Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Kadaveri]

Braun Strowman getting released is so grim because it was less than a year ago that WWE put out a documentary where Braun said the stress of working for WWE had him contemplating suicide. Then him and Vince had a "not boss to employee but like a father to son" talk where Vince reassured him that Braun was very important to him and he "needed him for the long haul" and then Braun realised how much Vince cared about him personally.

They put that in the documentary.

[KawadaSmile]

Hmm now that I think about it, it can be that the inverse of what happened with Drew Gulak is happening now?

He got released, signed a better deal, then got re-hired. Maybe they are doing that, but with less expensive contracts?

[Zoo Enthusiast]

23 minutes ago, Kadaveri said:

Braun Strowman getting released is so grim because it was less than a year ago that WWE put out a documentary where Braun said the stress of working for WWE had him contemplating suicide. Then him and Vince had a "not boss to employee but like a father to son" talk where Vince reassured him that Braun was very important to him and he "needed him for the long haul" and then Braun realised how much Vince cared about him personally.

They put that in the documentary.

Yeesh.

I was definitely one of the people around here that was really high on Braun when he started getting pushed.  I feel like they definitely missed an opportunity to make him a much bigger deal (at least for a while), which they killed when they had him tag with an 8 year-old at Mania.

[SirEdger]

13 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Hmm now that I think about it, it can be that the inverse of what happened with Drew Gulak is happening now?

He got released, signed a better deal, then got re-hired. Maybe they are doing that, but with less expensive contracts?

Stranger things have happened, honestly. 

[sek69]

Braun contains multitudes, he was a can't miss WWE prospect who was mind bogglingly botched,  shared his battle with mental illness on a WWE doc, and was also a dickhead on social media to indy wrestlers who started GoFundMe's during the pandemic basically saying  they should all just walk into the PC and go right to Raw like he did if they really wanted to succeed in DA BIZ. 

[C.S.]

Don't forget that wacky (and probably untrue) rumor where he kneeled in front of Karen Angle/Jarrett in a bar begging for forgiveness so he wouldn't get heat with Kurt.

[Strummer]

Aleister Black said Vince liked him. Liked him so much that he stopped your push multiple times and just fired you after being off TV for like a year.

that damn Johnny Ace

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

Honestly, some of these guys need reprogramming after coming out of WWE.

[sek69]

5 minutes ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

Honestly, some of these guys need reprogramming after coming out of WWE.

So many people leaving WWE sound like someone who just left a cult, and it's honestly scary. Even people who know what the deal is still can't seem to completely shake the "Vince is the loving father who does no wrong, anything bad is someone else's doing" mindset. 

[KawadaSmile]

Vince is 75, probably has had more than one concussion in his lifetime, and still was seen taking bumps. When he speaks, he's nearly incomprehensible.

It kinda feels in character to be personally nice to his employees and treat them as garbage afterwards.

[C.S.]

Drake Wuertz opened up about his release, and it's a real doozy - blaming David Bixenspan for getting the ball rolling, "woke cancel culture," and acting like his suspension was because he refused to stop going to church during a pandemic. With that said, he did publicly disavow Q and said he had Covid like "whole chunk of the roster" so he's not a Covid-denier. At least that's something.

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/drake-wuertz-admits-he-tested-positive-covid-wasn-t-surprised-wwe-release

 

[Rah]

He doesn't deny it but he's still a buffoon:

 

Quote

A month before WrestleMania, I get a call from my department head, Scott Armstrong, who says, 'Somebody tested positive at work, we're asking everyone to quarantine.' I called him back and was like, 'I have stuff to do. I'm not sick. I tested negative. I haven't been around anyone.' I told him I had church, the Walk For Life, and I coach my son's baseball team. Those responsibilities were more important to me than pleasing WWE. I told him, 'No, I'm not staying home.' I got a call saying, 'You're off TV for two weeks, you violated quarantine.' 'For going to church?' They refused to answer."

I remember looking up his Facebook the other day and feeling like I came away dumber than I was before. The mental leaps he (and the politician he endorses) baffles me.

[cm funk]

Honestly, Black seems like someone who's smart enough to know not to burn any bridges, especially not with the current sate of things.  Nothing to be gained from that at this point

[sek69]

Drake's not a covid denier, but he's anti everything to help stop the spread of it. Between violating quarantine to saying masks aid child traffickers, he might as well be a denier at this point. Just like he denies being part of Qanon, he just parrots all their talking points and is booked to be on a q-adjacent wrestling event to SAVE DA KIDS.

Proper right wing mentality to blame everyone else for finally facing the consequences of their actions tho 

[Rah]

This is Drake's public profile picture after all:

[NintendoLogic]

Of course this goof refuses to take the slightest steps to halt the spread of a deadly virus because he's so pro-life.

[fakeplastictrees]

@sek69 touched on it earlier in this thread regarding Vince. The cult of personality Vince built for himself is amazing.

- WWE wrestler gets fired and (in most cases) often thanks WWE in an OTT way.

- Fired WWE wrestler blames X (Ace, Creative, etc.) and talks about how much Vince loved him/her.

- Wrestlers, not related to Vince, describe him as a father figure and talk about a son/daughter type of relationship with Vince (Nash, Angle, Strowman, Warrior, etc.)

- Taking time off work is usually deterred due a Vince pep talk. 

- Wrestler is fired from WWE and proceed to base most, if not all, of their post WWE personality/gimmick on one man's opinion of them.

[strobogo]

Why wouldn't they thank WWE, though? For many if not most of them, getting to WWE is their dream and peak of their careers, they got a lot of exposure, world travel, WM sized crowds they'd never get anywhere else. There are a lot of experiences, both good and bad, that these people are only going to get working with WWE. I'd like to imagine most of these talents are less precious about shitty booking than fans are.

[sek69]

While most wrestlers of this generation have the dream to go to WWE, I don't think any of them were thinking "man, if I can just get to WWE and cash checks while doing jack shit in catering for years, that would be sweet". 

Considering pretty much all of them state frustration with creative (or lack thereof) in their post WWE interviews, I would say that the talents are just as precious about shitty booking as the fans are. Maybe they take a slightly different angle than a fan would, but it's definitely there. 

[strobogo]

Further, what's the benefit of shitting all over WWE and/or Vince? Athletes in actual sports usually thank the franchise they were a part of after they get cut or traded as well. It's just part of being professional. 

[sek69]

You don't have to shit on WWE or Vince, but it's weird and cult like to see people who just got fired after being ignored/unused for months still going out of their way to praise the All Powerful Father Vince. You just thank them for the opportunity and go about your life's work. You don't see athletes in actual sports maintaining a slavish devotion to the team owner while saying it was the GM's fault he got cut from the team very often. 

[Coffey]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

While most wrestlers of this generation have the dream to go to WWE, I don't think any of them were thinking "man, if I can just get to WWE and cash checks while doing jack shit in catering for years, that would be sweet". 

I would join the Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club if he were paying me $200k/year to sit backstage & eat catering. Yeah, the life on the road would be hard & I couldn't personally find myself enjoying driving all the miles, doing all the car rentals, airplane travel & hotel living but even the bottom tier job guys are putting back a lot of money & own big properties to set themselves up for life after WWE. Like look at the house that Zack Ryder was living in. That WWE wanted to use his pool for filming a vignette after he was fired. As a non-wrestler, just a normal, everyday person working long hours for not a lot of money, I can't imagine making enough money where I wouldn't have to worry about going to the doctor, or if I needed unforeseen car repairs or not having to stress about wanting to have a baby because we can't afford it.

I get the creative aspect of it & the wanting to succeed & be a top guy & all that. But, at least for me, and I'm sure others as well, that shit would come AFTER being financially secure first. WWE has provided that to a lot of people & their families. The TV sucks, the creative is tapped out but there's still a lot of bonds & friendships being made, relationships backstage among the talent & they're all still getting paid. 

There does seem to be some Stockholm syndrome & a weird father figure relationship among Vince & a lot of the talent but even if you're not main eventing Wrestlemania or getting the top belt put on you, even if you're just doing a Main Event taping or whatever, you're still there, a part of WWE, still making the shows & the towns, still away from your family & basically living with the roster.

[sek69]

A really significant way that Vince changed the business that no one really ever talks about is how wrestling changed from actual independent contractors fully aware most promoters were looking to F them over and as such looked after their interests first, to a complete "company (and Vince) uber alles" mindset that everyone there seems to have where it seems most of the people there would chop off an arm or leg if Vince asked them to. It's easy to see how nonsense like Qanon and right wing conspiracy theories can take hold so easily since they create the perfect mentality for it. 

[cm funk]

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

You don't have to shit on WWE or Vince, but it's weird and cult like to see people who just got fired after being ignored/unused for months still going out of their way to praise the All Powerful Father Vince. You just thank them for the opportunity and go about your life's work. You don't see athletes in actual sports maintaining a slavish devotion to the team owner while saying it was the GM's fault he got cut from the team very often. 

I think it's a mixed bag, and everybody is different.  There's definitely something to the cultish devotion angle, but in a lot of cases it's just not wanting to burn bridges.  Also, Vince is larger than life when it comes to pro wrestling, even people outside of wrestling speak about the presence and charisma he has.  I think that's as big a part of it as it is "WWE indoctrination"

Black for example is still young and he's already worked all over the world.  He knows he'll have zero problem getting work, and probably looks at McIntyre and sees that it's possible to leave and come back.  With the pandemic seemingly under control in the US and crowds coming back this might be a blessing in disguise for someone like him

For someone like Braun who doesn't know anything but WWE it'll be interesting to see what path he takes.  He could go the Ryback route, and some of his past comments make me think he wouldn't be welcomed with open arms on the indies.  But he was also on Jericho's podcast when Jericho, Anderson, Gallows and AJ were all in WWE and he fit right in with those guys, which makes me think if was being mentored by guys like that he's going to have veterans in his ear telling him this isn't the end of the world. 

Meltzer made it clear that these were $$$ cuts and they were all people who were "overpaid" relative to people in similar roster spots due to signing new deals when they viewed AEW as a bigger threat.  I personally think it's strange that they did such a flip on that, especially with TNT/TBS reaffirming their commitment several times over, Dynamite kicking NXT's ass, and the very real possibility that AEW will quickly be the way hotter, cooler promotion on TV now that fans are back.  Seeing the shows with fans back, it looked like so much fun that I'm thinking about going to my first show in years if they come within driving distance of me.  There's nothing in WWE right now that could get me to one of their terrible shows.  Ratings are going to be weird for AEW with the NBA playoffs and then moving to TBS, but once things are settled I fully expect Dynamite to be beating RAW in the ratings by late '21/early '22 unless WWE has a drastic creative turnaround

It really seems clear now that WWE signed people simply because they didn't want the perception of all these talent leaving WWE of their own volition to go to the startup, and it was all for optics sake.  If they're the ones cutting the talent loose?  Fuck it, other than a small number of guys/gals they are the kind of company now that would let the next Austin or Foley walk to the competition

Meltzer also thinks WWE would be open to bringing several of these people back in the future, just at much lower numbers.  He also noted what we already knew in that very few in WWE have either no cut contracts or contracts with significant protections on guaranteed money, which always amazes me that these guys can't negotiate better contracts when they do have leverage like these guys did at the time.  They need to talk to NFL player agents or something.  He didn't name names but I'd figure Orton, Reigns, Rey probably due to when they re-signed and the leverage they would have had, but I'm not sure who else

He also speculated on Edge being on a huge deal to only wrestle a few times a year, and he isn't sure if he's got a no-cut deal, but I can't see WWE cutting that dude.  One, he'd be in AEW immediately and he'd be a bigger deal than almost anyone else.  Two, with Beth also there he seems as close to WWE royalty as it gets.....and it was kind of weird for Dave to even mention it knowing the way he gets his words twisted by aggregators

Edited June 3, 2021 by cm funk

[MoS]

I don't think anyone has an issue with fired wrestlers thanking WWE or being grateful to WWE. Hell, Mox did that too, right before he launched into all his complaints. I find it laughable though that this thought is usually followed by ranting about WWE writers or Johny Ace or Paul Heyman or whoever, about how the dirtsheets are terrible and actually Vince loved them, it was the damn subordinates that caused all the issues.

It's not exactly professional to kiss the boss's ass and throw everybody else under the bus. You don't see NBA players getting traded and talking about how the GM and the head coach actually loved them, it was the damn assistants and the terrible tabloids that resulted in them getting traded/cut. Apart from the unprofessional part, I cannot imagine showing that level of gullibility would be beneficial in the long run.