Pro Wrestling Contract Season

[LaGoosh]

7 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

A bit of an aside, but I reckon Cody will jump back before his career comes to an end.

Oh man, I hope not.

[RedTwoster]

Just now, LaGoosh said:

Oh man, I hope not.

Ah yeah, I forgot that you’re not a fan!

I’d love to see it myself, and I could absolutely see him returning when he’s a little older to retire in the company he was so integral in getting off the ground. And him returning to AEW is probably one of the few truly special jumps that can still happen in wrestling. 

But hey, maybe he’ll carve out an acting career like many other WWE wrestlers before him, with little time to consider wrestling, let alone another run in AEW.

[Devon Malcolm]

I'd say there's less chance of Cody Rhodes going back to WWE than there is of Seth Rollins not dressing like a fucking knob at Wrestlemania. 

[LaGoosh]

Hasn't Cody said he's (apparently) retiring in a few years anyway?

[RedTwoster]

11 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Hasn't Cody said he's (apparently) retiring in a few years anyway?

He’d also previously said that he’d retire at 40, and if he stuck to that he’d have a couple of months left before he packs it in. I think his new ‘retirement age’ is 45, so we’ll see if he sticks to it. Still plenty time for a final run elsewhere.

[Supremo]

Bushi and Naito announced to be leaving New Japan.

The Rock’s New Japan Army at Wrestlemania. Cody’s toast.

[Merzbow]

I love Naito but I'd more expect him to retire than move anywhere else, unless he hooks up with Rey Jr's stem cell guy for his knees as they're probably the most fucked up in the business.

[RedTwoster]

According to Fightful, Mariah May has yet to make a decision on her future so may not be leaving AEW after all, in spite of what Meltzer has claimed. I generally enjoy both companies (even if the Wrestlemania build has been incredibly dull), but I really, really want her to stay put - so here’s hoping Tony Khan offers the kind of pay hike she deserves.

[Supremo]

Charlotte Flair already thinking up the worst promo you’ve ever heard to cut on Mariah May.

”You might be English…but I’m the real Queen!”

If she thought Tiffy went too far standing up for herself against all the bullshit meta burials, wait until Mariah just pulls a knife like Tank Abott.

[BomberPat]

2 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I love Naito but I'd more expect him to retire than move anywhere else, unless he hooks up with Rey Jr's stem cell guy for his knees as they're probably the most fucked up in the business.

Something I saw suggested is that he might take the rest of this year out and then return at/after the Tokyo Dome shows to announce his last match. That would give him time to rest up, and to build to a retirement match, without muddying the waters of Tanahashi's retirement run. I wouldn't rule out him going somewhere like NOAH, but I'd be amazed if anyone is bringing him thinking they're getting anything but a broken down wreck.

 

18 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

The biggest problem with all of these things is that AEW now feels like a proper stepping stone to WWE. That doesn't affect my enjoyment of it but might be part of the reason the company continues to feel cold in the big picture.

They were never going to be competition in a WWF vs. WCW way, just because of WWE's 20 year monopoly and market share but they were a clear alternative with real momentum for a while and it was somewhere people with a reputation would rather work than WWE. Now it's somewhere people go if WWE doesn't want them or if AEW get to them first and they think it'll help them make it to WWE eventually.

As much as the direction of travel has been far more AEW > WWE recently, I don't think AEW comes out of it too badly because the top of their card has stayed relatively stable - MJF, Hangman, Swerve, Ospreay; there doesn't seem any danger of anyone at that kind of level jumping ship. I think to lose one of them would be really damaging, whereas most of the talent that have left have felt like they had one foot out of the door for months already, so it's almost a relief to get all the "will they/won't they" out of the way.

Something I had been thinking with a bit of a conspiratorial hat on was whether Tony Khan had a contingency plan for the Elite leaving. Losing Cody Rhodes was a massive shift, but the crowd had already begun to turn against him, and it became clear that his goal had always been to prove himself as the top guy WWE hadn't seen him as capable of being, whereas if Omega or the Bucks were to go to WWE, and if Jericho goes back to WWE whenever his contract is up nobody is going to be too upset, but Omega and the Bucks are the guys who really genuinely seemed to want to carve out a space for people to make money in wrestling outside of WWE, and to provide a genuine alternative. To lose them would be way more damaging.
I noticed in the run-up to last year's All In, when I saw adverts on London buses, that the AEW logo had been subtly changed - it used to say "All Elite Wrestling" along the bottom, and now that wording had gone, and it was just the initials. At the time, it annoyed me because it meant the word "Wrestling" didn't appear anywhere on that advertising. But now I realise it also means the word "Elite" didn't appear on it either. I think it was around the same time that they started using the tagline, "Where The Best Wrestle". Given that Tony Khan has said that his original idea for the company's name was "World's Best Wrestling", I wonder if there might have been a back-up plan to completely rebrand if they lost The Elite on bad terms.

 

In terms of WWE and AEW for talent, though, I think momentum will shift back the other way eventually. A huge part of the appeal for AEW to WWE talent was that it meant not working under Vince McMahon, that it involved a lighter schedule, and more creative freedom. Since then, Vince is gone, WWE is much more free creatively, and they run far fewer house shows, so AEW doesn't have a lot of those selling points to offer any more, and they've had a run of high profile issues that might make them look less appealing.

Thing is, there are fewer high-profile spots in WWE than ever. You're going to get people grumbling that they didn't make it on to the Wrestlemania card even when it's two nights, and every other PPV is only five matches, so how many people are going to have the chance to break out? The people who went back to WWE, or will go back to WWE, because they were promised big opportunities, or led to believe that things would be so much better under Triple H and he'd give them the big push, are going to be just as miserable with having to job and not getting big matches there as they were in AEW.

But what AEW can offer is a lot more money than TKO are prepared to. So while WWE are going to be able to, as they always have, pull on the heartstrings and play the, "but haven't you always dreamed of working for WWE?" card towards talent who haven't worked there before, AEW might be able to lure more people from WWE - sometimes with more money, sometimes with the promise that they would allow them the space to be more creative and try things WWE didn't let them; in the best case scenarios, you get a Timeless Toni Storm out of that, in the worst case scenario you get Adam Copeland being the world's least convincing super-serious hard man, but for wrestlers, it's worth the gamble. And then you get people in Ospreay's position where nothing WWE can offer will be good enough, because what he wanted was the flexibility to still live in England - there's an appeal to international talent there that AEW could win out over WWE on.

 

Finally, for all that AEW used to get criticised for having older wrestlers like Copeland and Jericho in main event programmes, WWE have an age problem. They're relying on a 47 year old John Cena and a 46 year old CM Punk for Wrestlemania main events. Admittedly 40 isn't what it used to be, but Cody, Roman, Seth, and the Usos are all getting close to it, and guys floating around the main event picture or just below it like Drew McIntyre, Damien Priest, LA Knight and Finn Balor are already north of it. AJ Styles is 47. Rey Mysterio is 50. Hot new signing Penta is 40. I don't know modern WWE well enough to know how credibly they're building up younger talent to step up to that level, but this is probably one of the older average ages of a Wrestlemania card ever.

By comparison, Hangman Page, Swerve Strickland, Will Ospreay, and Jay White are all under 35. MJF still isn't even 30. That's the level of talent that AEW are building around long-term, and have the opportunity to carve out the precedent for what AEW can offer young wrestlers outside of WWE.

[tiger_rick]

16 hours ago, Kamran said:

Agreed, instead of looking like it's a negative for AEW I think there are positives to this. You'll often see comments online about how inferior AEW is to WWE but something like this adds more legitimacy to them. WWE pursuing AEW talent might mean you get a few more WWE fans checking out AEW if they like what they see from May/Fenix etc. 

I loved the Monday Night Wars and it was always exciting to see talent switch between companies.

16 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

For sure. Instead of the view being "this is bad for AEW because they're talent is leaving for WWE" you could just as easily make the argument of "WWE is getting it's best new talent from AEW" and this shows that AEW is a place where there is great talent worth poaching and therefore worth watching. Back in the day when someone jumped ship to WWF my reaction wasn't "ECW must be shit" - it made me want to check out their old stuff.

I think they're different arguments to be honest. Having a place like AEW for people to work at a high level, create polished acts, generate some name value and importance in the wrestling sphere and then move to WWE and a place for people cut by WWE, lost in the shuffle or just having done all they can do to move to and reinvent themselves is brilliant for the business. The only people who could possibly argue against that are the knuckle draggers who want AEW to fail because they think they're on Team WWE and we all know who those idiots are and not many of them are on here.

What it looks like for AEW is different and is something that I'm invested in as someone who, unashamedly, wants AEW to thrive. I want the wrestling I really like to play out in front of packed houses and rabid crowds and the wrestlers I really like to be part of it. We know that AEW has a really good perception as a business to their partners in the TV industry and the contracts and revenues reflect that. But as a fan, I'm concerned with the general perception of the product from the fans attending and the workers and I just don't think this stuff is helping the perception that AEW is a distant number two at the moment.  

[LaGoosh]

43 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

So while WWE are going to be able to, as they always have, pull on the heartstrings and play the, "but haven't you always dreamed of working for WWE?" card towards talent who haven't worked there before,

Not sure if it's been noted in the thread but this is basically exactly what WWE did with Stephanie Vanquer. AEW offered her a lot of money and WWE told her "we're not going to give you that much, have fun, see you later" and then she told them that going to WWE was her dream job so they low balled her while selling her the dream and she accepted it. Fundamentally regardless of what AEW do some people will always jump ship to WWE no matter what.

[BomberPat]

Yep, same thing happened to Nathan Frazer. AEW offered him a lot more money than WWE, but it was always his dream to work for WWE, so he was never going to turn them down no matter what they offered. Yet he still got people accusing him of "selling out" on Twitter, even though taking less money to follow your dreams is kind of the exact opposite of selling out. 

[DEF]

A while back I had a conversation with a few pals and one of them genuinely questioned if AEW was bigger than TNA now and in his mind he now sees them as the third tier. Obviously that is nonsense but that is the perception from the Cornettes and bad faith Facebook feeds.

There is a real issue with perception becoming reality to people. Now Vince is gone a whole industry of "media" has spawned that exists purely to profit off burying Tony Khan and AEW.

There was survey done for AEW fans on twitter that they were talking about on Post Wrestling (the one source I genuinely think does a good job) it was only about 200 fans but they said overwhelmingly they like AEW home grown younger talent but also when AEW comes to there town they wouldn't go and see them. There own fan base has been convinced it's second class.

The one real upside to Cody being the guy is that WWE have to admit that AEW is a challenger brand for part of his backstory. Of course in the WWE narrative it was All Cody Wrestling and he's the guy that built it but it's better than not being acknowledged. Combine that with Warner being pretty happy with them and I think ultimately perception will shift again but it's an uphill battle.

They have to be careful who they bring in from WWE. Upper midcarders being paid big bucks to do what they have been doing in WWE won't help that perception.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

6 minutes ago, DEF said:

A while back I had a conversation with a few pals and one of them genuinely questioned if AEW was bigger than TNA now and in his mind he now sees them as the third tier. Obviously that is nonsense but that is the perception from the Cornettes and bad faith Facebook feeds.

There is a real issue with perception becoming reality to people. Now Vince is gone a whole industry of "media" has spawned that exists purely to profit off burying Tony Khan and AEW.

I only have an interest in the historical stuff from Cornette but the bit of modern stuff that leaks in occasionally doesn't really chime with that perception though. He seems to see them as the second biggest promotion, he just seems to disagree with the booking. I may be wrong about that as like I said I'm only really listening to what the Midnight Express were up to in 1984. As to the Facebook bit, I couldn't tell you. I weaned myself of the Meta teat ages ago. 

As for the second part. That isn't AEW exclusive. People will say anything for money now. Media these days is anyone with a YouTube channel, and there seems to be an infinite amount of them. I found my mum watching a YouTube video the other day titled "Is King Charles a Muslim?" Nearly 300k views, and it was surprisingly longer than the one second it should take to say "No' So everyone gets slagged off, I don't think Tony gets it any worse than anyone else.