Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Watching that Cody clip and thinking “damn, they dodged a bullet.”

[NintendoLogic]

I maintain that Cody losing was a HHH call for the reasons I outlined in the Mania thread. If it was Vince, he likely would have had Cody win and then booked him like a chump for the duration of his reign like Rey in 2006 and Kofi in 2019.

[strobogo]

Lol at Vince being back ONE DAY and everything immediately falling to shit and chaos

[El-P]

The opening speech by Triple H being immediately contradicted by EVERYTHING happening both in front of the screen and backstage is some of the most credibility killer stuff I've seen since, well, basically every declaration by each and every Macron's gouvernement members these last few months. Fuck, it's like Paul Lesveque just became an honorary member of LREM. Send Marlène Schiappa to Smackdown already, I mean, she's just in Playboy this week, that's very WWE Universe-like.

[Ricky Jackson]

So basically we had the "Levesque Spring" and now Vince and the tanks have rolled in and crushed all hope

[Coffey]

This all reminds me of the Tonight Show when Jay Leno was supposed to be replaced by Conan O'Brien & then Leno decided "that doesn't work for me, brother."

[El-P]

Whatever happened to Bray Wyatt ? 

Where the fuck was LA Knight this week-end ?

Will Endeavor fire Bruce Prichard's ass quick and dirty ?

So many questions....

And when is Jay White debu... oh well

Now that's an awesome news, because I love me some Jay White. Jay White vs Danielson... Jay White vs Omega... Jay White vs Mox... fuuuuck.... 

[NintendoLogic]

Jay White feuding with Jericho for six months.

[The Thread Killer]

It’s amazing how many Main event ready top level guys AEW has, compared to WWE. My only concern with Jay White going to AEW is him getting lost in the crowd. But I’d still way rather see him go there.

[The Thread Killer]

1 minute ago, NintendoLogic said:

Jay White feuding with Jericho for six months.

Oh god no please no

[The Thread Killer]

Reading all the reports about what happened backstage last night at Raw and it sounds just brutal. Vince, back on the headset, Vince changing his mind midshow and pulling whole matches at the last minute. It’s a small wonder the show sucked so bad.

[Champagne]

11 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

It’s amazing how many Main event ready top level guys AEW has, compared to WWE. My only concern with Jay White going to AEW is him getting lost in the crowd. But I’d still way rather see him go there.

What metric are you using to define Main event ready top level guys? Wrestling Observer star ratings? Cagematch ratings? Because those would be the only way AEW's roster compares to the WWE's roster. 

[The Thread Killer]

38 minutes ago, Champagne said:

What metric are you using to define Main event ready top level guys? Wrestling Observer star ratings? Cagematch ratings? Because those would be the only way AEW's roster compares to the WWE's roster. 

I am talking about guys who could be slotted into a Main Event match and it wouldn’t look strange or out of place. I don’t subscribe to the Observer and I don’t much care about Dave Meltzer, or his opinion. I am purely talking about talent that the respective fan bases would accept as a Main Event talent.

AEW has:

Adam Cole

Bryan Danielson

Chris Jericho

Claudio Castagnoli

Hangman Page

Jon Moxley

Kenny Omega

MJF

Who could easily Main Event a PPV right now and the fans wouldn’t miss a beat. Plus they have:

Malakai Black

Darby Allin

Eddie Kingston (?)

Jungle Boy

Keith Lee

Orange Cassidy

Powerhouse Hobbs

Ricky Starks

Sami Guevara

Wardlow

All of those guys are all either being groomed for a Main Event level spot or are easily capable of being pushed there with a minimum of effort by Tony Khan right now. The bottom line is, with very little work I can see any of those guys being accepted by the AEW fan base as legit Main Event guys. In the case of Darby, Jungle Boy and Sami he is literally pushing them as we speak.

And that’s not even considering the access Tony Khan has to the top New Japan guys just by picking up the phone. Plus there is a definite chance Punk could return. And, there are one or two guys on top of that who have potential but have not been pushed much.

Contrast that with WWE right now.

Bobby Lashley

Bray Wyatt (?)

Brock Lesnar

Cody Rhodes

Drew McInytre

Edge (?)

Kevin Owens

Randy Orton (?)

Sami Zayn

Seth Rollins

Roman Reigns

And the problem with that list, is most of those guys have already been cycled through the Main Event and there are no new or compelling matches for them.

I would love to see Gunther added to that WWE list but who knows.

[MoS]

I can't help but be cynical about this sale. As a massive MMA fan and someone who has modded a prominent MMA site for 6 years, I have seen what happened to UFC after it was sold to Endeavor. A soulless entity that cuts some of its best fighters, has meaningless "interim" title fights, and tries to fill out its cards with jobbers from Dana White's contender series who are happy to fight for 20k/20k, instead of actual good mid-level fighters, with the sole purpose being to increase its profit margin. Like WWE was during the first year of the pandemic era, except on steroids. 

[El-P]

One very interesting thing Meltz said about the nature of the new company is that it will basically be a TV right's selling company. That may change a whole lot in the long-term in how things get approached. The feeling is the workers have just lost a whole lot of bargaining power in term of bidding wars and such, because the new machine won't need to sign everybody under the sun nor give ridiculous contracts. The morale plummeting in WWE because of Vince coming back is only the beginning. The first and main thing should be the ethical point, but I'm guessing no one really gives a fuck (and it's pretty sad, really), although there's no way most women, especially the younger ones (there's a generation gap in term of how they think about those matters, as demonstrated by what someone like Madusa said lately which really was quite cringe), can be happy about this. Then the booking/creative standpoint. Then the way the company will manage their talent. 

[Jmare007]

I also wonder if Endeavor keeps most of the WWE people that are able to make the roster drink the company's kool-aid like they have for so many years. Even when morale is down, there's always been a "we are family, what we do is special/important so hang in there" narrative that seems to keep things afloat no matter what.

If this new parent company makes things even more corporate and soulless -and gets rid of some redundant, but "important" roles in WWE- will the wrestlers still believe they can/should take whatever bullshit comes their way because they "bring smiles to people's faces"?

[Embrodak]

Vince hates his facial hair and carries an electric shaver around with him to eliminate five o’clock shadow, what in the CTE fuck convinced him that the moment of arguably his greatest triumph (or at least his personal apotheosis) was the time to whip out the worst mustache in wrestling history? Even judging him in a purely “beyond good and evil” sense, it’s like Caesar celebrating his post-Civil War Triumph with a toupee that doesn’t match his hair color.

[...TG]

The mustache is an impressive power move, saying to his subordinates that he can look as ridiculous as possible and they can say nothing to him. A bit like LBJ taking meetings with his aides while sitting on the toilet.

[pmo]

The worst part is the authority figure not even acknowledging it.  Its lazy.   It makes you wonder why the babyfaces don't bring their entire crew...

[El-P]

Imagine that, being called shameless by the Auschwitz memorial.

 

[NintendoLogic]

What sucks is that it's probably some low-level schmucks in production who were scheduled to be laid off after the merger who are going to get fired over this so the company can get away with not providing severance pay.

[strobogo]

I would have to imagine it was a simple image search of something like "prison yard" and that's a pic that popped up and no one checked or realized because there are thousands of pictures that look just like that when you search.

I would also imagine that if people go through old footage that it is part of b-roll that they've used for years and no one noticed. The idea that someone intentionally put a picture of Auschwitz for reasons (?) seems absurd to me.

[El-P]

This is not some random Youtube video by some schmuck. This is WWE. If you can't even check the sources of what you put in your WrestleMania promo videos, that's speaks highly of the actual level of professionalism going on here. (obviously this is not on purpose, just like the first new WALTER name was not on purpose. I mean, one should hope and plead stupidity)

Then again, maybe Brian Kendrick just got an editor gig.

(thankfully Dom was not working against "Iron Crosses everywhere" Triple H, because that would make the whole thing really fucking awkward )

[strobogo]

I 100% believe they would not check sources for something that flashes in for half a second in a video package. Especially as they almost always use royalty free and stock images/videos for b-roll stuff. Go look at video packages for HIAC/EC/No Way Out and I bet you'll find that image.

[Dav'oh]

21 minutes ago, strobogo said:

I would have to imagine it was a simple image search of something like "prison yard" and that's a pic that popped up and no one checked or realized because there are thousands of pictures that look just like that when you search.

I found zero pictures that look like that. Auschwitz was a Polish concentration camp from the 1940s. It in no way resembles anything in the US penal system which purportedly housed Dominik.

Lest we forget.