Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[sek69]

I love how pretty much every Vince story is like the famous softball episode of the Simpsons where  Mr. Burns gets increasingly mad at Don Mattingly not getting rid of his sideburns despite Mattingly not having any to speak of. 

[Afro Steel]

17 hours ago, Rah said:

’

Fantastic. 

 

Source

I thought the more telling (and damning) portion of this article is where they gave Prinz a utility closet to host his "promo school" in. It would sound absurd if it were not so on-brand for the sort of pettiness the WWE has mastered. 

[fxnj]

Crazy Vince stories are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

[sek69]

WWE booking is really good at producing shots of angry faces in the crowd. 

[Alucard]

I love Freddie Prinze interviews. He always has fantastic stories from his time in WWE. This past week he said he wants to create his own indy promotion after seeing guys like Kross and Keith Lee released and that he's talked to TV Networks about it. I would love to see that

[TheDuke]

15 hours ago, sek69 said:

I love how pretty much every Vince story is like the famous softball episode of the Simpsons where  Mr. Burns gets increasingly mad at Don Mattingly not getting rid of his sideburns despite Mattingly not having any to speak of. 

Vince is totally Mr Burns, and Bruce Prichard is Mr Smithers. I can totally imagine Vince saying something like "Bruce, remember that fat man I used to ride to work?" Or singing a Disney song about wearing a gorilla chest.

[Migs]

9 hours ago, Alucard said:

I love Freddie Prinze interviews. He always has fantastic stories from his time in WWE. This past week he said he wants to create his own indy promotion after seeing guys like Kross and Keith Lee released and that he's talked to TV Networks about it. I would love to see that

It does feel like there's space for one more good TV product. MLW runs a bit too on the cheap to build a lot of momentum, and ROH seems dead or close to it. It can't only be that below AEW in the US your option for a real contract is Impact.

[Dav'oh]

There's Just One Problem: Inside the WWE with Demented-but-True Stories of Mayhem, Metal Chairs, and Major Insanity

Here's the blurb for Brian Gerwitz' book (nothing exciting, it's almost kayfabe (the blurb, not the book)):

Spoiler

With untold stories from a career spanning over 15 years and featuring the biggest names and controversial moments in wrestling history, HEELS AND HEROES is an honest, unflinching look on how an introverted life-long fan unexpectedly became one the most powerful men in all of professional wrestling.

For decades wrestling was shrouded in secrecy. It had larger than life personalities, bone crunching physicality and jaw-dropping theatrics but backstage it was an industry devoid of outsiders. Then in 1999, after working together on a special for MTV, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson turned to 26-year old television writer Brian Gewirtz and asked “You ever consider writing for WWE?”  That question, and its answer, would have a profound effect on both of their lives for years to come.

HEELS AND HEROES is a story about perseverance, tenacity, and steel chairs. Most writers in the WWE last for a matter of months; Gewirtz was there for over 15 years, writing some of most memorable and infamous storylines in WWE history (covering the “Attitude Era”, the “Ruthless Aggression Era” and into the “PG” and “Reality” eras).  
 
Throughout this journey Gewirtz found himself becoming both friend and antagonist to some of the biggest names in WWE history – Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, Stephanie McMahon, Bill Goldberg, Paul Heyman, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, and the two men who he worked the most closely with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  These men not only shaped his life professionally but also personally, forcing him to grow and change both as a writer and a human being.   
 
So how does a lifelong fan and outsider break through to become the ultimate insider?  How does a low-key personality deal directly with his boss, the most brash, unpredictable “alpha male” on the planet, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon? How does one gain respect in a locker room that wants nothing more than to see him disappear?  Where does one go when every year in wrestling takes you further away from the writing career you always wanted? Taking advice from his idol, the late “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, when you’re so full of fear, there’s only one way to push through: become fearless.

 

[Timbo Slice]

https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/32822454/wwe-signs-15-college-athletes-nil-deals-eyes-developmental-pipeline
 

NXT decision more and more apparent now. Way more bang for your buck here, more control of talent, and you get to fully build folks from the base up. It will be interesting to see if AEW does something in response, as it seems Tony is content on combing the indies for a specific type of talent, but with his love for Mid-South and the like, could see him wanting Dustin or others to train up some big D1 athletes to come into the fold, too. 

[El-P]

They have a pretty terrible track record of building people from the ground up. Also, getting non pro-wrestlers (and maybe even mostly non pro-wrestling fans) pretty much garantees an even bigger homogenization of the WWE style, with people only knowing one way to work, which is never good unless you're a prodigy like Kurt Angle. Obviously on paper, if they had Shibata and a dojo system like in Japan it could produce really good results, but we're talking about WWE here, look at their last 15 years...  (not to mention the attention span of a coke addict of Vince)

The very obvious most star potential you can spot here are the Cavinder Twins : two hot young girls who already are influencers on TikTok. I guess they are inspired by the Bella Twins (just kidding, of course they have no idea who the Bella Twins are, they are 20 years old). The question remains : why are two young hot women who already are influencers on TikTok would even bother, but that's another matter. On WWE's part, it's smart I guess.

As a *pro-wrestling* fan, I couldn't give two shits about this, as WWE is obviously gearing itself less and less and less toward pro-wrestling fans, less than ever it seems. The one interesting part though, will be the percentage of people signed to those kinda deal actually making it to the WWE and then actually becoming good and/or actual names, and if some of them would then leave and/or get fired and then work for other companies. In which case, the WWE would have actively contributed to the dynamism of the business as opposed to wanting to crush it from within (since it will also reduce the number of guys/girls getting signed away from other companies just to hurt them).

[clintthecrippler]

8 minutes ago, El-P said:

The question remains : why are two young hot women who already are influencers on TikTok would even bother, but that's another matter.

My understanding is that the NIL's don't necessarily become full-blown WWE contracts when their college eligibility ends, and that would need to be offered/negotiated separately once the NIL expires. Prefacing this with noting that I know literally nothing about the Twins or anyone else signing these, but I wouldn't be shocked if there are some that are basically of the attitude that "this is money NOW and additional marketing exposure through WWE" without necessarily fully intending yet on trying to become a WWE Superstar when their college careers end.

[El-P]

1 minute ago, clintthecrippler said:

My understanding is that the NIL's don't necessarily become full-blown WWE contracts when their college eligibility ends, and that would need to be offered/negotiated separately once the NIL expires. 

Right. Which is why it will be interesting to see how many of these people will actually make it first to the Performance Center, then to the actual roster etc...

1 minute ago, clintthecrippler said:

Prefacing this with noting that I know literally nothing about the Twins or anyone else signing these, but I wouldn't be shocked if there are some that are basically of the attitude that "this is money NOW and additional marketing exposure through WWE" without necessarily fully intending yet on trying to become a WWE Superstar when their college careers end.

Yeah, that was precisely my point, or what I was trying to get my finger on. I mean, if I'm a hot young 20 years old girl who's already an influencer on TikTok, WWE sounds like "Yeah, bring me some money, advertisement is my job" but really if I'm not a pro-wrestling fan at heart, why would I bother going further ? Not to mention we have no idea what's next in term of business for these kind of "social media jobs", but I would guess that for the ultra-minority already making big money off of it, the future is more and bigger money (and that's without having to actually work for a company like WWE and just managing you own business).

[Timbo Slice]

In-ring style doesn’t correlate to money for WWE. Which is why they don’t put much into that. 

[Superstar Sleeze]

Bitch all you want but there are no wrestlers I enjoy in the ring now more than the Creed Brothers. They are throwing dudes around mercilessly. Legit the best Gutwrench Suplex I have ever seen. That squash they did on the first episode of NXT 2.0 was love at first sight. It is like how JR described Doc wrestling but they actually wrestle like it. 
 

As a massive Clueless mark, I’m stoked for the Tiffany Stratton gimmick, who is an ex-Team USA gymnast.

Personally I believe variety is the spice of life so I am really glad there is a promotion focused on ex-athletes. Most of my favorites are ex-athletes I think this will help de-homogenize wrestling. I already saw with the Creed Brothers. Nobody wrestles like them. If I want Indy workrate I could go to non-WWE. If I want beefy, power amateur wrestling then I could go WWE hopefully.

Yes WWE sucks and yes they change their minds but the last couple months of the Creeds and a Bron Brekker have been sick. 

[NintendoLogic]

https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2021/12/08/roman-reigns-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-world-title-reign/

tl;dr Roman still a flop

Read the whole thing, though.

[El-P]

Of course he is. There's no twisting around this fact. The Roman Reigns era of WWE is the era of the company fighting its fans and killing an entire roster to make *one* guy. As it's said in the article, *of course* he's selling the most merch and getting the most Youtube views, it would be completely pathetic if he wouldn't considering how the promotion has entirely been structured around him. By default he's a big star because he's at the forefront of WWE. In the grand scheme of things, the Roman Reigns era is the era of viewers fleeing off from the screen years after years and sections of building getting tarped. But it doesn't matter, right, because TV fees and Blood Money. But what when Roman finally get some good movie opportunities ? Who will be the next "chosen one", since apparently that worked so well for the past 8 years ?

Pro-wrestling, as odd as it may seem to some, is also a culture, and WWE has dried up its own landscape to the point of being a desert of engagement for his viewers. Sign university hosses and TikTok influencers all you want. If the audience doesn't care anymore, they just won't.

People are creatures of habits, but even habits die at some point. Look at the numbers of viewers shrinking over the past few years.

And if habits don't die, people eventually do.

[WingedEagle]

Is it even possible for anyone to rise above "flop" given how the company books everyone who's there week in and week out?  

[Jmare007]

Yeah I'm not sure about the point of that articule. Who is claiming Roman is a big difference maker to warrant pointing out what everyone who actually cares about drawing and that type of stuff already knows? 

I don't think anyone thinks WWE's fórmula is "working". If anything, people that are interesed in these types of discussions have mostly agreed that the company found a way to fail upwards no matter what. 

 

[Strummer]

I think the point was that yes, everyone knows the wwe system is broken but they've still given Roman chance after chance for nearly 7 years now and no one else has been given that opportunity. Beside the part timers, Cena, Brock of course.

[Jmare007]

3 minutes ago, Strummer said:

I think the point was that yes, everyone knows the wwe system is broken but they've still given Roman chance after chance for nearly 7 years now and no one else has been given that opportunity. Beside the part timers, Cena, Brock of course.

But that's disingenuous though, well all know that in 5 of those 7 years the company failed to actually pull the trigger on Reigns. It's the most bizarre thing about his situation, always the threat of being the guy every Wrestlemania, but never actually being the guy...until he had to retire, returned and turn heel, lol.

The "only one guy gets really featured" strategy has had diminish returns since Cena. Even Brock flopped, you can make a case Lesnar was worse because of his huge contract, very limited scheduled and almost nothing profitable to show for it (unless you go with the argument that the FOX deal was made because of him, which I've never really bought tbh).

 

[El-P]

59 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

But that's disingenuous though, well all know that in 5 of those 7 years the company failed to actually pull the trigger on Reigns. It's the most bizarre thing about his situation, always the threat of being the guy every Wrestlemania, but never actually being the guy...until he had to retire, returned and turn heel, lol.

I know we've had this discussion a thousand times now and it's really beating on a dead horse at this point, but Reigns really has been the company's Ace for 7 years now. It doesn't matter if the trigger wasn't pulled in a kayfabe way and he had been losing big matches, the company has been built on Reigns since about 2014, with year after year after year of Road to Mania main events no matter what the booking was during the year. Now people finally see Reigns as the official Ace because he's been beating everybody for what, almost two years now, but what good has it done except legit make everyone apart from Lesnar look like cannon fodder for the allmighty Reigns ? WWE basically went from gunshy for years (but still having Reigns every year getting the big Mania main event) because of the hostile reaction from the audience to go full-bore and make 99% of their roster completely irrelevant (including new You Deserve It Champion Big E, who already has been beaten by Reigns), and the whole time they only had one goal in mind : push Roman Reigns. Everything else was either a distraction to gain time or a special (old)attraction (hey Goldy). One way or the other, it has failed in keeping their own audience interested.

[Jmare007]

6 minutes ago, El-P said:

I know we've had this discussion a thousand times now and it's really beating on a dead horse at this point, but Reigns really has been the company's Ace for 7 years now. It doesn't matter if the trigger wasn't pulled in a kayfabe way and he had been losing big matches, the company has been built on Reigns since about 2014, with year after year after year of Road to Mania main events. Now people finally see Reigns as the official Ace because he's beating everybody for what, almost two years now, but what good as it done expect legit make everyone apart from Lesnar look like cannon fodder for the allmighty Reigns ? WWE basically went from gunshy for years (but still having Reigns every year getting the big Mania main event) because of the hostile reaction from the audience to go full-bore and make 99% of their roster completely irrelevant (including new You Deserve It Champion Big E, who already has been beaten by Reigns), and the whole time they only had one goal in mind : push Roman Reigns. Everything else was either a distraction to gain time or a special (old)attraction (hey Goldy). 

I'm not defending the horrible booking philosophy, I'm just against the notion it's about Reigns. Guys like Rollins, Owens and Lesnar were pushed harder in the mid 2010s and they flopped too. Lesnar being the worst of them all as he basically had the same push Roman is having now but with 5% of the appearances and just as bad results to show for it (not even that depressing 300 to 3,000 sales boost used in the article).

[El-P]

Randy Orton and Batista (or Edge, who came back after 7 years and moved exactly jackshit) were pushed hard during the Cena years, probably harder than any "second fiddle" during these last 7/8 years, but no one would argue it wasn't all about Cena (booking notwithstanding).

The promotion long term was never built around Rollins and Owens. Or Finn Balor. Or the Fiend. Whom all got big time pushes. Sure, they got main events on PPV's that don't really matter (or at all, once on the Network). But the promotion was all about pushing Reigns to the top anyway. Who is in ALL of Mania main events from Mania 30 to Mania 34 ? Roman Reigns. Then it's Rousey's year (an actual draw), then it's pandemic time and Reigns won't take part in that, then Reigns is back main eventing Mania 37. 

98-01 : Austin/Rock Attitude era and peak of the promotion in term of popularity

02-05 : Triple H reign of terror

06-13 : Cena saves the day

14 : Daniel Bryan ????

15-now : Reigns

As far as Lesnar goes, I wonder if he's instrumental in getting that Saudi Money or if they just wanted Yokozuna and the Ultimate Warrior alongside Micheals, Taker and such...

 

[Strummer]

Plus I think the article was saying how overrated the bloodline story is. It's basically been the same thing every week for nearly a year and a half and it was still getting a bunch of praise. That praise seems to have subsided though

[sek69]

3 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Even Brock flopped, you can make a case Lesnar was worse because of his huge contract, very limited scheduled and almost nothing profitable to show for it (unless you go with the argument that the FOX deal was made because of him, which I've never really bought tbh).

IIRC it was the promise of having Ronda as a weekly character that made the FOX deal and....welp.