Ziggy

WWE tends to do this alot, they force the person they want the most to be the one to cross over commercials and stuff representing the company over someone else who may be a better person for that spot. I think that has left plenty money off the table for them. Like I always bring up way back when Underarmour was still new they wanted Shelton Benjamin on some commercials and WWE said they wanted them to use Orton or they weren't going to work with them at all. Of course Punk talk about Chael Sonnen wanted Punk to walk him to the ring for a fight and the told him no. I think WWE has gotten better with letting other guys that aren't their handpicked guys do outside stuff involving celebrities lately but it was ridiculous in the past

Wasn't Sasha's spot at Mania taken by Ronda? I know Ronda denied it, and I'm sure she's telling the truth but Wasn't there no Mania plans for Sasha up until a few weeks before Mania? I was waiting for Ronda and Sasha again easily Rondas best 2 to 3 matches

I woke up a few hours before having to get up for work and I saw a post on Instagram about the Sasha and Naomi thing. It's crazy how WWE just completely broke kayfabe even more than it already is trying to put the heat on Noami and Sasha. I've been a big fan of Sasha since the beginning. I'm aware of her "reputation" but the wrestling business, especially WWE has always been so One sided in terms on contacts. They thrive off the idea of 90% of the wrestlers that come in are marks for the business or atleast marks for WWE. When guys precieved worth is bigger than the WWE is ready to deal with then that person is an asshole. Growing up I liked the idea of Warrior fighting for his likeness and going toe to toe with them legally on different things. I'm not saying he handled things in the best way alot of times but he certainly wasn't a mark for WWE. Or even a guy like Punk who loved this business and they totally made him hate it. Maybe Sasha may think she is a bigger deal than she really is but I do believe she has qualities that could get her over outside Wrestling. I do believe she has the ability to be a star outside of wrestling. I Naomi doing decent outside of wrestling as well honesty especially since she already has a history on reality TV. She married into the Wrestling business, its not like she Has no love for it herself and for someone who came in from the outside she became pretty good. To be honest with you I think she'd be much better outside of WWE because style is too showy with all the dancing offense. As for Sasha, I've expected her to eventually attempt to be like Cena or Rock or Batista and move on to Hollywood under the WWEs banner. Sasha is still a huge wrestling fan so I think if she doesn't come back then she'll be working for somebody even if it's a handful of dates. This situation is going to be interesting because with Noami being tied with Jimmy Uso you would think they'd want to keep her happy. When they didn't put her in the bloodline I really realized she isn't as valued as she could be because honestly her in the bloodline in this current run would have done way more for her than being Women's tag team champion. Without a belt she would have been made. Let's be honest, that title had mostly been held by makeshift teams after like Sasha and Bayley I couldn't even tell you would held those titles. Watching Wrestlemania I had no clue Carmela and Zelina were a team. When they started the division I was hoping for late 00's early 10's TNA women's tag team division type deal with a handful of real tag teams and not 2 women put together only to last for till the next PPV cycle

IShii ?

Remember a few years ago everyone was mad at how Ricochet was on Main Event every week assuming he wanted out of WWE then he basically let everyone know that he wasn't really worried about how he was used and he was happy with his WWE money and he still had some of his best friends on the road with him. There are probably less of people with that mindset right now.

Alot of guys wasted 3 to 5 plus years in a brand that should have been what AEW is now. Like if the NXT original was a true success AEW probably wouldn't be a thing. Not to say that AEW is doing early WCW Nitro Era success but in some metrics they've shown that they're successful. I get that when you got a roster full of guys only a few a going to be a success but WWE have had stars handed to them on a silver plater and they dropped the ball because Vince didn't see anything in them. It's one thing for a few guys to be unhappy and ready to go but it's ridiculous how many people were ready to go. It's a good thing actually that alot of these guys aren't marks anymore for WWE to the point that they are ok with just being under contract but that's the environment the company created. I'm sure we will be seeing more interviews like Ember Moons with guys just talking about how they were just ready go. I mean it's one thing when like Moxley left and did that podcast about how unhappy and ready to leave was. It's something else when you start getting a number of them which I expect in the next few months.

That socks that the series won't continue but hopefully they are getting good money if they are working with WWE. I'm not anti WWE but I liked the fact that they were able to have a series independent of that got a really good level of viewership. I'm sure once this deal is up they'll continue the series if these guys don't get decent long term positions in WWE

Listening to that clip of Ember Moon grieving her frustrations on Chris Van Vlient's podcast and quickly scrolling down wrestling Twitter it seems like most of these guys were ready to leave or expecting it. I haven't been watching NXT but just on social media Stokely seemed to add alot to the brand. It's obviously not cool for anyone being released and it gets old seeing fans talk about bad WWE is for releasing guys but It doesn't bother me because most these guys seemed to be ready to go anyway so it's easier for me become cold to hearing about who got released

What trips me out the most is she says Sullivan had no clue she could actually work until she started doing spots on guys during his matches which I would this was on the fly. Kinda how Shawn Michaels talked about how Sherri would beat up guys during his matches for not selling for him.

As a kid I felt that way about Shawn. I thought he was more exciting than Bret. Ironically I didn't really appreciate Bret until a few months before Montreal. And little did I know he was leaving and wasn't even smart to the screwjob finish till Vince explained it on TV. The older I got and the smarter I got to the business, the more and more I realized how much better Bret was than Shawn Michaels. I still like Shawn and I think he is great in the WWE lexicon. Another thing about Shawn that hurt him for me is the Melodramatic stuff he brought to this modern WWE & NXT. It was cute in the Flair match an his Retirement match but everything else like the matches he refereed between Hunter and Taker and all those NXT TakeOver main events that he or Hunter agented was too much to the point I feeling him less and less. Bret Hart worked for the match. Yeah he wanted to look good even in a loosing effort but Shawn seemed like he wanted to look good even at your expense. Look at the Hogan match, it was really good and even funny but it's just an example of him overexagerating to make a point. I'd like to hear Brets thoughts on that match today especially since he doesn't hate Shawn and he's not too crazy about Hulk.

Yes unlike other Top babyfaces in WWF/WWE it's excusable for Bret to use Heelish tactics to win back him Belt against the Bigger ,Stronger Champ. Bret was dope in '94 and '95 because clearly at points he was put on the backburner but he never worked down based on who he was working, whether he was main eventing against Yoko or in a middle of the card against a new Yankeem or against Hakushi who everyone else besides The Kid wanted to sell for. It felt like up till he returned in '96 he was constantly trying to prove to Vince McMahon that he was the top guy. Even when he had the belt the first few times it was like he was literally out to prove to Vince why he was the Ace.

I didn't see the KotR 94 match was good too

It would have been Bret vs Diesel 10x better and their matches were dope.

That sucks for Dax, I was hoping we'd see him in AEW again because for the most part they feature legends pretty well in non wrestling roles. I'm sure if he did start being an on screen talent, he wouldn't be on anywhere close to every week but it would've been fun to see him aligned with FTR. I hope he got some good money out of it because I'm sure Tony Kahn would have offered good money to have him on. Especially since Chicago is a big Bret town and he's been putting over Punk heavy lately too.

If the Owen Cup becomes their version of G1 in terms of a tournament that has numerous match of the year candidates annually that would be dope. A national TV promotion having their version of BOLA would be nice. Like US wrestlings version of March Madness where we gotta catch these matches as it happens because it's likely to be a banger

I think it does help that he gets to work with JR. He gets to be around people like Tully, Arn, Sting, Jake and other NWA/WCW Alum it also helps that he was away for so long because we all no much like JR he can't hide it if he isn't feeling what he's watching. I think JR probably would be better if he was away from wrestling all together for a significant amount of time maybe not decades like Schiavone was but long enough to have a break from it an appreciate it on a different level. The business has passed him by in some ways but he still loves it. I feel like it passed me by sometimes even at 34 years old lol but it's going to get further and further away from the wrestling I grew up with but I still love it. Like Flair , say what you will be even at 73 he never comes across as the older guy burying the current generation he always puts over the current guys and seems like he's as much of a fan today as he was starting out.

It would have been interesting to see what WWE/F centric talent with little to no history in that territory would have been put in their Hall of Fame had they still been around. I look at Studd as a WWF guy primarily buy I'm aware he had history in Mid Atlantic and other NWA affiliated Territories. If WWE never bought WCW and got its library they probably wouldn't even invest and value their history like they do and even think to of having a Hall of Fame as often as they do

Hass talked about how even during his run with Rico even then guys didn't want to work with Rico or make him look good. He put him over how legit tough he was but the Adrian Street gimmick was basically a death sentence for him. I remember I had a before they were stars DVD from '03 that featured all the recently called up OVW guys and outside of Dinsmore and the Bashams and Flash Flanagan, Rico seemed like the better overall worker of all the first crop of OVW call ups on that tape and you had Cornette put him over on the alternate commentary he did with Meltzer. But your right JR put him over as a tough guy inspite of the gimmick. I was happy to see him get to actually work on the main roster but that type gimmick in WWE unless your getting build up to eventually get paired again the top Babyface or the Undertaker like Goldust was then its a death sentence.

I was thinking to myself today that WWF missed out on having Bret around after the screwjob because between 95 till he left he either got a ton of guys in to the business like Test for example or helped people like Edge and Christian get tryouts or even had a hand in training people like Shamrock and Henry directly. Bret wasn't as hands on with getting people in WCW, probably because he didn't few WCW was worth getting guys in. From Brets perspective you probably can't blame him for not going out his way getting guys jobs besides his brother in laws just solely for the nice guaranteed money

I thought that should have been the direction for WM 37. That Smackdown around the holidays in 2020 when he one the IC title did a nice rating relative to the time and was a dope moment. When he one the world title it was cool but they didn't give him anything to work with. He was an afterthought

I can't say that it was directly related to his but towards the end of his run in WWF he was headlining MSG cards that they were finally selling out for the first time since Before Hogan's run was over. Diesel was a flop as Champion mainly because of how he was booked but once he dropped the belt he got to be Kevin Nash with a black glove. As Champion he was basically a tall lanky "Lex Express" Lex Luger.

True but unlike the circus you have weekly programming and even though the brand itself is the attraction they'll always have that one guy and or girl that's pushed more dominantly as the Ace of the company than everyone else.

It's weird that as further away WWE has gotten with kayfabe and being open with letting people behind the curtain. The more forceful they are about the fans accepting their chosen person as the Ace of the company no matter how much the Audience kicks against it. Naturally the audience is going to feel like they have a voice on who they want as the top guy and reject the person who they feel you are trying to force in that spot, even if that person is top guy material. Austin and Rock felt more like the people's choice. Even Rock who had the Pedigree and sculpted like what a top guy should look like, for whatever reason still turned into the peoples choice. I like Cena and I think he was a great representation of the company and an excellent worker but the company still forced the Audience to accept him even though a good portion of the audience rejected him.

We all know that it's not his call at all given how NXT was run the previous 6 to 8 years before the shift to 2.0. Denise Salcedo interviewed Shawn Michaels before one of their first big shows after the change and he was honest about how the change came out of nowhere and he doing what he was told. With the political shift and his recent health issues, Hunter is basically the male equivalent of his wife now. He's mainly just a spokesperson and articulator of Vince McMahon and Nick Kahn's direction of the company. I'm not opposed to athletes with no wrestling background coming in and learning to possibly be one of the next big star. It's certainly better than scouting a bunch of bikini models but still it's a risk signing a bunch of people with no passion for it. The issue to me the ratio of inexperienced guys to the experienced guys, that's going to be an issue. Randy Orton even admitted that alot of the new call ups don't know what they are doing. That statement made me think who he could be talking about or could it be a generation gap of him being an OVW guy.

I'm sure he could bring in Gabe, all things considered he's done a good job. I thought most of the top guys are pretty hands on with the booking that they are involved in. I think it also helps that AEW books for long term and because they only have 4 to 5 PPVs a year, that helps too. I was listening to his interview on the Rasslin podcast about a week ago and it seems he does book with ratings and demographics in mind but I think he's more concerned with long term booking. With WWE you have Vince McMahon who's more ADHD than a 5 year old kid and so indecisive that he changes direction as the show goes on. On top of countless writers with no wrestling background then a ton of old school wrestling minds on the creative team. I'm sure Tony Kahn has alot on his plate but atleast when it comes to his wrestling ventures he has more structure than Vince does and he seems to have a better sense of direction than Vince does. WWE still has a deep roster of some amazing talent and is still capable of putting together great shows. It's still the name brand in Wrestling so it's going to continue to be an uphill battle for AEW to establish itself outside the hardcore wrestling audience they have.