RAW tonight

[Strummer]

this really sucks

 

hopefully Danielson waits the 90 days and decides to go back (with the angle still hopefully hot)

 

I mean the alternative is going to TNA

[El-P]

If it's not a work, well... WWE never fail to deliver on the retardation and the suckiness.

[rovert]

I wonder if Bryan will have to go anger management classes now or something before being re-signed?

 

I hear that the Observer reported that few if any were in on the angle was Justin Roberts included?

[Loss]

This has GOT to be a work, right? It's too stupid not to be.

 

That really sounds like a headline from WCW during 1999, to be honest.

[Loss]

Then again, it wouldn't be a very good work, because he's getting released from a company he already doesn't work for.

 

WWE is going to find themselves in a tough spot, considering they have this new company mantra to make television more believable and unpredictable, if when they try to up the aggression they get this kind of push back.

[rovert]

I saw Alan4l say that Mattel must have kicked up a stink. Sounds quite plausible that as Vince, Steph et al. praised the angle intially.

 

In today's age it is a bit hard to say something is a work without coming across as a know it all douche. The fact that if is legit WWE will turn it into a work doesnt help matters either. Like Loss I think the execution is too perfunctory to be a work. Either way it makes for some interesting speculation.

[S.L.L.]

This has GOT to be a work, right? It's too stupid not to be.

 

That really sounds like a headline from WCW during 1999, to be honest.

While it's hard to rule out the possibility of WWE brass being this intensely stupid, my mind keeps coming back to this:

 

Bryan Danielson, formerly Daniel Bryan and for about two minutes Bryan Danielson in WWE, appears to be Danielson again.

 

His WWE twitter name was just changed to Bryan Danielson and he mentioned it, saying "the winds of change are stirring."

Which happened before "Daniel Bryan" was publicly announced as being fired, but after he was internally announced as being fired. It's not unthinkable that one hand would've failed to talk to the other in time. Still, WWE.com announced his firing around 10:45 last night. Danielson's twitter update was about two hours before that. Even assuming that changing Danielson's name was a snap decision on WWE Creative's part, that Danielson was immediately informed of this, and that his Twitter page was immediately updated accordingly, that means that Danielson would have been fired at approximately 8:30 on a Friday night at the latest, and neither the public nor anyone in the company other than the top brass was told until 10:45. Were they waiting for Smackdown to end before they broke the bad news to everybody? Also, am I the only person having a hard time envisioning this not only as the kind of story that the WWE higher-ups would have been told and needed to keep secret from everyone else in the company - including WWE Creative and Danielson himself - for at least two hours, but that WWE higher ups would have needed to be informed about at all? Does anyone really see Vince sitting down the company's major management figures and saying "look, I know he was part of this big angle we did on Raw, and I know he's a four-time WON Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Year...but we're gonna have to let him go. Just don't tell anyone for two hours. Smackdown's on, and I don't want people getting bummed out."? Is the firing of Bryan Danielson a decision that WWE management would really concern themselves with, much less to the point that they'd need to keep it a secret? When Vince McMahon asked "Who the fuck hired Raven?", was he asking the COO? Did they have to keep Raven's firing a secret for the next two hours? Yeah, Danielson is a more valuable property fresh off of a hot angle, but you can say that about any of the NXT guys right now. Could anyone envision this happening with Skip Sheffield?

 

It's not impossible, and like Loss said, it's not a particularly good work if it's a work, but the circumstances behind it seem so unbelievable that something has to be up.

[El-P]

How bad things really are when people have to wonder if a firing is "a work" or not.

And if it is, how bad is that when WWE have to go to some "shoot" angle with a "real" firing to get some interest. It's as bad as anything Russo does in a "we are fake but this is real" way.

[goc]

Meltzer outed Donna Goldsmith and Michelle Wilson as sources as well.

No he didn't. Do you really think he has corporate sources in WWE headquarters, people who are there to run business stuff and have pretty much nothing to do with wrestling? How would he have ever gotten in contact with them, and what would be the point? To get Titan Tower gossip of who doesn't clean up the break room?

[rovert]

Meltzer outed Donna Goldsmith and Michelle Wilson as sources as well.

No he didn't. Do you really think he has corporate sources in WWE headquarters, people who are there to run business stuff and have pretty much nothing to do with wrestling? How would he have ever gotten in contact with them, and what would be the point? To get Titan Tower gossip of who doesn't clean up the break room?

 

I get your point but Carl DeMarco was one of Dave's sources wasnt he? If they werent sources or if he didnt have a source never them why did he change his initial report?

[Cox]

I dunno, considering how Chris Benoit killed his wife, I'm not thinking the firing is that bad. After getting creamed in the media with all of the choking spots post-Benoit, I can understand that still being a sensitive subject in WWE. It's unfortunate that a momentary lapse of judgment cost Danielson his job, but it's somewhat justifiable.

[rovert]

I dunno, considering how Chris Benoit killed his wife, I'm not thinking the firing is that bad. After getting creamed in the media with all of the choking spots post-Benoit, I can understand that still being a sensitive subject in WWE. It's unfortunate that a momentary lapse of judgment cost Danielson his job, but it's somewhat justifiable.

I agree that it wasnt kid friendly. This is kind of remincisent of the Funk-Flair plastic bag angle on the Flair DVD which got cut out of the UK release by the censors. The interesting questions is how the angle was put together and by whom? Why did Kevin Dunn linger on it? Along with how the decision made.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

It's unfortunate that a momentary lapse of judgment cost Danielson his job, but it's somewhat justifiable.

Can this really be considered a lapse of judgment on Bryan's part? He wasn't just going to choke out the ring announcer unless it was scripted for him. Obviously this was a planned spot, but obviously someone outside of WWE saw it and got upset and within WWE's corporate environment the only acceptable response is to lie and say "Well we didn't know he was going to do it, he's fired." This isn't a case of a wrestler going into business for himself, it's more like when Heyman got Kimona to strip at the ECW Arena and then stopped booking her because "it got too much heat."

[Guest Cobra Commander]

poor Bryan Danielson should have paid more attention to Connecticut politics. So he's gone for 2 months or 5 months, depending on circumstances.

 

No doubt about it. It got to one of the higher ups running her campaign and they told Vince to deal with the situation because campaign managers/etc are paranoid and willing to throw people under buses to avoid bad PR. And let's be honest, the last month has been nightmare PR for a lot of Senate candidates and they don't want someone saying that Linda's company is PG and has necktie choking going on.

 

Most corporate worlds are not known for fairness. Deal with it. BD will have a summer vacation, and return with the understanding that he has to get approval to do spots like that. And they will never acknowledge his NXT time because the NXT thing will fizzle by September.

[Loss]

I don't think it's Linda's campaign. I think it's Mattel.

[Strummer]

from DVDVR who got it from somewhere else:

 

Listening to audio report just now with Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez. Meltzer is saying he was told that there was "no logic" to the decision. The call came from Vince but he was pressured into it by someone from outside of the company who is very important to them. Danielson is supposedly now looking for Indy dates. Still has 90 day no compete clause. Internally people were saying "we just handed TNA a main eventer in 90 days" but Danielson was told by WWE that he will be able to be back with them in the future.

 

Says that in theory it COULD still be a work but if it is then they are working the entire company (including office guys like Marketing) which would't make much sense.

 

Says that currently there is a "much bigger situation going on with a much bigger name that would just boggle your mind."

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Keller says WWE has warned Danielson about saying "Jesus Christ" on the mic, which is so hilarious coming from the company that just four years ago did this.

[tomk]

Can this really be considered a lapse of judgment on Bryan's part? He wasn't just going to choke out the ring announcer unless it was scripted for him. Obviously this was a planned spot, but obviously someone outside of WWE saw it and got upset and within WWE's corporate environment the only acceptable response is to lie and say "Well we didn't know he was going to do it, he's fired." This isn't a case of a wrestler going into business for himself, it's more like when Heyman got Kimona to strip at the ECW Arena and then stopped booking her because "it got too much heat."

The blaming worker for getting overzealous in the moment has been a wrestling and WWF/E public relations spot for ages. I'm sure jdw could come up with a longer list than Bret blading in a planned spot or Stacy "the Cat" exposing her breasts in a planned spot. Its the way the biz works.

[Jingus]

According to Meltzer, the entire NXT angle was not in the script at all for secrecy reasons. So there's no paper trail on whether Danielson was ordered to do that or not.

 

I dunno, considering how Chris Benoit killed his wife, I'm not thinking the firing is that bad. After getting creamed in the media with all of the choking spots post-Benoit, I can understand that still being a sensitive subject in WWE. It's unfortunate that a momentary lapse of judgment cost Danielson his job, but it's somewhat justifiable.

But they've done choking angles post-Benoit that were much worse than this. Consider when Bradshaw wrapped a cable around Jericho's neck, dragged him around ringside and up the ramp, and tried to lynch him before security broke it up.

[Loss]

As Dave said today, regardless of whether they have done other ones that are worse or not, this happened to be the one that the "very important person" saw that complained. Because of the number of people on the corporate side being involved in this, something tells me the complaint was made to someone on the corporate side, then was escalated to Vince to make a decision. That's why I think it was Mattel, although Dave said WWE has recently entered licensing agreements with other similar groups where they've pretty much promised to keep things as clean as possible.

[Dan]

Going back to the redacted Meltz sources thing, if Mattell or someone similar was involved, it's likely Goldsmith and Wilson would be in the loop.

[rovert]

Going back to the redacted Meltz sources thing, if Mattell or someone similar was involved, it's likely Goldsmith and Wilson would be in the loop.

They were the "point" people about the deal at the recent Shareholder conference, so yep.

[goodhelmet]

Choking motherfuckers is what wrestling is all about. This is stupid.

[rovert]

Choking motherfuckers is what wrestling is all about. This is stupid.

You should make a comp

[Jingus]

As Dave said today, regardless of whether they have done other ones that are worse or not, this happened to be the one that the "very important person" saw that complained.

Yeah I know, it's just a handy example of the hypocracy surrounding this incident. Also, at another board someone pointed out that the finish of the main event of the Breaking Point ppv last year was Cena choking out Orton with the chain on a pair of handcuffs.

 

This is something I'm actually surprised doesn't happen more often. I've long thought that a "the right person turned on Raw at the wrong time" problem was inevitable. It's fairly amazing when you consider the amount of stuff they've gotten away with over the years. What were the ones to cause controversy, though? Al Snow carrying a mannequin's head, the Chuckabilly wedding, and one dude choking another dude with a piece of fucking silk cloth. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Imagine if some old-fashioned executive at the parent company which owns Spike one day turned on Impact to see if the rasslin' matches are like what he saw back in the day, only to be presented with a spectacle like two bleeding half-naked women rolling around in a giant pile of thumbtacks.