Snitsky's back acne Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 hour ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said: He gave back 400 million dollars because the Saudi's murdered a journalist. I don't doubt he cares about the bottom line, it's his job, but to claim that outweighs any moral objections he has does not appear to be based on precedent mimsy. A journalist was murdered. It got worldwide press attention. It was great PR for his company to stop any dealings with the Saudi's at that point. 400 million for a multi billion dollar company will not be a fatal hit. I'm sure there's probably some way he could even claim it as a tax write off or something As horrific and abhorrent as this whole thing is it has made barely a blip in the mainstream. A sponsor dropped out but quickly got back on board when Vince publicly resigned. He has no financial or PR reason, currently, to do anything else. I'm sure he has some kind of moral compass like everyone does but you don't get to be a billionaire by being nice. If it's good PR or can make you money, you do it. If you're forced to do it because it will be bad PR or cost you massive future earnings, you do it. Otherwise you hand it to legal and make it quietly go away or ignore it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Nick James Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 (edited) I think a lot of eyes need to be cast over the wrestling 'media' secondary to what needs investigating within WWE. According to Meltzer (lol), it has been a well known secret for years and even people outside of the company were aware. IF that was true, why the fuck hasn't one of these so called 'journalists' reported anything? Hacks, that would either lose their meal ticket to fame if they leaked something like that or as usual, they don't know as much as they hope they do. As shown in the multiple press conferences over the last few years, it's only when the real press or the ones outside of the dirt sheets (dirt sheets being Meltzer, Fightful and the like) start asking questions do we actually get anything of relevance. There needs to be something done about the state of wrestling from top to the absolute bottom and that includes the people that have a high follower count and claim to be 'In The Know'. Edited January 30 by Nick James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Factotum Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 40 minutes ago, Nick James said: IF that was true, why the fuck hasn't one of these so called 'journalists' reported anything? Hacks, that would either lose their meal ticket to fame if they leaked something like that or as usual, they don't know as much as they hope they do. A lot of people knew things about Harvey Weinstein. There were NDAs, reports that were started and then fell apart etc. There were also people who heard things. The issue with journalism is it takes a lot of time, money and bravery to nail one of these people. If you read the two main the books on the Weinstein reporting, you can see just how difficult it is. The women they interviewed that wouldn't go on record for a variety of reasons. The NDA legal problems they faced. Hell the Times story on him was only first concentrating on the NDAs and they had to be meticulously fact checked. Throw in financial pressure and legal threatening and it isn't as easy as saying 'why didn't they report it?' We all know Vince had NDAs, we all knew about Rita Chatterton or the sex abuse scandal in the 90s. We knew this. So did journalists who reported on it. I imagine their are a lot of journalists in mainstream media now looking at this. It's a big story. Perhaps now more women or employees feel they can come forward. We can only hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 hour ago, Snitsky's back acne said: A journalist was murdered. It got worldwide press attention. It was great PR for his company to stop any dealings with the Saudi's at that point. 400 million for a multi billion dollar company will not be a fatal hit. I'm sure there's probably some way he could even claim it as a tax write off or something I could be wrong, but I think you're missing the point. It's not about the fact that it was $400 million. It could have been any amount. It's the fact that he did it. The easiest thing for Emanuel to do would have been to keep quiet, accept the investment and continue with the original plan, which took quite some time and effort to negotiate. But he didn't. He went to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and returned his investment, with interest. How many people do you think have done that in the past? Or have the stones to even think about doing that? He ran the risk of upsetting one of the most powerful players on the world stage today. And he did that because he didn't like the fact that a journalist was murdered in an Embassy. As for him doing it for PR, he's since come out and said pretty plainly that he has absolutely no moral position on LIV golf being funded by Saudi, and that he hasn't really thought much about the idea of Saudi sports washing. Those views aren't great for PR. It wasn't a PR stance from him. Basically, he's a guy who has enough power that he's able to take a stand on whatever he likes. If he thinks having Triple H (I refuse to call him Paul) around isn't good for business, or if it doesn't sit right with him personally, then chances are good that Triple H will be gone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 A WWE without Triple H at the helm is a fascinating prospect. I'd be very intrigued to see that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 1 hour ago, Factotum said: A lot of people knew things about Harvey Weinstein. There were NDAs, reports that were started and then fell apart etc. There were also people who heard things. The issue with journalism is it takes a lot of time, money and bravery to nail one of these people. If you read the two main the books on the Weinstein reporting, you can see just how difficult it is. The women they interviewed that wouldn't go on record for a variety of reasons. The NDA legal problems they faced. Hell the Times story on him was only first concentrating on the NDAs and they had to be meticulously fact checked. Throw in financial pressure and legal threatening and it isn't as easy as saying 'why didn't they report it?' We all know Vince had NDAs, we all knew about Rita Chatterton or the sex abuse scandal in the 90s. We knew this. So did journalists who reported on it. I imagine their are a lot of journalists in mainstream media now looking at this. It's a big story. Perhaps now more women or employees feel they can come forward. We can only hope. The thing is, though, according to the write-up, Meltzer claimed to have no idea, and to have found all this shocking. The friend of someone in WWE called him naive. My take on this is that this has been really open for years, a huge amount of people know about it, and Meltzer didn't want to know about it, so never dug into it. If he gave the slightest shit, he could have done something about it. But he didn't. In fact, he's made clear that one difference with Jerry McDevitt no longer running things is that he no longer gets sent background checks on people as soon as any scandal turns up. Which is probably why, during the Ashley Massaro thing, he went on about how people wouldn't find her to be a credible person. Basically, all this stuff leaves Meltzer so far out of his depth that, despite all his contacts and knowledge, I actually believe that this came as a shock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 1 hour ago, Factotum said: A lot of people knew things about Harvey Weinstein. There were NDAs, reports that were started and then fell apart etc. There were also people who heard things. The issue with journalism is it takes a lot of time, money and bravery to nail one of these people. If you read the two main the books on the Weinstein reporting, you can see just how difficult it is. The women they interviewed that wouldn't go on record for a variety of reasons. The NDA legal problems they faced. Hell the Times story on him was only first concentrating on the NDAs and they had to be meticulously fact checked. Throw in financial pressure and legal threatening and it isn't as easy as saying 'why didn't they report it?' We all know Vince had NDAs, we all knew about Rita Chatterton or the sex abuse scandal in the 90s. We knew this. So did journalists who reported on it. I imagine their are a lot of journalists in mainstream media now looking at this. It's a big story. Perhaps now more women or employees feel they can come forward. We can only hope. There's a bunch of things going on in wrestling journalism specifically - but all of this is much bigger. We have to remember that this isn't a Wrestling story, it's the story of a powerful multi-millionaire head of a major corporation abusing his position, and wrestling is only the backdrop. Everything about how this story has broken shows how difficult it would be to shed any light on it before now - tens of millions paid out in NDAs, previous legal cases paid off, WWE's crack legal defence, these are all things that make breaking a story like this as close to impossible as reporting gets. The story didn't break because one journalist pushed harder or asked the right questions or stayed on the beat longer, it broke because there was grounds for a lawsuit when Vince stopped fulfilling the terms of his own NDA agreement, which meant a lawsuit, which meant something the press could report on - because they're still not saying "Vince McMahon has done these things", they're saying "this is what the lawsuit alleges Vince McMahon has done" because, at this stage, that is the only option available to them. Wrestling journalism has a thousand and one flaws, not least of all that people who are better described as opinion columnists, critics, podcasters, Youtubers, and so on, all get lumped into the same category, so are expected to be able to do hard-hitting journalism when really all they wanted to do was crack jokes about WCW in 1997 with their mates or put together a video called "Top 10 Wrestlers You Never Knew Were In A Royal Rumble". Meltzer's a perfect example, because he straddles so many of those different roles - the star ratings he gives as a critic are used as "evidence" that his reporting must be biased, and he's treated as somebody who gets reporting wrong more often than he does because he things he speculates on in conversation on a podcast are repeated on aggregated news and gossip sites as something he's reported is definitely going to happen. There are far fewer distinctions between all these roles than there are in mainstream media and journalism, and it leads to people who really have no business trying to play journalist being called upon to comment on serious issues like this when they'd be better served just staying quiet and listening to what better informed people have to say, and in worst case scenarios it leads to people who made their name off spurious gossip and interviews thinking that they are investigative journalists but knowing nothing of the practice or ethics of journalism and making things worse. It doesn't help that, when it comes to issues of women's safety and of the dynamics of power and abuse, Dave Meltzer has repeatedly shown himself to be, at best, profoundly incurious. 39 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: A WWE without Triple H at the helm is a fascinating prospect. I'd be very intrigued to see that. I've often wondered what WWE would look like once it fully completes its transformation into corporate content churn with fewer and fewer of the old guard involved. Part of me thinks that everybody there has been so well-trained in how WWE operates that there'd be no perceptible change, but the alternative is that corporate heads look at a lot of things taken as read or taken for granted in wrestling and just sack them off entirely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 I’m of the belief that it’s already starting to lose traction in the wider media let alone wrestling media, because Vince has gone. What this really needs is a 4 part ITV drama staring Charles Dance as Vincent K and Toby Jones as Bruce Prichard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 1 minute ago, Hannibal Scorch said: I’m of the belief that it’s already starting to lose traction in the wider media let alone wrestling media, because Vince has gone You are not wrong, but it's the same with every news story. The news was that the case had been filed and then it was Vince had resigned. Realistically there isn't any more news on the story. The next big news hit will be if/when it goes to trial. I wouldn't expect a lot of coverage until then as other news will happen, and let's face it for the general public there is plenty of news and then some happening. The wider public only has so many fucks to give and right now outside a small section of a small section of wrestling fans this was never going to be on the radar for long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 (edited) 2 hours ago, David said: If he thinks having Triple H (I refuse to call him Paul) around isn't good for business, or if it doesn't sit right with him personally, then chances are good that Triple H will be gone. Has anyone in any position of knowledge made any insinuation that HHH knew about Vince's sex trafficking? I'm still somewhat baffled about how THIS continues to be the main topic of conversation, as opposed to the repercussions for Vince himself, Laurinaitis, Lesnar, and any other people actually directly involved in the abuse. HHH has been the on-screen WWE "head" for a few years but in reality apart from a brief period when he and his wife ACTUALLY managed to oust the villainous old bastard, he's not been in a particularly senior position in the main office. The only point of contact I can think of is he and Stephanie instigating an independent investigation into the allegations, and I'm not sure that actually reported back before Vince forced his way back to power and sent his own daughter packing. Perhaps HHH has been Cc'd in on all the videos of his father-in-law shitting on women, but there's been no suggestion of that. Perhaps he should have resigned when Stephanie did, but he probably feels he has an obligation to the wrestlers and the product. People on Reddit are going "HHH is definitely out" but I'm still unsure why apart from that he's a visible figure and everyone assumes he must be guilty of SOMETHING. Edited January 30 by Loki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 minute ago, Loki said: Has anyone in any position of knowledge made any insinuation that HHH knew about Vince's sex trafficking? I'm still somewhat baffled about how THIS continues to be the main topic of conversation, as opposed to the repercussions for Vince himself, Laurinaitis, Lesnar, and any other people actually directly involved in the abuse. I have no idea. I'm addressing the point made about Ari Emanuel and how he might approach it. Vince is gone anyway, so he won't have any scope over that. I imagine my post about how he'd approach the Triple H scenario would just as easily apply to anyone else still with the company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 minute ago, David said: I have no idea. I'm addressing the point made about Ari Emanuel and how he might approach it. Vince is gone anyway, so he won't have any scope over that. I imagine my post about how he'd approach the Triple H scenario would just as easily apply to anyone else still with the company. Right. I expect his first port of call with the stiff broom will be anyone left who McMahon reinstated during his reverse coup if they haven't already been cleaned out by the merger. My comment wasn't directed specifically at you David, just more a general bafflement at how this has turned into a "Big Jock Knew" situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 1 minute ago, Loki said: Right. I expect his first port of call with the stiff broom will be anyone left who McMahon reinstated during his reverse coup if they haven't already been cleaned out by the merger. My comment wasn't directed specifically at you David, just more a general bafflement at how this has turned into a "Big Jock Knew" situation. Oh, absolutely. I've noticed that in my limited online reading, people seem to be focusing on who knew and why they didn't pipe up rather than addressing those (reportedly) directly involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Factotum Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 6 minutes ago, David said: Oh, absolutely. I've noticed that in my limited online reading, people seem to be focusing on who knew and why they didn't pipe up rather than addressing those (reportedly) directly involved. I suppose that's for a few reasons. Firstly that Vince being a scumbag sleaze was at least known to the wider wrestling fan base. Not to this level of course, but morally I don't think anyone thought he was a good guy. Secondly due to the nature of him supposedly sharing this information with others in the organisation and carrying on with employees it brings into sharp focus the culture at WWE. Were their complaints and how were they deal with etc? And lastly, because Vince is gone. Bar a legal case, we no doubt will only hear the horrible shit he was up to. Therefore the head has been cut off, but people want to know what happens to those that aid and facilitate monsters like this. You would expect anyone who genuinely didn't know to want a full investigation into it all. If Triple H is genuinely in the dark then he should be demanding one and fucking reading the lawsuit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 4 minutes ago, Factotum said: I suppose that's for a few reasons. Firstly that Vince being a scumbag sleaze was at least known to the wider wrestling fan base. Not to this level of course, but morally I don't think anyone thought he was a good guy. Secondly due to the nature of him supposedly sharing this information with others in the organisation and carrying on with employees it brings into sharp focus the culture at WWE. Were their complaints and how were they deal with etc? And lastly, because Vince is gone. Bar a legal case, we no doubt will only hear the horrible shit he was up to. Therefore the head has been cut off, but people want to know what happens to those that aid and facilitate monsters like this. You would expect anyone who genuinely didn't know to want a full investigation into it all. If Triple H is genuinely in the dark then he should be demanding one and fucking reading the lawsuit Some very good points, but one question I'd ask is what people would have had someone like Triple H actually do? If he had an idea of what was going on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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