It’s interesting Bischoff has his head up his own ass and defends bad decisions too much, but the Bret contract stuff was really good, and I completely believe Bischoff on this.
Bully Ray had a good idea with the Nia Jax and Ronda match, have Natalya interfere, that she is upset she trained Ronda and Ronda got a title shot before her. Natalya is a better heel than face and she is good in the ring to have some good matched with Ronda.
Lagreca just called Nia Jax "the hottest most popular singles star" in the women's division right now. And that fans won't know who to cheer for when she faces Ronda. Man he is over the top in love with Nia. He also said if he was in charge of booking, he would have Nia squash Ronda...his ideas are so awful
I've assumed this was the play from the start. Nat will be upset that Ronda gets a shot so quickly and we have a program. I don't hate Nia nearly as much as you guys but putting the belt on someone on their first singles match is crazy.
I love prolonged MiTB cash ins, but you can even have Natalya win the briefcase and cash in during main event and stealing a win from Ronda by pinning Nia Jax after Ronda gets an advantage. I don't think you can have Ronda win title in her first singles match, but I also don't think you can have her take a loss in her first match either. It has to be a screwy finish
He said that he never actually offered Bret a contract in 1996. That they just had a meeting set-up by Barry Bloom where they talked about their love of old westerns and shit. Bischoff said they never had formal contract discussions until 1997. Meltzer is saying on Twitter that this complete bullshit and he has sources from WCW, WWF, and close to Bret that told him there was definitely an offer in 1996. Truth probably somewhere in between 2.8 million per year that Bret says and no contract at all.
I didn't realize that and after reading it, I understand why I didn't. Doesn't really change my opinion. I just think it buries the rest of the roster that outside of Asuka, she's been unbeatable, but the MMA star with one match under her belt is better. This screams PR move, but it doesnt really matter toe big picture.
Paige won the belt in her first singles match (but she did establish herself in NXT first) Finn Balor also won the title I think in his second singles match
Basically said everything Bret said in his book about the 1996 negotiation (when he decided to re-sign with the WWF for the 20-year deal) was complete bullshit. There was no real offer on the table and Bischoff thinks he made up the WCW offer for leverage with Vince, then Bret worked himself into a shoot and started to believe his own bullshit.
I'm not talking NXT. Im talking wrestling matches. I would have zero problems if Kenny Omega came to Smackdown and challenged AJ Styles, but it would bother me if Conor McGregor did.
cattle prod and finger poke of doom ended WCW.... I would also give credit to WCW they would pack comercials early to give you a clean commercial free final main event.
Meltzer "source" is Bret. He would talk to Dave all the time and feed him shit. Wouldn't surprise me if Bret was working him.
Interesting. I wonder if that helps or hurts the brand split? Will another network want the full roster? Will feel like the old days with Smackdown on UPN.
If Fox Network picks it up that's huge. Smackdown would do equal or better ratings and would almost certainly have top talent featured regularly. If FS1 get it...it'll be Sunday Night Heat within a year.
I don’t see any way that the Fox network picks up SD. Whatever Fox pays for SD, you know it will be with the caveat that the show continues to be live. That means that you can only put it on Tuesday or Wednesday on Fox. Fox won’t likely move the scripted dramas they have that work to accommodate WWE. That leaves FS1 or maybe FX. FX has enough shows that do well for cable that I doubt they would get involved with wrestling. The obviously means it ends up on FS1. I would agree that any move to FS1 would likely mean this thing will fall apart quickly, unless Fox pays nearly equal money for SD. Also splitting the shows off of NBCU explains the sudden move to cobranded PPV’s. It makes the promoting of events much easier.
I think FS1 is the most likely destination, but I know that Fox was prepared to put Raw on the network if they secured the rights (SmackDown would have gone to FS1). I wonder if they'll even want the B-show?
The whole thing seems weird. If I was buying Smackdown I'd want some assurances that WWE wasn't going to tank the product. Tie the amount paid to ratings or something.
TNA is the only place that would touch him. He will probably just do D level movies for a while and then disappear though.
I imagine Vince will see this as a big win. He will probably tell himself that he can build Smackdown up to be comparable to Raw, and then have two major rights contracts instead of one. If he can get 400 million for the rights to Raw, he's probably telling himself "the next time the rights are up, we can get 500mm for Raw and 500mm for Smackdown!" But we all know he has the attention span of a dead goldfish and he'll end up gutting the brand to keep Raw the top banana.
During a recent edition of his podcast (via wrestlinginc.com), Steve Austin spoke about the main event match at WrestleMania 14, and opened up about his relationship with Michaels and whether there was any heat between them… On Not Shaking Shawn Michaels’ Hand After WrestleMania 14: “Proper etiquette is if you work a match with somebody, whether you’re working heel, baby, it doesn’t matter, new to the territory or been around, you always thank the guy you work with.” Austin explained, “that’s just what you do. Whether you knocked it out of the park or whether you s–t the bed, you always go thank the person that you worked with. So there wasn’t any animosity between me and Shawn. Me and Shawn we always cool. He just wasn’t in a good place and we just didn’t know if he was going to get in the ring. And there were a couple of stories about The Undertaker taping up his hands and stuff like that. Shawn was late to a few things, but there was never any heat between me and Shawn. Man, as long as I’ve known Shawn, we’ve never had heat. He was just in a bad place in that time in his life. He had a bad back and he wasn’t thrilled about dropping the [world] title, but he certainly did and he was a complete pro about it. But I do not remember getting a chance to shake his hand or talk about the match.” On Working With Shawn Michaels: “I had worked with Shawn at house shows many times before that and we had absolutely ripped the roof off of these places having these matches, just calling it on the spot, calling it on the fly. Shawn was always cool with me calling the matches because 90% of the time, he was calling his own matches because that’s how Shawn worked. And I was used to calling my matches, so he was like, ‘dude, you want to call the match?’ It gives him a night off. You’re talking about hands down probably the best worker in the history of the business, and he’s going to let you call a match, so he can take the night off and just do his part, he’s down for it. I don’t remember shaking his hand after that match.” Austin added, “but never any heat, but that’s what you do. You shake people’s hand after. You’re trusting this person with your life, basically.” On The WrestleMania 14 Press Conference: “Anyway, he shows up at the press conference that was for me, and Mike Tyson, and Vince [McMahon], or whoever it was, to answer questions.” Austin recalled, “and Shawn left, but Shawn was totally cool after that. And Shawn is probably one of the people I keep in contact with most. I mean, we don’t call each other everyday, obviously, but I give him a call every three to four months just to see how he’s doing, what’s going on, how the ranch is doing or if he’s able to get out and enjoy the woods anymore now that he’s down there working in Orlando [Florida] at the [WWE] Performance Center. And he’s doing really well and he’s happy. But I keep in contact or regular contact just to shoot the breeze with one of the guys and he’s one of my all-time favorites. I really think from bell-to-bell, Shawn Michaels was probably the best to ever do it in the business of professional wrestling. That’s my opinion. When it comes to well-rounded, athletic, storytelling, psychology, everything, performance, Shawn is the guy.”
Was listening to a pod with Sheamus on it and #1 being a wrestler sounds like it mostly sucks and #2 there's no way these guys stay in shape without copious amounts of stimulants and PED's. I'm sure you all know it but basically WWE flies them in to wherever at the start of the tour and then they are on their own. Sheamus said he will work a show and get out of the arena around 10 or 11, get in a car, drive for 5 or 6 hours, get in to the hotel at 3 or 4 in the morning and then work a show the next night and do the same thing. Said they are on the road 290 days a year. Between the From Mania to South Africa to Saudi Arabia said he covered 25,000 miles in like 17 days or something like that.
Dave: Because of rights fees, there's going to be significantly more revenue going forward...starting in October 2019...for an episode of RAW than for a PPV show. In theory, if your priority is where you make the most money, it's now RAW, where you get your most viewers. It'd now make sense for them to use their PPVs to build up RAW, since the reality is that there's more value for putting your big matches on TV. You still have to have some content for PPVs, so there's still a weird balance. I suppose WrestleMania, Rumble, SummerSlam would have more value than RAW, but that's about it." They should just go back to having 5 PPV events a year (Rumble, Mania, MITB, SummerSlam, Survivor Series) and just have special Raw/SmackDown shows peppered in between where you do Extreme Rules, Hell in a Cell, TLC, etc.
they can't devalue subscriptions so it is a weird balance. it'd work if WWE subscribers got live RAW and SMACKDOWN as a cord cutting option.
Considering how they're about to be paid 400mm just for Raw to be on USA, I'd say that's not an option. What's the gap between air date and Network upload? If they can get it down to within a week (like Thursday for Raw, Friday for Smackdown) that'd be great.
Think its like a month really weird to pay for their subscription service and have to wait a month to view some of their content
Not a surprise. My dream scenario would be to make Raw 8-10 and then air NXT 9-10. Do the same on Tuesday but switch NXT with 205 Live.
Event last night was pretty damn entertaining. Maybe 2k people there. Main Event was a fatal four way with Killian Dane, Lars Sullivan, Ricochet, and Velveteen Dream.
Daniel Bryan on how he convinced Vince to let him in the ring again basically he goes through concussion protocol immediately after every match
they don't have time on TV for them yet... two hour show and you haven't seen the tag champs since WM lol