Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 23, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 23, 2022 5 hours ago, Vamp said: Has the story even received any mainstream coverage in the UK? I imagine if you're a lapsed fan it'd be easy to not even know about the allegations but stumble upon his retirement announcement. Front page of the BBC News website, though not one of the top headlines. It made The Guardian, which rarely covers anything wrestling-related. Online at least it's made The Sun and The Daily Mail. People think this will blow over, or that some panic booking and new headlines will distract from it, or that it won't be taken seriously because it's Just Wrestling, but this isn't a wrestling story, it's front page of the Wall Street Journal, it's a corporate story. Whatever the WSJ are planning to bring out next, it has to be enough to have forced Vince to step aside, which it means it's either worse than anything he's already been accused of or it's something they have sufficient evidence behind. Given that his response to allegations of sexual assault, coercion, multiple NDAs, corporate malfeasance and all the rest of it was to put himself on TV smiling and pandering to the crowd, what would be enough to make him retire a couple of hours before Smackdown?  The other side of it is people thinking that this opens up WWE to change, to Triple H bringing all the indie darlings back, and better booking. Truth is, WWE post-Vince was always going to see them shift even further away from "wrestling people" at the helm and towards an even more staid, safe and stagnant corporate structure. Throw in an ongoing investigation and sex scandal, and it's even more reason not to rock the boat. They'll become even more of a bland content mill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 With Vince's worldview and political allies, he might have hoped that when all this came to light he'd be able to count on right-wing support to rally around him against "woke cancel culture," etc. It must come as a bit of a gut punch, then, that it's the Wall Street Journal leading the charge - a Rupert Murdoch publication that likely won't have its reporting challenged by wacko stablemate Fox News. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 For me, it’s the Ashley Massaro story that should be the big lead. Harassed and passed around between executives, raped on an overseas tour, treated  like a crazy and finally committed suicide. She should be the poster girl for the abuse culture the company.  I really hope the WSJ is on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: Front page of the BBC News website, though not one of the top headlines. It made The Guardian, which rarely covers anything wrestling-related. Online at least it's made The Sun and The Daily Mail. Yeah I saw The Guardian article today after I'd posted that  Before that point it didn't seem to particularly have much coverage over here, which was why I could see some of the people commenting on BT Sports feeds not knowing much about it. Before then, if you were British and not following wrestling regularly, I could see how you might not know much about the story. I'm giving people to much credit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 2 hours ago, Loki said: For me, it’s the Ashley Massaro story that should be the big lead. Harassed and passed around between executives, raped on an overseas tour, treated  like a crazy and finally committed suicide. She should be the poster girl for the abuse culture the company.  I really hope the WSJ is on this. It should’ve been the final straw for people stopping giving him their money too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted July 23, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 23, 2022 Fascinated by everyone thinking this will bring about a huge change in direction, with a bright future on the horizon. We’ve seen with NXT moving to USA Network what Triple H thinks a mainstream pro-wrestling TV show is. That was his best effort. It was shit. Raw will still be Raw. Just more skulls, chains and staring at your hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrodyGraham Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 42 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said: It should’ve been the final straw for people stopping giving him their money too. For some of us, it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wordsfromlee Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 It's on the front page of todays WSJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 28 minutes ago, BrodyGraham said: For some of us, it was. We are few and far between. Consumers seemingly couldn’t give a shit as long as they enjoy the product. And that’s up to them of course.  Man, wrestling was always more enjoyable when we didn’t know what happened backstage and off camera. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 3 hours ago, Loki said: For me, it’s the Ashley Massaro story that should be the big lead. Harassed and passed around between executives, raped on an overseas tour, treated  like a crazy and finally committed suicide. She should be the poster girl for the abuse culture the company.  I really hope the WSJ is on this. Have to echo the sentiment to listen to Paul London on the most recent Cafe de Rene podcast talk about how Ashley Massaro was treated. Very sad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamicazze Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 3 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said: Have to echo the sentiment to listen to Paul London on the most recent Cafe de Rene podcast talk about how Ashley Massaro was treated. Very sad. Summarise if time please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 1 minute ago, kamicazze said: Summarise if time please? Essentially Vinnie and Kevin Dunn (no others named) would knock on her hotel room etc and also insist she rode on the WWE private jet etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted July 23, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 23, 2022 5 hours ago, Keith Houchen said: We are few and far between. Consumers seemingly couldn’t give a shit as long as they enjoy the product. And that’s up to them of course.  Man, wrestling was always more enjoyable when we didn’t know what happened backstage and off camera. Yeah I’ve mentioned before that was the moment we cancelled the Network. Seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back more then most things. Had a very angry back and forth last night on twitter because I should be grateful for what Vince did for the world of Wrestling and as there are only a few allegations I shouldn’t believe the hype. I’m glad that seems to be a minority opinion. Also, just in case it was missed, a tale in two tweets   Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Duke Posted July 24, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 24, 2022 To be fair to Gerald, he may well recognise that quite a few people on Twitter aren't celebrating the downfall of a sex pest, but the hope that this will lead to them pushing the cruisers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlondonmist Posted July 24, 2022 Share Posted July 24, 2022 11 hours ago, Keith Houchen said: We are few and far between. Consumers seemingly couldn’t give a shit as long as they enjoy the product. And that’s up to them of course.  Man, wrestling was always more enjoyable when we didn’t know what happened backstage and off camera. It's easy to split the product from the actor if you want. I've done it in the past with wrestling and do it with TV and film. Wrestling fans seem better at it than others, Vince is essentially a Weinstein but less of the backlash. The bigger problem for mr is that the industry as a whole doesn't seem to want to change. Lots of them boast about the years of disturbing behaviour, laugh it off as lads behaviour and don't seem to believe in any sort of comeuppance. We've seen some horrible shit in various entertainment industries over the years but things like music and film at least try and show an image of saying it was shit and they want to improve. Wrestling has just come out as praising a man who we all know was a sex pest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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