A_K

There appears to be a pretty strong rule that Dynamite can’t round a million while Smackdown ramps towards 2 and that Rampage can only go down, so if he’s a pillar holding those rules in place good for him I suppose

Hopefully. Feels like some weird time warp because they needed rid of him 2H 2020 and suddenly we’re rounding 2H 2022 and he’s still a front & centre talent

Carny Dave will be Carny Dave. Hasn’t got a clue. WWE have been gaining traction for months .. even before the Vince debacle and subsequent “refresh”. Laws of diminishing returns on those names now .. as you say, they’re better going back to the youth to some extent. In a bit of a bind for mid-long-term plan but that has ever been the case in ‘22. The fact Jericho is still front and centre tells you all you need to know.

Andrade has been booked plenty. Way over exposed in fact. His angles absolutely suck. Whether that’s his fault or another’s, who knows. Dynamite ratings now down 15% YOY while Rampage plumbs new depths; even Carny Dave will be hard pressed to sell the “constant growth” narrative now. Wasted the Danielson/Punk signings momentum in the autumn - is what it is.

Gee there are some unnatural & unhealthy presumptuous obsessions with folk y’all have never met ?

Creatively he checked out of this thing years ago. Life work & engrained habits and all that, but nothing in the last 15 years can have remotely approached the buzz he had in being central to the product week in, week out with seminal stars. Just the old circus master at the decaying carnival, finally put out to pasture. WWF always did love bringing the “Old Yeller” analogy into storylines. Here it is in the flesh.

White is a peculiar one, because in some respects he’s clearly trying to channel peak-period Conor McGregor, but in others he has the kind of corniness that McGregor of those years would have had a ball ripping apart on the mic. Physicality & mannerisms are all there though .. just need to refine the witticisms

Of course Hayden wants to do it: he's yet to notch a filmography in the '20s, with his two flicks prior to that in '17-'19 being direct-to-video and a theatre gross of $15k. OWK going off-world makes even less sense now: actually it makes no sense, and in-narrative-world only exposes to more risk. There's zero sense in DVs role being enlarged any further, either. Last couple of episodes of this were fun but overall the series got a tepid response: they'd really be flogging a dead horse if they try to extend this miniseries any further.

Second season shouldn't happen. The only (very) slight reason would be to explore the Qui Gon stuff a little more .. but even another 5 minutes of that in this season would have ticked it off. There's absolutely no interesting meat left on that bone to explore.

There was lots of time to build. 9/10 weeks, give or take.

2.3 million? Lucky they are not in the weird twilight zone that is Wednesday nights on cable.

No, it doesn’t. It’s a multi-billion dollar publicly held company not some Carny circus as Meltzer’s typically “unnamed source” (e.g. - he has no source & is monetizing gossip). The market didn’t care about this - the price was basically unmoved (it’s actually up 5% PM today on Vince stepping aside). But as I wrote the fact that it has held up so well this year (esp. against peers) while slowly unwinding the major McMahon family shareholder/influences likely means there is something going on in the background (e.g corporate acquisition) that is keeping the price so elevated. Will be interesting to see if that is what happens & this is him effectively stepping away permanently.

Some of the comments citing WWE stock movements do not realise this has had next to no effect on the stock. The entire market has had a sledgehammer taken to it this year .. WWE stock actually up 35% in 6 months vs. the wider S&P being down 20%. For context, Live Nation (another live-events business) is down 30% year to date. WME Endeavour (UFC owner) down 43% year to date. WWE has been literally one of the best performing mid-cap equities in the market through this period - there's not a single comparable media/events business performance. Hell, even on the 5 day view with this news baked in and one of the worst market runs in 150 years its down a mighty .. -0.21%. If anything this is highly suggestive of a take-over looming at a high price. There are few other sensible reasons as to why they would be outperforming their peers in the live event/media/talent management space to such an obscene degree.

Nailed the ratings-top call a month or two ago, and the painful slide that will continue from here - didn’t call that for the larks of it. There is fun stuff for the fanatics & the niche-lovers, but the roadmap for the big picture is fucked. Jericho front centre, tag titles back on Bucks, Guevara character all over the place as if it were 2000 WCW .. deeply regressive decisions that will not build a foundation. With the enormous slash in ad spend on the way + fall in discretionary consumer spending on live events nothing for the company should be taken for granted: these falls can start from innocuous basis. He seriously needs to get someone in there with him to tidy things the fuck up and start de-risking some of these crazy narrative decisions. They had a good thing going back in the autumn but now staring down the barrel of, what, a c. 25-40% fall in viewership in a given week since the first week NXT went off the air? They need to wake up.

Your little passive aggressive stalker shtick is funny, keep quoting - I must be making up a fair % of your posts by now, and this time you even get a response! I get that you were one of those falling over yourself to explain away Carny Dave being hoodwinked by the DON stuff (maybe you even put money in the Carny one's pocket?). As I said to the last guy, its also amusing that a battered 43 year old who they hung their multi-million $ contract re-negotiation period on, and leg-sweeped their young champ for, was allowed to be so reckless as to jump into crowds or trying springboard moves immediately after taking the title and that was considered more 'normal' than the prospect of Punk being baked into the MJF narrative. This latest Hardy episode is simply further extension of big picture mad-cap decisions like that being taken at the top. Ratings will continue to stay under 1 m. or fade further, talent management will continue to be muddled, the long-term booking will continue to run more astray now that they've finished the first couple years of storylines they planned at the outset, and you & your ilk can continue to fetishize the niche stuff. All is good with the world.

Yeah it was more batshit crazy. WWE were lampooned for treatment of Jeff but it’s sheer moral negligence to have that guy anywhere near a working environment: sheer greed to have employed him. Carny Dave being Carny Dave: the idea that the Hardy ‘Boys’ are in any way shape or form a “draw” in 2022 is demonstrably ludicrous. Employing both has also been to the detriment of more talented younger teams with a far higher ceiling. Cut both and put whoever recommended devoting time & resources to this moral hazard on the bench.

Who’s talking about weakness?? Your words, not mine ?. Like I actually said, I’m happy for the dude if he enjoys what he’s seeing and at the decision-making being taken.

Second week running, my man. Living rent free here - no need to quote my name, enjoy your Rampage! If you think AEW losing their expensive top earning, world worn 43 year old WC in a pivotal contract-negotiation season to some naïve, nonsensical crowd dive or, even worse, foolhardy springboard with no risk/reward was some how more satisfying than the idea of such foolhardy actions being part of a narrative story .. more power to ya! Enjoy the show ?

There's an element of that, compounded by the cupping marks he had (now obscured by band-aids?). That apart though, and given he's Canadian too & with a 'technical M&A' move set, presumably the gimmick he should really be aiming to emulate is Benoit's no-nonsense Crippler gimmick (without any reference ever to Benoit, obv.).

He’s already got one sub-million viewer development farm pal, not sure he needs another. Besides at 76 he’s probably looking at simplifying things rather than leaning into the crazy. When Carny Dave even is calling foul on some of these decisions, a moment of reflection is probably needed. A few defy logic.

10 (+?) titles being bandied around for 3 hours of live television (one hour of which has absolutely tanked). Proper ADHD booking - the road forward is an absolute mess, and that’s at a high level without even veering into the micro decisions being made at individual talent level. ?

Hooks manner of push is actually some of their best work. He looks very strong against low card talent, has had some meaningful-vignette appearances to build character lower down the card, has allusions of being strong against mid/upper card but to be determined, everyone is accessory-to-him as opposed to the other way round. Wardlow .. really, was an accessory to let MJF speak. He had some good feats of brawn, but unless they have a definable narrative direction for him that will fade in time, and they can’t keep him as strong as he was against MJF against all of the other talent on the card.

MJF made the feud not Wardlow - who knew ? Time will show that the Wardlow push was ill conceived - not because he is not talented, but because there was nowhere for him to go after on his first solo venture. He’s not Goldberg - 1 because he doesn’t have that level of physicality (although he can be impressive), 2 because Goldberg went through numerous short arcs before reaching an arc of any weight. MJF should have been an eventual mini-boss for Wardlow, not his first-one-out. Now he can’t beat the world champ, he can’t beat the TV champ, he’s not tested on the mic and he has no real narrative-threat in series. Blew their load on that one.

Living rent free ?

It will come to pass ?