APRIL 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION

[Nice Guy Eddie]

3 minutes ago, PetrolCB said:

I'd like for "The Enforcers" to be brought back as a team name for Dash and Dawson.

Winner winner chicken dinner

[AxB]

Apparently a month ago there was a bit of a copyright feud going on between the WWE and Dash/Dawson. WWE took out a copyright on 'The Mechanics' tag team name (which was a team name they used to use or something) whilst one of them copyrighted 'Shatter Machine'. So clearly both parties knew the split was coming.

The timing does seem like WWE giving them one last Fuck You out the door. Not letting them leave for a year after they asked, and then the second the business is shut down and there's nowhere to work (and AEW has taped a month+ in advance), it's you're free to go and we're free to stop paying you.

[paintedbynumbers]

5 hours ago, kafkonia said:

Hey man, I never said I wasn't a fan of stables. Dig some of them. Others are bad. But I'd rather they put together a stable that has its own reason to be a stable, rather than just try to rehash Wrestling's Greatest Hits. Especially trying to shoehorn people into recreating a stable so inextricably linked to specific personalities. Is Archer really a Ric Flair type? I'd rather see him as himself than try to play somebody else.

Maybe a better comparison than suggesting a new nWo would have been "people who suggest a Montreal Screwjob angle".

 

 

fair enough mate.  I will however now put Archer in the Sid role.  Crazy to think DA  had Rude, Austin, Eaton, Zybysko, Anderson no real big bodyguard type guys and it worked so well. 

[odessasteps]

Medusa was the muscle

[PetrolCB]

9 minutes ago, paintedbynumbers said:

Crazy to think DA  had Rude, Austin, Eaton, Zybysko, Anderson no real big bodyguard type guys and it worked so well. 

None of those guys, even as singles, would ever need one.

[LoneWolf&Subs]

In real life Zbyszko could handle himself, but Zbyszko the TV character was a geek. He should’ve had muscle backing him up.

[odessasteps]

10 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

In real life Zbyszko could handle himself, but Zbyszko the TV character was a geek. He should’ve had muscle backing him up.

Like a Ninja. 

[LoneWolf&Subs]

Shit, Baby Doll looked tougher than him when they paired up.

You guys read about Vince claiming the WWE was “essential media”, and would resume a live TV schedule? Although it is an article by Ryan Satin, so he could be stirring shit, but I wouldn’t doubt Vince right now doing shit like that.

https://www.prowrestlingsheet.com/wwe-raw-smackdown-nxt-resume-live-performance-center/#.XpE07yUpCEc

Edited April 11, 2020 by LoneWolf&Subs

[Curt McGirt]

I just found a cassette tape of my very first band playing live in 2005 with a couple touring hardcore bands at a farm out in the middle of nowhere. NEVER trash your physical media; always get it a place to land well.

Now, does anyone know how to get this tape onto my computer?

Edited April 11, 2020 by Curt McGirt

[elizium]

23 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Question: How serious of a wrestler was Tenta at LSU before they dropped in the wrestling program? I'm looking back at the results from when he would have been there, and it's two different guys repping LSU not named John Tenta. He was doing both football and wrestling so maybe he was an alternate or something unlike Doc who was good enough to compete during an abbreviated wrestling season.

I don't have an actual answer, but he was at least notable enough to get name-dropped by Bill Watts during an episode of Mid-South. It must have been his freshman year, because I believe Watts was commenting on how promising he looked.

[JonnyLaw]

2 hours ago, AxB said:

Apparently a month ago there was a bit of a copyright feud going on between the WWE and Dash/Dawson. WWE took out a copyright on 'The Mechanics' tag team name (which was a team name they used to use or something) whilst one of them copyrighted 'Shatter Machine'. So clearly both parties knew the split was coming.

The timing does seem like WWE giving them one last Fuck You out the door. Not letting them leave for a year after they asked, and then the second the business is shut down and there's nowhere to work (and AEW has taped a month+ in advance), it's you're free to go and we're free to stop paying you.

The tweet I read said they had reached an agreement on their release, so presumably that means they got out of their contracts early and have a 90 day non-compete as a result. If true, they’re basically doing them a favor because there’s never been a better time to have to sit and wait out a 90 day non-compete.

[Craig H]

24 minutes ago, JonnyLaw said:

The tweet I read said they had reached an agreement on their release, so presumably that means they got out of their contracts early and have a 90 day non-compete as a result. If true, they’re basically doing them a favor because there’s never been a better time to have to sit and wait out a 90 day non-compete.

They don't have a 90 day no compete. Unconditional release.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Craig H

[BurningBeard]

6 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:

They can debut by beating down Cody

My least favourite AEW trope 

[The Man Known as Dan]

8 hours ago, AxB said:

Eddie Kingston would very much like it if everyone would watch this, and take a minute to reflect upon what a great guy Larry Sweeney was:

 

Reminder that this is Drew Gulak and Orange Cassidy behind the masks.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I want Jericho to pay tribute to the Cactus Jack amnesia angle, turning up saying he's the real Xcalibur and is finally joining DX.

Or spend the summer building to the inevitable debut of Yokozuna in the Hart Foundation.

[Coletti]

The Revival and Young Bucks have been hyping a feud for like FOREVER (pun intended) on Twitter, so doing anything besides having them go house on TYB and the tag division as a whole would be pretty silly. 

[odessasteps]

3 hours ago, The Man Known as Dan said:

Reminder that this is Drew Gulak and Orange Cassidy behind the masks.

Kayfabe brother

[Craig H]

Wait. WWE is going back to doing live shows instead of taping weeks at a time? WTF?! Just tape the shows you fucking maniac. 

[Infinit]

11 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

In real life Zbyszko could handle himself, but Zbyszko the TV character was a geek. He should’ve had muscle backing him up.

That's why he was part of the Dangerous Alliance.

[(BP)]

12 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Kick out Spears and I'd be on board with Dash & Dawson being managed by the Brain Busters.

Have them debut against the Natural Nightmares, put Rhodes on the shelf with a vicious attack after the bell, and call them The Dust Busters. 

[Tarheel Moneghetti]

14 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Wait. WWE is going back to doing live shows instead of taping weeks at a time? WTF?! Just tape the shows you fucking maniac. 

Since The XFL has seemingly folded, Vince is obviously paying attention to wrestling again.

[hammerva]

It seems like Vince is worried about the television requirements like Dana winning he was dealing with the whole survivor Island shows

[Peck]

Here's the article:

https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/wwe-resume-live-raw-smackdown-nxt-tv-shows-308611

Quote

WWE chairman Vince McMahon made the decision Friday to return to live programming with Raw every Monday, NXT every Wednesday, and SmackDown every Friday from the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.

The decision to not do tapings all weekend as was previously scheduled came during the middle of the day while taping SmackDown as McMahon announced he was changing everything and that the show would be going as close to live as soon as possible.

While that was not the plan Thursday, it was something he was considering all along, hence why we were specifically told yesterday to make sure and say that plan was the current one. 

Many in the company were shocked at the decision. Those close to the situation have defended it and that it was the correct economic decision even if every decision, and even running at all, has to be questioned right now.

Contracts with both NBC Universal and Fox call for a certain number of shows per year that can be taped. For Raw, that number is three which, at the start of the year, was earmarked for one show over Christmas week and two shows during European tours. In theory, that would leave them with 49 live Raws. Fox has a similar deal.

While nobody will say so publicly, the fear was that by violating the contract, it would give the networks the legal ability to withhold money or find a way to change the deals. With no house shows, the company, like all sports companies, is surviving largely based on television revenue, but the networks paying that are also taking in far less revenue than they projected at this point in time due to the pandemic.

It's unclear whether the decision to return to live is an actual thing that the networks told McMahon to do in recent weeks based on declining ratings or if he is guarding against the possibility of them doing so.

Given that wrestling is the only sports property Fox has going right now and after building their main network around live sports in addition to FS1 needing programming, there doesn't appear to be a chance Fox would want to use more taped shows vs. live to terminate the relationship. Additionally, USA Network badly needs WWE more than they ever have in the past, so WWE has leverage for both of their main TV partners in that regard.

One would think network partners would understand the unique aspect of the situation the world finds itself in. But the fear is that if they have to make cuts due to the advertising business being down so badly, WWE can't afford to leave an opening for the networks to do so to them.

This also leads to many obvious questions of people flying into Florida multiple times per week and how long wrestling can remain under the radar so what happened Thursday in California with UFC doesn't happen to them. The political situation in Florida when it comes to stay-at-home edicts sound the same, but in reality, they are very different based on the nature of each state's politics.

 

[joseph2112]

If they taped 5 weeks of shows, thus leaving 4 weeks wherein Vince didn't have anyone to bully or storylines to change on an hourly basis, he would probably die.

[SorceressKnight]

12 hours ago, AxB said:

The timing does seem like WWE giving them one last Fuck You out the door. Not letting them leave for a year after they asked, and then the second the business is shut down and there's nowhere to work (and AEW has taped a month+ in advance), it's you're free to go and we're free to stop paying you.

In defense of this, considering the unconditional release of "they could sign today if they wanted to" factor, this seems less like a Fuck You out the door and more a practical thing on both sides more than anything:

From all signs before this, The Revival's contracts expired at the end of April (MAYBE if WWE REALLY wanted to give one last "Fuck You" to the Revival, they could have said "no, Dawson's free to go, but Wilder was injured during the contract and so we're adding three months to his deal- he can't leave until June", but by this release WWE didn't do that.) 

If WWE DID institute a no-compete clause, it would just expire when the contract expired originally, not 90 days after (so for a modern example, on February 28, WWE couldn't have gone to Matt Hardy and say...well, looks like this is goodbye then. Your contract expires March 1, and it's over with..we can't change your mind, you've chosen AEW. Okay, goodbye...SIKE! You're fired! That means you can't sign with AEW until June 1!" If they tried, the no-compete would last until...March 1.)

AEW's taped a month + in advance, so their show is in the can, they can't appear on AEW television for a month as it is...and by the time AEW tapes again, The Revival's contracts would have already expired and they'd be free to show up on those tapings anyway...so really, holding The Revival to a no-compete would be pointless. They can't show up next week on Dynamite or Impact (and NWA is showing classic Houston episodes instead of Powerr during this time),, by the time Dynamite or Impact start taping The Revival's contracts will be expired and they could show up for the taping anyway, so there's really no purpose to the no-compete on either side. 

Hell, with that, WWE releasing The Revival like that with no non-compete is not only not a Fuck You to The Revival, it is actually doing them a BIG FAVOR, if you think about it (since The Revival can't wrestle on AEW television- but it is conceivable The Revival can send some debut videos to  AEW and AEW could splice them into Dynamite until the next taping- AEW can't have them wrestle until the next taping, but they CAN now legally put in the videos to say "Look who WE GOT!!!!" and get fans hyped up for it.)