rovert

Daniel Bryan is ending his full-time Wrestling career after the birth of his second child later in the year. I guess he is just knocking off time off his current contract. And that he and Brie think the trade-off will be worth it. Far from an ideal situation. The life of a Pro Wrestler I guess.

I will say WWE seem to watching costs for the first time in a long time. I like most people online didn't like the Gargano/Ciampa match from NXT TV this week but internally it drew a lot of praise artistically and more crucially it filled an hour of Network TV with basically zero budget. But yeah this has been a death via a thousand cuts and a near 20 year slow erosion. However, I will say there's been a profound and observable decline in Vince's Pro Wrestling and overall decision making since the shoot headbutt he took from Kevin Owens (which he asked Kevin to lay in) in late 2017.

How tight the TUE is a really good point. In general, I just want to convey the WWE Performance Center will be open 7 years in July and the biggest male star it has produced per Sunday is Strowman (36). WWE was paying OVW $100-150k per year (fact check me) and the class of 2002 produced Lesnar, Orton, Cena and Batista. A legacy WWE is living off 18 years later.

I forgot to list Cole is 31 in July. Jericho was 28 when he made the WCW to WWF jump.

WWE has MANY questions to answer over the next while even parking Corna aside if I can. Their roster is really ageing out especially at a top-level. It is a bunch of mid to late 30-year-olds and way beyond. And NXT is no different. NXT has spent for forever pushing Gargano (32) and Ciampa (34) whose bodies are completely thrashed and can't handle the main roster road schedule. Matt Riddle is 34 and Keith Lee is 35 so their individual windows as main roster stars are closing. Austin Theory (22) better get good fast basically. But yeah like the replies I don't think Cole will pass the Vince sniff test on the main roster due to his height. Cole's 3 year deal with NXT is up in August if he didn't sign a renewal in the interim. Triple H and Shawn are BIG fans of Cole but they can't protect anyone on the main roster. He has a lot of friends in AEW management, a better fit there as a talent and Britt Baker works there.

Next week's Raw and I think Smackdown have already been taped. WWE talent will be at home from last Fri or so - until the start week of April 13th. So basically two weeks.

It has been and will be a death by a thousand cuts. Even before the Coronavirus emerged. Effectively eliminating live events, not keeping wrestlers busy and non-thinking, paying some mid to low card silly money to stay for another 5 years and thus not linking performance to pay anymore was a recipe for a disaster. Then you have got the knock-on effect that creates log jam for an already deeply overstuffed NXT roster when it comes to call ups. The very recent trend of using NXT talent as enhancement talent on Raw and Smackdown hasn't gone down well morale wise. A lot of really passionate wrestlers who really bought into the dream from childhood are being left with little choice but to retrain their brain to just collect the money and stop caring about pride at this point. But this time off has allowed the entire roster top to bottom and every brand to reflect on what a shitty system WWE has, there is life outside of Wrestling, sniff the roses and admire the birds on their back porch, realise they actually like spending time with their partner and children, ponder an exit strategy and all that stuff.

I learned about Roman late Wednesday night. Expect other pullouts of the men with young families variety. But there's a boarder theme and consideration though that's more interesting than wrestlers finally doing the right thing for once and not being macho or brand whores. I can't emphasise this enough Vince has lost SO much respect, the fear factor etc over the last while. Creative, personal conduct, business acumen wise it is all completely shot. If/when WWE comes back in front of live crowds and normalcy expect WCW levels of phoning it and dead behind the eyes. So much of WWE's success was based on impressing the great Vince McMahon and "Vince wouldn't ask talent to do something he would do on TV" (Vince famously pissed his pants in a segment with Steve Austin). But that's largely gone now.

It is better cost/insurance-wise it is better for WWE that Tampa cancels Wrestlemania. It has been a pissing contest in that regard. WWE and Tampa were working on an agreed new date yesterday. I thought they would announce it before Smackdown. Wednesday night/Thursday morning WWE wrestlers were telling people June 7th was the likely new date. Those closer to the negotiations say mid-June to early July is the actual time horizon.

Knew of neither really.

Colby Corino has a bit more to offer than what was presented on PoweRRR and I thought South ate him up too much. Expect a George South vs Tim Storm feud down the road. Very heavy-handed seed planting.

Nth years on. But keep being you. Up is down and down is up my Bruce Prichard-adject. This is all part of Vince McMahon grand tapestry.

Someone jumped into my Directs Messages "During that brief of the period of time when Vince McMahon got hands-on 205 Live, he once described Gulak as "tasteless, and odourless". Also, Vince F-U-C-K-I-N-G hated this match for idiosyncratic reasons. Why you didn't see Oney for absolute ages after. I know/remember Vince hated the flip out of the corner.

I am a Gulak believer/booster. But around Cruiserweight Classic time the management/general consensus to Drew was the biggest and most hilarious overreaction ever. Too dry for TV. If they put him on TV the network would cancel them. The stock would drop to basement levels. Mechanically he was really respected and they wanted to make him a coach. Triple H made an early statement into the EVOLVE/WWE association that how Drew trains people is in the WWE way (Triple H said the same about Lance Storm like a decade prior). But if he ever presented to a WWE or arena = assured abject death. But Drew DID grow and develop when got an opening on 205 Live and largely when his fellow CHIKARA alumni Robert Evans (RD Evans Archibald Peck) was writing for him.

I don't want to overstate things. But Lagana's lack of social media in the last 2-3 weeks and lack of TLC the editing of the shows have had recently would indicate to me there's something up. There are stories that Lagana and Corgan are having differing opinions about the direction of the company. Lagana wants to tour and run arenas while Billy wants to pretty much strictly stick to the studio show concept. Corgan is only committing x amount of his money to the project. Corgan's overall fortune has been a source of speculation outside of Pro Wrestling for a number of years. Bad investments and things like that. Also, Lagana wants to run with Starks (a sure thing) while Corgan wants to push Ziggy Dice to prove he can spot and create a star. The real or big NWA stuff is happening on ROH shows more and more too. There have been rumours for years that ROH's TV situation is being upgraded which end up never happening. The two big ones of the last six months were Clash of the Champions style live TV specials and that ROH was developing a studio show of their own. Anyway, Lagana seems to be keeping his options open. All this is happening while Youtube viewership is trending downwards.

Charlotte has become a lot more political most recently. Like in the last 3 months. A total personality change as that has never been her rep. And no one really knows why. It isn't Almas's influence as that isn't his style. But a lot of people are holding their tongues about it. Sean Waltman on his podcast after the Royal Rumble came the closest to talking about it publicly. Charlotte pollicked Shayna out of winning the Rumble basically. She caused issues backstage last night too. The timing issue/run in botch wasn't Rhea's fault I will say that.

I thought Keith Lee did extraordinarily well on WWE Backstage.

Thunder Rosa's Youtube Vlog reveals/presents the NWA locker room as a very positive environment with people who seem to get along.

Road To Wrestlemania's usually have lots of changes to announced matches. I could see Roode as a "decoy" and a Sheamus wins entry into the match.

Sorry yeah, the whipping segment did 972,000 viewers. MJF has a match against Jungle Boy on AEW Dynamite this week. They've very good chemistry together. They had a match on the Jericho Cruise that people raved about. Either way, we will likely know what we currently have with both as singles currently.

A 110% on that one.

I was one of the first champions of MJF online. Say what you what and do wait for the Observer to publish the quarter-hour numbers. But the internal word is that the whipping angle very nearly came to a million viewers. Additionally MJF's minute by minute numbers have been phenomenal from the outset of Dynamite. For MJF's supposed limitations and rep as a character-driven wrestler and not an in-ring one I don't recall watching a match of his that underwhelmed or shit the bed. He's more than fine. If you disagree on that not only he's 23 but he's really neurotic perfectionist. He'll ultimately win you over so enjoy the ride.

I've asked this several times to people who tell me *everything* but they've never returned a reply. It is very odd. I initially thought they were just fitting him with a new gimmick/mask Gran Metallik but that has gone the beyond of the beyond.

Kept turning them down as he thought he wasn't a promo guy, wanted to wrestle the way he wanted to and he had a really good real job.

As of a couple of weeks ago, Ronda was training for a return. And then she basically went dark. It tracks. In general, expect a lot of twists and turns. Always the way with women's Wrestlemania matches.