Matt D Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 It's so stupid to me that they switched the order of Money in the Bank and Hell in a Cell this year. MITB in WWE HQ was one of the more interesting things they did all year and something that sort of pushed things away from the traditional idea of what pro wrestling can be. Hell in the Cell would, in a normal world, be a show where you want a crowd because you'd be ending feuds and escalating to the cage. Obviously that's not how it works in WWE but man... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 28 minutes ago, Log said: The best idea for a WWE event movie is right there in the title of this thread: The Purge. Every year around cuts time, they have an episode of The Purge and they kill off all of the people they cut. Or Phil's idea to do Cannonball Run, or by extrapolation, Wacky Races. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krone Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 The fact that WWE wants to be like Marvel is absolutely laughable. About two months ago, I took my trip into the Marvel Universe and watched all the films in order. The amount of dedication and attention to detail - with payoffs that would end up being years down the line - was awesome. Like someone said, Vince McMahon will rip up the script at 8:57pm and can't even lead a proper story to WrestleMania even if it smacks him in the face (Jericho/Kevin Owens say hi). There is absolutely no way they would be able to have stuff flow from NXT: UK to NXT: Japan to SmackDown! and all around. Also, I think WWE is in this same position whether they go TV-PG or stayed with their TV-14 ratings. All it takes is going back and watching an episode of RAW from the Attitude Era vs 2017/2018 to see how different the electricity and energy is. I always thought that's just the way wrestling is now, but AEW has shown me that it's just about the segment of fans that you target. Dynamite looks more fun because it's targeted as a party-esque atmosphere. RAW lost it's "RAW' edge about 15 years ago and has never been able to recapture it. I've always been of the camp that it's because they have made wrestling too glitzy and glamorous. Give me those old school steel bike rack like railings for ringside. Give me the old RAW titantron instead of giant LED lights over a 500 foot section. Honestly, RAW just seems too over produced for my liking. Even stuff like those graphics they show before the wrestlers come out - it's all just campy and corny to me. AEW in my opinion has a better chance of being more like Marvel with all of these companies they've linked with. Being able to tell a story about Ethan Page/Darby Allin from Evolve, anything NJPW, Impact, ect. it all helps interweave and create this giant universe that makes you want to follow everything. They did a great job with that right before AEW started on TNT back the summer of 2019 when the guys were doing the surprise rounds on the indy shows. It made it all feel connected. I just hope AEW never goes public because I think that's what set the wheels in motion for all of this from WWE. If Vince didn't have anyone to answer to, I'd feel a lot more comfortable in WWE turning the corner. 7 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoae Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 43 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said: I think Vince is of two minds. One, he wants to be able to do this sort of thing, and two, he doesn't want his wrestlers to grow too big and leave him, so he doesn't really want to do it deep down where it counts. If he could make himself the sort of person who would graciously work with his wrestlers, support them in their outside endeavors, and maintain a healthy relationship with them, he would absolutely be able to call on them for projects to expand into other media. Vince fired Slaughter for the GI Joe deal? I never knew that. Vince has worked himself into a bad position when it comes to marketing current talent. He's made something of an effort to keep individual stars from getting bigger than the product, but the consequence is that casual fans and the general public who don't follow the shows know stars from 20-30 years ago far more than current talent. We joke about the Saudis wanting to see Ultimate Warrior and Yokozuna, but there are probably more people out there who remember Hogan, Warrior or Yoko than know Drew McIntire or even Roman. Supposedly, the Bellas are more well-known for their reality show than being WWE superstars., I've met people wearing Bullet Club shirts who don't know who AJ Styles or Devitt are. They just know the shirt is selling well at Hot Topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 I can't think of a single current wrestler who would be offered a Tide commercial. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krone Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 3 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said: I can't think of a single current wrestler who would be offered a Tide commercial. Rik Boogz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 As said here often over the years, it's easily to see the Bullet Club shirt appealing to certain demographics that, in the past, overlapped quite well with wrestling fans. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidNatural Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 The trap that Vince made for himself was making the brand bigger than the wrestlers. You can't have water cooler talk in the office without building somebody. Reigns, Balor, Banks, Scarlett and others are a liscence to print money. Build them up instead of just relying on habit viewing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 4 hours ago, AxB said: Today (in the UK) the new WWE Slam Attax cards were released. On the starter pack they sent to my shop, one of the free card packs had Lana right up front. Self quoting because I can post the pic now: But also this: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 3 minutes ago, KidNatural said: The trap that Vince made for himself was making the brand bigger than the wrestlers. You can't have water cooler talk in the office without building somebody. I mean sure, it's a trap, and he made it for himself, but it got him 15 years of having exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted, in the back third of his life. He got everything he wanted and now he's potentially about to cash out. He got to pal around with a president. They're making a netflix documentary about his life. A billion dollar company exists solely to put on a TV show that entertains him. Vince did exactly what he wanted, got exactly what he wanted, will pay no price for it because he's never actually ended up paying a price for anything (except for maybe having a wife who wanted to run for Senate). The "trap" he made for himself was getting everything he could possibly ever want. 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 20 minutes ago, Eoae said: Vince fired Slaughter for the GI Joe deal? I never knew that. Vince has worked himself into a bad position when it comes to marketing current talent. He's made something of an effort to keep individual stars from getting bigger than the product, but the consequence is that casual fans and [b]the general public who don't follow the shows know stars from 20-30 years ago[/b] far more than current talent. We joke about the Saudis wanting to see Ultimate Warrior and Yokozuna, but there are probably more people out there who remember Hogan, Warrior or Yoko than know Drew McIntire or even Roman. Supposedly, the Bellas are more well-known for their reality show than being WWE superstars., I've met people wearing Bullet Club shirts who don't know who AJ Styles or Devitt are. They just know the shirt is selling well at Hot Topic. Was watching day 2 or 3 of the NFL Draft this year and they did this silly bit where they had a fan of each team onstage playing to the crowd, and one of the teams' fans was dressed in the full Macho Man Randy Savage attire, looked just like him. And the announcers all did impressions of Savage, made comments about the Macho Man and when there was a delay one of them yelled "Who's making the pick? Miss Elizabeth?!" to much laughter while Rich Eisen, who's done some stuff with WWE/WWE wrestlers, tried to explain to them all that it wasn't the REAL Randy Savage, that he was dead etc. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PetrolCB Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, caley said: Was watching day 2 or 3 of the NFL Draft this year and they did this silly bit where they had a fan of each team onstage playing to the crowd, and one of the teams' fans was dressed in the full Macho Man Randy Savage attire, looked just like him. This was awesome. I love he came out and did the mannerisms, then just sat down while Goodell looked over and was like, alright, he's just gonna hang out. Edited June 4, 2021 by PetrolCB 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Green Meanie Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 3 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said: And Vince fired him for that! It wasn't entirely Vince's call on that, though. There were several issues regarding the Hasbro/LJN conflict that also contributed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spontaneous Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 WWE also really dropped the ball, repeatedly, with Brock. Losing to Cena in 2012, the usual self-indulgent HHH feud, never committing to Roman beating Brock. He was their biggest star because he dictated the terms, not Vince. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew POE! Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 9 hours ago, HumanChessgame said: I know it's supposed to be funny, but it really makes MJF looks like an insufferable piece of shit. I know there's no 'off switch' with him when he's playing MJF, but that's a bit below the belt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Custos Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 5 hours ago, Eivion said: For Black his matches with Dream, Ciampa, & Lars in NXT were good. Murphy had matches against Cedric and Ali well worth checking out during his run on 205Live. Ruby had basically nothing especially noteworthy in WWE or NXT. Her best work is probably from her indy run before, and I haven't seen much of that. For Murphy, I would add in the Australian PPV match in 2018 (unless that is assumed to be part of the Cedric 205Live collection). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 Do these "budget cuts" make it less likely that Bryan will re-sign? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wyld Samurai Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 4 minutes ago, Dog said: Do these "budget cuts" make it less likely that Bryan will re-sign? I don't think the budget matters to Bryan. He's probably just tired of the WWE structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 I mean, if Byran's going to be difficult, and he's got a big contract, does WWE just say "fuck it; go ahead and walk"? So I probably should have said, "Do the budget cuts make it less likely WWE will bother trying to re-sign Bryan?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nofuture Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 If "budget cuts" was the actual reason they were cut, that money would still be able to go towards Bryan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PetrolCB Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 8 minutes ago, nofuture said: If "budget cuts" was the actual reason they were cut, that money would still be able to go towards Bryan. Or hopefully another Brock comeback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamBroken Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 59 minutes ago, Andrew POE! said: I know it's supposed to be funny, but it really makes MJF looks like an insufferable piece of shit. I know there's no 'off switch' with him when he's playing MJF, but that's a bit below the belt. Just to clarify, that is not actually MJF, but a fan made "parody account" 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph2112 Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 5 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said: And Vince fired him for that! I think Vince is of two minds. One, he wants to be able to do this sort of thing, and two, he doesn't want his wrestlers to grow too big and leave him, so he doesn't really want to do it deep down where it counts. If he could make himself the sort of person who would graciously work with his wrestlers, support them in their outside endeavors, and maintain a healthy relationship with them, he would absolutely be able to call on them for projects to expand into other media. But he's not that Vince, and he never will be. That's why he's going to wander the desert and never reach that particular promised land. I'm guarantee Vince sits around dreaming of dealing with his "independent contractors" like this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 1 hour ago, The Green Meanie said: It wasn't entirely Vince's call on that, though. There were several issues regarding the Hasbro/LJN conflict that also contributed. Do you have anything on this that indicates that LJN was willing to pull their contracts because Slaughter had a GI Joe figure? This reeks of Vince McMahon not liking that a wrestler got his own side deal without getting a cut himself, much like his draconian Twitch policy bullshit and his "bring everyone's YouTube channels in house" post-Zack Ryder. Slaughter was the number two, three guy right behind Hogan in the pecking order. I think a Vince McMahon not threatened by Slaughter cutting his own deal plays intermediary, and I haven't heard anything that indicates that firing Slaughter was the must-do action. I well could be ignorant of such information, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thee Reverend Axl Future Posted June 4, 2021 Share Posted June 4, 2021 The idea of a straightfaced, kayfabed, big budgeted Netflix miniseries or Hollywood movie of classic wrestling angles really blows my mind. CWF Dusty v. Sullivan as a horror movie? BWMJValiant takes on Paul Jones as friend after friend betrays the Boogie Man, noir-style? Gritty urban drama: Sandman's family is stolen by Raven, or Rocky-redux with Dreamer/Raven? MegaPowers explode, as larger than life personalities maneuver behind the scenes for love and respect and championships? Roddy Piper as Tarantino-esque anti-hero lashing out at the system? Rom com (with action for the menfolks) of Eddie G and his mamacita? Let the casting fantasies begin... - RAF 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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