NoFistsJustFlips

NFL contracts have guaranteed money. They may cut you before you get the entirety of the deal. But you still know the floor of what you will get no matter if they cut you or not. OBJ got released by The Browns. The Browns are still on the hook for a portion of his salary this year that was guaranteed because he went unclaimed on waivers. So not exactly the same there either. All I'm saying is making 11% of what they agreed to pay you sucks. And that there's no one here that can convince me that WWE is the baby face. Y'all know what Nick Kahn's annual salary is? $1.2 million. Plus a $5 million signing bonus. Plus $15 million in stock. You know what kind of severance the former VP they fired this year gets? $750k a month for an entire year. They treat their cooperate employees real well. So don't tell me they can't do better for the boys doing all the actual bumps.

All valid points and I agree with you. Owens and the Good Brothers are clearly on different levels. Just because Vince sees value in Owens today and likes him today, doesn't mean he always will. Vince loved Braun. Even wanted to program him with Taker at Mania out of the gate if the reports are true until he was talked out of it. And eventually whatever Vince liked about him didn't matter because he was deemed to not be worth the price tag anymore. That's what I'm railing against. Not beating the drum for The Good Brothers. Just trying to point out to the corporate sympathizes that beat the drum for WWE that WWE treats their guys like shit and you shouldn't "both sides" their terrible labor practices. But your take is entirely true here. I also want to mention how much is saddens me that standout big man on the indys Josh Briggs is now just a cowboy schlub. I'm sure his paychecks are better and shit. But man, as someone who enjoyed his work on the indys... bums me out.

Just for emphasis, while clearly not apples to apples, how many people here would be happy if their place of employment only paid them 11% of the hourly rate you agreed to? Say you get hired at $20 an hour and your employer pays you $2.20 an hour instead, you cool with that? I get that our view on it changes when the numbers get significantly higher. But boil it down to your own situation. You cool with making 11% of what you were offered?

It was reported they agreed to $800k a year deals. Thier original deals were $400k. So it doubled. But it's certainly not $4.3 mil they collected. They got roughly $530k. A large sum of money. But not the $4 millionover 5 years they signd for. It's about 11% of the total value they agreed to if my math is right.

This is like the scenario of NFL players where it boggles our mind how they lose their fortune. It's a cost of living thing. If you're banking on a 3 million a year five year contract (250k a month) you probably purchase a home for your family that far exceeds what you can afford without that 250k per month. So 3 extra months of money is fine and all but not when you expect that rate going forward to sustain the cost of your current living situation. What kind of mortgage and financial security can the majority of WWE workers feel comfortable purchasing? Any of them outside of a handful can get cut whenever with ONLY 3 more months of pay. You're thinking of it like current day you. Not the you that would be making $250k a month. You aren't gonna live in an $80,000 house if you make $3 million a year.

My wrists are looking real jacked baby so I'm good with all the extra typing lol. Only quoting this to answer The Good Brothers question, because it adds context to my first posts. WWE signed them at a higher rate because they were in a bidding war with AEW. AEW actively wanted them to debut (with AJ) on the first Dynamite and form the group with Jericho that became the Inner Circle on the debut Dynamite. They even verbally agreed with AEW before WWE gave them crazy high money and they decided to stay with WWE. So they screwed themselves out of financial security by taking the higher WWE offer. AEW wouldn't have cut them 8 months in. They'd have gotten the slightly lower salary for a full 5 years vs the higher rate for 11 months.

The Good Brothers say hello. They were giving significantly higher deals to stay and didn't make it 8 months into the 5 year deals. I'm not saying you're wrong about the likelihood of Owens staying the whole deal at all. I'm just saying we can't really predict the whims of a 75 year old sociopath lol. Owens will be there as long as Vince wakes up and wants him there. The day he wakes up and decides fuck this guy has too many grey hairs in his beard or whatever, he's gone. There's legitimately no logic to who stays and who goes beyond it's what Vince wants on any given day. AEW hasn't publicly come out and said this, but the company stance is they don't release people. The notable exceptions are extreme behavior issues (speaking out), or wanting out of your deal for personal reasons (ala Kylie Rae). They adhere to the contracts they agree to thus far. There's no specific guarantee. But you are able to breathe a sigh of relief that you are going to get all the money owed to you as long as you want to be there and you keep your nose clean. You may not get used if you fall out of favor for whatever reason. But you're not going to get cut on a whim because you won't shave your sideburns Mr Burns style. This part is non-sense. Owens changed his location on Twitter to Mt. Rushmore (the name of his group with The Young Bucks & Adan Cole in PWG). He changed his bio to almost there. He's friends with them and clearly he himself entertained the idea of it. Now maybe he did it only to drive up his own price. But your fake story narrative dies a quick death because Owens himself was actively the one who started that story. Congrats? Not sure what this has to do with pro wrestling, because this is a significantly more beneficial contract that WWE offers. They can fire you for anything at anytime at any point in the contract and you get 90 days of pay. As my example above with The Good Brothers demonstrates a 5 year contract amounted to 11 months of pay (counting the 90 day no compete) vs you would get paid the full 5 years even if fired after 8 months. So what does you liking your contract have to do with WWE contracts? I'm really asking because maybe I'm being obtuse and missing an obvious correlation.

Not much to add, that match was incredible. I was struck by the entrances. Danielson got a mild reaction. But then Hangman got a big time pop. Not sure why but I had been feeling the crowd has cooled off on him, but this was my ah-ha moment that Page does need a good run here to not sour the fans' good will. Speaking of the fans, I think that audience deserves some props (no not the dipshit with the lets go brandon deal). They sat through an hour long match and they were up and reacting to all of it. It elevated the match for me, just in the same way a bad crowd can detract from a match. Big sustained reactions and investment for an hour straight is A LOT to ask for from a modern American audience. So just think they deserve some credit here.

Hopefully this doesn't startle you too bad, but you're on a wrestling message board. We talk about wrestling here and the wrestlers that wrestle. Not a single person has said hey brother just got off the phone with my boy Steen and this is why he signed with WWE. Just people making conversation and guessing motivations. Nothing to get worked up about.

After seeing some ideas here it sparked an idea for me that I think might actually be a possibility. Everyone is talking about an eventual Kenny & The Bucks vs Undisputed Era civil war. What if the split happens way sooner, while Kenny is out? Hangman loses the title tonight (which will send him into a depression spin). And when The Bucks are getting their ass kicked by UE on like the TBS debut ,out of nowhere Hangman to the rescue. You run The Elite vs The Undisputed Era. Hangman gets his friends back and has a satisfying story to build himself back up. Kenny has a story when he comes back, either joining back up for a baby face Elite reunion to vanquish heel champ Danielson or being pissed that The Bucks chose Hangman over him and feuding with them. That's where I'm leaning. You do the shock title change clean as a sheet. Hangman spirals. Danielson gets attacked by someone during his celebration and he's off to a new story (Mox, Bray, forbidden door New Japan guy, ect). In a WWE setting Hangman getting got in his first defense would spell doom, but I have enough faith in AEW booking to make it a stop on a much longer journey. Either way they go, should be fun to see what's next.

Beyond the most important part (securing as much money as possible for his family), I can't help but remember the interview he gave about almost retiring completely before WWE came calling. His knees were shot then, to the point he couldn't do cardio anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if his thought process is the less demanding WWE style is also better for his long term health. Maybe his body is more beat up than he lets on, and wasn't looking forward to the higher expectations of the AEW in ring style. Hoping he got way over paid and was smart enough to demand the no cut clause. He strikes me as an extremely intelligent guy so I'd be shocked if he didn't get one.

I caught that too. He did say he wants to hurt everyone all the time... A lot of story progression this week. Where I think the story is leading to... The one annoyance I have with this season is the exact same annoyance I had when Deb found out about Dexter. There's all this info that you'd like them to bring up and discuss and they just ignore it all. Like Deb knew Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher. So she had to have suspected Dexter killed Doakes somehow. But they never talk about it. So she's just gotta be okay with assuming he killed their innocent coworker. That's out of character for her. There's all these things Harrison and Dexter should be talking about. Stuff Harrison has to have questions about. But they just don't ever talk about anything. He doesn't ask. And that's not very realistic to me. He knows his mom was killed by Trinity. He's never asked Dexter why. Even if Dexter wouldn't tell him the truth, in Harrison's shoes that's the first question I'd ask.

Just to add to that, until creative & the office start doing more than the bare minimum why should anyone on the roster? We're all here because we love pro wrestling. But pro wrestling is only at it's best when everyone involved is giving equal effort. Going the extra mile by taking big dumb bumps or beating the shit out of each other when you're feuding over pies in the face seems like asking for a lot to me. When creative starts taking shit serious, then the boys should. But until then, do what's asked of you. Don't do more for them than they're willing to do for you.

Perfect post. This demonstrates what I was trying to convey way better than I could. Love it. Thank you for being better at words than I will ever be lol. That's a disingenuous way to boil down what I said. I stand by what I said. So top rope moonsault = effort in your opinion? Because in my opinion doing a moonsault can be just as lazy and going through the motions as a rest hold. Trust me. I've used moonsaults as filler. Just because it's degree of difficulty is higher than a chin lock, doesn't mean just because you're doing one you're giving your all. Charlotte can sleepwalk through moonsaults I promise you. Same with Big E's splash. A splash is a splash is a splash, apron or not. I believe lazy ass King Kong Bundy did a shit load of them. We have a difference of opinion here. And that's okay. I do see guys putting in work. But I'm just saying no one is going that extra mile anymore. AJ Style is my favorite worker in WWE. You saying he's working just as hard as he was in 2016 & 2017? Aint no way my man. And why would he. Effort, skill, connecting with the audience, moving merch... none of it matters anymore. No one is allowed to go out and get themselves over. WWE is paint by numbers with the same 10 colors in a 64 million color world.

The way I took his post is that morale is so low that a lot of the roster is just going through the motions. Dolph Ziggler used to be one of the bright spots and a dude that went way above and beyond. Now he's just cashing a check, and trying to do just enough to keep those checks coming in. It's not something to get bent out of shape over. WWE's booking is bad. Really fucking bad. Even with all these releases, there's still a ton of good workers on the roster tho. Now whether they are allowed to showcase it or not is up for debate. It's obvious dudes like Ali & Ricochet are being purposely told to scale it back and not go all out. And if people commenting on that angers you, don't know what to tell ya.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's a good chance Meltzer misspoke here or got something mistaken. WWE has always put over that you need to give the guys an incentive to show up and work hard, and shit talked the WCW style straight salary to death. If they go to straight salary with no bonus income, it would piss in the face of the last 30 years of them beating their chests about their way being the right way. The downside guarantee is just a guarantee that you make at least X dollars, and it can't go lower than that (but could go higher). Even if they went to straight salary there is still a downside guarantee technically, it's just you get that X amount and no more / no less. So in semantics, yes it would no longer be a DOWNSIDE guarantee. Just a guarantee. I mean it's possible they go to straight salary as a way to squeeze more profit for themselves and less for the boys. But man would that be a huge deal. That would be the biggest philosophical change in the history of the company if true. No more incentive to work house shows or sell merch or do anything above the bare minimum.

He didn't get released. His contract expired, same as Gargano's. So there isn't a no compete. NXT contract's no competes are also only 30 days. You don't get bumped up to 90 days until you get the restructured main roster contract.

Think JT was meaning sit at home and wait to debut because Gargano gets the Winter is Coming debut, and they won't wanna debut someone on the Christmas shows. Not because of a no compete. Plus you figure they want someone new to debut on the first TBS show to give it the anything can happen feel.

I agree with everything your wrote @Dog. Vince is a borderline genius. And his business sense is beyond compare in the wrestling space. All of those things can be true, as is WWE being the most profitable it's ever been, while also being able to say Vince being there stifles true innovation. WWE is seeing record profits. Short to medium term those profits are only going to go up. What he's doing now is working. And it's hard to criticize because it all looks so successful from the outside. But we're all smart enough here to realize you need an audience willing to watch to make all those deals happen. WWE is the wrestling business to a majority of the business world. Peacock wants wrestling on their platform? You sign WWE. Saudi Arabia wants wrestling to help modernize their countries entertainment choices? Call WWE. But there becomes a tipping point where if you don't have an audience to watch anymore, you can't keep making these deals. They are in the realm of wrestling that's not even wrestling anymore. They are basically SNL with a ring. You write sketches and you hire performers that can pull off those sketches. All the while you keep hoping for a Hogan / Rock or Belushi / Sandler kind of star to come along. Well the stars exists they just can't break through the process anymore because the process it's self is so sanitized. Andy Sandberg became a star after SNL. Kristen Wiig became a star after SNL. WWE is just a content production company at this point. They could give a fuck about the quality of the content. And that's going to be their downfall in the medium term future. When the great businessman Vince McMahon isn't around anymore to make these savant-like business deals, what's going to be left? Definitely not much of an audience. The novelty of pro wrestling becomes less and less novel the more you remove yourself from a wrestling inherent backbone. Eventually NBC Universal is gonna be like wait a second... WWE's next competitor has a 70% share of WWE's audience but at 15% the price? Why the fuck are we paying for WWE when *we* could be more profitable with their competitor? As will Fox. As will Saudi Arabia. And all their other savant like deals that are so amazing. Right now it's hard to argue with their business plan. But if you can look 5-7 years down the road it's more like how can they sustain the market identity if they keep hemorrhaging viewers? Every year Raw brings the record low down lower. Smackdown is more stable. But it's not going to sustain when the whole roster is 1 Roman, 1 Becky and 50 Grayson Wallers.

It's mind blowing to me that Vince's dad ran the promotion for only about 30 years. Compared to VKM , who is at 40 years as of next year. I always viewed one of the big reasons for the 80s boom and going national and rock n wrestling was Vince Jr came to the table with all sorts of new ideas that expanded the company. None of that shit would have happened if Vince Sr stayed in charge . So we're kind of in that weird grey area that would have existed if Vince Sr ran the company into the 1990s. Any new ideas that could and would elevate WWE are wasting away in someone's brain. You're right. Vince loves a reset where they scale things back to a 1984 base defense. And it's such a detriment to what could be. Vince Jr is too much of a control freak. There needs to be specific verbiage for hospitals and belts are what keep your pants up and yada yada yada. If Vince really wants WWE to grow he's gotta start thinking about stepping down. Whether it's Stephanie, Shane, Triple H, some combination of all three... he's gotta let go and let some new ideas come to the table. Some of the shit they might want to do might sound crazy to him. But his dad probably felt the same way about national tv and MTV and all that. You want real growth you need innovation. And there ain't no innovation waiting for ya in that 1984 base defense.

Bret's whole thing was I'm a Canadian hero. Canada agreed. The US turned on him. Then he continued doing what he'd always done, being a Canadian hero. He was just shitty to the US fans that turned on him. While I appreciate that this is a situation that could have evolved down that same path... this would be like if Raw was in Texas the night after Survivor Series 1996 happened. And he (still a full on babyface) came out to Austin's music and started shitting on the state of Texas for no real reason. This is the opposite of the Bret thing. Punk didn't come out doing the same thing's he's always been doing. He came out mocking the audience. With no turn from the audience on him to justify it. He just came out doing heel music shtick and said "he's your guy?" 30,000 times. I guess I'm not doing a good job conveying what's annoying to me about the way it was done. It felt out of character to change Punk's actions. He hasn't come out and shit on any other crowd. He didn't shit on Arthur Ashe. He hasn't come out to anyone's music like a heel. I love the home town pushes for guys. I just want it to be consistent with how the characters are being portrayed everywhere. Let MJF be cheered. Let Punk be booed. Don't send Punk out there with a whole new presentation just because you're in a different city. Let Punk be Punk. If the crowd turns on him cool. If they don't cool. Just don't send him out there to try and force it is my thing. Why couldn't Punk have had a match with Sean Spears? Get to the same destination you want just organically through Punk wrestling the home town guy's boy. Punk ain't out there shitting on a crowd of nowhere. Then if the crowd does turn on him and cheer Spears through association, there's a catalyst for him to talk later and be salty with that audience. A reason. A purpose. They skipped the foundation in logic to change Punk's actions.

They ran a shit ton of shows in that area and not once did they ever send out big time baby face Bret Hart to heel on a Connecticut crowd for the sake of cheering blue blood Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Attitude Era "The Game" Triple H wasn't a stuck up blue blood character. The Game was an aggressive badass who got one of the loudest pops ever in MSG when he returned from the quad tear. Comparing apples to palm trees with this one.

It's inconsistent with how the character is portrayed. They were expecting him to get cheered big. I'm with you so far, no problem with that concept. The crowd pays their money and can and should cheer whatever or whoever they want. MJF is a slimy piece of shit (character wise). He's the one guy that kayfabe is so strong for he makes sure to be an absolute piece of shit at all times. Fan interactions. Social media. On tv. On media appearances. The character is a constant. They pissed in the face of all that kayfabe work. Present the guy the same as he's always been. If the crowd cheers him there that's totally fine. But don't change the entire booking philosophy for him (and by extension Punk and everyone else in the battle royal) because of the location. Let MJF be MJF. Let the crowd react how they react. Don't send Punk out to do a tepid soft heel promo. Don't force it. That pre entrance video for him was perfect. That's something his character would do no matter of the location. Even his booking in the battle royal was well done. That's shit MJF does regardless of location. Sending Punk out to do reverse pandering wasn't clever. It was forced and definitely unnecessary. I also disagree with the level at which the crowd was wanting to cheer. There was a pop for his music when it was Punk. But all the big stars in AEW get a pop for their music. I think there were more people wanting to play along and boo the constant shit bag, then cheer for him. Evidenced by the amount of anti-MJF signs. I think the AEW audience is smart enough to know the best way to pay homage to his act if they enjoy is boo the shit out of him. Even in his home town. But regardless, even him being cheered majorly I would have been fine with. It was the inconsistency of sending out Punk to pander that I have a dispute about.

Just a baffling opening 30 minutes to me. I love love love the sports-like treat people like big deals in their home towns thing. It's what I would be doing if I were running a major promotion. Britt in Pittsburgh. Punk in Chicago. Mox in Cincinnati. I get it and I love it. But as far as the face - heel dynamic goes, MJF is the exception where this just doesn't work. MJF is presented as a real piece of shit on and off screen. They go to great lengths to keep that kayfabe up, including the announcers calling him a prick and his dropping f bombs on Cody's show about his baby or whatever, and his parents bringing signs to shows saying he's a cunt and they hate him too. You just can't present MJF as anyone's guy. He's supposed to be the constant. He's a piece of shit. He treats everyone like shit. There is no redeemable qualities to this character. So they send Punk out to try and force this home town thing very non-organically. And Punk is smart to not actually say anything too heelish to ruin his presentations in other cities. Just generic shit about sports teams. But he spams the phrase "he's your guy" to the point I wanted to just break my tv. He's so much better than this. So is AEW. Let shit happen organically, don't beat a dead horse WWE style. Plus it's not like MJF did anything on this show. He did the standard chickenshit heel battle royal. You didn't even get a match with fun reactions out of it. Just a total 3,000% miss for me. Again love the sports team concept. But the execution here, and the terrible choice of going against the entirety of MJF's booking his whole career, is just a staggeringly bad call. One AEW usually doesn't make. You wanna know why that crowd sucked? It's because they were manipulated and confused all night. If you cut that Punk promo the crowd would have had much better reactions. No sir, I didn't like it.

Am I looking at the gear wrong? It appears to just be multiple stripes to me, not a flag at all. Unless my vision is failing it goes black, black, black, yellow, black. red. (With a partial black stripe under the red that is visible on the reverse side of the trunks). Could just be using those colors involved in the flag and not attempting to make a flag at all. But who knows for sure. Guys design their own gear. Especially guys that low down the totem pole. So that's not a thing to blame WWE for. WWE has their own seamstresses but they get the design specifications from the wrestlers themselves. You think Vince would know half the shit New Day get put on their gear lol. Now I'm just picturing a coked up Vince sewing his own shit for guys to wear. "God damn you Otis you'll wear this green singlet with titty tassels and you'll like it!"