AEW will take a crowbar to WWE's knee.

Cody says AEW will not have writers at this time

https://www.sescoops.com/aew-not-hir...ody-interview/


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https://i.imgur.com/zXZbJdl.png

While they don't need a team of writers for the short term, they'd benefit a lot just by hiring a continuity and/or storyboard writer since that is a huge glaring weakness WWE has when it comes to their writing and long term planning post-Attitude Era.

NXT pretty much just has 1 main writer, a few people that help out the writer, and wrestlers helping pitch stuff whenever needed. NJPW follows a similar system but with 2 head writers and more priority towards long term planning. Both result in shows being a lot more focused than WWE's main roster shows where its impossible to do any real long term stuff because of Vince and continuity gets routinely ignored.

how are they going to do a show without writers, they so need to take over impact for there backstage people.

I'm a bit worried about that approach. Giving the guys working for you that much freedom and control, while not having a Vince type to definitively approve or deny stuff without question sounds very reminiscent of WCW.

it would be worse wcw had writers and bookers, now this looks like it has a money mark and spot monkeys, I want to see the tv deal.

This is how wrestling works best, guys. There’s a creative direction and guys are free to move within it within reason. Like, isn’t this what people have been craving for years? A booker and some authentic promos and organic gimmicks?

We'll see. Not saying it can't work, but that's a slippery slope.

Yes

I actually agree with Noid on this one. No writers is a good move.

WWE’s most lauded period was written by 3-4 people, not a panel of writers.

The lack of writers is fine. You don’t need them that badly. But I don’t think you can deny that part of wwe’s success was due to having a guy like Vince with the balls to tell these larger than life egos, “This is how we’re doing it, like it or not”.

Like I said, it could end up working out. But it also has dangerous potential. We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

yeah you need some not none writers. I am thinking there tv deal won't start for a while so they will wait till closer to tv till they try to get the backstage people.

There is going to be creative direction, guys. They’re looking to be a TV show. There will be bulletpoints, time restrictions and talent is not going to be able to go out there and try and literally suck their own dick as a segment. Unless Joey Ryan gets hired. This is how wrestling worked FOREVER until Vince hired a team of writers to script everything.

I’m actually kind of gobsmacked as to how many people on here are opposed to this.

The Elite showed up at Joey Ryan's promotion last night and did a bit with him to close the show, they teased signing him to AEW but joked that his release from Lucha Underground won't be granted until 2028.

He's definitely going to be part of this thing one way or another.

That’s a blow to my excitement.

Joey Ryan is entertaining imo

According to the Observer, a rumored partnership between Impact Wrestling and AEW likely won't happen any time soon or at all due to issues it could cause for a potential AEW-NJPW partnership.

Main reason is Impact is currently partnered with AAA while NJPW is partnered with CMLL and NJPW doesn't like to work with companies who have deals with or are their partner's rivals. Its a big reason why they've been hesitant on partnering with AEW since it could negatively affect ROH the most.

TNA also sucks hairy testicle sacks.

What

They do fights in forests to music videos and have lost even more of that 10% of that audience they have retained. They had Okada and made him Okato. It’s just not a product anyone can reasonably trust to be good exposure.

lol you know what I was referring to you post editing mountebank.

What

Will do

HE DID IT AGAIN

You’re losing it, Figgy.

Guys??? What time does AEW come on?

For now Monday around noon is when the next Beinv The Elite will drop. They've already started to set up stuff for Double or Nothing.

Reading between the lines:

* In Jericho's podcast he talked about Omega like he was basically AEW. Unfortunately, he talked about Ibushi like he was New Japan. It doesn't necessarily mean that things aren't being worked on and wheels aren't being greased, but if I had to guess where Ibushi goes, I'd suggest he's staying with New Japan and maybe doing guest spots with AEW, which could still be cool, but might not make him the most popular guy in New Japan.

* In JR's podcast with Jim Cornette, which seems like it was recorded a while ago, JR either misspoke or made a Freudian slip. He said "I"ve been affiliated with..." which he then corrected, but didn't edit out, to be "associated with." There have been lots of rumors and some pretty good indicators that JR is going to be doing something with them, and that's just more to stoke the fire.

* Maria's Twitter spasms seem to suggest that she Mike Bennett have been very appreciative of their time in WWE and that the internet doesn't know anything. I don't know why you would be, but that would seem to lean against them leaving. I can't say I'm disappointed by Mike Bennett not jumping ship. It is a shame about Maria in the skimpy gear again.

WWE probably paid for Bennet’s rehab, as well as whatever medical bills came from Maria’s pregnancy. All the while on paid leave.

I’d be pretty appreciative of that.

Oh yeah. You probably wouldn't tell that employer to fuck off.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Classics.<br><br>It would be cool to see a use of this game engine again, but with a modern roster. <a href="https://t.co/CqZahwldO0">https://t.co/CqZahwldO0</a></p>&mdash; Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) <a href="https://twitter.com/CodyRhodes/status/1086286579658764288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I'll be "all in" for this game if it happens.

Lol, I have a friend that hates wrestling that still busts out WCW/nWo Revenge.

Honestly, video games are a great way to get the brand out. Game shops are still frequently visited and by an increasingly wide demographic, and a game is going to be displayed and people are going to pass it like a poster every day. Game reviews that praise it are going to comment on how the wrestling itself stacks up to WWE. If you do online PPVs, you can include a code that lets you review an old PPV for free, or something.

Those WCW and WWF 1998-2000 games by THQ for N64 were great, and the first couple of Smackdown Playstation games were really good too.

And as a condition for said game, one of the AEW talent will have to use Diggity Dog as their entrance theme.

There's never ever going to be a good licensed wrestling game again. There will never ever be a college bball/fball game.

Not with that attitude.

Retro is coming back. What's old gets new again and gets called new, which fits the AEW aesthetic. They could very easily do a retro-style game that would stand-out and get a fair bit of attention. Especially considering Nintendo's next classic release is logically going to be the N64 Classic.

Fire Pro Wrestling World featuring New Japan Pro Wrestling says hello.

Yeah a game with a 20-year engine. Too sweet....not!

Dolph Ziggler is the latest guy rumored to be throwing his name into the hat. Rumors suggest he could be done with WWE and turned down a producer role with them. He tweeted "big, if true" the other day.

I'm just annoyed by him spelling his name "Nic." I might get used to it.

As much as I hate when TNA jump on ex-WWE guys etc, I'd be happy to see someone like Ziggler head to AEW and get a prominent/main event position.

Losing the 'Dolph Ziggler' moniker may hurt him a little though, since that's basically who he's been for the last ten years. But I'd still be happy for the man.

Not if he debuts in AEW under the name Zolph Diggler :shifty:

Ralph Diggler

I think losing the name and all its baggage would help him at this point.

How would constantly jobbing to the Elite like they were the second coming of the Von Erichs help him?

Why do people assume that Cody and The Bucks are going to put themselves over everybody? :lol:

Don't mind STD, he has a bit of a condition

If Vince freaked out about AEW about half as much as STD is, then it would mean great things for the industry.

If the Patriots lose in the Super Bowl, STD should change his avatar to the AEW logo.

Probably wouldn't, though.

Sasha Banks and The Revival kind of teased something on Twitter that suggested that all parties were unhappy. It's not really a surprise coming from Sasha.

Not exactly major signings, but Beretta can be pretty exciting in the ring. I guess they're more bodies for the tag division.

Dunno if anyone else has mentioned this, but they should let Jericho be the booker if they are going to have talent handle booking. The other talent should all have some kind of avenue to voice what they want to him and have it taken seriously to an extent, but he should get the final call. I think he could put on a really good show.

This seals it for me. This promotion is gonna be indyriffic at it's most cringeworthy.

Jericho is a good shout. I've thought about that myself, but he's come out and said he's got no real idea how to book. And some of his ideas have sounded pretty terrible, to be honest. Jericho knows what he is doing when it comes to positioning himself against an opponent, but he was seriously pitching him vs. Seth Rollins in an IC Title vs. IC Title program in WWE that would end in a DQ, and he said he'd put the WWE Title on Ryback. I know some people here are going to love that, but eh.

Seems like Jericho would be must better served as a guy to sit in on production meetings, offer his two cents, help guys develop in the ring and maybe agent some matches. As far as bookers go, I wouldn't mind JR getting a proper shot at actually booking. The guy's got so much experience and what he wants sounds pretty logical, but he seems to give guys a chance to present themselves even if he doesn't always like their style. If he's going to be on commentary, him knowing where he wants stories to go and who he really wants to get over would definitely help with the overall tightness of the presentation.

I'm also not against guys rotating as booker. There's no reason you can't have JR get a shot doing it for six months, then move onto someone like Jericho, and then Cody, then maybe back to JR, then to The Bucks or even Khan. If guys know what their start and end date with the book is going to be, they can tell deliberate arcs that last a certain time and maybe pass on some angles to other guys. JR can be a mentor to guys who get the book, as a perpetual assistant booker, or something like that.

Welcome to the Resistance. :lol:

We get it. You’re not interested in AEW. So get the fuck out of the thread.

I personally like the idea of Cody taking the majority of booking responibilites but I do think it will be a team effort. It's said Cody is in charge of singles, Bucks the tags, and Brandi the women, with Tony as the big boss role. So I think having a final say filter who has subscribed to the observer and sent in results for years is a positive thing. At least for me, a fan of the same ilk as Khan.

Just asked Tony on Twitter if he ever played TEW/EWR. Will report if he responds.

Nope. Fuck you.

STD loves WWE so much, he has to come in and shit on anyone who enjoys other rasslin promotions - even if they aren't "official" yet.

It's very strange.

Yep. Honestly I feel sorry for him because he has no self awareness of how ridiculous he sounds.

The only ridiculousness is the overhype of the company.

But why do you care so much that people are excited? You don't have to watch it, spend money on it, or even read about it. You can just keep scrolling past the thread. I've been doing it for weeks.

Because if it is overhyped and under-delivers the next company that tries it will fail. I don't like these idiots and who associate with garbage wrestlers like Joey Ryan and Chuck Taylor.

STD be like:

https://i.imgflip.com/2s5vh0.jpg

lmao!

So because you think it might fail, you have to let everyone know how much you hate it instead of just letting people be excited about a new thing.

Seen too many "dey gonna compete against WWE"'s fail.

Even if your only perspective is that you love WWE and always have done, you should be rooting for this company and supporting any type of competition. It is the lack of competition that has enabled WWE to hoover up too much talent and not put any effort into their mundane, boring TV.

Even if it just forces them to think about people on the roster who are unhappy, it’s a good thing

Did you know all of your favourite NXT wrestlers have willingly been involved in a dick flip, grenade and / or thumb up the butt spot? Many even consider Chuck Taylor and Joey Ryan to be good friends. Are you still going to watch NXT?

AEW is already making millions baby!

I personally don’t mind STD coming into the thread and speaking his honest feelings, but that style of criticism is just unreasonable. It’s very easy to see how different a company with potentially hundreds of millions in capital is different to GFW, TNA or whatever life Corgan has tried to breathe into the NWA. “They’re going to fail because people are excited” is silly too. That there is excitement is a good thing.

The current NXT Champion put his thumb in the bum of Jushin Liger

When HHH basically lets them do their thing it's at least interesting

Feel if NJPW ends up ditching ROH, its going to happen by next year's Wrestle Kingdom. Probably by World Tag league unless ROH forces them to make a decision sooner.

Right now, ROH still holds a lot of value due to their upcoming G1 Supercard show and having enough notable talent to help fill in the Super Jrs and G1 tournaments.

I'm not sure where I see New Japan ending up. I do think that TV deal is going to be a major factor in what they do. If they feel like their guys are going to get way more exposure with AEW, they are going to mend fences there. But I think they are going to show ROH (and Sinclair) as much loyalty as possible.

Part of me wants to see them try and keep things going with ROH for as long as possible, because there are some talents in ROH that could develop through that relationship. When you take the top AEW talent and put them back in New Japan, it kind of top heavies the card too. Well, I'm talking about Omega and Jericho (and Jericho's probably going to work with them anyway). I'd like to see New Japan try and get guys like Jeff Cobb and The Briscoes a bit more notoriety (although The Briscoes are probably as familiar as they are), and then next cycle it can be interesting to see what New Japan/ROH/AEW does and what moves they make.

The thing I found interesting was NJPW didn't have a ROH title match on the card for this year's Wrestle Kingdom and instead went with the RevPro title match. They didn't have one last year either but that was due to storyline reasons in ROH.

Even in terms of reps, ROH had just Jeff Cobb since The Elite no longer counted.

No way will NJPW discard their ROH relationship for the same with AEW. ROH just saved NJPW’s American tour, ROH GOT NJPW American exposure, booked at MSG. Plus even without The Bucks, SCU, and Omega, ROH has tons of talent that could be of value to NJPW. ROH is one of the longer reigning promotions in the country and has more than solid financial backing. I can see AEW working with NJPW in the future as Harold said but it won’t affect the ROH relationship which by the way is a three way dance with CMLL.

Meltzer confirmed on the Wrestling Observer messageboard that AEW will likely have a full-time roster of around 30, not including people with short-term deals or deals with other companies (like OWE, I assume).

I could see it happening but only if ROH plays hardball on being associated with AEW since they likely are going to be direct rivals in the US. If NJPW does open up their partnerships to include more than 1 per region, that could cause some potential issues to pop up.

Right now, ROH is the safer option of the two since ROH is a known quantity and AEW is still in the planning stages. A year from now, its possible that might not be the case and AEW ends up being the better option in terms of future benefits and roster, especially if ROH ends up losing Bandido, Dragon Lee, and anyone else who only signed a 1 year deal there. If AEW ends up being successful early on, that could open up the valuable Chinese market for NJPW via OWE.

:y:

That's basically it. I don't think they're going to say "see ya" to ROH maliciously, and everything Jordan X said about that relationship thus far is true (way too many people on the internet don't credit Sinclair hard enough for getting that MSG date for them). That being said, if AEW is going to be much more "active" in the marketplace, especially if that television has got a lot more penetration, then in time those AEW and ROH ties might weaken if Sinclair doesn't start throwing more money in and start getting those New Japan guys the same level of exposure.

AEW!
AEW!
AEW!
AEW!
AEW!


!:wave:

Meltzer is reporting that Paul Heyman is negotiating Brock's latest deal, and that AEW is actually a contender, along with the usual suspects in WWE and the UFC. Interesting times.

Between the rumors of Vince willing to do anything to keep Lesnar and his current contract rumored to be somewhere around $6 million, would not be surprised at all if Lesnar's next WWE contract hits closer to Wrestlemania gate level money.

Last year's Mania made around $14 million for its gate.

Sounds fishy to me that Heyman would negotiate anything for Brock 'irl'. Wouldn't Brock's agent do that, not his fictional manager on WWE television?

I hope Brock goes elsewhere tbh. I'm tired of the only showing up every 3 months schtick and as long as he's around he will either be champion or in the hunt and I'm just over that.

Also agree with Slik that Heyman negotiating seems fishy. Also isn't he pretty much guaranteed to go to UFC? I thought he was going to fight Cormier and that it was on the table for him to compete in UFC and WWE? What happened to all that.

And while Brock would be a huge signing for AEW, I don't wish that on them. You know he will want the same limited schedule, which would honestly probably work better there in the early stages, but then they'll just end up with the same shitty Brock that WWE has had for the last few years. Feel like he would end up boring people away from the product and probably back to a suddenly Brockless WWE with a fresh title program.

I think Paul actually does serve as some sort of "advisor" to Brock. I think he's helped negotiate book deals and stuff with the UFC before. I can't be entirely sure of that, but I'm sure I've read something along those lines. He's like what Paul Ellering was to the Road Warriors.

Brock is so fucking amazing. He's one of the best workers in the industry right now, and the reason he works so few dates is because he is good enough to call his shots -- and that goes into helping him feel special anyway.

You see people on the internet talking about who the "Face of the Company" is going to be. It's Brock. It's been Brock since he beat Undertaker in 2014. He appears on television probably more frequently than Hulk Hogan did. He defended the Universal Title more than Okada did during his first reign. We have a modern western perspective on how Brock is used, and we're a bit spoilt, but Vince has actually shown great restraint in not blowing the Brock Lesnar TV match yet. He's got firm plans with Lesnar.

He's also a big name. He resonates in that way that a real sports star does. If AEW are trying to secure themselves TV, PPV, merchandising, action figure and video game deals, then having Brock Lesnar on your payroll is a great start. People are going to take you legitimately. He can pummel Cody, have a match with Jericho, possibly do something with Goldberg, have a fresh thing with Omega and if they get Punk there's that. That's 5+ PPV caliber matches. Plus, then you get Heyman.

Heyman could provide excellent commentary, some great creative insights, cut some phenomenal promos and would generally be a welcome addition to any promotion. Honestly, the fishiest thing about the tease here, is that I thought Heyman was under WWE contract. But maybe there's some sort of "Brock out" opt out clause. If Brock leaves Heyman gets to renegotiate. Or maybe he just timed it so they could leave together?

Re: UFC: I thought that was the go too, but I read that Brock had not paid a fine to allow his suspension to be lifted for failing that drug test. I imagine it was just hype to leverage a better WWE deal or create UFC hype for Dana. Cormier also took another fight, and I heard he was hurt, so it's possible that they just went another direction and putting him against Brock, while blockbuster, was just something they didn't want to either blow right now or risk Brock winning against a hurt and exhausted Cormier.

Based on the stories about the two, he pretty much is a real agent for Lesnar. Think he also helped out the last time Lesnar had contract talks.

Shinsuke Nakamura posted something interesting on his Twitter on January 29. It simply says "WCW"

NXT spoilers:

He is the guy I could see making the jump and having the biggest splash. I know some people disagree, but to me that dude is a top level star. With how WWE has booked him he should be out the door the second he can.

Nakamura is excellent. He’s adapted to a much different style for the most travel he’s ever had to do. Things would be different in an AEW. I do think WWE took care of him in their own way, but Nakamura really doesn’t owe it to them to stay.

I heard that Fenix and Pentagon have signed with AEW.

Good signings.