Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Embrodak]

2 hours ago, Reel said:

I don't know if WWE wants to bring back Jericho, but I'm absolutely positive Chris Jericho wants everyone to think WWE wants him back.

See this is my assumption, and what I was thinking when I posted that. Jericho is a vulture, he wants to be at the center of every wrestling happening.

[KawadaSmile]

Nothing about Dream that comes to life is good, man. That dude is not good. Filming coworkers' dicks, assaulting gym staff, being a pedo... shit sucks, man.

[The Thread Killer]

Yeah that whole story that came out about him filming people peeing was like…yeesh. Just when you think the stories about him couldn’t get any creepier…somehow they do. This dude is a train wreck.

[sek69]

What's alarming to me is that him filming people was such a known thing that SRS and I believe Bix both reported on hearing about it (but couldn't report on it since no one was willing to go on the record) which means there's probably no way management didn't know or at least hear stories about it. 

[KawadaSmile]

 

[sek69]

Somewhere HBK is proud. 

[KawadaSmile]

I mean, Finn Balor was basically behaving like a frat boy during his reign of terror (a term which might have more than one meaning!) so wrestlers old school and making it snow seems like a logical thing to happen. Still, fuck Velveteen Dream. 

[sek69]

In discussing Legado's debut on Smackdown, Bryan noted he thought Elektra was getting the callup as well....only for Dave to say "so did she" in a tone that suggested she might have got the rug pulled out from under her. 

[KawadaSmile]

22 hours ago, sek69 said:

In discussing Legado's debut on Smackdown, Bryan noted he thought Elektra was getting the callup as well....only for Dave to say "so did she" in a tone that suggested she might have got the rug pulled out from under her. 

This sucks ass. Elektra is a far better fit. I don't want them backstage politics affecting those who I like!

[sek69]

I know there's 0% chance it was done intentionally,  but WWE double booking Karl Anderson after NJPW already announced the match where he was going to drop the Never title pretty much eliminates any WWE/NJPW partnership idea for a long time. Japanese companies don't forget shit like that.  The fact that they felt the need to put out a statement making it clear that they did in fact clear his booking beforehand and that the title will be vacated if they don't show up says it all. That's pretty much the clearest way they can say "fuck you".

[NintendoLogic]

Was it really unintentional? This is how WWE has always done business. Any promotion that puts a belt on someone not under contract is asking for trouble. And it seems obvious that WWE's only interest in a business relationship with New Japan was as a carrot to get Danielson to re-sign.

[sek69]

I'm sure Hunter is way more aware of New Japan than Vince was, but I don't see him going out of his way to try to screw with them by intentionally double booking. 

[El-P]

Did they really need to book Karl Anderson (of all people, BTW) at the Saudi show ? Of course not. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Yeah, I'm sure that ends whatever goodwill there was between the two companies. And really now, Micheals talked about NXT Japan in the future, so you know where this is going again.

[SirEdger]

Playing devil's advocate here...if New Japan knew that Karl Anderson could bolt at any time with Gallows without a formal contract (which they ended up doing), why did Gedo keep the NEVER Openweight title on Anderson? He should've never got a title put on him in the first place if they knew what happened was a real possibility.

[El-P]

Handshake agreement still mean something to some people. See also, Mox. WWE booking Anderson on a Saudi show no one cares about (or should care about, at the very least) says everything you need to know about their "new" approach. 

[strobogo]

At the same time, they're letting Nakamura work NOAH for a match against Muta in January. 

[PeteF3]

On 10/30/2022 at 9:52 AM, strobogo said:

At the same time, they're letting Nakamura work NOAH for a match against Muta in January. 

Probably trying to get an "in" to see if they can buy it out like they tried the first time they wanted to set up NXT Japan.

[Jmare007]

10 hours ago, PeteF3 said:

Probably trying to get an "in" to see if they can buy it out like they tried the first time they wanted to set up NXT Japan.

NOAH being the chosen promotion for this is so weird to me. I guess their offices are nice and they can build a PC on them?

[Flyin' Brian]

Vince McMahon is officially out as the chairman and CEO of WWE.

WWE Reportedly Makes Final Decision On Vince McMahon (msn.com)

AEW bound baby!

[Migs]

To the original idea of the thread - I'm not sure I exactly envisioned the empire being stabilized by Vince being kicked out after sexual misconduct was discovered, but we are.

[El-P]

To me it's too soon to see the long-term effects of Vince being outed. It's still his company at heart. They are still getting lots of money to do propaganda for a criminal regime. They are still idiot proof because of how much money they make thanks to their status in the game. This is a company with an amazing amount of inertia. Creative being better on the short term (thus far) is one thing, but the company was on the upswing already while Vince was still there. I'm sure some are gonna try to twist the narrative into "Triple H saved the company and turned the business around", but it's not factual. It's still very possible the company gets sold to some major media company, then everything changes. To me the long-term effects of Vince being gone will be more apparent in 5 years or so. Then, we'll be able to talk about what really has changed following Vince's departure.

[pmo]

It will be ironic if that narrative becomes the case it's so close to the narrative spun when Vince took over from Senior.

[sek69]

3 minutes ago, pmo said:

It will be ironic if that narrative becomes the case it's so close to the narrative spun when Vince took over from Senior.

I always wondered if that "Vince brought wrestling out of smoky halls" was intended to include all those MSG sellouts Bruno/Backlund/Graham had or not. It would be funny if it all came from Vince Jr being mad they taped TV from the Ag Hall.

[El-P]

In other news, this company is actually still fucking disgusting.

MBS chants, people.

[sek69]

From a purely cynical standpoint,  MBS is super popular among young folks in Saudi so it's good business to do something like that. 

From every other standpoint, yeesh.