It always sucks talking about people losing their jobs. We have to remember these people are real human beings and losing your job is one of the worst things that anybody can go through. Although sometimes we lose sight of this because we keep talking about the characters, but remember just because somebody is playing Professor Wall Face. There is a real person behind that character with very real feelings and very real emotions. It only takes a couple of seconds to go “ah I should think about those they’re probably having a pretty bad time.
WWE continues to release wrestlers
As such the most recent round of WWE releases was absolutely horrible to see. But once again it was just so surprising. Take somebody like Hit Row, who has only been on the main roster for about three weeks and I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t really get that thing they did with Sami Zayn. And I really didn’t get what they did with Jinder Mahal.
But it wasn’t their fault. They were just listening to the powers that be and doing as they were told. But whereas what used to happen with NXT call-ups, that you would get to Raw or Smackdown. You would be given three weeks and then you would totally vanish. Now you’re getting kicked out of the company for good. I cannot get around it and this is even before we started talking about John Morrison when he was brought back a few years ago.
You had a ready-made main event I mean he left WWE and he had gathered so much experience and he head come back an even better performer. But for some reason, WWE decided “well we think the best fit for you is to put you where you were in 2011 and stick you with the miss. This was totally fine for a short while. They have great chemistry together, but JoMo should have broken off and gone after the world title.
Not only would I have been totally cool with that, but I would have totally believed it and the worst part about all of this is that one we had seen it before. But also as soon as the Miz left to go and smash it somewhere else, Morrison was told you have to be this weird hippie yoga guy. Now and when that didn’t work, he was also released. I mean what else was he meant to do and there are others of course.
Vince McMahon focused on the money
When you take a step back and look at it, it kind of feels like they were set up to fail. So what are the reasons for these releases? Well, right now the old rumor is that WWE is trying to sell the company is back in play. There’s every chance that it’s true. Perhaps Nick Khan and Vince McMahon have sat down and gone “when someone signs on the dotted line, we need to make sure we’re as profitable as possible so we can walk away with a bag of cash. But that would be the long-term goal if it is indeed real. But we’re talking about the here and now.
I kind of think the answer is staring this right in the face because as of November 2021, WWE is making more money than ever. Don’t worry about the attitude era or where Hulk Hogan was on top of the world. Every time they have one of their quarterly financial meetings, they are breaking records all over the place. Because again money is just flowing in. I don’t know what a huge part of this is television rights. I mean do not forget that over the last few years, WWE signed a deal to make a billion dollars for Raw.
They signed another deal to make a billion dollars for Smackdown and more recently they signed a third deal to make a billion dollars from the WWE Network, and those numbers are insane. But it’s also resulted in a change of programming because no longer are pay-per-views to be-all and end-all. Monday and Friday nights are where the worth is I suppose. So that’s where they’re trying to chuck the most eyeballs. What this has also meant is that WWE has shifted away from being a promoter into a content creator.
And you can indeed see that when you do indeed watch the product I mean take the build for survivor series that hasn’t
been very stellar at all because of course WWE has been focusing on their raw and smackdown feuds for example Seth
Rollins, Big E, Kevin Owens, and over on the smackdown side they’ve been much more interested in charlotte flair versus tony storm, and then after the fact they go oh yeah and there’s a thing on Peacock or the WWE network and if you want to watch it fine but what we’d much rather you do is you come back 24 hours later and you turn on your tv and while in no way does this justify dropping employees from nowhere it has moved WWE to a place where they think it’s fine whereas before they wanted to hire wrestlers to stop them going from elsewhere now they just look at their checkbook and go well they’re making a
bunch anyway what does it matter to us.
Focus goes from stars to dollar signs
So really what you can break this down to is that it’s no longer about stars it’s about revenue and this is something that Vince McMahon has been trying to achieve for ages because you can go back in time and hear these words coming from his mouth where he wanted the initials WWE to be the drawing card and then he doesn’t have to worry on any specific person so this has absolutely come to fruition.
While i would personally say it hasn’t helped the product that much, it has helped the back end charging. I regret doing the touching I want to make it clear that I do not agree with this approach at all. But if you have decided that all you need is WWE then every single other performer other than maybe roman reigns Brock Lesnar and John Cena could legitimately be let go and that is just stupid. It’s an absolutely silly thing to say but look at some of the names that have already gone and all of a sudden those gears and your brain start turning. And I know that there’s also this crazy conspiracy theory out there as well the WWE are doing this so the AEW hires too much talent and eventually bankrupt itself but I hate the fact I even brought that up. I mean let’s say it’s true, let’s say that’s what they’re planning do you think Tony Khan is that bad at his job
he can’t manage his books. Here’s a little news flash for you he’s exceptionally good at his job and he absolutely knows how to balance his books. And really all that matters is that this sucks.
Talent is there they just need a kick in the rear
I don’t want to see people be fired. I want to see people have a fire lit under their ass and say hey you’re a talented person, go out there and show us what you can do and if somebody doesn’t get over in a month, you give them time to get over because it takes more than flipping four weeks and they are all talented cats and I know they all land on their feet.
But what really gets me is this probably isn’t the last time we’re gonna talk about it because once more look at the last 12 months you just never know and there’s a chance I could but I really do think it comes down to this whole idea that WWE is the draw so anybody that works for WWE well we’ve already talked about it and actually this kind of goes back to when Brock Lesnar left the company in 2004 or whenever the hell it was.
WWE tv deals leading to more money
Because McMahon had invested so much time in him that when he did turn around and went Nah brah I don’t want to do this anymore. I guess he felt hurt and so actually went out of his way to completely change the structure that had brought him so much success I mean it also happened with the Rock when he went to Hollywood, it happened with Batista because Jericho did it a few times and I just think it chipped away his armor to the point we’ve ended up here once again without wanting to repeat myself I don’t necessarily think it results in better television because pro wrestling when you break it right down is all about stars.
The other point we should make here is that when it does get to 2025 and WWE has to renegotiate these television deals they’re probably actually gonna get more money too I know you see the metrics every week and you think you’re going down but when you actually, compare them to everything else they’re quite stable. Which probably does mean yes finances go up even further. Who the hell even knows what that means and on the off chance any of the release wrestlers are reading this I just want to double down and say look you will absolutely kick-ass you are absolutely brilliant at what you do. Never forget
you did make it to the tippy top and that’s where you shall stay. And I’m very much looking forward to see what you are going to do down the line.
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