time his story is heating up. Have him be a mouthpiece for Okada or something.

So apparently the original plan for Royal Rumble was for Brock to do everything Bron did, including get eliminated by Dom, then Dom would go to Perth and get ragdolled by Brock. Don’t want to see Lesnar anymore, but conceptually, absent knowledge of the accusations, that idea is pretty funny in a good way, and I think they could have Bron make a big splash if they just went ahead with that plan with him instead.

Punk being gassed so easily is wild because cardio was always the one thing he had going for him. He never had an exceptional physique and was always sloppy, but he could go for pretty long matches back in the day. Dude entered at 27 and was visibly gassed within minutes, I sure hope he’s made a bunch of appointments with Ric Flair’s Stairmaster before WrestleMania.

I don’t really care if he’s some long-standing adrenaline junkie, it’s just not something I’m comfortable seeing, yo. I can appreciate him being Mick Foley meets Rey Mysterio meets Ricky Morton meets Crow Sting, it just seems sensible to say he shouldn’t be allowed to court serious injury in anlmost every outing.

Honestly, it’s shocking that Triple H did not have a canned corporate lawyerspeak answer at the ready. Claiming in public that you haven’t read a relatively brief legal document (took me like 20-30 minutes) is *damning* for a company listed as a litigant in the lawsuit on the basis of them either facilitating or negligently turning a blind eye to sexually abusive practices.

WWE are named litigants in the suit, and the filing directly alleges that WWE is complicit because the defendant believes high level people were or should have been aware of what was being done to her. As I said, it would not be surprising if that were true (and cynicism where big companies are concerned is basically always warranted), but the evidence of such is rather thinner in that particular document than the evidence against Vince and the presumable evidence against Ace and Brock. The behavior the other execs are described as engaging is equally consistent with people understanding and side-eyeing her as being an unqualified sugar baby that Vince got a bullshit job for as it is with people knowing that Vince was entombing her in a labyrinth of rape and degradation. I doubt that we will actually find out a lot of this stuff because I imagine the parties will settle before it ever gets to the discovery phase, but hopefully things start to clear up as other wronged and abused parties step forward.

I like Darby a lot, but I find myself genuinely uncomfortable watching him hurl himself onto a steel chair on the floor from the ring in a fucking Rampage match against Jeff Hardy like a week after he was an inch away from snapping his neck on the bottom rope because two big lugs rag doll tossed him eight feet in the air. Would Darby be any less beloved if he saved the big bumps for matches where they might actually get some heat, be memorable, and draw some money by the possibility of them happening? Is Tony insensate to how silly it is, even just from a purely financial perspective, to let one of your top babyfaces literally risk his neck in inconsequential television matches?

So actually reading through the complaint from start to finish, the case against Vince, Laurinaitis, and Brock is likely airtight, but I would need to know more about the relevant laws to determine the complicity of the remainder of the WWE. Based on what is alleged and included, it can be reasonably surmised that the executives knew that Vince had a sexual relationship with this woman and that he was getting her bullshit jobs in the company on that basis, the legality of which I know nothing about and which may be wildly illegal and categorized as a form of sex trafficking all on its own (again, not a lawyer), but there is nothing included that substantiates the claim that they knew that any aspect of this relationship was involuntary on her part, or systematically exploitative and abusive on Vince’s part. The point that they probably should have known or suspected due to this being a recurrent pattern in Vince’s life certainly holds some weight, but sugar babies are a thing, *especially* in circles where that much power and that much money are commonplace (I had a friend that tried getting into that, there are a lot of wealthy executive types with stupid amounts of disposable cash that get off on having someone in their life that is understood as purely transactionally connected to them), and depending on what people said in texts, emails, etc (which would come out in discovery, if the case moves that far), it seems like WWE could mount a plausible defense that there was no basis for anyone in a position of authority to suspect the darker and more fucked-up aspects of this (gang rapes, scat threesomes, trafficking her) were a part of this arrangement. That said, it would be entirely *unsurprising* to discover that the heinous shit was something of an open secret, but the lawsuit filing doesn’t really substantively demonstrate that the way it demonstrates and suggests possession of incontrovertible evidence proving that Vince, Laurinaitis, and Brock are sick, sick puppies.

The excuse right now is the investigation was conducted by a third party, but I gotta say, if I’m the board and I get a report where the NDA signer was not interviewed, I maybe send them back in the trenches before I accept it. Edit: This thing is such a shit show that I’m genuinely not comfortable assuming anything about who knew what and when until some actual investigative journalism and/or corporate insider leaks happen. Stephanie McMahon leaving the company reads as extremely sinister in retrospect in light of all this, but there was a whole lot of other creepy and abusive sexual misconduct that Vince was accused of that would have been more than enough to precipitate such a falling out, remember. The stuff described in this suit is illegal and heinous to a degree far beyond anything else Vince has ever been accused of, I would have to imagine that even exhibitionist, power-tripping douches like Vince and Johnny Ace would have kept certain aspects of it close to the chest out of sheer self-preservation instinct. Idk, just a terrible mess, I hope this woman gets the recompense she deserves.

Darby doesn’t need to slow down, he needs to stop taking wildly unsafe bumps in heatless matches. Dude almost broke his neck a few weeks ago in a nothing tag match.

Effect on the victim, yes. Potential implications for the rest of the company? Different ball game.

I will say that a lawsuit filing is by definition tailored to make all named parties look as much at fault as possible, so while the text messages are basically irrefutable if they are demonstrated to have come from Vince, claims of others in the company “knowing” may be overstated unless evidence in discovery demonstrates otherwise. Vince showing people naked pictures of someone understood as his mistress and getting “Yeah, she’s hot, way to go Vince” would not be tantamount to knowledgeable complicity in gang rape and sex trafficking but could be represented in a lawsuit filing as such. What a sick fuck, though. Does every billionaire want to be Jeffrey Epstein?

One thing I’ll say is it wouldn’t surprise me if Vince was lying when he texted her about the production people hooting and agreeing with him that they’d gang rape her. Any kind of investigation will have to deal with disentangling facts from Vince’s mind palace. Unless it was just like Kevin Dunn and Bruce Pritchard he’s referring to, that I would believe.

Goddamn, this is truly disgusting and heinous stuff. A concerted investigation into who knew what and when seems warranted.

I know nobody is going to watch Collision over *this* Rumble except the extreme diehards, but Bryan vs a 55 year old Nagata seems especially self-indulgent as counter-programming even with that context.

The Bucks are pretty bad at promos and acting. Also, that Hook segment was just so amateurishly done. Dude comes out in fucking sweats, sounds unconvincing and unconvincingly tough cutting the shortest promo possible, then Joe calls security and the three fakest looking security guys in a while come in the ring to get suplexed. Setting aside that they blew their wad on attacking security guards on a goofy comedy angle with Wardlow a while back, since when does the champ have the right to call in security guards to clear the ring? Why would a supposed babyface (even a badass, dark and brooding Sasuke-style babyface) attack three guys just doing their job when they barely did anything to provoke him? Is there no ambition amongst the young guys and backstage producers to try and make Tony’s half-baked deployment of wrestling tropes come across as somewhat credible? (Also the Hook signal is kinda lame, why does the camera pan up and zoom in on it every time?)

WWE really has had an amazing turnaround, it must be said. It still kinda sucks because of how homogenized and pasteurized it is, but it sucks the least I can imagine it sucking given the constraints it’s operating within. Re: the nepokids, they’re all pretty good at what they do. Rock’s daughter is still green as shit, but Dempsey is good, Cody is killing it, Orton got memed into being cool again and is still as solid and reliable as ever, Dominik is like the only actual heel in the whole damn business, Charlotte can go even though she’s overexposed, Pillman looks better in NXT than he ever did in AEW, etc.