Rolling 2014 Haunted Rocking Chair Thread

Where does Heyman rank now on the all-time list of managers? I've got a lot of love for some of the older guys (in particular Captain Lou, but the Grand Wizard was also an incredibly fun character (old interview segments and manager best-of compilations are pretty much the only wrestling-relating thing I enjoy watching from before about 1985, certainly before 1980). Definitely think Heyman is attaining god-like Bobby Heenan levels of managerial prowess right now

Fine show. Really excited about the world title. Just off the top of my head you could do:

Extreme Rules: Bryan v. Batista
Payback: War Games Evolution & Someone (Rusev?) v. Bryan & Shield
Money In The Bank: Bryan v. Shield, Evolution, Cesaro, Wyatt, Cena, Henry, Rhodes etc. ladder match
Battleground: Bryan v. Cesaro
SummerSlam: Bryan v. Brock

(then build for Brock (c) v. Reigns at WM31?)

ORRRR like 20 other combos, none of them bad. Exciting time.

Its great to really see how NXT is working too. Rusev and Paige called up, Rose and Bo getting vignettes. I'd presume a mass firing is coming soon to make room.

(if they do wargames i know it is kane but corporate kane is the worst character since idk simon dean)

ha I really enjoy corporate Kane as a silly character, especially because it involves Kane not wrestling more than short tv matches

apparently they're shying away from mass cullings in favor of letting contracts run out (PR move?). see Ezekiel Jackson's recent departure

urgh really?

i guess we will have the 'jtg has been employed xyz days' meme for ages still then, which is p much the only plus side

RIP, Ultimate Warrior.

Wait, WHAT?! Shit that rather changes the complexion of the HoF and Raw speeches. That sucks

DAMN!

He was the best horrible wrestler, a vile right-wing bigot and its a shame he died. Very odd and yet appropriate timing.

Lots of online speculation online it was suicide due to how his Raw speech went...

It looks like he had a massive heart attack. Steroids, man.

His RAW promo looks morbid in retrospect but his promos were always about the spirit of the warriors living forever and all that.

http://imgur.com/a/u9Xj3#1

so the road agents are joey mercury, road dogg, johnny ace, irs, finlay, arn

triple h still needs his lines written

"Finish - RybAxel over" is a disgrace to humanity I never want to read again

(FIRST TIME EVER) for Paige and Alicia Fox? what a selling point!

the evolution/usos notes are especially mind numbing.

bray's are written too. internet reports would make you believe he scripted them himself but i guess not (especially working around cena's schtick it'd need to be scripted i guess).

CM Punk is INJ. Evan Bourne isn't but he's still under MISC. I guess that 'waiting out the contracts' thing is real, poor Bourne.

Looking at the rosters seperated into BABYFACE/HEEL catagories makes me feel a lot less excited for the future than I was last weekend.

Humor
Is there humor on the show?

DOES THE PROMO MAKE SENSE

Reading this really drove home for the first time what a fucking terrible idea it is to script all the promos and never allow the talent to do their own thing.

What the wrestling world really needs of course is a conglomerate of middle-Eastern oil barons to decide that they need a more positive public face in the us, initiating and bankrolling a heavyweight competitor to steal talent and provide an out for the likes of Ziggler and Ryder.

No matter how exciting the wwe roster looks, the lack of competition will always kill anything interesting in the end

Return of evolution feels like a come back tour of an aging rock band. Pretty cool, but much better if you'd seen them the first time round.

ive not seen the latest raw but it does seem like its to put over shield. which is great.

i am fucking happy with the progession of the shield btw. i'd be really happy if their is never a break up and they do it properly. i maybe actually have enough faith in hunters obsession with the horseman to do it right... wm 35 main eventtween pure friends reigns v ambrose bet
is the ideal. pure wrestlibg ideal.

argh phone messed that up a bit and i was gonna say more but you get it.

I totally agree, The Sheild are fucking awesome and it can only get better. While I'm here, I'm loving Cesaro being a Paul Herman guy, it's about time he got some props, he is a great wrestler. I hope they don't fuck it up.

Herman guy? Heyman! Stoopid phone.

Heyman guy thing is turning into a bit of a mess though. The crowd is fucking desperate to cheer for Cesaro and pop for all his signature spots, meanwhile Heyman's there going out of his way to draw heel heat, it feels totally all over the place. Either this Cesaro / Heyman thing is gonna be a real short run ending with Cesaro turning on Heyman and going fully-fledged babyface or they're going to have to give the fans a proper reason not to like Cesaro, because by this point it should be obvious that Paul Heyman's just so damn entertaining that being with him isn't even a reason to boo people anymore.

Kind of interested to see Bad News Barrett getting pushed, the gimmick is ridiculously cheap and one-dimensional but Barrett personally is growing on me, his hamminess is so much fun. He's probably still not worth a damn in the ring but he'd definitely be more interesting in the upper mid-card rather than doing whatever the hell it is he's been doing since the Nexus fell apart.

Speaking of heels that are getting way more over as babyfaces right now

http://i.imgur.com/Mxs7Eky.gif

https://twitter.com/WWERomanReigns/status/458485930958278656

This guy's going over Brock Lesnar at WM31 btw, the reports of how over he is with the higher-ups are totally credible and justifiable. The guy is going to get crazy over when they give him a proper solo programme against a top heel

he does look kind of like a smudged photocopy though

The Wyatt Family and The Shield are the best thing to happen to WWE in years. Worth watching the shows just for them.

Though with how often the announcers talk about "brainwashing" with the Wyatts I'm surprised they don't sell a "Braynwashed?" shirt.

He's probably still not worth a damn in the ring

check his match with Sheamus from this week's Raw. he's got it down.

Cesaro needs to destroy Swagger and move on to a feud with, say, Cena if they want to salvage his push.

Hmm, I dunno about that. I mean I agree it would be good to push him up the card sooner rather than later, but I don't think it's a mater of salvaging his push just yet. His momentum might stall a little (already has actually) and that's not good, but the fans aren't going to stop cheering for his big spots anytime soon.

I couldn't sleep last night so I threw on the latest nxt. It is just squash matches? i don't really get it or why it is supposed to help anyone?

also adam rose is horrible and whoever said its ok for raw needs firing

these are the only 2 seconds of tna i have seen in 2014 and they are worth everyone seeing http://gfycat.com/DeadlyFinishedBoar

also lol eric young is champ? the bad comedy wrestler?

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--JGedZDMI--/mfxzbhxkwyzn7vyijjag.jpghttp://www.accelerator3359.com/Wrestling/pictures/mryan2.jpg

Crikey, and he won it off Magnus?! I've never watched it outside of half-a-dozen recommended matches but it doesn't seem long ago that the TNA belt was getting fought over by Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles etc. What the fuck happened there?

Also that gif is fucking wonderful, and it's Bubba Ray Dudley still gets paid each week to be putting people through tables on TV in 2014. I heard he'd had a JBL-style late-career renaissance but if you ask me that's still just Bubba fuckin Dudley

*it's good to know... etc.

tbf Bubba Ray as a main eventer seems less bizarre to me than when I returned to wrestling after years away to see 'Sexual Chocolate' Mark Henry as an unstoppable monster world champion.

http://gfycat.com/ForsakenSparseFrenchbulldog

Seriously would keep watching just for these guys right now, definitely think that individual singles runs whilst still nominally being a team is the best way for them to go

Shield v. Evolution was genuinely the most fun. If it doesn't end up my match of the year then this year is a fucking classic (it already might be.)

Bray v. Cena last night (and the past couple Raws tbh) is Dungeon of Doom levels of bad.

Watching the main event now and this is some fun attitude era garbage hardcore. No movez at all. Not seen this in forever and its pretty fun and refreshing. Wonder if Heyman booked it.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/a1f92ffa354610a7e1797561b02742cf/tumblr_n52vfi633Q1ty96ego1_400.gif
https://31.media.tumblr.com/a1f92ffa354610a7e1797561b02742cf/tumblr_n52vfi633Q1ty96ego1_400.gif
https://31.media.tumblr.com/a1f92ffa354610a7e1797561b02742cf/tumblr_n52vfi633Q1ty96ego1_400.gif
https://31.media.tumblr.com/a1f92ffa354610a7e1797561b02742cf/tumblr_n52vfi633Q1ty96ego1_400.gif
https://31.media.tumblr.com/a1f92ffa354610a7e1797561b02742cf/tumblr_n52vfi633Q1ty96ego1_400.gif

I turned on the main event last night on my ipad with no sound and was pretty damn bored with what I saw.

gifs of seth rollins is a definite future thread to be made

http://i.imgur.com/RceNWPR.gif

That's amazing.

Bryan needs neck surgery :(

Its good they have Cesaro, the Shield, Wyatts etc. because fuck me I'd be depressed if this happened to Punk in 2011. Daniel Bryan has been the most consistent joy in wrestling for the past 2 years and if he has to take time off just after getting the being john cena title, that will be such a kick in the teeth. It was bad enough for Ziggler last year but for the BJC Title Holder? Boo, injuries.

http://www.lolwrestling.com/how-long-has-jtg-been-employed/

7 years! Pop the champagne!

jesus christ, does he have one of those mark henry contracts?

last week i was in paris and caught an episode of raw during a bout of insomnia, lemme tell you bray wyatt's vague profundities sound even more vague and profound when some dude is doing them in french voiceover.

also caught an rvd match for the first time since he's come back and he's kinda sad to watch these days, isn't he? he's lost his speed and flexibility to the extent that what used to be super fluid and dynamic in his style now seems quite stop-start and clumsy, and he doesn't seem to have done anything to compensate for that.

just watched this. pretty wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HitHAHRTmcU

Having a bad day? Vince McMahon lost $340 million yesterday. WWE stock price dropped 50% after WWE's new TV was announced. So what happened?

• Earlier this year, share prices exploded from about $8 to $30 with buzz over the Network launch and new TV deal.
• NASCAR has the same demographic as WWE (with better sponsors and about a million more viewers than RAW) and got a deal worth $820 million/year.
• With that in mind, Vince hoped/promoted getting double or triple their current deal.
• WWE's lineup of RAW/SD/Total Divas is worth about $95m. They got $160million.
• This low-balling means there wasn't a bidding war for WWE's main shows and NBC Universal don't think much of wrestling.
• This sent investor confidence down the toilet, and WWE's stock price with it.

Update on the WWE Network
• Prior to it's launch, WWE threw around getting anywhere up to 2.5 million subscribers (aka 3-4% of the ludicrous "77 million WWE Homes").
• It brought in only 667k subscribers, it needs 1.4 million subs (in USA) to break even.
• This number is higher because DirecTV and Dish have dropped WWE PPVs (only InDemand are left)
• More subscribers this year isn't looking good as 10-15% of subscribers are non-Americans, and WrestleMania (a main factor for buying it) has come and gone.
• The Network's EVP of Programming (Matt Singerman) was fired, and Chief Digital Exec Perkins Miller left for the NFL last week.
• If WWE can't convince more people to buy the Network they'll likely up the price (perhaps to $12.95/month) or put at least WrestleMania back on PPV.

Wrestlers are pissed
• WWE are keeping the Network money for themselves, whilst delaying having a talent meeting to explain to the wrestlers how they'll be paid for being on the Network. They were stiffed on last year's videogame royalties and haven't seen a Mania payoff.

I assumed the NFL picking up the former head of the network meant that it was a good product.. I guess just because its a good product doesnt mean it makes money

It's back to within the same ballpark of where it was before all the speculators jumped on last fall. It didn't lose value; it had an inflated, false value and is now back to where it should be. WWE is fine.

Oh sure. I'm eagerly awaiting the ways Daniel Bryan and JR can be publicly humiliated for their failings though.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/23/4133082/wwe-in-trouble-financially-hardly.html