Lio Rush pulled from wXw 16 Carat Gold booking

[Steveweiser]

Westside Xtreme Wrestling just announced that due to "his WWE schedule", Lio Rush is no longer able to appear at 16 Carat Gold this weekend. He's been replaced by Jeff Cobb.

Why do partner promotions bother booking WWE talent at this point? OTT in Ireland are often stung by it, often by Tyler Bate, while PROGRESS lost Toni Storm a few months ago because WWE suddenly needed her for the Survivor Series. It is often the norm rather than the exception now that if a WWE signed talent is booked, they'll be withdrawn, often at very short notice.

[Deleted]

Why would've they loaned Lio Rush to 16 Carats? I haven't seen those tournaments in ages. Do they have some WWE connections or what? I read they just pulled Alex Shelley 'cause he's had already 9 Coronas.

[nisidhe]

I think you'll find, increasingly, that these promotions will either stop asking to book WWE-affiliated stars, or will book them and simply not advertise that they're coming.

There can be a value in underpromising and overdelivering in pro wrestling promotion. For that promotion that does it regularly, it becomes a selling point for them because "you never know who might show up!" and frees them to sign indie talent in case WWE flakes out on sending their talent. For WWE, that promotion can quickly become a problem because their fortunes are no longer rising or falling on WWE's caprice alone. It's already giving WWE such a bad reputation, for negotiating partnerships in bad faith and on such one-sided terms, that those existing partnerships won't be renewed by the smaller promoters who, by then, will have the options of signing AEW talent as well as high-profile independent talent, some shortly after having been released by WWE or allowing their WWE contracts expire.

For the WWE talent with BritWres ties, it could be a source of deep embarrassment because they signed onto NXT:UK in the belief that they were helping BritWres. Now that that goodwill is dissipating fast, some of those promoters may be reluctant to take those talents back once their WWE contracts expire (if those talents come looking for dates.) Likewise, as other British, Irish and Continental wrestlers begin looking at their options and increasingly sign elsewhere, it will be harder for WWE to use the idea of "helping the business" as a negotiating tactic; and certainly for them to lowball British and European talent on money because of this.

TL;DR - WWE is going to pay for this, one way or another.

[eJm]

With OTT, they're not so much of a partner as have an association. It's why they can have Trent Seven and Jordan Devlin on the same card as the Guerrillas of Destiny and Orange Cassidy and literally no other promotion in Europe can. So you could argue it's less of a surprise when talent are pulled and if they are, they can get someone from a bigger talent pool. Along with that OTT's built up enough talent for them to be able to further establish themselves to that audience (Calum Black, Terry Thatcher, Sammy D etc) not to even count the talent who are making a name for themselves in the UK and Europe (Your MTHs, Scotty Davises, Debbie Keitels etc).

PROGRESS has a problem of its cards being mostly NXT UK signed talent so they treat them well enough to let them do shows for PROGRESS and then suddenly turn around and go "So we're holding a UK Takeover on the same day as your event, sound good? Good, byeeeeeee!" and whilst OJMO and such are rising stars, it feels like things are being torn apart if a show was being affected. Hell, the fact it doesn't even affect OTT at all (who have a show in Dublin the next day) makes it even weirder because you'd think you'd aim for those guys rather than an actual partner.

I still say it's the difference between being a company run by fans and a company run by businessmen which is why it was so hard to get anything with a Japanese promotion before now since STARDOM's owned by BUSHIROAD now along with NJPW and NOAH and DDT have the same parent company. Sure, WWE could make an offer to buy them but that offer wouldn't be worth it when you have people who can see the bigger picture then just "Hey cool, we have an partnership with WWE!".

[Shy Guy]

Jan 7, 1975 6:04:45 GMT -5 nisidhe said:

TL;DR - WWE is going to pay for this, one way or another.

I'm sure they're shaking in their little space boots about it

[autisticgeordie]

Why does any independent wrestling company want to sign up with WWE after this? Like, PROGRESS was doing just fine without WWE, so it's not like they needed to be partnered up with them; the indy scene is doing just fine without WWE's "help" and it just seems that, whenever WWE gets involved, things go pear shaped for whatever indy associated with them.

[nisidhe]

Mar 3, 2020 12:49:44 GMT -5 Shy Guy said:

Jan 7, 1975 6:04:45 GMT -5 nisidhe said:

TL;DR - WWE is going to pay for this, one way or another.

I'm sure they're shaking in their little space boots about it

These pantywaists shake in their boots every time an indie promotion draws more than 200 to a high school gym. Enough that they'll sign everyone in attendance to a five-year developmental contract just to keep them from working.

Seriously, though, for all the talent they have amassed over the last five years, WWE is having a bit of a labour crisis these days: contracted talents are either asking for releases or to be kept as far away from Vince as possible. That's bad news for all the brands from both creative and business standpoints, and it's creating a wrestler's market where indie talents are increasingly choosing not to sign with WWE at all and/or demanding higher down- and upside from WWE than they might from, say, AEW, in exchange for the lessened creative freedom and the stigma (of sorts, in some quarters) of having chosen money over pushing the craft to greater heights. I mean, sure, I don't begrudge a talent for taking as much of Vince's money as they can get away with, but wrestling as a whole relies on these talents being as active and creative as possible to secure its future growth; and their legacy as performers relies on performing. The system Vince has set up currently is overcompensating the Tommy Wiseaus and Uwe Bolls of wrestling while cutting out the legs of the Tom Hanks's or the Steven Spielbergs.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

This is another category where AEW is gonna keep winning. The flexibility of their schedule allows almost all their wrestlers to be booked on Indies and Tony Khan has openly expressed that Indies are great for the wrestlers to continue to learn and stay loose wrestling wise on.

WWE's schedule is longer and much more booked up, but when it comes to this constant pulling out of bookings with the few wrestlers allowed to work an Indie show or two, it's a terrible look for WWE.

[Stone Coke Miami Watson 🥃]

Lio Rush: "I, I, I came to collect!"

wXw Staff: "Sir, you're no longer booked..."

Lio Rush:

[Facetious]

Mar 3, 2020 13:33:22 GMT -5 autisticgeordie said:

Why does any independent wrestling company want to sign up with WWE after this? Like, PROGRESS was doing just fine without WWE, so it's not like they needed to be partnered up with them; the indy scene is doing just fine without WWE's "help" and it just seems that, whenever WWE gets involved, things go pear shaped for whatever indy associated with them.

UK companies have no choice. WWE signed up most of the name talents and those are the ones who draw to a show.