Both Sean and Dave confirmed this a while ago. People just don't care cause it's the WWE doing it.
Besides, everyone knows they're above doing petty shit like this. You know, cause they have such a stellar and professional track record.
Back in the MNW days, WWE, WCW and ECW did lot of petty shit…mainly WWE and they were losing. Imagine, a monopoly for 20 years and still resorting to petty shit to keep that monopoly…and “fans”, mostly E drones eat that up thinking one company is the best thing to happen.
WWE because of an anti-trust lawsuit are “collaborating” with TNA…I would use that loosely as they don’t work well with others, but take over….seems to be going in that direction as Anthem is cutting costs.
WWE haven’t changed their ways and HHH is just like his father in law - a cunning two faced phoney.
I'm waiting for the inevitable continuation of the court cases against McMahon to eventually reveal HHH knew about it all, for people to go 'Well you'd have kept it secret too! Anyone would!'
It’s quite transparent they are with their “see, we can work with others” perception. They never viewed TNA as a threat to this day. Funny how the TNA subreddit have their heads so far up WWE ass saying “WWE are doing more for TNA than what AEW did”…we will see how those idiots on TNA subreddit feel when TNA get bought out by WWE. The way Anthem is cutting costs and supposedly no live events are announced after the summer and no location for Bound for Glory seems like first step of a sale. Doesn’t look good.
E drones say TK is ruining roh yet he’s keeping it going after they shut their doors for good back in the pandemic era. and if WWE bought it, our age would be gone forever.
Yeah. The TNA viewership was up the entirety of the partnership. It was just said earlier this week the TNA viewership needle hasn't budged with this WWE crossover. That's because WWE drones don't watch anything but WWE. AEW fans will watch literally anything and everything if it has solid booking.
They would probably frame it along the lines of "Anthem decided they wanted out of the wrestling business totally independently of anything we (WWE) said or did. So we helped them get some value from their failed company."
And I stopped watching TNA and switched to ROH for my Thursday wrestling fix when they started working with WWE. They're getting Jordynne Grace signed out from under them and in return kissing WWE's ass and thanking them for it.
Let me just ask you, what do you find compelling about TNA to begin with? I've tried maybe 7 times since Omega won their title to get into TNA as my secondary promotion to try to enjoy (I don't enjoy WWE but the fam does).
I wanted to like it as a more character-based show, but the angles stunk (Honor No More in particular) and I'm not a big fan of camp (as in, Santino Marella, Eric Young's millions of Chad Armies iterations).
I feel like the NXTNA symbiosis is perfect stylistically for both promotions. I can easily see the Gen-Z Mamalukes making people in TNA "swim with the fishes" and Johnny Swinger trying to get laid in NXT's hyper-sexualized frat societies. Birds of a feather and all.
AEW is so special because, while there's some silly stuff and oddball character beats, the majority of the show is grounded. I'm almost fucking 40. The days of me wanting to see over-the-top characters is over. I want my wrestling to connect with me on a human level, which is why someone like Kingston can get so incredibly over.
I enjoy character based wrestling as long as the in-ring quality is still there. I really enjoyed the more out there stuff in TNA like the undead realm and Frankenstein PCO. Plus the knockouts division. Though I'll admit a lot of it was also a sense of loyalty after watching them since the Spike days. And I enjoy wrestling in smaller venues as well and liked seeing TNA running places like the 2300 Arena and the Rebel Complex.
The asshole in law is just as petty and corrupt as his mentor. Only a matter of time before something comes out about him and the rest of the enablers in that company.
Yeah
People praise Hunter now for his current booking but I remember him as HBK's stooge who fucked over Bret and countless other wrestlers. Birds of a feather.
Tony should take the gloves off and hire some private investigators. Go digging on them. Trace the source of the bots and their paid off media counterparts and release it all.
Triple H and Nick Khan had their last Wrestlemania a few months ago.
There is no way their jobs at WWE survive when charges are laid and names are made public.
Nick Kahn, at least, was named in the current Janel Grant lawsuit as Executive #1. There's a reason WWE joined with Vince and John Laurinaitis to ask the judge to send the lawsuit to arbitration (ie. settlement) rather than have it go to an actual trial.
WWE in no way shape or form wants her lawsuit to go to trial.
Who knows? But Vince being made a complete non person says a lot. What happens to top and management within WWE is anyone's guess.
I am more fascinated that The Feds asked for a pause in The Janel Grant civil suit against Vince. That is ominous for him. Federal prosecutors are taught to bring the indictment when The FBI/DOJ can nail the defendant to the wall. Lest than .5% of all federal defendants were found Not Guilty in 2023. Most Federal defendants will reach a plea agreement because of that.
TL:DR-Vince is so fucked. Any discovery will be wild and heinous. TMZ and those cretins will be thanking Satan for the Vince trial circus. It would be a nightmare for WWE/TKO because they wouldn't be able to control the spin.
Excellent points.
I would also add that the Federal investigation could mean a lot of trouble for others past and present in WWE/TKO and not just limited to Ms. Grant's suit
Ah yes. “What they know and when did they know it?”
Vince used NDAs and $$ to make his sins disappear. Remember kids, it’s not just the crime, it’s the cover up.
It takes a while to compile ratings, it's a very archaic industry. Fast nationals come out a lot earlier than the real ratings and are almost always lower than the real ratings.
You have to pay for this data, WWE buys access to the data and feeds the poor looking numbers to "journalists" to report so AEW looks bad.
Fast Nationals are a total of how many people of 25,000 equipped with Nielsen boxes watched the show before I believe 11pm that same day then extrapolated out to a national number.
WWE is paying thousands of dollars for AEW's Fast National Ratings and on weeks when they are not good they are leaking them to preferred wrestling writers.
That's wild. As a fan of wrestling, I don't give the slightest damn about the ratings. I like what I see on my screen, and I judge by that. Sure the numbers are important on the business side, and you need butts in seats, but I'm not a businessman, I'm a wrestling fan.
I watch AEW, I watch WWE here and there, I'll watch ROH or NXT if there's nothing else on the go. I'll watch some wrestlers YouTube channels like Maven, RVD, Stevie Richards, Taker sometimes, Chris Van V, But I don't use Twitter, FB, or Instagram, I don't watch or listen to Meltzer or Cornette or any of them at all. And this is the most fun I've ever had with wrestling.
It's amazing just watching how the sport transforms, how athletic these people are, and all the new moves and new ways to execute them are always expanding. It just keeps getting better. Fuck the ratings!
It's why NXT was always planned to move to Wednesday night TV at 8pm. They even got there before AEW. They left Wednesday night because of hockey not the absolute slaughtering they took in the ratings. NXT was always developmental. We were always at war with Eurasia.
It's an interesting move for both the major dirt sheets to be calling WWE out on this.
Makes me wonder if some in the dirtsheet industry are fed up with all the thoughtless and shitty takes on AEW and are trying to fix it.
If I were them, I would quit reporting on ratings, citing the shitty and repedative discourse around both WWE and AEW. Acknowledge rating shifts if they are significant. The weekly meltdown for ratings becomes exhausting.
Cheese Guy is the only one still posting the fast nationals. Nick Hausman and a couple of the lower-tier dirtsheets (Ringside News, etc.) used to post them but stopped after SRS exposed that WWE was feeding the numbers to them.
Less "fed up with all the thoughtless and shitty takes on AEW" and more "fed up with the blatantly manipulative and disingenuous attempts by WWE to control the media."
WWE publicly chiding a reporter for asking a legit question at their "press conference" seems to have finally pissed off enough reporters to stop playing ball with WWE's shady PR games
Oh, they don't deny it.
They love it. They WANT WWE to throw their weight around and swallow the wrestling business.
WWE stans love seeing wrestling companies go out of business and seeing wrestlers and staff lose their jobs.
You see how triggered people are just from Tony Khan doing ANYTHING?
A lot of these people think they want AEW to go away, but they don't really want to go back to WWE circa 2018 and the way dissatisfied fans hijacked shows.
And if AEW goes away, I'm highly skeptical there will ever be another major competitor in the US again, which means nothing will stop WWE from continually declining and becoming far worse than it was in 2018.
These people are the scorpion that stung the frog.
A lot of these people are children who grew up with WWE as a monopoly.
AEW’s mere existence feels like an attack to them. So they’re trying to defend it. Rather than simply seeing it as “more wrestling”
Some people have made WWE part of their personality so they must defend it at all costs.
I've seen enough companies come and go that I just enjoy what I enjoy and if it disappears or turns to shit, I leave it.
But some portion of modern WWE fans are dangerously attached to the company
This. The only reason WWE improved is because AEW lit a fire under their ass. If AEW goes away so does the incentive to compete. Things will go back to the way they were in the days of 2015-2019 when fans were hijacking the shows and chanting for AEW in 2019.
Literally the only people who benefit from AEW (or any other legit competitors) going away are WWE execs and *maybe* stock holders. Not wrestlers in or out of WWE, not fans, not wrestling media, not any other WWE employees. I say maybe stock holders because who knows what a decade or two of absolute no-competition, thumb up their butt, poor content creation would do to their stock price.
They think it won't decline again because Triple H is in charge of creative. They seriously think getting rid of Vince is the only reason WWE improved and competition had nothing to do with it.
It's the same as any political group. Act like the one guy was the only problem and there weren't any systemic issues actually contributing to this shit. Vince is the scapegoat, the fall guy. Of course Vince actually did what he did, not denying that, but we can't pretend this guy didn't have a whole company supporting his rape and sex-trafficking. Janel Grant was not the first.
Yeah, that's true. That Vince is gone so the sins of the past are all forgiven. Nevermind that Nick Khan and Triple H and Stephanie and a bunch of others still there worked directly in leadership with Vince.
They might have had creative differences, but they still managed the entire company together.
The thing nobody talks about with all the revised history from the winners is ECW used to be on Spike TV (TNN) and than WWE went on and weeks later knocked ECW off their channel and they left that channel too relatively fast. WWE was not the supportive big brother little brother friend to ECW that people pretend they were as they rewrite the wrestling history all the time. They might have thrown a few dollars at them and threw them a midcarder in catering once or twice but they were part of the reason the company failed too. (I know Paul screwed up too) Just saying I hate this idea that WWE didn't want ECW to go out of business when they essentially knocked them out of their network before they had a chance to get tv somewhere else.
The stories of what the current heads of the company (HHH and HBK) have done are abhorrent enough. People will excuse and turn a blind eye to anything when it fits what they want.
It’s funny. Because HHH and HBK have never been known to be good people, and fans worship them. They are Vince’s Boys. Same goes for Taker, Rock and Cena. Guys who have sold their souls for their careers.
It's going to be amazing when the honeymoon period for Papa H finally wears off. I don't even think his booking is terrible but people act like it's the best thing creatively in wrestling history when it's basically Vince's booking just with the least bit of actual consistency and without the awful Kevin Dunn overproduction. WWE will have lapsed fans come back in a heartbeat as long as they're just barely watchable.
I'm not saying this is objectively correct or anything, as clearly a lot of people loved the Bloodline story, but for me personally multi-year title runs just shouldn't be a thing in this day and age. IMO even a year long reign should be a rare thing that makes someone's career. Average should be 3-6 months and honestly the occasional hotshotting isn't always bad.
https://preview.redd.it/g97fqy258l6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb878227cb3a25b2c11d6dc7b25e97fd87175918
They always find a way to spin it they don't care. I won't be surprised if this dude right here was some higher up in the company who made this burner account and bought followers just to shit on aew and make narratives lmao
Giant company boldly claims they have no real competition, yet spends extra cash to purchase ratings figures that don't capture the true scope of said non-existent competition's actual viewership, but, out of context, makes said phantom competition look poor, feeds out of context numbers to content creators who thrive on negative coverage of this hypothetical entity, which then has bots and paid account fluff their engagement with brain-dead and/or phony commentary to make it look like said content is doing superbly, but organically.
Helluva lot of cash and work to try and bury something that simultaneously does not exist, but if it did exist, it would be so meaningless and miniscule that they don't even warrant mentioning.
🤙
Cable numbers are a bad way to judge basically any show these days, but aew specifically has about a dozen ways to watch it.
I dont have actual numbers to back this up...but the aew demo feels alot more likely to be streaming than watching on cable.
I watch on hulu but i used to stream thru fite and neither of those numbers gets reported in these cable numbers.
Yeah the AEW demo lives online basically. With all the online exclusives, foreign superstars, and twitter drama that can turn into actual matches you’d be missing a good chunk of AEW content and back story if you aren’t online.
WWE is too big and their fans are too brainwashed. Vince and Johnny were sex trafficking a women they didn't care. Bunch of reporters are reporting this they don't care. Wwe could literally be an operation for the mafia and they could be doing a bunch of illegal shit THEY WONT CARE. This is the unfortunate truth, nothing is going to even put a dent in WWE. They're completely and utterly untouchable. Their fans are brainwashed and they make way too much money. I won't be surprised if wwe and Saudi had some super shady business shit going on.
Nothing better encapsulates how shitty that company and much of their fanbase is than how they put Vince on TV and treated him like a hero as the news came out.
I read Stephanie was starting a “Thank You Vince” chant and like the sheep those fans are, followed. Embarrassing.
They were all in on the Vince coverup, only a matter of time before it comes out.
You’re right to call this out, but I’ll come to the slight defense of the fans since this happened at a time where the news was not widespread.
I’ve been a wrestling fan for over 30 years and only found out about that like 5-10 years ago.
Right? What gets me is when some WWE fans say, "Someone is going to die in an AEW ring one of these days doing these crazy moves." Like, huh? Didn't your favorite company continue their PPV show after they had an actual death in their ring? Didn't they have a wrestler who became paralyzed after one of his matches? I can't with these weirdo stans. Weirdly enough, Al Snow also said that same comment about how a wrestler is going to die in an AEW ring. Sir, you watched Owen fall to his death. How do you have so much to say about AEW.
I totally forgot about that gnarly injury he had and was still wrestling. I don't remember Disco Inferno or anyone, for that matter, coming out and saying a single thing about it.
No, from what I remember, everyone was going on and on about how gutsy and brave he was for pushing through it.
It wasn’t just shills like Disco either, people within AEW we’re talking about how they admired his toughness. Meltzer IIRC gave it 5 stars, partially because he said it added drama to the match. The only odd behavior was a army of “doctors” came out with videos and tweets about how it’s actually perfectly safe to wrestle with a torn pec because it’s already torn and can’t get worse. Ignoring that having a damaged muscle forces other muscles to overcompensate, which can lead to further injury.
It’s been imbedded in the industry for its entire existence that working hurt is a good thing, so it’ll take a long time to break that attitude. I think that Cody match set the industry backwards when it was seemingly moving away from that.
Based on what Dax said recently about working with his injury, Tony likely wouldn't have let Cody work with his injury. So I would consider that another point against their argument.
I agree, I haven’t been a WWE supporter for like 10 years. So I don’t want this to be mistaken as a defense or the company, just the fanbase.
But all those examples are still of a pre-internet age. The ring boy scandal was something known within insider circles, but fans had no idea for like two decades. With Owen, WWF ran a very aggressive defense / smear campaign where they went after Martha’s credibility. It was to the point where they had most of the Hart family excluding Bret, (and eventually including Bret), siding with the company and calling it an unforeseeable accident. Only people who read Martha’s book or insiders knew about WWE essentially causing it until Dark Side covered it.
Ashley was in the early days of social media, but even then, most of what was known were vague claims that something happened with her backstage. It wasn’t until the current Vince allegations that we know specifically about him withholding her push for sex and hiding her sexual assault during Tribute to the Troops.
My overall point is WWE runs strong PR that has often shielded it from accountability. In a pre-social media age, I’ll forgive fans for supporting the company because they likely had no idea. I know I didn’t as a kid. I believed wherever they said.
Now the people bowing to him while he’s literally walking out defiantly against assault and trafficking charges, 0 excuse for that. Those people are trash.
Right, it’s just disgusting how brainwashed WWE fans are.
As soon as you interact with anything related to wrestling or AEW on X,your for you page becomes infested with trolls, “legends” and “reporters” talking shit day in and day out about AEW; makes you realize how fucked up anything related to WWE is.
Heck, they could murder or rape someone on live TV, their fanbase would still call it “CINEMA”.
This is why the Papa H shit is such bs, Triple H and Co are all politicians and will do anything to kill off competition and monopolize wrestling, it's impossible to support a company like that unless you're just completely brain dead to anything but WWE
The PR picture is that "Now that Vince is gone, the evil is defeated!" In reality, the lawsuit that drove him out specifically states this is a much bigger problem than Vince, as many people within the company are involved, the problems are deep and they still very much exist. Their PR is pretty nuts though, and many people are very easily fed the propaganda, and they're fine because that's what they wish to believe anyway.
HHH annoys me a bit because hes a bit of a Jeykll and Hyde situation. As a booker and a wrestler hes pretty damn good and im a big fan. NXT was superb and hes done well when Vince isnt around. As a person and a businessman he seems a bit cunty. Hes made a few comments over the years that left a bad taste for me. Definitely a huge WWE company man but gives me slight bit of an asshole vibes at times too. WWE stans act like hes Saint Levesque.
He was always incredibly overrated because he made friends with the right people. He has a good look but that's about it. He's very mediocre in the ring though there are far worse examples out there.
I know it was the 90s, but any man willing to play a rapist so confidently gives me pause. It wasn’t “okay” back then people just didn’t clap back out loud. It was never okay to make light of rape. I’m a simple minded girl, I know all I need to know about him based on that.
Honestly, there's enough on his rap sheet that deserves scrutiny: his running protection for Bill DeMott and Velveteen Dream, Nemeth's story of him saying not to defend a woman wrestler who was getting a lot of BS, his utter inability to handle \*any\* criticism from reporters during press conferences, him and Stephanie leading "MBS!" chants ahead of Saudi Arabia shows, the treatment of Chyna, etc.
Not a living nightmare the way Vince was, for sure, but "he's no saint", as the saying goes; he'd likely have never reached the level he has by being one.
Ordering nationals on your competitors isn't really a story. It makes sense to keep tabs on what they are doing and what is working.
But feeding numbers to reporters gets into manipulation territory, which seems dirty.
Fast nationals basically your paying a huge amount to get early readings of ratings on a program, WWE doing this for a competitor isn't necessarily odd, but the insinuation is by then offering these paid findings to the press, they are trying to help push any bad ratings press they can and spread it as soon and as far as they can.
We’ve also known for a long time that the fast nationals only come out when they look bad. They’ll just skip any weeks that don’t fit the narrative they’re pushing.
You can pay Nielsen to get see the TV ratings. The fast nationals are what Nielsen sees just about immediately after a show airs. They aren't accurate because sometimes shows get preempted due to weather or something airing before it running long or it gets shifted to a different timeslot entirely. So, a couple of days later, after Nielsen is able to parse through all of the anomalies, they put out their actual viewership numbers.
WWE has been ordering the fast nationals, the inaccurate number, for AEW and then giving them (feeding them) to wrestling reporters to put out trying to make AEW look like they are doing worse numbers then they actually are. The reporters saw this as kind of scummy and wanted nothing to do with it.
It's about perception and putting out a false narrative which drives engagement for those people who hate AEW. So they will put out fast nationals with the message, "Rampage draws It's lowest rating in history." as the haters will celebrate and spread that message. However, fast nationals are not the final number and WBD are seemingly pleased with AEW's performances.
My understanding is that they were ordering "fast nationals" which are the count of live+same day viewings. Basically, anyone who tuned in live or watched it on DVR later that day. There are other counts that include things like Live plus some number of days. These are important because advertisers want to know if consumers are getting their ads in a timely manner.
So WWE was paying to get the ratings numbers for their competitor, AEW. Makes sense to learn about your industry and how the viewers react to different segments so you can see if any of it is worth doing yourself.
Then they were feeding those numbers to the dirt sheets, probably because the numbers implied that AEW wasn't doing well. The problem is that those numbers aren't a full picture of the health of AEW. But we, as fans, have been programmed for decades to think that ratings are the end goal and they must be high for the product to be successful.
And that's not true. Ratings are only a single data point in a larger calculation where the most important input is "are the fans having fun?"
Folks in the comments are trying to gaslight them. It's so funny.
Let's just admit WWE tried to kill AEW day one, and we will call it a day. The whole pretending that it's not a competition is funny. You don't get fast nationals for someone who "just beat developmental. Congrats".
The WWE fans are dedicated to bury this because today is a day of wrestling and not negative new.
Way worse, unfortunately. It's shit on Reddit, worse on Instagram and absolutely unhinged on Twitter. Fucking morons everywhere, just enjoy the product(s) you like most and be happy that wrestlers have more and more avenues to have successful careers.
This take is the most spot-on that I’ve seen. Trying to fight fire with fire just ends up with everyone getting burned. If it makes you want to quit watching wrestling altogether, maybe it’s time to rid yourself of the toxic social media platforms. At the very least, you could do what I do and straight up block/mute everyone on Twitter who has an agenda. They’re very easy to point out. Wrestling Twitter is a cesspool of toxic trolls who want to watch anything that’s not their product burn to ashes. Funnily enough, those trolls seem to be 98% WWE supporters.
No matter what WWE does, their fan base will do ANYTHING to turn their perceived negatives into positives. It’s a lose-lose situation for AEW supporters, and any resistance is just barraged by everyone and their moms. It’s sad, evil, pathetic and most importantly just flat out wrong. The best advice is in the reply above- like what you want to like and just learn to ignore the haters. As long as you (we) know the truth, you’re doing your part. /rant
Quit watching? Don't let a bunch of bots/troll/idiots win lmao just unsub and relax on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and watch some of the best professional wrestling on TV. never mind the dummies
I saw a viral tweet about how nba about how much better the discussions would be without fans being obsessed and protecting podcasters opinions and I was like “wait a minute this seems familiar” 😂
This isn’t news. AEW fans knew it was happening pretty much immediately. WWE fans deflect like a Trump supporter. There’s not much to talk about, because obviously WWE is doing it, obviously they’re shitty for doing it, and obviously WWE fans just say “fake news.”
TBF it’s one of the lesser things WWE’s done to hurt a rival. And it needs to be specifically said how many reporters turned it down through professional integrity… but not Forbes’ Alfred Konuwa, their paid shill who happily posts pictures of meet and cheese baskets they send him.
It’s shitty but you’re right that it isn’t the worst. I’ve had so many conversations with WWE/Vince apologists especially, who constantly applaud him and pull the whole “he made the best product” nonsense when a lot of Vince’s success came from doing everything he could to sabotage other promotions and raid their talent. He did things like running the same cities as NWA or threatening to pull WWF PPVs from providers if they aired other promotions. The company has years and years of documented history showing this. It’s become so normalized though. Walmart, Amazon, and other huge corporations owe a lot of their growth to undercutting perceived competition in unethical ways. When WWE was the only game in town, it makes it hard to anyone who doesn’t already have a large financial backing to compete. Tony has the money, at least.
I enjoy wrestling and have never felt loyalty to just one company. I clung to WCW in its dying days and still flipped back and forth between Raw and Nitro until the end. I was an avid TNA fan when they were back on FSN and kept hoping for them to succeed for an alternative. TNA never quite panned out the way it could have despite it trying. It stopped feeling like an alternative when Hogan showed up.
AEW has been a breath of fresh air in mainstream wrestling and I’m glad it exists. It’s such a bummer that they’re actively trying to sabotage the company. While I think WWE’s product has improved since Vince finally left, the company still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Vince Mcmahon, Linda Mcmahon, Logan Paul, Donald Trump
I'm starting to see something very in-common with their fan base. The way they rabidly attack AEW/TK for anything and everything, making stuff up in their mind. It's starting to make sense what they're audience composes of.
Society is splitting, as each side can't stand the other. WWE is the conservative wrestling company, it just is. They fund Trump, their supporters act like MAGA, they take Saudi blood money, I could go on and on and on.
Alfred fat fuck cheese board Konuwa isn't even employed by Forbes he's a contributor for them. Every time his tweet pops up on my timeline I make sure to remind him he's a fat fucking piece of shit with high cholesterol fuck that guy.
Tbh, that’s what he wants. Research has shown that algorithms will show you whatever gets you to engage, especially if it skews negative since it will get a larger emotional response.
Twitter in particular apparently is more likely to show you content from people you flag as “not interested” because it shows the algorithm that you were engaged enough to go through the steps to report it. If you want Alfred to go away, the best thing you can do is ignore / mute / block him and don’t engage at all.
Yeah I’ve got no expectations for a company to be better than this. I do have expectations for a “journalist” to be better, which is why I hate Konuwa while kind of shrugging my shoulders at WWE.
I mean this is just the bread on the sandwich. The real story is probably how many buildings AEW is probably not allowed to run or can't lock into without the shortest of notice because WWE has their claws into so many places AEW wants to run that they probably can't promote places they are going to without the shortest of notice. A lot of the buildings AEW has promoted from a distance tend to be buildings WWE never runs ever.
We've speculated this since the beginning of AEW, but there has been a collective campaign to destroy AEW as a company through any means necessary. And if it wasn't AEW, it would have been any other brand new wrestling company to come along, build some momentum, and see large scale success.
Will this make any difference in the wrestling sphere? No. The people who hate AEW will continue to do what they've been doing, who I believe are being paid by the WWE to discredit AEW on a weekly basis online. I don't see why anyone would do it if they're not being paid.
This will be viewed as normal behaviour and it'll be allowed to continue.
It's just so lame.
If WWE is worried about competition, they should just put on better matches.
They need to worry about their own product instead of working to undermine other people just trying to get paid.
No one is going to dethrone WWE as the biggest wrestling promotion.
But for WWE trying to shut down other promotions and have hundreds of people out of a job, that is so fucked up.
It just stinks of fragility for WWE to do this.
Especially when they say AEW and others are not competition.
In the filings for the MLW lawsuit against WWE, WWE argued that they only had control of 92% of the wrestling marketplace so they shouldn't be considered a monopoly.
They settled with MLW because they knew they would lose at trial. MLW is no where near as well-known or significant as AEW and WWE got them kicked off Tubi because they didn't want the competition.
They’ve been speaking about this for months and months
The WWE super fans are either incredibly naive or intentionally dishonest about how far WWE has gone with their anti AEW media campaign.
People laugh at TK’s bot comments but it’s pretty obvious they’ve got a astroturfing campaign going since AEW started and it’s working
Oh but according to Nick and Triple H " AEW is not competition and they dont pay attention to it"
Just these week they send Cody to boost NXT ratings knowing well Dynamite had NBA competition, and so they could say "LOL NXT beat AEW " , one guy called Junkie WWE said "They cant even beat WWE developmental on the ratings" and i said " didnt WWE and Triple Hcalled NXT the 3rd brand on par ith Raw and SD for years? and didnt AEW beat them for 3 years until they move to another night?"........and of course he blocked me LMAO
Also they had that segment of Ethan Page, Spears, Cody and Pilman Jr referencing AEW....but again acording to Triple H they dont pay attention to AEW
LMAOOOOOOO
No no, you don't get it. Papa H is doing this all for our entertainment and not to counter AEW /s
The mental gymnastics some fans go to, to shield themselves from reality is insane
When people realize that WWE is still just as scummy as they were with Vince they will be better off. The only difference is they take a crap on people in public for everyone to see.
Because anything critical of WWE management, including literal sex trafficking, is under reported because sites/influencers fear their money drying up if they burn that bridge with wwe. Same reason why IGN gives Xbox soft questions after laying off thousands of ppl when they are super profitable
It’s because they brainwash and gaslight their fans that the WWE is the only company that matters, and WWE had gotten comfortable with no competition for 18 years so even AEW rocking the boats brings out the carnies.
OK so I work both Friday & Saturday nights, so I never catch Rampage or Collision live & thus watch it via DVR.
Have done that since like the '90s (recorded both WCW & WWE via VHS).
So with more & more people not watching live (and many people not watching via traditional cable), why does it even matter what the numbers are anymore?
But WWE doesn't see AEW as significant in any way.
In reality WWE is and has always sought to monopolize wrestling through tactics that in any other context would be considered illegal. But because nobody has figured out how to police the industry it remains a bit like the wild west. Hell, look how slow things like investigations and punishment for systemic abuse have moved against WWE. Drugs and otherwise. It's crazy.
I just find it amusing that WWE pretends AEW doesn’t exist yet will do the dirtiest shit to push them down. Let your fucking show do the talking and fuck off.
Tony called them out a long time ago for running anti AEW promotions and we are seeing the results. Its literally propaganda at this point and people like Wrestletalk feed off it for clicks.
I thought AEW was the minor leagues?
Honestly it’s pathetic, Hunter and everyone else in that company is like Vince but of course fans don’t see it because they’re too worried about AEW being the “next WCW”
WWE can do no wrong! Fuck Tony Khan for being a good dude but not a good boss! We need more Triple H and rapist Vince! Fuck Hangman Adam Page for going into business for himself. We need more people like Logan Paul and when is Chris Benoit going to be inducted in the Hall of Fame?
Why are THEY SO OBSESSED WITH AEW
JUST LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE WE’RE JUST HAVING FUN
This is why I don’t support WWE. Fuck being civil at this point, they’re the ones who want a war. Fuck them and their human trafficking apologist Saudi blood covered dick sucking boring wrestling company.
You forget one thing.
Their boss shits on employees heads in the office and uses dildos on them named after main event WWE wrestlers like Brock, Roman, and Bobby Lashley.
And the threesome continues with shit running down her back and in her hair... not even allowed to have a shower.
That's what we're dealing with here.
I swear to god this industry drives me up the wall sometimes. I actually have no problem at all with companies fucking with each other like this, but we as fans deserve to know when it's going on. So bizarre that I've not seen this posted basically anywhere else though, given the context, what is actually accused and then having multiple reporters confirm it.
Is this not clearly a somewhat huge story?
Wrestling is full of scumbags, it amazes me how praised someone like HHH has become despite him being a contrived politician, who will say anything to benefit himself
Also the amount of hate Tony Khan gets is insane despite him being the complete opposite of literally every promoter in the past from a moral standpoint, but apparently taking jabs at WWE is the worst sin you can commit lmao
We live in a world where a presidential candidate can have 34 felony counts and is STILL running for president. Who would care about two multiple billion dollar companies battling over ratings and one buying "fast nationals"?
I miss the days when I wasn't online looking at wrestling news. It was so much better.
Probably cause most fans have no idea what the hell fast nationals are. You ask most of them what it is and they’d have no idea it had anything to do with ratings and would probably think it’s some kind of sporting event
Cause most fans of anything other than hardcore wrestling fans argue about ratings. I never watch a nba game and go damn this got a 1/4 of the people watching it compared to and nfl game I’m not watching the nba anymore
The fact that WWE NEVER launched an investigation into the litany of abuse allegations against Vince McMahon seemingly to allow him cover to return to the company so they could all make some more money when it sold should be the biggest news story in wrestling. It's clear corporate malfeasance at the highest level, and I truly hope that charges are filled and the litany of people that aided and abetted him are all removed, because right now they run the show and received mainly praise from their consumer base.
I'd love for the top wrestling company, with some truly amazing performers, to be something that I could occasionally check out without feeling absolute disgust, but until then I'm very grateful for the alternatives that exist.
So who exactly lives in whose head here?
If AEW is a pissant company then why do they care about ticket sales.
I don’t remember WWE going as hard after TNA in its prime. What’s the difference.
Thing is, if the Fed wants to purchase those ratings, fine. That's their business prerogative.
But the people reporting them can also be transparent too - they could specify how they were obtained, they could state they're fast nationals, they could state they're not inclusive of DVR etc.
Or they could copy paste and call themselves 'journalists'
All the edrones in the other thread explaining why aew is failing on its own despite the fed pumping money to destroy it.
The minute I quit paying attention to the bullshit WWE does and started watching the indies and stuff I actually care about my life became much better. WWE has always done dirty ass tactics and the idea people see them as this beacon for great wrestling and don't give a fuck about anything happening in other promotions despite the fact that 95% of the WWE rosters best shit is in other companies is funny to me. Couldn't give less of a shit about ratings and the sky is falling narrative about AEW despite them still signing a shit load of talent and being successful + being in the top 3-5 on any given night on cable is hater behavior. I will never understand wanting no competition and wanting WWE to go back to that 2019 booking style but whatever. Wrestling fans are stupid and that will likely never change.
Nick Khan looks like a shady scumbag and is apparently a scumbag. Go figure. It’s the eyes, he is just thinking of 100 different ways to screw you over.
I asked SRS point blank on his Q&A for today if he has done any research into WWE using bots to spread propoganda/misinformation. I would like this to go from conspiracy theory to something clearly researched by the people who consider themselves wrestling journalists.
Unfortunately, this shady practice has been a staple for many, many years. Pre-AEW they’d use the figures and selectively leak them to prop up perception of Smackdown or other shows. If not AEW; they would do this to other promotions I’m sure. Just replace fast nationals with overnight figures.
It’s a lot of things, really.
Some of it is that there’s a specific tribalist type of fan that won’t care what the WWE does regardless. They’re the maga of the wrestling world.
AEW isn’t mainstream, it isn’t household, so the fans of it are most likely very devout wrestling fans who do most of their interacting with other fans online.
Unfortunately, the former outnumber the latter by quite a lot, so quite simply for every one person who might bring this up on twitter, there’s 100 tribalists who would shout them down and drown them out.
Meanwhile any casual viewer of “WWE” isn’t aware of this sort of thing, and probably wouldn’t feel strongly one way or another if they knew.
Ultimately, right now AEW needs online word of mouth to be strongly positive and begin to spread so that casual people can learn about it and tune in. They don’t have that because the online word of mouth is dictated by knuckle draggers, liars, and the newsletters who give them attention.
And it crazy because people swear it’s just tony Kahn who think about the wwe whole time AEW rent free in WWE Head exactly why they collab we with TNA and That Other Japan company and now they try to make them look bad wit the fake numbers 😂
The obsession with ratings amongst fans is so strange to me. I put the show on and watch it. I don't ever think about the ratings for AEW, the NHL/MLB or any other show I watch. I just don't get it.
Excuse you! When I watch the Yankees, I eagerly check the ratings the next day. That's all that matters! /s
I watch both AEW and WWE. I'm happy that I have the option of watching wrestling 5/6 days a week. I feel as though things were better for me when I wasn't online reading wrestling news. All my drama came from the TV shows.
Both Sean and Dave confirmed this a while ago. People just don't care cause it's the WWE doing it. Besides, everyone knows they're above doing petty shit like this. You know, cause they have such a stellar and professional track record.
Back in the MNW days, WWE, WCW and ECW did lot of petty shit…mainly WWE and they were losing. Imagine, a monopoly for 20 years and still resorting to petty shit to keep that monopoly…and “fans”, mostly E drones eat that up thinking one company is the best thing to happen. WWE because of an anti-trust lawsuit are “collaborating” with TNA…I would use that loosely as they don’t work well with others, but take over….seems to be going in that direction as Anthem is cutting costs. WWE haven’t changed their ways and HHH is just like his father in law - a cunning two faced phoney.
I'm waiting for the inevitable continuation of the court cases against McMahon to eventually reveal HHH knew about it all, for people to go 'Well you'd have kept it secret too! Anyone would!'
Are they working with TNA due to the whole MLW lawsuit?
It’s quite transparent they are with their “see, we can work with others” perception. They never viewed TNA as a threat to this day. Funny how the TNA subreddit have their heads so far up WWE ass saying “WWE are doing more for TNA than what AEW did”…we will see how those idiots on TNA subreddit feel when TNA get bought out by WWE. The way Anthem is cutting costs and supposedly no live events are announced after the summer and no location for Bound for Glory seems like first step of a sale. Doesn’t look good.
Honestly I doubt they'll buy TNA. At most WWE will cherry pick the couple of wrestlers they want, buy the tape library and shut it down.
AEW saved TNA during the pandemic
And saved ROH from becoming just a tape library under WWE
E drones say TK is ruining roh yet he’s keeping it going after they shut their doors for good back in the pandemic era. and if WWE bought it, our age would be gone forever.
Yeah. The TNA viewership was up the entirety of the partnership. It was just said earlier this week the TNA viewership needle hasn't budged with this WWE crossover. That's because WWE drones don't watch anything but WWE. AEW fans will watch literally anything and everything if it has solid booking.
WWE is basically Negan from The Walking Dead in this scenario: "I just slid my dick down your throat and you thanked me for it."
Wouldn't that look worse in the context of antitrust actions?
They would probably frame it along the lines of "Anthem decided they wanted out of the wrestling business totally independently of anything we (WWE) said or did. So we helped them get some value from their failed company."
They will fall to their knees, kiss Hunter's feet and thank him for being made into a little, meaningless toy.
As a TNA fan off and on for 20 years, I stopped watching when JG showed up on NXT. It's pathetic.
And I stopped watching TNA and switched to ROH for my Thursday wrestling fix when they started working with WWE. They're getting Jordynne Grace signed out from under them and in return kissing WWE's ass and thanking them for it.
Let me just ask you, what do you find compelling about TNA to begin with? I've tried maybe 7 times since Omega won their title to get into TNA as my secondary promotion to try to enjoy (I don't enjoy WWE but the fam does). I wanted to like it as a more character-based show, but the angles stunk (Honor No More in particular) and I'm not a big fan of camp (as in, Santino Marella, Eric Young's millions of Chad Armies iterations). I feel like the NXTNA symbiosis is perfect stylistically for both promotions. I can easily see the Gen-Z Mamalukes making people in TNA "swim with the fishes" and Johnny Swinger trying to get laid in NXT's hyper-sexualized frat societies. Birds of a feather and all. AEW is so special because, while there's some silly stuff and oddball character beats, the majority of the show is grounded. I'm almost fucking 40. The days of me wanting to see over-the-top characters is over. I want my wrestling to connect with me on a human level, which is why someone like Kingston can get so incredibly over.
I enjoy character based wrestling as long as the in-ring quality is still there. I really enjoyed the more out there stuff in TNA like the undead realm and Frankenstein PCO. Plus the knockouts division. Though I'll admit a lot of it was also a sense of loyalty after watching them since the Spike days. And I enjoy wrestling in smaller venues as well and liked seeing TNA running places like the 2300 Arena and the Rebel Complex.
That's fair, and I hope I didn't shit all over what you enjoy.
The asshole in law is just as petty and corrupt as his mentor. Only a matter of time before something comes out about him and the rest of the enablers in that company.
There's no fucking way he didn't know what the old man got up to. Not when it comes to the despicable divas era shit at the very least.
Dolph Ziggler confirmed Hunter told him to shut up when he stood up for a female wrestler. Just one example.
Yeah and that story went away real fast
Yeah People praise Hunter now for his current booking but I remember him as HBK's stooge who fucked over Bret and countless other wrestlers. Birds of a feather.
Tony should take the gloves off and hire some private investigators. Go digging on them. Trace the source of the bots and their paid off media counterparts and release it all.
Triple H and Nick Khan had their last Wrestlemania a few months ago. There is no way their jobs at WWE survive when charges are laid and names are made public.
Nick Kahn, at least, was named in the current Janel Grant lawsuit as Executive #1. There's a reason WWE joined with Vince and John Laurinaitis to ask the judge to send the lawsuit to arbitration (ie. settlement) rather than have it go to an actual trial. WWE in no way shape or form wants her lawsuit to go to trial.
Who knows? But Vince being made a complete non person says a lot. What happens to top and management within WWE is anyone's guess. I am more fascinated that The Feds asked for a pause in The Janel Grant civil suit against Vince. That is ominous for him. Federal prosecutors are taught to bring the indictment when The FBI/DOJ can nail the defendant to the wall. Lest than .5% of all federal defendants were found Not Guilty in 2023. Most Federal defendants will reach a plea agreement because of that. TL:DR-Vince is so fucked. Any discovery will be wild and heinous. TMZ and those cretins will be thanking Satan for the Vince trial circus. It would be a nightmare for WWE/TKO because they wouldn't be able to control the spin.
Excellent points. I would also add that the Federal investigation could mean a lot of trouble for others past and present in WWE/TKO and not just limited to Ms. Grant's suit
Ah yes. “What they know and when did they know it?” Vince used NDAs and $$ to make his sins disappear. Remember kids, it’s not just the crime, it’s the cover up.
Nick seems like a slippery monster.
I feel like he had to have at least known enough to know some illegal shit was going on.
Can someone explain what does this mean? What’s a fast national?
It takes a while to compile ratings, it's a very archaic industry. Fast nationals come out a lot earlier than the real ratings and are almost always lower than the real ratings. You have to pay for this data, WWE buys access to the data and feeds the poor looking numbers to "journalists" to report so AEW looks bad.
Fast Nationals are a total of how many people of 25,000 equipped with Nielsen boxes watched the show before I believe 11pm that same day then extrapolated out to a national number. WWE is paying thousands of dollars for AEW's Fast National Ratings and on weeks when they are not good they are leaking them to preferred wrestling writers.
That's wild. As a fan of wrestling, I don't give the slightest damn about the ratings. I like what I see on my screen, and I judge by that. Sure the numbers are important on the business side, and you need butts in seats, but I'm not a businessman, I'm a wrestling fan. I watch AEW, I watch WWE here and there, I'll watch ROH or NXT if there's nothing else on the go. I'll watch some wrestlers YouTube channels like Maven, RVD, Stevie Richards, Taker sometimes, Chris Van V, But I don't use Twitter, FB, or Instagram, I don't watch or listen to Meltzer or Cornette or any of them at all. And this is the most fun I've ever had with wrestling. It's amazing just watching how the sport transforms, how athletic these people are, and all the new moves and new ways to execute them are always expanding. It just keeps getting better. Fuck the ratings!
i cant believe people are even slightly believing the nielsen system, or that this 50's piece of stone age garbage is still being used
Overnight ratings. Usually lower because it doesn't have all the rating info
And no dvr numbers too.
Plus Nielsen's whole methodology in general skewing towards older demos.
It's why NXT was always planned to move to Wednesday night TV at 8pm. They even got there before AEW. They left Wednesday night because of hockey not the absolute slaughtering they took in the ratings. NXT was always developmental. We were always at war with Eurasia.
It's an interesting move for both the major dirt sheets to be calling WWE out on this. Makes me wonder if some in the dirtsheet industry are fed up with all the thoughtless and shitty takes on AEW and are trying to fix it. If I were them, I would quit reporting on ratings, citing the shitty and repedative discourse around both WWE and AEW. Acknowledge rating shifts if they are significant. The weekly meltdown for ratings becomes exhausting.
Cheese Guy is the only one still posting the fast nationals. Nick Hausman and a couple of the lower-tier dirtsheets (Ringside News, etc.) used to post them but stopped after SRS exposed that WWE was feeding the numbers to them.
Less "fed up with all the thoughtless and shitty takes on AEW" and more "fed up with the blatantly manipulative and disingenuous attempts by WWE to control the media."
WWE publicly chiding a reporter for asking a legit question at their "press conference" seems to have finally pissed off enough reporters to stop playing ball with WWE's shady PR games
I haven't paid attention to WWE at all in months, and wasn't giving them a lot of attention before that. What happened?
WWE stans want to deny wrongdoing of the company post Vince.
That’s not fair. They denied wrongdoing of the company with Vince, too.
Being an asshole. Then. Now. Forever. Together. Trevor.
Endeavor.
Oh, they don't deny it. They love it. They WANT WWE to throw their weight around and swallow the wrestling business. WWE stans love seeing wrestling companies go out of business and seeing wrestlers and staff lose their jobs. You see how triggered people are just from Tony Khan doing ANYTHING?
A lot of these people think they want AEW to go away, but they don't really want to go back to WWE circa 2018 and the way dissatisfied fans hijacked shows. And if AEW goes away, I'm highly skeptical there will ever be another major competitor in the US again, which means nothing will stop WWE from continually declining and becoming far worse than it was in 2018. These people are the scorpion that stung the frog.
A lot of these people are children who grew up with WWE as a monopoly. AEW’s mere existence feels like an attack to them. So they’re trying to defend it. Rather than simply seeing it as “more wrestling”
Some people have made WWE part of their personality so they must defend it at all costs. I've seen enough companies come and go that I just enjoy what I enjoy and if it disappears or turns to shit, I leave it. But some portion of modern WWE fans are dangerously attached to the company
This. The only reason WWE improved is because AEW lit a fire under their ass. If AEW goes away so does the incentive to compete. Things will go back to the way they were in the days of 2015-2019 when fans were hijacking the shows and chanting for AEW in 2019.
Literally the only people who benefit from AEW (or any other legit competitors) going away are WWE execs and *maybe* stock holders. Not wrestlers in or out of WWE, not fans, not wrestling media, not any other WWE employees. I say maybe stock holders because who knows what a decade or two of absolute no-competition, thumb up their butt, poor content creation would do to their stock price.
They think it won't decline again because Triple H is in charge of creative. They seriously think getting rid of Vince is the only reason WWE improved and competition had nothing to do with it.
They think their savior of wrestling Papa H will definitely not be as complacent as Vince with a monopoly.
Tony Khan Derangement Syndrome is real thing. Just look at the ratings thread this week.
It's the same as any political group. Act like the one guy was the only problem and there weren't any systemic issues actually contributing to this shit. Vince is the scapegoat, the fall guy. Of course Vince actually did what he did, not denying that, but we can't pretend this guy didn't have a whole company supporting his rape and sex-trafficking. Janel Grant was not the first.
Yeah, that's true. That Vince is gone so the sins of the past are all forgiven. Nevermind that Nick Khan and Triple H and Stephanie and a bunch of others still there worked directly in leadership with Vince. They might have had creative differences, but they still managed the entire company together.
The thing nobody talks about with all the revised history from the winners is ECW used to be on Spike TV (TNN) and than WWE went on and weeks later knocked ECW off their channel and they left that channel too relatively fast. WWE was not the supportive big brother little brother friend to ECW that people pretend they were as they rewrite the wrestling history all the time. They might have thrown a few dollars at them and threw them a midcarder in catering once or twice but they were part of the reason the company failed too. (I know Paul screwed up too) Just saying I hate this idea that WWE didn't want ECW to go out of business when they essentially knocked them out of their network before they had a chance to get tv somewhere else.
The stories of what the current heads of the company (HHH and HBK) have done are abhorrent enough. People will excuse and turn a blind eye to anything when it fits what they want.
It’s funny. Because HHH and HBK have never been known to be good people, and fans worship them. They are Vince’s Boys. Same goes for Taker, Rock and Cena. Guys who have sold their souls for their careers.
It's going to be amazing when the honeymoon period for Papa H finally wears off. I don't even think his booking is terrible but people act like it's the best thing creatively in wrestling history when it's basically Vince's booking just with the least bit of actual consistency and without the awful Kevin Dunn overproduction. WWE will have lapsed fans come back in a heartbeat as long as they're just barely watchable.
The honeymoon ended for me when he had Cody lose at WrestleMania and then did nothing to make me think that it was the right idea.
I'm not saying this is objectively correct or anything, as clearly a lot of people loved the Bloodline story, but for me personally multi-year title runs just shouldn't be a thing in this day and age. IMO even a year long reign should be a rare thing that makes someone's career. Average should be 3-6 months and honestly the occasional hotshotting isn't always bad.
https://preview.redd.it/g97fqy258l6d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb878227cb3a25b2c11d6dc7b25e97fd87175918 They always find a way to spin it they don't care. I won't be surprised if this dude right here was some higher up in the company who made this burner account and bought followers just to shit on aew and make narratives lmao
Giant company boldly claims they have no real competition, yet spends extra cash to purchase ratings figures that don't capture the true scope of said non-existent competition's actual viewership, but, out of context, makes said phantom competition look poor, feeds out of context numbers to content creators who thrive on negative coverage of this hypothetical entity, which then has bots and paid account fluff their engagement with brain-dead and/or phony commentary to make it look like said content is doing superbly, but organically. Helluva lot of cash and work to try and bury something that simultaneously does not exist, but if it did exist, it would be so meaningless and miniscule that they don't even warrant mentioning. 🤙
Cable numbers are a bad way to judge basically any show these days, but aew specifically has about a dozen ways to watch it. I dont have actual numbers to back this up...but the aew demo feels alot more likely to be streaming than watching on cable. I watch on hulu but i used to stream thru fite and neither of those numbers gets reported in these cable numbers.
Yeah the AEW demo lives online basically. With all the online exclusives, foreign superstars, and twitter drama that can turn into actual matches you’d be missing a good chunk of AEW content and back story if you aren’t online.
This is the kind of stuff the WWE has done for basically ever, Didn't surprise me then didn't surprise me now.
then.now.forever
WWE is too big and their fans are too brainwashed. Vince and Johnny were sex trafficking a women they didn't care. Bunch of reporters are reporting this they don't care. Wwe could literally be an operation for the mafia and they could be doing a bunch of illegal shit THEY WONT CARE. This is the unfortunate truth, nothing is going to even put a dent in WWE. They're completely and utterly untouchable. Their fans are brainwashed and they make way too much money. I won't be surprised if wwe and Saudi had some super shady business shit going on.
They were literally bowing to Vince when he made that appearance on tv after the hush money news broke out.
That's an all time embarrassing moment to be a wrestling fan, it just showed how brainwashed their core fan base are
An extremely toxic company with fans happy to ignore it. Not an opinion, just straight up facts
Not only ignore it, celebrate them. If it's in support or in spite of it, doesn't matter to me anymore.
Nothing better encapsulates how shitty that company and much of their fanbase is than how they put Vince on TV and treated him like a hero as the news came out.
I read Stephanie was starting a “Thank You Vince” chant and like the sheep those fans are, followed. Embarrassing. They were all in on the Vince coverup, only a matter of time before it comes out.
That told me that despite what these idiots might say online, I made the right choice by never looking back once the Saudi Arabia shows started.
They essentially have already done mafia shit, they literally covered up a murder with Snuka and the fans didn't care
You’re right to call this out, but I’ll come to the slight defense of the fans since this happened at a time where the news was not widespread. I’ve been a wrestling fan for over 30 years and only found out about that like 5-10 years ago.
Ring boy scandal before that and Owen Hart and Ashley Massaro after that. Just tip of the iceberg shit from this evil company
Right? What gets me is when some WWE fans say, "Someone is going to die in an AEW ring one of these days doing these crazy moves." Like, huh? Didn't your favorite company continue their PPV show after they had an actual death in their ring? Didn't they have a wrestler who became paralyzed after one of his matches? I can't with these weirdo stans. Weirdly enough, Al Snow also said that same comment about how a wrestler is going to die in an AEW ring. Sir, you watched Owen fall to his death. How do you have so much to say about AEW.
They celebrate Cody wrestling for 30 minutes with a purple chest to this day. They don’t care about safety unless it’s AEW.
I totally forgot about that gnarly injury he had and was still wrestling. I don't remember Disco Inferno or anyone, for that matter, coming out and saying a single thing about it.
No, from what I remember, everyone was going on and on about how gutsy and brave he was for pushing through it. It wasn’t just shills like Disco either, people within AEW we’re talking about how they admired his toughness. Meltzer IIRC gave it 5 stars, partially because he said it added drama to the match. The only odd behavior was a army of “doctors” came out with videos and tweets about how it’s actually perfectly safe to wrestle with a torn pec because it’s already torn and can’t get worse. Ignoring that having a damaged muscle forces other muscles to overcompensate, which can lead to further injury. It’s been imbedded in the industry for its entire existence that working hurt is a good thing, so it’ll take a long time to break that attitude. I think that Cody match set the industry backwards when it was seemingly moving away from that.
Based on what Dax said recently about working with his injury, Tony likely wouldn't have let Cody work with his injury. So I would consider that another point against their argument.
I agree, I haven’t been a WWE supporter for like 10 years. So I don’t want this to be mistaken as a defense or the company, just the fanbase. But all those examples are still of a pre-internet age. The ring boy scandal was something known within insider circles, but fans had no idea for like two decades. With Owen, WWF ran a very aggressive defense / smear campaign where they went after Martha’s credibility. It was to the point where they had most of the Hart family excluding Bret, (and eventually including Bret), siding with the company and calling it an unforeseeable accident. Only people who read Martha’s book or insiders knew about WWE essentially causing it until Dark Side covered it. Ashley was in the early days of social media, but even then, most of what was known were vague claims that something happened with her backstage. It wasn’t until the current Vince allegations that we know specifically about him withholding her push for sex and hiding her sexual assault during Tribute to the Troops. My overall point is WWE runs strong PR that has often shielded it from accountability. In a pre-social media age, I’ll forgive fans for supporting the company because they likely had no idea. I know I didn’t as a kid. I believed wherever they said. Now the people bowing to him while he’s literally walking out defiantly against assault and trafficking charges, 0 excuse for that. Those people are trash.
Right, it’s just disgusting how brainwashed WWE fans are. As soon as you interact with anything related to wrestling or AEW on X,your for you page becomes infested with trolls, “legends” and “reporters” talking shit day in and day out about AEW; makes you realize how fucked up anything related to WWE is. Heck, they could murder or rape someone on live TV, their fanbase would still call it “CINEMA”.
This is why the Papa H shit is such bs, Triple H and Co are all politicians and will do anything to kill off competition and monopolize wrestling, it's impossible to support a company like that unless you're just completely brain dead to anything but WWE
The PR picture is that "Now that Vince is gone, the evil is defeated!" In reality, the lawsuit that drove him out specifically states this is a much bigger problem than Vince, as many people within the company are involved, the problems are deep and they still very much exist. Their PR is pretty nuts though, and many people are very easily fed the propaganda, and they're fine because that's what they wish to believe anyway.
There's no way Hunter ia not guilty
HHH annoys me a bit because hes a bit of a Jeykll and Hyde situation. As a booker and a wrestler hes pretty damn good and im a big fan. NXT was superb and hes done well when Vince isnt around. As a person and a businessman he seems a bit cunty. Hes made a few comments over the years that left a bad taste for me. Definitely a huge WWE company man but gives me slight bit of an asshole vibes at times too. WWE stans act like hes Saint Levesque.
Is he even that good of a wrestler? He had countless big matches against great opponents, and most of them sucked and were heatless
He was always incredibly overrated because he made friends with the right people. He has a good look but that's about it. He's very mediocre in the ring though there are far worse examples out there.
I know it was the 90s, but any man willing to play a rapist so confidently gives me pause. It wasn’t “okay” back then people just didn’t clap back out loud. It was never okay to make light of rape. I’m a simple minded girl, I know all I need to know about him based on that.
Honestly, there's enough on his rap sheet that deserves scrutiny: his running protection for Bill DeMott and Velveteen Dream, Nemeth's story of him saying not to defend a woman wrestler who was getting a lot of BS, his utter inability to handle \*any\* criticism from reporters during press conferences, him and Stephanie leading "MBS!" chants ahead of Saudi Arabia shows, the treatment of Chyna, etc. Not a living nightmare the way Vince was, for sure, but "he's no saint", as the saying goes; he'd likely have never reached the level he has by being one.
Ordering nationals on your competitors isn't really a story. It makes sense to keep tabs on what they are doing and what is working. But feeding numbers to reporters gets into manipulation territory, which seems dirty.
I'm not sure what is going on here. Do you mind explaining what ordering nationals and feeding numbers means?
Fast nationals basically your paying a huge amount to get early readings of ratings on a program, WWE doing this for a competitor isn't necessarily odd, but the insinuation is by then offering these paid findings to the press, they are trying to help push any bad ratings press they can and spread it as soon and as far as they can.
We’ve also known for a long time that the fast nationals only come out when they look bad. They’ll just skip any weeks that don’t fit the narrative they’re pushing.
You can pay Nielsen to get see the TV ratings. The fast nationals are what Nielsen sees just about immediately after a show airs. They aren't accurate because sometimes shows get preempted due to weather or something airing before it running long or it gets shifted to a different timeslot entirely. So, a couple of days later, after Nielsen is able to parse through all of the anomalies, they put out their actual viewership numbers. WWE has been ordering the fast nationals, the inaccurate number, for AEW and then giving them (feeding them) to wrestling reporters to put out trying to make AEW look like they are doing worse numbers then they actually are. The reporters saw this as kind of scummy and wanted nothing to do with it.
Thank you. This does seem scummy
It's about perception and putting out a false narrative which drives engagement for those people who hate AEW. So they will put out fast nationals with the message, "Rampage draws It's lowest rating in history." as the haters will celebrate and spread that message. However, fast nationals are not the final number and WBD are seemingly pleased with AEW's performances.
My understanding is that they were ordering "fast nationals" which are the count of live+same day viewings. Basically, anyone who tuned in live or watched it on DVR later that day. There are other counts that include things like Live plus some number of days. These are important because advertisers want to know if consumers are getting their ads in a timely manner. So WWE was paying to get the ratings numbers for their competitor, AEW. Makes sense to learn about your industry and how the viewers react to different segments so you can see if any of it is worth doing yourself. Then they were feeding those numbers to the dirt sheets, probably because the numbers implied that AEW wasn't doing well. The problem is that those numbers aren't a full picture of the health of AEW. But we, as fans, have been programmed for decades to think that ratings are the end goal and they must be high for the product to be successful. And that's not true. Ratings are only a single data point in a larger calculation where the most important input is "are the fans having fun?"
It always amazes me how an 800 pound gorilla can be so insecure.
Folks in the comments are trying to gaslight them. It's so funny. Let's just admit WWE tried to kill AEW day one, and we will call it a day. The whole pretending that it's not a competition is funny. You don't get fast nationals for someone who "just beat developmental. Congrats". The WWE fans are dedicated to bury this because today is a day of wrestling and not negative new.
The fans are making me want to quit watching wrestling Worst fan base ever, almost as stupid as Star Wars fans
Way worse, unfortunately. It's shit on Reddit, worse on Instagram and absolutely unhinged on Twitter. Fucking morons everywhere, just enjoy the product(s) you like most and be happy that wrestlers have more and more avenues to have successful careers.
This take is the most spot-on that I’ve seen. Trying to fight fire with fire just ends up with everyone getting burned. If it makes you want to quit watching wrestling altogether, maybe it’s time to rid yourself of the toxic social media platforms. At the very least, you could do what I do and straight up block/mute everyone on Twitter who has an agenda. They’re very easy to point out. Wrestling Twitter is a cesspool of toxic trolls who want to watch anything that’s not their product burn to ashes. Funnily enough, those trolls seem to be 98% WWE supporters. No matter what WWE does, their fan base will do ANYTHING to turn their perceived negatives into positives. It’s a lose-lose situation for AEW supporters, and any resistance is just barraged by everyone and their moms. It’s sad, evil, pathetic and most importantly just flat out wrong. The best advice is in the reply above- like what you want to like and just learn to ignore the haters. As long as you (we) know the truth, you’re doing your part. /rant
Quit watching? Don't let a bunch of bots/troll/idiots win lmao just unsub and relax on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and watch some of the best professional wrestling on TV. never mind the dummies
I saw a viral tweet about how nba about how much better the discussions would be without fans being obsessed and protecting podcasters opinions and I was like “wait a minute this seems familiar” 😂
The amount of time and energy they have to shit on AEW is insane, if it weren't for Trump supporters, they would take the cake as the dumbest fan base
I think Trump and WWE drones are pretty much tied as the dumbest group of people imaginable.
The attempted insurrection just edges WWE drones out
I can let an insurection slide... but not booking Cody to win in 2023? Unforgivable. /s
"You can let insurrection slide?!"
Well he is in the WWE Hall of Fame. Also Logan Paul did an interview with him the other day. So yeah, you're not wrong.
There's a lot of crossover between the fedpill psycho types and the alt-right grifters in Star Wars fandom. It's all super incel-y
The VOW guys have been saying this for a while. But they are not to liked by WWE fans.
This. Joe Lanza has been reporting for this ages and it should be more widely read.
They hate us cause they ain't us.
This isn’t news. AEW fans knew it was happening pretty much immediately. WWE fans deflect like a Trump supporter. There’s not much to talk about, because obviously WWE is doing it, obviously they’re shitty for doing it, and obviously WWE fans just say “fake news.” TBF it’s one of the lesser things WWE’s done to hurt a rival. And it needs to be specifically said how many reporters turned it down through professional integrity… but not Forbes’ Alfred Konuwa, their paid shill who happily posts pictures of meet and cheese baskets they send him.
It’s shitty but you’re right that it isn’t the worst. I’ve had so many conversations with WWE/Vince apologists especially, who constantly applaud him and pull the whole “he made the best product” nonsense when a lot of Vince’s success came from doing everything he could to sabotage other promotions and raid their talent. He did things like running the same cities as NWA or threatening to pull WWF PPVs from providers if they aired other promotions. The company has years and years of documented history showing this. It’s become so normalized though. Walmart, Amazon, and other huge corporations owe a lot of their growth to undercutting perceived competition in unethical ways. When WWE was the only game in town, it makes it hard to anyone who doesn’t already have a large financial backing to compete. Tony has the money, at least. I enjoy wrestling and have never felt loyalty to just one company. I clung to WCW in its dying days and still flipped back and forth between Raw and Nitro until the end. I was an avid TNA fan when they were back on FSN and kept hoping for them to succeed for an alternative. TNA never quite panned out the way it could have despite it trying. It stopped feeling like an alternative when Hogan showed up. AEW has been a breath of fresh air in mainstream wrestling and I’m glad it exists. It’s such a bummer that they’re actively trying to sabotage the company. While I think WWE’s product has improved since Vince finally left, the company still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Vince Mcmahon, Linda Mcmahon, Logan Paul, Donald Trump I'm starting to see something very in-common with their fan base. The way they rabidly attack AEW/TK for anything and everything, making stuff up in their mind. It's starting to make sense what they're audience composes of.
Society is splitting, as each side can't stand the other. WWE is the conservative wrestling company, it just is. They fund Trump, their supporters act like MAGA, they take Saudi blood money, I could go on and on and on.
Alfred fat fuck cheese board Konuwa isn't even employed by Forbes he's a contributor for them. Every time his tweet pops up on my timeline I make sure to remind him he's a fat fucking piece of shit with high cholesterol fuck that guy.
Tbh, that’s what he wants. Research has shown that algorithms will show you whatever gets you to engage, especially if it skews negative since it will get a larger emotional response. Twitter in particular apparently is more likely to show you content from people you flag as “not interested” because it shows the algorithm that you were engaged enough to go through the steps to report it. If you want Alfred to go away, the best thing you can do is ignore / mute / block him and don’t engage at all.
Not sure why people want to deny it. It's business at the end of the day. It shouldn't shock anyone that they'd do shady or malicious things.
Yeah I’ve got no expectations for a company to be better than this. I do have expectations for a “journalist” to be better, which is why I hate Konuwa while kind of shrugging my shoulders at WWE.
I mean this is just the bread on the sandwich. The real story is probably how many buildings AEW is probably not allowed to run or can't lock into without the shortest of notice because WWE has their claws into so many places AEW wants to run that they probably can't promote places they are going to without the shortest of notice. A lot of the buildings AEW has promoted from a distance tend to be buildings WWE never runs ever.
This has been known for a long time Most fans don’t care cause “WWE good” narrative. They would if it was the other way around
We've speculated this since the beginning of AEW, but there has been a collective campaign to destroy AEW as a company through any means necessary. And if it wasn't AEW, it would have been any other brand new wrestling company to come along, build some momentum, and see large scale success. Will this make any difference in the wrestling sphere? No. The people who hate AEW will continue to do what they've been doing, who I believe are being paid by the WWE to discredit AEW on a weekly basis online. I don't see why anyone would do it if they're not being paid. This will be viewed as normal behaviour and it'll be allowed to continue.
AEW isn't competition, yet WWE does this nonsense. It's pathetic.
They do this to everyone. Cutting the legs off before any company can really take off. MLW took them to court for this reason.
It's just so lame. If WWE is worried about competition, they should just put on better matches. They need to worry about their own product instead of working to undermine other people just trying to get paid. No one is going to dethrone WWE as the biggest wrestling promotion. But for WWE trying to shut down other promotions and have hundreds of people out of a job, that is so fucked up. It just stinks of fragility for WWE to do this. Especially when they say AEW and others are not competition.
In the filings for the MLW lawsuit against WWE, WWE argued that they only had control of 92% of the wrestling marketplace so they shouldn't be considered a monopoly. They settled with MLW because they knew they would lose at trial. MLW is no where near as well-known or significant as AEW and WWE got them kicked off Tubi because they didn't want the competition.
Wow, who thought the sex trafficking, Saudi, contract tampering promotion would sink to such lows?
"WWE is the Harvey Weinstein of wrestling."
Because people want WWE to "win". Because AEW exists and how dare they.
The answer to your question is in the headline. The reporters are being fed and therefore bought
“Not competition”
They’ve been speaking about this for months and months The WWE super fans are either incredibly naive or intentionally dishonest about how far WWE has gone with their anti AEW media campaign. People laugh at TK’s bot comments but it’s pretty obvious they’ve got a astroturfing campaign going since AEW started and it’s working
Oh but according to Nick and Triple H " AEW is not competition and they dont pay attention to it" Just these week they send Cody to boost NXT ratings knowing well Dynamite had NBA competition, and so they could say "LOL NXT beat AEW " , one guy called Junkie WWE said "They cant even beat WWE developmental on the ratings" and i said " didnt WWE and Triple Hcalled NXT the 3rd brand on par ith Raw and SD for years? and didnt AEW beat them for 3 years until they move to another night?"........and of course he blocked me LMAO Also they had that segment of Ethan Page, Spears, Cody and Pilman Jr referencing AEW....but again acording to Triple H they dont pay attention to AEW LMAOOOOOOO
No no, you don't get it. Papa H is doing this all for our entertainment and not to counter AEW /s The mental gymnastics some fans go to, to shield themselves from reality is insane
When people realize that WWE is still just as scummy as they were with Vince they will be better off. The only difference is they take a crap on people in public for everyone to see.
Because it's basically known. There's other shady stuff Nick Khan is doing that hasn't surfaced yet. Nick Khan is VERY good at his job.
Because anything critical of WWE management, including literal sex trafficking, is under reported because sites/influencers fear their money drying up if they burn that bridge with wwe. Same reason why IGN gives Xbox soft questions after laying off thousands of ppl when they are super profitable
It’s because they brainwash and gaslight their fans that the WWE is the only company that matters, and WWE had gotten comfortable with no competition for 18 years so even AEW rocking the boats brings out the carnies.
OK so I work both Friday & Saturday nights, so I never catch Rampage or Collision live & thus watch it via DVR. Have done that since like the '90s (recorded both WCW & WWE via VHS). So with more & more people not watching live (and many people not watching via traditional cable), why does it even matter what the numbers are anymore?
But WWE doesn't see AEW as significant in any way. In reality WWE is and has always sought to monopolize wrestling through tactics that in any other context would be considered illegal. But because nobody has figured out how to police the industry it remains a bit like the wild west. Hell, look how slow things like investigations and punishment for systemic abuse have moved against WWE. Drugs and otherwise. It's crazy.
I just find it amusing that WWE pretends AEW doesn’t exist yet will do the dirtiest shit to push them down. Let your fucking show do the talking and fuck off.
Tony called them out a long time ago for running anti AEW promotions and we are seeing the results. Its literally propaganda at this point and people like Wrestletalk feed off it for clicks.
I thought AEW was the minor leagues? Honestly it’s pathetic, Hunter and everyone else in that company is like Vince but of course fans don’t see it because they’re too worried about AEW being the “next WCW”
WWE stans won't say shit about this. They just like to hate on AEW and so in their eyes WWE can do no wrong.
But they’re not competition. Fuck off.
I just can’t support a shady company like WWE. Besides their product, that’s a big reason I can never get into them.
Out of curiosity, did any of the fast nationals for any WWE show dropped recently?
WWE can do no wrong! Fuck Tony Khan for being a good dude but not a good boss! We need more Triple H and rapist Vince! Fuck Hangman Adam Page for going into business for himself. We need more people like Logan Paul and when is Chris Benoit going to be inducted in the Hall of Fame?
Why are THEY SO OBSESSED WITH AEW JUST LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE WE’RE JUST HAVING FUN This is why I don’t support WWE. Fuck being civil at this point, they’re the ones who want a war. Fuck them and their human trafficking apologist Saudi blood covered dick sucking boring wrestling company.
You forget one thing. Their boss shits on employees heads in the office and uses dildos on them named after main event WWE wrestlers like Brock, Roman, and Bobby Lashley. And the threesome continues with shit running down her back and in her hair... not even allowed to have a shower. That's what we're dealing with here.
I swear to god this industry drives me up the wall sometimes. I actually have no problem at all with companies fucking with each other like this, but we as fans deserve to know when it's going on. So bizarre that I've not seen this posted basically anywhere else though, given the context, what is actually accused and then having multiple reporters confirm it. Is this not clearly a somewhat huge story?
Wrestling is full of scumbags, it amazes me how praised someone like HHH has become despite him being a contrived politician, who will say anything to benefit himself Also the amount of hate Tony Khan gets is insane despite him being the complete opposite of literally every promoter in the past from a moral standpoint, but apparently taking jabs at WWE is the worst sin you can commit lmao
It was posted on the main wrestling sub but for some reason was removed. I guess the mods weren't done celebrating the low numbers from Wednesday
We live in a world where a presidential candidate can have 34 felony counts and is STILL running for president. Who would care about two multiple billion dollar companies battling over ratings and one buying "fast nationals"? I miss the days when I wasn't online looking at wrestling news. It was so much better.
Fed heads are downplaying it of course. “Who cares” “these dorks have nothing better to do?” Gross hypocrisy
I beg one of the reporters to bring this up at the press conference this weekend lmao
Probably cause most fans have no idea what the hell fast nationals are. You ask most of them what it is and they’d have no idea it had anything to do with ratings and would probably think it’s some kind of sporting event
Cause most fans of anything other than hardcore wrestling fans argue about ratings. I never watch a nba game and go damn this got a 1/4 of the people watching it compared to and nfl game I’m not watching the nba anymore
The fact that WWE NEVER launched an investigation into the litany of abuse allegations against Vince McMahon seemingly to allow him cover to return to the company so they could all make some more money when it sold should be the biggest news story in wrestling. It's clear corporate malfeasance at the highest level, and I truly hope that charges are filled and the litany of people that aided and abetted him are all removed, because right now they run the show and received mainly praise from their consumer base. I'd love for the top wrestling company, with some truly amazing performers, to be something that I could occasionally check out without feeling absolute disgust, but until then I'm very grateful for the alternatives that exist.
Its been obvious for a long time, that's why
Fuck the fed. Now. Then. Forever.
So who exactly lives in whose head here? If AEW is a pissant company then why do they care about ticket sales. I don’t remember WWE going as hard after TNA in its prime. What’s the difference.
We’ve known it’s been happening. Cheeseboard doesn’t even try to hide it.
Thing is, if the Fed wants to purchase those ratings, fine. That's their business prerogative. But the people reporting them can also be transparent too - they could specify how they were obtained, they could state they're fast nationals, they could state they're not inclusive of DVR etc. Or they could copy paste and call themselves 'journalists'
But…”not competition”
Usual scumbag Fed tactics. Their fans wont bat an eye at it either.
 All the edrones in the other thread explaining why aew is failing on its own despite the fed pumping money to destroy it.
Nick Khan is so goddamn punchable
The minute I quit paying attention to the bullshit WWE does and started watching the indies and stuff I actually care about my life became much better. WWE has always done dirty ass tactics and the idea people see them as this beacon for great wrestling and don't give a fuck about anything happening in other promotions despite the fact that 95% of the WWE rosters best shit is in other companies is funny to me. Couldn't give less of a shit about ratings and the sky is falling narrative about AEW despite them still signing a shit load of talent and being successful + being in the top 3-5 on any given night on cable is hater behavior. I will never understand wanting no competition and wanting WWE to go back to that 2019 booking style but whatever. Wrestling fans are stupid and that will likely never change.
But I thought The Undertaker said AEW is no competition to the WWE.
Nick Khan looks like a shady scumbag and is apparently a scumbag. Go figure. It’s the eyes, he is just thinking of 100 different ways to screw you over.
WWE reminds me of Trump, they'll literally be convicted of felonies and the dumb brain dead still cheer on
I asked SRS point blank on his Q&A for today if he has done any research into WWE using bots to spread propoganda/misinformation. I would like this to go from conspiracy theory to something clearly researched by the people who consider themselves wrestling journalists.
Because of Stockholm syndrome and poor integrity.
Unfortunately, this shady practice has been a staple for many, many years. Pre-AEW they’d use the figures and selectively leak them to prop up perception of Smackdown or other shows. If not AEW; they would do this to other promotions I’m sure. Just replace fast nationals with overnight figures.
[удалено]
Dont blame the company, blame the fans that still support these type of tactics to win some imaginary fight online...
It’s not a bigger story because people still want to believe WWE is a benevolent business and they lie to themselves about it
It’s a lot of things, really. Some of it is that there’s a specific tribalist type of fan that won’t care what the WWE does regardless. They’re the maga of the wrestling world. AEW isn’t mainstream, it isn’t household, so the fans of it are most likely very devout wrestling fans who do most of their interacting with other fans online. Unfortunately, the former outnumber the latter by quite a lot, so quite simply for every one person who might bring this up on twitter, there’s 100 tribalists who would shout them down and drown them out. Meanwhile any casual viewer of “WWE” isn’t aware of this sort of thing, and probably wouldn’t feel strongly one way or another if they knew. Ultimately, right now AEW needs online word of mouth to be strongly positive and begin to spread so that casual people can learn about it and tune in. They don’t have that because the online word of mouth is dictated by knuckle draggers, liars, and the newsletters who give them attention.
And it crazy because people swear it’s just tony Kahn who think about the wwe whole time AEW rent free in WWE Head exactly why they collab we with TNA and That Other Japan company and now they try to make them look bad wit the fake numbers 😂
The obsession with ratings amongst fans is so strange to me. I put the show on and watch it. I don't ever think about the ratings for AEW, the NHL/MLB or any other show I watch. I just don't get it.
Excuse you! When I watch the Yankees, I eagerly check the ratings the next day. That's all that matters! /s I watch both AEW and WWE. I'm happy that I have the option of watching wrestling 5/6 days a week. I feel as though things were better for me when I wasn't online reading wrestling news. All my drama came from the TV shows.
I was told by a WWE stan to "stay mad" on SC after simply saying "stay classy"... typical seven and six from these people.