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WWE Finances, et al Discussion


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37 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

Linda coming back as CEO? She hasn't been involved in years, but she does have experience.

Linda becoming CEO would be like them announcing Heyman, and Bischoff as the new show directors.  Which would be good for the short term if it reminds investors of the glory days. I wouldn’t be shocked if that is their plan for Thursday.

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44 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

In this potential hypothetical, they obviously won't give a shit about Indies, but they might think "group A need to be trained from the ground up, while group B already know how to do this job and we could train them at a fraction of the time and, more importantly, cost"

Counterpoint: Group A just need to show basic competence for what we need, and cost significantly less than Group B long term.  We'll spend less on training Group A than paying Group B their value.

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Japanese promotions seem to be in a constant state of flux so I could see the major US ones going similar if anything happens to Vince.

We could easily end up with a US version of the AJPW / Noah split.  HHH and Steph splitting from a new Corporate owned WWE, and forming a new promotion with some WWE guys leaving Corporate-WWE light on top talent.

In 10 years the landscape could be pretty wild. Apart from Impact, which will still be defying the odds; and logic; and death.

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24 minutes ago, Ultimo Necro said:

Japanese promotions seem to be in a constant state of flux so I could see the major US ones going similar if anything happens to Vince.

We could easily end up with a US version of the AJPW / Noah split.  HHH and Steph splitting from a new Corporate owned WWE, and forming a new promotion with some WWE guys leaving Corporate-WWE light on top talent.

In 10 years the landscape could be pretty wild. Apart from Impact, which will still be defying the odds; and logic; and death.

I don't see it that way because the key to that was IIRC Pro Wrestling NOAH took NTV with them. Steph and Paul ain't taking USA or Fox or whoever with them. With the relationships the All Japan wrestlers had with Baba's widow, you could see that coming. What's the point of leaving and trying to undercut WWE when you can stay and keep the brand name which has a lot going for it even in the worst of times? I don't see them leaving by choice unless we reach full on Titanic levels...even then, they are going to go down with the ship and try every temporary, panic mode solution they can possibly find.

And the mutiny thing...I dunno. Ask Shane Douglas about that. In addition, WCW put a scare into folks trying to leave with that crew that eventually became the Radicalz. How many people really trust Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque left to their own devices and with resources no way comparable to what the WWE machine is? It would be XWF or Global Force.

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I don't see Linda coming back either, given that she seemingly has a future in politics (but not in a governing position like she originally had hoped). She's currently running the re-election super PAC for Trump's 2020 campaign, and apparently has pull with GOP donors so I could see her being a lobbyist or something within the next year (or after the next four). She's not leaving the orbit of the White House anytime soon.

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3 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I don't see it that way because the key to that was IIRC Pro Wrestling NOAH took NTV with them. Steph and Paul ain't taking USA or Fox or whoever with them. With the relationships the All Japan wrestlers had with Baba's widow, you could see that coming. What's the point of leaving and trying to undercut WWE when you can stay and keep the brand name which has a lot going for it even in the worst of times? I don't see them leaving by choice unless we reach full on Titanic levels...even then, they are going to go down with the ship and try every temporary, panic mode solution they can possibly find.

And the mutiny thing...I dunno. Ask Shane Douglas about that. In addition, WCW put a scare into folks trying to leave with that crew that eventually became the Radicalz. How many people really trust Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque left to their own devices and with resources no way comparable to what the WWE machine is? It would be XWF or Global Force.

The brand "WWE" really doesn't have that much going for it. Maybe because I live in the northeast US, but if anyone ever makes a jokey reference or a "hey remember that guy" they almost always say WWF.

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11 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

The brand "WWE" really doesn't have that much going for it. 

There are 2 to 2.5 million zombies (sorry guys) who watch just because it's WWE. You can start a wrestling promotion tomorrow with 10-15 men and women of your choice tomorrow with a TV deal and you would not get close to that. Hence, USA and Fox overpaying them.

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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43 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

The brand "WWE" really doesn't have that much going for it. Maybe because I live in the northeast US, but if anyone ever makes a jokey reference or a "hey remember that guy" they almost always say WWF.

The brand "WWE" pulled in a billion dollars in TV deals, hundreds of millions in Saudi Money, ties to The White House, free press with their belt and logo over every sports championship team in 4 leagues,  co sponsor deals with several name charities and their own.  Just because a board full of people over analyzing everything the so because we don't like their booking want to trot out a bi-monthly "The sky is falling!" Rush, doesn't mean the brand has nothing going for it, that's just a freezing cold take.

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8 hours ago, Craig H said:

He comes across as tired because HHH is old and does the insane thing of getting up at 3 or 4 am to work out or he does a midnight workout before going to bed. Again, human beings weren't made to operate this way. Of course he's going to look tired and old. Someday soon the Rock will too.

Isn't that an accurate description of Vince ?

Just about everyone that has been at the top level have had to match his work ethic. I guess think makes it easier for guys to put their bodies on the line and work this crazy schedule .

I think WWE going publicly traded really forced Vince to become more micromanaging with the company, I'm sure he already had his hand in every aspect but him being conscientious about having to answer to shareholders forced him to be more controlling over the product. They went from Vince and 2 or 3 others booking to a whole Writing staff the size of a high school classroom. 

Alot of the company's business practices is catered to a corporate business structure doesn't fit the Wrestling industry that most of us grew up on.

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4 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Yea I maybe didn't articulate myself well on that one, I'm gonna take the L. I just mean that I get the feeling that the literal letters W W E aren't as identifiable in the public consciousness as W W F. 

I don't think it makes a difference because when people do say WWF they know you're talking about WWE. It's not like if someone was to say WCW in reference to AEW.  When people say WWF they'd still associate Cena or Batista in their minds with those letters as they would Hulkamania or the Attitude era. Alot of people that dont watch anymore just would rather refer to in as WWF just a point of saying that was when they were a fan. 

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On WOR Dave and Bryan were throwing around names of replacements and Dave brings up Harold Meij as someone Wall Street would accept and I had a pretty good laugh at that. Dave will never, ever abandon his American NJPW dream.

I'm willing to guess none of the shareholders have a fucking clue who Harold is and that would be rightfully shit on just like any other suggestion to replace Barrios.

Here's the other thing though - it doesn't matter who the replacement is. Wall Street will respond negatively because they won't know who that person is and then the sick will rebound once that person starts doing investor calls and becomes more well known among shareholders.

This isn't a situation where a suitable line of succession needs to be in place in the event Logan's brain breaks again and no one can figure out who would be better out of Kendall, Roman, Shiv, Frank, or Gerri.

In this case, Vince will find someone good enough and life will go on.

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4 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Yea I maybe didn't articulate myself well on that one, I'm gonna take the L. I just mean that I get the feeling that the literal letters W W E aren't as identifiable in the public consciousness as W W F. 

I'll put it this way...I was at work months back (I'm guessing mid October/early November) late afternoon going into the evening. I overheard two guys talking about the Young Bucks. In my mind, I fucking freaked out. (1) It has to be a decade plus since I heard ANYONE talk about wrestling in my vicinity that wasn't my younger brother who grew up  watching wrestling with me, and (2) I'm sure Dynamite was coming on that night. I literally got knocked off track from working for a good ten minutes. 

With that said, I would be just as freaked out if someone mentioned some event or a performer from WWE.

On a mainstream level though, the Knicks can go 0-82 with 60 people at the Garden for 41 games and still be valuable as a franchise. People are not going to talk about how shitty the team is because the NBA won't put them on national television. However, they are still the Knicks.

WWE is partly built on nostalgia (if you will) that is hard to replace. In that way it is a franchise. In the lean years, nobody is going to talk about it really. That should be expected. However, once Hulkamania started to go down around 91/92 ish and shit started going wonky all across wrestling, you still felt the presence that pro wrestling still exists on a mainstream level somewhat. Not so much now even if 100 commercials on Fox and Fox stations are running for SmackDown everyday. Pro wrestling now feels like when they use to do reality shows to replace a band's lead singer or whatever and it's like INXS. It feels like "holy shit, wrestling is still around....what year is this?". No matter how much money WWE manages to pull in, we're at that point now.

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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4 minutes ago, Craig H said:

On WOR Dave and Bryan were throwing around names of replacements and Dave brings up Harold Meij as someone Wall Street would accept and I had a pretty good laugh at that. Dave will never, ever abandon his American NJPW dream.

I'm willing to guess none of the shareholders have a fucking clue who Harold is and that would be rightfully shit on just like any other suggestion to replace Barrios.

Here's the other thing though - it doesn't matter who the replacement is. Wall Street will respond negatively because they won't know who that person is and then the sick will rebound once that person starts doing investor calls and becomes more well known among shareholders.

This isn't a situation where a suitable line of succession needs to be in place in the event Logan's brain breaks again and no one can figure out who would be better out of Kendall, Roman, Shiv, Frank, or Gerri.

In this case, Vince will find someone good enough and life will go on.

It sounds like they were joking with the Harold Meij thing. Their whole point was wrestling doesn't have an environment conducive to producing execs.

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The last decade+ of WWE has been an (admittedly amazingly successful) campaign to get more money out of less people. Like, if you try to look at how WWE got to this point where they have ~$500 million in guaranteed revenue every year through late 2022 and make it a business plan, it's insane. Falling ratings, falling attendance, cannibalizing the ppv business for a streaming service that has never come close to making as much money, massive increases in spending...

It looks like a recipe for going out of business, but instead... 

It's like that South Park joke with the middle step being ??? and the last one being "profit" except it's actually worked.

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5 hours ago, AxB said:

On the other hand, someone coming in from the business world and doing talent evaluations of the PC may well decide that a guy with 10 years on the indies has more value than an ex-college football player with no previous wrestling experience. So the indies would be flooded with all the mini Corbins and Rawleys.

That sounds like my worst nightmare.

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Here's something I'm going to go to hell for: I'm watching a tape of old World Class, and Koko Ware and Norvell Austin are making their debut against Mike Reed and Buck Zumhofe, and all I can think about is how excited Zumhofe must have been when they told him he'd be wrestling the Pretty Young Things that night.

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