WWE Releases Samoa Joe, Iconics, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

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WWE Releases Samoa Joe, Iconics, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:14

Billie Kay and Mickie James released
source: https://www.wwe.com/article/billie-kay- ... s-released

WWE has come to terms on a release of Billie Kay and Mickie James as of today April 15, 2021.

We wish Billie and Mickie the best in all of their future endeavors.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:15

I understand that there are more to come. It's the one year anniversary of 'black friday', that time that WWE fired a lot of people in a pandemic. I wonder if they wanna make it a yearly celebration for April 15 now, maybe THIS is the real Wrestlemania Backlash (TM)
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:16



should be Blake
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:18

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:35





they just fired their best commentator
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:42

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 12:46

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by NWK2000 » Apr 15th, '21, 13:30

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 12:35



they just fired their best commentator
Fuck that, we get a half decent Joe independent run out of this, I'm a happy NWK.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 15th, '21, 13:34

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 12:35

they just fired their best commentator
Joe has become a WWE-ified version of what he was when he started, much like Corey Graves. Their best commentators at the moment are easily Nigel McGuinness and Wade Barrett.
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Re: WWE Releases Samoa Joe, Iconics, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 15th, '21, 13:34

Kalisto back on the indies is exciting.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Thelone » Apr 15th, '21, 13:45

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 12:15 I understand that there are more to come. It's the one year anniversary of 'black friday', that time that WWE fired a lot of people in a pandemic. I wonder if they wanna make it a yearly celebration for April 15 now, maybe THIS is the real Wrestlemania Backlash (TM)
And just like last year, are any of those surprising really? Joe probably realized that they had no plans for an in-ring return, Dallas has been working on his post-wrestling (post-WWE?) career for a while now (something in real estate), Mickie will be fine with her music career if nothing else, Green just kept getting injured, and guys like Kalisto and Blake have done nothing in months. Frankly, I'd say the Iconics are the most surprising on this list, and even then that's being generous.

Those guys and girls won't be living under a bridge in two months, just like those who were released last years aren't. Also "good guy" Tony Khan will sign at least three of those to clog his own roster even more, but he'll cut people after the pandemic so that's fine, right?

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 14:24

Thelone wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 13:45
And just like last year, are any of those surprising really? Joe probably realized that they had no plans for an in-ring return, Dallas has been working on his post-wrestling (post-WWE?) career for a while now (something in real estate), Mickie will be fine with his music career if nothing else, Green just kept getting injured, and guys like Kalisto and Blake have done nothing in months. Frankly, I'd say the Iconics are the most surprising on this list, and even then that's being generous.

Those guys and girls won't be living under a bridge in two months, just like those who were released last years aren't. Also "good guy" Tony Khan will sign at least three of those to clog his own roster even more, but he'll cut people after the pandemic so that's fine, right?
Of course they're gonna be ok, wrestlers being released from WWE are always going to be ok.

The only surprising thing is how incompetent WWE is for not capitalizing on these people. A lot of these names were part of a team that got broken up with zero follow up, for either member. It's been like 8 years since the Wyatt Family debuted and now like 3 of the Fiend, and they never considered using Bo Dallas with him, even as a henchman, instead they have Alexa Fucking Bliss drooling goo. How can you have the same people wrestle each other every week, in over 10 hours of programming, and still have the excuse that 'someone hadn't done anything'.

"Good guy" Tony Khan SHOULD MOST DEFINITELY sign Joe and Kalisto and Green at least, and properly use them, every promotion should be on their phones right now. As clogged as you say it is, they still don't do the same match over and over and over again, we still haven't seen a Fenix vs Nick Jackson rematch, and that's one of the best matches they've had on Dynamite.

Anyway, none of these releases were because they had 'nothing for them', they're budget cuts, because Peacock and Fox and the Saudis don't pay enough. The greedy gotta greed.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay, Kalisto, Mickie James, and More

Post by cero2k » Apr 15th, '21, 14:25

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 13:34
cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 12:35

they just fired their best commentator
Joe has become a WWE-ified version of what he was when he started, much like Corey Graves. Their best commentators at the moment are easily Nigel McGuinness and Wade Barrett.
I'll take your word for it, I really wouldn't know. They're all the same to me.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Thelone » Apr 15th, '21, 15:44

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24"Good guy" Tony Khan SHOULD MOST DEFINITELY sign Joe and Kalisto and Green at least, and properly use them, every promotion should be on their phones right now. As clogged as you say it is, they still don't do the same match over and over and over again, we still haven't seen a Fenix vs Nick Jackson rematch, and that's one of the best matches they've had on Dynamite.
Joe is definitely a lock, same with Royce since her bland husband is already there (although I'd pick Kay if I had to choose one of the Iconics). Kalisto would be yet another flippy guy who can't talk on a roster filled with those, and Green is too generic when she's not doing schtick (but it's AEW, so they'll bring her in as Laurel Van Ness).

I'm not gonna delve too much into the whole rematch stuff because that's not really the point here, but how many times have we seen some combination of Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers since AEW started?
Anyway, none of these releases were because they had 'nothing for them', they're budget cuts, because Peacock and Fox and the Saudis don't pay enough. The greedy gotta greed.
But they really had nothing for them though. Yes, it's a convenient spring cleaning so they can show better numbers to the shareholders in a few weeks, but they're cutting dead weight and in Joe's case, a guy who wanted out most likely.

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 15th, '21, 23:21

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24
Thelone wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 13:45
And just like last year, are any of those surprising really? Joe probably realized that they had no plans for an in-ring return, Dallas has been working on his post-wrestling (post-WWE?) career for a while now (something in real estate), Mickie will be fine with his music career if nothing else, Green just kept getting injured, and guys like Kalisto and Blake have done nothing in months. Frankly, I'd say the Iconics are the most surprising on this list, and even then that's being generous.

Those guys and girls won't be living under a bridge in two months, just like those who were released last years aren't. Also "good guy" Tony Khan will sign at least three of those to clog his own roster even more, but he'll cut people after the pandemic so that's fine, right?
Of course they're gonna be ok, wrestlers being released from WWE are always going to be ok.
And yet last year everyone was certain that they wouldn't be and that WWE was so evil for releasing them.

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24 The only surprising thing is how incompetent WWE is for not capitalizing on these people. A lot of these names were part of a team that got broken up with zero follow up, for either member. It's been like 8 years since the Wyatt Family debuted and now like 3 of the Fiend, and they never considered using Bo Dallas with him, even as a henchman, instead they have Alexa Fucking Bliss drooling goo. How can you have the same people wrestle each other every week, in over 10 hours of programming, and still have the excuse that 'someone hadn't done anything'.
In principle, you're not wrong about them ruining people by breaking teams up for no reason and with no follow up, but I think the only real miss on this list was Kalisto. You can argue Joe, but I think they used him relatively well when he was healthy. Chelsea also had bad luck with injuries. Mickie is great, but she was pretty much just a producer/agent at this point (and thye did use her to put over Alexa and others before retiring her). Bo had something at one point, but he was never going to be anything more than a midcard heel at best.
Billie Kay stunk, Blake was competent but replaceable. Tucker was tall and legit, but didn't have much else. He worked in Heavy Machinery, but they were never really suited for more than being an undercard babyface tag team. Putting Bo with Bray wouldn't have changed anything because Bray/Fiend has sucked because they only have one f*cking story for him that they've been trying to tell over and over again for eight years now. His best role was the undercard "BO-LIEVE" heel, which maybe had a babyface run in it after a bit, but that was all he had.[/quote]




cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24 "Good guy" Tony Khan SHOULD MOST DEFINITELY sign Joe and Kalisto and Green at least, and properly use them, every promotion should be on their phones right now.
Agreed.
cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24 As clogged as you say it is, they still don't do the same match over and over and over again, we still haven't seen a Fenix vs Nick Jackson rematch, and that's one of the best matches they've had on Dynamite.
Only one person in the world thinks that match was some sort of classic. He just happens to write the most influential newsletter in the industry. Most people will cite that as exhibit A for Dave being biased towards AEW in general and the Bucks in particular.
And WWE's repetitive matches and AEW's clogged roster are not opposite ends of a spectrum. WWE also has a giant roster. Their booking philosophy is the problem. They don't understand how to build a match up without some sort of confrontation between the wrestlers, which winds up being physical four times out of five. With AEW, they are trying to focus on too many people because "Nice Guy Tony" signed so many people and doesn't want to not use anyone (especially because they're not running house shows). But even if they were two ends of the same spectrum, just because one is wrong does not make the other one automatically right. There is a happy medium somewhere in the middle.

cero2k wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 14:24 Anyway, none of these releases were because they had 'nothing for them', they're budget cuts, because Peacock and Fox and the Saudis don't pay enough. The greedy gotta greed.
You yourself said earlier that they haven't used a lot of these people in months (sometimes over a year!). What other definition of "we have nothing for you" is there?
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 16th, '21, 08:21

Thelone wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 15:44 (although I'd pick Kay if I had to choose one of the Iconics)
Really? She's... just... SOOOOOOO bad.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by cero2k » Apr 16th, '21, 11:48

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21
And yet last year everyone was certain that they wouldn't be and that WWE was so evil for releasing them.
A year later, and you still don't get it. It was never about money, it's about having job security in insecure times.

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 In principle, you're not wrong about them ruining people by breaking teams up for no reason and with no follow up, but I think the only real miss on this list was Kalisto. You can argue Joe, but I think they used him relatively well when he was healthy. Chelsea also had bad luck with injuries. Mickie is great, but she was pretty much just a producer/agent at this point (and thye did use her to put over Alexa and others before retiring her). Bo had something at one point, but he was never going to be anything more than a midcard heel at best.
Billie Kay stunk, Blake was competent but replaceable. Tucker was tall and legit, but didn't have much else. He worked in Heavy Machinery, but they were never really suited for more than being an undercard babyface tag team. Putting Bo with Bray wouldn't have changed anything because Bray/Fiend has sucked because they only have one f*cking story for him that they've been trying to tell over and over again for eight years now. His best role was the undercard "BO-LIEVE" heel, which maybe had a babyface run in it after a bit, but that was all he had.
i'm not making the argument that they fired the next John Cena or some untapped amount of potential, in WWE, about 90% of wrestlers could be fired, and nothing would change, and you'd be able to find reasons why it was ok to fire them. My argument is that they could have used every single one of those 10 fired wrestlers for something other than chasing R-Truth, and they don't have to be top superstars, but you're telling me that Kalisto wasn't useful in 205? You could have the Iconics be a jobber tag team instead of having Bazsler and Jax wrestle whatever combination of Lana and Mandy teams over and over. Tucker is a big dude, have him job out to someone who is about to challenge for a title.
When the only argument is 'they hadn't done anything', then that falls on WWE being incompetent, not the wrestlers.
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 Only one person in the world thinks that match was some sort of classic. He just happens to write the most influential newsletter in the industry. Most people will cite that as exhibit A for Dave being biased towards AEW in general and the Bucks in particular.
And WWE's repetitive matches and AEW's clogged roster are not opposite ends of a spectrum. WWE also has a giant roster. Their booking philosophy is the problem. They don't understand how to build a match up without some sort of confrontation between the wrestlers, which winds up being physical four times out of five. With AEW, they are trying to focus on too many people because "Nice Guy Tony" signed so many people and doesn't want to not use anyone (especially because they're not running house shows). But even if they were two ends of the same spectrum, just because one is wrong does not make the other one automatically right. There is a happy medium somewhere in the middle.
Meltzer is biased because he liked a match that was actually quite fucking good. Grasping at straws these haters.
Either way, the argument stands, they don't do the same match over and over. TheLone made the argument for Bucks vs Lucha Bros, there have only been 4 matches with both teams involved on Dynamite, and NONE of them were actual Bucks vs Lucha Bros matches.
I kinda think that WWE's repetitive matches being compared to AEW's clogged roster is not fair, they're not the same thing, but we can definitely consider that both promotions have clogged rosters (one does have double the air time), but one promotion has manage to make their matches less repetitive without firing anyone for 'not having anything to do with them'.

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 You yourself said earlier that they haven't used a lot of these people in months (sometimes over a year!). What other definition of "we have nothing for you" is there?
They have a lot of people they haven't used, some in years and not been fired. These were budget cuts, we all know it
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Thelone » Apr 16th, '21, 14:02

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 08:21Really? She's... just... SOOOOOOO bad.
I find Royce bland and generic while Kay at least seems to have some personality and a sense of humor. Mind you, AEW shouldn't go for either of them because the division is slowly going somewhere and they wouldn't add much. Mickie on the other hand, I wouldn't mind for one last run and then moving to coaching/agenting.

Also, is McKay really that bad in the ring nowadays? I don't know if I just had lower standards back then or what, but I remember her being fairly decent on the few Shimmer shows I've seen. Nothing amazing, but not Jax/Eva Marie/Tamina levels of awful either.

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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Big Red Machine » Apr 16th, '21, 14:30

cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21
And yet last year everyone was certain that they wouldn't be and that WWE was so evil for releasing them.
A year later, and you still don't get it. It was never about money, it's about having job security in insecure times.
And with the amount of money WWE has paid these people over the years, if they were smart with their money, they'd have been fine for quite a while. For all you know, WWE did the calculations and figured that they'd be fine for a year or two. And it turns out everyone was fine, so maybe WWE deserves some credit for that.


cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 In principle, you're not wrong about them ruining people by breaking teams up for no reason and with no follow up, but I think the only real miss on this list was Kalisto. You can argue Joe, but I think they used him relatively well when he was healthy. Chelsea also had bad luck with injuries. Mickie is great, but she was pretty much just a producer/agent at this point (and thye did use her to put over Alexa and others before retiring her). Bo had something at one point, but he was never going to be anything more than a midcard heel at best.
Billie Kay stunk, Blake was competent but replaceable. Tucker was tall and legit, but didn't have much else. He worked in Heavy Machinery, but they were never really suited for more than being an undercard babyface tag team. Putting Bo with Bray wouldn't have changed anything because Bray/Fiend has sucked because they only have one f*cking story for him that they've been trying to tell over and over again for eight years now. His best role was the undercard "BO-LIEVE" heel, which maybe had a babyface run in it after a bit, but that was all he had.
i'm not making the argument that they fired the next John Cena or some untapped amount of potential, in WWE, about 90% of wrestlers could be fired, and nothing would change, and you'd be able to find reasons why it was ok to fire them. My argument is that they could have used every single one of those 10 fired wrestlers for something other than chasing R-Truth, and they don't have to be top superstars, but you're telling me that Kalisto wasn't useful in 205? You could have the Iconics be a jobber tag team instead of having Bazsler and Jax wrestle whatever combination of Lana and Mandy teams over and over. Tucker is a big dude, have him job out to someone who is about to challenge for a title.
When the only argument is 'they hadn't done anything', then that falls on WWE being incompetent, not the wrestlers.
I said that they missed the boat with Kalisto (unfortunately, at this point, no one is useful on 205 Live that it's only half an hour).
Jobbing Tucker out to someone who is about to challenge for a title won't do anything because they haven't built any credibility up with him. You can always use people as jobbers. WWE has been for years... and everyone complains that it kills the talent's potential value on the free market because they've been used as jobbers on TV. And will having Baszler & Jax beat a jobber team really accomplish anything?
I'm not saying that these people couldn't have been used well from the start. I'm saying that given where they all were at the time they were released, there wasn't much salvaging any of them other than Kalisto and MAYBE Peyton. Not everyone can be made into something after years of being jobbed out like Cedric and Shelton were- and those guys were really saved by MVP. You put them with any other group and they wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as over.
cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 Only one person in the world thinks that match was some sort of classic. He just happens to write the most influential newsletter in the industry. Most people will cite that as exhibit A for Dave being biased towards AEW in general and the Bucks in particular.
And WWE's repetitive matches and AEW's clogged roster are not opposite ends of a spectrum. WWE also has a giant roster. Their booking philosophy is the problem. They don't understand how to build a match up without some sort of confrontation between the wrestlers, which winds up being physical four times out of five. With AEW, they are trying to focus on too many people because "Nice Guy Tony" signed so many people and doesn't want to not use anyone (especially because they're not running house shows). But even if they were two ends of the same spectrum, just because one is wrong does not make the other one automatically right. There is a happy medium somewhere in the middle.
Meltzer is biased because he liked a match that was actually quite fucking good. Grasping at straws these haters.
Either way, the argument stands, they don't do the same match over and over. TheLone made the argument for Bucks vs Lucha Bros, there have only been 4 matches with both teams involved on Dynamite, and NONE of them were actual Bucks vs Lucha Bros matches.
No one is saying that the match wasn't good. I'm saying that other than Dave, no one else went near ****3/4. And hey, we all have our matches like that. I'm the only person I've seen who went anywhere near the 10/10 I gave the women's title three-way at Clash of Champions 2016. But I explained my reasoning. Dave put in the same thing he usually writes and had no explanation for why this was any different to him than any other match between two big-name high flyers.

I'm not saying your numbers about Bucks vs. Lucha Bros. are wrong. I'm saying that you're wrong in portraying this as two ends of the same spectrum.

cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48 I kinda think that WWE's repetitive matches being compared to AEW's clogged roster is not fair, they're not the same thing, but we can definitely consider that both promotions have clogged rosters (one does have double the air time), but one promotion has manage to make their matches less repetitive without firing anyone for 'not having anything to do with them'.
WWE has double the overall airtime, but the roster split means that they don't actually have double the time to feature everyone. AEW's ratio of wrestlers to TV time if a lot higher than WWE's.

I see what you're saying things being clogged, and I think we're looking at it from different angles. With WWE the roster is "clogged" in that they do so much with the same people that others can't make TV. In AEW, it's "clogged" in that they are trying to feature so many people that people disappear from TV for months at a time and it hurts the storytelling and the audience's ability to get invested in the characters.

cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 You yourself said earlier that they haven't used a lot of these people in months (sometimes over a year!). What other definition of "we have nothing for you" is there?
They have a lot of people they haven't used, some in years and not been fired. These were budget cuts, we all know it
There is nothing wrong with budget cuts. People used to say it was ridiculous that WWE had people under contract for years and didn't do anything with them (JTG being the premier example). In most promotions, the idea would be either use someone or cut them. If you want to criticize WWE for letting people go during an economically tumultuous time because they're a greedy corporate monster then that's fine... but then you also have to acknowledge that WWE has paid A LOT of people A LOT of money for doing very little work when the greedy corporate monster thing to do would have been to cut those people a long time ago. If you want to look at WWE through the "are they a greedy corporation" lens, you have to consider all of the evidence, both negative and positive.
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Re: WWE Releases Billie Kay and Mickie James

Post by Serujuunin » Apr 16th, '21, 20:01

Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 14:30
cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21
And yet last year everyone was certain that they wouldn't be and that WWE was so evil for releasing them.
A year later, and you still don't get it. It was never about money, it's about having job security in insecure times.
And with the amount of money WWE has paid these people over the years, if they were smart with their money, they'd have been fine for quite a while. For all you know, WWE did the calculations and figured that they'd be fine for a year or two. And it turns out everyone was fine, so maybe WWE deserves some credit for that.


cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 In principle, you're not wrong about them ruining people by breaking teams up for no reason and with no follow up, but I think the only real miss on this list was Kalisto. You can argue Joe, but I think they used him relatively well when he was healthy. Chelsea also had bad luck with injuries. Mickie is great, but she was pretty much just a producer/agent at this point (and thye did use her to put over Alexa and others before retiring her). Bo had something at one point, but he was never going to be anything more than a midcard heel at best.
Billie Kay stunk, Blake was competent but replaceable. Tucker was tall and legit, but didn't have much else. He worked in Heavy Machinery, but they were never really suited for more than being an undercard babyface tag team. Putting Bo with Bray wouldn't have changed anything because Bray/Fiend has sucked because they only have one f*cking story for him that they've been trying to tell over and over again for eight years now. His best role was the undercard "BO-LIEVE" heel, which maybe had a babyface run in it after a bit, but that was all he had.
i'm not making the argument that they fired the next John Cena or some untapped amount of potential, in WWE, about 90% of wrestlers could be fired, and nothing would change, and you'd be able to find reasons why it was ok to fire them. My argument is that they could have used every single one of those 10 fired wrestlers for something other than chasing R-Truth, and they don't have to be top superstars, but you're telling me that Kalisto wasn't useful in 205? You could have the Iconics be a jobber tag team instead of having Bazsler and Jax wrestle whatever combination of Lana and Mandy teams over and over. Tucker is a big dude, have him job out to someone who is about to challenge for a title.
When the only argument is 'they hadn't done anything', then that falls on WWE being incompetent, not the wrestlers.
I said that they missed the boat with Kalisto (unfortunately, at this point, no one is useful on 205 Live that it's only half an hour).
Jobbing Tucker out to someone who is about to challenge for a title won't do anything because they haven't built any credibility up with him. You can always use people as jobbers. WWE has been for years... and everyone complains that it kills the talent's potential value on the free market because they've been used as jobbers on TV. And will having Baszler & Jax beat a jobber team really accomplish anything?
I'm not saying that these people couldn't have been used well from the start. I'm saying that given where they all were at the time they were released, there wasn't much salvaging any of them other than Kalisto and MAYBE Peyton. Not everyone can be made into something after years of being jobbed out like Cedric and Shelton were- and those guys were really saved by MVP. You put them with any other group and they wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as over.
cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 Only one person in the world thinks that match was some sort of classic. He just happens to write the most influential newsletter in the industry. Most people will cite that as exhibit A for Dave being biased towards AEW in general and the Bucks in particular.
And WWE's repetitive matches and AEW's clogged roster are not opposite ends of a spectrum. WWE also has a giant roster. Their booking philosophy is the problem. They don't understand how to build a match up without some sort of confrontation between the wrestlers, which winds up being physical four times out of five. With AEW, they are trying to focus on too many people because "Nice Guy Tony" signed so many people and doesn't want to not use anyone (especially because they're not running house shows). But even if they were two ends of the same spectrum, just because one is wrong does not make the other one automatically right. There is a happy medium somewhere in the middle.
Meltzer is biased because he liked a match that was actually quite fucking good. Grasping at straws these haters.
Either way, the argument stands, they don't do the same match over and over. TheLone made the argument for Bucks vs Lucha Bros, there have only been 4 matches with both teams involved on Dynamite, and NONE of them were actual Bucks vs Lucha Bros matches.
No one is saying that the match wasn't good. I'm saying that other than Dave, no one else went near ****3/4. And hey, we all have our matches like that. I'm the only person I've seen who went anywhere near the 10/10 I gave the women's title three-way at Clash of Champions 2016. But I explained my reasoning. Dave put in the same thing he usually writes and had no explanation for why this was any different to him than any other match between two big-name high flyers.

I'm not saying your numbers about Bucks vs. Lucha Bros. are wrong. I'm saying that you're wrong in portraying this as two ends of the same spectrum.

cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48 I kinda think that WWE's repetitive matches being compared to AEW's clogged roster is not fair, they're not the same thing, but we can definitely consider that both promotions have clogged rosters (one does have double the air time), but one promotion has manage to make their matches less repetitive without firing anyone for 'not having anything to do with them'.
WWE has double the overall airtime, but the roster split means that they don't actually have double the time to feature everyone. AEW's ratio of wrestlers to TV time if a lot higher than WWE's.

I see what you're saying things being clogged, and I think we're looking at it from different angles. With WWE the roster is "clogged" in that they do so much with the same people that others can't make TV. In AEW, it's "clogged" in that they are trying to feature so many people that people disappear from TV for months at a time and it hurts the storytelling and the audience's ability to get invested in the characters.

cero2k wrote: Apr 16th, '21, 11:48
Big Red Machine wrote: Apr 15th, '21, 23:21 You yourself said earlier that they haven't used a lot of these people in months (sometimes over a year!). What other definition of "we have nothing for you" is there?
They have a lot of people they haven't used, some in years and not been fired. These were budget cuts, we all know it
There is nothing wrong with budget cuts. People used to say it was ridiculous that WWE had people under contract for years and didn't do anything with them (JTG being the premier example). In most promotions, the idea would be either use someone or cut them. If you want to criticize WWE for letting people go during an economically tumultuous time because they're a greedy corporate monster then that's fine... but then you also have to acknowledge that WWE has paid A LOT of people A LOT of money for doing very little work when the greedy corporate monster thing to do would have been to cut those people a long time ago. If you want to look at WWE through the "are they a greedy corporation" lens, you have to consider all of the evidence, both negative and positive.
I don’t have much to say on this topic but, I think they were being greedy by keeping people and not using them, not because it was making them money, but because they were denying other promotions those people. Like a greedy kid in the toy box, no one else can have them, even if they’re not using them.

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