AVM

I clocked off around 2008, came back into the fold in 2011 with the Punk promo and The Rock returning for a program with Cena and tuned back out last year.

I still follow WWE accounts on Twitter so have an idea of what’s going on, but I haven’t got the network and don’t watch any of the shows.

Everything I have seen this year (all through clips of socials), bar the Roman Reigns turn, is absolutely, utter dross. I don’t care about the ginger one from the dubstep tag team shagging Rey’s daughter. I don’t want to see eye gouging. I don’t want to see that wrestlers have ‘died’ after being thrown off of Titan towers, I don’t want to see what T-Bone is up to this week with his daft bane mask, I don’t care about seeing The Fiend travel to the multiverse to pull Alexa Bliss, I don’t understand why Randy Orton wants to wear a welders mask whilst beating up uno playing legends in the dark - all of this whilst the camera moves about so harshly that I can’t get through five minutes.

I do still watch AEW, which I feel has been decent.

WWE at this point, I feel, is only attracting people with the brand. There’s nothing about the content of the show that makes me want to tune in. What WWE need to understand, however, is that brands earn their value and that value can be lost, so they must pay closer attention to how they build their talent and the programs they put them in.

I reckon sometime after Wrestlemania 10 was his best shot in WWF. In WCW I could see him as champion material in 1999/2000 if not for his demons. For me Hall would have been as credible a champion as Luger, Jarrett, Sid etc.

He's definitely towards the top of the 'best wrestlers not to win a world title' list. Him, Owen and Bulldog jump out to me. 

CM Skunk

At least for active talent they have a means of making money, for non-active talent I'm not sure what the arrangement is but you'd imagine there's a pretty substantial short fall.

That said, there's always the Pontins money to fall back on. 

On 10/29/2020 at 6:40 PM, wordsfromlee said:

This is to be a contender for worst looking

Earl Hebner looks like Mike Ashley after a few months of keto.

I want him to write an honest autobiography that is as long as war and peace.

Don't get me wrong, smarks drive me crazy - particularly the ones that complain about everything but still tune into and purchase everything the WWE puts out, however, in the case of Roman and Drew as faces I think the formula is all wrong. I mean from what I've seen (and I saw more of Roman than Drew) the extent of their character is that they're big and powerful but handsome and friendly lads with patter along the lines of 'I'm here to kick ass and chew gum, and I'm all outta gum'. There really isn't any depth there. Why would I want the face to win? What are the redeemable qualities about this character. WWE's response to this seems to be 'make him look cool' (not mainstream cool, but Vince's idea of cool) and that in turn turns the character into a heel. 

IMO, you either need a top face with a back story that is interesting relatable and something the audience can empathise with (Daniel Bryan circa 2014, CM Punk circa 2011), or you just go straight up with an anti-hero type (The Rock, Steve Austin). Or your third route is something completely wacky and still as an edge of anti-hero to it (Undertaker, Fiend).

I think putting the belt on Randy is a step forward. It may be I'm being harsh here, but from the little I've seen, Drew hasn't been great. I don't think its Drew's fault either for full disclosure. I think the guy has been booked into this tough and hench but nice and handsome role where there's absolutely no depth to his character. He's a big Scottish fella, that's it. Why should I care? I don't know how much difference having a crowd would have had, but I don't think its helped.

At least Randy has a history and a little bit of depth to his character. I've always thought The Miz had a good amount of charisma. I'd like to see him succeed.

On 10/13/2020 at 11:47 PM, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

So with both draft shows done now, this is how the divisions stack up on each show (* means can drop to midcard title)

RAW

WWE Title

Drew McIntyre (c)

Randy Orton 

AJ Styles *

Jeff Hardy *

Braun Strowman

Sheamus *

'The Fiend'

US Title

Bobby Lashley (c)

Matt Riddle

Elias

Keith Lee

24/7, Underground, Lower Mid-Card

R Truth (24/7 c)

Angel Garza

Ricochet

Humberto Carillo

Tucker

Drew Gulak

Tozawa

Dabba Kato

Riddick Moss

Erik

Arturo Ruas

Titus O'Neill

Raw Tag Team Titles

New Day (c)

Miz & Morrison

Lucha House Party

Retribution (Mace & TBAR, Ali & Slapjack)

Hurt Business (any combo of Benjamin, MVP and Alexander)

Raw Women's Title

Asuka (c)

Lana

Nia Jax (Women's Tag)

Shayna Basler (Women's Tag)

Peyton Royce

Mandy Rose

Dana Brooke

Charlotte Flair

Naomi

Nikki Cross

Alexa Bliss

Lacey Evans

Retaliation (Retribution)

 

Smackdown

Universal Champion

Roman Reigns

Seth Rollins *

Daniel Bryan *

King Corbin *

Kevin Owens *

Big E *

Intercontinental Title

Sami Zayn (c)

Aleister Black

Apollo Crews

Jey Uso

Shorty G

Otis

Murphy

Kalisto

Lars Sullivan

Smackdown Tag Team Titles

Street Profits (c)

Nakamura & Cesaro

Ziggler & Roode

Rey & Dominik  Mysterio (Rey can fit Universal and IC title pictures)

Smackdown Women's Title

Bayley

Sasha Banks

Natalya

Bianca BelAir

Carmella

Billie Kay

Tamina

Zelina Vega

Liv Morgan

Ruby Riott

Fuck me that's dull.

Roman and to a lesser extent Fiend and Seth the only guys with any sort of star power.

I'm fairly sure there'll be more clauses in that contract that he isn't telling us about.

Also where on earth is he getting the idea that he'd be due $10 Million by each accuser and then Anthem themselves? Even if he kept up his stated earnings every month for the next 40 years (per chance dick flips on 80 year olds are in vogue in the year 2060), he'd still not have earned $10 Million.

26 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

For someone with the username Anti Vinnie Mac, this comes across as perhaps slightly naive. 

That takes me back. About 17 years to be precise. Might have to put myself in the username lottery.

2 hours ago, AndiRush said:

The talent's brand is licensed to WWE via their contract. Twitch is a broadcaster and brand itself. Whilst I do think Vince could handle this better, I'd have thought it was given that you don't appear on unauthorised broadcasts or generate revenue streams based on WWE IP or your own likeness during the contract. 

Where does the WWE owned aspect brand begin and end, though? Likeness? Real names? Everything? It just seems shitty to me that WWE would hire these guys as independent contractors and not only want full control of their activities but would want the right to take the profit from said activities for themselves and most audaciously use said profit to offset their salary, essentially charging the talent for getting involved.

That’s unreal.. so talent loses control of their twitch, if talent want to continue building their brand, WWE takes the profits and uses some of it to offload their salary bill which they’re describing as a ‘revenue share’.

That is fucking audacious to say the least.

Is there a Sport UK equivalent for performing arts? That for me is where wrestling would naturally fit. It’s choreography with added risk. I think it would most naturally fit alongside touring dance shows.

I’m no lawyer but I did seek some advice a couple months back and that’s pretty much it in England. Your three main defences are truth, reputation and privilege. The key thing is the burden of proof is ‘by the preponderance of the evidence’, in other words on the balance of probabilities. Anyone seeking to actually take their case to court ought to be confident of passing this threshold, else they could see their case elevated to mainstream coverage.

I cannot comment for America, but in passing research I believe the burden of proof lies with the person bringing the case, not the person who originally made the claim - I could be very wrong here. 

In general my thoughts are most of these cases are being brought without the intention of going to trial, basically to spook the accusers into a retraction.

On 9/22/2020 at 8:07 PM, mikey said:

Who else is being sued or has been legal lettered? 

To my knowledge its mainly the WWE guys who are standing by their denials and have therefore had the backing of a legal team. Maybe Joey Ryan? 

No contact on my end as discussed. As I say, I don't think too many will go down the libel route, unless its literally in a 'I can afford lawyers and you can't' kind of way. A lot of these cases can be proven on the balance of probability (i.e. the burden required to successfully defend a libel case) but not beyond all reasonable doubt (so victims would struggle to prove a criminal case against the accused). I think a lot of guys will just be satisfied with shutting up their accusers - I'm in that category I think.

5 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

So she should be the “esst”unless she pronounces the words like Strong E S T in that case? 

But he even talks and has the hairline of Dark Knight Rises Bane. And even Robot Wars wouldn’t call a robot Slapjack

Haven't watched, only seen the BT Sport WWE Twitter which TBH I only follow because my pal is admin 😄

Who knew that Antifa all cosplay as The Sultan and have names like the house robots from Robot Wars.

I'm not someone to ritualistically bury WWE, because those that tend to do that are the ones that watch it the most.

My knowledge of current WWE content is pretty much limited to what appears in my Twitter timeline. As far as I can see, the big things over the last few months have been Antifa with scripts strictly within the bounds of WWE's corporate PR code, camera cuts that make me feel like I'm on a waltzer and a little bit of eye gouging. None of this makes me want to tune in or purchase the network. 

Honestly, I don't think the twats are going to own this one.

In my case, I could go 'right, here is footage of four matches where the accused snogs fans at ringside seemingly without consent (by the way, put a man in that position doing that to women..), here is my eye witness, here is a show review that refers to the accused kissing a minor, here are some friends that have heard me and my witness mention this before, here is a family members reaction to my allegations, here they are inciting fans to react aggressively by posting my name and location via my Twitter profile' but the truth is, its incredibly difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that what I'm alleging is true purely due to how long ago it was. I am however, extremely confident that the above would easily pass a civil threshold so I think you'll find a lot of cases from #speakingout that are true, where criminal charges aren't pursued but civil charges from the other side aren't pursued either, because the risks involved with losing a civil case of this magnitude could be hugely damaging to someone's reputation. 

Bottom line is, victory comes from the accused shutting up the victim, and that seems to be the sad outcome to this movement with some exceptions.

The Fiend isn’t wanking for tips on Twitch, these are contractors using their own names so that statement makes no sense.

At this point WWE needs to decide whether it wants its talent to be contractors or employees. If the latter, making these requests is fine, but at least cover healthcare, 401k etc.

That condescending, gaslighting promoter comes across as some sort of combination of Robert Stone and Ben Shapiro. Wanky.

There seems to be a suggestion that there's some sort of lease on the Amway Center, my guess is so they can bring some of their production back and gradually ease in fans attending with strict social distancing. 

Drat. Could have been a cracking trend..

CZW vs. The Beano would have been great.