Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Rah]

I imagine with the July 4th celebrations it's just going to get that much worse. Just to express how stupidity isn't locality based, people in my country do wear their masks when in public but remove their masks when they need to talk to someone else. Then my fellow SAfricans wonder why we're the third highest country in terms of new infections. Daft.

[DMJ]

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-monday-cable-originals-network-finals-7-13-2020.html

Less than 1.6 millions viewers. I'm convinced that even when they do get crowds back - which probably won't be until some time in 2021 - that number is not going to go up all that much. I feel like every 6 weeks I've typed "the product has never been colder" and then 6 weeks later, its even colder. 

[cm funk]

They're running out of scapegoats at this point.....

[SirEdger]

7 hours ago, DMJ said:

http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-monday-cable-originals-network-finals-7-13-2020.html

Less than 1.6 millions viewers. I'm convinced that even when they do get crowds back - which probably won't be until some time in 2021 - that number is not going to go up all that much. I feel like every 6 weeks I've typed "the product has never been colder" and then 6 weeks later, its even colder. 

As soon as he'll get the slightest hint he can get a crowd back in, Vince won't wait; he'll do everything to make sure this happens sooner rather than later.

[Dale Wolfe]

It was too much tv even with a crowd. Empty arena 3 hours with a mismanaged pandemic lurking in the background feels borderline exploitative 

I am surprised they haven't just started doing career retrospectives full of old matches instead. The audience is old, tv crew is threadbare. It seems pointless at this point - Florida is going to kill them all if they're not careful 

The Ric Flair classic. Best of Austin/Rock etcetera 

Oh well fuck em

[MoS]

Funny thing is doing career retrospectives on Edge, Orton, Show, etc, would help their current programs as well, since the most pushed guys are still from previous eras. 

It's been 5 years since Steph invented feminism and started a women's revolution, and predictably she appeared on The Bump and spewed the usual empty clichès and corp buzzwords. 

[KawadaSmile]

Wait, one of their best PPVs of the last ten years celebrated 5 years and they haven't annouced another one? With their most engaging programs being revolving around women?

Why do they insist on doing things the hardest way possible?

[Dale Wolfe]

Even a weekly womens show. An hour. 

I think it would do better ratings than anything else they have 

[kas]

The return of crowds should be interesting, whenever that happens (hopefully a long time from now). History has shown that once people leave it's hard to get them to come back, but while there's no doubt the pandemic has accelerated the downward trend, it'll be interesting to see just how many will have given up on WWE completely, and how many just dislike the empty arena setting. 

[Coffey]

30 minutes ago, Dale Wolfe said:

Even a weekly womens show. An hour. 

I think it would do better ratings than anything else they have 

I feel like they're afraid to do this. For more reasons than one. 

Like what happens if that show gets worse ratings? What happens when the women getting featured now on RAW & Smackdown suddenly start getting put just on that show instead? I think it would be a step backwards. Like giving the Cruiserweights their own show instead of featuring them on the main shows. Did anyone care about 205 Live?

[sek69]

I would think a women's show would have a better chance, but it would have to be branded as a Steph joint to ensure it wouldn't get the 205 treatment.  Folks like us would hate it, but Vince would fight the tides of hell to make sure something his Princess was featured in didn't fail.

[MoS]

The Gallows-Anderson pod is a riot to listen to. Apparently, Triple H looked at both of them in the eye during negotiations and said "You have kids. Who knows if AEW will be here in 6 months. We will always be here." Of course both got fired months later even as WWE is on course to make record profits.

[El-P]

Holy shit... 

Meanwhile, Raw this week got its worst rating ever. Average viewer, 56 years old. Wow. 

[NintendoLogic]

Quote

Later, Styles heard from a WWE source that Gallows and Anderson being released was a Heyman decision. Anderson said Styles then went to Heyman and asked if Heyman had called for Gallows and Anderson to be released. Heyman denied it. Styles went to Vince McMahon and asked if that was true. Anderson said that McMahon confirmed that Gallows and Anderson were not on "his list" of people to be let go, but that this was a "Heyman decision." 

Gallows said that Styles then demanded to be moved to SmackDown to get away from Heyman. "[Heyman]'s a f*cking liar and a piece of sh*t," Gallows said.

It's really astonishing how many wrestlers fall for the "Vince loved me but so-and-so in the front office screwed me over" canard.

[El-P]

Well, Heyman being a liar is neither inaccurate nor big news though. Cornette had this quote about Heyman being a guy who would rather climb a tree to tell a lie rather than stay on the floor and tell the truth.

[NintendoLogic]

Sure, but the idea that Heyman had any kind of final say over personnel decisions when he was a few weeks away from being demoted himself is ludicrous. Do they seriously think that Heyman put his foot down and Vince was powerless to overrule him?

[El-P]

Oh, of course. Classic Vince fuckery.

[sek69]

AJ believing Vince was unable to keep from firing the Good Brothers because *checks notes* "a guy he's fired several times said so and he couldn't override it"  just adds to the  mountain of evidence that he's not the brightest bulb around.

[Alucard]

They made it sound more like Heyman convinced Vince to add them to the list, by pointing out their big money contracts and they alluded to Heyman and other agents not thinking they were worth that for what they were doing on the card.

[sek69]

26 minutes ago, Alucard said:

They made it sound more like Heyman convinced Vince to add them to the list, by pointing out their big money contracts and they alluded to Heyman and other agents not thinking they were worth that for what they were doing on the card.

I mean, if he did say that it's not like he's wrong. 

But yes, Vince has been playing this game since the beginning. It was always JJ Dillon/JR/Bruce/some rando catering's fault I was fired but Vince loved me. 

[cm funk]

Yeah, I honestly can't believe that AJ, Anderson and Gallows fell for it.......surely some of their friends could smarten them up.  Paul Heyman may be a bullshit artist, but Vince is the biggest carny liar around.  I believe 0% that Heyman had any kind of final say on hiring/firing.  Asked for input?  Sure, but c'mon.....

[sek69]

Not to mention given their history, Vince is more likely to do the opposite of what Heyman asks him to.

[sek69]

So Maria tweeted a bunch of things WWE told her (and Mike presumably) and it was all similar to what the Good Brothers told them when they were being offered deals, things like "think about your family" etc. Really makes them somehow seem even more slimy when they say stuff like that to entice people to sign, yet cut basically everyone who tried to play hardball in negotiations. 

[WingedEagle]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

So Maria tweeted a bunch of things WWE told her (and Mike presumably) and it was all similar to what the Good Brothers told them when they were being offered deals, things like "think about your family" etc. Really makes them somehow seem even more slimy when they say stuff like that to entice people to sign, yet cut basically everyone who tried to play hardball in negotiations. 

Why do many talents seem to have blinders on as to just who they're dealing with?  This isn't a company that has a history of doing the right thing by talent or employees and yet they seem surprised or disappointed to find themselves in such a situation. 

[DMJ]

I obviously wasn't there and have no real back-up to this, but even the part about Heyman adding them to "the list" of people that should be released seems suspect.

It hinges on the idea that Heyman thought it was a wise cost-cutting move...when, as far as I know, Paul Heyman has no incentive to give a single shit about the WWE's finances (which, by the way, were fine anyway). 

I mean, Triple H? Stephanie? Even Shane (who probably has a sizable amount of stock) would have clear motive to want to save a buck, but as far as I know, Paul Heyman was not any sort of real executive. He is, rather famously, a guy that would cut corners and was notoriously "frugal" (which is the nicest way of saying he stiffed his workers), but that was his company and his money; whenever he's worked in the WWE, Paul has been an employee and I'm not sure he's ever really been in the "inner circle." I just don't see why Paul Heyman would bring up their (arguably) bloated contracts apropos of nothing. 

So, yeah, I'm not saying Heyman is 100% innocent or that the conversation didn't happen between Paul and Vince, but the details are weird.

Also, as someone else mentioned above, if you were looking at a balance sheet and you saw what The Good Brothers were supposedly making and considered how they were used and what they were bringing in, cutting them isn't some radical notion. Was it cold-blooded? Absolutely. Most of us can agree that doing so during a pandemic was evil. But had it happened during a routine post-Mania culling,  it would've made total sense. But, again, since when is Paul Heyman looking at the balance sheet?