Jericho tends to front load his podcasts with a lot of (IMO) junk. Songs from his band, cowbell, stupid character things, and so on. If you’re only interested in the interview, you have to skip through all of that stuff to get to the “meat” of his podcast.
There is no way you could know this since it wasn’t in the WWE press release. Generally for paid subscription services Wall Street expects that you note the total number of active subscribers, active meaning any with an active paid for account. So someone who had canceled but whose service had yet to end would count. Someone whose service had been canceled for two months wouldn’t count. People in free promotional periods usually can be counted, but you’re expected to break those out.
But, this was a press release and not WWE quarterly earnings. While they can be as cute as they want in a press release, they have to give these kinds of specifics come the quarterly earnings call so we’ll know at their next earnings call exactly what they mean. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have $1m people with active, paid subscriptions. They were hovering around 700k for awhile before doing the free month around Survivor Series, certainly at least some small % of those freeloaders signed up for paid service. Additionally, we haven’t yet heard a subscription update since it launched in the UK (probably the WWE’s biggest market outside North America) and the rest of the world, so a couple hundred thousand more wouldn’t shock me.
In this case he actually has another interview prior of two musicians from old bands who made a new one.
On the whole I like his schtick. I think the cowbell is funny and his music is my kind of rock and it’s not THAT bad…
Martin Hyde, the timing is very favorable for WWE in this situation. If I’m not mistaken, the next earnings call is either in or immediately after WM season, so it’s likely that whatever effect the #CancelWWENetwork movement may have had, it’ll be lost in the WM related churn. We’ll see.
Sirty, you continue to be my wrestling evil twin. If we were in [del]the WWE[/del] [del]Lucha Underground[/del]* NXT, we would totally be in a Rollins/Ambrose style feud to the death.
- In Lucha Undergroud, [del]God[/del] Dario Cueto himself only knows what we’d be doing. We could well be teaming up with Sexy Star and Pimpinela Escarlata vs. The Crew. Why? Who dares ask Dario Cueto why? But if you must know, #BecauseViolence.
You think you’re safe Law Monkey? You think I don’t know where you’ll be every time you post? Well I do, and every time you post I’ll be there. Maybe it’ll be in this thread, maybe it’ll be another, but I’m always here. Always watching…
Hmmmm, if we’re going to be SDMB wrestling avatars, then I’ll be Bray Wyatt because I tend to be specious and obtuse. Plus, I made a T-shirt of him.
I would suggest that Smapti could be Damian Sandow when he was the Intellectual Savior of the Masses, since he’s so nollijabull, but everybody should choose their own, of course.
SILENCE!
Although I would prefer to be our hometown boy Daniel Bryan, I sadly am neither granola enough nor majestically bearded enough. So, since I am clearly the most intelligent person in this thread, I accept your nomination.
You’re welcome.
Hya hya hya hyah Very true, Smapti, you are the most intelligent one here. But the ones who provided you your education, the ones that taught you life’s lessons, the ones who guided your development in morality, they were all LIARS. THEY LIED TO YOU! They wanted a servant, a lackey, a sycophant that they could CONTROL and perform their BEST THINKING for them. Every dollar you earn goes to line their pockets, Smapti. Their investment in you obviously paid off, and they SHOWER the riches they made off you with the SWEAT OFF YOUR BACK! I will USE you the way your MASTERS have and you will THANK me, Smapti! YOU WILL THANK ME! YOU WILL FOLLOW THE BUZZARDS! DEPP!
So last night I watched Great American Bash 1991 with the people over at Cageside Seats. If you are considering watching this shitshow of a PPV, let me offer some advice: DON’T. It pretty much has no redeeming value, other than seeing the 1991 hair and fashion in the crowd shots and getting to see some superstars to be (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, DDP, Steve Austin, JR, Paul Heyman) in their larval form, so to speak. Ugh.
A few things need to be explained:
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This appears to be just after both Flair and the Road Warriors left WCW.
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Kevin Nash was wrestling with his short-lived “Oz” gimmick.
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This was while Brian Pillman was under a suspension for some reason, so he wore a yellow mask and called himself “the Yellow Dog” (in reference to another wrestler calling him that for some reason - and since he was a face, they never did have him unmask, although they did have the obligatory match where somebody unmasked him but other wrestlers quickly covered him up and the face commentators acted as if they hadn’t just seen Pillman’s face)
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El Gigante is wrestling. Enough said. Some of you may remember him as the WWE wrestler Giant Gonzalez, although at least WCW didn’t make him wear something that made him look like he was growing fur.
Also keep in mind that 1991 was when the wrestling “lull” began; that year’s WrestleMania was planned for the Los Angeles Coliseum, but moved to the Sports Arena when they realized they weren’t going to be anywhere near a sellout and had to find a way not to show tens of thousands of empty seats.
Well shit, they’re just going to keep pushing Tom Brady because of his movie star looks. This must be a swerve for Pete Carroll, purposely calling that boneheaded play to put the Patriots over. Just because Russell Wilson grew a beard and looks like a Muslim terrorist is no reason to bury him like they do Daniel Bryan. At least it wasn’t a squash like the NE win over the Colts. The event didn’t totally suck, though. Katy Perry had an awesome Finn Balor-like entrance with that robot tiger she was riding.
I would SO root for an NFL team managed by Bobby Heenan.
AFAIK, he is the only “manager” ever named to an All-Madden Team.
And you know, the booking on this was so good. You have an underdog team from a weird little B+ city, who’ve been told over and over again that they don’t belong in the big time, who are being unfairly penalized by referees and whose star player is openly mocked by the heel authority figure of the week, while their opponents openly cheat to win matches and nobody does a thing about it! They totally botched the ending on this one - but then again, what do you expect from an event that has such a big number on its name and is therefore old and no longer relevant to the white male 12-30 demographic? 
Back on topic, however, Triple H has promised that on tonight’s Raw he’ll make an announcement about Roman Reigns’ Royal Rumble win that will shock the WWE to its core.
I assume it’s all an angle to book Roman’s match at Fast Lane (a PPV named, no doubt, after the nature of his WWE career) where he will go over and Look Really Strong, but let’s open the floodgates to wild speculation as to what the announcement will be;
- Since Curtis Axel was never eliminated, the Rumble is still going on and the next of the two of them to go over a top rope will lose
- Curtis Axel was never eliminated and Roman went over a top rope during a commercial break on Smackdown, meaning Curtis Axel has already won
- Somehow, the Rock won and Roman has to fight his cousin for the spot at Mania
- According to Article VII, Section 32, line 148 of the WWE charter (which they just discovered actually exists when they finally got around to cleaning out Jack Tunney’s office last week) they have to do the Rumble all over again, next Tuesday in Texas
Maybe Trips will frame this *huge announcement *as something dickheadish they’re doing to RR to garner sympathy heat for him. It worked for DB, so maybe it’ll get Reigns over. Thing is, intentionally mistreating DB isn’t what got him over. DB got himself over with pure talent and none of the WWE personality packages. They can’t imbue Reigns with an attractive personality. To quote a line from Christine, “Ya can’t polish a turd!”
Possibility: Fight Rollins in No DQ Match at Fast Lane. If Rollins wins, it is a Triple Threat at Wrestlemania.
Which of course means The Authority pulls out all the stops at FL, giving Reigns that Superman comeback to overcome the odds and win the match. (Works for Cena, worked for DB, why not go to the well again?)
Either that or the really dickish regular match where if Reigns doesn’t win, it is a 3-way. Then the J&J jumps in, smacks Rollins so he wins by DQ and it’s a 3-Way at Wrestlemania.
So, the big fallout from Raw is that the main event of Fast Lane will be Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns, with the winner getting the world title shot at Wrestlemania.
This could be a good thing. It could also be a very bad thing. The cynic in me says they’re going to have Roman win clean so that he can Look Really Strong and the audience will be convinced (in Vince’s mind, anyway) that they should like him instead of that goat-faced weirdo. Mark my words - if Roman beats Bryan clean, it will kill the last of his baby face heat. There’s no way he can go over in this match unless they plan to turn him heel. On the optimistic side, this could be WWE realizing that it’s not yet the right time for Reigns to be main-eventing, and that the fans want to see Bryan get at least one real world title run. (On a side note, Reigns’ loss to Big Show tonight marked the first time he’s ever been pinned in a singles match, in either WWE or NXT.)
In other news, it looks like we’ll be getting Dean Ambrose vs. Barrett for the IC title, they’re teasing breakups for the Rhodeses and the Mizdows (because clearly we have too many tag teams right now) and Bray Wyatt is calling out a dead man to challenge him. Maybe the Undertaker has one more match left in him after all?
I gotta be honest, I really only half payed attention to RAW after the opening monologue because I knew that only so much was gonna happen.
I know I am once again in the minority, but I like rambling trips promos, he’s good on the mic and a wonderful troll. I will agree that they are running a big risk playing the DB/RR angle. It’s a lose-lose. They either infuriate the IWC even more by having a RR win (clean or no) or they wreck their credibility (if you wanna call it that) by not following their plan of the Rumble winner headlining Wrestlemania. Call me crazy, but I think there might be something else in play that we don’t see yet…
Good match between Wyatt and Zigs! I think Wyatt went over to set up his Taker callout and make him look strong going against an opponent that he has no real reason to be facing and that no one cares but…what do I know?
The main event was a spectacular match. I’d much rather have a DB and Rollins match at mania than a RR/Lesnar match. I just think that giant matches are boring and they look really unbelievable. Give me a high-energy match with the little guys any day of the week.
I think Ambrose and Barrett would fight well together, but I also think that the IC curse might hit Ambrose and that would be sad. I mean, I don’t want him to lose to Sin Cara and R Truth…
That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll let everyone else discuss and I’ll snarkily comment.
#pushkofi!
What I want to know is, whose bright idea was it to have the last PPV before WrestleMania on at the same time as the Oscars?