Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[sek69]

Not to mention if someone is getting offers from both companies, you'd have to factor in (for someone like Woods at least) you'd never see an extra penny while an AEW deal could be less on paper but combined with being able to earn income elsewhere it could be the far more lucrative deal. 

5 minutes ago, Coffey said:

That's even before you to get what they've done w/ a lot of Xavier's friends like Tyler Breeze or how WWE treated Kofi Kingston or a number of other things.

I  got the impression that how they did Kofi dirty  really put a bad taste in their mouths. Like after all the talk about how inspirational Kofi's story was they just squashed him in seconds as soon as the Great White Hope was back (not saying he should have beaten Brock, but come on). 

[C.S.]

55 minutes ago, sek69 said:

(not saying he should have beaten Brock, but come on)

I'll say it: Kofi absolutely should have beaten Brock.

Kofimania was red hot. Yes, the reign was slightly cooled down by pointless midcard feuds with Ziggler and the like, but Brock had been ice cold for years at that point.

There is some renewed interest in Brock now, but is that really because of Brock or because of Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman? We all know the answer to that.

BTW, WWE is seemingly already moving on from UUDD.

[Perfectly Straightedge]

1 hour ago, Coffey said:

Brodie Lee was Big E's best friend, from what I understand... and how AEW treated his passing, compared to WWE acknowledgement is a night & day difference. It wouldn't surprise me. That's even before you to get what they've done w/ a lot of Xavier's friends like Tyler Breeze or how WWE treated Kofi Kingston or a number of other things. Hell, the New Day Podcast, even. If they were in AEW, they can do their podcast, they can do Twitch, they don't have to worry about being exploited, they earn their own money that they get to keep & they're back working with a lot of their friends. Plus AEW doesn't have the history of racism & isn't in a working deal with Saudi Arabia, nor are they a publicly traded company that cuts people each quarter just to look better to non-wrestling fan shareholders. 

To be completely 100% honest, I have zero idea why ANYONE would choose WWE over AEW right now. WWE can't even claim to be where the money is at anymore. The only negative about AEW right now is that their roster is getting so big, there's not enough room/time for everyone.

^^^^

I agree 100 percent. I was actually going to type basically the same thing. So now I have no reason to. I just find it amusing we cancel SO many things but yet WWE somehow gets away with all they have done. Katie Vick, the VERY racist angle leading to the WM 19 Title Match as just 2 of many many examples. Just so much crap that I can't believe they haven't been canceled yet. It's so weird that in this cancel culture world they get a pass. Weird....

[sek69]

It's because wrestling, and especially WWE, has the "who cares, it's just fake rasslin" idea where anyone who makes a fuss about something they do gets ignored by the mainstream press unless it's something really serious like the Benoit deal. 

[Ricky Jackson]

They mostly get a pass because it's wrestling and most people see it as garbage not worth wasting a second of thought about. But fortunately for Vince and co., TV companies with a ton of $ to throw around love them 

[sek69]

Speaking of WWE being a trash company, they put out a statement saying Keith Lee's comments about paying for his own medical bills were "erroneous", which everyone is reading as them paying for any in ring injuries but not for the COVID related issues he got on the job.

[Dav'oh]

We know there's less people watching wrestling live or on television today than there were in 1983, when Vince began to make wrestling more popular (ahem)....I didn't know America's population has increased by almost 100 million people in the same time. It's damning and shameful that Vince oversaw an audience decline during a population boom.

But I guess it was never about the industry , for Vince. It was always about Vince.

[El-P]

With the Survivor Series being basically ignored by WWE, have they reached the point where, in their current business model, the only things that matter and are gonna get focused on are basically WrestleMania (and by extension and to some extents Royal Rumble) and the Saudi shows ? Survivor Series was quickly the lesser of the Big Four, but it was still historically a very important PPV, that has only gotten ridiculed by the awful brand vs brand supremacy booking in the last decade or so. This year has to be the  absolute nadir in term of building to one of their historical Big Four though. I guess it doesn't even matter if people watch it or not anymore as long as the Peacock deal is safe.

[strobogo]

People have been talking about how Survivor Series isn't treated as the big event it should for like...20 years now. I'd argue there have been way better Survivor Series shows in the 00s and 10s than some truly, truly dreadful shows in the 90s when it was still kind of a big deal. 1991 is probably the dullest PPV in history and I legit used to put it on to go to sleep as a kid. It wasn't even until the Network came around that I actually even made it to the final match. 

[MoS]

There was a stretch in the mid-00s when Survivor Series was on absolute fire, arguably the best of the non-WM PPVs. I remember Team Austin v. Team Bischoff with Austin's career on the line to be tremendously well-booked and also drew a massive number. Of course Austin was back within like 6 weeks of the supposed end of his career. Shit like that eventually killed off all stipulations as entirely meaningless. 

[Jmare007]

I think the last Surivivor Series they really gave a fuck about pushing was Rock returning to MSG to team with Cena, which lead to the Awesome Truth angle. Regardless of it was executed, it was undeniable WWE actually tried to make it work because Rock was involved.

[SteveJRogers]

11 minutes ago, MoS said:

There was a stretch in the mid-00s when Survivor Series was on absolute fire, arguably the best of the non-WM PPVs. I remember Team Austin v. Team Bischoff with Austin's career on the line to be tremendously well-booked and also drew a massive number. Of course Austin was back within like 6 weeks of the supposed end of his career. Shit like that eventually killed off all stipulations as entirely meaningless. 

He was there the Raw after the night in 1998 Vince fired him for not counting a finish in Undertaker-Kane!  

[sek69]

WWE still makes a big deal about SummerSlam too, and since there's usually a Saudi show in the fall now that pretty much took Survivor Series' place as one of the Big Four. 

 

Honestly, one could make the argument that the only purpose Survivor Series ever had was to fuck with JCP's shows and get them to move Starrcade to December. Once that happened, you can tell Vince really stopped caring that much about it. 

[Matt D]

It's a dozen things right now:

• The Planeride from Hell doc
• The firings
• The Keith Lee thing
• The total mismanagement (EDIT: I'm not even sure what this line was supposed to be. Just go with it)
• The Mox book
• Seeing AEW do so many things that are crowd-pleasing and caring
• The crazy corporate speak
• The Saudi relationship
• Some of the worst NXT 2.0 stuff
• The lack of stakes/build/payoff
• Some specific things like what happened with Bianca or the way they handled the Queen's Crown tournament
• The obvious revenue stream making things like immediate ratings or merch or ticket sales not matter at all.

And probably more, but I just can't get invested at all with anything they're doing right now. Just the idea of even watching WALTER vs Cesaro from last week doesn't feel worth looking at. I think a lot of it is AEW, to be honest, just the idea that if it was in AEW, they'd give it to us and highlight it and not just bury it on foreign shows and fancams. It would be presented as something of value and worth and not looked at as "Why would you want to see that when you can watch what we want you to watch instead?"

 

[sek69]

AEW went out of its way to make sure Bryan and Suzuki was available on YouTube, if that match happened in WWE, it *may* have been a Network Special back when they were trying to get people to sign up, but with Peacock we'd probably only see snippets of it. 

 

[C.S.]

46 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I think the last Surivivor Series they really gave a fuck about pushing was Rock returning to MSG to team with Cena, which lead to the Awesome Truth angle. Regardless of it was executed, it was undeniable WWE actually tried to make it work because Rock was involved.

I'd argue the ones with the returns of Sting and Angle felt important too.

After that, I got nothing.

[sek69]

Most Survivor Series have that "we're pushing this as a big show because it's the second oldest PPV after Mania but we don't really have anything important to do" feel to them. 

[Ricky Jackson]

Totally agree with @Matt D, it's just everything, all the bullshit, all together, that is just such a complete turn off. Like, so bad I don't see how I'll ever want to watch again bad. I was pretty done with WWE after NXT stopped being fun around the summer of 19 anyway, but the last two years seem to have been a bunch of nothing, even factoring in the pandemic crowd restrictions. I'm actively rooting for failure

[fxnj]

2017 had Lesnar/Styles, 2018 had Lesnar/Bryan, and 2020 had Taker's retirement and Reigns/Mcintyre. I'm with stro that SvS's rep as "the big 4 PPV WWE forgets about" is highly exaggerated.

[C.S.]

8 minutes ago, fxnj said:

2017 had Lesnar/Styles, 2018 had Lesnar/Bryan, and 2020 had Taker's retirement and Reigns/Mcintyre.

Taker's retirement, yes.

Two matches where the result was a foregone conclusion (both Brock matches), no.

"But they were good wrestling matches." That doesn't matter by itself. Never has. Never will.

A good wrestling match in a vacuum is next to useless. A good wrestling match with compelling characters, a great build, and (hopefully) an uncertain conclusion is what makes a good match into a great and meaningful one.

[sek69]

It really does speak volumes that the most compelling reason to watch anything in WWE right now is to see if Charlotte and Becky end up beating the shit out of each other legit on live TV. 

[Jmare007]

1 hour ago, fxnj said:

2017 had Lesnar/Styles, 2018 had Lesnar/Bryan, and 2020 had Taker's retirement and Reigns/Mcintyre. I'm with stro that SvS's rep as "the big 4 PPV WWE forgets about" is highly exaggerated.

Those champion vs champion matches never had a legit "OMG you can't miss this match on PPV!" push. There's a whole bunch of WWE PPVs that have marquee names facing each other but don't have the build nor hype behind them (regardless of how great those encounters ended up being).

A "big 4 PPV" should have more effort behind it than "well this sounds cool, how about you watch it in two weeks?".

[Alucard]

Survivor Series 2016 had maybe my all time fav 5 on 5 with the classic Roman spears Shane O Mac mid air. Hell of a 1-2 punch following it up with the unforgettable and shocking at the time Goldberg/Lesnar squash. Haven't enjoyed any of them since though and the "build" this year with just naming and replacing team members is truly awful. 

[KawadaSmile]

Shiiiit

[KawadaSmile]

Oh my fucking gid