Wrestling WWE IX: A Solid B+

[Legato]

and didnt del rio kinda beat the **** out of someone backstage?

From what I heard the guy deserved it but once again it was the Kong/Bubba situation. No matter the reason the person doing the striking were it was still an unprofessional thing to do. Still it's funny to see someone's hate towards the E make them be so biased that they just flat out ignore the details leading up to the situation and that the person in question isn't completely in the right

[master of read]

From what I heard the guy deserved it but once again it was the Kong/Bubba situation. No matter the reason the person doing the striking were it was still an unprofessional thing to do. Still it's funny to see someone's hate towards the E make them be so biased that they just flat out ignore the details leading up to the situation and that the person in question isn't completely in the right

i dont weight in on the punk situation for already said reasons. as for del rio, if he got fired for beating up someone, then the E is in the right.

[Legato]

i dont weight in on the punk situation for already said reasons. as for del rio, if he got fired for beating up someone, then the E is in the right.

From what I've heard someone said something to Del Rio that might have sounded borderline racist so Del Rio struck him.

[master of read]

From what I've heard someone said something to Del Rio that might have sounded borderline racist so Del Rio struck him.

hmmm i see. if it was that, then i could understand him doing it but still, throwing bows doesn't not help your career. that is, unless you are top guy or something.

[Legato]

hmmm i see. if it was that, then i could understand him doing it but still, throwing bows doesn't not help your career. that is, unless you are top guy or something.

As mentioned before its pretty much the Kong vs Bubba The Love Sponge situation.

[marvell2k]

Some WWE Scoops from DA MELTZ from this week's Observer:

Regarding Lesnar going forward, in the past Lesnar’s dates and angles were all known months in advance and planned accordingly. Right now, as champion, the situation is different. There is the deal in place as far as money goes but the agreement is WWE can book him as champion for Monday’s and PPVs based on when they feel they want him. Essentially he can work every PPV until Mania if that’s what they want and agree to pay whatever price it is, or they can use him only on a few shows between now and Mania. There is an agreement in place that allows them to increase dates on a pro-rate basis.

There was a TV ad that ran in the Wichita market for a 10/21 Smackdown taping (the go home show before Hell in a Cell). Lesnar was in the ad, in fact the key person in the TV ads for the show. Either one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, but WWE officials said that Lesnar is not scheduled on that show and others have said that Lesnar isn’t booked to be at any Smackdown shows.

When RVD was asked if he was done with WWE for good, he just responded, “For better or for worse.” RVD’s understanding with the company was that he would work full-time for short, agreed upon, periods of time, somewhat similar to Jericho’s deal. The first time he came in, they wanted him to stay longer than agreed but he didn’t.

The update on Night of Champions on 9/21 in Nashville is Lesnar vs. Cena for the WWE title, Sheamus vs. Cesaro for the U.S. title and Ziggler vs. Miz for the IC title as the only official matches. It’s pretty clear the Usos vs. Goldust & Stardust for the tag titles is happening, as well as Henry vs. Rusev. There will be a Divas match which right now appears to be a four-way with Paige vs. A.J. vs. Brie vs. Nikki Bella as the Divas title match since all four were linked together on both TV shows this week. The only other direct program is Dallas vs. Swagger, but that one isn’t necessarily a PPV match. Right now you have openings for Jericho (in his final match on the current run), The Wyatt Family, Orton, Rollins and Reigns. It appears they are going with Reigns vs. Rollins so they may do Orton vs. Jericho just because the Jericho vs. Wyatt and Reigns vs. Orton singles matches are set for Raw next week. But they could go other ways, with a final Jericho vs. Wyatt blow-off and have Reigns still with Orton. Ambrose’s movie is supposed to be done filming on 9/20 and he could come back if needed on this show.

It still looks like the two choices are Lesnar over Cena when somebody screws Cena and Cena goes with that person, while Lesnar takes on other faces until Reigns at Mania; or Cena beats Lesnar, Rollins loses to Reigns and then cashes in. If Cena wins, he ties the mythical 16 number of Ric Flair, even though you really can’t come up with a number less than 18 for Flair, and depending on what you consider a title change, it probably can reach 22. But 16 has been the number WWE has used from the start. They haven’t pushed Cena tying it at all. The problem there is Reigns shouldn’t be going for the title until winning the Rumble and then having the match at Mania so Rollins would have to work with Cena, Ambrose or others until that point. The upside of Reigns beating Rollins for the title at Mania is it puts over the Performance Center and HHH’s vision where his two guys headline the show. The downside is that Reigns beating a monster Lesnar is a far more impressive title kickoff, because the title will mean more if it’s not on TV every week and Lesnar has a special aura that nobody else on the roster has.

The reason they pushed next week’s Raw on 9/8 in Baltimore so hard with announcements of Jericho vs. Wyatt in a cage match and Reigns vs. Orton, plus pushing the name Michael Sam so hard as a publicity stunt, is that it’s the first week against Monday Night Football, in this case, the only doubleheader scheduled this season. While Sam isn’t coming, and probably wouldn’t have under any circumstances, he is expected to be given a shot at the Dallas Cowboys practice squad after being cut by the St. Louis Rams this past week just before the season started. Sam got a ton of publicity as an All-American defensive end from Missouri who admitted that he was gay. However, Jerry Springer will be appearing on the show, moderating a discussion between the Bella Twins. The Springer deal must have been last minute because it wasn’t even mentioned on Main Event, even though that show aired after the word got out. They also decided after Raw ended to push it as the season premiere episode, so it’ll get that push the rest of the week.

As it turns out, both Bryan and Barrett were pulled from the advertising for the November European tour, so at this point neither are expected to be back. As noted, Barrett was still hoping to make the tour.

The Japanese tour was not nearly as successful as it appeared. While WWE announced attendance figures for the two dates at Sumo Hall of 6,176 and more than 12,000 (a number which would be impossible because there are 11,066 seats in the building); and also announced 6,048 for the Osaka show. The actual inside the building totals were 5,000, 11,000 and 5,000, with the latter two shows including Hulk Hogan. But the shows were actually heavily papered, which is not unusual in Japan for wrestling. On the WWE’s business web site, which is prepared for stockholders and those who follow the business, and they report real numbers, it came out this past week that the three shows combined in Japan did about 14,400 total paid attendance, or just over half of what was announced. If the percentage of exaggeration/papering was close to consistent, it would mean actual paid for the three dates would be closer to 3,670 for the first Sumo Hall date, 7,140 for the full house and 3,600 for the Osaka show. So while it appeared the second Sumo Hall show beat what New Japan does, and the Osaka show wasn’t far off, in reality, WWE for its one tour a year couldn’t even beat DDT when DDT brought in Hiroshi Tanahashi as the outside star at Sumo Hall, and barely did half of what New Japan does in Osaka.

Ryback did a Youtube video where he claimed he had several groin pulls and herniated discs, and showed himself in bed in a hospital acting like he was about to undergo major surgery. The impression we have is that they were way overplaying it, given that he loves to mess with people and that on TV they talked about him being out of action for a few weeks. He said he had been bothered by these injuries for seven months. The idea he’s been working hurt for months wouldn’t be surprising since wrestlers often work hurt.

Naomi had been out of action with an eye injury.

Regal was at one point scheduled to be at the California TV’s last week, and perhaps even stay to scout at Battle of Los Angeles, but he had some health issues and didn’t make the trip. WWE reported he was fine by late last week. We were told his issues were under control. He has had an issue with his voice.

Evidently the hard and fast rule about not allowing network subscriptions to people with addresses on paypal that are not allowed is off the books. One reader, who was knocked off subscribing because he lived in the U.K., where the service isn’t offered (even though he used a U.S. address to get the network, he was using a paypal account that gave his U.K. address), got an e-mail a few days later asking for him to re-subscribe. He joked that WWE was the one who canceled his subscription, not the other way around.

Yet another lawsuit was filed against WWE based on the NBC deal coming in lower than stockholders expected. Curtis Swanson this past week filed a class action suit against WWE, Vince McMahon and CFO George Barrios, making at least the fourth lawsuit filed against the company in recent weeks. The lawsuit claimed WWE made false and misleading statements, engaged in a scheme to deceive the market and engaged in a course of conduct that artificially inflated the stock price and operated on a fraud to purchasers by misrepresenting the company’s business prospects. Swanson said the company made false and misleading statements about their ability to transform the earnings through the next lucrative television deal. Swanson’s suit said that WWE’s ability to get a high price for its programming was undermined by the rollout of the network, which they never acknowledged, and that their ability to command the higher prices they talked of that pro sports were getting was undermined by the fact their ad rates are far below those of pro sports. It said that they made comparisons to the ratings of NASCAR and its $820 million per year television rights deals, noting they were like sports, the last major sports franchise that was not locked up for the long-term that was DVR-proof. Swanson is asking for damages plus interest for shareholders who purchased shares after the statements made by McMahon and Barrios and still held the stock when the NBC deal was announced and the price collapsed.

Brower Piven of Stevenson, MD, officially filed its lawsuit against WWE in District Court in Connecticut and is looking for clients who lost in excess of $100,000 when the stock lost its value. They are looking for clients who purchased stock between 10/31 and 5/16. The list of plaintiffs they will represent has to be completed by 9/23. The claim is violations of the Securities Exchange Act claiming the company failed to disclose its true ability to command rights fees for its television programming.

Attorneys for C.M. Punk sent a 22 page letter to WWE over royalties (I believe WWE stopped sending Punk royalty money over their claim of a breach of contract) and use of his likeness, particularly him being featured in the video game (the roster of the game was put together before he quit the promotion even though it was just announced two weeks ago).

[master of read]

As mentioned before its pretty much the Kong vs Bubba The Love Sponge situation.

and thats a situation that no one wants to be in because there are really no winners.

[wjowski]

Yeah lets pretend that the Punk is blameless on the situation shall we.

Hating the E is one thing but being ignorant over the fact that Punk is just at fault on the issue? Really? I like Punk too but I'm not going to sit here and paint him the victim in this

Blameless or not the WWE has no business running around doing that without paying up. Ventura went after them for the same thing and he won.

and thats a situation that no one wants to be in because there are really no winners.

Del Rio looks like he's pretty much winning at this point.

[Legato]

Blameless or not the WWE has no business running around doing that without paying up. Ventura went after them for the same thing and he won.



Del Rio looks like he's pretty much winning at this point.

Punk's still at fault for walking out the way he did and people here have acknowledge that but if one wants to pretend that he's the victim here then go right ahead

[wjowski]

Punk's still at fault for walking out the way he did and people here have acknowledge that but if one wants to pretend that he's the victim here then go right ahead

That has exactly ****-all to do with my point. If WWE is using Punk's name and likeness and making money off of it, they need to cough up, regardless of whatever the state of his relationship with them is at this point.

[Legato]

Regardless of how you feel about Russo, he has a point. WWE refuses to alter course when the crowd is responding to something, and they consistently squander opportunities when talent starts to resonate. Cesaro, Wyatt, Ziggler, so on and so forth. Then they ram a star or angle down our throat that clearly isn't getting over, but they plow forward with it anyway. We never needed this much of a program for the Bella Twins feuding with each other. Crowds don't respond, ratings are down, but still they continue.

The creative department needs to be wiped clean. From top to bottom, including Stephanie McMahon if she is head of creative. She obviously isn't gonna get fired, but she apparently needs a transfer of responsibility.

I'd start with firing Kevin Dunn

[Legato]

That has exactly ****-all to do with my point. If WWE is using Punk's name and likeness and making money off of it, they need to cough up, regardless of whatever the state of his relationship with them is at this point.

As stated the roster was put together before Punk left the company

[marvell2k]

As stated the roster was put together before Punk left the company

Punk would be smart to let this go. WWE hasn't sued him for breach of contract yet so he probably shouldn't press his luck.

[Legato]

Punk would be smart to let this go. WWE hasn't sued him for breach of contract yet so he probably shouldn't press his luck.

Thank you!!! He should be glad that the E didn't take that route since they're within their rights to do so.

[master of read]

Thank you!!! He should be glad that the E didn't take that route since they're within their rights to do so.

i'm inclined to agree. punk is probably in the best position of any retired wrestler ever so it would be best for him to just let it go and count his lucky stars that vince and the E haven't taken legal action against him at all.