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Post by eJm on May 18, 2024 7:06:21 GMT -5
Oh this’ll be fuuuuuun.
Not for RJ, certainly.
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Post by eJm on May 18, 2024 5:25:25 GMT -5
It’s something WWE’s done with people where they hire talent that you’d think they’d make fit into their environment but then give them a quirk that feels wildly out of place that they have to adapt to on the fly.
Like, if I spent months looking to hire the Guerrillas of Destiny, I’d kind of expect them to be that under a different name for my company because you’d want that interest from that person’s fanbase (and GoD did have fans, yes).
It’ll probably not affect him much in the long term but it’s one of those Vinceisms that they haven’t seen to have gotten rid of yet, even though they have been better at undoing those mistakes (Pete Dunne, LA Knight etc).
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 17:44:20 GMT -5
I’ll say what I said in one of the other ratings threads;
If you’re that concerned about these particular numbers, get a Neilson box attached to your cable box, get your friends to attach Neilson boxes to their cable box and watch Dynamite. Otherwise, we only know, like, a small percentage of what WBD has in terms of important numbers.
Everything else is just ignoring literally everything we know coming from WBD for the past 5 years.
EDIT: And that’s not to say these discussions can’t happen but until I hear Warner Bros Discovery not wanting to give AEW spots to promote their content, including a literal show on one of their YouTube channels, a lot of it is pie in the sky thinking.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 11:14:06 GMT -5
I 100% think that "Stand Up for WWE" was the birth of this modern version of wrestling tribalism. Oh, absolutely not. In general, I think some of y'all underestimate just how long this sort of attitude's been around. I remember 411mania in 05-08 doing a weekly article on wrestlers who had cool career moments that week, and the comments were always mostly people complaining that the 411mania guys dared to include anyone who wasn't in WWE. I distinctly remember a line like "Anyone who is on WWE TV for even a second is having a better career than anyone on the indies." All these years on, that's a very funny sentiment considering how the WWE low-carders of the time generally fizzled out of the business while the ROH and Chikara guys had pretty memorable careers, but I digress. It's not a wrestling-exclusive thing, either, it's just exacerbated by how long WWE monopolized the pop culture image of pro wrestling. There will always be a lot of people for whom "have I heard of the people in this?" will far outweigh "is this good?", and WWE has had a stranglehold on wrestlers people have heard of since 2001. Heck, it’s something WWE themselves still push, or at least 2K does with the games. How many story modes have there been where any indie is a step close to being considered an environmental hazard for how incompetent they are or Japan just being considered one thing and not the amount of promotions it has? This year’s game did a whole thing about how weapons matches with light tubes and stuff are stuff only small time promotions do. But yes, I do very much remember the discussion of “Can they make it in WWE?” being the wrestling equivalent of “Can they deal with a rainy Tuesday night in Stoke?” has been for soccer/football.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 9:59:09 GMT -5
I mean, yeah, that's what happens; cable audience shrinks, your numbers shrink. WWE temporarily bucking the trend was a huge deal, but that's how it goes, and if overall TV viewership is down on a given night for whatever reason, it is what it is. It also highlights what a great long term move WWE might be making by getting onto a streaming service with RAW on Netflix. And not just that, basically taking three of your biggest markets (Canada, UK/Ireland and Latin America) all to Netflix.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 9:25:03 GMT -5
Yeah, it really turns out that Jarrett wasn't the jerk we all thought he was due to the stories told to us by "the office". I think Jarrett has said he asked and got more than he probably would have otherwise. They were estimating what the payouts would be for the prior months’ shows since the numbers and divvying up of pay hadn’t been done yet and JR said $150,000. Jarrett insisted on $300,000 and ended up getting it. Which likely explains the spin and downright hatred of Jeff Jarrett before his return a few years ago.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 7:20:49 GMT -5
I suppose the difference is that for the majority of that time, the WWE product WAS bad and you had both the most vocal people being critical of it and not many people defending it. The AEW product, something that I always say that I'm not in much of a position to judge fairly because I don't watch a lot of it, reads like a perfectly competent wrestling show, so I get why there'd be people more in-tune with it defending its merits more vocally. Also for this forum in particular, most people weren’t talking about the indies like ROH or CZW, Lucha Underground came and went and TNA was a lot of the time what people think the AEW section was. If you weren’t watching WWE, you weren’t watching pro wrestling for the most part. If you were dedicated, you were involved in CHIKARA’s rise and the eventual rise and dramatic fall of BritWres but if all you had accessible was what WWE was doing from the mid 00s to 2017 or so, that was it. And then New Japan got hot and booked Jericho/Omega, All In became a thing and the rest is history.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 7:17:23 GMT -5
The "you're not allowed to criticize AEW" stuff comes from the fact for years we've shit on WWE, and people didn't jump on you. For years we did more than shit on TNA and were rooting for them to fold, and nobody jumped on you for it, hell the people that did got made fun of. Both companies were torn apart, and that was fine. But when it comes to AEW, too many people with criticism get jumped on for it, or get told to just enjoy wrestling. With all due respect, I’ve been on this place long enough to know that none of what you said is true. Especially the TNA section stuff because that place was conflict Centre near the end of its run.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 7:12:54 GMT -5
One of the big things the WWF had during it's expansion was that if talent were due money, they would get that money without any shenanigans. It's looking increasingly that it was all Linda's doing and Vince, left to his own devices, is every bit as shady as other promoters and his unmentionable friend. If you don't have the money to fight him he'll try to short-change you out of pure spite. He fired Warrior for having the nerve to demand he be paid for a PPV in which he wrestled a major match some four months earlier. They also tried to spin Jeff Jarrett as greedy for years when all he wanted was his PPV and merch dues early for doing an extra match outside of his contract.
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Post by eJm on May 17, 2024 5:56:42 GMT -5
*Looks into story further*
Waaaait, thing that was actually doing well is stripped to bare bones, blamed on matters not to do with the losses that could have been easily fixed and files for bankruptcy soon after?
Where have I seen that happen before?
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Post by eJm on May 16, 2024 10:59:36 GMT -5
I'll agree with the sentiment that sending someone like an Orton or even a Sheamus down to NXT will do the brand some good. As I said before, the show will practically be on Network TV, you can't get away with being a developmental brand anymore. Sure, yes, debut people there to get work but at the end of the day, you're choosing people to put on TV every week you feel are ready, those people need to be at a certain level and you need to make the brand look on par with Raw and Smackdown. Anything else is honestly wasting the opportunity.
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Post by eJm on May 16, 2024 10:01:33 GMT -5
Makes sense. It's doing good there so you might as well keep that audience watching that day too.
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 15:52:37 GMT -5
I’ll only be bitter about PPVs go to Max because we here in Ireland haven’t gotten it yet and I’ll still be relying on Triller and AEW Plus.
So obviously that means I don’t want any of you Americans to get it! 😡
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 13:40:05 GMT -5
So the new show was, in fact, an online show exclusive to TBS’ YouTube which could be the spiritual successor to Dinner and a Movie. EDIT: And Eddie Kingston’s the first guest! If I wasn’t sold already, this picture would have super sold me.
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 12:51:36 GMT -5
The exclusivity window being that long really affects AEW being able to have any type of leverage in negotiations at this point, one would think. That’s pretty much how these things usually go. It was very much why WWE waited for theirs to expire with USA and for the most part, it seemed to have paid off for them. Not saying it’ll go the same way but we also didn’t really hear anything about interest in WWE until that ended and then apparently they just went to every conglomerate they could think of. EDIT: Another main difference is that both sides seem to really like and want to work with each other, as the TBS YouTube show clearly demonstrates so there isn’t that much need to rush something if the relationship is already smooth.
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 11:10:02 GMT -5
Plus recycling themes is nothing new. Kurt Angle's theme was the old Patriot theme. Luke Gallows' SES theme was the old St. Valentine's Day Massacre theme (and briefly Big Show's theme). Towards the end of her run, Alicia Fox was using Maria Kanellis' old theme. Recycling a theme is markedly different than copying and pasting the exact same guitar riffs, and maybe adjusting the tempo so someone not paying attention won't immediately notice. Setting aside how bad many of the themes are, the sheer laziness from Def Rebel should be a firing offense, contract or not. Also CM Punk's first theme was originally used by Randy Orton for a couple of weeks. It then was used to hype the King of the Ring final between Lashley and Booker T around the same time they dropped it as an Orton theme.
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 11:08:51 GMT -5
So the new show was, in fact, an online show exclusive to TBS’ YouTube which could be the spiritual successor to Dinner and a Movie.
EDIT: And Eddie Kingston’s the first guest!
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 11:06:15 GMT -5
At the WBD upfronts today, the head of TNT Sports basically said they were looking forward to the upcoming season and hope a deal can be struck for the NBA to stay somewhat on TNT.
which basically is them saying “We’re trying our best, shareholders, please don’t tank the shares for the love of God”.
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 10:52:16 GMT -5
Let me put this through the VagueSpeechanator and…
*ahem*
“WE STILL HAVE THE NBA FOR AT LEAST A SEASON, PLEASE DON’T TANK OUR SHARES BECAUSE WE MIGHT ACTUALLY REACH SOME KIND OF AGREEMENT! AAAAAAAAAAAH!”
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Post by eJm on May 15, 2024 10:28:33 GMT -5
"She was given a lawyer by Vince which poisons it." Underrated piece of horror right here. It's a wild sentence to admit because they're basically saying "Hey, we trusted this NDA, to be signed by her, to one of the lawyers for the person establishing the NDA and there's nothing shady about that, everything is above board". The lawyer might as well be a gun to her back to sign it because what was she going to do in that situation that wasn't going to jeopardies her career and livelihood?
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