WWE Network... It's Here

[Migs]

Interestingly, this has become news and perhaps drawn some attention to WWE's past. The removal is getting coverage in the NY Times!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/arts/television/wwe-peacock-nbc-streaming.html

[JNLister]

44 minutes ago, PhilTLL said:

Yeah for some reason the middle tier is called premium and there's not a catchy name for the actual premium tier other than "ad-free".

It's Peacock Premium Plus.

Which is a bit odd as the only difference is something (ads) being taken away.

[Alucard]

On 3/28/2021 at 1:41 AM, CarpetCrawler said:

.  Is every single RAW and Smackdown even up on Peacock yet?  The old stuff is the only reason I ever bothered with the Network to begin with so I feel like I shouldn't even bother with this until the apparent August deadline which to be honest, I'm extremely skeptical of.

RAW only from 2008 on, SD from 2019 on.

[JRH]

Reportedly, Titus O'Neil will be getting the Warrior award this year.

[Al]

1 hour ago, JRH said:

Reportedly, Titus O'Neil will be getting the Warrior award this year.

That's a hell of a bribe honor

[El-P]

Hey Titus, to honor you for hosting Mania with the racist guy, we'll give you the award named after the homophobic guy.

[Blehschmidt]

1 minute ago, El-P said:

Hey Titus, to honor you for hosting Mania with the racist guy, we'll give you the award named after the homophobic guy.

Yours Truly,

The Old, Rich White Guy

[sek69]

I watched Wrestlemania 3 last night. since I was feeling nostalgic and that was the show that cemented my WWF fandom at he time. It was interesting looking at it in a booking/layout aspect to see how poorly agented it was. There were at least three matches with a "heel does the Stevens/Flair flip over the turnbuckle spot"  nearly back to back, and  nearly every match with the heels winning had the same "babyface attacks the heel and looks like a poor loser" spot afterwards.  I'm also pretty sure Jimmy Hart took more bumps than anyone on the show since he got manhandled in every match his guys were in. 

Plus in light of the editing Peacock was doing, it was interesting to hear Gorilla describe Alice Cooper's leather jacket as "something Adrian brought with him out of the closet" which was both homophobic and dumb considering it looked more like something Adrian would have worn prior to the Adorable gimmick. 

[CarpetCrawler]

Yeah III isn't well booked persay as it's the first post-George Scott Wrestlemania and the show is *packed* with matches so they had to rush everyone to get their shit in and besides the notable matches like Savage-Steamboat and Hogan-Andre almost everything gets about five minutes.  One thing that always blows my mind while watching III is how briskly paced it is.

[C.S.]

#ForbiddenDoor

 

[SteveJRogers]

22 hours ago, C.S. said:

#ForbiddenDoor

 

Over a year ago on his podcast, Arn Anderson gave a flat “Not interested!” hand wave response, with no followup line of questioning from Conrad when it came to appearing on WWE Network docs and other projects as a talking head or something.  His employment with AEW had yet to be revealed, but it did make Arn sound like a douchebag who was severely hurt by the way a relationship ended.

The fact that this actually is happening with the first ever AEW Le Champión, and a guy still very much under contract and in main event level AEW storylines, kind of makes that response even more like a jilted douchebag. 

Granted past history with promotions not wanting a thing to do with gainfully...emplo...I mean independently contracted performers with other promotions may have affected that response.  

And granted this was probably signed off on due to the extraordinary nature of the project, and things may have been different if say they were doing a doc on WCW post Flair’s release/pre Hogan’s arrival and needed Jake Roberts (yeah I know THAT project is hard to do sans Sting, JR, Bischoff, Tony and to a degree Arn himself) for a quote or two.

But a “not right now, but you never know what the future will bring” comment reflects better on him than the “fuck off” that a “not interested” sounds like.

[El-P]

20 minutes ago, SteveJRogers said:

But a “not right now, but you never know what the future will bring” comment reflects better on him than the “fuck off” that a “not interested” sounds like.

The other way around. Non-politician, not giving a fuck answer reflects better on him (and anyone else, really, but maybe it's because I'm " Fuck off" guy IRL). He doesn't owe anything to anyone. And why would he want to work for the benefit of WWE if the relationship ended up poorly (which is obviously the case) ? I know passing judgment on people we don't actually know is the thing on Internet, but really if Arn isn't interested, why the hell would he answer anything other than "Not interested" ? What's so great about appearing in a revisionist WWE documentary anyway ? Not everyone is thinking politics (Jericho obviously does and it has worked wonders for his career).

[MoS]

From everything we know, Arn felt constantly insulted and humiliated throughout his tenure, to the point that he stopped going to bat for the guys he liked cuz him supporting someone was usually a sureshot sign that the person was going to get de-pushed. I don't blame him at all for handwaving future WWE commitments away. If someone keeps treating you like shit, ultimately you need to get up and tell them to fuck off, no matter how bitter you might sound to others. 

I also just find hilarious that 20 years after his era ended, Steve Austin still remains WWE's biggest draw and they use him whenever they need to pop a number when entering a new territory. Time is truly a flat circle 

[SteveJRogers]

1 hour ago, MoS said:

I also just find hilarious that 20 years after his era ended, Steve Austin still remains WWE's biggest draw and they use him whenever they need to pop a number when entering a new territory. Time is truly a flat circle 

Ditto Hogan when employment situation allows and/problematic optics have seemingly lessened, and that’s an additional 10 years on since his epic championship winning face run ended!

I know in the Attitude Era they tried to shine away a little from “honoring the past,” though they still held spotlight segments in St. Louis, KC, etc, but I wonder how much Bruno would have been leaned on back then if it wasn’t for the rift between him and Vince.

[Coffey]

I don't think they'll talk about AEW hardly if at all. I certainly don't think Jericho is going to get in a plug. If anything, I expect to hear more about Fozzy than AEW. Jericho will probably talk about WCW, ECW, Japan, coming to WWE, his world title reigns, his band & maybe his cruise. I don't think they'll be chatting about The Inner Circle, Le Champion & poppin' the bubbly Wednesday nights on Dynamite on TNT.

"Tell my about debuting in WWE with The Rock, what was that like?" "Tell me about WCW not wanting to use you when you were trying to do the Goldberg thing."

Same stories we've heard. But would love to be wrong.

[SteveJRogers]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

The other way around. Non-politician, not giving a fuck answer reflects better on him (and anyone else, really, but maybe it's because I'm " Fuck off" guy IRL). He doesn't owe anything to anyone. And why would he want to work for the benefit of WWE if the relationship ended up poorly (which is obviously the case) ? I know passing judgment on people we don't actually know is the thing on Internet, but really if Arn isn't interested, why the hell would he answer anything other than "Not interested" ? What's so great about appearing in a revisionist WWE documentary anyway ? Not everyone is thinking politics (Jericho obviously does and it has worked wonders for his career).

Oh, I don’t blame him for having bitter feelings and holding a grudge so soon after everything went down.  

And it was a bit of silly thing for that twitter user to ask at THAT point in time, but there are more diplomatic ways of saying “not interested” without sounding like you don’t care about whomever would enjoy watching him pop up on a random Network productions 

[SteveJRogers]

4 minutes ago, Coffey said:

I don't think they'll talk about AEW hardly if at all. I certainly don't think Jericho is going to get in a plug. If anything, I expect to hear more about Fozzy than AEW. Jericho will probably talk about WCW, ECW, Japan, coming to WWE, his world title reigns, his band & maybe his cruise. I don't think they'll be chatting about The Inner Circle, Le Champion & poppin' the bubbly Wednesday nights on Dynamite on TNT.

"Tell my about debuting in WWE with The Rock, what was that like?" "Tell me about WCW not wanting to use you when you were trying to do the Goldberg thing."

Same stories we've heard. But would love to be wrong.

Consider the series is career encompassing, would shock me if more is brought up beyond how things came to be towards the end of the conversation.

[southofheavy]

Instead of working with a toxic company that treated him like shit for the fans, the fans can mosey on over to his podcast. 

 

[C.S.]

No clue why such a big deal is being made of Arn not popping up as a talking head on future Network specials when he rarely did that while he was in the company.

[SteveJRogers]

6 minutes ago, C.S. said:

No clue why such a big deal is being made of Arn not popping up as a talking head on future Network specials when he rarely did that while he was in the company.

I’m not making that a big deal, it’s the dickish response to a “what did you think he’d say” line of questioning, which at the time I chalked up to “well that means he is signing with AEW soon!”

Tangental to that, that does beg the overall question as to why, beyond big paydays, now is he doing all these kayfabe and 4th wall busting convention panel appearances and podcast hosting when all his time in both WCW and WWF/WCW he was Taker-esque in keeping up the gimmick and old school kayfabe.

But that’s for a different forum here

 

[C.S.]

7 minutes ago, SteveJRogers said:

Tangental to that, that does beg the overall question as to why, beyond big paydays, now is he doing all these kayfabe and 4th wall busting convention panel appearances and podcast hosting when all his time in both WCW and WWF/WCW he was Taker-esque in keeping up the gimmick and old school kayfabe.

But that’s for a different forum here

Even his book was kayfabe. 

As for why now, the answer is obvious: $$$

AEW is still an unproven startup company (albeit a very successful one that is likely to be around for years to come), so Arn probably realizes has to make money in as many different ways as possible to secure a nest egg for himself and his family. If he was anything like Flair, he spent every dime he ever made living in the Horsemen lifestyle in the '80s.

[southofheavy]

Dude, you're reaching here. Hard. 

"Not interested" is about as diplomatic as it gets and he doesn't owe WWE or the fans a damn thing regarding that situation. 

As far as him opening up in regards to kayfabe, things change and so do people. Yeah, he's getting paid, but at the same time, he's got a lot to offer by opening up. Not to mention the fact if he were to do a podcast using his old approach, it'd probably come off a little silly. 

[C.S.]

The way @SteveJRogers is carrying on, he acts like he gave Arn his shield, and Arn gave it up and allowed some big-eared rando to take up the mantle.  

[MoS]

1 hour ago, SteveJRogers said:

Ditto Hogan when employment situation allows and/problematic optics have seemingly lessened, and that’s an additional 10 years on since his epic championship winning face run ended!

I know in the Attitude Era they tried to shine away a little from “honoring the past,” though they still held spotlight segments in St. Louis, KC, etc, but I wonder how much Bruno would have been leaned on back then if it wasn’t for the rift between him and Vince.

Didn't Kevin Dunn hate the idea of legends reunions cuz he thought no one would recognise them? It's amazing how far WWE's philosophy has evolved in respect of using old legends. 

[SteveJRogers]

6 hours ago, southofheavy said:

Dude, you're reaching here. Hard. 

"Not interested" is about as diplomatic as it gets and he doesn't owe WWE or the fans a damn thing regarding that situation. 

As far as him opening up in regards to kayfabe, things change and so do people. Yeah, he's getting paid, but at the same time, he's got a lot to offer by opening up. Not to mention the fact if he were to do a podcast using his old approach, it'd probably come off a little silly. 

Tell you to truth, the frustration with the line is directed completely at Conrad’s lack of following up in some form than Arn being bitter by how shitty he was being treated at the end.

Point of this was that Jericho on Broken Skull Sessions negates the idea that the “no other promotions exist outside of what we do in kayfabe” way of doing things actually exists within AEW.