King Pitcos

Remember a couple of months back, when the Vince Bad narrative was about him not releasing wrestlers? 

4 minutes ago, MEGABUCKS said:

According to Sid in every shoot interview he has said he asked for his release at Royal Rumble 92 after the way Hogan behaved backstage. Vince then requested Sid to atleast stay till Wrestlemania 8 and also do the European tour.

According to Wiki, quoting Meltz (which might not be the most reliable, although neither is Sid 😂), he failed a drug test before Mania, was due to be suspended at some point after, but quit because of some disagreement about his matches with Ultimate Warrior.

Sorry for double post, I thought the thread was more active than it really was.

Just now, tiger_rick said:

Yeah, I thought that was the case. Can't believe wrestling people exaggerate though.

I’d believed it. I definitely remembered it as him being gone from WrestleMania 8 until he was Shawn’s bodyguard years later - and I went to that April 1992 tour! I went to the show with the other crew though (LoD vs Nasty Boys as the main, rather than Taker vs Sid).

3 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

That one came to my mind. I've heard everything from him being fired the second he walked through the curtain!

According to Wiki, he did the European tour and a couple of house shows after. Left three weeks to the day after wrestling Hogan at WrestleMania. How long ago did the good brothers film the boneyard match?

1 minute ago, GeronimoJacksBeard said:

Gallows and Anderson being involved in a WrestleMania "main event" and being released this soon after has got to be some kind of record hasn't it?

What happened with Sid after WrestleMania 8?

2 minutes ago, Shy Dad said:

Logan going makes me think Vikings could be gone too? 

There has to be some logic to the firings, have people been asked to take a pay cut or defer payments? If someone is released do they pay the entire remainder of their contract or a sum? 

If they’re released under a 90 day no-compete, they should be paid for the next 90 days. But for some of them, they might not be due any money in that time anyway because there’s been no touring for the last month.

11 minutes ago, Shy Dad said:

Finlay and Storm could do wonders in AEW working with talent. A few of them learning from those two may add some ability to them.

Maybe, but Shawn Michaels doesn’t seem to have taught the moveset boys in NXT much.

2 minutes ago, PowerButchi said:

Surprised Finlay is gone. Wouldn't be surprised to see several of the staff return in the future. 

I was thinking the same. This seems temporary until they’re back touring.

7 minutes ago, The Dart said:

Finlay, Lance Storm, The Hurricane and IRS all gone too according to PWI.  Those ones probably won't get published on wwe.com.

Also Billy Kidman and Daivari.

Who does that leave? Tyson Kidd?

6 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

@King Pitcos Double Or Nothing is long enough away for them to say “nothing is set in stone, let’s see how the next month plays out.”

If they have to they could have a short hiatus after the current taping are done with Double Or Nothing as the first show back. I don’t think it would lose them any fans 

How short a hiatus?

3 hours ago, UK Kat Von D said:

That being said they really should save it for when regular attendance shows are back on, for both safety and creative reasons. They postponed Blood and Guts because they knew it wouldn’t work without a live crowd, don’t see how this is different 

They can't just postpone everything, because there's no guarantee they can pick up where they left off. If Jesus rocks up tomorrow and says everything's gonna be back to normal on June 15th, fair enough. It might be possible to squeeze through a couple of months with repeats of stuff without the TV stations fucking it off. But it's unlikely Jesus will do that, so we don't know how long it's going to be before arenas and stadiums are back open. Big crowd gigs could be one of the last things to come back. If it's six months, eight months, a year, filling the time in between now and then with Matt Jackson vlogs from his house isn't going to cut it. They can't keep every storyline ticking over for that long with no wrestling happening. When things came back, they'd essentially be relaunching the promotion - at the same time that loads of other, more popular things in the world are also relaunching.

Wrestling isn't built around season premieres and finales the way most other sports and TV shows are. The ongoing churn is its big appeal, not just to the TV networks but to the audience. It's always there. It's rarely a big, exciting event like a new Game of Thrones season, but it's something you can rely on every week when there's nothing else on. Game of Thrones gave an hour or so for about ten weeks a year. Between WWE and AEW, there's nine hours of new wrestling on cable TV a week. Even if it's just on as background noise, it's something new.

Keep in mind as well that a lot of what keeps us on here still following wrestling is the backstage gossip. With fuck all happening though, there's nothing for Bryan Alvarez to REEEEEE about. All the sub-Meltzer clickbait YouTube channels with their silhouette thumbnails would fade away. There'd be little cause for new On-Topic threads on here. Sure, the Usos and Jeff Hardy would get arrested now and again, and Cody might get another awful tattoo, but that's not enough to keep us going.

TL,DR; With no end date to social distancing measures, wrestling either does stuff without crowds or waits for a live audience that might not come back. Both have risks. They can, to some extent, mitigate the risks that come with doing empty venue shows.

3 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Someone posted pics from one of those flight tracker things. Across Europe there were quite a few planes but mostly cargo. Over the US, hundreds of them. Although apparently nearly all empty which is even worse.

 

That seems mental. So they’re social distancing, but the only thing stopping people being wedged in together on a commercial flight for a few hours is lack of tickets sold. There must be some sort of contractual reason for it - will the airlines lose a license or slots if they don’t fly X number of planes? Keeping the planes going can’t be profitable in and of itself. 

Dirty psycho shower of bastards, man. It’s going to blow up in their faces and one of the wrestlers is going to die from being forced to work.

That said, my moral code is pretty flexible when it comes to wrestling, so I’m still gonna watch the product.

😬😬😬

I guess this has been relocated to Florida.

59 minutes ago, Cannibal Man said:

imagine the strength of the clap Lawler's had in 70's Memphis, he's probably immune

That's a bit of a bitchy comment about girls born in Memphis in the mid to late sixties.

I bet Lawler’s hoping nearly everyone else refuses to turn up so Vince will let him have a match. Three hours of him chasing Drake Maverick around the Performance Center.

10 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Given that WWE performers are flying in from right across the country

Surely they're doing that on the private WWE jet? Or are there still normal cross country flights in the US (and if so, why)? 

55 minutes ago, Wrasslin said:

Surely it's Funk vs Lawler? "MY EYE!"

I know that’s the one most highly thought of, but I struggle to get into most wrestling  pre about 1990.

1 hour ago, King Pitcos said:

Where did anyone say they did? Have I just done a wall of text because you can’t read properly? Fucksake 😆

4 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Yes

I dunno, man. He’s always had loads of potential, with crowd engagement being one of his weaker points, and the competition for Best Empty Arena Match isn’t great. I’d be surprised if I enjoy it more than Rock vs Mankind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s really good. 

Florida in 86! Seems like it would’ve been alright, this:

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr= 32241

Billy Jack Haynes and Dusty vs Billy Graham and One Man Gang in the main.

Too late to stop myself being born, but I could go and kill myself as a baby.

6 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

They don’t frequently plan stories around the reaction of a hive mind.

Where did anyone say they did? Have I just done a wall of text because you can’t read properly? Fucksake 😆

On 4/10/2020 at 6:42 PM, DavidB6937 said:

Really disappointing if that's the case. They actually did a fairly decent job this time round.

It’s mad that they were doing alright this time and it’s been killed off by external factors. But selfishly, I’m glad that it means less promotion and crossover stuff on the wrestling. Although I don’t think there was that much this time compared the old XFL.

3 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Something on the level of Kofi or the RVD match. Can you think of any time they have successfully engineered that type of story into an actual pay off?

What does “something on the level of Kofi or the RVD match” even mean? 🤣 Until you’ve specified what you actually mean by successful, I’m not sure what you’re after. I also didn’t even mention success in the original post, so I’m not sure if your point is that WWE should ignore fans like you rather than working you lol.

But here are a dozen times I’d consider playing on that mindset to have been successful in some way (either financially, or elevating someone, or just my own enjoyment):

Cena vs Edge feud in 2006

Cena vs Punk at Money in the Bank 2011 (and to a lesser extent, pretty much all of their matches after that)

Cena vs Bryan at SummerSlam 2013

Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 30

Cena vs Lesnar at SummerSlam 2014

Rollins cashing in Money in the Bank at WrestleMania 31

Roman Reigns promo on Raw the night after WrestleMania 33

Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair feud in 2018

Becky Lynch winning the WrestleMania 35 main event (though that is kind of the same as the previous one, so I won’t count it)

KofiMania

Drew McIntyre eliminating Brock from this year’s Royal Rumble

All of the Royal Rumble endings where Roman Reigns gets eliminated at the end

Cena in the Firefly Fun House

1 minute ago, UK Kat Von D said:

They successfully did it with Kofi, although the popularity of New Day and Daniel Bryan’s excellent work played a part in that. Can’t think of any other times they have made it work really. Maybe RVD at One Night Stand against Cena which was 14 years ago.

What is your criteria for success there?