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After his retirement from full-time wrestling, do you think Bryan Danielson stays on with AEW in some sort of creative or upper management capacity? I’m assuming he’s on some sort of per-appearance or handshake deal right now since his contract expired in early August?
As I write this, I haven't heard what his agreement is with the company currently, but my feeling is Bryan will take some time off and occasionally wrestle. He's already on the company's committee that oversees issues from within, so I wouldn't be shocked to see him be offered some sort of management or producer role.I suspect he will wrestle a lot more than most expect. He loves it so much, I can't imagine he won't want to do it. It's his art form. Since Bryan has talked about needing neck surgery, my belief is he should concentrate on that first, but we will see if he does.
Can you explain to me why Zelina Vega disappeared off television again? I don't understand this at all. If she was injured, then she came back and won a match and then she was injured AGAIN and disappeared? Is there some long-term storyline here? Does she have heat? It seems like ever since they did Backlash in Puerto Rico, all they have done is remind us that she's there and then yank her off TV quicker than we could blink. What is the deal here? Is it Triple H is now the new Vince McMahon and is picking his favorites and tossing the others aside? Given the way Bobby Lashley and MVP are now gone, despite all their upside I have to wonder if she is next. What are your thoughts?
I would not compare Triple H to Vince McMahon in how they approach talent. If you remember,just with Vega, Vince McMahon would just shrug things off for no logical reason that anybody on the outside could ever figure out in a lot of cases. Just think about how at times the audience got behind Vega and they just ignored it completely under Vince's control. The Madison Square Garden situation on 9/11 ring a bell? They literally built the entire taping around her locally in the news, pushed that she would wrestle on the show hours before at a special reception and then didn't even have her on the show! To me, THAT's forgetting a talent in the worst way.
I would like to think Paul Levesque is a lot more receptive and understanding of what the audience wants and I do believe (from what I understand) that he pays very close attention to what the audience wants not just live but also based on social media feedback. I've been told there are many times where he is scrolling through Twitter from the Gorilla Position at the broadcasts and paying very close attention to what the audience is doing and reacting to as the shows are going on the air.
Given that we know that, I have to think that HAS to be some sort of plan here and that he would be listening to the audience because if he isn't, it wouldn't make much sense. Vega has the support of the live audience. We can see that watching the show and if you look at how she's trended the last couple of weeks with the #PushZelina deal, there's obviously an audience that wants to see her used and utilized on the show in a consistent way, not just a few matches here or there.
To me, when you look at what she did with Liv Morgan of late and even what she did with Rhea Ripley in Puerto Rico (since you mentioned that in your question), we know that she can hang in the ring and do all sorts of fun stuff that gets the audience behind her. We also know she's got great acting chops and her promos are far better than anyone I think really gives her regular credit for.
I don't think she is the prototypical talent that Paul Levesque looks to get behind that's probably someone closer to a Rhea Ripley or a Bianca Belair or a Jade Cargill, but as a promoter and booker, you should want to have all types of talents and all types of personalities on your show to make a well-rounded product that appeals to everybody so every member of the audience has someone that they see themselves in when they're watching.
Talent is talent and I do believe that denying that Vega has great talent would be silly and I think that not using her is completely silly and dumb. One has to hope that just like we hear that there are storylines that are already mapped out through WrestleMania 40 for next year that they have some sort of storyline mapped out for Vega and we're just in the period of time where they have her selling but on the surface. Now, if that's not the case, none of this makes any sense and you would think that they would want her on TV given how much the audience cares about her. Iff they don't I really have no idea what the hell they're doing or thinking in that regard - so, hopefully, when you next tune into Raw, she’s well onto whatever the next part of this storyline is, and isn’t lost in a vortex somewhere.
Has there been any heat between Danhausen and AEW? He returned from injury late last year only to disappear from TV a couple months later.
I don't know about heat, but from the outside looking in, it's a weird situation. Danhausen obviously made the company merchandise money but for whatever reason, he never really returned with any consistency. He always got a great reaction and was liked by both kids and adults, so to me, there was certainly something to his run, but as you said, he disappeared. If there is an injury issue, I've never heard about it.
Was the NWA the only promotion to have their world champions pay a deposit while they had the belt? When did this practice end? Did they only do it for the World title?
The NWA required the deposit to make sure that when their titleholders were touring different areas and internationally that they wouldn't take a side payday to lose the belt. If they had a deposit down, they were locked into making sure that the belt was kept prestigious and that they would abide by what the NWA needed and wanted from them. If they wavered from that, goodbye deposit. This was a time period where the belt itself drew money and the person holding it was "made" in most cases. If someone went off script, the NWA would lose all that, so the deposit was there to keep things on target. When that type of touring champion faded away, so did the deposit. The last person to put that deposit up that I am aware of was Ric Flair.
Whatever happened to the film about Mildred Burke that Kamille and a few others were in?
There's been no word yet about the release or distribution for that film, Queen of the Ring, that I am aware.
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