With the CSAC punishing Jon Jones with 200k fine and revoking his MMA license, it appears as though Jones may be able to reapply to for his license in August, and pending the results of the USADA trial he could return to action later this year.
If that’s the case, and Jones receives a retroactive one year suspension, do you think that’s a good result for the sport? On one hand, Jones is an amazing fighter and a genuine star that MMA needs right now, but on the other hand this man has made countless poor decisions in the past few years, and it feels as though if Jon’s given yet another chance, it will look VERY bad for the sport, letting this man with multiple failed drug tests and his numerous outside of the octagon controversies off the hook once more.
With the recent injury to Beretta and still using him for the Honor rising card and the announcement of the rushed return of Tanahashi. what is your take with New Japan and its history of rushing back performers before they are ready? especially with a roster as deep as NJPW.
Also, with Undertaker rumors for this wrestlemania pretty much squashed and it sounding like a strong possibility That The undertaker career is complete. When Taker gets the HOF nod, will he receive the Honor of being the single entry of that year?
I think it goes without saying that the current WWE roster is probably the most talented roster they’ve ever had, from an athletic ability stand point. However, more than ever it feels like the in-ring product is stale and incredibly one dimensional. You can tell exactly when commercial breaks are coming for the weekly programming and PPV matches have been reduced a formula it seems; mostly in that matches are filled with lots of high spots followed by prolonged resting. There doesn’t feel like there is a good story telling moment to the matches anymore. Even with the great Almas & Gargano match there were still many moments of very WWE like spots w/rests. This may be too much generalizing, but the current WWE product feels like a glorified indy match now. This isn’t even getting into how for all the accolades being thrown at the womens division, the wide gulf between the main roster in-ring talent. There seems to be 3, maybe 4, really good women and then a lot of just ‘ok’ ones.
This is also fully over looking how much WWE is about building people around signature entrances and in-ring power build ups like they’re DBZ characters.
So I guess my question is, how do you think WWE can begin to better improve the in-ring product and really help to elevate the stories being told? How can a company with so much good talent still be so rudimentary in the ring? Do you think WWE will ever go back to building stories around total packages instead of doing so much heavy handed promos, interruptions, and multi-person matches; I really miss the old days when they could build a story without having people face each other 30 times in a month.
With the brand splits becoming stale, what would you think if the WWE followed other sports formulas? For example the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, they have a regular season with teams split into conferences (Smackdown = Eastern Conference, RAW = Western Conference) they have matches/regular season games on their respective TV shows with only their Roster. These matches are announced far ahead of time like a season schedule, enough of these spontaneous matches after promos. Each match counts towards their regular season record leading to rankings and shots at their brands respective titles at their next ppv. You could emphasize divisions with in the conference such as tag team divisions, mid card divisions, women’s, even 205 division and of course heavey wieght. Then for the PPVs you would do championship matches for their respective brands and interleague play for non title matches where the members from each roster would compete against each other within their divisions. It would all conclude at WrestleMania aka Superbowl where the champions (tag team, us, intercontinental, women’s etc…) from each brand would square off against each other. This way you keep the brands separate like conferences in sports where interleague only happens once in a while and the best from each conference/brand face off at your biggest show. Right now the championships are so devalued anyway does it matter if they are defended at WrestleMania. We should just get the Marquee/best matches for that show to make a real “WrestleMania Moment”!
Will there be giveaways like the Niagara Falls Comic Con tickets? And will you guys ever do t-shirts. I have a shirt press if you want to do it yourselves.
I miss getting a concise Meltzer report through you guys every week. Was that a paid appearance, and would there be opportunities for him to be on after PPV’s and big shows going forward?
Hi, given that both would have to be classed as amateurs in MMA at this point, could you see the ufc putting Mayweather and cm punk in a fight? It would be a better for mayweather to have this fight before McGregor and would still be a massive draw on its own.
Lets say that for one week of Raw they film a “total nonstop deletion” type episode using all the talent at the Hardy compound. We could post a thread on here coming up with various booking ideas however my question is, that at the end of the episode we find out that this was all a dream and film a scene similar to the Dallas season 9 season finale shower scene, John who would you cast to play Bobby Ewing and Pam?
With the failed WWE rankings system now seemingly on the out, do you think that WWE would benefit from reducing the championship belts again to improve competitiveness?
If they had one championship per division i.e. mens, womens, and tag teams - which were defended on either brand. But kept the Intercontinental and US as mid tier belts in place on their own respective brands, do you think that the overall match up quality could be improved and investment between viewers and the product?
If you were heading up NJPW’s efforts to expand into North America, what initiatives or strategies would you pursue? Do you think the NJPW/ROH partnership will continue to be mutually beneficial if NJPW is interested in a long-term foothold in North America?