2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

One other funny moment was when Miz was talking about how he was one of Cleveland's greatest athletes for bringing a championship to Cleveland. One of the announcers mentions Jim Brown, and Miz says he never won a championship. Both Lawler's and Cole yell out simultaneously, "Yeah he did!"

 

This week’s Observer stuff:

- With the cuts made by the WWE, they’re now expected to be able to turn a profit eventually with only 750k US subscribers, assuming that they also get 750k international subscribers. However, their retention rate is apparently fairly poor; they’re losing about 15 percent of the subscribers each month, whereas something like Netflix only has a 5 percent churn rate.

Richardo Rodriguez and five developmental talents were cut, along with about 40 others in non-talent roles. The pre- and post-game shows are being phased out, as they weren’t worth the cost in production and talent. They’re also delaying new shows. WWE Magazine was cut, which leaves Pro Wrestling Illustrated as the only U.S. based pro wrestling magazine. There is a chance it could be “revived” if WWE wanted to license the name out to another company, but it wouldn’t be done in-house.

- WWE has denied (at least as of last week) that Smackdown is definitely moving back to Thursdays, calling it a production error on those trucks with the day and time painted on them. However, it’s been seen as a strong possibility, since Smackdown dropped 20 percent in ratings from Thursdays to Fridays. It wouldn’t be good for TNA, obviously.

- ROH has reached a deal with Ustream to broadcast their iPPVs, provided that ROH finds a third-party to handle customer support and complaints. The company is doing relatively well; a planned UK trip in November already has three sold out shows, and a fourth one is being added most likely.

- No update from TNA or Spike, which is considered bad news, since TNA told the wrestlers they would have an announcement before the NY tapings ended. That came and went with no announcement.

- TNA signed Chris Melendez, a former Army Sergeant who lost his leg in Afghanistan. He trained at the Team 3-D Academy, so he’s a bit more than just a gimmick / cheap pop.

- Hogan is claiming his back feels great, and that he wants one more match. It won’t be in the WWE, who only has him on a PR contract, and has no interest in having him wrestle for them again.

 

Roman Reigns names his WWE football team. He'd play at linebacker, like he did at Georgia Tech. Didn't know the Usos were high school teammates of his.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/08/wwe-roman-reigns-summerslam

 

Lots of good stuff in this week's Observer:

- Alberto Del Rio was allegedly fired for slapping Cody Barbierri, the WWE’s manager of social media at live events. Barbierri made the remark that he wasn’t going to clean up a mess at catering, that it was Del Rio’s job, which Del Rio heard about after the fact and slapped him during a confrontation. Del Rio believed it to be a racial slur, and Barbierri also has a reputation for talking down to the wrestlers, but he’s well-liked by Stephanie and Triple H and seen as one of their rising management people.

Initially, Del Rio was just placed on suspension according to some, but he was then fired after Barbierri complained that the suspension was too light. Del Rio is expected to go back to AAA in Mexico, and he already got a huge babyface pop there when he was seen at one of their events over last weekend. He had made noise about wanting to retire early, since he was stuck mostly in the midcard in WWE after some failed pushes, and it was believed he only had a year left on his contract.

It’s believed that Del Rio has a 90-day non-compete, and with Ricardo Rodriguez also now released, they’re expected to be a hot item on the indy circuit. TNA and AAA have both expressed interest already.

- WWE’s relationship with Rey Mysterio has apparently soured to the point that he’s now expected to go to AAA for appearances and matches as soon as he possibly can get out of his contract.

A while ago, it was expected that Mysterio and WWE would reach an extension, but WWE apparently angered him when they exercised a clause in his current contract that extended it if he missed too many dates for health reasons. Negotiations from there apparently haven’t gone any better.

- Mark Yeaton, WWE’s timekeeper since 1984 and a showproducer and ringside director, was also released this week, which shocked the talent and insiders more than the Del Rio release. He was the guy who would throw Stone Cold his beer – he got a shout-out from him a couple weeks ago on SCSA’s podcast – and he was also the production person HBK superkicked in the 1996 Mania match with Bret Hart.

- Kevin Eck was also allegedly let go from creative. He was a former Baltimore Sun sports guy and worked for WCW Magainze, I believe, who was hired on the strength of his Ring Posts blog. (Note: His blog was awesome, and it used to be a must-read every week for me. It’s still up on the Sun’s website, as they never replaced him for some insane reason: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestling/blog/ ) Several other members of creative were cut, which was said to have bloated up to 24 members at its peak.

- Jeff Jarrett is now doing an angle with New Japan and their Bullet Club stable, which has AJ Styles in it, although the crowd was said to be tepid to it. Jarrett has never really wrestled a ton in Japan, and while they tried to build him up as an American wrestling legend, it didn’t seem to take so much. He’s 47, so unlike Styles, it’s unlikely he’s going to be having 5-star matches.

- The injury timing on Jones is both good and bad for UFC. Good, in that both he and Cormier were a bit banged up, and it gives them more time to heal and for UFC to exploit some of the footage and coverage they have of the presser of the two. Bad, because it delays the payday for UFC until January, when they now have about six title defenses scheduled for, and they don’t really have a marquee fight between now and November.

Originally, Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano was going to be the headline fight for January. Carano is currently negotiating with UFC, and using Bellator for leverage. It’s unknown if they were try to combined the Jones fight with the Rousey one, or have them as separate PPVs. UFC wants Carano in a warm-up fight before Rousey, whereas Bellator would be willing to let her fight whenever she wants with whoever.

- Spike’s president was at the most recent TV tapings, meeting with several of the wrestlers. It’s believed that the contract expires on Sept. 25, and the sides are still talking and negotiating, so there is a chance that an 11th hour extension happens. However, no TNA events are listed beyond Sept. 9, and the future of the company remains murky.

Although most of the wrestlers are only sniffing around for indy bookings at this point, a lot of TNA’s production people are really looking for new gigs, and a social media and production executive have both left since the announcement. TNA is also way behind again on paying the production crew.

- TNA was really pushing that Dixie Carter would be going through a table on a show, but the rating for that segment (1.15) actually wasn’t the high peak of the show, as an eight-man tag at 10 p.m. actually did a 1.19. This featured a bunch of old ECW guys like Tommy Dreamer and Rhino in a hardcore match. So, re-hashed ECW stuff from ages ago is doing better than all of the current TNA product.

- Ring of Honor is in talks with New Japan to do additional talent exchanges, after earlier ones went over positively. They might also do a joint event at the Tokyo Dome in January.

Also, Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne) is expected to debut with the company as soon as he’s able to contractually.

- Drew McIntyre is now working on the indies, and is said to have a good attitude. He’s willing to work with pretty much all of the top indy guys, since he wants to showcase what he can do and try to get back to WWE.

- Kurt Angle has pitched a deal similar to HBK’s final WWE run, where he would only work big shows and limited dates, but the WWE hasn’t expressed interest in return. It’s said that his relationship with McMahon is bad, and that his medicals are a mess.

- TNA’s Rebel (Tanea Brooks) broken her arm in her second TNA match, taking a bump on some steel steps. She’s allegedly ridiculously green, and shouldn’t be wrestling; both of her TNA matches will have to be heavily edited to air.

- WWE did a press release and announcement for Steen, as they believe he can be the next big Canadian star, which is obviously a lucrative market for them. The company is said to be strongly behind him, to the point that they’ve asked Ambrose to stop doing Steen’s cannonball into the corner move.

- SyFy is moving Haven, which stars Adam Copeland (Edge), from Friday nights to Thursdays. This is seen as another sign that Smackdown is going to be moving, since SyFy has traditionally liked to pair the two.

- Sting is expected to meet face to face for the first time with Vince McMahon when he goes to LA for the yearly WWE video game panel. (It’s the one that got Jim Ross fired last year, and the one that also banished Ric Flair to the cornfield for a couple months.) It’s believed that there’s a good chance his deal finally, finallllyyy gets done at that point.

- The Heyman DVD and Bluray are both hot sellers, with it unavailable in stores after an initial run and a one to three month wait at various online retailers.

- Kevin Nash was asked at a fan Q&A if he’d rather go in the HoF as Diesel or his own name, and he said he’d refuse if they tried to make him go in as Diesel. He was also asked if he would do a retirement match, possibly with Roman Reigns, but he said he values walking too much.

- About 40 people attended a WWE tryout in Australia, with the talent coming from Australia and New Zealand for it. The next Orlando tryout is scheduled for the first week of September, with a lot of the top indie names allegedly getting invites.

- Because Cena is filming a movie, they had to shuffle up the house show lineup, and it led to two shows being headlined by Orton vs. Ziggler, even though they’re currently not in a program, since Reigns was being used to anchor some of the Australia shows. Surprisingly though, they booked Ziggler strong, having him kick out of an RKO, and he was said to be really over in the matches.

 

Del Rio and Mysterio both on the outs in the same week? Did Heel Zeb Colter replace Vince as CEO?

 

Please, let that smaller flag be real. That would fucking awesome. I usually hate companies schilling stuff shamelessly, but when it's to the point that it's this funny ...

 

SummerSlam predictions

WWE World Heavyweight Championship
- Brock Lesnar murders John Cena (c) live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Intercontinental Championship
- The Miz (c) retains against Dolph Ziggler live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Lumberjack match
- Dean Ambrose def. Seth Rollins live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Triple H/Daniel Bryan stand-in feud
- Stephanie McMahon def. Brie Bella live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Flag match
- Jack Swagger w/ Zeb Colter def. Rusev w/ Lana live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Divas Championship
- AJ Lee (c) def. Paige live on the WWE Network for $9.99

- Roman Reigns def. Randy Orton live on the WWE Network for $9.99

- Bray Wyatt def. Chris Jericho live on the WWE Network for $9.99

Pre-show matches?
The Usos have been quiet since the Harper/Rowan feud went away. Sheamus still holds the US Championship, whatever the hell that's worth these days ($9.99?)

 

They need to bring back Cryme Tyme's stolen merchandise table, and have them selling a pirated feed that blows up the computer. Then they pull out another laptop with the Network on it and sell it for $9.99.

And a random thought on Summerfest ... if they really are going to pull the trigger on a long, angry championship run for Lesnar, is there any chance that his match with Cena turns into a glorified squash? It'd make Lesnar into the beastliest beast who ever lived after essentially destroying two invincible legends, maybe give Cena a few weeks off to go make a movie while he "recuperates from his injuries," and make whoever does take Lesnar down (Reigns?) a true stud.
You'd also have the possibility of Lesnar being a rogue champ that HHH can't control. Lesnar would truly have carte blanche to do what he wants, could bully HHH a bit as things spiral out of control, and you get a storyline where HHH unsuccessfully sends guys like Orton and Rollins after him, until either Cena comes back to be the conquering hero or they elevate someone (Reigns?) to finally beat Lesnar at Wrestlemania.
All on the WWE Network for $9.99!

 

A few places have suggested that after HHH loses control of Lesnar he'll have to turn to Reigns as his last hope for Mania. Seems really unnecessary if Reigns just wins the Rumble and gets his title shot that way.

 

We all know the only person who could take down an uncontrollable Lesnar is Bo Dallas.
Calling it now.
Mania.
You better BOLIEVE IT!

 

Not sure if the flag is photoshopped in or not, but it was on the E's Twitter page...

 

I do not BOlieve it's in the offing. According to some dirtsheets, McMahon has completely soured on the gimmick. How accurate this is, is anyone's guess (because dirtsheets), but he did tap pretty quickly to Swagger last night on Smackdown.

Also, Xavier Woods said on Twitter in response to a question about NOD 2.0 that he's not a part of it, so either they've already shitcanned the angle or are doing an overhaul on it before they try again, but in neither case is that good news for Woods ahead of expectations that the E is gearing up for another round of future endeavoring.