WWE TV 08/09 - 08/15 NXT is no more

[KawadaSmile]

Ilja is actually pretty decent looking, but he's always looking like he's been through a meat grinder after his matches. Has some sort of appeal tbh.

[sek69]

I wonder what these new criteria means for someone like WALTER. He's past their preferred age slightly (I actually thought he was older and was surprised he's only 33) and while he's bigger he doesn't have the typical WWE body. 

[SirEdger]

I don't think WALTER will be sweating anything that happens, at this stage. His reputation in the indies is great enough that he could still thrive there. And based on how he was treated in that Survivor Series Match he was part of in 2019, do you really expect Vince, Bruce & Dunn to do anything worthwhile with him?

[KawadaSmile]

What worried me about his presentation at the Survivor Series wasn't that he was one of the first to be eliminated, but his aura as a chopping machine got kinda destroyed there IMO. I mean, he still chops hard as shit, but Drew clearly outdid him there.

[C.S.]

14 hours ago, Coffey said:

On the other side of the pillow, how about the women? Because like, they all look good. Sans like maybe Doudrop & even she already got on the main roster & is getting used weekly. So this whole gotta be under 30 & gotta be the size of Zeus, what's the mean for the women?

Doudrop looks good to me, but yeah, we both know Vince sees her as Bertha Faye 2.0.

The only real hope the women have is if Vince doesn't care about them enough, which is a double-edged sword in itself.

[kas]

The first reply in the thread summarises the video, basically, Keith Lee has been dealing with an inflamed heart after catching COVID and there was a chance he'd pass away. Glad it's been dealt with and I hope the recovery goes well.

[sek69]

Shoutout to Mia Yim, didn't want to leave his side even though it meant she got it too. 

[rovert]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Shoutout to Mia Yim, didn't want to leave his side even though it meant she got it too. 

Keith lost a lot of friends and family members in Texas last year due to COVID too.

[MoS]

Holy shit. I am so glad he is alive and healthy now. There are things so much bigger than wrestling and pushes and theme songs

[C.S.]

4 hours ago, kas said:

https://twitter.com/RealKeithLee/status/1425873776709931011

The first reply in the thread summarises the video, basically, Keith Lee has been dealing with an inflamed heart after catching COVID and there was a chance he'd pass away. Glad it's been dealt with and I hope the recovery goes well.

Full transcript from WrestlingInc.com:

Quote

“Alright, so obviously I’ve been a busy bee, but I said that for those who took the time to care for me, that I was going to make this… you know, just information for you guys, something to share, because I’ve always kind of been that way. Open, for the most part. So the first time I tried to record this it turned out to be like 13 minutes, so we’re going to try and reduce some of that this time. So, let’s talk about the time since January. Alright, let’s get this knocked out. So, as some of you know, toward the end of January I missed about three weeks on TV. At that time I had contracted COVID-19, and actually before I continue, let me go ahead and point out something because I’ve been seeing some disturbing and just rude remarks towards Mia Yim. Some stating that it was her fault that I was gone, and some stating that she gave me COVID, and what have you. Let me go ahead and clear that up right now… that needs to be clear. Were it not for her, I don’t know how things would’ve gone, to be quite honest. I contracted COVID, she did not, actually for like three weeks, and the only reason that she did contract it was because she refused to not be there and take care of me, and unfortunately that ended up costing her an opportunity in the Royal Rumble, but that was a chance she was willing to take. So, you know, at the end of the day I’m grateful to her, and it’s unfortunate that some of you are ungrateful because the reality is, there’s no telling how things would’ve gone without her assistance.

“So… after that I came back for one match against Mr. Riddle, and I believe that was February 8th, and then the next day I got a call saying that there was something off in my blood. Some people may have experienced this thing where there’s like an inflammation in the heart or lungs, for me it was the heart, and you know, that led to very scary times. I was basically forbidden from training or any activity outside of a light walk. So there was a fear that doing more than that, that there was a chance that I could just up and pass away. So for three or four months, this was kind of the case and I had several MRIs on my heart. By the way, I don’t fit in those machines, it was terrible and my shoulders really struggled with that, but we had to do what we had to do, right? So this became a fight against death, so to speak, and it took up until the company sent me to Pittsburgh [to Dr. Joseph Maroon] to get looked at, and it was to the point where I was about to have to undergo genetic testing and all sorts of things, because it was thought that there was a potential I could have a heart disease of sorts. Very fortunately, even though it took a long time, we waited that amount of time, for that allowed the inflammation in my heart to eventually go down to normal. So, even though the first MRI was bad, and the second one was worse, over time things got better here and there, and eventually after that visit, I was cleared to try and get back into some sort of shape, and that’s where the real struggle is [he laughs].

“But yeah, it took some time and to be honest, it wasn’t even certain that I was going to show up in Dallas [at RAW on July 19], in terms of on TV. So, you know, for the people that cared, I greatly appreciate you, and you guys mean a lot more than you know, some of you even more than that. At the end of the day, I don’t really know what’s next, right? The idea for me is, I fought the battle that mattered the most, and I’m healthy, and at the end of the day, that’s all I can really ask for, that’s all my family can ask for, and now we fight to make the most of what we can do in this industry, and we just move forward. Isn’t that what I always say? Forward match, the grind continues, it’s forever. We fought death, I don’t mind fighting anybody else. So, we move forward and I guess we continue to show exactly what it means to be limitless. Yeah. Until then… stay up, people.”

Sounds like a rough road. So glad he's okay now!

P.S. Wrestling fans fucking suck for blaming Mia Yim. They really are the lowest forms of life on earth. 

[sek69]

Not saying it excuses any harassment, but I seem to recall the story being at the time that Mia had COVID and people took that to mean since Keith was missing he must have gotten it from her. Sadly wrestling fans acting like shitbags isn't surprising to me anymore.

[KawadaSmile]

Yeah, him being there at all is good enough for me. Props to Mia Yim and may Lee have a nice, speedy recovery.

[ragemaster]

I’m glad to hear that Keith Lee is healthy and well again, hopefully there is no more long term heath issues from covid for him going forward 

But this does highlight how inept WWE is with anything handed to them from real life.

You think they do a video about three weeks back on Raw, a month before he returned and build it up big, WWE superstar fights to get back into WWE ring from near death illness.

Have his first match back on Summerslam, after showing some training video’s, make it real doing some sit down at home videos with him and Mia Yim.This stuff is so easy to do, it's crazy how they lost the knowledge/will to get people over at this point 

 

[Blehschmidt]

1 hour ago, ragemaster said:

I’m glad to hear that Keith Lee is healthy and well again, hopefully there is no more long term heath issues from covid for him going forward 

But this does highlight how inept WWE is with anything handed to them from real life.

You think they do a video about three weeks back on Raw, a month before he returned and build it up big, WWE superstar fights to get back into WWE ring from near death illness.

Have his first match back on Summerslam, after showing some training video’s, make it real doing some sit down at home videos with him and Mia Yim.This stuff is so easy to do, it's crazy how they lost the knowledge/will to get people over at this point 

 

I mean....that could work....

But what if instead... he showed up unannounced, and jobbed to Bobby Lashley in 5 minutes! 

That's Some Good Shit, Pal!

 

In all seriousness, Keith Lee is one of my 2 or 3 favorite modern talents, and I am very glad to hear that he is going to be okay. 

[C.S.]

14 hours ago, ragemaster said:

You think they do a video about three weeks back on Raw, a month before he returned and build it up big, WWE superstar fights to get back into WWE ring from near death illness.

Have his first match back on Summerslam, after showing some training video’s, make it real doing some sit down at home videos with him and Mia Yim.This stuff is so easy to do, it's crazy how they lost the knowledge/will to get people over at this point 

Damn you! Now I really want this.

If nothing else, we would've gotten a great WWE Network documentary about it in the past. But now? With Peacock, WWE no longer has to bother.

12 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

In all seriousness, Keith Lee is one of my 2 or 3 favorite modern talents, and I am very glad to hear that he is going to be okay. 

Same here.

[MoS]

I really hate feuds built on SHOOT~!! comments and feuds. Hated it when Moxley and MJF did it last year and I hated it when Cena and Roman did it the first time they feuded. It doesn't make anyone look good. You have two stars who are cool and badass, why not just build on that instead of both reminding viewers how the other has failed and sucks

[KawadaSmile]

Meanwhile, Corbin still keeps on shining, asking 1k from every individual in the crowd.

[KawadaSmile]

Regarding Cena's line, it rocks because it's just a flat out lie. It's closer to the opposite, even - Cena fucking merked Ambrose back in 2016, and that was basically the beginning of the end for him in the Fed. 

[joeg]

This is so bad. 

[KawadaSmile]

Is Bianca Belair the biggest NXT success story post-2016?

[sek69]

Watching Smackdown right after coming home from Rampage may have been a mistake, but I love that Pat Mcafee has become this generation's David Crockett just marking out having fun watching a wrestling show. 

[KawadaSmile]

SmackDown did absolutely great numbers. 

Roman/Cena/Sasha do move the needle somehow.

[MoS]

Those great numbers are because Smackdown is on network TV and Fox got pre-empted by a lot of local channels showing the pre-season NFL games. The real number will come out later next week after taking pre-emptions into account. This is nothing new, the same used to happen in the late 90s and early 00s, the last time SD was on broadcast and not cable, and would get pre-empted locally in many markets for special sports or news items. 

The rolling 4-week average is a much better way to gauge how the show is doing. The numbers show that it is doing much better than the last few months of the thunderdome era, but not as good as it was doing late last year. Where Cena has made a huge turnaround is in ticket sales. Tickets were not moving at all before he returned at MitB and after his comeback, the box office has been up and running massively, in some places selling double the tickets they had sold prior to his return.

[sek69]

Saw it mentioned that Rampage had 28 minutes of wrestling while Smackdown had 27 this week. I wonder if it ever occurs to Vince that wrestling fans might like to watch wrestling matches once in a while. 

[KawadaSmile]

3 hours ago, MoS said:

Those great numbers are because Smackdown is on network TV and Fox got pre-empted by a lot of local channels showing the pre-season NFL games. The real number will come out later next week after taking pre-emptions into account. This is nothing new, the same used to happen in the late 90s and early 00s, the last time SD was on broadcast and not cable, and would get pre-empted locally in many markets for special sports or news items. 

This is true, but at the same time there wasn't a huge drop between hour 1 and hour 2, which was around 2.4m viewers. Does that factor in, in the end?

In this economy, it's impressive nonetheless.