General

Nick Khan also said there were no fights in the stands for the past 15 years in an attempt to make WWE seem all shiny and nice despite there being one in Boston a few months ago. He’s a yes man, and has been caught in lies numerous times. Same with Vince. Same with Triple H. Again, Triple H literally already admitted that Vince has input in his creative, it’s really not hard to believe that the shady dude who has a history of playing by his own rules may be doing the same thing right now. He’s obviously not back in any official capacity, but he is confirmed to be there weekly, it’s nowhere near out of the realm of possibility that he’s pushing Triple H toward his desired booking. Dude already changed the WWE bylaws via SEC filing even after stepping down, he’ll do what he wants regardless. As long as they don’t come outright and officially give him the job, they can do whatever they want.

To Pizza’s point, we saw how Triple H can book when Vince isn’t pressing him with NXT, there’s likely a reason it’s so wildly different now. Thankfully it’s not as bad as when Vince had full reign, but it’s mostly just dull. Again, just my opinion, but for my money, The Bloodline stuff is the only truly fantastic thing about WWE right now. Some of that is actually competent booking for once, and some of that is because it’s being compared to the turd Vince has squatted out for the past decade, so anything would look like gold in comparison. Even the Sami/KO stuff depended on a segment hawking t-shirts on the road to Mania, so there are still some whiffs even in that angle.

I also hope it steps up more after Mania, but I feel like people have been saying that for months. “I’m sure after SummerSlam Triple H will pick it up”, etc etc. He’s had enough time to start steering it that way, but so far he’s only been riding the Bloodline angle with a few decent storylines sprinkled underneath it. I just want it to be better, but if you’re digging it now, that rules. Folks should watch what they enjoy.

On the OTHER side of the wrestling pond, speaking of good faction-based angles, the Elite-reunion vs Blackpool Combat Club story is getting real spicy. Danielson just officially rejoined BCC and helped out with a beatdown on Omega. I’ll never boo them, but the official heel turn seemed to work well on the live crowd. They got a bit of heat there.

AEW NEEDS to fudgein inject some life into this Outcasts feud. Every week it’s the same deal. Saraya, Soho & Storm try to spray paint their opponent, then the face ladies come out to stop it. Having Hayter involved helps a bit but they need to progress this crap, the current shtick getting old.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Daniel Garcia added to ROH Supercard of Honor. Goddddddamn that show is going to rule.

Lol that rules pretty hard

Pretty good episode of WWE 24/7 going behind the scenes of WrestleMania 38 on Peacock now. I’m glad they’re keeping the 24/7 series going, always dug that one. I think “Day Of” (or whatever it was called) was good too.

I miss Rivalries and WrestleMania Rewind.

Lol hell yah. That rules.

Also, very cool to see Nigel McGuinness back in ROH tonight.

theJaw wrote:

I used to like watching these types of things when WWE was still its own separate Network app, but since the Peacock merge I barely watch any type of stuff like that anymore. I need to get back into it.

The worst thing about WWE on Peacock is the breaks they put in every single show. Even PPVs. Whether you pay for the ad free version or not, there’s these weird black breaks put in every so often for no reason. Ruins the flow of the shows, especially since I pay the $10. I don’t like them at all.

With all these big names gathered in one place/city, I hope WWE used this opportunity to record (or setup agreements for future recordings) of stuff like Table For 3. Stacy, Trish and Torrie can do one (with Lita in a booster seat or something), maybe Muta, Nakamura and Asuka, just let them speak in Japanese and subtitle the whole thing. Konnan, Rey and Dom Dragon Lee could do one.

Dang, The Pebble is thick in all the right places. I didn't realize this would be a pre-show match because they haven't been doing those.
Kind of a waste of a debut because she hardly did anything.

Hell of a match right there. Wes Lee retains, which I expected

The Gargano/Waller match was much better than I was expecting. First time I’ve been invested whatsoever in Gargano since the Ciampa days.

Lashley posted another tweet video last night telling somebody to step up and face him at Mania, so I’m expecting a Lashley match on Night 2 to round that card out to 7 matches like Night 1.

Bron Breakker could take that spot after dropping the NXT title today. LA Knight is the safest bet. And I mean, I guess there is a chance Bray or Howdy answer it, but that’d make the last couple weeks seem like wasted time.

First I can recall hearing these types of things about Rick Steiner. I wonder how many other seemingly "nice dudes" from those eras really weren't nice at all.
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@PizzaTheHutt He’s a known bully and piece of crap. Check out Bischoff remembering the first time he met him:

On seeing Steiner in the locker room for the first time: “So I go into this room, this big room where the guys are dressing. And I see both Steiners, Rick and Scott, have a referee. And for the life of me, I’m not sure who it was. I wanna say it was Nick Patrick, but I could be wrong. But anyway, they had this referee, and they had him duct taped up like a mummy. They had duct tape around his mouth, his hands were duct taped to the sides of his hips and his legs. His feet were duct taped together. And he was buck-ass naked and had a pencil stuck up his ass. And I thought, ‘Wow. This is gonna be a hell of a gig.’ [laughs] That’s my first recall of the Steiner Brothers. And I’m sure the referee, whoever it was, whether it was Nick Patrick or whoever, must have done something that the Steiners found worthy of some sort of Steiner Retribution. But they tortured him. It was, all I wanna say, in good fun for those who were watching. [laughs] Who knows what he did to deserve such a response. I’m not sure, I didn’t see it. I just saw the aftermath, and I thought, ‘Man. I’m gonna be really careful around these two guys.'”

Unhinged old boomer douchebags, and they made light of literal rape. Wrestling locker rooms must have been a nightmare back in the day.

Rick Steiner definitely fell into the same thing that a lot of others did where they could say or do whatever because they were good wrestlers. We all heard the stories for years and it didn’t really matter until he treated Gisele Shaw like a piece of crap yesterday. I’m glad he was removed from the signings he was supposed to do this weekend. Somehow, he’s on a school board too.

I do hope this doesn’t affect Bron.

If only one of the Steiner Brothers is a homophobic, transphobic bully, I wouldn't have expected it to be Rick.

Oh damn, Rivals IS coming back with an Undertaker vs Orton episode. Badass.

Welp, better than Saudi Arabia. I just hope they don't go back to a PPV model, but I feel like Endeavor would want to.

We’ll see what happens. I’d think they would still at least have to fulfill the Peacock deal, but we won’t know until it happens. I do wonder if they’d announce it tonight during Mania, to get ahead of the story. They do like to try to do that kind of thing.

Nick Khan did recently say something about potentially returning to a PPV model a few days ago.

"He said WWE would be open to moving premium live events to a pay-per-view model, similar to how marquee UFC cards are offered on ESPN+, offering a hypothetical that if Peacock offered five-times their current rights fees but wanted to sell PLEs at an upcharge to justify, WWE would listen. Khan did say WWE doesn’t want to price fans out of the product, however. He cited the availability of $25 tickets for WrestleMania as an example of their desire to make sure everyone can afford to be a part of the WWE experience."

I can safely say that if they go back to PPVs and keep the monthly model, I’ll exclusively be ordering maybe WrestleMania and Royal Rumble. Won’t be dishing out PPV prices every month by any means.

I’d also wonder what/if the turnaround time from live to on demand would be in that case. Like, if it’s 30 days like Raw and Smackdown are, or 3 months like HonorClub or whatever the case may be. Not gonna spend the money on the PLE if it’s available a week later.

It’s been announced.

https://twitter.com/endeavor/status/16428448901524...

Eeeeyep, WWE is officially no longer a family-run operation... and they inked Vince McMahon for a 2-year contract. Great.

I reiterate my worry about PPV prices. UFC PPV prices got astronomical when Endeavor took them over. If WWE follows suit, I can't imagine I'll be bothering to get too invested in the product anymore considering there's not a force on this planet that could get me to pay those prices for WWE shows.

Interesting times indeed.

With the Endeavor purchase, Ari Emanuel will be CEO and Vince McMahon will be Executive Chairman... again.

When creative was brought up:
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Vince then said he won't "be in the weeds" the way he was before, but that his role would be saying "yes or no". Meaning he'll still have final say on what gets pushed through creative. And THAT suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. He used the same "weeds" phrase when he was apparently handing creative over to Bischoff and Heyman 4 years ago, and we all know how that turned out. He was on the headset giving feedback for both nights of Mania. All this lines up with reports that Vince was pushing to keep the titles on Reigns through Mania, likely to have a "proven" asset like Reigns as the top guy through the selling of WWE. Triple H will apparently remain as chief content executive, aka Vince's fall guy when the going gets rough.

I wonder what it means for the wrestlers now and what kind of benefits will they get that they weren't getting before? Like, they are real employees now, right? No more hiding them under the "independent contractors" bullcrap?

Good questions. I’d assume it’s business as usual, as it has been for UFC allegedly, but only time will tell.

17 minutes into RAW, and no wrestling.. over/under # of matches is like 4.5 at this rate lol

I just saw on Twitter this will be Brock Lesnar's first match on Raw since beating Tommy Dreamer in a Singapore Cane match on July 22, 2002 and his first tag team match since 2004.

Was there any tribute screen at the beginning or mention on commentary of the passing of Bushwhacker Butch?

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Not that I saw, but RIP Butch.

shadyfozzie wrote:

Apparently the production crew have received two updated call sheets since the show started. That tidbit + a mere 5 minutes of wrestling in the commercial-free first hour certainly smells like ol’ Vinnie Mac.

That episode of Raw was not good.

Yeah Vince is right back in charge. Seriously… fudge this noise. I admit that I had high hopes and of course, Vince had to come back and be the guy running it all again.

RIP Butch Miller.

worst Post Wrestlemania Raw ever.. no surprises (is Matt Riddle really a surprise?).. The only interesting thing was Brock turning on Rhodes.. I guess someone from Smackdown will challenge Reigns now (Please be Gunther).

Yah, as corroborated by a bunch of folks, Vince was indeed running TV last night. I saw one report that suggested the new call sheets the production crew and wrestlers received during the show cut out 2 women's matches to allow more time for Triple H's promo and Omos vs. Elias. It apparently impacted roster morale in a big bad way.

It also looks like Bayley's on her way out of WWE, if she's not out already. There were apparently a few wrestlers who said they'd "walk" if they saw Vince in control again, and it seems she may be one of them. After Mania, she tweeted that "even the most romantic love stories come to an end. Bye" (or something along those lines), and when Kai/Sky had their tag match last night, there was virtually no mention of Bayley by commentary or anywhere else on the show. Obv that may just be a "for the time being" thing, but the red flags are there.

Rough stuff. I don't understand his insistence to run creative... the dude had to have seen how well WWE was doing the past year or so and the good will they were finally starting to rebuild with the audience. Not that this is breaking news or anything, but there's definitely something wrong with that guy's brain.