The Unknown Poster

STAMFORD, Conn. — WWE has suspended Joe Anoa`i (Roman Reigns) for 30 days effective immediately for his first violation of the company’s talent wellness policy. Reigns issued a statement on Twitter regarding his suspension:

There was talk of the PA not initiating their escalator so as to keep escrow payments lower. In which case the cap would have stayed the same or dropped slightly. Someone can do the math if they so desire.

Thats why it's interesting. Knowing the Jets, they will have Helle start on the Moose. But given his time in the NHL, he is eligible for the expansion draft, no? So they have to protect him, leaving Pavs and Hutch exposed. At $1.5m, I find it difficult to believe the Jets see Hutch as an AHL'er (who would have to clear waivers to go down anyway). Clearly, the plan is to not re-sign Pavs after this season (and actually since he's going into Free Agency, he wouldnt be expansion draft eligible anyway. So either they waive Hutch to the Moose and pay him $1.5m to share duties with Comrie or Helle starts on the Moose again. Or they are planning to trade Pavs and go with Helle/Hutch.

Very interesting.

Thats the obvious way to use him. Another would be Rusev. If they bring Angle in with the idea of using him sporadically I think they will be surprised at the reaction he gets and he will end up doing far more than they originally anticipated, sort of like what happened with Sting.

Should be Roman. Surprised they are doing the three way so soon.

Shane always comes across like one of the boys. Steph always seems like she's a woman in a man's world trying to rise above even though she's 40 and owns the company.

Not to mention Comrie behind him. Our goaltending should be the least of our concerns for the next ten years.

Yes but he still looked nothing like the actor from STID

Interesting. And Dana stays on with ownership. Might be hard to focus with the kind of wealth this brings Dana

So it sounds like wwe wants to go balls out for the brand split by bringing in anyone of any note from the past. Names like Carlito, MVP and Stevie Richards (?) have been asked. And supposedly Hunter is talking to Angle which is a complete turn around but long over due

And signed him to a 5 year contract at just over $5m per year.

Which is interesting because Owens was originally looking like he was going to win. There was a sudden change in direction on Saturday. Styles is probably the best thing in wrestling right now. But a friend of mine hates his hair cut too.

Then it really makes no sense since the actor in STID looked nothing like Khan. In the TOS episode Space Seed Spock said records were fragmented and he was guessing at Khan's history. The whole khan thing in STID was convoluted and pointless anyway but if they had Joachin (or whatever his name was) pretending to be khan they still get the I am khan reveal (which Kirk never checked out anyway). And when they phone Spock to say hi he could say "that is not khan" so his cameo means something. Use the revelation against Joachin to defeat him. End the film with the camera panning the cryotubes and lingering on the face of a young Montalban. Voila.

Not just pre-game, he's on throughout. But really you're right to a degree. But its a symptom of a problem and then became an excuse not to watch. The real issue is 1) Canadian teams sucked 2) people hate change 3) loyalty to TSN/Ron MacLean. Strombo just encapsulated all those issues.

The War on Terror wasnt a bad idea in theory but Bob's perceptive was very anti-USA which permeated the entire script and rendered it almost useless. Too much focus on the sympathetic terrorist and the evil government. The way to do it was to make Marcus the main bad guy and expand his character and motivations. He was the **** Cheney stereotype. But show us some sympathy on his part, show us why he believes what he does. If you have to involve Khan, make it a lie...make it Khan's right hand man pretending to be Khan to save him. That would explain why he looks and acts so different. Plus preserves the reveal and gives you a shocking swerve when its revealed he's not Khan (use Prime Spock for that reveal so his cameo is more than just a "hi guys, whats shakin, yeah its nice here on New Vulcan. Take care. Love Spock". Mitchell would have taken the story in a completely different direction and rightfully so. It would have been the deep space, crew on the final frontier, all alone type of "episode" story. And the likelyhood of its success would have meant Paramount didnt panic and fire the Bad Robot production team and provided an opportunity to do a 50th Anniversary film thats worthy of the 50th Anniversary rather then this irrelevant movie we're about to get.

Yes and would have fit the timeline better. But then Bob Orci couldnt do his war on terror story.

Yeah but thats what you get when you hire him. He is cool and trendy. Thats why they hired him. There should have been a period of transition if he was the future. Rather then what they did. If Ron was a woman, replaced by the younger better looking model, the outcry would have been even worse. In every way that matters, Ron is better than Strombo. But they wanted younger and better looking. Shameful really.

Certainly. JJ was never a Trek fan. He admits this. He was a Star Wars fan. He felt Trek needed to be more like Wars. That was his angle in taking on Star Trek. Also, the purpose of creating a new universe was a plan by Bad Robot to own all derivatives of their "universe". They wanted to create an entire new Star Trek Universe with merchandise, animated programs etc. The plan was to basically write over traditional Star Trek with this new version and own it. Paramount disagreed on things and that was basically the break down in the relationship. There were some rumors of money paid to JJ that didnt add up also. CBS also refused to stop selling TOS merch because it made so much money and outsold the new universe merch. Bad Robot tried to get CBS and Paramount to come together and play nicely (with the intent of Bad Robot becoming the new keepers of Trek) to no avail. I asked one of the writers a few times what research they did and never got an answer. I believe their research was likely watching the TOS films, if even that. Because they didnt seem to have a basic understanding of the voices of the characters or their histories. The JJ characters were all sort of paraodies. Like Kirk was the wild womanizer, the stereotype of James T Kirk in popular culture but nothing like what the character really was like. Spock was the emotionless character who always struggled with emotions...so in JJ films he was constantly emotional. Bones was scene chewing one liners. Scotty was comic relief. None of it was true to the originals. When Nick Meyer was hired to make Wrath of Khan, he didnt know Star Trek. So he immersed himself in it, watching every episode so he understood what Star Trek was and, more importantly, understood who the characters were and their relationships to each other. I dont believe Bad Robot did any of that. One of their writers was the self-professed Trek expert so they all deferred to him. Except he wasnt a Trek expert and not a very good writer and so we got stuck with two films that ranged from underwhelming (09) to awful (STID).

@FrostyWinnipeg - thanks for that! Cant say Im super enthusiastic for it based on the source material but it looks really good from that trailer. Great cast!

Which part? That he shouldnt have appeared until the third movie? Because he was so much younger than everyone else in TOS. He was born earlier in the JJ films to explain how he could be in Starfleet at that time. I didnt think it was necessary. While he had the one critical role of beaming them out while they were falling, it wasnt a scene that necessitated creating this entirely new Chekov character. If it was me, I would have not had him in the film at all. Maybe you tease him in STID being "dropped off" at the Academy if you want to be cute. And then in the third one, he's introduced. Its another little hook for the third film and parallels TOS in that Chekov wasnt there from the beginning then either. It would have allowed them to use Gary Mitchell (who was the Ops officer in the second pilot) although I imagine tasking those writers with giving Kirk more than one friend in Starfleet was probably asking too much.

I didnt mind him, to be honest but for sure he's no Ron Maclean. In retrospect they should have eased Strombo into a position on HNIC slowly rather then what they did. It came across like Rogers betrayed Ron and that offended a lot of viewers. And Strombo became all about skinny suits and looking cool and even if what he was saying was relevant, there are many old school HNIC fans that werent going to see past that.

Cena's yelling of spots was really bad. After this much time in the business, the fact he seemingly cant remember the spots and needs to talk that much is weird. By all reports, Seth has done well on house shows so I dont think this was any sort of test. I think its just a matter of pushing a Shield Three-Way and needing to elevate someone for the Brand Split. Both scenario's need Ambrose to be looked at as a top guy. Once they turned Styles, who was drawing better at house shows than Roman, and the decision to keep Seth a heel, they badly needed to push another top babyface. We'll see how much the poor booking of Dean has damaged him or if the rebuild can be successful. Seth vs Roman was good, not great. They went for the Epic match. But it was flat in many places which has a lot to do with Seth not being as over due to the fans wanting to cheer him, and Roman being boo'ed. The WWE-way of kicking out of every big spot is getting a bit ridiculous too. It builds drama to a degree but the expectation will be that no one decent can lose to a finisher. I thought AJ/Cena was decent too. Cena is big, strong and awkward and I think that came across with how he worked with Styles. Styles is a great heel and really showed a lot of personality. In both top matches, they just had to protect the face. With Styles, having the Club do the run in...which I cringed as it happened but its story telling so be it. In Roman's match, there was no need to do that ref bump to protect him. Roman acted a lot more heelish too, by the way. Surprised at the Natalie heel turn. Didnt see that coming, but love it. Wonder if they will put her with Charlotte in sort of a second-generation Horsewomen group. She's a tremendous worker and character so I imagine this is to give the faces someone really solid to work to prepare for Charlotte. They used to do that back in Hogan's day, the solid worker who was just below Hogan would be the guy that got the big heels ready for the run on top with Hogan. Will see Natalia/Becky in the short term but I imagine Natalia/Sasha will be a big program before Sasha goes onto Charlotte. Another idea I had was with the brand split, they want women on both shows. Create a Women's Tag Team Championship for one show and the World Championship for the other.

I actually thought they'd do that but not enough to post my prediction here darn it lol ill say this. Ambrose deserves it. A guy people said wasn't good enough or big enough. Didn't have the right look. Couldn't cut promos. Etc etc. And no matter how poorly they booked him he just worked hard and got over and stayed over. He deserves it. Good for him. Dean Ambrose is world champion and his girlfriend is Rene Young. He's doing alright for himself. Guess Vince for tired of ratings dropping with Roman as champion. But more likely it's setting up a shield tnree way at SummerSlam with the idea of Roman getting over by having to overcome a great challenge