Wrestling

[The Unknown Poster]

Its not official but Lashley has all but signed with WWE and is slated for a post WM program with Brock which is interesting because Brock's deal expires right after WM (he has a merchandising or promotional deal that extends to August which prevents him from doing UFC without Vince's permission).  So it could be a short program to write Brock off for awhile if he wants to do a couple of fights.

[The Unknown Poster]

WWE will be doing a Latin America tournament in Chile in August featuring wrestlers from the region.

edit: William regal denied on twitter that this tournament was taking place. 

Edited February 6, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[The Unknown Poster]

205Live is now being produced by Hunter. Vince stepped aside when the Enzo thing happened and they brought in Rockstar Spud as GM.  So...if 205live suddenly gets better, we'll know why.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[SpeedFlex27]

9 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

 

Holy ****!! Unfortunately not surprised. Budget may be decent up here but they're a joke in the US. I used them last fall on a trip to Portland for US Thanksgiving. Their rental office is a 15 minute shuttle ride from the airport. All the others are in the Portland Airport. They wouldn't do an inspection with me when I picked up my car. Just, "Oh, don't worry about that scratch. Don't worry about that dent. We won't charge you." Like really? Then they didn't have a proper inspection form so I had to write all the damage down I saw on a piece of paper. My piece of scrap paper that I had.  I used my phone to take a picture of every dent & scratch I found when I took the car. It was late evening, dark & raining. The parking lot I picked the car up at didn't have proper lighting so it was extremely dim. I had a hard time seeing any damage. I felt that I was being scammed. That they could accuse me of damaging the rental when the damage was already there. The Budget  agent told me to hang on to the rental agreement with my damage report attached FOR A FEW MONTHS.  A few months??? Last time I ever use them. Stay away from Budget in the US. 

Edited February 8, 2018 by SpeedFlex27

[The Unknown Poster]

WWE Year End Financials:

Quote

For the year, WWE produced a record $801 million in revenue and generated $32.6 million in profits. In 2016 they generated $729.2 million in revenue and $33.8 million in profits.

They also had their highest fourth quarter revenue ever.  Profits are down due to tax changes but will be up significantly next year due to Trump's tax law and TV Rights Fee escalators (and the new TV deal in 2020 will make them extremely profitable).  By next year they should be as profitable as they were before they switched from PPV to The Network.

 

Network numbers:

Quote

On December 31st, the WWE Network had 1,065,000 U.S. subscribers, 406,000 subscribers outside the U.S., and 76,000 people getting it for free, for a total of 1,547,000. One year earlier, the Network had 1,033,000 U.S. subscribers, 370,000 subscribers outside the U.S., and 70,000 people getting it for free, for a total of 1,473,000. The outside growth was due to it being available in more places.

And the biggest news is likely:

Quote

George Barrios and Michelle Wilson have been promoted to Co-Presidents of the company. Vince McMahon will remain as CEO. McMahon insisted once again that with the start-up of the XFL, that his duties in WWE will remain unchanged and that the league would be run by football people.

The fact Vince continues to make the point that the XFL wont impact his day to day at WWE makes me think 1) it will and 2) they are very conscious of the impact on rights fees and share price of any suggestion that Vince wont be as involved.  We already see changes as Vince has given up producing 205live and given it to Hunter.  And the expectation is Hunter will do more while Vince works on the XFL. 

The feeling in the past when WWE was asked about succession planning, was that Vince dying would knock the share price down significantly and that Hunter, despite being "trained" by Vince simply didnt have enough experience or education to calm investors fears.  Barrios and Wilson being promoted, to me, spells succession planning.  So they can position the company, in the event of Vince's retirement or death, that Hunter is the creative guy, Steph is the brand ambassador and these very experienced business people run the business end (the reality will be Hunter calls all the shots).

They also claim they're still working on a contract for Ronda that will be multi-year and her first priority will be WWE.  The interesting news from behind the scenes, is that their intent is for Ronda to work with Steph to get Steph over as a big star in areas outside of wrestling.   As ridiculous as Steph vs Ronda sounds...thats the plan.  Sort of like Vince vs Austin.

[The Unknown Poster]

Talk is WWE will be ending the brand-specific PPV's and go back to dual-branded (ie. entire roster on every PPV). I imagine it wont mean the end of the split though as they want to keep multiple touring groups.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[Atomic]

13 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

 

Wrestling in its purest form

[The Unknown Poster]

Whoops

[SpeedFlex27]

On ‎2‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 11:44 AM, The Unknown Poster said:

Talk is WWE will be ending the brand-specific PPV's and go back to dual-branded (ie. entire roster on every PPV). I imagine it wont mean the end of the split though as they want to keep multiple touring groups.

Smackdown is so weak they really can't support their own PPV's. 

[The Unknown Poster]

7 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Smackdown is so weak they really can't support their own PPV's. 

They want to cut back on the amount of PPV's in total.  The feeling had been that adding PPV's would drive network subscriptions but that wasnt the case.  So extra PPV's just add expenses with very little revenue (outside of live audience ticket sales which have been soft as well).  They also feel its tougher to book TV when there are the occasional long gaps between brand-specific PPV's (although to me this is more a by-product of shitty writers). 

The Network was profitable but way, way, way behind estimates when they launched.  They backed off on buying video libraries too because they found that the archives are not subscription drivers.  In fact the only thing that is, is the Rumble to Mania season where they add a lot of subs, generally off the back of cheap or free subscriptions and then slowly lose subs the rest of the year.

[The Unknown Poster]

Talk of Jeff Jarrett going into WWE Hall of Fame this year.  His name was apparently on a list being considered.  I'd be a bit surprised given his rehab issues so recently.  Vince took great pleasure in publicly firing Jarrett when he bought WCW.  But time heals all wounds.  Plus, he was a fairly big star.  It would make more sense if WWE owned the TNA library since he's all over it.  WWE will be using some TNA footage as they made a deal with Impact to purchase or license some of the Broken Hardy stuff.

[Brandon]

Is Jeff Jarrett really HOF material?

[JCon]

Just now, Brandon said:

Is Jeff Jarrett really HOF material?

Oh, heck yeah. Double J was awesome.

[Brandon]

3 minutes ago, JCon said:

Oh, heck yeah. Double J was awesome.

Mid card wrestler in the WWE.....     was he ever a huge star in TNA or elsewhere?    

[The Unknown Poster]

5 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Is Jeff Jarrett really HOF material?

Well the WWE HOF is a work anyway.  Koko B Ware is in.  So if you judge everyone by Koko B Ware standards, than JJ is very reasonable.  Multiple time IC champion, Multiple time WCW World Champion, Multiple time NWA and TNA World Champion.  Pretty much all world champions should be in...well, maybe not Russo but he should be in as a "builder" for his writing.

EDIT: Also, JJ should go in for creating a new promotion in the wake of WCW's demise and giving the boys somewhere to work and somewhere to leverage themselves against when negotiating with WWE.

Edited February 15, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[JCon]

Just now, Brandon said:

Mid card wrestler in the WWE.....     was he ever a huge star in TNA or elsewhere?    

He was huge in lots of places and regions. People wrestle outside the WWE.

[The Unknown Poster]

9 minutes ago, JCon said:

He was huge in lots of places and regions. People wrestle outside the WWE.

Most fans put a premium on WWE experience even though the best wrestling in the world is not in WWE.  But its understandable in that its what most fans in the US and Canada are exposed to.

Im surprised that any wrestling fan would only know Jeff Jarrett as a mid carder in WWE.  Probably more accurate to say upper mid card since he was IC champion and programmed with guys like Hall and Michaels.  He was going to be moved up to work with Austin too but Austin vetoed it.

He was WCW World Champion when the Monday Night Wars were...not raging, but coming to a close lol. But millions of people still watched WCW at the time.

But its all moot.  By the standards of the WWE Hall of Fame, he absolutely is worthy. 

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[Atomic]

I remember when I got back into wrestling about five years ago, I had to get caught up on the previous fifteen years and Jeff Jarrett being a big star was one of the most baffling things to me.  I only remembered him as the country-music-star who would strut around and break his guitar over people's backs.

[Brandon]

He was a star in TNA and where else?    I agree with TUP on the low standards that they should induct him.... but if that is the case then I would assume Shane Douglas should also go in since he was as big if not bigger star then JJ.  

[JCon]

9 minutes ago, Brandon said:

He was a star in TNA and where else?    I agree with TUP on the low standards that they should induct him.... but if that is the case then I would assume Shane Douglas should also go in since he was as big if not bigger star then JJ.  

Also WWE and WCW.

[The Unknown Poster]

23 minutes ago, Atomic said:

I remember when I got back into wrestling about five years ago, I had to get caught up on the previous fifteen years and Jeff Jarrett being a big star was one of the most baffling things to me.  I only remembered him as the country-music-star who would strut around and break his guitar over people's backs.

He was always considered a top prospect from his young days in Tennessee.  I liked his Double J gimmick in WWE.  He was always a good worker but more in the sense he could have really good matches with other good workers as opposed to carrying poor workers to good matches.  It never hurt that his dad was a long time promoter (who was well respected).

He was Russo's biggest ally.  Russo wanted to push him to the main event in WWE but Austin refused to work with him.  Reportedly due to an issue when Austin worked Jarrett's dad's territory years earlier.  Austin was given a paycheque that was considerably smaller than he expected and while looking at it, Jeff walked up and said "stop staring, it wont get any bigger", laughed and walked away.  JJ also referred to Austin 3:16 as being blasphemous which angered Austin, though JJ claimed he was told to say it.

When Russo went to WCW, JJ followed and became The Chosen One and a big pushed star as World Champion.  He was involved in the double cross of Hogan.  Im not sure JJ knew about it but Russo wanted Hogan to lay down for JJ and Hogan refused, instead insisting he go over and win the world title.  Russo came up with the idea of doing a worked shoot where JJ would lay down and let Hogan beat him and angrily leave the company, only to return months later for a champion vs champion match.  But Russo double crossed hogan by burying him with no intention of bringing him back.

When WWE bought WCW, Jarrett was publicly fired by Vince when Vince cut a promo on screen, with Nitro playing live on a TV behind him with JJ in the ring.  The heat with WWE was over how JJ left.  They claim he held them up for money to lose the IC belt or he'd jump to WCW as champion.  The reality is that JJ's WWE contract expired the day before a PPV and apparently this was an oversighjt on the part of Talent Relations (run by Jim Ross).  They asked JJ to stay one more day to drop the belt to Chyna on PPV.  JJ agreed but wanted all his future royalties paid up front.  Thats where the "held up" story comes from.  JJ got paid and was professional in putting Chyna over.

When WCW was bought, JJ knew WWE didnt want him so he convinced his dad to fund a new start up, which became TNA.  Their idea was to run a weekly TV show on PPV with no "free" TV.  They enlisted the NWA as "promoter".  No one expected the idea to work...and it didnt.  The guy they hired to handle their PPV business lied to them about the amount of buys and thus, the amount of revenue that was coming (PPV revenue is paid months after the show, one of the reasons ECW had trouble too).  So the Jarretts operated under the mistaken impression they were making way more money than they were.

When they learned the truth, they were essentially bankrupt.  Dixie Carter worked for TNA as a sub-contracted PR person.  She went to her very rich parents (they own an oil business) and convinced them to bail TNA out.  Jerry Jarrett (Jeff's dad) left after a falling out with Jeff over Jeff's instance that Russo be booker.  Jerry hated Russo and his style.  Jerry and Jeff did not speak for many years.

 

[The Unknown Poster]

10 minutes ago, Brandon said:

He was a star in TNA and where else?    I agree with TUP on the low standards that they should induct him.... but if that is the case then I would assume Shane Douglas should also go in since he was as big if not bigger star then JJ.  

Big star in WWE, WCW and TNA.  When he was IC champion in WWE, it was at a high level. 

WWE IC Champion 6 times.

WCW World Champion 4 times.

WCW US Champion 3 times.

NWA (TNA) World Champion 6 times.   So JJ is a 10-time former World Champion.

But the WWE HOF is mosly a popularity contest as far as who Vince likes.  What they do is, ask around the office for suggestions (key executives) and then Vince makes the final call.  And they generally want one big star headliner and then several lower level stars including at least one woman and a black worker. 

Shane Douglas is definitely HOF worthy based on WWE's criteria.  Former IC champion (won it and lost it in Winnipeg), former NWA World Champion (when the NWA meant nothing) and first ever ECW World Champion when it re-branded as Extreme.  He was the early top guy in ECW when they caught fire.  And had a late career run in WCW though it wasnt memorable.