Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

Booker is such an embarrassment. One of your co-workers is let go and your reaction is to take shots at them. Pathetic company boot-licking shill.

[El-P]

Booker is the worst. Not only his co-worker but a COUPLE co-workers. And yeah, I'll shitpost about it because I'm no one on a pro-wrestling forum. But your co-workers, wife and husband, get released and lose their income at the same time and you talk shit ? The day Booker gets cut, and unless he knows where bodies are buried (which I doubt, because he's an idiot) it's gonna happen, karma is gonna be such a bitch.

He's also the worst color guy ever. I'd rather listen to Mark Madden. I have no idea how people even watch NXT.

[El-P]

This is straight mafia shit. The morale in the locker room must be really awesome right now... Well, I'm guessing the more it goes, the more the WWE people will only be totally brainwashed marks who are willing to be completely humiliated for their "childhood dream", so hey, maybe it is. But anyone with a functioning brain should tell them to fuck right off. The only goal of WWE is to drop salaries for their "superstars" and destroy bargaining power. But guess what, I'm sure in the long term, this kind of shit is gonna destroy the perception of WWE being a worthwhile destination for actual talent who are not completely stupid.

(and Dwayne showed up at that ridiculous fashion gala with a 3 million dollars watch. Jeeez. Way to read the fucking room)

[C.S.]

On 5/5/2026 at 3:32 PM, El-P said:

(and Dwayne showed up at that ridiculous fashion gala with a 3 million dollars watch. Jeeez. Way to read the fucking room)

I won't defend the ugly display of obscene wealth from everyone at the MET Gala and the Gala itself, but that was not Dwayne's watch or even Dwayne's clothes. All of that ugly ostentatious bullshit is loaned to them by fashion designers and fashion companies promoting themselves. Dwayne, and everyone else, had to give everything back after the Gala was over.

[El-P]

6 hours ago, C.S. said:

I won't defend the ugly display of obscene wealth from everyone at the MET Gala and the Gala itself, but that was not Dwayne's watch or even Dwayne's clothes. All of that ugly ostentatious bullshit is loaned to them by fashion designers and fashion companies promoting themselves. Dwayne, and everyone else, had to give everything back after the Gala was over.

Oh yes, I know, but it's still so tone deaf and obscene (that's the right word) in term of perception.

[El-P]

Chelsea Green really is the female equivalent to CM Punk.

As far as the rest of them, who is a surprise ? I would say no one. Especially not The Miz nor Tiffany Stratton.

(waiting for SRS saying this is not a MAGA Fest at all)

[Blehschmidt]

12 hours ago, El-P said:

Chelsea Green really is the female equivalent to CM Punk.

As far as the rest of them, who is a surprise ? I would say no one. Especially not The Miz nor Tiffany Stratton.

(waiting for SRS saying this is not a MAGA Fest at all)

Why the call out on Tiffany over the others? I know Miz is a kiss ass sycophant, but what has she done to be lumped into that category? (Genuinely curious, I don't know enough about her, and am interested to know)

[El-P]

16 minutes ago, Blehschmidt said:

Why the call out on Tiffany over the others? I know Miz is a kiss ass sycophant, but what has she done to be lumped into that category? (Genuinely curious, I don't know enough about her, and am interested to know)

She was already on the last MAGA-fest last year (that wasn't at all a MAGA-fest but a celebration of the troops *wink wink*), she talked about "being cancelled so many times" on a show with Logan Paul (that's always a redflag), she pretty much comes off MAGA-coded. 

[Blehschmidt]

Appreciate the response. I don't know if you saw where someone called Chelsea Green out on being part of it, and she made a response that sounded like "sometimes you gotta do shit you don't wanna do to keep your job"

[El-P]

Oh yeah. She made a tweet, dunno if that the same, she also deleted it quickly apparently, about "keeping on supporting the community while also doing her job". Mind you, without mentioning by name *which* community she was referring too. That's why I called her a female CM Punk. In a way, I have more "respect" for Tiffany and the likes, because at least they don't pretend being something they aren't. Chelsea just screams performative.

The thing about "keeping your job" is even more ironic when her husband is Matt Cardona, whom for years was telling how he was making more on the indies (hustling and grinding, yes) than he made in WWE before. 

[C.S.]

14 hours ago, El-P said:

The thing about "keeping your job" is even more ironic when her husband is Matt Cardona, whom for years was telling how he was making more on the indies (hustling and grinding, yes) than he made in WWE before. 

I won't defend the political aspect, but I can see valid reasons for Chelsea wanting to keep her job in WWE vs. grinding in the indies. It's different for a woman. She probably doesn't want to have to deal with sweaty incel indie promoters who are shady AF (in a best case scenario) and risk injury against inexperienced wrestlers. 

[El-P]

I mentioned her husband indy stint more for reference than anything else (and really I think she would be fine, it's not like Shotzi for instance, who has been all over, has had any issues working big indies like GCW, MLW, HOG and such). Not working in WWE is not the end of the world. Hell, Killer Kross & Scarlett aren't exactly all over the place either since they left and they don't seem to starve (signed with MLW, whatever that means).

What would WWE do anyway if she refused to do the MAGA fest ? Bench her ? Cool, she can stay at home and have plenty of time "supporting the community" while being paid big dollars. Fire her ? That would go well for morale. Also, in that case, TK would probably throw a bunch of green in her direction just for the fucking pop and social media attention she would get showing up with a rainbow theme cap and a promo about how she did not betrays her values. But that's neither here nor there. 

[tcg91]

I am not a Trump supporter at all. However, given who owns WWE, them doing stuff with Trump doesn’t surprise me one bit. WrestleMania will probably be held at the White House soon as well.

Call me old school, but I’m more annoyed about a heel tweeting about “supporting the community” and being an “advocate for human rights,” lol. She’s the same one who once wore a Cactus Jack outfit just for the sake of it, and got more cheers than her babyface opponent, right? Excellent job.

[JRH]

7 hours ago, tcg91 said:

 

Call me old school, but I’m more annoyed about a heel tweeting about “supporting the community” and being an “advocate for human rights,” lol. She’s the same one who once wore a Cactus Jack outfit just for the sake of it, and got more cheers than her babyface opponent, right? Excellent job.

Depends. Is she also tweeting in character stuff as well?

[sek69]

To be fair, she did the Cactus Jack deal because she got booked in a hardcore match. The joke was someone who normally does a Karen gimmick going full Cactus. 

[tcg91]

18 hours ago, JRH said:

Depends. Is she also tweeting in character stuff as well?

I don't know. That honestly would make it even more confusing to me. It's not like I care or anything, I was just commenting on how different today's wrestling business feels to me.

I would actually use social media in an effective way and turn this into an angle, as Chelsea embraces her new MAGA attitude and becomes the biggest heel of the division for a few of months, before a babyface destroys her. You can't do stuff like that today on an entertainment program, yet you can have a president say "a civilization will die tonight" in real-life and nobody seems to do anything about it. I just wished it was the other way around!

 

[sek69]

Chelsea's tweets are more like a wink wink in character thing than anything else, it's mostly her being herself but in a way that nods to her character. 

Meanwhile we also have Becky Lynch copying Trump's style of unhinged tweeting both online and on TV for heel heat, which has always been surprising and amusing to me considering who she works for. 

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Meanwhile we also have Becky Lynch copying Trump's style of unhinged tweeting both online and on TV for heel heat, which has always been surprising and amusing to me considering who she works for. 

They're all too fucking dumb to realize she's doing it.

[The Thread Killer]

Some interesting news has come out in the past 24 hours.

Firstly, apparently a former member of the WWE Board of Directors stated during a deposition that they are convinced Nick Khan is the one who leaked the Vince McMahon/Janel Grant fiasco to the media, basically as a way to force McMahon out of the company.

Secondly, and this is pretty big, reportedly WWE, Vince McMahon and Janel Grant’s legal team have all jointly filed to go to arbitration. That essentially means that this case will probably never go to court, which I always suspected, but I never figured Janel Grant’s legal team would go along with it. Essentially, that means there is a better than average chance that basically WWE and McMahon write a (very big) check, including another NDA. And then the whole thing goes away.

[sek69]

WWE/Vince's team was trying to push this into arbitration from the start based on the wording of her employment contract, so I get the feeling her team must have felt there was a good enough chance that was going to be the ruling so they are going along with it. 

[The Thread Killer]

Seeing as this was a civil matter, I never thought there was going to be a day where Vince McMahon was going to be called to account for his behavior.

He was thoroughly investigated by the Justice Department (and this was before Trump took office) and the bottom line is, they could not find grounds for criminal charges. The fact that they took so long to investigate has led many people to speculate (and I agree with this theory) that they actually impaneled a Grand Jury and presented all the evidence that Grant’s legal team turned over, but they were unable to get an indictment.

Even if he had been criminally charged, Human Trafficking would have been a very difficult case to make. And McMahon has proved in the past that he can purchase the best defense money can buy, so he probably would’ve skated anyways. Not to mention, McMahon is 80 years old with a history of steroid and cocaine use. By the time this thing got to trial he probably would have been dead or in a wheelchair anyways.

Once it became clear he wasn’t going to be criminally charged, the worst case scenario was always going to be that he was going to be taken to the cleaners and have to pay a ton of money. Which, for a guy his age, and with the amount of money that he has, really probably doesn’t mean anything.

At this point, I’m not even really sure what “Justice” would look like in this situation, but whatever it is, I don’t think we are going to see it. Janel Grant is going to get rich, and TKO and Vince McMahon are going to stay rich, just not as rich as they were I guess. The only real result of this entire mess is that it ended up with Vince being run out of his own company, which is something I guess.

[sek69]

I wonder if Vince tries to come back to WWE when the Grant case is settled. Obviously he has the balls/lack of self awareness to attempt it, but how would the company react?

[The Thread Killer]

5 minutes ago, sek69 said:

I wonder if Vince tries to come back to WWE when the Grant case is settled. Obviously he has the balls/lack of self awareness to attempt it, but how would the company react?

That’s the big question. TKO would be idiots to let him back in, in any capacity. No matter how you slice it he’s probably going to end up costing them millions of dollars to settle this lawsuit. And he certainly proved before the lawsuit that he is long past his expiry date when it comes to his creative and management abilities. No matter how you look at it, he is a liability. He cost them tons of money already, and he’s liable to cost them more in the future.

But on the flipside of that, TKO are a bunch of morons. Mark Shapiro may be the dumbest executive in the history of combat sports, and that covers a lot of ground. And of course, the moronic fans would welcome Vince back, even if a lot of the locker room would secretly be devastated if he did come back. I don’t see a scenario where Vince McMahon returns and Triple H sticks around, and as much as people love to dump on Hunter, I would still take him on his worst day over Vince McMahon on his best.

[DMJ]

40 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

At this point, I’m not even really sure what “Justice” would look like in this situation, but whatever it is, I don’t think we are going to see it...The only real result of this entire mess is that it ended up with Vince being run out of his own company, which is something I guess.

Sadly, I agree. The justice I think some of us were hoping for was that Vince's name would be mud, that his legacy would be so tainted and so toxic that the company would never speak his name again.

It's too early to say whether that's happened but I don't think you need psychic powers to see that Vince's name will be, sooner than most of us hope, celebrated on WWE TV again in some shape or form. In some cases, the fans themselves have vocally supported a return. Whether or not he will personally appear on TV before he croaks is a bit harder to predict because, even before all this went down, people who worked with him/for him have stated that Vince was vehemently against a Hall of Fame induction and it is very unlikely that Vince would come back to do a storyline. But, yes, absolutely, when he kicks the bucket, there will at the very least be a "In Memoriam" slide.

As for an on-screen return as the Mr. McMahon character? I don't even think he'll do a cameo. For the past few years, the company has repeatedly played-up The Rock's role as The Final Boss and, for a good stretch, was the on-screen heel Authority. Meanwhile, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon have completely dropped any elements of their kayfabe characters when they do appear on-screen, which, somewhat ironically considering Triple H's "origin story," is often in business-exposing projects like the Netflix series Unreal and Stephanie's overly sappy and vapid podcast. When people talk about who "runs" the WWE, the names you hear now are TKO, Nick Khan, Ari Emanuel, and, yes, Paul Levesque, the lone "wrestling guy" of the bunch. 

Could Vince show up to kick-off next year's WrestleMania? Sure. But I think that's about as much of an olive branch Nick Khan, Emanuel, and the TKO execs are willing to extend to the guy. Khan may have some fondness for Vince personally and Vince did hire him, but the ousting of Vince McMahon was motivated by business, which is really all that Emanuel and Khan care about at the end of the day. Their company is doing great business right now. Depending on what happens with AEW's TV deal, they are potentially poised to once again have a monopoly on pro-wrestling in the US with both AAA and TNA also under their thumb. They're eyeing the potential of having AI replace their already incredibly cheap (non-union, largely uncredited) writing staff. This is not a company that needs Vince McMahon for anything - not business ideas, not marketing ideas, not creative ideas, not even as an on-screen character. 

[strobogo]

I don't see any scenario where Vince himself returns in anything other than wtf are you doing like Dolan deciding to get Trump in his MSG box seats knowing it would destroy the vibes in MSG, in NYC, and the rest of the country and goodwill because he doesn't know how to accept good publicity. "Vince wouldn't do this" is not an endorsement of Vince, which most were in agreement was fucking terrible for most of the past 15 or more years. I mean I guess some people would like Vince back, but they're psychos. Both Vince and TKO/HHH are terrible for their own, different reasons.