"100,001" Replies (Wrestling Forum)

[Bad News Gertner]

If only she had a wig to cover that horrible nose

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Noid Wade Barrett leaving the WWE? Good for him. Obviously the WWE is the biggest game in town, but more talent should say "Fuck you" to the WWE and go to places where they get to cut their own promos, develop their own gimmicks and wrestle their own matches. Barrett could very easily be any company's top babyface or heel.

Yeah big "fuck you" to WWE. A middling guy, who is injured every other month. How will they go on?

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Noid Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder should have given the finger to the company a long time ago. Well, I guess they want their financial security. You can't blame them for that. I'm simply talking selfishly as a fan.

Zack Ryder. Jesus.

Dolph should try to carve out his own personality instead of being an HBK replica. Maybe it would help him get to the next level.

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Noid Technically Kurt Angle, Wade Barrett, Dave Bautista, Rey Mysterio and Bill Goldberg could all be free agents by the middle of the year.

If only we could get Jim Cornette to book them.

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave The Miz has been pretty good as of late.

Loving The Miz. You can see why he was pushed as hard as he was at one point.

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Smelly Meatball WWE might know within 2 weeks if Cena can make it to Mania or not. Cena recently teased on Twitter he's going to risk speeding up his recovery to see if its even possible for him. Gamble: take risky action in hope of a desired result. Time to gamble I think. It's gonna be a risky next two weeks #LaceUp #nevergiveup — John Cena (@JohnCena) February 15, 2016

I never once doubted he would be on the show.

[The CyNick]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave Jesus, Cena. It's not worth it

He's not going to die.

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by Evil Bliss:

Originally Posted by Observer It hasn't been two months and already, Mauro Ranallo has become a fan favorite for those tuning to WWE Smackdown every week. That's why there was a lot of concern at Tuesday night's Smackdown tapings in Ontario, California, when Michael Cole came out to announce with Jerry Lawler and Byron Saxton instead of everyone's favorite Canadian wrestling personality (outside Lance Storm of course.) Fear not: the actual story is that the 46-year-old Ranallo came to the building, but was sick with the flu and the company made the decision to send him home rather than work the show. He's still with the company, still on Smackdown, and all is still right with the world.

Supposedly he's dealing with pneumonia. Joe Rogan confirmed the illness and him having to drop out as today's guest for Rogan's podcast show. https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/700076365702299649

Originally Posted by Observer Raw on Monday night going against the Grammy Awards did not set a record seasonal low, as it did 3.46 million viewers, up from the 3.37 million record low of two weeks ago. It was still the second lowest number of the last 18 years that wasn't a holiday or going against football ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.66 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.54 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.23 million viewers

The good news being the drop could have been a lot worse due to the Grammys pulling in huge numbers but still around a 266k drop in viewers compared to last week. For some comparison, same show last year did around 400k to 500k more overall in viewers.

Originally Posted by BaltimoreSun.com Axl Rotten, a Baltimore-born professional wrestler who rose to prominence in the 1990s with Extreme Championship Wrestling, died from an accidental overdose earlier this month, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore announced. Police said in a report that Rotten, 44, was found unconscious and not breathing Feb. 4 on the bathroom floor of a McDonald's in Linthicum. Rotten, who was on the floor inside a bathroom stall, had pulled down the infant changing table and placed on it drug paraphernalia and a broken burnt tablespoon with a "crystalline residue," according to the report. An unlabeled pill bottle with capsules of a "brownish substance," which police suspected was heroin, was atop the paper-towel dispenser, the report said. Rotten, who was born Brian Knighton and took the name Axl Rotten professionally, was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:09 p.m. It was unclear how long he had been in the bathroom before he was found.

Update surrounding the circumstances of Axl Rotten's death.

Originally Posted by 411Mania Steve Austin shared his thoughts on the Titus O’Neil suspension. Here is what he had to say… On His Feeling That The Suspension Has Nothing to Do With Race : “The whole racist thing really irritated me because any time you hear about anything these days it’s racist, and, man, it’s 2016. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist, but, I mean, to play that card in this situation was total B.S. from my perspective.” Austin continued, “racism and that? Absolutely not. It was a reprimand for something that didn’t need to happen at that time. End of story.” On The Length of The Suspension: “If you’re going to suspend somebody, I think 30 [days should suffice]. I think 60 [days] is still a little overreacting. Did something need to happen, a come to Jesus meeting or a stern talking to backstage? Something [needed] to happen because I do believe it was inappropriate. It was the wrong person, at the wrong time.” On O’Neil Doing The Wrong Thing During a Serious Moment: Vince is 70 [years old] right now and that was a serious moment for him. He was totally in character. He cares about Daniel Bryan. He gets jerked pretty forcibly over there to Titus O’Neil and it was completely inappropriate.” Austin added, “this may be pro wrestling/sports entertainment, whatever you want to call it, but that was a serious moment. It’s not a time to be shucking and jiving out there, so lay some type of punishment down. Fine him, this, that, or whatever. I don’t know. Something was appropriate, but when I started hearing the racism things, I was like, ‘I’ve got to roll my eyes and I’ve got to call complete and utter bulls–t in this one.'”

From a recent Steve Austin podcast episode.

Originally Posted by Observer In case you missed the news, Jim Ross continues to get work everywhere and will do some boxing commentary for CBS Sports Network, likely for Premier Boxing Champions. No start date was announced.

Originally Posted by Observer Voices of Wrestling analyst Brandon Howard did some additional must-read analysis of the WWE Q4 financial call. Especially of note from Brandon: "The infograph WWE released on Thursday along with their press release seemed to claim their YouTube channel had received 8 billion views for the full year of 2015. Just by looking at their YouTube channel's "About" page, which publicly lists all-time video views, you can see that's not the case as the channel has accumulated about 7.5 billion video views all-time (since May 2007). Based on archived instances of that web page that I found, I estimate YouTube video views for WWE in 2015 at about 3.5 billion. I'm guessing they're including in that total the views of all WWE videos on YouTube that are uploaded by other users, which WWE has made copyright claims on."

Some other sheet news includes:

• 2K Games announced a PC port of WWE 2k16 will arrive on March 11th. Will be priced at $50 but will include all the currently available DLC packs.
• Recent article by the Rolling Stones involved NXT, Lucha Underground, and the growing popularity of wrestling on Wensdays. http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/f...vival-20160217
• Rolling Stones had a recent interview with Billy Corgin regarding his role in TNA and his wrestling fandom. http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/v...g-tna-20160217
• WWE currently has a poll on their website finding out who is the strongest wrestler in the company. At the moment Lesnar is currently leading at 45% with Cesaro at #2 with 14% of the vote. http://www.wwe.com/inside/polls/whic...-the-strongest
• This week's wrestling segment on ESPN had Brock Lesnar as the guest and him admitting he lost track of how many concussions he's sustained over his career (both wrestling and MMA). http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14789062
• Turns out Becky showing off her new blonde hair look was likely due to the upcoming season of Swerved on the WWE Network. Recent Instagram post by Becky hinted at her and R-Truth pulling a prank. https://www.instagram.com/p/BB55OWUi...=beckylynchwwe
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, the official reason for Pentagon Jr's existence is due to AAA originally planned for him to be the arch-nemesis of Kalisto prior to his departure to the WWE. Lucha Undgeround's Pentagon Jr is actually the 2nd version of the gimmick since WWE's La Sombra was the original Pentagon. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...e_archnemesis/
• In another "WWE Did You Know" type fact, only 4 wrestlers in WWF/WWE history who wrestled in the show opening match at Mania managed to wrestle in the main event the following year. The 4 guys are Jericho (opened Mania 17, main event 18), Edge (opened Mania 23, main event 24), Miz (opened Mania 26, main event 27), and Orton (opened Mania 29, main event 30). Making things more interesting, all four guys were also the WWE champions for their main event match. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...irst_match_at/
• In a completly unreleated wrestling news story but somehow managed to tie right back into wrestling, UK's Daily Mail revealed they will be launching a new newspaper called "New Day" with the general reaction to the announcement involving a lot of wrestling jokes made at their expense.

[Evil Vito]

-says there is no racism involved
-tells Titus it isn't the time to be shuckin' and jivin'

lolllllll

[Evil Vito]

also, Alexa is such a goddess

[Emperor Smeat]

[owenbrown]

Regal

[drave]

owenbrown lol

[owenbrown]

drave82

[Blonde Moment]

Pretty awesome 404 page
http://www.wwe.com/404/

[Locost]

Originally Posted by The CyNick Zack Ryder. Jesus. Dolph should try to carve out his own personality instead of being an HBK replica. Maybe it would help him get to the next level.

Maybe that is the personality they see for him rather than the personality he wishes to portray

[Mercenary]

Originally Posted by The CyNick Yeah big "fuck you" to WWE. A middling guy, who is injured every other month. How will they go on?

Cynick is right on the money here. Wade seems to get hurt in some way every time they give him a push.

[Blonde Moment]

Originally Posted by Mercenary Cynick is right on the money here. Wade seems to get hurt in some way every time they give him a push.

Same issue with Ziggler as well, Christian at the end of his Career was another example

[Lock Jaw]

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Originally Posted by Smelly Meatball

It isn't the time to be shuckin' and jivin'

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Lock Jaw

I would let Paige beat me up as foreplay.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Listened to a Kevin Sullivan & MSL podcast recently where Sullivan revealed that his original idea for Starrcade '97 was actually to have Bret Hart turn heel and cost Sting the WCW World Title match against Hogan.

How does that make everyone feel?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Sting vs. Bret Hart would have been a hot program I never considered. I always thought the logical booking would have been to put Sting over Hogan, have Hogan take time off, Sting to keep the belt against Nash and Hall, etc. The idea of Hogan keeping the belt thanks to Hart actually adds a really intriguing note that I never considered a possibility.

[Hanso Amore]

That sounds horrible. It just keeps the title on a stale hogan after building over a year to sting beating him, and then shuffles sting back down the card to hart. And it makes hart look stupid, he comes to wcw only to be a hogan lacky?

The only outcome of that match that makes any sense is sting winning clean.

[Innovator]

NJPW/ROH Joint Show Spoilers

SPOILER: show

Ishii just beat Roderick Strong for the ROH TV Title

[Emperor Smeat]

Dirtsheets sponsored by random NXT gif:

Originally Posted by Observer A few more notes regarding Bryan Danielson and some of the things going around and misconceptions. Regarding the convulsions, the story going around that he hid convulsions from doctors in an attempt to get cleared to wrestle is absolutely not true. I believe he had four convulsions after concussions, the last being about four years ago. Every doctor involved was aware, and he was given full clearance to do anything, and he was actively training hard very recently. It is logical, and probable, that one of the reasons, if not the main reason, Dr. Joseph Maroon wouldn’t clear him is because Danielson made him aware of that. But the other doctors were also made aware of that and because they were so many years ago, did not see it as a concern. Danielson’s remarks about hiding the convulsions stems from years ago, as when he did get them originally, he told nobody, not even his then-girlfriend Brie (this was before they were married, as they became a couple around early 2011), for fear they wouldn’t let him wrestle. Brie was there when he had one later. It should be noted that no doctor, with the exception of Maroon, and I don’t know what words Maroon told him past he wasn’t going to clear him, told him to retire. Doctors who were highly regarded, and the UCLA doctors were among the best concussion doctors in the country, told him he was fine to do anything he wants. The doctor who conducted the test that led to him deciding to retire never told him to retire, only pointed out that he did have an existing problem that he was previously unaware of. But he made a decision that if there was something wrong he wouldn’t continue. He did never publicly talked about having convulsions until the ESPN interview on 2/9

Update on the Bryan retirement story and details that led to it.

Originally Posted by Observer While the primary objective of the Global Cruiserweight Series is to try out the idea of a cruiserweight show, doing a “Tough Enough” type thing with undiscovered talent that are actually already good wrestlers as opposed to untrained people with good looks, a secondary objective is to send word to talent that may have thought size would hinder them in WWE to not sign with New Japan, ROH, TNA or Lucha Underground. A few months ago, when we were first told about this concept, we were outright told to get the word out for wrestlers who if are under 205 pounds and feel they are talented, not to sign anywhere.

Originally Posted by Observer Lucha Underground is once again going to have to raise money or sign deals bringing in more money for a fourth season, but they’ve got about a year to do it since they are said to have the money for the next season of tapings through mid-May. When that is done, will have all their television taped through the summer of 2017. The company is trying to get a Lucha Underground movie produced for 2018 but people are skeptical that a brand on television with barely 130,000 viewers per week (the general feeling is that the replay show is mostly people watching originally staying to watch it a second time) would be strong enough to springboard a successful movie. According to one company source, the amount of money lost thus far is, after two seasons, slightly less than half of what TNA had lost after ten years in business

Still having a big problem finding a better network to sign a deal with them in Mexico.

In expected but still exciting news, the WWE Network has began adding “ECW Wrestling” to their video on demand library! For those curious, this ECW Wrestling is ECW on TNN which many have been asking for and waiting for. It is worth noting that for now these episodes are still being added to the ECW Hardcore TV section, but hopefully the company intends to make things less messy in the future.

List of the episodes currently on the Network: http://wwenetworkchronicle.com/2016/...e-wwe-network/

Originally Posted by Observer The new English language TV show called “AAA Lucha Libre Worldwide,” will be similar to New Japan World Pro Wrestling Returns on AXS. The show, which is being put together for distribution outside of Mexico, has announcers Chris Cruise and Hugo Savinovich doing taped commentary in studio on the AAA television show from Mexico. It’s a really tricky deal because the show can’t air in the U.S. because AAA signed exclusivity with Lucha Underground, but that deal doesn’t include other English speaking countries which is where the show will be marketed. There is also some question right now regarding the talent under contract with Lucha Underground and their ability to be on the show.

The profit margin couldn’t cover the dividend payout for the year of $36,334,408, so the company’s actual cash on its balance sheets decreased from $115,413,000 at the end of 2014 to $102,476,000 at the end of 2015.

Update regarding last week's fiscal report by the WWE. Opted to not lower the dividend in order to keep the investors happy which is how they ended up losing money in the end.

Originally Posted by Observer The company’s business at this point is built around rights fees and network revenues. Rights fees, based on current contracts, will continue to increase over the next few years. They are a fixed total not dependent upon how creative or interest levels are doing currently. Obviously when current contracts are up, at that point interest levels and ratings will be key factors in new negotiations, as will the big picture state of the television industry. Network revenues are also growing, although at a far slower pace than the company projected and Wall Street expected. After the annual figures were released on 2/11, even though the news was far more positive than negative, it was the decline in WWE Network subscribers that offset most of the positive news and stock dropped below $15 per share within a few days.

Profit-wise, still below pre-Network era levels and the next tv contract could be a big problem if ratings continue to struggle in the mean time.

Originally Posted by Observer Television ratings declined significantly, which has become a hotly debated topic between those who believe the ratings are down due to a less interesting product and those who believe all television has declined and WWE’s decline just mirrors the television industry, and that with Hulu and YouTube viewership that it offsets the ratings decline. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Raw hasn’t declined as much as other programming on the USA Network, but that’s because the network has declined significantly as compared with other networks. Raw’s year-to-year decline is greater than any of the major sports, some of which, like baseball, hockey and MMA, showed significant increases over the past year. Another negative on the Raw rating is the third hour decline, when historically the 10-11:05 p.m. hour had always been the highest rated. That can’t be blamed on people consuming it in other fashions, because the decline is of people who were watching the show and then tuned out as the show went on.

Biggest take-away is that both the Network and Youtube/social media has done nothing to help improve the ratings or viewership for RAW. If anything it might be leeching away too much which could really hurt the WWE with the next tv contract talks.

Originally Posted by Observer Super Luchas reported that Mysterio had only signed a one season deal, although we had been told it was a two season deal, and have gotten confirmation of that both with someone with the company and someone close to Mysterio. Unless there is a contract breach, he will be back for the next season of Lucha Underground. There are options in place in the deal where it can be extended to four seasons. Whether they’ll be able to afford him after season two, or they’ll even be around, and given his situation and what he would want to do at the time, will all play into whether it goes forward. Everyone on both sides are working with the idea he’ll be back for the next season. The notable thing is that the Lucha Underground deals in most cases prohibit the talent from appearing on television with a rival promotion until after the season airs, not until after the tapings end. Based on that, if Mysterio is back for the next season, the earliest he could go to WWE or TNA (not that he would) could be the summer of 2017.

Originally Posted by Observer Owner Takaaki Kidani said they are going to offer Kazuchika Okada a five-year contract, from April 2016 to April 2021, unheard of historically, because they want to build around him and make sure he doesn’t go to WWE. He also said the company has earmarked a $2 million marketing budget to make Okada a mainstream star. Kidani said that they are going to have to offer longer contracts to the top stars because they don’t want to turn into WWE’s minor league feeder system.

Prior to the WWE raid, 1-year deals were usually the standard of NJPW contracts with the assumption that talent would rarely just bolt for other companies.

Originally Posted by Observer Raquel (Gabi Castrovinci) and her injuries in one of her first matches made TMZ where she said she suffered a cracked tooth and had to get a root canal and a crown on her tooth and had a hairline fracture of her jaw working an independent show in Miami when her opponent gave her a beating. She claimed she was attacked during a match on an indie show because there was jealousy of her having gotten a “huge contract” with TNA. Melissa Anderson of Lucha Underground wrote about this, “Real pro wrestlers don’t go to TMZ when they get a boo boo.”

Originally Posted by Observer They had a tryout camp this past week. The most notable names were Tony Nese and ROH’s Cedric Alexander, who is not under contract. Most of the names, including those two, were brought in were people being tried out for the cruiserweight television series. There were also several guys who aren’t well known from indies, with the only other names we heard being Alex Hammerstone of Paragon Pro Wrestling and Northeast independent wrestlers Chris Payne and David MacIntosh. There were also a lot of women getting tryouts, the most notable name being Deonna Purrazzo, who of late has worked NXT, TNA and ROH Another interesting name was Roy Sims, only because he doesn’t look anything like someone I’d think WWE would be interested in, as he’s 6-foot-5 and 375 pounds, built like if Tank Abbott was six inches taller and at his most out of shape. Sims is from Hollister, CA, not far from here, and is a sumo who has competed in Japan. He was a 6-foot-5 300 pound high school defensive lineman who briefly played at Fresno State and some other colleges. He played some arena football, including a failed tryout with the San Jose Sabrecats. He then tried MMA and went 2-0 in amateur fights as a super heavyweight. He was working as a technology technician at San Benito High School when he started sumo a year ago, placing third in the U.S. Sumo open and then first at the U.S. Sumo Nationals in his first year in the sport

Some other sheet news includes:

• WWE recently updated their website to be more mobile friendly similar to most websites and their upgrade designs these days.
• WWE had some fun recently on their website with the idea of re-imagining certain wrestlers with different looks: http://www.wwe.com/gallery/ring-gear...s#fid-40003054
• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Sami Zayn's name translated from Arabic and then back to English on Google Translate will end up with "El Generico" as the result. Only works on Google Translate though. Also another small tidbit is Zayn's logo is actually El Generico's mask. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...ayns_name_from
• This week's episode of Lucha Underground managed to have a 20k increase in viewers compared to last week with 152k overall. In terms of ratings, it cracked the Top 150 shows at #140 for Wednesdays.

Some TPWW related news includes:

• Newest episode of TPWW TLP podcast was recently released: http://tablesladderspodcast.podbean....st-143-021716/

[Heisenberg]

that NXT gif is from a great match this week

[GD]

Can't wait for Chad Gable to be promoted to the main roster where he wins the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and becoming exclusive to Smackdown forcing RAW to have a new championship. Initiating the return of the brand split era.

[GD]

WWE.com looks weird

[GD]

http://www.wwe.com/superstars

WWE.com's superstar page is a colossal mess.

[GD]

http://www.wwe.com/classics/titlehis...rldheavyweight

Steve Austin or Macho Man Randy Savage were never World Heavyweight Champions

[Disturbed316]

Good god WWE.com is horrible

[Anybody Thrilla]

Kevin Owens is awesome on commentary:

KING: Kevin, you seem to have a lot of disdain for Michael Cole. Where does that stem from?

KO: I have disdain for idiots. I'm not saying that Michael Cole is an idiot, but what I AM saying is that if I had my phone on me right now, I would block him on Twitter.

[Savio]

Originally Posted by Guru Dave http://www.wwe.com/superstars WWE.com's superstar page is a colossal mess.

Yes very ugly

[Emperor Smeat]

[Shadrick]

Paiges theme is sooooo dope

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by MatthewAllenHanso That sounds horrible. It just keeps the title on a stale hogan after building over a year to sting beating him, and then shuffles sting back down the card to hart. And it makes hart look stupid, he comes to wcw only to be a hogan lacky? The only outcome of that match that makes any sense is sting winning clean.

Hart wouldn't have joined Hogan apparently. Actually Sullivan didn't use the term "heel," I fucked up there. Hart would have screwed Sting to take control over his own destiny, because it was taken away from him in WWF. He would have screwed Sting so that the fans' WCW golden boy would know what it was like. They'd presumably have fought to get another crack at Hogan.

Sting beating Hogan is the obvious choice and the way it was executed seems like one of the biggest missed boats in professional wrestling history -- but I love the idea of the guy behind the book at the time having a completely different idea to everybody else.

[Mr. Nerfect]

WWE.com should go back to being run by Michael Cole, and Joey Styles can take over RAW commentary alongside the man he knocked out, JBL.

[Mr. Nerfect]

RAW: Joey Styles & JBL
SmackDown: Mauro Ranallo & Jerry Lawler
Main Event: Mauro Ranallo & Rotating Guest (eg. Road Dogg, Christian, JBL, William Regal, Zeb Colter, Byron Saxton)
Superstars: Rich Brennan & Heel Byron Saxton

[Mr. Nerfect]

Former WWE writer and widely accepted genius, Andrew Goldstein, recently wrote a piece for the PWTorch where he talked about why wrestling never cracks it into the "cool." Most telling of this man's brilliance is that he points out Fandango getting over a massively missed opportunity.