General Pro Wrestling News and Discussion Thread Part Deux!

It's completely

A Randy Savage DVD would not only make a fortune, but also serve as a fitting tribute for a guy who did so much for the wrestling business. The problem is likely Vince McMahon, who's input into such a DVD (as an interviewee on the documentary) would be crucial.

I don't buy the Stephanie rumours, but Savage must have done something incredibly bad to receive the unperson treatment. Take Hulk Hogan for example, over the years he has argued tirelessly with Vince McMahon about money and creative control, he left WWE in 1993 and ended up with it's rival - WCW in 1994. Hogan then left WWE in 2003 on bad terms but they patched things up again in 2005 en route to Hogan being inducted into the WWE HOF. Following Hogan's match with Randy Orton in 2006, Hogan again left WWE on bad terms and 3 years later joined TNA and announced his intentions to compete with WWE. Yet with all this being said and done, Hogan is still referenced in WWE, DVDs and merchandise are still made and promoted and he is probably still on amicable terms with Vince McMahon - hell who knows, they might even still socialise with one another!

The WWE has a very small "unperson list":

- Nailz: Attacked Vince McMahon and choked him in a dispute over money, later sued WWE and accused Vince McMahon of pressuring him into taking steroids.

- Chris Benoit: Murdered his family and then committed suicide whilst still under contract to WWE.

- Ole Anderson: Involved in a bitter legal battle over Georgia Championship Wrestling in the 1980's with Vince McMahon, Anderson has constantly blasted and criticised McMahon publicly through the years.

- Alundra Blayze: Defected to WCW whilst still the Women's Champion. Took said title belt and threw it into a rubbish bin/trash can during an episode of Nitro.

- Chyna: Publicly critical of WWE and Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, in particular. Left WWE on bad terms, made a sex tape and eventually ended up with a career in porn.

- Randy Savage: ?

As you can see, Savage's name is on that blacklist with some very infamous company. It does make one wonder what exactly he did that made Vince McMahon - the businessman who has shown willingness to put personal issues aside for the sake of doing good business - blacklist him?

 

I forgot too...Savage cut that promo (which was amazing btw) for WWE All Stars before his death. I don't buy the Steph rumours, that seems more like pro wrestling urban legend than anything else.

Hogan has done press praising Vince since joining TNA in various interviews elsewhere so yeah that relationship seems to have repaired its self and they show Hogan clips from time to time and mention him. Savage though? Not a peep...even with you've got the crowd drowning out with RANDY SAVAGE chants during Punk matches. It's crazy.

 

I don't know if everyone has been keeping up with the latest controversy regarding WWE not paying some talent adequately. This specifically revolves around Wrestlemania week where it has been alleged that some talent were paid as little as $500 for an entire week of PR work.

One of the more interesting things was that Zack Ryder -who sells a hell of a lot of merchandise - is apparently recieving as little as 1% in merchandise royalties. It's also been said that John Cena makes as much as 40% in merchandise royalties.

That got me curious, Cena makes 40% in merchandise royalties?! The guy must be worth an absolute fortune (we knew this already, but to see an actual figure like 40% is staggering). Lets assume that WWE shifts around $20 million of Cena merchandise every year, that means that Cena makes around $7-8 million each year in merchandise royalties alone! What's even worse is that figure is around 70 times (yes 70 times!) more than what many of the lower card talent can hope to make in a year when their downside and merchandise sales add up (PPV appearances are scarce and therefore the opportunities for bonuses are few and far between).

As for how much Cena is making in total, his downside (that's the amount of money that he'll receive in a year, regardless of how much he is used) has got to be around $2 million. Cena has also reached that level of superstardom and status in the WWE that they will have added little bonuses to his contract such as first class tickets and accommodation and maybe they will have even provided him with his own luxury touring bus (like Orton, Big Show and CM Punk) for mid range travel. The lower card guys have to pay ALL their own travel and accommodation expenses, although they can get discounts through the WWE office, but that's still not the point. PPV bonuses are a lot more complicated to work out, but it's safe to say that Cena will make 5 figure sums for the B-PPV's and 6 figure sums for shows like Royal Rumble and Survivor Series. Wrestlemania pays out massively, it's very possible for the top talent to make in excess of $1 million as a PPV bonus.

I would estimate that John Cena makes around $10-12 million a year after tax.


ETA: AW is gone - I'm not particularly surprised given the bad publicity, backstage heat and possible threat to Linda McMahon's senate campaign following his Kobe Bryant remark.

 

How about his being a fucking poor wrestler? Oh sure he's got a decent well-executed moveset (even if the brogue kick is a real bastard game over out of nowhere move), but his pacing is useless. Any match longer than 5 minutes becomes a stereotypical superCena performance. He's not had a good match I can think of where he's the one who deserves any credit. DB vs him at Extreme Rules is one of the matches of the year, but he was effectly Bryan's broom to put on a masterclass (same as Bryan had against Cena this Raw, albeit far more truncated). Sheamus is genuinely worse than Orton I'd say.

Reading this I realised you were completely right and I'd not really thought about it before. I looked it up and it's supposedly known as the "namedropper", but if I had to look it up then it may as well not have a name at all.

 

^ I don't even recall Michael Cole (or whoever has ever served as a PBP commmentator during Ziggler's matches) ever referring to the move as the "namedropper", but I've also looked it up and found it to be named as such.

AW is right about the apparent unfairness in disciplinary action. He was released for making a joke in poor taste and publicly endorsing Linda McMahon when talent were told not to bring up the election, regardless of whether they supported Linda or not. In the last 6 months:

- WWE has Publicly supported the be a STAR campaign, despite booking angles in which numerous "fan-favourite" talents have come across as bullies.
- Vince McMahon did a mocking impression of Jim Ross that included imitating Ross' Bell's Palsy facial symptoms.
- Jerry Lawler constantly makes fat jokes about Vickie Guerrero.
- John Cena has made numerous homophobic remarks.
- CM Punk made a big error in judgement by telling a fan to "go kill yourself" on Twitter.
- Tensai cut a promo filled with stereotypical remarks about Japanese people.
- Shawn Michaels called a fan a "homo" over Twitter after the fan asked HBK about his hair.
- John Cena called John Laurinaitis a "cripple".

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...n-better-this-week-5th-11th-august-2012-intro

The start of a neverending series, probably. Crivens. Hope it's a decent read.

 

Someone asked Jericho on twitter his opinion on Miz...and he responded that he loved him, and thinks he's the future of the company.

 

^That's not terribly surprising. They get seen quite often in eachother company out in public. Also, Miz is clearly using Jericho as a role model to build his career.

In any event it is high praise.

 

It's just a shame Miz isn't Y2J in the ring.

 

I've seen guys who are far worse in the ring who have been pushed to the moon.

 

^ Actually, Hulk Hogan was quite the talented technician before the WWF got a hold of him. If in doubt:

[yt]watch?v=JXk6ea3-gEc[/yt]

In this match, he works a very solid mat based style that is very much at the level with what one would expect from a top NJPW heavyweight. At the end of the day, the WWF was willing to pay Hogan ludicrous amounts of money to do the same basic routine, 200+ days a year for nearly a decade.

 

Well, yes. He was quite good before he was relevant. The relevancy window can be quite the fickle bitch as Hogan should have figured out in 1998.

 

One of the biggest problems with guys like Hogan is their muscle mass, which works against them. Sure, they look ripped and "larger than life", but their conditioning suffers, meaning shorter matches or paced matches (not like paced matches between well conditioned wrestlers that are paced to add an idea of competition and equal matching) that leave plenty of time for restholds.

In that video, Hulk Hogan is showing the signs of diminished conditioning due to his increasing muscle mass. It was most evident when he got to the WWF though. In my opinion, the gold standard of wrestling physiques is the Lou Thesz style (think the lean figure of Randy Orton combined with healthy full body muscle development). Thesz's conditioning was second to none in his heyday.

 

To be fair I don't think Khali was pushed to the moon, as big of a waste of roster space as he may be.

As for tonight's Raw, I HATED how they made Shawn look like a completely helpless little bitch. This is Shawn Michaels, for fuck's sake, not some helpless manager or valet. We get it--Brock is a big, bad dude. You can get that point across without completely burying an icon who can still work a better match than 75% of the roster. It's simply not believable that Shawn would practically shit himself like he did tonight at the mere possibility of Brock tapping him on the shoulder.

I did rather enjoy the Punk/Bryan/Cena/Show four way even if Cena was completely outclassed trying to imitate Punk--that knee in the corner was a joke. The Jericho/Ziggler/Miz three way was also pretty good.

I also find it a bit odd that Santino/Cesaro is relegated to the pre-PPV YouTube match considering how few other matches there are. What are they going to pull out of their asses to fill up the three hours? That Jersey Shore idiot pretending to be a DJ?

 

So they're using Shawn again in the Trips/Brock feud? That seems kind of lame. I'm kind of surprised they didn't use him in Trips feud against Kevin Nash.

It would appear that they're continuing to use Santino's matches to push and promote their youtube deal as I mentioned before. Just as UFC has matches on Facebook, this is what WWE has decided to do.

 

Have we placed some odds on how long the three hour deal will last? Once MNF starts I can see a huge drop off in the numbers from hour one to hour two unless they start having a match run through that time, and I'm not talking Sin Cara and Tensai.
I am starting to enjoy Ryback a bit but only from a comedy perspective. His arm flapping has to be, without a doubt, one of the worst things I have ever seen. Makes the Bushwackers arm swinging look legendary. FEED. ME. MORE! ok I like that part but when will they. When will they have someone else run out after one of his matches and try to take him on? Still waiting.

 

Aside from 1001 which was inexplicably bad (maybe due to the fire?), I've actually been enjoying the three hour Raws even if I don't agree with all the booking or angles. Then again I also skip commercials so it doesn't wind up being three hours long.

Yeah, Ryberg is a huge waste of time. This is 2012 and a huge unbeatable monster who grunts and beats up an endless stream of jobbers who weigh 130 lbs. when wet isn't going to cut it. Ever.

 

I wonder if WWE has some kind of chart in the creative room which they use to group wrestlers relative to the kind of push they are receiving? That's a thought, imagine a circle with a "bullseye", an inner ring and an outer ring. The Bullseye would have it's own seperate inner ring in which the golden names such as John Cena and Triple H are placed. And of course, some names wouldn't even make it into the circle, they'd be messily placed on the outside so with that in mind:

Inner Bullseye (golden zone)

John Cena
Triple H
The Undertaker
The Rock
Brock Lesnar

Outer Bullseye

CM Punk
Randy Orton
Sheamus
Alberto Del Rio
Daniel Bryan
Chris Jericho
Big Show

Inner Ring

AJ
Dolph Ziggler
Cody Rhodes
Kane
Damien Sandow
The Miz
Wade Barrett
Ryback
Rey Mysterio
Brodus Clay

Outer Ring

Antonio Cesaro
Santino Marella
Primo
Epico
Sin Cara
Kofi Kingston
R Truth
Titus O'Neil
Darren Young
Christian
Layla
Kelly Kelly
Beth Phoenix
Eve Torres
Heath Slater

Outside The Circle

Alex Riley
Camacho
Curt Hawkins
Drew Mcintyre
Ezekiel Jackson
Hunico
Justin Gabriel
Rosa Mendes
Ted Dibiase
Kaitlyn
JTG
Johnny Curtis
Mason Ryan
Michael McGillicutty
Tensai
Tyson Kidd
Tyler Reks
Jack Swagger
Trent Barretta
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder
Alicia Fox
Natalya
Tamina Snuka

 

If something like this does exist, maybe WWE should make it public? Instead of the Power 25, they could have this and then fans could decide for themselves if WWE was worth watching that week based upon the position of their favourite superstars in the eyes of the creative team.

I am now also perplexed as the absolutely abysmal Tout segments. Last night was awful, I swear that the people who had their Tout's shown only do it so they can get on TV. How the fuck can any adult just "go along" like that with the WWE storylines as if they were real? Even hardcore fans of soap operas and dramas talk about it in such a way that they know that it's not real (praising the quality of the actors, etc).

Why can't they just pose questions like "Who do you think will win?" or "Who would you like to see as the next WWE Champion?" But no, instead it's stuff like "Do you think that Booker T made the right decision in calling off the Summerslam match?" EVERYBODY knows that it's going to go ahead regardless, yet some people are still treating it as if it's reality.

It's insanity!

 

Vince has shown that he doesn't really care what we think of the product, and if he does he only makes moderate adjustments occasionally to "appease us". I told you guys that Zack Ryder would be a fad, and that his US Title reign would be a flash in the pan. To be that interactive with us would be extremely ambitious in this point of time for the WWE and I don't see that happening any time soon. They think they know what we want, but it's rare that they actually know. Punk's promos on this are right on the money. I'd be happy with a change from the safe booking, but I have waited long enough for this to change, which is why I've gone back to not watching again, because I know it won't.