The Unknown Poster

Players could have gone. Could have accepted the owners offer to go in exchange for extending the CBA. What is it they intend to get from a prolonged CBA fight anyway? So you're going to sign a new CBA...but now you lost the Olympics. The PA didnt even try to negotiate. The PA always thinks they have leverage when they dont. You're the employees. Your leverage only extends so far. If the PA goes to the league now with an offer, Im sure the NHL listens. But I agree the owners should get something. And yes, they get "growth" but its Korea. They want to be in China. They dont see the benefit to South Korea as much. There is benefit but shutting down for three weeks in February, the wear & tear on your best players, risk of injury etc... owners are right to expect a concession from the players. And talk of players going anyway, I think, is silly. They have contracts. They arent going. And the IIHF wont take them and risk a war with the NHL.

Pretty good RAW. I always like this crowd and especially the fact WWE has embraced it and try to book some surprises. Kurt Angle is a masterful performer who makes RAW 100X better. Roman would be such a great heel. I like the Revival...but imagine if they had been led to the ring by Jim Cornette! Now that would have been cool. I agree about Braun. They did a great job of building him up and then he lost to Show and lost to Roman. The loss to Roman was particularly damaging. It makes sense in that the monster's job is to be built up for the top guy but Braun had more mileage. Im sure WWE was surprised by the lack of crowd support for the Braun/Brock confrontation. Its really amazing how Matt Hardy reinvented himself. Doing a gimmick in TNA and the indies and before they were signed back, WWE fans were still doing the 'delete delete delete'. Shows you the power of the internet and that wrestling fans are not just WWE bubble fans. I like Joe and Owens together. Joe just screams badass. I'd heat him up for Brock if it was me. I wonder if Seth moves to SD...he needs something.

If you like good service across the province it is although I thought I heard Telus would get access to MTS towers as well. Telus does not have a wide network here.

I love that the emotional Undertaker chant turned into a roman sucks chant. Also loved Cole trying to explain that roman is being boo'ed because of retiring the Undertaker. Uh huh man they have to turn this guy...

Regarding Seth, they had their plan that was building to Hunter/Seth and weren't going to change. Very stubborn and it cost them. Its weird because they even made that great docu-segment on Seth's recovery so of course he was going to get a face reaction. And Hunter wasn't coming back before football season was over (due to ratings). I didn't think any of their booking made sense for Seth/Hunter including the finish of the match, the lack of Samoa Joe...none of it

I think Jcon is right. The owners don't care and don't want it. But they do understand growing the game. But they wanted something in return and were probably caught off guard when the PA didn't negotiate. I think the HHL is inherently arrogant too. They want to be in China. And they don't think the Olympics will make them squirm. If the NHL wants to go to China they will. We'll see if the PA comes back with an offer to try to save this. Im not sure there is a real risk of players going on their own. Surely it would violate their contracts.

Well this would suck

Some good WWE network numbers released today: Concentrating on actual paid subscriptions, the network has 1,661,000 subscribers as of today, broken down as 1,237,000 in the United States and 424,000 over the rest of the world. And Jim Ross signed a two year deal with WWE.

Lawless has an interesting change of opinion on thorburn dressing. He was originally against it. And then the next day came out and said well he has done his part for the team and probably won't be back and this is letting him play out the season as a thank you or whatever. But I mean...business is business. This like roman vs Undertaker going on last. Haha Anyway there's this: https://twitter.com/halfordpht/status/848928091460190208

I hope the Olympics hold the NHL's feet to the fire for China then. the NHL WANTS to be in China. They shouldn't get to pick and choose. You're either apart of the Olympics or you aren't.

I was pretty dead watching it in a comfy living room. 7+ hours in that heat? ugh

Now that The Walking Dead season is over (I haven't watched it yet though), CBS has officially announced Sonequa Martin_Green has joined Discovery as First Officer Michael Burnham (odd name choice).

Yup. To think they don't is naive. In fact it was sort of a running joke when they taped Smackdown. And there is examples of where they create those recap videos and they actually switch the audience reaction shots to ones they *want* rather then ones they actually got. They've been doing it for years. Its television after all. Go back and watch RR 92. When Hogan is eliminated the fans pop big. When Hogan pulls Sid out, they boo like mad. Flair gets a pop for winning. And fans are solidly behind Sid and against Hogan. When they did the recap videos leading to Wrestlemania, they not only changed all the audio to Sid being boo'ed and Hogan being cheered, they had Gorilla and Heenan re-do their commentary to bury Sid and put over Hogan. Hilarious.

By chatter, i wasn't referring to "Internet Wrestling Community". I mean, when the crowd noise drops at certain times and you get reports from people there that don't match...well, I guess its a myth. Wrestling doesn't always have to be a battle between the "real fans" and the "smart marks". geez

Maurice basically said its a payoff for good seasons with the Moose, so yes I guess calling them up is essentially giving them a nice fat paycheque before summer. Plus, they get to see how the NHL side of things operate. Hopefully they get into a game.

I like Fandango and he could be more, but I think more in the vein of Honky Tonk Man with the fun gimmick. WWE now has the most talented assembly of guys, possibly in history. So guys like Ascension, its hard to push. Although I really believe WWE needs to pull back on the wrestling on TV significantly and book more angles. And then guys who aren't the very best workers would be used more. The 5-star matches should be reserved for PPV and 1-2 per RAW. Shorter segments, more angles.

Lots of chatter that WWE were turning down the audio at various points when they were getting poor reactions (Roman being boo'ed out of the building). So they are aware enough to be ready to do those things but not to come up with a better creative plan to stop it from happening. This is the biggest wrestling company in the world with an army of writers and they just shrug and blame the fans for not reacting the right way.

All reports are that he was great. His schtick is mostly a gimmick. He buried the Bucks and then when they were both booked for the same indie show, he messaged them and pitched an angle and they said no. They didn't want to help make money for someone who made money burying them. He has been blunt in person. He slapped Santino (which led to him getting fired). And I think he spit in the face of the writer who went to WCW with Russo, because he portrayed a version of Jim Ross complete with making fun of his Bells Palsy.

The fans are smarter now than in the past for many reasons. Internet. Age of average viewer is higher etc. WWE exposes their own business in a way that feeds the smarter fan. vince is just stubborn. This would be akin to keeping Austin as "The Ringmaster" or Rocky as smiling good guy "Rocky Maivia". Both of those Mega Stars began as really crappy Vince ideas. But he changed when he saw it wasn't working. And there was far more input from the talent and a willingness to try. WWE has no competition so they aren't compelled to try new things not. Daniel Bryan is prime example. He got over organically. Fans liked him because he was talented and came across as a nkce guy. They wanted him to succeed. WWE didn't see it. When they jobbed him to Sheamus at WM in seconds it began the fan backlash. And they did everything they could do cut Bryan off but couldn't. Bryan's wm was supposed to be Randy vs Batista if you can believe it. Vince thought it would be the biggest of all time. But Vince finally relented when he realized the show would be completely hijacked by the fans. Its really not that hard. But WWE is a weird culture. The writers exist to please Vince. And Vince is very insulated from the real world. Roman would be a huge baby face right now if they had turned him heel two years ago. They always screw with people that are over. They did it to Bayley too. Hunter screwed roman too actually.

I think anything they did to write off the Undertaker was probably best done on raw. More viewers. And a better crowd. I liked the symbolism of the gear in the ring. But can't sacrifice an entire show for that one shot.

It elicited laughter where I was. It would have been more dramatic had the match been better. This is a huge issue. I don't mind as much at WM because their packages are so good. But really they spend too much time accounting for the fans that don't follow them regularly. It makes it too easy to not follow them.

Yes. Exactly. 100%. Its been botched terribly but he's their guy. And their business isn't reliant on someone like Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena anymore. So they keep pushing the wrong guy in the wrong way. He desperately needs a heel turn. But he's needed that for at least two years.

Sure. It's fine. But you end wm with a lousy match and a huge downer. And it doesn't nothing for roman anyway. So not the wrong idea. Just the wrong guy at the wrong time.

I think most fans would prefer him going out on top. You're point is certainly relevant though. It's how it's generally supposed to go. I read one review that I thought nailed it for a lot of people. Essentially said the idea that Roman really didn't have much trouble and was more annoyed that taker didn't just stay down seemed like a "jobber" way for Taker to lose. It didn't come across like Taker was finally beaten by the younger dog. Him losing to Brock was far better. Had he lost to hunter or HBK, far better. But they're all better workers than roman and roman isn't that over. I think that's the big issue. Roman was the wrong guy.

Taker does what he's told. Vince's call. It was originally Taker vs Cena. Which is the big money match. But Vince wanted Taker to put over Roman in his insane obsession with making roman into the new cena. So he had to do it now or risk never doing it. Taker lost to Brock for the same reason. Vince thought it was takers last match so had Brock win.