FUM

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.

It probably didn’t help the match that Jimmy decided he wanted to look every bit the guy who used to do the haka. Samoans naturally need to do a little more work to stay in shape and it was clear only Jey was arsed about that.

1 minute ago, CTXRussomark said:

This is what I immediately assumed it would be and it's only Meltzer saying otherwise that's pointing towards the opposite.  So it would be doubly funny if someone is just fucking with Uncle Dave with the actual footage story.  Plans change though I guess...

Every journo is reporting it’s not a bait and switch. He genuinely intends to show the footage. 

There were some boos for Cody last year too. There are always boos for Roman’s opponents as there’s a certain element of the crowd into the whole Bloodline business - now more prevalent with the addition of The Final Boss who brings his own fans. Drew didn’t even have 100% backing in the UK.

Man, Roman realised he was being outshone so decided he wouldn’t be when the big lads got their tops off eh?

8 hours ago, Supremo said:

Chad

Didn’t even get his advertised battle royal spot. Neither did Andrade or Nakamura. Must have been confusing for the crowd in attendance to be missing 3 of the front row from the match graphic.

Fucking hell, The Rock at Muhammad Ali’s induction to HOF. Never has an “I’m on the board” power play been more obvious than last night at that ceremony.

Not to mention his grandmother going in last of the night which is usually the headline spot.