Pro Wrestling! (For Everything WWE, Impact, Indies, AEW, & Japan !) 2021

[JBatmanFan05]

I will always believe WWE is just too precious to VKM to ever sell, to ever remove his family from control. Now, I could be wrong, but until I'm wrong, that's my gut view of McMahon.

[Username taken]

I will always believe WWE is just too precious to VKM to ever sell, to ever remove his family from control. Now, I could be wrong, but until I'm wrong, that's my gut view of McMahon.

My thinking exactly.

McMahon has invested literally everything into the company.

I doubt he will sell it.

[Gryphon]

VKM is 75.

Shane is off doing his own thing and Steph and HHH don't plan to stay involved much longer going by their own words/

Its likely he is selling because its just time

[Username taken]

Except these cuts began in 2020 and started with this move as they cut front office staff ...

https://www.si.com/wrestling/2020/04...ts-coronavirus


Yes Nick Khan has said Vince is open to a sale but we have to be serious ...Vince has said that a number of years at times. No one believes he'll actually sell the company because its considered his life and been that for years.


The front office and talent cuts since 2020 (when they began as article details) leads into this...

- The costs of losing Wrestlemania at live attendance had the company release talents and front office staff who weren't there. The article makes a point that losing that Wrestlemania then likely had the company eat a few million dollars.


- As the company prepared to tour again costs had to be cut. Live touring and coming back is gonna be hard. A fact that Smackdown is struggling selling tickets right now. So the company had to make moves. They decided its easier to cut behind the scenes staff and go leaner. A fact back in the 1990's Vince would hire front office people and as Jim Cornette joked a number would be fired soon after as they really weren't needed. (one he joked believed the WWE was like the NFL and she was fired within a year after Vince thought she would be a great hire)


- Then after those cuts the company saw a lot of talents that they knew were making huge salaries and Vince had given $$$ to due to AEW launching and the business before hand running big before pandemic. Braun Strowman was making an insane salary (over $1+ million a year) and numerous others were getting big pay. A few as we have learned like Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole were screw ups with front office. Danielson wanted to work Japan dates and was refused that by WWE . Cole's contract expired as the company had no clue. Bray Wyatt was let go because he clashed with WWE creative over The Fiend direction.

But many talents were A: Not being Used on TV , B : Not being used right and its best to move on , C: Not getting vaccinated as we saw with latest cuts.


But thus far the company seems to be making the cuts to create a new NXT with the old mind set , going leaner behind the scenes due to coming back from Pandemic and a process they began in 2020 and just not hoarding up talent as they did in mid 2010's as they seemed intent on raiding EVERY company in a repeat of 1980's. Now they are refocusing as they seem to have hit the button on....what did us raiding all that indie talent actually get us ? Beyond AJ Styles , Finn Balor , Rollins and a few others we didn't nail a lot of these. (EC3 , Kloss , Adam Cole , etc)

Yeah, I think WWE is just going "lean" and "agile". The restructuring they're doing is looking like cost cutting measures that have really been quite successful for them in the last few years.

I think they are basically building up towards the future by leveraing on really young guys (like Bron Breaker or whatever WWE is calling him). That means less of the mid to late 30s indie guys that populated NXT and really don't have much room for growth on the main roster.

[JBatmanFan05]

VKM is 75.

Shane is off doing his own thing and Steph and HHH don't plan to stay involved much longer going by their own words/

Its likely he is selling because its just time

Tell that to Nick Khan, because he said: "I don't think Vince has any plans, nor in my opinion should he, of stepping aside. He's 75, he'll be 76 in a couple of weeks. He's healthy, he's strong, maybe he goes another 50 years and you'll be asking me this in 49 years."

https://www.givemesport.com/1740674-...says-nick-khan

[BeastieRunner]

All of the restructuring that is being done is what is done before a sale. Nick Khan is known for being the go to guy to get companies ready to sell

He is? He worked in boxing, sports media, ICM Partners (a talent agency), Creative Artists Agency (another talent and sports agency). He was a lawyer before all that.

Dude negotiated the Smackdown deal as an agent for CAA which is why WWE hired him.

He's never ran a company, just been an agent for sports and TV companies. He was known as a "powerhouse" agent. The kind that you see in the Tom Hanks movie. He is not some mogul that buys and sells companies. Nick Khan was well known for getting people mega deals, like he did for Smackdown. He's been the broadcast agent for WWE since 2013. I also learned last week he was the agent that negotiated that killer SEC deal for college football back in the day.

If anything, he sounds like the "bring this man in to make your company crazy money" man.

[BeastieRunner]

Tell that to Nick Khan, because he said: "I don't think Vince has any plans, nor in my opinion should he, of stepping aside. He's 75, he'll be 76 in a couple of weeks. He's healthy, he's strong, maybe he goes another 50 years and you'll be asking me this in 49 years."

https://www.givemesport.com/1740674-...says-nick-khan

I don't think people ever read the full interview because I've seen this interview cut and snipped to cherry pick whatever people want it to say.

“When I say we’re ‘open for business,’ that means if someone credible calls on anything, NFT, trading cards, international rights; we take the call. We’re inherently salespeople. We’re not like, ‘We don’t want to talk to this company because they think they’re X.’”

“If you call and want to pitch us something and you’re a credible company, we’re going to hear the pitch. We’re an entrepreneurial company that Vince and others built over the last 35 years or so and we always want to stay fresh and entrepreneurial in our minds. When I say ‘open for business,’ if someone calls and are credible and asking, ‘Are you guys for sale?’ What is your offer? What are you thinking? We’re not trying to sell it.”

“That’s not our intent. There are no internal meetings about selling this company. The internal meeting is about growing it and the ability that we think we collectively have to tremendously grow what the value of the company is now. People call all the time about all different things, but we’re not in any active conversations about (selling).”

A lot of context is missing. But that man talks too much and makes it easy for people to twist his words.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

VKM is 75.

Shane is off doing his own thing and Steph and HHH don't plan to stay involved much longer going by their own words/

Its likely he is selling because its just time

Vince demoted HHH from NXT just now. But its kinda no secret HHH will end up running the company at some stage. He's still a key guy behind the scenes and will likely be running the company one day.

[titanfan]

My thinking exactly.

McMahon has invested literally everything into the company.

I doubt he will sell it.

George Lucas and a bunch of other people who thought they would never sold ended up selling.

- There's no guarantee the company stays in your family hands forever. In a lot of cases, their children or estate end up selling.
- When he's the one selling, selling it to a big company like Disney or Comcast or something--it's a way of preserving the legacy. Selling it to a big company also means they have the $$$ to be stewards of it. You sell it to Disney, your characters or legacy lives forever in some form.

[Username taken]

George Lucas and a bunch of other people who thought they would never sold ended up selling.

- There's no guarantee the company stays in your family hands forever. In a lot of cases, their children or estate end up selling.
- When he's the one selling, selling it to a big company like Disney or Comcast or something--it's a way of preserving the legacy. Selling it to a big company also means they have the $$$ to be stewards of it. You sell it to Disney, your characters or legacy lives forever in some form.

No doubt, VKM could sell one day. As you rightly pointed out, Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney (although he's stated publicly that he bitterly regrets doing it).

WWE has been run as family biz from VM Sr to VKM. I think VKM would still want to leave the company in the hands of family be it Stephanie and/or HHH (or maybe even Shane but he's off doing his own thing).

What kids do after that...I can't really say.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

No doubt, VKM could sell one day. As you rightly pointed out, Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney (although he's stated publicly that he bitterly regrets doing it).

WWE has been run as family biz from VM Sr to VKM. I think VKM would still want to leave the company in the hands of family be it Stephanie and/or HHH (or maybe even Shane but he's off doing his own thing).

What kids do after that...I can't really say.

I think we know the company will pass onto Steph and HHH at some stage. Its just after that , do the children of Stephanie and HHH want this or does Shane's kids try to step in to run it ? I doubt we see it go into a 4th generation of hands really. It takes a love of it. Maybe it happens , maybe the kids are growing up like how their parents did loving the business and wanting to keep it protected. But many businesses don't stay in family after so many generations.

[Username taken]

I think we know the company will pass onto Steph and HHH at some stage. Its just after that , do the children of Stephanie and HHH want this or does Shane's kids try to step in to run it ? I doubt we see it go into a 4th generation of hands really. It takes a love of it. Maybe it happens , maybe the kids are growing up like how their parents did loving the business and wanting to keep it protected. But many businesses don't stay in family after so many generations.

Exactly.

Gucci is a classic case where family in-fighting led to them completely losing ownership of the family company.

Imagine losing control of a company where the brand is your surname.

[BeastieRunner]

WWE’s Latest Round of Cuts Signals a Disconnect With Its Fan Base: The surprising releases of more than a dozen wrestlers marked the latest blow to what Paul “Triple H” Levesque has built at NXT.

Sports Illustrated with a really good article.

[skyvolt2000]

WWE’s Latest Round of Cuts Signals a Disconnect With Its Fan Base: The surprising releases of more than a dozen wrestlers marked the latest blow to what Paul “Triple H” Levesque has built at NXT.

Sports Illustrated with a really good article.

That has ALWAYS been the WWE's issue.

They want to dictate who they want versus letting fans or letting stuff happen naturally.

Zack built himself up and they blew that shot.

John Cena and Cryme Tyme.

Jack Swagger could have been built up as champ versus Shelton. Yet Shelton got cut in 2010. They could have milked that and build on the fact both guys were college wrestlers.
OU versus Minnesota Big 12 versus Big 10.

[Immortal Weapon]

That has ALWAYS been the WWE's issue.

They want to dictate who they want versus letting fans or letting stuff happen naturally.

Zack built himself up and they blew that shot.

John Cena and Cryme Tyme.

Jack Swagger could have been built up as champ versus Shelton. Yet Shelton got cut in 2010. They could have milked that and build on the fact both guys were college wrestlers.
OU versus Minnesota Big 12 versus Big 10.

That's been the story of Rusev's WWE career. Every time he got himself over they never went along with it. When Rusev day was at it's peak they jobbed him out to everyone.