Paid Members JohnnyChimpo Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 Was thinking about this during a long, boring car journey this afternoon; with ratings dipping seemingly lower each passing year, PPV business dead on its arse and the Network not being the roaring success it needed to be, would WWE ever be in realistic danger of going out of business? Â The likes of TNA limped on for years without ever really making money, so you'd imagine WWE wouldn't just fold up over a short space of time like WCW or ECW, so is the WWE brand just too strong for it to ever vanish at this point? Â What say you, people of the UKFF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Really Big Shoe Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Probably something mega like another Steroids trial or if the whole bottom fell out of the wrestling biz but that seems highly unlikely. When Vinny Mac was embroiled in the trial in the 90s and during the time when WCW was hiring away talent and such was the only time WWE ever was on the ropes. If Easy E really went for the jugular he could put them out of business like hiring away HBK, Taker et all. But again Vince can make a star out of anyone so they probably would have survived. Now only if Network sub's hit rock bottom, live event biz goes down, they have another major negative publicity story like the Benoit murder suicide or one of the main he eventers publicly admits to being on the juice then that would be bad for biz. But unless they have a major catastrophic event(s) occur I think the WWE is safe as houses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 That independent contractor thing is going to get them one of these days. Might not be soon, but eventually someone is going to look into that and see that the contracts they give out are just pure madness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Really Big Shoe Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Yeah that's possible. If they all started up a union and had like health care & rights of normal employees and maybe went on strike or something. But I doubt we'll see that as there's usually a whistle blower. When Jesse wanted to start a union in the 80's Hulk stooged him off to Vince, makes you wonder what the state of the biz would be now if there was a union. I doubt they'd have to do as many shows and probably be better compensated financially too. I don't think any WWE major star's salary is no where near comparable to someone in the NFL/NHL/NBA etc. Cena's essentially the LeBron James of the WWE. I think Cena makes about $5m a year, whilst James makes $21m plus he gets time off when not during the Regular Season & Playoff's. But John Cena's worth to WWE as the franchise player totally outweighs what he's paid. Since he's Cena 24/7, does loads of charity stuff, on the road almost constantly etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_3165 Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 As others have said the only thing will be if the wrestlers unionise the industry. Combined that with a genuine threat in the form of another company and WWE may be in trouble. If the WWE decided to go down the WCW booking route, lose a few big stars etc soon it would go under like WCW. However it's pretty much a given that none of that will happen, especially with HHH at the helm so it's all cool for them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 Yeah that's possible. If they all started up a union and had like health care & rights of normal employees and maybe went on strike or something. But I doubt we'll see that as there's usually a whistle blower. When Jesse wanted to start a union in the 80's Hulk stooged him off to Vince, makes you wonder what the state of the biz would be now if there was a union. It would NEVER have happened.There's zero percent chance those wrestlers would have stood up and actually went through with it. Wrestlers are all whores and con men. I'd have been stunned if Ventura would have went through with it, considering he's someone who has always looked out for himself. Most of them were never going to risk losing the big paydays they were making for the good of the business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 But John Cena's worth to WWE as the franchise player totally outweighs what he's paid. Â That's exactly as it should be. WWE paying the top stars more than they're bringing in is one of the fastest ways to send the company under, especially considering that the majority of the roster are getting paid six figures just to make up the numbers on the card and aren't actually drawing anything. Cena's box office clout is paying Bo Dallas and Fandango's mortgages, remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 A major scandal aside, surely the only thing that would hurt them to that extent is TV companies becoming uninterested in the product. And with the network, I don't know if that's even true these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Really Big Shoe Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Yea loss of the TV deal was what really put WCW out of business.    It would NEVER have happened.There's zero percent chance those wrestlers would have stood up and actually went through with it. Wrestlers are all whores and con men. I'd have been stunned if Ventura would have went through with it, considering he's someone who has always looked out for himself. Most of them were never going to risk losing the big paydays they were making for the good of the business.  Well wrestling is really a biz where it's all about the individual, or individuals (if we're talking tag teams or a faction like the Horsemen). I wonder whether with their backstage clout whether the Kliq could have used their stroke to start up a union or at least get the boys a better deal. Here's what Jesse said about the proposed union    Ventura: "Well I tried to intiate it right before Wrestlemania 2 when they had it in 3 places and I was in Los Angeles somewhere right before it and everybody from the office was gone so I stood up in the dressing room and I said boys if we are going to unionize now is the time to do it. Its a week before Wrestlemania its all advertised all we gotta do is bring ...I had met Gene Upshaw who at that was the head of the NFL Players Association I met him in Vegas and he looked at me and said you boys need a union. I said I know we do cause I was paying $5,000 a year for my families healthcare there were no retirement benefits...there's nothing in wrestling. I stood up in the dressing room and made a big speech that we should unionize and we should all walk out unless union people were brought in so we could get union benefits like every other pro athlete gets like baseballs got a union, basketball has a union, football has a union, Hockey's got a union...they all got em except pro wrestling. Well a day later I get a phonecall from Vince threatening to fire me and I had to quit anyway cause I was going to do Predator and to make a long story short I then became a member of the Screen Actor's Guild and have been ever since and I get my retirement and my healthcare through the guild so I didn't need a union anymore after I went to do Predator I'm a member of the Screen Actor's Guild Union now. I fought with Vince and I told him we dont need this to fight you its to get health benefits we are not financial planners and maybe we can get some type of retirement and to make a long story short I wanted to know who ratted me out... who it was in that dressing room that went straight to Vince and ratted me out and I never found out until that lawsuit in the 1990's when we had deposed Vince McMahon under oath in a federal lawsuit. I told my attorney the story and you can ask anything in the deposition so he worked it around to that and we found out my attorney asked Vince " well were you in the dressing room when Ventura made the speech?" Vince said no...my attorney said then how did you know and with no hesitation at all Vince said Hulk Hogan called me. Hulk Hogan ratted me ...he did what was in my day of wrestling the worst thing you could be in the old days of wrestling was what was called an office stooge. That's what he was Hogan went to the office and ratted me. Vince admitted it under oath and he went on Larry King and yet Hogan continues to deny that it happened."    That's exactly as it should be. WWE paying the top stars more than they're bringing in is one of the fastest ways to send the company under, especially considering that the majority of the roster are getting paid six figures just to make up the numbers on the card and aren't actually drawing anything. Cena's box office clout is paying Bo Dallas and Fandango's mortgages, remember.  Yea but when you think about it, WWE is like a major sports team, Cena is the top echelon and really should be paid accordingly. I'd assume he's the top merch seller, gives them mainstream pub with his appearances on talkshows etc. Plus factor in worldwide the WWE is arguably more popular than most sports (apart from maybe football, NFL, MLB & NBA) and he's really the global face of the WWE too. So taking all that into consideration, he should be earning top star money. Not A-Rod,Cabrera, Stanton or Mayweather level, but definitely more than $5m. I'd assume he makes WWE far in excess of that per annum, plus he's not really responsible for whether the under-card is drawing or not so that's a moot point. Take Cena out of the WWE machine and I don't see anyone having his level of star power. Like him or not, John Cena is essentially what is the top draw for WWE and when he retires they don't really have anyone in waiting to replace him. However much the fans like them, D-Bry, Ambrose, Reigns, Rollins et al don't really have the same Hoganesque appeal of Cena. Only other big name is Rock, but he's only really a special attraction now for WWE and they can't really rely on him. So also factor in when Cena retires, they don't as of yet, have a ready made successor to John Cena and that could be huge down the line.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Cena makes WWE about a hundred mil a year. Heath Slater makes them fuck all. Heath Slater still needs his wages paying, as do all the wrestlers and staff. If Cena gets paid the hundred mil that he draws, and the same  "you get paid what you draw" is true of Reigns, Bryan, Orton etc... Well, where does the money come from to keep the company running? And how do the people who don't draw a dime get from show to show?  A major scandal aside, surely the only thing that would hurt them to that extent is TV companies becoming uninterested in the product. And with the network, I don't know if that's even true these days.  It's very true. The network's still a money-loser. If Raw's TV income went down, they'd be fucked. And if they cut back on network content enough for people to unsubscribe, they're fucked as well.  So basically, what it would take for WWE to go under is for Raw to go back to two hours (or less) and for there to be less PPVs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Some kind of Ian Watkins situation involving Cena would probably put them under. Attendance, network subscriptions and merchandise sales would plummet over night as kids aren't allowed to watch WWE anymore. There would be the risk of stores boycotting all WWE products (especially if Vince had been covering it up.) As much as I hate this term: the Internet would probably actually explode. With so much bad press they would probably end up being dropped from TV Stations all over the world leading to WWE crumbling under the weight of its own machine... Â Obviously Cena seems like a genuinely great guy so the chances of it happening are like Zack Ryder headlining Wrestlemania against Adam Rose in an exploding barbed wire match Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Tommy! Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 This is a company that have got through sex scandal, drug scandal, employment law issues, an inational story about a murderer on the books, a small international issue with a middle east government, problems with networks and censors and a competitor with pockets deeper than a bottomless pit. With the network and brand and the near impossibility to get a competitor off the ground the only thing I could see bringing them down is fan apathy and a massive loss of interest in wrestling full stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members FLips Posted June 7, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 7, 2015 John Cena is outed as a Jimmy Savile style sick child predator. No way they'd survive that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patiirc Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Vince passing away due to old age and then a minor scandal involving Triple H or Steph, would probably do for it. Doesn't take something massive to bring down even the safest of things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members bAzTNM#1 Posted June 8, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted June 8, 2015 Some kind of Ian Watkins situation involving Cena would probably put them under. Â Yeah, some top people getting caught with child porn (and being put in front of a court) would probably end the WWE because then you'd get the TV companies cancelling it. It would kill the company stone dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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