Andrew POE!

The Rock is right. Tomorrow's press conference will definitely be remembered forever. And it won't be because of he politicking his way into the main event. Hopefully he, HHH, Roman Reigns, and everyone else have better answers to questions about Janel Grant, Vince McMahon and now Ashley Massaro other than "we have a lot of momentum going to WrestleMania, this will be the best one yet." I'm sure Seth Rolilns got himself in trouble for his comments about Vince McMahon too. If Roman Reigns wants to pick a time for "this didn't feel right to me for me to jeopardize my life and wrestle," this would be the stance to take (but he won't do that).

Yeah, I'm not sure how "Microsoft is thinking of having some of their first party games on other platforms" lead to "Microsoft is getting out of the console hardware manufacturing business and becoming third party." Ori series is on Switch and PC. Sea of Thieves is on PC. They're just bringing more to PS5 and probably bringing games that they foresee having a harder time selling on Xbox and PC. Microsoft is rich enough to buy either Sony or Nintendo directly and have money left over. For whatever reason, they don't want to. I wonder if they are scaling back their console manufacturing rather than eliminating it altogether. I still think we'll see a day where Microsoft buys PlayStation and absorbs Xbox into it.

WWE could also panic and have it be Rock vs Roman vs Cody vs Drew McIntyre vs Seth Rollins for all the titles. Personally, I hope they don't panic book this. Let it stay as Rock vs Roman for Roman's titles. The WWE brought this upon themselves and wanted The Rock to be on their board of directors. If the Rock gets booed out of Philly, oh well. He politickied his way into it, let him spin the way he wants it. If he wins the titles at WrestleMania, he's going to get pelted with so much garbage and would likely blame the fans afterwards.

So that means Microsoft saw the sales numbers for Starfield and weren't happy. Coupled that with retailers removing physical versions of first party Xbox Series games, it makes me wonder if Microsoft will start early on pushing for a digital only next-gen Xbox console in 2026 or 2027. Sony and Nintendo would end being the only places for physical copies of games (unless Sony adopts the same approach too). Since Microsoft is doing that, it would only be fair if PlayStation would release Xbox Series versions of their first party games like God of War Ragnarok and The Last of Us Part I.

If they do that, it would be 10x worse for Cody Rhodes as a character. Maybe have Roman Reigns refuse to face The Rock and threaten to stay home from WrestleMania if it's made official. Reigns could insert his petty shootish comments about how The Rock is only doing this because he's on TKO board and pulling a power play. He then refuse to face Cody Rhodes because well....he's already beaten him. Reigns could suggest the main event for WrestleMania be a #1 contender's match between Cody and The Rock and 'maybe' he'll face the winner on Night Two or just go home. Then, he shows up to face whoever for his big long 10 minute entrance only....to roll out of the ring and take a count out loss when the match begins. Oops!

WWE doesn't care. We're going to get The Rock vs. Roman Reigns at WM40 and we'll like it. Yeah, the crowd in Philly's reaction to the match will make Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg's crowd look tame in comparison, but the WWE doesn't care. They already got their money, The Rock is on the board of directors, we just have to deal with it. It might lead to the Rock essentially turning on the fans if they boo him out of the building when/if he shows on Smackdown between now and WM40. Let's also not forget Roman Reigns' quasi-shoot comments about Seth Rollins and his getting paid more to work less. People WILL really hate that in 2024 America. People are talking more about the boneheaded decision vs what had been talked about (that I won't cover here), so mission accomplished for WWE.

Stellar Blade (after a discount), Rise of the Ronin and Dragon's Dogma II float my boat definitely. And I'll be there to get Death Stranding 2 despite not having finished the first one much less understand anything that's going on.

Dollars to donuts says to me that every single female wrestler/Diva during Attitude/Ruthless Aggression years had a NDA signed or possibly threatened with legal action if they spoke badly about the WWE when they left. More than likely, they were subjected to whatever Vince McMahon wanted them to do to 'advance their career' while they were there and that led to them leaving. I just think about the women that were there briefly like Kathy Dingman (B.B.), Amy Weber and Joy Giovanni and what they possibly knew.

That's entirely plausible. Rather than do "The Pipe Bomb Promo Part Deux" with a live mic, he fakes being injured. But the flip side to that is CM Punk really is injured and he's Mr. Glass. He got injured in AEW and was out for months. Both injuries due to arm injuries. It just tells me that honestly and seriously CM Punk may not be cut out for wrestling anymore, not that he doesn't want to work for WWE due to Vince McMahon's actions.

This. I would say over half the people working in wrestling have Stockholm Syndrome and that's why there hasn't been a widespread condemnation from male wrestlers. They're afraid of Vince McMahon somehow preventing them from working in the WWE and/or sabotaging their careers. Even though Vince McMahon isn't even at TKO/WWE anymore.

There's so much coming out in 2024 that it doesn't make sense to me to pre-order any of it. Although I would be tempted to get Dragon's Dogma II & Rise of the Ronin on the same day and Stellar Blade four days before my birthday. I feel like those I'll get at Christmas time too or next year. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach will have my money as soon as it's up for pre-order. Of course, that'll depend on if I can beat Death Stranding this year.

I caught the clip on YouTube where Jeff Jarrett is clearly dealing with the issue and I have a hard time with his thinking that anyone even Vince McMahon can be redeemed. Considering that Vince McMahon bought up his father's territory to drive him out of business, ordered his best friend to do an unneeded stunt that killed him, and Vince McMahon sought to professionally sabotage Jeff Jarrett through the years until recently, I guess Jeff Jarrett doesn't want to appear angry or bitter over that to assess the situation. He did say he didn't read the lawsuit, so that didn't play into it either.

PlayStation's State of Play tomorrow at 5 pm EST. https://blog.playstation.com/2024/01/29/state-of-play-returns-this-wednesday-2/ It's rumored we'll see Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer/demo and Death Stranding 2 trailer/possible release date.

Skull & Bones is one of those always online bullshit games where in a few years it'll get shut down. The Platinum will be pure torture to do in time and the game will pretty much be a $70 drink coaster. Even if you don't care about the Platinum trophy, just the simple act of playing the game will be impossible at that point.

Oh man. I wasn't even aware that DEAN~! passed away. It's crazy that his writings on the old forum was what brought me to this site while I was still in high school. His exquisite musical taste got me turned on to a lot of bands - Roxy Music, Joy Division, The Gun Club, The Cramps, The Posies, I could go on. One thing that struck me about Dean's writings with wrestling matches is how well they describe what happened or at least things that stick out in a match. I'll definitely miss him.

Considering that it's possible that he was "Corporate Officlal #1" in the lawsuit, Paul Levesque's days of running the WWE may be coming to an end. His answer seems like he knows his goose is cooked but he's not sure when or how. The other thing: I'm wondering if CM Punk didn't win because they knew what would happen if Pepsi Phil was asked the same questions and weren't sure if he would tow the company line or not. So give it to Cody Rhodes again so he can lose to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania again.

Not to even come close to take Vince McMahon's side, but the irony is delicious that Ronda Rousey would say this considering Vince McMahon wanted her void of charisma on TV after her UFC career ended in the first place. She's right but I hate that she's right. Fuck Vince McMahon and have Bruce Pritchard stay on his podcast where he argues with Conrad.

According to Deadline, VInce McMahon resigned. https://deadline.com/2024/01/vince-mcmahon-resigns-rape-lawsuit-tko-group-holding-sex-trafficking-1235805961/ EDIT: I am slow at finding out apparently. Did you know I have 317 platinums now?

Honestly, the ship has sailed on Phil being on a moral high ground. For all of his Trans Rights/LGBTQIA+ allyship/"Believe Every Woman" shirts he wears on shows, he's just as bad as Hulk Hogan taking Vince McMahon's money, brother. Obviously, his personal transgressions in his life pales in comparison to Vince McMahon or Hogan or Ultimate Warrior or Brock Lesnar or any other terrible person coming back to the WWE. If Punk had principles, he would boycott being on WWE programming until Vince McMahon is completely gone and the cronies/enablers are gone too. But nope, ride the gravy train of money because CM Punkamania is running wild. The "Pipe Bomb" from years is now just merchandise.

I understand what you are saying and I agree - it's just for me, it's easier not to watch wrestling or even follow it on the internet when news appear. Sadly though, I've still been keeping up with wrestling through YT videos and news articles I get on my phone. Some of the YT subscriptions fed me wrestling news as well. I went through and unsubscribed from them all now. And while I'm lumping in people who very likely are just as disgusted as I am, I'm only lumping in people working in wrestling because they are trying to appeal to the person at the center of all of this. People who got released from WWE are working in TNA or AEW or NWA with the hopes of....capturing Vince McMahon's eye and going back to the WWE. People being trained at the Performance Center hope to appear on NXT then WWE with the hopes of capturing people like Vince McMahon's eye. Who knows what acts Vince McMahon expected of the male wrestlers to earn his favor once they got there or what he expected from the female wrestlers to be subjected to. He drug a woman through all kinds of hell and she wasn't even trying to get a job in the wrestling business; she just wanted a job somewhere. What @Stefanie Sparkleface mentioned is very much likely as well; those in wrestling are just as blindsided as we are and can't control what Vince McMahon does. For every story of wrestlers working in a professional manner with Vince McMahon, there are stories of people like Brock Lesnar who didn't and participated in whatever sick shit Vince McMahon thought up. Who knows if there are others. It wasn't that long ago when male wrestlers would actually laugh and joke about sexually assaulting female fans with spiked drinks or giving them drugs. Wrestling as a form of entertainment is part of the same entertainment bucket as MMA or boxing. A corrupt entertainment business where athletic prowess is displayed and it's easy to ignore save for a few events.

The odds of that happening is the same odds of the wrestlers joining the SAG union and getting paid decent wages and better residuals. Zero. I know it's been covered endlessly in this thread but every wrestler in every company (AEW, WWE, TNA, NWA, gajin in AJPW & NJPW, etc) feel an undue and undeserved debt of gratitude to Vince McMahon. Honestly, at this point, let all of wrestling burn down. Close every wrestling company. Let wrestling be left to the dustbin of history. Because the ones that knew Vince McMahon didn't speak out or tried to stop him. They let the fear of Vince McMahon removing their livelihood get in the way of doing the right thing. They had to know the truth about him - from Steve Austin to The Rock to HHH to John Cena to CM Punk to Cody Rhodes to Seth Rollins to Becky Lynch to Titus O'Neil on down. Yeah, people like Dolph Ziggler and Brian Myers and Bryan Danielson got fired by WWE or left and went to the previously mentioned competitors but they are part of the problem too. Being in a wrestling ring and in front of a crowd is more important than stopping a maniac and a psychopath like Vince McMahon. The same hope of a reckoning happening at the PPV - excuse me, Premium Live Event - this weekend isn't going to happen. WWE will at some point pretend Vince McMahon was never there, like they did to Chris Benoit.

Yeah, fair enough. I'm not sure there's really anything that would sway the current WWE fans to vocalize their displeasure at people like Brock Lesnar. The ones that would have mostly moved to AEW, which were promptly squandered by AEW.

I read over the legal filing as well. When it starts out, I thought "Surely this is a misunderstanding because it seems Vince McMahon has empathy for this woman." But no....that was a ruse, a character like one he plays on TV. It's gross, jock/fraternity boy garbage from a garbage human being that I can't wait to see headlines of his impending death. He essentially gave the woman a false sense of connection by talking about his life then coerced her into sexual acts out of fear of losing her job. And tbh, I don't think we'll ever see Brock Lesnar in a WWE ring after this. Unless they don't care that he's going to get the same reaction Chris Jericho got a few weeks ago ("Kylie Rae" and "NDA" replaced with "Janel Grant" and "NDA"). I'm not sure Brock Lesnar would care either because he has WWE over a barrel. And the video with Stephanie and Vince McMahon....my God, Stephanie was telling the truth. It wasn't a storyline. I also wonder how many in WWE (and by extension TNA and AEW) knew about Vince McMahon's behavior. I think it was an open secret.

Part of me hope this will lead to WWE going to back to TV 14 / more mature storyline era and leave behind TV PG but I should know better. And we all know Roman Reigns will still be WWE Unified Universal Champion in 2025. So maybe he'll move to Raw and Seth Rollins (or whoever the World Champion is) moves to Smackdown.

Roman Reigns should have been on the cover but then no one would buy the game.