FUM

30 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

The one thing that struck me watching the show is that there’s not even one big time heel on the Smackdown roster for Cody to sink his teeth into. You’d have to assume they’re going to turn someone, but the roster lacks big heels to the point even one turn isn’t enough. I’m perplexed by this roster, but hopefully they have an idea in mind. I’m not against Solo being pushed as the top heel, but you’d have to assume he’s doing all of this for The Rock, turning him into a secondary character.

I think The Rock lingering is really going to affect Cody’s reign. What reason is there to have an interest in him or his feuds the next few months knowing that it’s all just filler until The Rock or Roman returns? I mean it’s fair enough at Backlash because this event is always the same for knowing the outcome and you can’t do much to change that but where does he go after AJ as far as a credible threat goes as you say? I reckon it will have to be an Orton turn which is a real shame as I’m loving this version of him.

Long term storytelling is great and something we should definitely have for the big names but sometimes things just need to pop off unexpectedly too and you need to find another way to get there. Wouldn’t be against Cody losing the title to someone around SummerSlam and chasing until the Rumble to keep things interesting. I’m not really in for a year long Cody reign - he had his moment but ultimately suits better as a chaser.

A hot crowd can make a show where nothing is really happening so much better. They were excellent. And I want to know that phenomenal song asap.

Apologies for the double post but there’s been a small twist here.

Johnny has decided he wasn’t actually a victim and is on Vince’s side again.

My main takeaway was that Logan Paul had a titantron video and I hope that’s the start of their comeback.

3 hours ago, Supremo said:

Endeavor quickly put a stop to something similar when they bought UFC - sacking guys who were promised a job for life like Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds out the amount of money these retired guys are making to sit at home and slag off AEW on Twitter before they decide to pull the plug. A fat idiot like Bubba Ray is making how much?!

Believe most of them are about merchandise rights etc. that save WWE money rather than about paying a wrestler regularly for being a legend. They have dead people on legends contracts through their family so it’s definitely something that’s a money saver for them rather than “job for the boys” stuff.

According to Sportico, Nick Khan has filed to sell all of his TKO shares. I wonder if he’s jumping before he’s pushed here. Not sure why he would get rid of his interests in the company.

26 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I’m not sure they would be. It’s in Scotland, very few people here have reason to have any sort of opinion on him. 

We’ll boo any politician here, we even hate the ones we vote for.

Due to the Euros game, I wouldn’t have went to the SmackDown show so far too obscenely prices for me to justify the combo ticket cost just for the big event. In fact to be honest, even with no Euros game I’d probably have refused to pay the prices on offer.

Cost me less for a flight, hotel and ticket in Cardiff than the prices that were coming up for me for the back row when I live 20 minutes away from this one. 

Not sure how it applies to sub-contractors but the FTC today voted to ban non-compete clauses and make existing ones null and void except for senior executives which may be of interest when discussing releases.

I know a lot of wrestlers have actually said they like the non-compete as they can regroup a bit while getting paid.

Never mind, turns out this was old news.

2 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Not shitting on the presentation at all, because the whole bit was superbly shot. But he was in his home town of Montreal.

In fairness, I said it before Mania and he got some reaction in Philly too so fair play to him.

Echo the thoughts of that Sami entrance, looks like I need to hold my hands up and admit I was wrong about him losing his spark a bit with the crowd. Jey pushing the fan just before it was hilarious too. 

As far as brand naming titles, it’s been shown how terrible that is when it comes to draft time and people are swapping belts. World and WWE is fine with me. They aren’t quite presenting world on the same level anyway or trying to fool us into thinking it is as they are keeping “Undisputed” before WWE and have been very clear on Cody leading this new era.

6 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

His justification was that loses have consequences. He’s had 24 matches in 2024. Drawn 1, lost 23.

Do we include house shows in everyone’s win/loss record now? Granted he’s not won much on TV since Cena but the way people exaggerate the impact by including house shows is a bit silly. He’s had 5 TV matches this year of which 1 has ended in a no contest, 2 have ended in DQ’s and 1 was a handicap match where his team were outnumbered. On TV, his only loss he’s actually ate a pin in 2024 was to Randy Orton.

21 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

819,000 viewers.

So a stunt designed solely to pique the interest of hardcore fans who follow all the backstage stuff didn’t break through. What a shocker.

On the WCW stuff, WCW always felt worse than it was at the time because it was up against peak WWF. I find a lot of 1998-99 very watchable personally, certainly never boring. 2000 I will concede was fucking terrible though.

It was up 29% to be fair. The big test is next week as to how many of those fans decide to stick around or were just there for the Punk scrap. The main aim was surely to get fans to tune in, see what else is on offer and stick around.

Double post wanker.

6 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

But an unprovoked assault is as unacceptable there as anywhere these days.

This is the thing with the Punk stuff though - was it unprovoked? There’s no audio.

Just for the record, I’m absolutely not defending the actions. I just think the exaggerations and hyperbole used over a lesser scuffle than I’ve had with genuine mates is mental. It’s a wider item on Punk on this forum though, anything he does is met with a ridiculous amount of hyperbole. Again, not defending this particular action - he was the one in the wrong by the looks of it but it’s handbags really.

12 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

What was the last backstage fight that was reported in the WWE locker room? Genuine question. Because I can't recall one for yonks. I don't think that's an acceptable part of the industry any more. I certainly don't think Punk will be employed if he does that to Ricochet or something next week.

Probably Jericho and Lesnar that was reported but many go unreported. I was more talking about historically though, as I say, using autobiographies as a reference point. And historically, a lot of those mentioned in books have not been reported at the time. WWE has a more united locker room no doubt but that doesn’t mean the odd scuffle doesn’t happen. Sin Cara, as an example, said after he left he had been in a few backstage scraps during his time.

I’m not saying it’s acceptable but “assaulted a co-worker” doesn’t really have the same strength in wrestling as it does in the office.

26 minutes ago, Factotum said:

But you respect a man who assaults his co-workers. Got it

Why would that stop you going to ALL IN? Because some wrestling promoter did petty shit? I would never be at a wrestling show if that was the case

You’d never like anyone in the industry if you rated your respect for them on backstage assaults either. Every wrestlers book you read is littered with backstage fights.

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

A year later with reduced capacity, it made further sense to sell two nights’ worth of tickets, assuming the revenue would offset the cost of renting the stadium for two nights.

Granted it may have been different purely due to the pandemic times but states pay WWE about $20m to bring WrestleMania to them so they aren’t really paying for stadium hire.

2 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

They aren't giving up a Smackdown to make it Friday and Saturday. That would be giving up a guaranteed sell out of an arena and would breach their TV contract. 

Nick Khan said they aren’t touchy over moving the day of TV shows and were happy to negotiate different days when discussing the rights. Of course now the deal they struck kept it on Fridays but they could have easily moved it to Thursdays as part of the new deal if they fancied moving Mania. SmackDown has had 3 different days since it began.

9 minutes ago, mim731 said:

Given The Rock has been very vocal in the past about seeing Haku (he'll always be Meng to me) as an uncle even if they aren't technically "related" I'm not sure it's that hard a sell in all honesty without it drifting into that mire of casual xenophobia. A quick line in a promo to say "our fathers bled together, so he's bloodline" or something better but along those lines, effectively papers over that crack pretty easily.

Yeah, TV wise they very much see Haku as part of the family. He teamed with Rikishi for a spell too so it’s not like it’s something that has been randomly whipped up. It’s not like The Bloodline is totally protected from outsiders joining anyway - Heyman and Zayn aren’t exactly bigging up their Samoan heritage. And it’s not like they totally stick to reality, The Usos have said before they don’t refer to Roman as their cousin, they call him Uncle. Rock and Roman aren’t even blood related either.

2 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Well it can't be any worse than last year when absolutely fuck all happened aside from Lesnar clocking Rhodes.

Didn’t Vince return in person and take over the show last year?

The issue with the strap is they purposely designed it as a “get the badge in” belt so they could get their logo everywhere when they present it to people. I can’t see them steering too much from that in this current “branding is everything” world so any amendments will be slight.

What I really like is that Cody didn’t actually win because of any of these guys. They were there to protect him from The Bloodline and I think other than an AA from Cena which he recovered from before Cody was back up, Roman didn’t take any damage from them.

What a different style ending with the scenes, getting on the mic etc. but all for it. Real emotion being shared, felt like a genuine achievement and mountain climbed for Cody.

Jimmy and Jey putting on a better match in that main event than their WrestleMania match.