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American Dragon

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Laparkafan said:
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It's a nothing burger. Paramount will be making the decision about AEW's media rights, not WBD. No s*it, Paramount just agreed to buy WBD, of course they will be the ones making the decision. Literally nothing in that is actual news.

Also, the original source - Nick LoPiccolo - for that guys article is someone who is more biased against AEW than I am biased against WWE. His source got fired from the talent agency he was an agent for because he can’t stop crashing out about AEW on Twitter.

And the guy that wrote the article is a WWE mark. The only other time he has written an article involving AEW was when that LoPiccolo guy accused Tony Khan for getting him fired.
 
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American Dragon

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Laparkafan said:
Be careful dragon

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I use my real name on there and my name is so common and unoriginal that I'm virtually ungoogleable. So good luck with that. I know several other people just within my own city that have the same name as me.
 
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American Dragon

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billCgmx_ said:
Cody wrestled 72 matches in his entire AEW career but wrestled in 113 matches for WWE in the 2004 alone. Punk wrestled 33 times in his AEW run but wrestled 38 times for WWE last year. It looks like AEW would be the easier workload since they don't have house shows.
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WWE has basically gotten rid of house shows. They do one tour a year in the US and then do one when they go to Europe.

Cody worked 36 matches last year. H's at 17 this year.

Punk worked 38 matches last year. He's at 12 this year. He's had two matches total from February to today.
 
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American Dragon

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Nightwish said:
Yeah, not sure what Dragon is saying there. Weeks before Punk won the title, he posted an image of a skeleton with the caption "clickity clack" and said that's him after seeing his new schedule. Not everyone turns into Reigns or Brock at the top and I give those guys slack. Both paid their dues, started in developmental, actually move the needle, and one of them is a cancer survivor and spent years on every show. Guys like Punk and Cody are all over the place doing PR and showing up early. Most of the time Cody is showing up hours before SD at a Kroger and meeting fans. I know Knight wrestled an insane amount last year and Priest I think the year before.

On the above tweet, I think "Self Made" is an AEW mark. He says TKO "tried to force" New Day into a new contract. Anyone wanna tell me how that works? Did someone hold Kofi and Woods down by force and they escaped TKO's evil lair? TKO made an offer, New Day declined said offer. No one forced anyone to do anything. Good lord.
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Ibou is a CM Punk mark above anything else. Back a couple years ago he said AEW should be a PPV only company because the TV was that bad in his opinion. His favorite promotion in wrestling right now is New Japan.
 
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American Dragon

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billCgmx_ said:
Wrestlers need options and this is why there needs to be more than just one or two major promotions.

Some fans were happy when WCW closed its doors but was the overall product better when WWE pretty much ran without much competition?
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Pretty much impossible for a legit third to ever come around with as much as WWE has crowded out the tv market with exclusivity clauses. No one with the money to invest in making a legit third company is going to do it.

AEW had a very small window to work with to be viable and even then it was a confluence of a whole bunch of things coming together all at once that’s likely never going to happen again.

And now the barriers to entry are more massive than it’s ever been, most especially because of media consolidation and WWE spreading themselves out all over the place to limit options for everyone else.

AEW’s existence as a viable #2 basically eliminates the biggest major factor that allowed for the rise of AEW - the TV wrestling product in 2018 was garbage and had been for years. Ever since AEW started, there’s always been at least one tv wrestling product producing good tv.

Let’s say all the other conditions are ripe for a #3 to come along, what are the chances both AEW and WWE are going to be considered widely garbage for a long enough period of time for enough desire for a #3 to become a realistic possibility?
 
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Laparkafan

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American Dragon said:
Pretty much impossible for a legit third to ever come around with as much as WWE has crowded out the tv market with exclusivity clauses. No one with the money to invest in making a legit third company is going to do it.

AEW had a very small window to work with to be viable and even then it was a confluence of a whole bunch of things coming together all at once that’s likely never going to happen again.

And now the barriers to entry are more massive than it’s ever been, most especially because of media consolidation and WWE spreading themselves out all over the place to limit options for everyone else.

AEW’s existence as a viable #2 basically eliminates the biggest major factor that allowed for the rise of AEW - the TV wrestling product in 2018 was garbage and had been for years. Ever since AEW started, there’s always been at least one tv wrestling product producing good tv.

Let’s say all the other conditions are ripe for a #3 to come along, what are the chances both AEW and WWE are going to be considered widely garbage for a long enough period of time for enough desire for a #3 to become a realistic possibility?
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New Japan tried a quasi American expansion but once their talent got raided (wwe/omega and bucks joining AEW) it ended quickly.
 
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American Dragon

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Laparkafan said:
New Japan tried a quasi American expansion but once their talent got raided (wwe/omega and bucks joining AEW) it ended quickly.
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Everything about it was ill conceived, though partly in hindsight

Timing ended up being terrible - they got it started not long before the pandemic.

People joke about how many New Japan talent, specifically the Japanese talent, treat American shows as a vacation because they don’t put in much effort during matches. Okada and Naito were the worst offenders. You never got Best in the World Okada when he did NJPW USA show, you got House Show Okada. Which is another derogatory term that came about for Okada because Okada would often get booked in multi-man matches on their equivalent of house shows (though not the same because everything is canon in NJPW) and not put in much of an effort.

Talent raids didn’t help either, but that was only part of the problem with talent. After a while they stopped sending or only sparingly sending a lot of the major NJPW talent because a lot of them didn't want to work in the USA to begin with. Who wants to watch shows centered around midcarders, low midcarders, and generic New Japan Dojo Young Boys from the west? Ever looked at a card from their USA PPVs from the last 2-3 years? It's no ideal, STARDOM and big name AEW talent are almost the biggest draw on them anymore.

New Japan USA PPV production values are terrible. I can't imagine the weekly show was any better.
 
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American Dragon

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Odd how he brings up memorable math and not memorable story or promo seeing as how that’s what WWE prioritizes.

But Booker saying the same thing I was. Been around for a while and not a top star? Prepare to get replaced by someone younger (and cheaper).

That’s the kind of environment that can create resentment of upcoming talent. Hopefully it has the positive effect instead and gets people motivated to get their act together.

And he has a valid point though. Look at how good business was even with Roman out of the picture for so long. Why should anyone, even a top star for that matter, feel safe if business thrives without arguably their top active wrestler? That kind of mentality is why UFC is in the shape it’s in today.

 
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American Dragon

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Imagine paying two execs a combined $100 million (along with benefits and stock) and telling a wrestler likely making under $5 million a year with no benefits that they have to take a pay cut. That should be a federal crime.
 
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American Dragon

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And that wrestler should be named and shamed publicly. They are screwing it up for everyone. If they come to you and you don’t take a pay cut, they’ll likely bury you in catering or get rid of you because this star did it, so now everyone else has to, especially if they are lower on the card.

This wrestler every bit as stupid as the fans that want to complain then go buy tickets to PPVs to chant complaints in the post show.

TKO execs laughing like a movie mob boss at the stupidity of these people.
 
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American Dragon

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How long until we hear stories about WWE wrestlers on food stamps like what Endeavour has done to their UFC fighters?
 
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American Dragon

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300% raises for execs but the ones performing the entertainment people pay to watch got to take pay cuts while having to pay for their own insurance, travel, hotels, etc.

 
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American Dragon

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Laparkafan said:
My guess would be LA knight
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I’ve seen most people speculating Bayley. Which is a very good pick and would have been my first choice for sure, but she just doesn’t seem like a heavily pushed wrestler anymore.

Dave is saying it’s not a top person though. So Bayley fits that billing. So yeah her would be my betting favorite now.

But imagine being Bayley and going on Twitter and seeing all these people speculate that she’s the loser that took the pay cut.

She’s such a gigantic pushover that it would be zero surprise to find out she agreed to it. If you told me they came to her with an offer of a 25% pay cut and she told them why not 50%, I would believe it because of just how massive of a pushover she comes across as.
 
TheApostleSaulSmith

TheApostleSaulSmith

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Laparkafan said:
My guess would be LA knight
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What’s their beef with him? He seems like a guy they’d push to the moon and they need to mix up their main event scene. I know he’s a little on the old side, but why is that such a detriment in today’s industry? They could do a lot with him as champ imo
 
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Laparkafan

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American Dragon said:
I’ve seen most people speculating Bayley. Which is a very good pick and would have been my first choice for sure, but she just doesn’t seem like a heavily pushed wrestler anymore.

Dave is saying it’s not a top person though. So Bayley fits that billing. So yeah her would be my betting favorite now.

But imagine being Bayley and going on Twitter and seeing all these people speculate that she’s the loser that took the pay cut.

She’s such a gigantic pushover that it would be zero surprise to find out she agreed to it. If you told me they came to her with an offer of a 25% pay cut and she told them why not 50%, I would believe it because of just how massive of a pushover she comes across as.
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Could he maybe that’s why she’s doing aaa now
 
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Laparkafan

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TheApostleSaulSmith said:
What’s their beef with him? He seems like a guy they’d push to the moon and they need to mix up their main event scene. I know he’s a little on the old side, but why is that such a detriment in today’s industry? They could do a lot with him as champ imo
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Think he had a couple botches in big spots so they kinda soured on him.
 
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Laparkafan

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GeraldV said:
I know it will never happen but this TKO contract story makes me wish that the wrestlers would stop with this independent contractor ******** and unionize.
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Ya how does that happen! Does AEW offer insurance? Only way it’d work is if punk/cody/roman collaborate on it.
 
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GeraldV

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Laparkafan said:
Ya how does that happen! Does AEW offer insurance? Only way it’d work is if punk/cody/roman collaborate on it.
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No clue but I would hope AEW would do it as well. If Mox, Swerve and Ospreay would step up too, there would be a lot of momentum in both places.
 
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American Dragon

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So piecing together all the reports I’ve seen on the person who took a 50% paycut…
  1. The person is heavily pushed - meaning not someone on the sidelines or jobbing right now
  2. They are not a top star - mid to upper midcarder
  3. They were formerly at a higher level than they are now - this means that it’s a veteran who is lower on the card now and is likely on the backside of their career
  4. They would get paid a lot by AEW - this qualifier eliminates more people than anyone else, IMO
  5. It’s a man
I’m going with Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Chad Gable, and Damian Priest.

Maybe LA Knight and Nakamura. And I think those two are a stretch.

I don’t think there is really anyone else who fits all that criteria.
 
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