You mean months of no coverage of Vince between WSJ stories? Where flooding the interested audience (“zone”) with other stories and gossip is enough to make sure there is more muted coverage of Vince between WSJ stories?
There is virtually no interest in Vince since maybe the first wave of juicy headlines by mainstream media. The investigation was a nothing burger to the public and investor community. Those who loaned money to Vince helped protect the stock (see Morgan Stanley), and the penalty for Vince himself was that Vince had to go home, watch his net worth go WAY up, largely in part because nobody cared he was gone (the fanbase celebrating and praising such quick changes under Hunter actually gave more reason to believe in WWE going forward i.e benefit Vince) Vince very much still owns and therefore has control over WWE, always has, always will until he is forced to or decides to sell. He probably watches the IWC bubble you speak of with great amusement as he banks his dividends while they forget he exists in the background.
If that Netflix documentary every comes out - is it going to be hard hitting? The world outside the IWC does not care abut Vince more than being another billionaire to admire/criticize. If the Netflix doc does go up, it’ll draw even more attention to the glorified persona (good and bad) and likely do nothing to tarnish his legacy more than already has. It will be visible to millions more viewers than the 9 Lives doc was which came out this week (and was only going to get coverage in Wrestling circles). So watching those Wrestling Circles go abuzz with another story, while also damning - though I guess divisive in nature - to take heat of of WSJ-9 Lives combo - seems like well played PR/Media Relations. They obviously fed the quotes about their “tough position”. Mandy wasn’t that popular appearing on NXT only so this too will blow over very quickly which you can bet they are keenly aware of.
If the indications were they knew about the cause of the firing prior to this week, and knew when 9lives and WSJ piece could be coming, is it so crazy to think these people didn’t act savagely for their own PR. Flooding the zone with stories is an extremely common strategy. (the increase in AI stories lately?) That it only needs to impact one zone (the IWC) as a distraction makes it easy. There really isn’t another zone to even be worried about; the WSJ is not concerned with Mandy Rose, they are going to cover Vince with their pieces periodically until they don’t. Then who will?
I strongly believe that if the Wrestling World wants to rid itself of VKM it’ll have to do it itself. It’s frustrating as hell that while this guy had to publicly step away in shame that his punishment was to make more money this year personally than he probably has in the last 5 years. The limited pressure applied in the wake of the Summer bombshells made it very easy and comfortable for him to even think he could come back as alluded to in the last WSJ story. And he’ll probably be accepted back by a vast portion of the Audience. Is that because the IWC Bubble really just wants drama and more stuff to get frenzied over - good or bad? Have the influencers in the space done enough to cover the story beyond what WSJ will do. I doubt the space has the attention span. The WWE knows this, which brings it back to the point of flooding a zone so nothing sticks and nothing can be fully analyzed, investigated, and no IWC journalist can do a real story on it for fear of missing what comes next. (Gee, I wonder who taught who this, Vince or Donald).
There has been some very good work done by the beat reporters. Those who cover Wrestling with regular cadence. WWE knows they don’t have the time and resources to do a deep dive, and probably don’t need the WWE comms team coming for them. Still, if not for the reporters on the beat, covering the industry day in and day out, highlighting this guy is still very much there benefiting immensely, orchestrating a sentiment that he should be forced completely out and Wrestling fans won’t accept that kind of behavior, I’m not sure what coverage is going to do this. Vince will wind up coming back. And probably 2 months later it’ll be accepted and just another crazy story in this guys career.
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No more thoughts on the topic. Don’t mind being the outlier pointing this stuff out. Vince has made boatloads of money. Nobody forget that he isn’t gone. Still owns the company. And hates the IWC for which he likely plays as Marks and his Comms team probably does too. They know we don’t have attention span to remember things like this. Myself Included
the IWC bubble got #GiveDivasAChance and #CancelWWENetwork to make differences. #ForceVinceToSell would have WAY more impact than waiting for more WSJ stories to drop, while we focus on whatever next exciting thing it is to get worked up over. Myself included.
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Just finished listening to last night’s shows:
I thought John and Wai did a really good thing covering 9 Lives and discussing Vince and a potential return as well as revisiting the Summer stuff. Some of that convo should not be pay-walled. Wrestling media should try to flood the zone and keep the pressure on Vince so he cannot come back, and that the victims are never just footnotes in another episode of Wacky Vince