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Are there any real financial benefits for WWE in giving Brock Lesnar the contracts he receives? How is business when he is there compared to when he is not?
Obviously the company thinks that there is value! I really believe that Brock’s deal is really hard to quantify in black and white. For example, a show in Saudi Arabia will sell out either way, but if the Prince is more apt to pay to bring in the company because Brock is on the roster, it adds value to WWE. Brock is a megastar and I think he is worth what they pay him to have his presence on the roster, especially now that he is not dominating the top of the card the way that he was under Vince. Stars sell in intangible ways.
Do you think there was an agenda in promoting in the Observer that the crowd will inevitably turn on Cody Rhodes because of Sami Zayn's popularity? They really tried to push a narrative that this was a Batista-Daniel Bryan situation, when it CLEARLY wasn't. Cody is over as hell. When RAW was in Ottawa, right after Elimination Chamber and they showed the directions for Mania, there was a crazy Canadian crowd and they showed no signs of not being pleased with the journey. I was listening to Jim Cornette and he suggested about a month ago, that all you need to do is make Cody and Sami clear friends and allies in this fight. That's exactly what happened, and it's working! Was that negativity about Cody sour grapes because of him leaving AEW and becoming even more successful?
We said the same things about Cody and Sami aligning here on the site because it made sense. I can’t speak for why other outlets say the things that they say other than when bias is made very clear, I am not surprised when someone shows the bias I expect from them. I have seen a lot of people who thought/predicted that Sami would win in Montreal say the same kinds of things. Rather than admit they were wrong and that was not the right time for Roman to lose, with WrestleMania as the next show on the docket, they doubled down. I think part of it is that they are so used to the Tony Khan/Vince Russo/Vince McMahon style of never having to wait for anything that they don’t understand what a build to a story is.
What do you think of Triple H's booking style? Going back to the NXT days, I felt like he was almost like a classic old school territory style booker, who happens to produce a modern style of wrestling. He is not doing swerves for the sake of swerves, is not interested in randomly shocking the audience, the feuds are very streamlined, the twists and turns logical, maybe somewhat predictable, but always earned. Every single moment that is meant to hit the mark, actually hits the mark and goes over with the crowd. How would you describe his style compared to Vince's?
I love HHH’s booking style, and have going back to NXT. We all like what we like, and he books the product the way I like to watch it. Vince on the other hand booked his product in a way that often took away from the product for me.
Is it just me, or is WWE seriously doing better business than in the past few years? The ratings were on a slow decline, but now they appear to be solid, or even increasing, and I see less and less shows with papered arenas, so the live viewership is getting healthier, too. They have sold out again on major markets. Does the data indeed prove that the HHH era is a success and there is renewed interest in the product? I personally think that this is the best WWE product in at least a decade. The Bloodline story especially, Tony Khan was the one who always talked about the importance on long term storytelling, but WWE are actually doing it!
Mike Epsenhart talks about the indicators being up on our FMB show all the time so it’s definitely not your imagination. Good booking usually leads to better business and that is the case with WWE right now.
Say ECW would have gotten a good TV deal and started running big buildings as a major 3rd company. Do you think they would still be running the ECW Arena?
I don’t think it would have been the hub that it had been but I think that they would have run occasional, special shows there. That building was such a big part of ECW that I believe as long as it was available, Paul Heyman would have run it, at least occasionally.
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