WWE 2022: Future Endeavors

ah dude it cannot possibly be a surprise to you at this stage to discover that the people steering this ship see more value in Shane than they do in Cesaro - it's been 10 years since Cesaro debuted!

how long can you possibly keep waiting for the necrotic senile billionaire to suddenly discover that actually he was wrong all along and he should've been promoting the many, many good wrestlers on his books rather than doing whatever the hell it is he think he's been doing?

it's one thing to watch the bonfire and enjoy it on its own terms but if all you're gonna do is check back in for Rumble-Mania season each year and freak out about how much worse WWE has gotten since the last time you checked, do what every other sensible wrestling fan has done and check out for good. there's nothing here worth saving and it's never gonna change now. and even if it did magically improve the people who eventually really benefit from your attention as a consumer would still be the dregs of humanity so why even keep hoping?

gonna peace out of this thread because i have nothing constructive to contribute and i hate it when ppl on ILX drop into a thread solely to bring negativity into an environment where ppl are posting enthusiastically as fans of a particular thing (although i would note that a hoy hoy in particular doesn't seem to have been particularly enthusiastic about this weekend's Rumble, at least).

if you're not enjoying what they're selling then forget about this bullshit company and forget about the Rumble and forget about Wrestlemania season and all of the other things that keeps long time fans coming back year after yeqr. fuck them and their terrible, terrible output and their insulting vision of what wrestling is supposed to be. there's no need to keep coming back to this poisoned well in a world where AEW exists.

(other than to point & laugh / take a detached interest in the fall of the empire, ofc)

Ah occasionally you gotta hear some bollocks on the radio to remember what makes good records great. And sometimes you have to see the wrestle mania sign literally on fire while a sexy flanders they seriously named ‘boogs’ is the best performer on the show to appreciate that Cody did the moustache better many years before co-founding something sooooo much better for us all.

Man WWE took all the excitement out of who was going to be the final entrant in the women's elimination chamber match by announcing Alexa Bliss last night. Should have kept it a surprise.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Seriously LOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Never had “Pat McAfee will accidentally kill Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania” on my bingo card

I would be surprised if Vince wrestles for himself. The rumor I heard was that this is where Austin Theory steps up as Vince's boy and is his rep for this fight. Not the dude I would have chosen, but I guess they see something in him.

tried to watch the MacAfee / McMahon interview out of morbid curiosity just to see what Vince has to say for himself these days. had to ditch it after 10 mins or so of of relentless, sickening McAfee "so, in this business of wrestling which we're all privileged to be in (which simply didn't exist until you descended from the heavens in January 1984 and magicked this industry into existence with your extraordinary business savvy and willpower and genius and your massive massive balls"

i guess it was interesting to see a true narcissist up close this. Vince made a point of talking about how he hated all the hagiography and the bootlicking, and he very deliberately rolled his eyes whenever McAfee said "you, sir, are a legend in your own lifetime" in so many words. while still of course tacitly acknowledging that all of that shit spouted by McAfee was essentially true, Vince was simply too humble to acknowledge it.

doesn't even matter whether Austin wrestles at this point. presumably he's not, cause if he is then why wouldn't they have announced it weeks ago and promoted the shit out of it? but even if he does have one more match, how does it help them in the long run? it'll just be another tarnished legacy, another bad Wrestlemania match in a decade + of bad Wrestlemania matches. and that wouls truly be it for them. the final frontier. it's their last ace in the hole, the one truly massive drawing card which no one ever thought they would be able to use, and once they do it, they've done it, and there's nothing bigger they can offer the fans to trade on the old nostalgia. and at this stage it doesn't even feel like it would generate that much interest

I think that what has given some people hope are the returns that we've seen in the past few years. Both Edge and Daniel Bryan had to retire due to injuries, and now both are back. Goldberg had a few returns, as well, and up until a few years ago, The Undertaker kept coming back. The nostalgia is always so alluring to WWE/wrestling fans in general, so I definitely think that there would be some interest...however, I don't think that it should happen. The last thing we need is to have Austin look like how Goldberg has looked in some of his return. Hell, even Edge has lost a little bit of shine for me, and I feel bad, but he just simply cannot move the way he used to.

Anyway, I heard MSG was an interesting show, even though people felt it seriously underdelivered in certain areas.

I don't think this will actually get hidden behind the spoiler tag, so fair warning:

They really did it. The American Nightmare. Cody Rhodes is at #WrestleMania, and his tattoo is an augmented reality 3D graphic. pic.twitter.com/KLLegAo95E

— 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 (@patcheschance) April 3, 2022

can i just say i absolutely hate wwe lighting

i havent actually watched any of this because the idea of giving money to these ghouls

with that said, looks from Twitter vids as though the crowd was hot and everyone, fans and performers, was having lots of fun, so that's a huge step up from the last few years

otoh by doing the Stone Cold comeback and having him & Vince do the thing, they've burned the last and biggest nostalgia pop they had

next year for the Roman / Rock Hollywood showdown and then there's nowhere left to go

I'm excited for this, but I feel like this means that Ikemen Jiro is dead in the water.

Fightful has confirmed that Kushida has left WWE

We'll have details as we learn them on https://t.co/jy8u4a7WDa. pic.twitter.com/CYaMQxmT2u

— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) April 19, 2022

OH YESSSSSSSS

Spoiler, but

✨Unlocked new skills✨

“Nose Flick” pic.twitter.com/ttpsnmh1Eg

— ASUKA / 明日華 (@WWEAsuka) April 26, 2022

Lmao

as y'all know i spend literally none of my time paying attention to wwe but i had to share this nxt clip

dear lord pic.twitter.com/2NjC0oDKBf

— WWE Botches (@WWE_Fails) April 27, 2022

Yeah, I feel weird about how they actually televise those sorts of matches. You would think that they would tighten all of that up before letting them go in front of a live crowd.

Also, devastated by this latest batch of NXT releases, but I'm happy for those who didn't want to re-sign. These two hurt me the most, though. Love them so much.

Dakota Kai and Malcolm Bivens have been released by WWE, per @SeanRossSapp pic.twitter.com/ZityH1u4mB

— B/R Wrestling (@BRWrestling) April 29, 2022

gross, hope this company dies

Absolutely fucking disgusting, hope this company dies

Can we just bin this thread now

Ideally the subforum would be renamed but it hardly seems worth the effort

None of this is surprising of course. Vince McMahon and his various cronies have always been a gang of rapey creeps and it’s amazing that it’s taken this long for them to even brush up against metoo in a meaningful way

Sasha Banks released. cross one more off the list of the half dozen people on the WWE roster i still remotely care about or have any interest in

i wonder if she'll turn up in AEW or if she's gonna devote her attention to acting

never understood why they didn't bet the house on her, she's incredible. Bayley vs Banks summer 2015 was a big deal for me personally, that was the first women's match i remember seeing in the moment (as opposed to the odd 90s Joshi thing) where in the moment i was just totally blown away

should really proof my posts

only saw a headline or two before the reactions in here. after trying to read a bit about what's going on.... I'm mystified as to how this means anything at all to fans who've already stuck with this company so long.

just amazing restraint he didn't cut a promo on the woman on Smackdown

LMAO

Wonder what the next big story to come out is?

How long until his non-compete is up and he’s officially ALL ELITE?

Fitting thread title

Reports saying Dunn is next. Maybe WWE could become watchable again in a couple years!

Trips has taken over creative. They continue making decisions like this, I’m gonna have to eventually start watching again.

tempering expectations

1. vince might still be running things from the shadows
2. even when kevin dunn gets fired they probably aren't going to abandon the overall garish eye-vomit presentation of the main roster
3. last time trips tried to run a promotion for actual tv ratings it kind of sucked

Very interesting to see the sort of revitalization of this company under the Hunter (Hearst) Helm(sley). Not sure if it is so spectacular now or if it's been so disappointing for a while that even small changes feel like a big deal.

From what I hear, Sami’s rise as a lovable clown is going very well. The rest just seems like an ongoing roster shakeup, with a million people returning (the good brothers? Seriously? These guys are 2022s x Pac heat)

I still can’t take the place too seriously though. If Sami is being built like this, it’s a real damn shame to know they can’t do anything with him, as they have the rock pencilled in to defeat reigns/bloodline. So it just makes Zayn look like a geek, instead of getting the DBry/Kofi WM treatment.

I've always been a huge Sami Zayn mark, so I'm glad that he's getting more time to shine, but totally know that this won't go much further than what it already is. Man is just so good that he makes anything they give him work.

cannot recommend the latest Reigns/USO/Zayn boil-up. Sami’s facial reactions during the entire thing were killing me.

What a king.

UCEY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS pic.twitter.com/nmaesS3Oqn

— Sami Zayn (@SamiZayn) November 19, 2022