Originally Posted by Lock Jaw (Post 5359832)

Did he shave his stache for that video in an effort to not appear completely a sleazeball?

Originally Posted by Lock Jaw (Post 5359832)

Did he shave his stache for that video in an effort to not appear completely a sleazeball?

Originally Posted by Damian Rey 2.0 (Post 5359848)

Thought the same thing

Originally Posted by Emperor Smeat (Post 5357956)

Apparently someone from NXT recently got a quiet call-up to the main roster.

Considering she barely did anything of note in NXT, doubt her fortunes are going to change on the main roster.

Like her pairing with Aliyah was arguably the most notable thing she did in NXT and that got abruptly dropped after a while.

Originally Posted by Fightful

Fightful Select has learned that Vanessa Borne has been called up to the main roster, but there's more than meets the eye.

Fightful was told that Borne was actually called up as far back as January or February, which explains why she hasn't appeared on NXT at all since then. However, she's still not made her main roster debut.

Borne has been awaiting her debut, but moved, and hasn't been flown back in regularly since then. Borne's situation was compared to that of Riddick Moss, who had a deal coming up, and then was promoted to the main roster upon re-signing.

Since all this has unfolded, there have been major shifts in WWE, and we aren't sure of her status as of now or where she was to land.

Since running this story, we've been told that there haven't been any firm creative plans along the way for her. Chelsea Green and Dominik Dijakovic were both reportedly called up, but haven't appeared on the main roster yet, either. Dijakovic has since returned to NXT.

Originally Posted by PWI

WWE was slated to begin taping tonight's episode of Raw at 1 PM but as of this writing at 2:06 PM EST, still have yet to begin taping any content at the WWE Performance Center.

PWInsider.com is told the company is deep into re-working their original plans for today's taping. There is a belief among some we have spoken to that the re-writes are due to talents originally written into the show no longer being available to perform but PWInsider.com has been unable to 100% verify that is correct. It is entirely possible the poor reaction to Extreme Rules led to changes in direction. The show received one of the worst post-show poll responses in recent memory here on the site.

WWE is slated to tape tonight's episode as well as next week's episodes of Monday Night Raw and Raw Talk as well as Main Event episodes today.

Originally Posted by Fignuts (Post 5360553)

The Boom periods were always because of cultural movements that wrestling could easily take advantage of.

Originally Posted by Tom Guycott (Post 5360559)

That same argument could be applied to the "Ryder Revolution". Whatever your feelings about him were/are, he was mad over and did it himself at essentially the dawn of social media. He was the right guy in the right place at the right time, and WWE just said "nah".

I will always liken it to an alternate timeline where Austin cut his infamous Austin 3:16 promo, and then in spite of all of the crowd signs and subsequent pops, Vince just wasn't feeling it, and didn't capitalize with the shirts and a push. Instead, he just randomly shows up in backstage segments at catering and does the occasional job on Jakked/Metal/Shotgun.

They were stubborn on getting behind a guy they saw little value in, and then almost insultingly, tried to use what he did to create their own less successful knockoff and back their own social media platform just a tad too late on that party. Basically, they dropped the ball twice there.

Originally Posted by Mr. Nerfect (Post 5360562)

Zack Ryder was shit though.

Originally Posted by Emperor Smeat (Post 5360558)

Could make a very strong case that there should have been a boom in the mid-2000s and the reason it didn't happen was due to Vince and WWE's stubbornness over adapting to what was causing it.

When Spike TV bought the tv rights to RAW, they used WWE's high profile at the time to help boost the profile of their smaller UFC property under the correct assumption that wrestling fans could become MMA fans as well.

Once that plan started to bear fruit and UFC took off in mainstream popularity, Vince and WWE failed to both recognize and latch onto it since they saw MMA as nothing more than a fad. The failure of doing that ended up leading to a big shift of wrestling fans moving away from wrestling and into MMA with the repercussions of it lasting to this day.

Within wrestling, ROH guessed right that the future of wrestling would shift more towards work rate for popularity but because they never could seriously challenge WWE, only way a new boom would actually happen is if WWE also recognized it. WWE failed to do so because of Vince's stubbornness over adapting to the changing wind in wrestling post-Attitude Era.

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito (Post 5360664)

I tell you what moment in WWE history I'm surprised doesn't ever get mentioned.

That time when Rikishi did a full-on diving splash from the top of a steel cage onto Val Venis at Fully Loaded 2000. That shit was insane.

Originally Posted by WrestleTalk

To put it bluntly, the ratings for episodes of Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown have taken a pretty hard hit during the Coronavirus pandemic. For example, last week’s Raw drew the lowest rating in the show’s history.

When WWE announced that Big Show vs. Randy Orton would be taking place on Raw last night and not at Extreme Rules, it was reported that this was in an attempt to boost viewership for the show.

As such, many people speculated that Vince McMahon would be incredibly unhappy with the falling TV ratings. However, a recent report indicates that, interestingly, that’s not the case.

WrestlingNews.co is reporting that Vince McMahon is not worried by the falling WWE TV ratings, and reportedly neither are the USA Network and FOX. Here’s what the site said on the matter:

“While some people in the people worry that the numbers could continue to drop, Vince McMahon has shrugged off the low numbers. WrestlingNews.co was told that McMahon feels that the numbers will get back over 2 million viewers after SummerSlam because he believes that fans will be back at shows by September.

“A WWE source said, “Vince is doing what he can by putting on PPV matches on Raw and SmackDown but USA and Fox are happy and everyone knows things will get better when we can get some people back at arenas. This is what he thinks right now and he’s not sweating these numbers.”

WWE initially reportedly had plans to have fans back into shows THIS MONTH. However, those plans have obviously been postponed. It will be interesting to see if/how Vince McMahon’s response to the ratings changes if fans are not back into shows by September.

Originally Posted by WrestleTalk

However, a new report from Ringside News is suggesting that perhaps the USA Network and FOX aren’t overly pleased with the figures WWE is bringing in right now for their weekly shows.

The site is reporting that both the USA Network and FOX have ‘lost patience’ with the company, likely over the falling ratings. They also note that people within WWE are worried about declining ratings.

“While speaking to a source recently it was disclosed to us that WWE is feeling the pressure regarding their sinking ratings. “Sh*t runs downhill,” which makes for a very stressful work environment as some executives are taking frustrations out on anyone that they can under them. There is a lot of eggshell walking right now

“Ringside News has learned “the story that FOX and USA Network are okay with waiting for people to come back into arenas is bullsh*t.” It was previously thought that bringing fans back to arenas will encourage more viewers at home. We were told that they have lost patience with those low numbers.”

Here’s what Ringside News founder Steve Carrier had on say on Twitter about the report:

“We were told that stories about Fox and USA being patient with WWE are bullshit. They are not only really concerned about these ratings, but they are also worried about how the NFL will do more damage”.

It is important to note that Ringside News does say that neither FOX or the USA Network are reportedly considering dropping SmackDown or Raw respecitvely from their networks. They are just losing patience with the company.

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito (Post 5360664)

I tell you what moment in WWE history I'm surprised doesn't ever get mentioned.

That time when Rikishi did a full-on diving splash from the top of a steel cage onto Val Venis at Fully Loaded 2000. That shit was insane.

Originally Posted by Slik (Post 5360672)

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Stephanie McMahon To Speak On Systemic Racism In WWE <a href="https://t.co/qQw6LW5SGI">https://t.co/qQw6LW5SGI</a></p>&mdash; HeelByNature.com (@HeelByNatureYT) <a href="https://twitter.com/HeelByNatureYT/status/1285642929197940736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito (Post 5360664)

I tell you what moment in WWE history I'm surprised doesn't ever get mentioned.

That time when Rikishi did a full-on diving splash from the top of a steel cage onto Val Venis at Fully Loaded 2000. That shit was insane.