Last thread has well over 10,000 replies. Its body is breaking down like The Undertaker's. Seeing as we might have crossed the threshold into a new era in the business, here's a fresh new thread.
New Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Tees will both be pulling official merchandise and t-shirts for Kazuchika Okada as of tomorrow, 2/1. Today would be the final day to order those items.
The belief among those we've spoken with is today is his final day under contract with NJPW and that tomorrow, he will officially be a free agent.
As PWInsiderElite has noted previously, the belief is that with his long-time friendship with The Young Bucks, AEW is Okada's likely destination. When Okada was a rookie on excursion in the United States and wrestling for TNA, The Young Bucks took him under their wing and befriended him, assisting him out when most others left Okada to his own devices to navigate living, traveling and working in a foreign country. Okada has maintained a steadfast loyalty to the Bucks in the years since as he evolved into one of the best in-ring wrestlers in the world.
Okada is being represented by Barry Bloom for negotiations with his next deal. Bloom was with him when Okada wrestled for TNA in Las Vegas. PWInsider is told there are no current talks between TNA and Okada and he is not expected to appear there again. We are also told that if there were any discussions between Okada and WWE, they were not of any great length of depth. [Reply]
Why would Vince McMahon being a vile human being matter anymore. He's been ostracized and from the outside looking in, apart from HHH pulling a PR blunder at the press conference, they've played it about as well as they could have.
Present him properly? If that was a concern he'd have already signed with WWE. Being brutally honest, Khan has no earthly idea what the fuck he's doing, and it becomes more and more glaring he farther out we get from him not being able to trade on fans being sick and tired of WWE. Every star WWE has decided to poach instantly becomes a much bigger star (Rhodes, Punk, Cargill, etc) and every name that goes to AEW is an irrelevant face in the crowd within a month.
If these guys want to play grabass with their friends on Khans dime, by all means, go for it, but I wouldn't be shocked if AEW isn't even a thing before most of these terms run out the way business has been for them recently. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sassy Squatch:
Why would Vince McMahon being a vile human being matter anymore. He's been ostracized and from the outside looking in, apart from HHH pulling a PR blunder at the press conference, they've played it about as well as they could have.
Present him properly? If that was a concern he'd have already signed with WWE. Being brutally honest, Khan has no earthly idea what the fuck he's doing, and it becomes more and more glaring he farther out we get from him not being able to trade on fans being sick and tired of WWE. Every star WWE has decided to poach instantly becomes a much bigger star (Rhodes, Punk, Cargill, etc) and every name that goes to AEW is an irrelevant face in the crowd within a month.
If these guys want to play grabass with their friends on Khans dime, by all means, go for it, but I wouldn't be shocked if AEW isn't even a thing before most of these terms run out the way business has been for them recently.
That sounds like twitter spam seriously, omg AEW is dying!
Meanwhile they are about to get a huge bump in tv rights pay. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sassy Squatch:
All you have to do is look at the crowds to know.
They're pricing is off and if you wait they lower tickets but to be frank, no one has a ton of excess money anymore so it's affecting things. It's not going to affect WWE as much since you know they have more fans, and are friendlier to families. [Reply]
And are we so sure they're actually in line for a major bump in pay? The chatter was WBD would drop them like a bad habit if they managed to secure RAW and I can't imagine they're too thrilled with creating a Saturday night slot on the back of CM Punk only to have him ran off to WWE while the show they created for him cratered. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sassy Squatch:
And are we so sure they're actually in line for a major bump in pay? The chatter was WBD would drop them like a bad habit if they managed to secure RAW and I can't imagine they're too thrilled with creating a Saturday night slot on the back of CM Punk only to have him ran off to WWE while the show they created for him cratered.
They should..also this is the part of wrestling I fuckin hate talking about.
I watch AEW because it's full of top of the line ring work all the time. [Reply]
Its not like I'm rooting for them to fail. But it's the reality of their current situation and they need to do a ton of work to turn this perception around. [Reply]
And they absolutely have to figure out how to thrive without trading on the bad will of scorned former WWE fans. That just isn't going to work anymore with Vince fucking off to the shadow realm. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Sassy Squatch:
Its not like I'm rooting for them to fail. But it's the reality of their current situation and they need to do a ton of work to turn this perception around.
A lot of their perception is created on social media because for a lot of fans the WWE having competition is something they don't like..which is stupid. [Reply]
To an extent, I guess, but a lot of that is Khans own doing nowadays. Somebody has got to take his phone away when he goes on those tirades.
And for me, the shows are just stale and boring. The Devil storyline in particular made me lose a considerable amount of interest in watching, and as talented as some of that roster is eventually it's all the same stuff you've seen before. [Reply]