CM Punk having back surgery and will no longer fight this summer. I didn’t see a timetable for his return
Isn’t the dude like 37? How does he expect to do anything in MMA at his age now?
WTF???
Geez, Phil. Take care of yourself, but dahum, does this smell like you fraudulently collected a few paychecks knowing you wouldn’t make it to the octagon.
He probably didn’t collect that many paychecks. UFC contracts don’t usually have a “salary” or “downside guarantee” component. Instead there’s a fee per fight amount negotiated. UFC contracts are essentially a contract for x amounts of fights, but there’s probably a requirement that fighters do certain base level things to qualify for a fight and etc, and usually the guaranteed base pay per fight is very low. The base pay is the only thing we usually know since that is what many State Athletic Commissions require be disclosed, the rest are usually based on gate/PPV shares and will vary both in the proportion they get and will also vary based on the performance of the PPV.
Not saying UFC has never signed anyone a big pile of money just to get them on an exclusive contract, but my following of the MMA world, most people say UFC doesn’t do that (Bellator might because it’s in a place where it wants to poach talent), UFC money is more about PPV. So if you’ve not done a PPV you probably haven’t made much money in UFC. As a weird case as an “outside celebrity” Brooks may have a non-standard deal.
That being said, I’ve heard wrestling talking heads who have straddled both worlds and who commented on Brooks move to UFC say that he likely will not make nearly as much money in UFC as he was in WWE. Mid-card and lower card wrestlers essentially universally make more money than equivalent UFC guys (many of whom may get at best $30k, sometimes $15k a fight, and you only have a few fights a year.) Very top UFC people like McGregor or Rousey might make more than the very top WWE guys, but even that is questionable–most top guys get a share of merchandise sales, which can put them into very high income levels. It’s reported John Cena makes like a 6% share of Cena merchandise (probably over $x amount in gross sales), on top of like $3m/yr; and given all the little kids wearing all the Cena colors that’s probably a not-insubstantial amount of money. Austin had a similar merchandise deal during the Attitude era and reportedly made like $40m total over his 3-4 year “super popular” run, which is more than any UFC person is making at the moment.
Once again, Lucha Underground is completely and utterly awesome.
I hate to nitpick what’s essentially a B-movie, but in the scene where Aerostar appears to the Aztecs 1,000 years ago (in modern day luchador gear, no less), the Aztecs are speaking Spanish centuries before Spain came knocking at their door. They should have been speaking Nahuatl. It’s not as if it’s a dead language or anything - there are 1.5 million native speakers in the world today - so it should have been possible for them to do the skit in that language. It doesn’t detract too much from an otherwise awesome promo, though.
Catrina implied in her scene with Prince Puma that Konnan is dead now. I don’t recall that having happened in Ultima Lucha, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention.
We get a face promo from Texano where he also finds himself being attacked by roaming gangs of masked luchadors. Where are these guys coming from?
We close with a sudden jump into a cop drama, where we learn that Cortez Castro (I think?) is an undercover LAPD officer who’s been trying unsuccessfully to bring down Dario Cueto. Despite being as deep in as he is, the captain is unimpressed with his work, so she assigns another cop to go into the Temple and bail him out - Joey Ryan! The power of the penis is about to grace the believers.
…oh, and also there was some wrestling that happened. This show has almost developed to the point where the wrestling matches are there to compliment the vignettes and not the other way around. I’m not complaining about that, either.
Great heel work from Jack Evans in his match. I’m not sure I like Kobra Moon’s costume, but she put on a great show as well, and introducing her as hailing from Chiapas (which has the largest native population of any Mexican state, many of whom don’t speak Spanish) was a clever nod to the way the show is establishing this mythos of lucha libre as a pre-Columbian tradition. The last man standing match was amazing, and yet another example of how hardcore wrestling can be great when it’s only done once in awhile. It looks like Fenix is the protagonist of this season in the way Prince Puma was for season 1.
Issue #2 of the Lucha Underground comic is out, in which we learn why Big Ryck isn’t competing at the Temple this year;
In between seasons, the Disciples of Death murdered him, along with the Temple’s house band, and dozens of other innocent citizens of Boyle Heights in order to consume their souls and use their bones to make Mil Muertes’ throne.
Hey Smapti, were you camera facing again for Smackdown? Should I look for the GloWurm?
Thanks for a more in-depth review of LU, Smap. I had some rl issues preventing me from following the storylines more acutely. Government emptied my bank account, friend lost kidney, ex landlord’s daughter committed suicide, etc. I plan to write a country song about it.
I don’t recall Konnan being killed off either. Vampiro would have been jumping up and down for joy if that were the case. I think the DoD put him in the casket and wheeled him off after Mil defeated Puma. Maybe he’ll come back from the grave or something.
Kobra Moon really kept in character, with the snaky slithering and tongue flickering. You say she’s only been around a couple of years? She seemed to know her spots.
I’m really digging Jack Evans. He does some amazing contortions and acrobatic twists. I loved that spot where he perched on the top corner, bent over and looked between his legs, and got kicked in the face by Drago.
Joey Ryan as a detective? Interesting. I wondered how he was going to play with the “darker” tone LU is taking this year… as if there weren’t enough blood baths last season. I guess he’ll be a semi-porno Magnum PI knockoff.
DoD killed off Big Ryck and the house band? That’s a unique way of explaining how somebody’s contract didn’t get renewwed. Wonder if this means Ezekiel Jackson will be back in WWE?
No, I was along the entrance ramp a few seats back, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get any air time.
As I said, the Styles vs. Jericho rematch is the highlight of this show. Possibly one of the best matches I’ve seen live.
Jericho wins off a Codebreaker, so I’m assuming there’s going to be a blowoff match at Fastlane.
lol @NXT
Jordan: This is 2016.
Gable: This is an Olympic year, and you know what that means…
Enzo & Cass: Uh no, not really, ummm…
Enzo: I think what you’re trying to imply is that this is an Olympic year, so it’s your year?
Gable: This guy gets me.
Cass: I gotta be honest with you, you looked a little confused, like you weren’t going in that direction.
Gables: Well, I do that sometimes. I’m layered.
During Elias Sampson’s match:
Graves: This guy doesn’t talk to anybody, so we don’t know anything about him. I had to go back to Pittsburgh and talk to some drifters and panhandlers. They haven’t heard of this guy either.
Yeah, I can just picture pretend anarchist Corey Graves talking to bums on the street. “Hey, do you know Elias Sampson? Is he legit?” “Naw man, the gummint shut me down, took my kidneys, I got a new friend Jimbo, he’s a rat, you got any Night Train?”
Question for those who know history better than I…
DB was pulled off of TV because the WWE refused to pass him on their concussion protocol. DB goes around and gets passed by guy after guy after guy, then has the one bad diagnosis and retires because of it.
At the time, everyone in the IWC and most of the vocal majority were screaming “He’s fine! WWE is burying him! Burn in Hell Roman Reigns!” But now, with the benefit of retrospect, it comes to pass that WWE was actually right. No one will say that…but they were.
I’m asking ya’ll…were they right because they just lucked into being right? Or did they actually know that he was as bad as he was and now DB himself proved it?
I think it’s disgusting that Daniel Bryan would abandon the WWE Universe without at least having a retirement match. If he can’t have that retirement match in WWE then he needs to have it in TNA. The fans have made Daniel Bryan. Without the fans he’d be working at Target. He owes us at least one more match. If he can’t have that match at Wrestlemania he needs to have it in TNA. Right?
**
Congratulations on sending in the most ridiculously stupid and selfish question in the 12 year history of this website. You should ashamed of yourself for even suggesting that Bryan Danielson, who’s found a lesion on his brain and has been suffering from seizures owes you or anyone another performance in the ring. It’s painfully and sadly beyond obvious that even trying to wrestle again, he would literally be taking his life, quality of life and his family’s future happiness and tossing them into the air just for the chance of making some sad SOB happy by once again, putting himself into a dangerous situation. You say that without the fans, he’d be working in Target. I’d suggest that he and every other performer in the wrestling business would be better off working in a Target instead of working in front of unappreciative fans like you. The man spent the last few years with his life pretty much on hold because of choices he made to entertain. To ask him to step back into that environment is a fing shy thing to do and to act as if Danielson, one of the most quality human beings to be around the business, owes anyone something is pretty fed up. I hope you never find yourself in the type of serious health issues that Bryan has undergone in the last few years of his life - a situation he’s in because he was selfless - but if you do, I hope you find someone as uncaring to you as you have been to him. I’ve never been as disgusted answering a question as I have been when I opened your email and you are now blocked from sending me any others, ever again. For anyone to claim that Bryan owes anyone anything is pretty pathetic, as are you. Karma is a scary thing when it boomerangs back at someone deserving it. I hope for your sake it never finds you.*
We will never know because of HIPAA concerns - they cannot speak about the details of his health without his approval. But yes, it does sound that they knew he was this bad and that he was simply in denial. The absolute shocker to me was that he was hiding seizures. That tells me that HE knew it was that bad but was ignoring it because he wanted to keep working.
But given WWE, and especially Vince McMahon’s general history and their treatment of this one individual, it was hard for a lot of us to believe that WWE wasn’t just being a shit.
In Bryan’s speech, he sounded like he was pretty surprised to learn that his brain was in worse shape than his own doctors had been telling him, and that he didn’t know for sure that the seizures were connected to his concussions. My guess is that the earlier tests that cleared him weren’t as comprehensive as the one he had a few weeks ago, and that WWE had been keeping him sidelined mostly because they’re being sued over concussions right now. (Consider that in 2013, before the lawsuits started hitting them, that Dolph Ziggler, Fandango, and Alberto all got concussions and were back at work in less than two months).
BTW; I did watch Smackdown last night.
Beks, my love, you did a bad job on commentary. Keep your answers and your statements short and tight. Too many times you dragged it out and ended getting cut off by announcers calling the match or just trailing off.
Jerry Lawler? Fucking retire already. You embarrassed yourself last night and your reverting to heel commentary is insipid and adds no value to the show. Your repeating the same stupid questions to Becky over and over was really annoying.
See, this is the nice thing about going to the show in person - you can see the commentary team, but you don’t have to hear them, and you can enjoy the match without their stupid face/heel bickering or their putting over whatever’s happening on Total Divas right now.
It’s actually kind of funny - every time I’ve gone to a TV taping, the crowd boos Maggle’s entrance and then goes crazy cheering for JBL, despite JBL objectively being godawful on commentary. Maybe it’s nostalgia for his in-ring career; I wasn’t watching during the time he actually wrestled, so I don’t know. (Jerry also gets cheered. Byron Saxton, Rich Brennan, and Mauro Ranallo don’t get a Titantron package and just come out together silently before the taping starts.)
Jerry Lawker is just #bircdchirps to me.
I cannot stand the stupid noises he makes for every move someone does.
Interestingly enough, Ms. Cups said she’s a bit annoyed and Renallo because he calls literally every move and it’s almost too much. I disagree with her (but don’t tell her that)
Well, he did call one match end last night “a simulated win”. :eek:
http://news.yahoo.com/best-worst-wwe-nxt-2-171528111.html
“Sometimes I watch Lucha Underground and wonder why I bother with anything else, and then a dorky Minnesotan wristlock wizard shows up to piss off the New Jersey Calvin and Hobbes by ruining their hip-hop references. NXT is just as weird as Lucha sometimes, guys.”
I don’t listen to Drake or hippo hop so Enzo’s references flew right by me.
Lawler says he’s being a heel announcer because 3 guys who agree with each other is 2 more than needed. OK, fine, but you don’t have to be a whiny granny panty and call out Byron Saxton like he’s anything other than the flavor vanilla. Why can’t anybody be like Bobby Heenan?
We have to wait for Enzo to retire from the ring for that.