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July Wrasslin' |OT2|

  • Thread starter Deleted member 47027
  • Start date

Raw64life

Member
http://rajah.com/node/48279

WWE reportedly had plans at one point for Brock Lesnar to be a gay character in their storylines.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting that WWE was considering the idea of debuting a gay character in 2002 that would be a tough guy who outs himself as being guy, but would do none of the stereotypes and would be portrayed as a kick-ass main eventer. The idea was for the person to be Lesnar when he made his debut that year.

Originally, the idea came from two of WWE's magazine writers, one of whom was Brian Solomon. Solomon pitched the idea directly to Stephanie McMahon that year, with the pitch being that it would blow fans away to see an unstoppable hyper-masculine bad ass revealing himself to be gay, and be pushed as a top babyface. WWE felt that they would get huge support from the gay community, as well as positive support from the media for having a "progressive character."

The people who originally pitched the idea never heard another word about it and didn't know until recently that the idea actually made it to the writers room. The idea ended up being shot down by older agents in the company who thought it was a terrible idea, and it ended up leading to the Billy and Chuck thing.

I'm sure Lesnar would have been thrilled.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
NXT... Is really bad right now.

So many bad to absolutely terrible performers on there right now, what a shame.
 

Kaladin

Member
NXT... Is really bad right now.

So many bad to absolutely terrible performers on there right now, what a shame.

They really need to re-define what an NXT contract is.

Developmental cannot survive as a big brand if they keep taking away their stars for the main roster.
 

JavyOO7

Member
WWE has their earnings call for the second quarter today at 11 AM EST. Maybe they will release numbers on the network.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
They really need to re-define what an NXT contract is.

Developmental cannot survive as a big brand if they keep taking away their stars for the main roster.
It's developmental that some people get overly invested in, it's good they always have a fire under their ass for new talent as it were.

I mean the REAL developmental are the NXT house shows, but still.
 

Kaladin

Member
All from pwinsider:

*Network segment revenue reached a record of $131.0 million on a trailing 12-month basis that exceeded the Company’s annual pay-per-view revenue in every calendar year through 2014. During the quarter, Network segment revenue increased 57% on a pro-forma basis (excluding the timing impact of WrestleMania in the second quarter 2014)1. Supporting the growth in revenue, WWE Network had 1,156,000 paid subscribers at quarter end, and averaged approximately 1,216,000 paid subscribers during the quarter, representing an 83% increase from the prior year quarter and a 31% increase from the first quarter 2015 average.2 During the quarter, the Company premiered more than 75 hours of original content on WWE Network, increased the network’s comprehensive video-on-demand library to more than 3,300 hours, and continued to broaden its global distribution. From inception through June 30, 2015, WWE Network attracted more than 2.0 million unique subscribers with approximately 61% of these subscribers active as of that date.

*Beast in the East, a live event special produced in Japan on July 4th, has become the network’s most watched program to date (excluding pay-per-views).

*For the remainder of 2015, the Company expects to add approximately 180 hours of original content to the network’s featured programming. Exciting original programming coming to the network includes a reality series following the stars of NXT as they strive to make WWE’s main roster, a new series Table for 3 that gives viewers a seat at the table with our Superstars and Divas, a studio show highlighting current events in the world of WWE and beyond, and new episodes of WWE 24, The WWE List, and Stone Cold Podcast, as well as teasers of Camp WWE, an animated adult series premiering in 2016. In addition, the Company plans to expand WWE Network’s robust video-on-demand library, which currently has more than 3,300 hours of content. Themed programming collections to be added to this library include The Raw Attitude Era Part 2: Austin/McMahon, WCW Nitro: Accelerating the War, and The 20th Anniversary of Monday Nitro.

*Subscribers: As of June 30, they had 1,227,000, with 939,000 in the US and 217,000 in the rest of the world.

*The company did 264,000 PPV buys in quarter two.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
It's developmental that some people get overly invested in, it's good they always have a fire under their ass for new talent as it were.

I mean the REAL developmental are the NXT house shows, but still.

It's a televised product used to sell the Network to people, as you say, the developmental part needs to happen off of TV, the TV show should be the top talent they have under contract that isn't on the main roster, really.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
It's a televised product used to sell the Network to people, as you say, the developmental part needs to happen off of TV, the TV show should be the top talent they have under contract that isn't on the main roster, really.
I kinda feel like the last piece of developing talent is putting them on the camera, though. There's good reasons to put dogshit performers on the show. IMHO
 

Sephzilla

Member
Yeah, NXT can't really survive as its own 'brand' if top talent keeps getting pulled away from the roster
and then buried by Kevin Dunn
.
 
Man, Kalisto has been straight up bad.

What happened to making him the next Mysterio?

Dude does the SAME SHIT every time he's in the ring. Wish he'd just fly on his own, but he's destined to be Neville-tier in that case.

Still, I'd rather see Kallisto/Stardust than him being in the tag division. Anything to let him do something different than his same hot-tag moves.
 
Yeah, NXT can't really survive as its own 'brand' if top talent keeps getting pulled away from the roster
and then buried by Kevin Dunn
.

Yeah, NXT is going to be nothing in about a year or so. It would have been really cool to see them keep their talent and be their own little brand. Guys like Owens would be better off in it too, and they should have blended a feud or two into the main PPVs, and some Raw appearances.

I also think that if some guys went down to NXT, that'd be cool too. I like Harper and Cesaro, and they both seem to be doing something important on the main roster, but I wonder what kind of stuff they could have done if given a more constant NXT spot.

I somewhat cared about Neville in NXT. Dont care about him on Raw at all.
 
CLKvIM4XAAEocuM.jpg
 

Sephzilla

Member
Yeah, NXT is going to be nothing in about a year or so. It would have been really cool to see them keep their talent and be their own little brand. Guys like Owens would be better off in it too, and they should have blended a feud or two into the main PPVs, and some Raw appearances.

I also think that if some guys went down to NXT, that'd be cool too. I like Harper and Cesaro, and they both seem to be doing something important on the main roster, but I wonder what kind of stuff they could have done if given a more constant NXT spot.

I somewhat cared about Neville in NXT. Dont care about him on Raw at all.

Once Balor, Zayn, and Itami get called up NXT is going to struggle big time. I don't even think there's many other huge indy stars they can snap up that can match those guys, and their current crop of replacements just don't equal up.

Man, Kalisto has been straight up bad.

What happened to making him the next Mysterio?

Dude does the SAME SHIT every time he's in the ring. Wish he'd just fly on his own, but he's destined to be Neville-tier in that case.

Still, I'd rather see Kallisto/Stardust than him being in the tag division. Anything to let him do something different than his same hot-tag moves.

Kalisto needs to distance himself from Sin Cara
 

Raw64life

Member
Once Balor, Zayn, and Itami get called up NXT is going to struggle big time. I don't even think there's many other huge indy stars they can snap up that can match those guys, and their current crop of replacements just don't equal up.



Kalisto needs to distance himself from Sin Cara

Kalisto vs. Neville

Vince: "Who brought back the minis division without my permission?"
 
Once Balor, Zayn, and Itami get called up NXT is going to struggle big time. I don't even think there's many other huge indy stars they can snap up that can match those guys, and their current crop of replacements just don't equal up.



Kalisto needs to distance himself from Sin Cara

They still have Joe! And Uhaa Nation!

I'm guessing the last set of tryouts (Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, Idris Jackson, Dustin and Derek Mehl, Matt Riddle, Biff Busick, Drew Gulak, and Chuck Taylor) didn't produce any signings.
 

Fox318

Member
NXT is struggling because wrestling in the US is just generally on the decline, I suspect, meaning fewer (and therefore fewer talented people) are being spurred to pursue it.

2 big issues

  1. There is no way for younger people to want to be a wrestler aside from rinky dink wrestling schools
  2. 3 hour raw kills ratings
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Lots of bad ideas for NXT on this page. I'm glad none of them will be used since they're for the worse. NXT is fine. They signed 11 new talents in April who have yet to debut. I'm not sure why they dropped the Uhaa promos, but he will be coming by the end of the year. They have an hour to work with and it's weekly, so all of you expecting each match to feature main event talent is nonsense. Same dumb expectations for the main roster, too.
 

Sephzilla

Member
Lots of bad ideas for NXT on this page. I'm glad none of them will be used since they're for the worse. NXT is fine. They signed 11 new talents in April who have yet to debut. I'm not sure why they dropped the Uhaa promos, but he will be coming by the end of the year. They have an hour to work with and it's weekly, so all of you expecting each match to feature main event talent is nonsense. Same dumb expectations for the main roster, too.

Please elaborate instead of just carpet bombing an entire page of ideas.
 

somedevil

Member
They still have Joe! And Uhaa Nation!

I'm guessing the last set of tryouts (Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, Idris Jackson, Dustin and Derek Mehl, Matt Riddle, Biff Busick, Drew Gulak, and Chuck Taylor) didn't produce any signings.

They did sign that NOAH tag team to contracts. Not sure if anyone else was mentioned other than someone doing a dark match with Uhaa last tapings.

Plus how NXT struggling? Its hot right now selling 11,000 tickets so far for the Brooklyn show and mostly selling out all there shows in Florida?
 

Sephzilla

Member
They did sign that NOAH tag team to contracts. Not sure if anyone else was mentioned other than someone doing a dark match with Uhaa last tapings.

Plus how NXT struggling? Its hot right now selling 11,000 tickets so far for the Brooklyn show and mostly selling out all there shows in Florida?

I think they're more talking in terms of the quality of the show. I think it's dialed back a bit from the quality we were getting last year, but I personally don't think struggling is a very good word at all to describe NXT right now. But at the rate they're losing main event talent, they could enter a rebuilding/struggling phase.
 

kirblar

Member
Via Reddit,compiled
WWE is planning to put more old episodes of Nitro/Raw on the Network later this year. New series "Table for 3". New episodes of WWE24, WWE List.

Table of 3 gives "viewers a seat at the table with superstars and divas".

New programming coming to the Network: reality show following NXT stars.

WWE lost 171,000 Network subscribers in the past three months, a 13% decline from the end of Q1.

Currently 1,156,000 subsribers to the Network. WWE predicts they'll hit 1.2 million by the end of Q3.

Over the entire life of the Network, there have been 2 million unique subscribers.

Excluding PPVS, the Beast in the East is the Network's most watched program to date.

WWE will introduce a retail subscription card good for three months.

Swerved is CANCELLED, reportedly due to talent complaints.

Free usership is down between only 4-6%.
They mentioned that they saw more revenue in this period via the Network then they did with the last year of PPV business. Of course, the profitability is still an issue, but it makes sense that their slow months would do better under this model.
 

JavyOO7

Member
Wuhu Island was in the opening match against Crowe on NXT WBP last week. It'll be great to see him on television regularly.

I think NXT will be okay. Once they sign up all these big indie names, the market for that will dry up... so they have to develop what they got already... somehow...
 

Fox318

Member
Via Reddit,compiled

They mentioned that they saw more revenue in this period via the Network then they did with the last year of PPV business. Of course, the profitability is still an issue, but it makes sense that their slow months would do better under this model.

That card is going to be huge for people who want to give the network as a gift.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Via Reddit,compiled

They mentioned that they saw more revenue in this period via the Network then they did with the last year of PPV business. Of course, the profitability is still an issue, but it makes sense that their slow months would do better under this model.
Shame about Swerved. Can't wait for Table for Three.
 

JavyOO7

Member
Via Reddit,compiled

They mentioned that they saw more revenue in this period via the Network then they did with the last year of PPV business. Of course, the profitability is still an issue, but it makes sense that their slow months would do better under this model.

Aww, what is Filthy Tom Lawlor going to watch now since SWERVED is cancelled?
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
Please elaborate instead of just carpet bombing an entire page of ideas.

No need to elaborate since the ideas in this thread aren't specific besides "don't take the top talent to Raw." No real creative input that will provide any benefit to NXT. Now if people actually had constructive feedback to provide, then there is room for discussion.

On the flip side, NXT needs to let Devin (backstage interviewer) go. She's has had more than enough time to produce and improve and, yet, she continues to be lackluster on the mic and has no presence.
 

Anth0ny

Member
WWE is planning to put more old episodes of Nitro/Raw on the Network later this year.

Good. The day I can watch every Raw and Nitro is the day I subscribe to the Network. Happy they haven't given up on the old programming, despite supposed lack of interest.

They could be doing so much more with this old stuff...

Excluding PPVS, the Beast in the East is the Network's most watched program to date.

Not surprised by this. I expect there to be more and more high profile house shows broadcast on the network. MSG shows, for instance.

Once Balor, Zayn, and Itami get called up NXT is going to struggle big time. I don't even think there's many other huge indy stars they can snap up that can match those guys, and their current crop of replacements just don't equal up.

Come on son. They see this coming. Why do you think NJPW x NXT is happening? By this time next year we're going to have Tanahashi vs. Styles and Nakamura vs. Ibushi on NXT. Believe!
 
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