Anth0ny said:

cena's back on 4th of july



hmmmmm i wonder what's gonna happen

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Anth0ny said:

cena's back on 4th of july



hmmmmm i wonder what's gonna happen

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Anth0ny said:

I AM THE MAHARAJA AND KING OF WWE






*cena smirk*





"That's a fine speech."

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Professor Beef said:

Damn, who shot that gif? Looks like the intro to a music video.

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Sibersk Esto said:

Are Jinder's side plates literally just his name in sharp-serif foreigner font?

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Anth0ny said:

I AM THE MAHARAJA AND KING OF WWE






*cena smirk*





"That's a fine speech."

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SomewhatGroovy said:

I need to visit Canada before I completely commit to moving to Sweden in a few years.

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Bluekaveli said:

Somewhatpoopy, you've gotten soft these past few months. Remember when Pikmark and I used to run you down?

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serenewarfare said:

Observer ratings are out for Takeover

Dunne vs. Bate: 4 and 3/4 stars

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serenewarfare said:

Observer ratings are out for Takeover

Dunne vs. Bate: 4 and 3/4 stars

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blackaroni said:

Relive Jinder Mahal's Punjabi Celebration in slow-motion

Yeah, his logo was basically his name in the papyrus font.

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At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of "I'm sick and tired of this!"

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serenewarfare said:

Every time I watch a really great episode of TV, I can't help but think "man, fuck, why can't wrestling stop being carny and start being that?"

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SomewhatGroovy said:

THAT'S why I'm moving.

Tbh, Blue, there's no chance I'm going to Canada. The intent behind EU is so I can be midway to my family who live another 8-12 hrs from there rather the the 25 hrs they are from me now. Haven't seen my pop in 12 years and we only get so many decades in our lives, if we're lucky.

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To break all this down, WWE is clearly not going to try and work out a deal where they acknowledge that another party owns a gimmick they are marketing. The idea that WWE isn't interested in the gimmick couldn't be farther from the truth. If they weren't, there would be no negotiations going on with the Hardys and no legal issues, given they are under contract to WWE for a number of years. WWE very much wants to use the gimmick because the belief is the gimmick can be a merchandise goldmine. The idea WWE doesn't want the gimmick not only flies in the face of common sense, as well as all actions by all parties involved, not to mention we've been told that directly many times. If the Hardys were to get ownership, that would likely be different but WWE isn't negotiating with Impact for something the Hardys claim that they, and not Impact, own, and believe they will win when all is said and done. If WWE was against using it, Matt wouldn't be allowed to constantly tease it on television. The crux of the argument is the Hardys believe that their contracts were violated several different times and believe that thus, the contract won't hold up in court. Anthem offered as late as 5/23 to negotiate a deal with the Hardys to be able to use the gimmick in WWE, but they are unwilling to sell the ownership of the gimmick and the trademarks to the gimmick. Apparently it's gotten to the point where Billy Corgan has been put in a position as almost a mediator to work out a deal between the two sides who are jockeying for public approval while trying to make the bet deal possible. The Hardys refuse to purchase the rights to something they believe they own and will win if it's goes before a judge, nor to purchase the rights to use it without giving them ownership of the trademarks and the gimmick. Another key argument they are pushing is that Senor Benjamin and Maxel were used by Impact as television characters with no contract, no payment and with no releases signed.

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HashtagLapsed said:

Imagine being the judge that has to deal with this case. I wonder what they would think of our sport.

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The reason that there are so many multiple person matches being booked is that right now the booking is slow. They have plans to heat things up in July and August for SummerSlam and know where they want to go, but really don't have a lot of ideas for right now, so they're just using multiple person matches to fill the time.

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The plan is to load up on Smackdown on 6/13 in New Orleans, as a special show with Mahal vs. Orton for the WWE title, Owens vs. Styles for the U.S. title and Nakamura vs. Ziggler. At least WWE announced that prior to Smackdown, but then they announced Mahal vs. Orton for the title would be on the 6/18 PPV, so plans likely changed after the first announcement. We were told that as of right now, what was announced for this show on 5/22 was changed on 5/23, but that the other two matches are still planned for the TV show

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Emma is expected to be cleared from her shoulder injury in mid-June, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been

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An interesting name who was asked to be in the women's tournament is Viper. The reason it's interesting is because she was on the World of Sport tapings and WWE up to the point hasn't had interest in signing those any of those wrestlers because of their existing ITV contracts. Not sure if Viper's situation was different or they're going with the idea they can't be held to those contracts since ITV has nothing going on, or if this is a sign that the project is dead. Those close to the situation say the ITV thing is still alive and ITV is considering several options to work with, with Impact being one of the options, but nothing is going to happen any time soon

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Jim Ross confirmed he will be the lead announcer for the women's tournament shows. Rumor has it that the team will be Ross and Lita

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Regarding Adam Cole, we're told that WWE has still not offered any contracts to ex-ROH wrestlers based on whatever the legal issue regarding tampering has been that gave them cold feet. That said, Cole did finish up in ROH and on the indie scene, he's not out there taking bookings like Kyle O'Reilly, Donovan Dijak, Bobby Fish and others are, and the feeling is that unless something changes, he'll be in WWE, probably pushed as a major star on the NXT brand. Impact is also still making a play for him because they are looking for new hot talent and he's a free agent. Right now Cole has no signed deal with anyone. That's been expected for more than one year

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The top ten most-watched shows for the week on the WWE Network were: 1. Backlash PPV; 2. NXT Takeover Chicago; 3. Talking Smack post-game show after Backlash; 4. Backlash pre-show; 5. NXT on 5/17; 6. WWE 24 Finn Balor; 7. WWE U.K. special; 8. WrestleMania 33; 9. Taking Smack for 5/16; 10. 2017 Payback PPV. As noted elsewhere, 205 Live was not in the top 20

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Bluekaveli said:

Go back and listen to the episode of the lapsed fan where they talk about ric flair taking the belt and the judge being in shame of this fake shit.

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HashtagLapsed said:

Do you remember which episode that was, roughly?

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The UK show was the seventh most-watched show for the week on WWE Network, meaning it trailed the regularly scheduled NXT show, although this special was more heavily promoted, as well as the shows related to Backlash and Takeover Chicago, and the Finn Balor documentary.

It's funny because I still can't figure out the Cruiserweight Classic vs. 205 Live evidence and how it's still done now given the obvious evidence. And I hope that evidence is listened to when it comes to the future weekly U.K. show and how it gets formatted.

The Cruiserweight Classic featured guys pretty much all unknown to the mainstream WWE audience. The series of shows were built with a sports presentation on good matches and serious commentary, with some personality profiles to get to know the competitors. The announcers promoting the stakes of the matches, in particular wins and losses, since the losers were out, and tired to present a legitimate sports-like presentation and feel. They had no contrived storylines for the most part, other than the Brian Kendrick redemption from mistakes of the past and at his age this being a last chance opportunity, and the idea that some of these guys are struggling and this could be a life-changing opportunity to make it in wrestling. In other words, real-life storylines instead of clearly contrived storylines.

The show was widely well received, many thinking it was the best one hour wrestling show around, or best television show in the U.S. period. That and the similar in-ring based New Japan show were the two best when it came to pure wrestling vs. the storyline and interview driven wrestling.

I know that the theory is that is great for the hardcores but you can't attract the masses and you need more wacky scripted stuff, and that's how you build fan engagement with the storylines. With decades of watching wrestling, I'd agree with that when it comes to television, and may also still be the case with television trying to attract two or three million people. We don't know otherwise because nobody has tested out otherwise. What we do have strong evidence is that once you get past those shows that can draw two or three million, that you are not better off with that kind of programming and WWE Network shows that clearly, particularly to the ”masses" who watch the WWE Network of all things.

The Cruiserweight Classic was very successful on the network, always beating NXT, and usually being the highest rated stuff except for the PPVs, a Takeover special or the occasional special documentary or big name talk show heavily promoted on Raw.

205 Live, live wrestling with more established characters, guys on Raw every week, with much of the same talent, is pulling very disappointing numbers. This past week, it was not among the top 20 most watched shows no the network, which is mind-blowing when you think a live show built up on Raw with characters on Raw did worse than months old Ride Along and Tables for 3 shows and even behind the 1998 Halloween Havoc show.

It's often not even top ten for the week, always way behind NXT even though 205 Live is directly build off Raw the night before, and live rather than taped.

Perhaps for traditional television that would be different, but with New Japan on AXS doing better when you factor in homes available than Impact or the innovative and expensively produced Lucha Underground, which also has some incredible athletic matches mixed in with the elaborate storylines, that also tells the same story when it comes to traditional TV. Granted, this may not work for Raw or Smackdown. I'm not even suggesting it would although I'd have never believed it would here except the evidence tells us it does. Until it's tried, we won't know, and with Raw and Smackdown, you still have to fill two and three hours weekly.

For right now all the evidence says that when you're talking 200,000 to 400,000 viewer level a week and when on outlets where you are limited in audience, the great match based show is better. Perhaps it's because the five hours of Raw and Smackdown nowadays drives that mainstream or mass audience away from watching anymore shows. Perhaps it's a trend the business is taking that goes against all previous evidence.

I would tell you my gut still says such a show on a national cable outlet from WWE would never get two to three million viewers per week like Raw and Smackdown do. But you can't ignore the underground evidence and get trapped in the past to not think it's not possible. But nobody is getting that audience unless they are on USA, and are WWE, to begin with.

If such a format would work better for two or three hours is a different animal than 60 to 90 minutes.

And until it's tried, we'll never know. What we do know is that as far as a WWE Network show, as far as garnering interest in selling tickets to anything but WWE and for a secondary cable network show, the great match formula is today far superior to the scripted soap opera show formula.

If you had told me this nine months ago, I wouldn't have believed it. Even in a discussion with people from major companies in recent weeks about the increases in interest in non-WWE great match-related product when it comes to U.S. ticket sales with the small building fast sellouts in so many places, my question has been how does that translate into making it work on television. Television is still the key for a TNA, ROH and New Japan to build to where they can get things like merch deals, videogame deals and run bigger arenas and overall make a big revenue difference.

But given the evidence out there, the U.K. show when it becomes weekly should maintain this format and not try the theoretical appeal to more people routine that failed with Cruiserweight Classic moving to 205 Live, and worse, pigeon holed guys in the 205 Live brand into for the most part garnering limited crowd reactions for their often very good matches.

I'd still go with the idea that the casual audience isn't going to watch anything other than five hours of Raw & Smackdown, and the PPVs. The percentage that wants more programming is going to be interested in shows built around good matches and perhaps not the backstage skits and such that we traditionally believe appeals to more people.

If and when 205 Live's numbers change, and Impact's numbers change with its current direction, we'll have new evidence and should adjust accordingly.

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Bluekaveli said:

Hey, I won the Powerball

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205 Live, live wrestling with more established characters, guys on Raw every week, with much of the same talent, is pulling very disappointing numbers. This past week, it was not among the top 20 most watched shows no the network, which is mind-blowing when you think a live show built up on Raw with characters on Raw did worse than months old Ride Along and Tables for 3 shows and even behind the 1998 Halloween Havoc show.

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SomewhatGroovy said:

Huh? Is this a shoot?

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Bluekaveli said:

Yeah, the Powerball was 15 and I got 15. Another number was 33 and I picked 33. So I won 4 bucks, I think. This is pretty cool. I've never won anything before. 😀

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Reneledarker said:

You can buy TNA now.

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serenewarfare said:

I never ever post opinion pieces from Meltzer, but this one needs to be shared because it's a really interesting examination of the discussion/argument Sanjuro and I had on Monday about whether NXT/WWE UK booking can work on a big stage like Raw or SD (wall of text warning):

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Bluekaveli said:

Me, SF, and Pikma


STAY IN YO LANE SEPHZILLA!

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Pikma said:

Don't forget that initial phase where every match was a headlock fest

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Anth0ny said:

We did it!




WCW did it!



Who has the gif handy?!

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RBH said:

You damn right I do!

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