Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[NintendoLogic]

If Nick Khan did tell the NXT crew to tone down the chuddery, some folks obviously didn't get the memo.

[Coffey]

Honestly, at this point it's just exhausting to even continue to talk about the lunatic conspiracy theorists. These last four years in the United States of America have been so tiring, I feel like many of us are just at our wits' end. As if our country wasn't already ridiculously divided, due to the Trump Presidency, then the pandemic hit & became politicized. So suddenly even our health was now controversial or some conspiracy. So I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that some how wearing a mask gets turned into another nut job rant about human trafficking & abortion, because of course it does. In the name of Jesus Christ too, of course, because if all else fails, play the religion card. We're dealing with politics, dealing with racism, dealing with authority abusing power, dealing with the pandemic & it is bleeding into every single faucet of life, including our hobbies that we used to be able to use to escape the daily burden of stress from life. When we're in quarantine, or trying to limit how often we go out into public - often times for me at least, because I'm worried about running into OTHER PEOPLE (people like dumb shit Drake Wuertz) - when even the shows you can watch in the privacy of your own home, like professional wrestling, feel like you can't escape anymore... it's just a lot. 

How often have we seen videos of people going nuts in public because someone else was wearing a mask, or because someone not wearing one was asked to put one on or leave a store? Every time I leave to go run some errand, which I don't even want to do in the first place nine times out of ten, I think is today the day I have to knock out some loon in public because he's on his bullshit?

I don't even know what normal means anymore but I know that we're never getting back to how shit used to be. We're going to have a new normal & it's going to be very divided. People like Drake Wuertz or B.G. James aren't going to go away, if anything, I think we'll get more of them & they're going to get louder. We have people that think our election was rigged, that the media is full of people purposely lying to us, that the vaccine for the virus is somehow injecting us with tracking devices or whatever-in-the-fuck. We had people literal attack the Capitol. That was just a couple months ago & a lot of people have seemingly moved on or want to pretend like it was no big deal. So another Austin Aries or Sean Morley Twitter rant doesn't seem that bad when you consider everything else going on around all of us right now. We've always known that the majority of professional wrestlers are fucking idiots. After all, they literally sign-up to get hit in the head for a living. Now they just all have a platform, thanks to social media, to broadcast their idiocy. 

The fatigue is real.

[strobogo]

I'm genuinely surprised a much, much, much larger chunk of the wrestling community in the US isn't all in on Q, antivax, Trumpism stuff. That it's really only like a dozen people showing their asses is pretty shocking considering the cesspool the wrestling industry has traditionally been.

[kas]

Isn't Daniel Rose Matt Riddle's lawyer as well?

[Stiva]

This MLW deal has to be Nick Khan’s doing, right? Scenes when he eventually takes control and explodes NXT

[Migs]

19 hours ago, strobogo said:

I'm genuinely surprised a much, much, much larger chunk of the wrestling community in the US isn't all in on Q, antivax, Trumpism stuff. That it's really only like a dozen people showing their asses is pretty shocking considering the cesspool the wrestling industry has traditionally been.

I think there's a lot of guys who are simply apathetic toward anything political and do not care. 

[sek69]

WWE has a lot more diverse voices than it used to and it seems it's helped overall to keep the crazy to a minimum. You're not going to completely Q  pill a locker room that has the New Day, Ali, Bryan, et all. Even guys who are normally pretty Republican like JBL seem to have not got on board the crazy train.

It's important for everyone to remember that in both wrestling and IRL, the antivax/Q/super Trumper crowd is actually relatively small but LOUD AF. Their voices tend to drown out every other one because they scream the most. 

[sek69]

Also "we serve God not man" sounds like Drake is one more FB post away from moving to a heavily armed compound in Montana and getting into a shootout with the ATF. 

[NintendoLogic]

For what it's worth, JBL isn't really that conservative in real life. He's said several times that his favorite politician is Michael Bloomberg.

[Rah]

It always makes me laugh when Christians spout that verse from Acts. It doesn't mean anywhere close to what they think it does. Literally in the next book is this:

 

Quote

[1] Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. [2] Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. - Romans  13: 1-2

 

[NintendoLogic]

I've said this already, but it bears repeating: this dude is genuinely unhinged. If the FBI isn't keeping tabs on him, they should be.

[SirEdger]

Of course, he skipped NXT last night for this kind of shit.

[sek69]

3 minutes ago, SirEdger said:

Of course, he skipped NXT last night for this kind of shit.

I wonder what it will take for him to  get to "we need to release Kurt so we don't have an Olympian OD on our watch" levels with this company. As much the people in charge may agree with him, dude is a walking PR embarrassment for them at this point. 

[Coffey]

The people in that video not wearing masks look exactly like what you think people not wearing masks would look like. 

[rovert]

8 hours ago, sek69 said:

I wonder what it will take for him to  get to "we need to release Kurt so we don't have an Olympian OD on our watch" levels with this company. As much the people in charge may agree with him, dude is a walking PR embarrassment for them at this point. 

Invoking Benoit can be seen as extreme and cheap but Drake is someone who has undergone a massive personality change and thinks someone/something is coming for (his) children. WWE is tempting fate the longer this continues. 

 

[C.S.]

The most insidious part of Drake's lunacy is that these seem like more or less "reasonable" concerns outside the Q-bubble. That, I guess, is how they snare people in.

"Human trafficking is bad": Sure. Everyone thinks so.

"Abortion is murder": This one is wildly divisive, but it's certainly not a viewpoint limited to brainwashed Q radicals by any means.

Children being "forced by the government" to do XYZ: Concerns about government overreach are nothing new or exclusive to the Q - except, in this case, he's babbling about mask mandates, which are for the kids' protection, his, and ours. (Funny how his "protect the kids" beliefs fall apart when they clash with his own erroneous beliefs.)

"We're called to serve God": Go for it! But don't become Carrie's mother along the way. Drake is way past that point.

I have no idea why the hell he wasn't kicked out of the school board meeting - or WWE, for that matter.

BTW, look at that Bix tweet video without sound. Drake is shaking erratically, gesticulating wildly, making goofy facial expressions - and that's all in the first 12-15 seconds. Something is very clearly very deeply wrong with him. We are seeing a severely, profoundly mentally ill, brainwashed man (possibly caused by CTE issues) coming apart at the seams. Get him some fucking help!

It's especially sad that his wife and Road Dogg are seemingly (at best) ignoring or (at worst) enabling his unraveling. Matt Riddle's lawyer is a fucking imbecile and one of the dumbest people on the face of earth. Just look at that tweet where he photographed legal documents printed on label paper. Don't be surprised if Riddle ends up in the electric chair because his lawyer smokes it up even more than he does.

 

[Blehschmidt]

8 hours ago, rovert said:

Invoking Benoit can be seen as extreme and cheap but Drake is someone who has undergone a massive personality change and thinks someone/something is coming for (his) children. WWE is tempting fate the longer this continues. 

 

I saw a tweet that said something along the lines of "We are heading towards "the dogs are in the enclosed pool area" texts at this point" and sadly it doesn't seem that unrealistic. Lots of people have fallen for this Q nonsense, but this guy seems to be taking it to dangerous levels and beyond. 

[cm funk]

I don't want to weigh into this deep water too far, but I feel the need to add one man's perspective

this dude needs help.

thanks, I'll be back when my microchip goes rogue in a few weeks

fuck WWE.  just wtf

[cm funk]

and I need to add that I agree with C.S. post in general

we live in a free country, and people like Drake whatever over here are to me, a free thinking independent American, fucking abusing their privileges as a member of a normal society.  There is a fucking difference between using your first amendment rights and abusing them.  this man is unhinged, and he doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy.  The only people that will be coming for his children will be people looking out for their safety.  If I encountered someone like this in real life I'd have a serious negative reaction to them, but at the same time I'm cool with dealing with weirdos and creeps, I've been doing it for a long time, and I'm full of empathy and love.  I certainly don't go out of my way to hang out with/employ them tho, that's for damn sure, and if this dude was my friend I'd be seriously concerned

And I also really hate to judge a man without knowing where they left their shoes or where they slept last night, but ya know....this one is obvious, dude has lost the plot

[strobogo]

Drake is really a perfect candidate to fall for this type of shit and go off the deep end.

 

Former hardcore junkie who went extreme the other direction into evangelism and himself in a business rife with debauchery and criminality that he can conveniently ignore and project on to this made up storyline. Essentially another worker who has worked himself into a shoot, brother.

[clintthecrippler]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if from a PR perspective they just have him sit at home until his contract runs out or he does something blatantly criminal, just because you know if they fired Drake over this a bunch of dumbasses are going to cry about how they let Keith Lee wear "Black Lives Matter" gear on NXT television and let Sami Zayn do his charity work on behalf of Syrian medical efforts, but fired Drake for "exercising HIS freedom of speech."

[sek69]

I expect there to be some kind of leaked news stating Drake is taking a leave of absence at some point, WWE when asked will give some sort of "we don't comment on personnel matters" answer, and let him sit at home until his contract runs out. 

I do wonder what the feeling among the (mostly POC) ref crew at NXT seeing all his antics, especially the times he's taken stances against things like BLM and teaching accurate Black history in schools. In any normally functioning company, that would be a hell of a HR issue there. 

[Coffey]

I feel like letting him sit out his contract but still being employed by the company is a recipe for disaster. He already did one of his loony rants while wearing an NXT shirt. Imagine if he was "off" so he had even more free time to kill, the crazy shit he would get up to while being employed by WWE.

I think that's an even worse look than keeping him employed because of fear of backlash. 

They can just have Johnny Ace, Triple H & Stephanie McMahon make Twitter posts like they did with Mickie James, right? 

[sek69]

It's amazing a company that is at times comically obsessed with PR as WWE seems to be OK with an episode of Dark Side of the Ring play out in real time under their watch.

 

I suppose the most likely outcome is that they have a come-to-Jesus (pun not intended) moment with him and offer to help him, which will inevitably be seen as as an attack on his freedumbs. At that point he'd either quit or give them grounds to fire him, thereby solving the problem for WWE. 

[strobogo]

I'm sure they could cut him for any reason or no reason at all. Either they don't want to because higher ups agree with what he agrees with, they don't care, or they're worried it will draw more attention by firing him than just having him be a crazy guy but keeping their eye on him.

 

Considering the NXT Champion and his significant other are also big on antivax, anti mask, Q related stuff, along with a top producer who works closely with both HHH and Vince, and numerous other talents have signaled their support for Q and Q adjacent stuff publicly online, I think it's more a mix of 1 and 2 than anything else.