Wrestling

[The Unknown Poster]

RAW rating up only 2% from last week 

Pretty Boy Doug Somers passed away. 

[SpeedFlex27]

Jinder did okay in the ring with Styles on Smackdown. Mahal kind of made it believable although Styles certainly jobbed for him & made him look good. The ending was the only way it could go leading into Mahal's PPV on Sunday with Randy Orton.

Edited May 17, 2017 by SpeedFlex27

[Atomic]

10 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Jinder did okay in the ring with Styles on Smackdown. Mahal kind of made it believable although Styles certainly jobbed for him & made him look good. The ending was the only way it could go leading into Mahal's PPV on Sunday with Randy Orton.

Smackdown has gone way downhill.  I guess they are building towards something better but right now the feuds are just weak.  They have trouble even filling 2 hours.  The main event between Orton and Wolf-shirt had me falling asleep.

[Taynted_Fayth]

Was a little disappointed the Shinsuke/Ziggler feud only featured dolph showing a video montage back stage in the show just before the PPV. What a horrible build up to a match.

Watching Jindi holding the belt over a downed Orton got me thinking last night,  what does anyone think the record is for challengers when they do that just before the big match? I'm thinking its not very good,  because they usually like to make someone look strong just to lose the ppv in what would then be seen as "upset" or shocking

I also shamefully found myself laughing at the "fashion files" with Fandango and Breeze. It's so bad...

Edited May 17, 2017 by Taynted_Fayth

[sweep the leg]

I love Fandango and Breeze.

[Atomic]

16 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

I love Fandango and Breeze.

I have to admit they've turned something ridiculous into something that's actually kinda funny.  It helps that they are both legitimately good wrestlers too.

[SpeedFlex27]

2 hours ago, Atomic said:

Smackdown has gone way downhill.  I guess they are building towards something better but right now the feuds are just weak.  They have trouble even filling 2 hours.  The main event between Orton and Wolf-shirt had me falling asleep.

Smackdown needs Shane McMahon to be very visible along with Daniel Bryant. Just like Raw needs Stephanie McMahon & Triple H to get lost permanently along with more Curt Angle. Those alone will increase ratings. Stephanie has been gone since early April but we know she'll be back along with her hubby at some point soon.

[The Unknown Poster]

1 hour ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

Was a little disappointed the Shinsuke/Ziggler feud only featured dolph showing a video montage back stage in the show just before the PPV. What a horrible build up to a match.

Watching Jindi holding the belt over a downed Orton got me thinking last night,  what does anyone think the record is for challengers when they do that just before the big match? I'm thinking its not very good,  because they usually like to make someone look strong just to lose the ppv in what would then be seen as "upset" or shocking

I also shamefully found myself laughing at the "fashion files" with Fandango and Breeze. It's so bad...

They believe the big drawing card of the PPV is seeing Nak's first match.

[Atomic]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

They believe the big drawing card of the PPV is seeing Nak's first match.

Well I'd have to agree with them on that.

[Taynted_Fayth]

I dunno maybe i'm in the minority but I felt, the build between the Shinsuke/Ziggler feud has been horrible. Between the overall lack of violence between them, Shinsuke's mouth guarded thick japanese accented english forced 1 liners, I just haven't been overly fascinated with the match,  mainly because I've seen Shinsuke wrestle before,  so it's not really "epic" to see it on SD for the first time, and so my interest between the 2 waned over the weeks.

Unless this ends up being MOTY I think it was needless build up that hasn't worked as expected, guess we will see on sunday

[Atomic]

1 hour ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

I dunno maybe i'm in the minority but I felt, the build between the Shinsuke/Ziggler feud has been horrible. Between the overall lack of violence between them, Shinsuke's mouth guarded thick japanese accented english forced 1 liners, I just haven't been overly fascinated with the match,  mainly because I've seen Shinsuke wrestle before,  so it's not really "epic" to see it on SD for the first time, and so my interest between the 2 waned over the weeks.

Unless this ends up being MOTY I think it was needless build up that hasn't worked as expected, guess we will see on sunday

Oh yeah the build has been terrible but I love a good Shinsuke match.  For all Ziggler's flaws he's still pretty good in the ring so I am expecting a very good match between them at Backlash.

[The Unknown Poster]

Supposedly their dark matches are good and on PPV, should be even better.  There is already speculation that WM next year is AJ vs Nak.  So for now, Nak is high on their list of top guys... Sunday might change that, you never know.

[Atomic]

Just now, The Unknown Poster said:

Supposedly their dark matches are good and on PPV, should be even better.  There is already speculation that WM next year is AJ vs Nak.  So for now, Nak is high on their list of top guys... Sunday might change that, you never know.

Nak vs AJ has to happen.  That will be incredible.

I actually like that they didn't throw Nakamura directly into a title feud.  Too many guys get pushed too hard, too fast.  Wrestling is a neverending story, so what's the rush?  The slow build is a good approach.

[Atomic]

Checked out the CWE show last night.  Danny Duggan did two matches and they were definitely the best of the night... first one especially.  The heels were pretty rude to me so I give them credit for that.  But **** I could get in that ring, no doubt about it.

[The Unknown Poster]

RAW sinks lower in the ratings. Lower then the taped show a couple weeks ago. 

[SpeedFlex27]

They have to go back to a 2 hour format.

[Atomic]

The 3 hour format doesn't help but the problems seem to be deeper than that... it's just not interesting.

Backlash got me interested in Smackdown again.  Didn't realize that Breezango are suddenly relevant.  Fandango deserves some kind of minor push, IMO.  I'm not a huge fan of Tyler Breeze but Fandango can put on a show in the ring, no question there.  Maybe break up those two if they aren't going to be in the tag title picture any more.  

[The Unknown Poster]

3 hours just makes the poor booking more glaring.  2 hours would make it easier to digest.  But ultimately, their booking is generally awful.

[The Unknown Poster]

TNA's top executive just publicly went after the Hardy's over the back & forth regarding the "Broken Universe" gimmick.  From Wrestling Observer:

 

The battle of the rights to the "Broken" Hardys character continues to rage on as Tuesday saw the release of public statements, legal documents, and a fiery series of responses.

If you're new to this story, there is a dispute between Matt Hardy and Anthem Wrestling (the owners of Impact Wrestling) over who owns the rights to the "Broken" characters. Currently in WWE, Matt and brother Jeff are not using the characters and even while working indie dates to fulfil pre-WWE signed contracts, the full characters weren't used.

Anthem Wrestling president Ed Nordholm released the following:

"In response to on-going speculation concerning our position with respect to the “Broken Brilliance” creative, I am providing this detailed log of our communications on the subject and the contractual structure of our relationship with Matt Hardy with respect to intellectual property matters (which is standard to our roster and in the industry).

There has never been any argument from Impact Wrestling that the Hardy’s were key contributors to the development of the characters and story line, or that Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy executed on their roles in spectacular fashion. But the position taken by the Hardys is a massive disservice to the contributions of the rest of the creative team at Impact Wrestling, including Jeremy Borash, Dave Lagano, Matt Conway and Billy Corgan, and is totally at odds with the terms of their contracts.

The Hardys would have you believe that Anthem is somehow avoiding their lawyers to address this. This is the log of our communications with the Hardys and/or their lawyers. It is clear that we have not been avoiding them.

• March 10 – EBN speaks with executives at ROH about “Broken Brilliance” being used in ROH shows. I indicated willingness to provide an arrangement that would allow the creative to be used in ROH shows and encouraged ROH to have Matt speak with me if he wanted to pursue that discussion
• March 11 – EBN spoke at length with Matt by telephone about the structure of an amicable arrangement for use of the Broken Brilliance creative
• March 14 – Matt sent text message to Ed Nordholm at 4:05pm:

“Tried giving you a call, it rang & went busy. I'm open to working things out amicably as we spoke about. The lawyer who represent me is interested in seeing your offer. My lawyer's email is {redacted} which you could send the offer to for review. Thanks.”

And I responded by text at 6:41 pm

“Thank you Matt. I was supposed to be [flying] into NYC today and am a little twisted. I will pull something together with [our] lawyers and try to get it over to your lawyer tomorrow or Thursday at latest“

• March 16 – At 8:25 pm I sent an update text to Matt:

“Hi Matt. My lawyer got me a draft too late to get reviewed for today. I will look at it in the morning. Sorry for the delay”

And he responded at 9:16 pm

“Ok, he's ready for it. Thanks for the update.”

• March 17 – counsel for Anthem Wrestling delivered draft proposal to counsel for Matt Hardy
• March 24 – counsel for Anthem Wresting followed up with Matt Hardy counsel requesting comments on the proposal
• March 27 – counsel for Matt Hardy responds that they have been away and have not reviewed the proposal but will be back “in the next few days”

After which no further communication until

• April 18 – counsel for Matt Hardy leaves a voice mail message for counsel for Anthem Wrestling asking to arrange a meeting
• April 20 – EBN contacts WWE by email to determine veracity of internet rumours concerning WWE interest in Broken Brilliance
• April 21 -- WWE respond by email that there “is no interest on our end” {redacted email exchange attached}
• April 21 – counsel for Matt Hardy sends a follow up message requesting a meeting
• April 27 – lawyers speak to arrange a meeting
• May 16 – lawyers meet but no agreement reached

Finally, I am attaching a copy of the relevant provisions of Matt’s contract with Impact. The clause is virtually identical to the corresponding provisions of every wrestler under contract with Impact.

The facts are that we tried to accommodate the Hardys for their Ring of Honour engagements, and have tried to elicit an indication from WWE whether they have an interest in using the Broken Brilliance creative in WWE. We are not hoarding it from WWE; WWE is not interested in it.

We fully respect the decision of Matt and Jeff to return to WWE and appreciate all of their contributions to Impact Wrestling. We wish them every success.

Our focus is on the future and we will not have any further public comment on this matter."

Matt Hardy's wife Reby did not take the above lightly, taking to Twitter to voice her displeasure. Some select tweets below:

- Long story short: TNA tried a literal sales pitch on WWE re: #BROKEN gimmick (which isn't legally theirs) & they said "LOLZ yeah no, thanks"

- Because it's ALLLLLL coming out in court, honey. From the attorneys we hired back in MARCH. Where are those "logs" ?

- Should we release the phonecalls ? I kinda wanna release the phonecalls now... since we playin petty, apparently.

As you might expect, we're not done with this story by a long shot.

 

***Reby & Matt Hardy both responded online.  Reby claimed the contract Matt signed was not a standard one and threatened to release it as well as phone calls she has of them discussing the deal.  Matt said his side of the story would come out in due time (presumably court).

WWE's position is really interesting.  TNA indicates WWE had no interest. Reby claims TNA tried to sell the gimmick to WWE which they declined.  But there is no way WWE wants any talent making a claim for a gimmick they helped develop while under contract because it sets a precedent that could be used against them. 

[Goalie]

Raws ratings which mean very little now a days but... the reason they are tanking Is because raw sucks.  It's boring. 2 hours doesn't change that.  They need to take a new approach to things. They probably won't unless ratings really start to tank. Doesn't help that the only interesting part on Raw recently Is sitting at home after having elbow surgery. 

[The Unknown Poster]

1 hour ago, Goalie said:

Raws ratings which mean very little now a days but... the reason they are tanking Is because raw sucks.  It's boring. 2 hours doesn't change that.  They need to take a new approach to things. They probably won't unless ratings really start to tank. Doesn't help that the only interesting part on Raw recently Is sitting at home after having elbow surgery. 

They blow off the ratings decline with numerous excuses one being that it doesnt really matter.  But when their TV rights package is up for renewal its going to matter...

And I agree 100%.  Boring, formulaic booking.  And not just the booking.  Everything is same old same old.  The announcing, the shooting, when and how they cut away to commercial, the backstage vignettes etc.  It's all the same.  They love Kevin Dunn, their exec producer/director, but they badly need a new vision.

[Atomic]

5 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

They blow off the ratings decline with numerous excuses one being that it doesnt really matter.  But when their TV rights package is up for renewal its going to matter...

And I agree 100%.  Boring, formulaic booking.  And not just the booking.  Everything is same old same old.  The announcing, the shooting, when and how they cut away to commercial, the backstage vignettes etc.  It's all the same.  They love Kevin Dunn, their exec producer/director, but they badly need a new vision.

Yes it all feels very vanilla.  I guess in wrestling there are only so many angles you can go with and after 60 years or so it's tough to be totally fresh.  But I believe there are definitely different things they could do.  They need a WCW-level entity to compete with them and push them to be great again.  Not sure if NJPW can be that or not.  Certainly it's not TNA... and ROH has a ways to go to get that kind of traction.

[Brandon]

Somebody with really deep pockets would need to start something new to compete... I don't see this happening any time soon. 

 

[The Unknown Poster]

Takes at least $50 million and a national TV deal. 

When Ted Turner's non-competes ended after all the mergers he wanted back in wrestling. He assigned some people to do a study on what it would take to compete with Vince and that's what he was told. He quickly lost interest. 

[SpeedFlex27]

9 hours ago, Atomic said:

The 3 hour format doesn't help but the problems seem to be deeper than that... it's just not interesting.

Backlash got me interested in Smackdown again.  Didn't realize that Breezango are suddenly relevant.  Fandango deserves some kind of minor push, IMO.  I'm not a huge fan of Tyler Breeze but Fandango can put on a show in the ring, no question there.  Maybe break up those two if they aren't going to be in the tag title picture any more.  

Breeze is from Kelowna, isn't he?