I’ve always been interested in the difference between wrestlers’ public statements about the wrestling press, and the obvious interest many of them have in it given their willingness to serve as sources. How, if at all, do you guys evaluate a source’s own interests in a particular story with regards to their credibility, and without giving anything away, have you ever opted not to run with a story out of concern about such potential manipulation?
2 Likes
Saeed from Vancouver:
If you had to pick one would you rather:
Have an amazing story be told, the best you’ve seen on wrestling tv only for the match to be a dud.
Have a terrible story be told and them have a 5 star match at the end of it?
Have you ever had a person be super rude to you about the whole “wrestling is fake” thing?
Roy from Rhode Island
Hi guys,
Paraphrasing a recent tweet from Suit Williams, who I believe was making this point from a purely creative perspective, rather than through a business lens:
What do you think of the argument that, had Roman needed to, or opted to step away from wrestling in either 2018 or 2020, that his run may have been the worst ever attempt by WWE at a face of the company in the modern era?
People usually point to Diesel’s world title run, which bad as it was, only last a year, whereas the Reigns run from 2015-2018 (or 2020), was much more sustained, and included some of the worst, most audience rejected Wrestlemania main events of all time (32-34 particularly). I’m not saying Reigns had no good matches or feuds during this period, but this period, even with precedent of Cena’s split audience reactions (and his merch selling and drawing power at his peak was far beyond Reigns from this period), this run seems notable for how much of a failure a lot of it was.
Not a question but just an observation from the UK. Wrestling is still seen as lame here and I didn’t tell many I was going to All In. But when it became big I started to talk to people and turns out loads more than I realised like wrestling or are at least open to going.
This year I went as a group of 2 but next year I’m up to 6 already. As long as they don’t increase the ticket price too much I think they could beat 81,000 do you expect them to keep their tickets cheap?
I paid £27.50 for All In where as WWE events start at about £75 for comparison.
Whose gimmick in any company right now are you guys just not liking?
Recently I was casually watching back at Austin’s interview with Undertaker that we reviewed for Rewind-A-Wai not too long ago and one interesting point that both men discussed was about Ric Flair. Taker and Austin talked about Flair being the greatest to both of them but also both agreeing that he was never one of “Vince’s guys”. Do you believe Vince doesn’t have the same amount of respect for Flair the way Austin, Taker, and 99.9% of the industry has?
How did Bauer and Pollock come to be? That was my gateway into the Post Wrestling world.
With the benefit of hindsight, do you think that if Tony Khan knew in March of 2022 that he would not be able to find a TV deal for ROH he would have still purchased the company? He seemed to have miscalculated the appetite from broadcasters (particularly WBD) for another wrestling brand and going direct to consumer with Honor Club clearly felt like a risky Plan B. Given the expansion of AEW into three nights of TV, do you think he regrets the decision to purchase ROH?
Luk from Québec!
Historically and as we’ve seen recently with the multiple Punk incidents, it seems that wrestling gets the most buzz from real life conflicts behind the scenes or feuds that blur the lines (like the early Becky and Ronda feud) Knowing this, are you surprised that companies don’t try to artificially/intentionally create these types of conflicts more often to get a shot in the arm? Is it that it’s too difficult to fool the audience because wrestling news media would report it as fake? Do you think it would be possible to create an artificial “Brawl Out” type situation that is bought as real by everyone but the people involved and would it be worth it?
Alexander from Portland
What are your fondest memories of Sting in TNA? Overall, did the company book him well? Would Sting have been as big of a deal in WWE if he never went to TNA and stayed retired instead?
Cheers, you two are great