AVM

14 minutes ago, Chris B said:

They're also chipping away at their ability to convince any prospective students that they can teach promos.

I popped

Gents, there’s a whole lot I’d like to say but I’m advised not to. This is in hand and I stand by my allegations.

I'm definitely seeing all this from a new perspective. If there can be a positive to this sordid business (referring to the entire #speakingout movement), its that most of us are all that little more enlightened. I know I've learned a fair amount. Not enough, but a fair amount. 

There seems to be two sides to the wrestling industry in Britain as I see it (entirely my opinion). You've got the one side that are pretty progressive and are willing to adapt to do what's right whilst remaining in the forefront of the evolution of British wrestling, then you've got the holiday camp promotions who do things in a very old fashioned, carny way who are highly unlikely to adapt and will probably actively resist attempts to safeguard the industry - I may well be wrong in this, and I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. I'm actually more concerned with the former as they are the people that are setting the tone and are of greatest influence not just to British independent wrestling but to independent wrestling around the world. The latter will always be there and honestly I don't think they'll adapt because they attract an entirely different audience. 

...and FWIW, I'm minded to be fairly conservative (small c I must emphasise!) with changes in wrestling. I've been to the odd Riptide show where I've thought 'Christ, come on, this is too far', but I'm learning to adapt and to learn about the rationale behind these changes.

I’ve been privy to screen grabs this morning that apparently show that Roy has decided to ask his followers to ‘show their feelings to that wanker scum’ in response to my shut down on social media. To the best of my knowledge these screenshots are real and they show my full name and hometown.

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Following advice, I’ve deleted all of my posts on the subject matter discussed yesterday along with my Twitter account, I’ve also locked down my Facebook account.

What I published yesterday truth based on my lived experience. Today I feel intimidated. I feel like my family are at risk and it’s doing my mental health no good whatsoever having faced threats and abuse on social media. It’s proven to me just how brave the people that have spoken out and kept their accounts public are. I do not have that level of bravery myself.

I’d rather not discuss the specifics going forward.

11 minutes ago, iPumaPants said:

All this "remember how we cleaned you up when you pissed yourself" and "we put you on the right train" just screams "we did nice/decent stuff for you, so stop telling everyone about our shitty behaviour". 

 

So ridiculous. 

Yeah I’m seeing a lot of that, and a lot of ‘friends’ of the accused saying ‘they’re nice to me, they didn’t do this’.
 

I don’t doubt a lot of these people are nice day to day, but equally there’s clearly something very wrong in professional wrestling where it comes to psychological, physical and sexual abuse. The boundaries seem to be in a different place to the world outside the bubble - at least I hope that’s the case because the alternative is too depressing to comprehend.

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It’s not going to work.

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17 hours ago, Michael_3165 said:

He bought up Orton, Cena, Lesnar and Batista amongst others. That isn't a bad resume. I dont think you realise how utterly hated he was as aa manager. You could say the same thing about Heenan and Co. 

Can he really take credit for that, though? Both Cena and Orton were green as grass when they first came into WWE. Lesnar was an absolute beast, who in any case attributes Heyman for his success (not Cornette) and the Batista that eventually made it was virtually unrecognisable from him Leviathan days. 

I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never understood Cornette’s cult-like status. An unhinged gob on a stick that ceases to be amusing once you’ve listened to more than one or two diatribes. His booking ideas are usually 35 years out of date (see his shoot on rebooking Wrestlemania 17) with no understanding of the importance of popular culture and social media for entertainment companies of the scale of the WWE. It’s not like he’s been this game changing figure, either. He ran SMW which was at times amusing and it arguably got some talent like Kane and Chris Jericho noticed but what else? He was a decent manager? I’m struggling beyond that.

Had a chat with him at the BT/WWE launch event - he was working the room but few people seemed to be speaking to him. Nice guy, but I didn't get the sense he was particularly enamoured with wrestling, nor did I think he was up for putting much effort into it. That lustre seemed to drop off him very quick.

WWE weren't forced to bribe a Government so you can force your staff to compete mid-pandemic.

WWE weren't forced to stockpile talent specifically to prevent them working with a competitor. 

WWE aren't forced to hire talent as employees in all but name in order to refuse them healthcare and benefits. 

WWE aren't forced to work with despot regimes in order to earn blood money.

WWE aren't forced to fire talent with no compete clauses and no compensation.

Only one thing matters to Vince McMahon - money. Everything else including human life is secondary. We all know this, and I don't see how last night could do anything but confirm this. What I'd also say is whilst many businesses are exploitative and unscrupulous, few are as downright immoral as WWE. 

Surely they could just provide other content? NXT re runs for instance

Zoom meetings between Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy.

Am I the only person that thinks the whole Broken Matt schtick is well past its shelf life? It was amusing for a while, but I'm finding it pretty tedious now.

Jake Hager looks great, I've nearly forgotten he was Jack Swagger. Great job from AEW and Jake himself with that. 

With the storylines, I think its easy enough to deal with a postponement to late June/early July. Just don't have the part-timers show up for a little while (or at least less frequently), keep Rhipley and Baszler on NXT. The rest of the matches haven't really been confirmed and can be ran sooner if need be. Failing that, use MITB as a way of building a new title match.

If its postponed, I think the venue changes to either Orlando or Miami. I can see Vince having a tantrum about it. 

56 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

@Fatty Facesitter 6 months time (assuming things settle down by then) will be into the NFL season. I doubt the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will want their pitch fucking up just so that Drew McIntyre can finally take a battering from Brock, so I’m guessing they’ll have to find a different venue.

Depends on the date surely? A June/July date good give a 2/3 month window to get an NFL stadium back to standard.

The question really is whether a social distancing strategy can be completed by then - my gut instinct would be that it can’t. I also wouldn’t rule out Vince taking Mania away from Tampa out of petulance.

Annoyingly I had planned to go this year, now my plans are up in the air. Luckily I shouldn’t be too out of pocket if they postpone but it’s something I need to sort out sharpish.

WWE have a certain format for their top faces over the past decade or so. Look at Roman, Rollins and Cena - trained to follow the PR line and the script to within an inch of their lives, sqeaky clean, slapstick humour. That works very well for the licensing side of the business - it's family friendly, attractive to advertisers and sponsors and as kids seem to lap it up, merch is shifted by the bucket load, however, it doesn't make for good television, particularly for the 18-34 demographic and in there lies the conflict. The success of the licensing/marketing side of the business hinges on families/children and the success of the TV/PPV/Network model hinges largely on engagement with 18-34 and 34-50 year old males. This, I think, makes it tricky to get the creative right.

I know what I'd personally like to see from the top faces - a bit more grit, less scripting, more kind of imperfect anti-hero types - but I understand why they don't pursue this approach. 

Fury was quite smart in the first fight and was able to buy time at the count after the famous knockdown. He was able to buy about two seconds which I genuinely think would have been the difference between the fight being waved off and Fury continuing the way he did. 

I've heard rumours from a friend who is well connected in the boxing world that Fury is training to fight on the inside. This doesn't make any sense to me as Fury is best at standing back and using his reach advantage to keep his opponent on the end of the jab. I guess the idea is that by fighting on the inside you nullify Wilder's right-hook, but I wouldn't bank on that particularly given the stamina required to fight on the inside. If this is all true, I'd bet on a Wilder KO.