2022 Pro Wrestling Thread

I just saw that on YouTube; you could almost see McMahon (or was it Nick Khan) hiding behind the broadcast desk while he's pulling that string out of Cole's hip like he's a talking doll.

 

I used to do weekly summaries of the Wrestling Observer, but kind of lost the thread on it when my source for them dried up. Found a new one, though, so, the summary for the week of May 23:

- The original plan for the six pack challenge was for Naomi to pin Sasha, which would set her up for a feud with Belair, and Sasha would be the challenger for Rousey's belt. Both of them would lose, but retain their tag belts through July 2's Money in the Bank PPV at least. They didn't want to do this, and countered with the idea of a title match against Nikki & Doudrop. Vince said no, at which point they packed their stuff and left.

The only semi-recent comparison is when Stone Cold was suspended for refusing to job to Lesnar in 2002. However, the big difference there was that most of the people in the locker room were on Austin's side. A few months ago, there was a segment where Charlotte refused to give the belt to Becky Lynch. She was sent home for a few days as a result, but they didn't want her to go to AEW and she was never at risk of being fired.

Banks has walked previously, when she and Bayley were forced to drop the belt to the Iconics. However, because of how her and Naomi's contracts are written, their contracts can't expire if they're refusing to work. Over the past few weeks, Banks has stopped following all WWE talent except Naomi, Cena and Tamina. Because Naomi is married to Jimmy Uso, who's related to Roman Reigns, there's speculation that she does have leverage in this situation. Her contract is also up in the next few months.

- Jim Ross, 70, has signed an 18-month contract extension with AEW.

- Stephanie McMahon stepping down temporarily wasn't a surprise to people who knew her in the company, citing burnout from the role and because of an increased focus on family, after Triple H's health issues. She's expected to return at some point. Nick Khan will be taking over her duties. Triple H is back to 100 percent with the company, in terms of his duties. He spoke at a shareholder meeting on May 19, and said the company plans to open more Performance Centers, both domestically and internationally.

- The XFL deal with ABC is for five (5) years, and it is believed that there is real money being offered to the league, which differs from McMahon's effort in 2020. (He wasn't being charged for the airtime, but, they were only getting cash from ads sold, if any.) For the USFL, FOX owns that league and has pledged $150M to $200M over the first 3 years, with NBC also paying a broadcast fee.

- When it comes to Ric Flair's last match, Steamboat was offered a spot and turned it down. His brain aneurysm from 10 years ago was worse than reported, although he's in good health now. Skip Sheffield (Ryback) was rough with him and a couple other legends at the time, which is thought to have made the issue worse. Flair's deal with WWE paid him similar to an active talent, not a legend, but he quit after a disagreement with Charlotte's booking, well before the negative Darkside of the Ring segment on him. AEW was going to use him as a manager for Andrade before that segment.

- NBC has a show in development, "Pinned," a scripted drama series about a fictional wrestling program. Tom Rinaldi, a FOX sports personality, is the executive producer.

- While "Young Rock" was picked up for a third year, it was moved from Tuesday to Friday nights, suggesting this next season will probably be the last. It's also head to head with "Smackdown" now. "America's Got Talent Extreme," which had Nikki Bella as a judge, wasn't picked up for anything more than limited special / fill-in status.

- Miro (Rusev) has been filming a television show for CBS, "East New York," where he plays Nikolai Dushkin. He's been absent since November.

- Dakota Kai will be wrestling with the name King Kota in the indies.

- David Zaslav is the new CEO of Warner Discovery, broadcast company of AEW, and he's promised to make more aggressive budget cuts across the company. While a direct impact isn't expected for AEW, it's not seen as a positive, since they'd likely be in a position to be pushed more given their decent success so far.

- NXT will go back to "touring," but mostly in 200 to 400-seat venues within driving distance of Orlando.

- Next up to debut for NXT: Thea Hail (18-year-old state champion gymnast in the vault turned pro wrestler) and Valerie Loureda (Bellator record of 4-1, Instagram model).

- The fourth person in Edge's Judgement Day faction was going to be Parker Boudreaux from NXT. Edge had hand-picked him for the role, but after input from the company about his lack of improvement and injury-prone status (in their minds), he was passed over. Edge has been teasing Ciampa as a fourth member, but it's believed to just be to rile up the Internet fans, even though it would make sense. Paige has been mentioned as well, but as far as people in the back know, she has not been training and hasn't been medically cleared for anything.

 

If there's anybody that can follow a script, it's Cole. At least Pat's off the cuff commentary has forced Cole to be a tad less programmed.

I still remember vividly when Shane jumped off the cell vs. Taker at WrestleMania, and the camera plainly showed Cole reading from his papers: "For the love of mankind..."

 

IIRC it wasn’t that Stone Cold refused to job, it was the match was a throwaway first round King of the Ring match on Raw, not a PPV with a proper build.

That’s probably why the locker room was on Austin’s side.

One of the dumbest moves WCW made (although cool for the average fan) was putting Hogan-Goldberg on Nitro instead of a PPV.

 

Didn’t Meltzer say they were NOT gonna unify the tag belts?

I think the anti Meltzer stuff gets a little crazy sometimes but sheesh its hard to take the reports seriously sometimes too

 

FWIW, a bunch of people on Twitter reading a lot into McAfee's facial expressions during Cole's announcement:



Personally, I saw his expressions as saying "Ah, man, I really don't want to get in the middle of this shit!"

 

Yeah, Austin has said he was perfectly willing to lose to Lesnar, but wanted to do it on PPV and make money. Austin expressed that fans wouldn’t care about the PPV match if he’d already lost once, and Vince blew him off by saying nobody would remember the Raw match three years down the road.

Austin was burned out and hurting and didn’t think he’d last three more years and as it turned out, Lesnar didn’t want to go three more years either.

 

How many people in this photo have been laid off by WWE?

 

None actually. They were all extras.

 

So is Orton legit injured or banged up? Or just taking a week or two off?
I haven't seen anything reported and I can't imagine they'd break up RK-Bro with as hot as they are right now.

 

Nah. He's got the clout where he can take off. Especially if there's nothing really to chase right now.