I don’t know about Keith, as he was in the middle of a push, but Nia I think is a candidate, as well as Kross & Scarlett.
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I wasn’t being all that serious. You just look at the sheer quantity of releases this year, and you throw in the ROH roster essentially being up for grabs, and that’s about the size of a WWE or AEW roster. Of course the more likely scenario is existing companies picking and choosing from the fresh free agent market.
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Our hospital has set a hard deadline of November 7. Beyond that, anyone who is unvaccinated will be let go. Doctors, nurses, RT‘s, orderlys, the person manning the cash register at Tim Hortons. No matter what your role you cannot be in the hospital if you aren’t vaccinated.
This is similar for some of these guys. Before there’s a huge outcry you have to remember if the WWE intends to start travelling more and having unvaccinated wrestlers is going to pose a huge problem they likely gave them a chance to get vaccinated and then let them know that if they didn’t they may face consequences.
I’m not entirely certain who this applies to but it’s been reported by some well-established people that at least five if not more of the staff released or under this concept. I would certainly think for instance they like and push Nia Jax and she’s anti-vax so it stands to reason that could very well be her. In that case, are you really going to lay blame at the feet of the company when in almost every other industry they are doing this?
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Haha yeah, I remember people here defending Kross (as NXT champion) losing to Jeff Hardy in 1:40. Hilarious stuff
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Nah they really don’t. If you’re dumping Jax, use her to get new talent over. She has been one of the more consistently pushed women with a ton of airtime for years. If she is being let go, make her make someone else.
Same thing with Kross. After his loss to Hardy he went over basically the entire low to mid card. He also had vignettes and a stupid new outfit. Why waste all that time and then do nothing?
B-Fab just got called up and got significant air time on SD. Now she’s just going to disappear and Hit Row is DOA.
I get what you’re saying - none of these people are difference makers and they aren’t. But they could get a lot more out of them
Ricochet should have the “George Costanza trying to get fired by the Yankees gimmick”. On Seinfeld, George was dragging the World Series trophy behind his car and wiping his face on Babe Ruth’s jersey and still didn’t get released.
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He’s the 2021 version of JTG. I remember everyone kept getting released and somehow JTG kept hanging on.
Was thinking the same thing. Normally I wouldn’t condone the anti-vax shit, but if I was Ricochet, I would be on a steady diet of nothing but Joe Rogan and Alex Jones podcasts until i was far enough down the rabbit hole to get shit-canned. Maybe learn to sneeze on command.
I was thinking more on the lines of Ricochet dropping the winged-eagle title in the trash can, in front of Stanford HQ, while wearing a “Hulk Rules” tank.
I wonder if he dressed up as mighty mouse for Halloween
Cesaro should just show up to Vince’s office with a giant vat of ivermectin and yell about his amazing discovery
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They could but never would because that isn’t WWE.
Seriously I have no problem with Kross and Lee being released as they were dead on arrival (or retooling) on the Main Roster. So if WWE wants to use a guy - it gets universally panned and mocked - why should they keep trying? Literally cut them and move on. It’s part of going to work at WWE. They will use you how they want, it may not be what fans want. It may not work and you may get let go regardless of what the Internet thinks your upside is. It’s kinda logical if you just think about it through WWE management lenses (which requires also assuming their creative style will not change - it won’t)
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You’re right. It sucks that they won’t use certain guys the way we want, but if they have a vision for someone, and the performer can’t fulfill that vision, despite fans possibly hating that vision and the vision being stupid, there is no use for them to try to ram a square peg through a round hole.
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So why hire them in the first place?
WWE is such a broken system.
They basically threw away NXT, a product they build from within and was selling 15K tickets to major events - because as a company, they didn’t know what they wanted or were doing.
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Thats a very good question. The answer, according to Meltzer there is a huge power struggle in WWE right now. On side is Hunter/Shawn etc. the other side is Pritchard/Ace etc.
IMO Shawn and Hunter seem to have a mindset similar to Tony Khan, and built NXT (think pre USA) in a similar mold (smaller guys, less goofy, great matches). When NXT got burned to the ground, the other side used the loss in the ratings to convince Vince that these “Indy guys” were not worth keeping. This is why I think we are seeing all of Hunters guys being unloaded. Now some of these guys may be vaccine related, but I think thats the crux of the issue.
Not to mention, Vince seems senile in 2021, wouldn’t surprise me if he who is already an emotional person, is just getting worse at making knee jerk reactions.
I agree though, NXT was a great product. I dont care that it lost in the ratings. The takeovers, especially pre USA were the best in ring PPV’s North America has seen in years. They threw away a great thing because they lost in the ratings to Dynamite. Stupid short sided thinking IMO.
I hate to say this, but until Vince passes away or is forced to step down due to health (ie. he has a massive stroke), WWE is going to be the way it is. Once he’s out, I think creatively/talent relations wise they will be fine, but for the time being, get used to more of this. With that said, as much as I hate whats going on, I dont wish death or a stroke on anybody.
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I guess my question would be - why was HHH given this much power in the first place if he and Vince seemingly have such different theories on talent.
It’s completely bizarre and wastes time for everyone.
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I loved NXT, but it wasn’t working by and large as a developmental system for the main roster. I mean look at the list of talent that put on those great take overs and almost all of them crashed and burned on the main roster. Now you can say that is because they were misused, but they were used as the main roster dictated they be used and they didn’t fit that system. I long thought they could have made a great main roster show using the “smaller” work rate stars mixed with what was the NXT top talent (UE, Gargano, Ciampa etc). I mean imagine this roster:Bryan, Styles, UE, Gargano, Ciampa, Balor, Owens, FTR, Ricochet, Rollins, Black, Andrade, Cesaro, Dolph, Rey,
They had all that and could have put on an amazing show, building some stars using established names
But it doesn’t work when you have guys like Roman and Brock on top. The WWE audience doesn’t buy a Gargano beating Brock. So if Roman is they style they want then NXT the super indy doesn’t work to develop for that.
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100% agree. It didn’t work as “developmental” for the exact reasons you stated, however as a third brand, it was the best thing WWE was doing and for me, the best wrestling in North America. I’m looking at it from a fans perspective, I enjoyed NXT more then Raw or SD, and now that it’s gone, That sucks.
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I think many people did but not as many as we might like to think. The number of times I saw on WWE Twitter threads or comments on YouTube or Facebook about the MXT talent not being stars is huge. A large portion of the WWE fan base has been trained to care about size being super important. It is one of the reasons 205 live never matters. There is also a huge nostalgia element to many of their fans where the established stars are who they want to see and they want to see them hit their signature moves. So if you need guys who are larger and wrestle the WWE 5 moves of doom style then NXT isn’t going to draw those fans in. It is why they needed to shift some of the established talent to mix it up with these new guys. So fans see them compete with and stand on a level with guys they consider stars.
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