Wai Ting and Nate Milton review WWE Raw as AJ Styles, Riddle and Keith Lee compete for a WWE title match at TLC; Drew McIntyre and Sheamus team-up. Andrew Thompson joins us to discuss WWE’s Liv Morgan documentary.
Bruce Prichard comments on Vince McMahon saying the n-word in 2005
NXT’s Aja Smith and Leon Ruff get engaged
NXT edges out AEW in viewership for 11/25
On Raw, Drew McIntyre teams with Sheamus for the first time in years while Miz & Morrison try to plan the perfect cash-in, Randy Orton attempts to find The Fiend’s weakness on “A Moment of Bliss”, New Day celebrate Woods’ G4 gig while MVP makes use of heel math, a Triple Threat match for a WWE title shot at TLC, a very scary bump for Jeff Hardy, and the latest involving Retribution, Nia/Lana and more.
Is anyone else really turned off by New Day flaunting their third-party success on WWE programming when it appears they are the benefactors of a terrible policy that probably doesn’t hurt their downside considering they move merch, and others are left being pimped out by VKM? I’d be very curious if New Day has any heat with some performers who see them getting these deals and making them agreeable w/ WWE right now.
Do we have any news anywhere on what WWE stake in these deals are? Surely they get a cut(?) or are they really just applying the rule selectively? For the same reason I was anti-Ben Carter signing, I’m not exactly sure how to feel about New Day basically being Exhibit 1A for this Third Party Revenue policy being OK. I’ve seen people say the top stars stand in the way between really forming a collective group of talent to unionize or create an association - that’ gotta include New Day now right?
Also, somebody bookmark this for when Paige gets a similar deal and is no longer doing her depressed in a mansion gimmick that she can’t twitch. Sorry if that comes off harsh, but if performers want to play the victim card on this policy (which Paige definitely did) then we gotta apply a consistent measure of criticism when they cow toe.
Totally agree but my guess is that Woods might have something in his contract allowing him to do other things. His YouTube show has been around for a long time.
But still it’s really a bad look that they’re out bragging about his deal a few weeks after Vega was let go for the same thing
@TheBenjamin I’m not sure what I would cringe at harder: Woods having a special contract making him different than other talent impacted OR Woods cow-towing to Vince and his third party vig. Either way, the same guys who wanted to walk out because of Hogan coming back are now the poster children for why WWE should get a vig from third-party deals their independent contractors have. Ironic.
UPDATE:
Here is how nuanced life is. My reaction to New Day and the third party stuff runs so contrary to how I feel they’ve handled themselves over 2020. I’d probably rank them in the top 3 in terms of trying to express themselves in Wrestling in 2020. So while I want to celebrate their success, the weirdness of that third party deal completely soured me on them last night. But like, I don’t know anything more than conjecture and fantasy booking of their business. Wrestling is weird.