Wrestling News & Rumours Thread ***NO CHAT***

Riddle101

Looks like Chelsea Green broke her wrist on her Smackdown debut. She seems to have a history of bad look and apparently has broken her wrist before.

https://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/article/chelsea-green-injury-update

Agent Coulson

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

WWE look like they're eliminating house shows post Covid, it's a double edged sword. On one hand less trável for their roster plus it's a money losing expense for WWE. On the other hand, less reps for wrestlers who need it. There's two folds here, wrestlers who are completely green that'll have limited to no experience working in front of a live crowd and guys who are paid to go to TV who are never used getting rusty. The PC training just isn't comparable to working a crowd. The other thing this will inevitably bring up is the failure of the PC as a training facility. The PC simply does not produce wrestlers ready to step up to roles required on their brands.

If the WWE stop touring that leaves a market for AEW and Impact to jump into then to help build up a live attendance fan base.

Loughc

Agent Coulson wrote: »

If the WWE stop touring that leaves a market for AEW and Impact to jump into them to help build up a live attendance fan base.

It’s like they’re trying to put themselves out of business. Thankfully Full Metal delivered AEW really have a chance now to be the number 1 wrestling promotion in the US.

WWE in 2020 is just WCW 20 years ago.

The White Wolf

Loughc wrote: »

It’s like they’re trying to put themselves out of business. Thankfully Full Metal delivered AEW really have a chance now to be the number 1 wrestling promotion in the US.

WWE in 2020 is just WCW 20 years ago.

Wouldn't go that far but I can see WWE being sold down the line.

Agent Coulson

The White Wolf wrote: »

Wouldn't go that far but I can see WWE being sold down the line.

It might be cheaper for Comcast to buy them out if Vince ever decides to sell than continue to spend billions on just US TV rights alone for NBC when they own SKY across Europe and will have the Peacock streaming platform rolling out worldwide over the coming years as they have a ready made distribution stream for the product.

RollieFingers

Loughc wrote: »

It’s like they’re trying to put themselves out of business. Thankfully Full Metal delivered AEW really have a chance now to be the number 1 wrestling promotion in the US.

WWE in 2020 is just WCW 20 years ago.

Creatively it's worse than 2000 WCW.

J. Marston

WWE were losing money on live events, weren't they? Can't see how a far smaller wrestling company is gonna step in their place and make money.

Sirsok

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

WWE look like they're eliminating house shows post Covid, it's a double edged sword. On one hand less trável for their roster plus it's a money losing expense for WWE. On the other hand, less reps for wrestlers who need it. There's two folds here, wrestlers who are completely green that'll have limited to no experience working in front of a live crowd and guys who are paid to go to TV who are never used getting rusty. The PC training just isn't comparable to working a crowd. The other thing this will inevitably bring up is the failure of the PC as a training facility. The PC simply does not produce wrestlers ready to step up to roles required on their brands.

Find the comments about the PC interesting. I think maybe as a whole the ddevelopment system is a success, fair enough alot of Indy Darlings could of prob walked straight onto the roster, but taking away from that I think at Mania 31 there was a former NXT wrestler on nearly every match on the card.

FCW produce a staggering amount of current guys, Wyatt, Big E, and Roman coming to mind. Guys that make it big elsewhere you could not include (ROH folks mainly). However Having it may have been invaluable to Rollins, Owens, Balor and Cole in feeling valued and getting their feet on the ground in WWE land, where as folks like Kong and Mistico could of doing with a stint there?

I think the PC will prove to be invaluable, if maybe they could tweak it slighlty. Could you imagine a loan system being implemeted and sending them to places ala New Japan sending folks to Mexico. Would require admiting defeat maybe but i think the PC in itself is an amazing idea. It seemed to have been invaluable to honegrown female talent atleast Paige, Bliss and Charlotte (could be wrong maybe they werent PC).

Like soccer teams only the top talent end up making it, others may become bit part players or move on elsewhere and become stars or regular roster members. So over all the PC prob has played its role well so far?

Open to correction, maybe it is internally considered a failure.

LineOfBeauty

Sirsok wrote: »

Find the comments about the PC interesting. I think maybe as a whole the ddevelopment system is a success, fair enough alot of Indy Darlings could of prob walked straight onto the roster, but taking away from that I think at Mania 31 there was a former NXT wrestler on nearly every match on the card.

FCW produce a staggering amount of current guys, Wyatt, Big E, and Roman coming to mind. Guys that make it big elsewhere you could not include (ROH folks mainly). However Having it may have been invaluable to Rollins, Owens, Balor and Cole in feeling valued and getting their feet on the ground in WWE land, where as folks like Kong and Mistico could of doing with a stint there?

I think the PC will prove to be invaluable, if maybe they could tweak it slighlty. Could you imagine a loan system being implemeted and sending them to places ala New Japan sending folks to Mexico. Would require admiting defeat maybe but i think the PC in itself is an amazing idea. It seemed to have been invaluable to honegrown female talent atleast Paige, Bliss and Charlotte (could be wrong maybe they werent PC).

Like soccer teams only the top talent end up making it, others may become bit part players or move on elsewhere and become stars or regular roster members. So over all the PC prob has played its role well so far?

Open to correction, maybe it is internally considered a failure.

It's a failure. A small warehouse in Japan produces more polished, rounded wrestlers capable of taking on big spots from the off than WWE's multi million system does. And again, we're talking a few different things here, the first is money drawing stars, how many money drawing stars are from the WWE PC? It's WWE, they can put anything or anyone on top of their cards and they'll draw but how many wrestlers from their PC bump a butyrate, pop a TV rating ect.?

Then you go beyond that and you can ask, how many real PC guys (with little to no indie experience) after over a year in the PC still can't do anything beyond the most basic sequence? That's why at some stage getting the reps in is important.

On the loan thing, I wrote on here before about how WWE cannibalising the UK and Indie scene was bad news for fans in terms of wrestler development. Without more places to work, different styles, different spots on the cards, different character traits to test out in different towns, you're going to get cookie cutter wrestlers. They try guest coaches but another person's experiences isn't the same as living your own. Honestly, the results of the PC are worse than I even thought they would be. Wrestlers with no feel for wrestling, no creativity, no gumption and no ability to improvise.

3 of those 4 had some experience working TV, all experience in front of decent sized crowds. Spending months in PC in promo class or working on your generic entrance is not time well spent. Again, fair play to all of those guys, they've made lots of money I'm sure, none are good examples in favour of the PC and honestly I think at least a couple of them lost something in WWE.

I'll end it on this, there's wrestling companies out there that can't sign a couple of hundred guys and hope 3 or 4 come good. You get maybe up to 10 guys in a class that can last a year, 2 years ect. And they work on them, and then the training must be correct, aside from the basics, the fitness, the physique, the expressiveness, the most important thing a place like that can give a young wrestler is a feel for pro wrestling and it's in that area in particular that WWE and it's PC is miles behind, I don't think that'll ever change.

Sirsok

Well looking at this (2018 article) https://www.google.ie/amp/s/whatculture.com/amp/wwe/ranking-the-only-remaining-main-roster-stars-from-wwe-s-first-ever-performance-centre-class?espv=1

There are some pretty high profile names that have made a huge impact in the world of WWE especially when it comes to the female rostwr Bayley , Charlotte and Sasha rhen of course Becky Lynch. At Mania 35 , it was main evented by both Lynch and Charlotte. That has to be seen as a positive.

Corey Graves and Byron Saxton are both regular commentators with Graves in particular being a valuable member. Not all people will break the main event scene but have be huge contributors of WWE presentation.

Its long been said that WWE promote the brand and dont rely on name value of their roster. One only have to look at the likes of Hogan, Rock and Austin, peiple they heavily relies in to sell tickets who had to leave for whatever reason, so from a business model perspective it can be understood why that model neesed to change.

I'm not arguing that WWE is perfect, far from it, but they are boasting record breaking revenue who a roster that came from their developmental system. Strowman, Wyatt and Reigns albeit not world beaters are pretty big stars,maybe not worldwide stars but either are the guys trained in Japan.

It definately holds value and in my opinion will prove to be over time a hugely valauable asset. Will the next Cena or Lesner or Rock come from there? It does seem possible, but depends in their booking.

Scotr Dawson is part of one of the best tag teams in the world, Rusev and Neville all touted as beijg a big acquisition for AEW, both by products of WWE's system. You may say Neville was an indy standout before hand but at the same time would we be seeing the same vreakout potential from Neville if he was not indoctrined into that system before hand.

I'm all for calling WWE out on their failings, one may be that buisness model of promoting WWE over a named attraction but the developmental system i believe to be a strong component of their current product, and in turn they are let down by bad creative.

The system is built, its up to them to utilise the
Tmtalent interesting ways.

B.A._Baracus

The performance centre isn't a failure.
It is what it is - the old days of the territories are gone. Vince brought an end to that in the 80s with the expansion of the WWF.

They were a great way of producing great talent. You'd work several times a week and pick up the experience and the craft. You could spend a year in Texas ((WCCW for example) then move on to mid south and learn more. Etc etc.

Most Indy's today only run 1 show (an average I mean) a month. The UK scene is awesome for various promotions to get experience but it isn't anything compared to back in the day.

So the performance centre is just a way of getting guys in-ring experience. Am sure it could be vastly improved upon. But it is what it is.

Itssoeasy

The performance centre isn’t a failure but there has been at least one very obvious issue which lineofbeauty highlighted above. It’s completely homegrown talent being unable to think on their feet when things go wrong. I’m referring in particular to the match involving Becky, Charlotte, Asuka, and kairi sane at TLC last year. Everyone bar Charlotte had had some prior non wwe centric experience on top of their time in NXT and it showed that night. It wasn’t Charlottes fault that kairi got hurt because it’s wrestling so things have happened in the past and will continue to happen. The weakness was shown in how Becky and asuka reacted compared to Charlotte. Charlotte seemed to have tunnel vision and she had the sequence of the match in her head and she was ticking off boxes regardless.

LineOfBeauty

Just to give a few arguments with those comments.

The first one with Sirsok. The first is that sure the PC has pumped out a few people to fill card space on the main roster, I'd argue that a good number of those people (the likes of Owens, Cole, Balor who were previously mentioned and other guys who are on Raw, SD and NXT right now) absolutely did not need to go through NXT and were more than TV ready. The vast majority of guys of that ilk work the same gimmick (or a very similar version of their gimmick) that they did in companies pre WWE, and I've talked before on here about how I believe debuting guys like that on NXT actually hinders their overall impact. Taking up the PAC thing, he'd wrestled all over Euope, been prominent in PWG, wrestled in ROH, had already been an Open the Triangle Gate, Open the Twin Gate and Open the Brave Gate (a seriously long reign that lasted over a year) champion, had challenged for the Open the Dream Gate, and had competed in the Best of the Super Juniors, in short this was a very seasoned, very successful professional wrestler who did not need running the ropes classes. So take away those guys for a moment and focus on the likes of Corey Graves, Byron Saxton, Strowman, Wyatt, Scott Dawson ect. all guys with reasonably limited indie experience pre WWE or with little to no indie name value pre WWE, guys that I would consider true "PC projects." You can say, well WWE has gotten it's money's worth because some of these guys have occupied big spots in WWE but my argument would be sure, but they've added literally no value to the company. I'd make the case that practically any warm body in their PC could occupy those spots. And the guys that you list actually kind of make my case for me. Graves and Saxton, two mediocre wrestling commentators with nothing to say except the lines pumped through to them on their headsets, two guys who, if they disappeared off TV tomorrow, nobody, aside from the most hardcore WWE fans, would notice are missing. Bray Wyatt, a guy they can't trust to work a 5 minute pro wrestling match without the most over the top bells and whistles in wrestling history to distract you from the fact that he's a genuinely awful professional wrestler. Braun Strowman, an attraction because of his size, but another guy who can't work, who can't draw, whose destined for The Big Show role for the rest of his career purely because of his size, if he was any good he'd be the biggest star in wrestling! Scott Dawson, a guy who was lucky enough to cotton onto a divide in wrestling fandom that was clear with the Jim Cornette stuff and started an online feud with The Bucks that led to a nice big money match in pro wrestling but God if FTR are seriously considered one of the best tag teams in the world(!) then baby let's fold the medium because pro wrestling is done! That's me taking shots but I'll also say this, that's a few examples of literally hundreds of guys that they sign, and those are like the best of them! The hit rate is awful, and you can fill up TV with guys from the PC and call it a success but if they stink and ratings are in the gutter then it doesn't matter.

And then the point about star making from Sirsok. That WWE seem to go out of their way not to make true mega stars in the mould of the Austin's, Rock's and Hogan's. Whether they refuse to make big stars or that they've no idea how to make big stars anymore (and believe me, I think it's the latter) the idea that a company wouldn't want as many true money drawing, needle moving stars on your roster as possible is ludicrous. I mean, when Rock and Austin were at their peak, something like nearly 8 million people were watching Raw on a weekly basis! WWE currently has the best TV deals in their company history and they rake in sub 2 million viewers on FOX (!!) each week. Could you imagine what those deals, and their dismal Network subs, would look like if they were drawing near 8 million people into their product each week? Having stars, real stars, in pro wrestling is absolutely never a bad thing in any circumstance.

ON B.A Baracus, the territories are long gong but before the big companies bled the indies dry you had a host of companies to work for. Not to tour with sure because, aside from in Japan those days are gone, but you could still go and cut your teeth in small regional places, hone your craft until you were picked up an by an Evolve and then eventually got to showcase your stuff for a PWG. Now, anybody who shows even the slightest hint of promise is signed up. Not to pick on him because he has gotten a fair bit of stick for it, but a guy like Ben Carter would, had he been around 10 years ago, only now be a regular for an Evolve, maybe he'd even pick up a Japan tour by this stage, and then after that it would be PWG. And i know the Carter example has the visa issue and all that but the point is a guy like that would never be signed to WWE already. And good thing too! Now, you work away doing whatever it is they do in the PC, maybe they can back to the Largo Loop post Covid, and then to NXT. These guys never get a chance to flesh out their characters, to iron out the kinks in the ring work.

Itssoeasy there is absolutely an issue with the PC project wrestlers relying so heavily on agenting that when something doesn't land as expected, or something happens out of the blue, it's deer in the headlights time. But it's far beyond that, it's wrestlers with no sense for wrestling, wrestlers with no feeling for wrestling. It's wrestlers trained in a cold (probably not literally), sterile (apparently not literally either) environment who wrestle like robots trained in a cold sterile environment. It's impossible to blame the wrestlers in this, it's the landscape that WWE has created. There's exceptions, there's wrestlers who pass on the quick easy buck, work at it, make their name and then get the big long term payoff, but that's a gamble and I don't blame anyone who doesn't take that gamble because one bad bump and it's done and you regret it forever. I know I might be a bit of a romantic and it's easy to say when it's not a WWE developmental deal being waved in my face when I've only just learned how to bump but I do admire the wrestlers who say no and who work at the craft, because I do think pro wrestling is a craft and it takes time and work to get good and not taking the easy option I think is admirable.

I'll end it with this. It's been nearly a decade of the WWE PC now. And, for the sake of balance, the work done with the female talent has been pretty good, they've reshaped a joke of a division and pumped out a few stars who, at times, have made a measurable difference. But, after nearly a decade, it's plain to see that what the PC has taken away from pro wrestling and what it has given back are not equal, infact I believe they are at near opposite ends of the spectrum and as we enter a new generation of wrestling (because the last guys of the indie boom, the Generico's, Steen's, Omega's ect.) are gone and the top level indie talent pool has run dry, it's nearly at the point where the PC has to stand on it's own two feet and not be propped up by the American indies, and the results up to now have been dismal, a cavalcade of pro wrestlers who, in the vast majority of cases, spend years in the PC and never learn a thing beyond the basics and where the damn hard cam is.

Agent Coulson

From the USWA Soultaker and The Master of Pain promo.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHnIbCApRHG/

JP Liz V1

Ryan Cabrera and Alexa Bliss are engaged

weareallmarks

Lads, she offers low value. If they dont want too many managers, she doesnt have a job. Its that simple. She is not good enough to warrant the job. She will be fine.

It is the same for FTR (overrated beyone measure) and anyone else who has been let go. She didnt help herself, but she knew it was coming and jumped ahead of it as quickly as she could, shows she is very smart.

At the end of the day, if youre not good at your job you get let go / contract not renewed

Smacruairi wrote: »

It's probs a thing for a different thread, and again I agree with your sentiment, but all the sacrifices you listed are part and parcel of a job, and she signed Contract with open eyes to do that job, so much so that she can now make money dressing um in costumes and playing video games online,both of which require talent to be fair.

If she was sacked just because she favored unions, that's ****, just the point I'm making is that anytime nurses, doctors, teachers, luas drivers, an post etc strike, there's no end to the dog's abuse on boards about them, so let's not pat ourselves on the back too much about being better than Vince.

LineOfBeauty

Saw on Reddit Drake Wuertz (NXT ref) out there supporting Joey Ryan on Insta. Dude is a creep and a big QAnon head to boot.

undertaker fan 88

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

Saw on Reddit Drake Wuertz (NXT ref) out there supporting Joey Ryan on Insta. Dude is a creep and a big QAnon head to boot.

Expect him to be future endeavored soon if hes acting like this

J. Marston

He seems to be a bit of ringleader/recruiter for all that bolloxology. Brian Cage, Karrion Kross, Jaxson Ryker, Angel Garza and Nia Jax all liked his "Trump is God's chosen one" post according to a post on Reddit...

https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/jqya2y/drake_wuertz_on_instagram_as_we_await_the_legal/

Vote for who you want but when you start banging on about Trump being chosen by God, you are fully open to ridicule.

LineOfBeauty

J. Marston wrote: »

He seems to be a bit of ringleader/recruiter for all that bolloxology. Brian Cage, Karrion Kross, Jaxson Ryker, Angel Garza and Nia Jax all liked his "Trump is God's chosen one" post according to a post on Reddit...

https://old.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/jqya2y/drake_wuertz_on_instagram_as_we_await_the_legal/

Vote for who you want but when you start banging on about Trump being chosen by God, you are fully open to ridicule.

Throw Joey Ryan and a few more of the NXT crew in there and you've got a fine bunch of absolute lunatics.

Lord TSC

Mod Note
Doing a little bit of a tidy up cause the thread seemed to go off track a little.

But as a mod note on this:

weareallmarks wrote: »

Why is this news and why would / should people care......

The thread is a catch all for all news, regardless of how earth-shattering or relatively minor it is. There's not a barrier for entry on it, and trying to gate-keep the thread like this is not going to go down well. Please do not try and do so again.

As this is a mod post, I'd ask anyone who wants to discuss this further do so via Private Message. Do not respond to it in this thread.

J. Marston

Nia is one of those...

CastorTroy

If she refers to her talent as "my God given talent" then I definitely wouldn't trust anything God gives her.

The White Wolf

Sounds about right that Jax would have a conflated idea of the divine protecting her.

Itssoeasy

You’d have assumed that Nia wouldn’t be one of those but you know what they say about assuming things. Well god must have cashed in all his chips as it were on her immune system and not wrestling ability which seems to have not been passed down to her. I mean even tamina in her early run had some up side and could work somewhat even if it had a whiff of a Jimmy Snuka tribute act. Although that could said about nearly all second generation wrestlers.

Lithium93_

She is aware that at 272 pounds, that she herself is in the at risk category? Or she is clearly that bloody dense?

ThePott

She's been liking all of Drake Wuertz's things as well.
Wuertz also left a big message supporting Joey Ryan. WWE has some serious trash on the roster.

Itssoeasy

Lithium93_ wrote: »

She is aware that at 272 pounds, that she herself is in the at risk category? Or she is clearly that bloody dense?

Well god made her immune system lithium so why would those risk factors matter ?

sky88

Does wrestling attract idiots or are idiots attracted to wrestling

Lithium93_

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Well god made her immune system lithium so why would those risk factors matter ?

God eh? Eh well let's see where her God is when and if she contracts Covid-19.

Let's see her God guide her through that particular ordeal.