The Wrestling Thread: Rich Folk Only

[ITSMILNER]

Someone in Youtube comments put it best:

Bro is made of glass.

Real glass?

[Jam-Master Jay]

Barrett wasn't the best on commentary but he was competent and actually knew what was going on in the product. I can't believe they replaced him with this dozy chode McAfee.

[RetroCora]

Barrett wasn't the best on commentary but he was competent and actually knew what was going on in the product. I can't believe they replaced him with this dozy chode McAfee.

I must say I have a lot of time for Michael Cole usually because he's been an absolute victim in his time at the WWF/E, but he strawberry floated me off royally during the Rumble when he said there have never been two winners - Lex Luger and Bret Hart are credited as co-winners in 1994, and depending on what source you use, The Rock and the Big Show in 2000 (I think officially it's just The Rock though).

McAfee and the other idiot who were on comms on Saturday just sounded a bit useless IMO.

[HailToTheKingBaby!]

I hope Punk being out doesn't mean Cody faces Seth and they do Rock Vs Roman. Main reason being, if Cody faced Roman you'd have to assume he'd win this time and we'd finally get a new champion.. I can't see the Rock being back for more than several weeks at best so the chances of him beating Roman seem slim to none.. and I think Rock winning wouldn't be a good thing anyway as it'd just make Roman look weak losing to essentially a part timer..

Hope they do something like a Rock/Roman/Cody triple threat and have Seth face someone else. Randy Orton or LA Knight Vs Seth could be cool. Or even Cody Vs Seth and LA Knight Vs Roman Vs Rock.

[Ploiper]

if i had to guess seths opponent for mania right now, i would probably say either Gunther or McIntyre

[KK]

The new WWE SmackDown commentary team will be Corey Graves and Wade Barrett according to PWinsider. Will be interesting to see if Graves is any good at play-by-play (did he ever do it on NXT?), as some brilliant colour commentators have made for atrocious play-by-play guys (Jerry Lawler immediately springs to mind whenever he had to fill in for half hour or whatever it was).

[captain red dog]

Punk needs to come back and gently get back into proper full time wrestling. That's half his problem, Edge suffered too after his decade off. If I was Punk, I'd even go to NXT and get some ring time.

Surely Gunther has to be a lock in for the WHC. Have him win and forfeit the intercontinental title like Warrior (not that I'd do him the disservice of comparing them).

Cody's story has always been the WWE title because that's the one his dad never won. It wouldn't make sense and would be a poor end to his arc if he doesn't beat Roman. I don't see Rock being fit enough to fight Roman this year. He nearly had a heart attack doing 2 mins against Jinder!

[KK]

A lawyer for John Laurinaitis, a co-defendant in an explosive civil sex-trafficking lawsuit brought last week against WWE founder Vince McMahon and WWE itself, appeared to corroborate central claims in the suit in a statement to VICE News today, while disputing Laurinaitis’ role as described in the complaint. Edward Brennan, the lawyer, said that his client is himself a victim —just like plaintiff Janel Grant, a former WWE employee.

“The truth will come out,” Brennan added.

In the suit, brought last week in federal court in Connecticut, Grant says that McMahon and Laurinaitis sexually assaulted her in WWE’s corporate offices, and that McMahon also trafficked her to Laurinaitis, the company’s former head of talent relations. McMahon, according to the suit, went so far as to schedule appointments for her to sexually service Laurinaitis.

Earlier today, VICE News reached out to Brennan, an attorney in the Tampa area, to confirm that he represents Laurinaitis. He did so, adding, as an aside, “Mr. Laurinaitis denies the allegations in the misguided complaint and will be vigorously defending these charges in Court, not the media. Like the Plaintiff, Mr. Laurinaitis is a victim in this case, not a predator. The truth will come out.”

In response to a followup question seeking to clarify that he was indeed saying that McMahon was the predator and that Laurinaitis, like Grant, was a victim, Brennan wrote, “Read the allegations. Read the Federal Statute. Power, control, employment supervisory capacity, dictatorial sexual demands with repercussions if not met. Count how many times in the complaint Vince exerts control over both of them.”

The complaint, which can be read in full here, details allegations that McMahon instructed Grant to create “explicit content” for Laurinaitis and arranged a threesome between them, after which Laurinaitis declined to answer when Grant asked if this was the first time this had happened. Later, the suit says, she was transferred to the talent relations department, which Laurinaitis headed—a transfer that came, the suit says, “with the expectation, from both McMahon and Laurinaitis, that she engage with Laurinaitis sexually, both physically and with explicit content.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epv757/ ... victim-too

Wow, throwing Vince under the bus already.

What I say this does do for certain is corroborate the basis of these allegations.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

A lawyer for John Laurinaitis, a co-defendant in an explosive civil sex-trafficking lawsuit brought last week against WWE founder Vince McMahon and WWE itself, appeared to corroborate central claims in the suit in a statement to VICE News today, while disputing Laurinaitis’ role as described in the complaint. Edward Brennan, the lawyer, said that his client is himself a victim —just like plaintiff Janel Grant, a former WWE employee.

“The truth will come out,” Brennan added.

In the suit, brought last week in federal court in Connecticut, Grant says that McMahon and Laurinaitis sexually assaulted her in WWE’s corporate offices, and that McMahon also trafficked her to Laurinaitis, the company’s former head of talent relations. McMahon, according to the suit, went so far as to schedule appointments for her to sexually service Laurinaitis.

Earlier today, VICE News reached out to Brennan, an attorney in the Tampa area, to confirm that he represents Laurinaitis. He did so, adding, as an aside, “Mr. Laurinaitis denies the allegations in the misguided complaint and will be vigorously defending these charges in Court, not the media. Like the Plaintiff, Mr. Laurinaitis is a victim in this case, not a predator. The truth will come out.”

In response to a followup question seeking to clarify that he was indeed saying that McMahon was the predator and that Laurinaitis, like Grant, was a victim, Brennan wrote, “Read the allegations. Read the Federal Statute. Power, control, employment supervisory capacity, dictatorial sexual demands with repercussions if not met. Count how many times in the complaint Vince exerts control over both of them.”

The complaint, which can be read in full here, details allegations that McMahon instructed Grant to create “explicit content” for Laurinaitis and arranged a threesome between them, after which Laurinaitis declined to answer when Grant asked if this was the first time this had happened. Later, the suit says, she was transferred to the talent relations department, which Laurinaitis headed—a transfer that came, the suit says, “with the expectation, from both McMahon and Laurinaitis, that she engage with Laurinaitis sexually, both physically and with explicit content.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epv757/ ... victim-too

Wow, throwing Vince under the bus already.

What I say this does do for certain is corroborate the basis of these allegations.

Wow, I also saw this earlier. Apparently others have come forwards.

twitter.com/WrestleOps/status/1753094754705739864

[kerr9000]

Punk needs to come back and gently get back into proper full time wrestling. That's half his problem, Edge suffered too after his decade off. If I was Punk, I'd even go to NXT and get some ring time.

Surely Gunther has to be a lock in for the WHC. Have him win and forfeit the intercontinental title like Warrior (not that I'd do him the disservice of comparing them).

Cody's story has always been the WWE title because that's the one his dad never won. It wouldn't make sense and would be a poor end to his arc if he doesn't beat Roman. I don't see Rock being fit enough to fight Roman this year. He nearly had a heart attack doing 2 mins against Jinder!

Put Punk in a tag team with an up and coming wrestler who needs to polish himself up... Punk has always been great on the mic, and has always said he wants to give back and help lead others to greatness.... Put him with someone small fresh and plucky, they can get slapped around and be super baby face we can root for them and then they can get that hot tag to Punk... He can knock his ring rust off while helping someone else get a good start.

[KK]

The Wall Street Journal reporting that Federal authorities have already been investigating sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations against Vince McMahon, with prosecutors in New York in recent months in contact with various women who have accused McMahon of sexual misconduct.

Over the summer of 2023, federal agents executed a search warrant for Vince McMahon’s phone and delivered a subpoena to him for documents related to any allegation of “rape, sex trafficking, sexual assault, commercial sex transaction, harassment or discrimination” against current or former WWE employees. The grand jury subpoena offers the first window into the investigation, which began in 2022.

Grant and at least 4 of the women named in the grand jury subpoena had entered into settlement agreements with McMahon over allegations of sexual misconduct. Prosecutors have interviewed some of the women, the people said.

The other women named in the grand jury subpoena include a WWE contractor whom McMahon allegedly sent unsolicited nude photos and sexually harassed; a former WWE wrestler who said McMahon coerced her into giving him oral sex; former WWE referee Rita Chatterton, who publicly accused McMahon of raping her; a spa manager who said McMahon assaulted her at a Southern California resort; and a former WWE employee who alleged the head of talent relations at the company at the time, John Laurinaitis, demoted her after she broke off an affair with him.

Paywalled: https://www.wsj.com/business/federal-pr ... s-460a6822

NDAs Vince McMahon Signed Behind WWE's Back May Be Worthless, Say Experts

The WWE founder faces a federal sex trafficking investigation following allegations made by a former employee.

The non-disclosure agreement at the center of a civil sex-trafficking suit former WWE employee Janel Grant filed last week against WWE, company founder Vince McMahon, and former executive John Laurinaitis has significant issues that could make it unenforceable, according to experts.

The issues are possibly academic in Grant’s case, as in her lawsuit, she says that McMahon didn’t pay her all of the hush money he agreed to pay her in exchange for her signing the NDA, which would almost certainly make the contract void. If similar language was used in NDAs other people signed, though—something a person familiar with the case says is a reasonable inference—they may be able to set aside the agreements.

Such a development would be potentially catastrophic for WWE and McMahon, who the Wall Street Journal reported today is at the center of a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation. Further complicating the issue, and potentially increasing McMahon’s legal exposure, is that according to a person familiar with the situation, McMahon secretly had the NDAs drafted and entered into them without WWE’s knowledge—which is why, when the company became aware of his hush money payments, it had to issue revised earning statements.

As VICE News reported yesterday, Laurinaitis’ lawyer, Edward Brennan, denies the allegations in Grant’s suit, which include rape, but asserts that his client, like Grant, is a victim who was acting under McMahon’s coercive control. This would seemingly complicate potential avenues of criminal and civil defense for McMahon, who has denied the allegations in Grant’s suit and said “I intend to vigorously defend myself against these baseless accusations.”

Brennan said “We will go where the evidence leads” when asked if other WWE executives were involved in or aware of what Grant’s suit depicts as McMahon’s trafficking scheme.

An NDA cannot be used as a shield to prevent a victim from bringing criminal charges or speaking to investigators. If these women or others desire to speak out in public or bring civil suits, though, it’s not clear that an agreement like the one Grant signed would prevent that.

Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer who represented victims of Harvey Weinstein, called the document “poorly drafted.” (Weinstein used NDAs to silence some of his victims for at least two decades, and hid some of the payments he made to women by having them come from his brother’s bank account.)

Goldberg says the central problem is the agreement’s lack of specificity. Her analysis matches that of Grant’s lawyers, who argue in the suit that the NDA should be voided because the language is so broad that it could prevent her from listing WWE on her resume.

“The NDA makes references to confidentiality, but there’s no definition of what to be confidential about,” said Goldberg. “It’s very vague. Usually there’s super-specific information about what to be confidential about.”

When asked what they understand the agreement to actually cover, a spokesperson for TKO, the parent company of WWE and the UFC, declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Goldberg noted other issues with the NDA, among them that the copy Grant filed in federal court in Connecticut wasn’t actually signed by McMahon in either his personal capacity or role as then-chair of WWE; normally, all parties would receive an executed copy of the contract. According to a source familiar with the matter, though, the contract was in fact executed, with McMahon secretly signing on both his behalf and that of WWE after seeking counsel from his longtime attorney, Jerry McDevitt, a seeming conflict of interest Goldberg called “bizarre.”

(Neither the retired McDevitt nor the firm he worked for, K&L Gates, responded to questions about the apparent conflict of interest and whether McDevitt was paid by McMahon or WWE.)

Jodi Short, a professor at UC Law San Francisco who’s studied NDAs, believes the agreement is invalid on its face—but that this in practice may not necessarily mean much.

“It is my considered opinion,” she wrote in an email to VICE News, “that NDAs such as the one you sent me are unenforceable under common law contract doctrine. But there is very little case law squarely on point, and litigating such a case would expose an individual to enormous cost and litigation risk. That’s why most people end up silenced by NDAs even if, technically, they’re not worth the paper they’re written on. It’s not just the paper. It’s paper backed by an extreme asymmetry in resources between the two parties.”

Goldberg agrees, and points out that survivors don’t owe debts to society. It may be that an NDA is worthless as a matter of legal theory, but proving that in court is a potentially arduous process without a certain outcome that could define a survivor by the worst thing that ever happened to them and incur ruinous expense.

Julie Roginsky is a former Fox News Channel host who became one of the first to sue the station over sexual harassment and was, and is, herself bound to silence by what many could consider an overly broad NDA; she’s a cofounder of Lift Our Voices. She points out that any other issues aside, the NDAs could be voided by legislation currently being considered in Connecticut that would ban workplace NDAs, potentially retroactively. “I’m hoping the Vince McMahon example spurs the Connecticut legislature to do the right thing,” she said.

Ultimately, her thoughts are with survivors who have found themselves in the “incredibly psychologically lonely place” of being unable to speak out.

“You can’t,” she said, “confide in anybody—not your friends, not your family, not your priest, not your rabbi, not even your therapist—about what happened to you. So you can imagine that that becomes a hugely psychologically damaging place to be.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7z5pw/ ... ay-experts

[Return_of_the_STAR]

All very interesting. I wonder if that's why Vince never paid up the remainder of his agreement with grant for the NDA as he got told that it wouldn't save him.

I've also seen that WWE seem to be in the process of wiping Lesnar from existence. His merchandise is 90% off. They've removed him from the supercards game.

[Rawrgna]

Watch them also retroactively scrub the taker defeat and rewrite history so its Reigns who beat the streak at Mania.

[KK]

Oh you’ll definitely start seeing a lot more selective history going forward. Best case scenario, Vince McMahon was never on commentary and Vince McMahon is actually synonymous with Vincent James McMahon. Worst case scenario, it’ll be looking like Ted Turner’s revenge with the amount of NWA and WCW footage they’ll suddenly be using to transcribe the 80s and 90s.

[Prototype]

Interested in your thoughts on Smackdown KK.

Good grief.

[Cosmo]

Just let the man finish his story, for Christ’s sake.

[ITSMILNER]

Yeah Cody gave up finishing his story pretty damn easy

[KK]

The Rock vs Roman is clearly the biggest match any promotion can now do, crowd last night went nuts as you’d expect, but I think they’ve made Cody look absolutely ridiculous (why on earth would he now suddenly challenge for the World Title?), undermined both the Rumble match itself and almost a year of build in the process, and risked a potential fan backlash against The Rock. Coincidently, Mania is also in Philadelphia, which shat all over the Rumble in 2015 involving Daniel Bryan, Reigns (who won) and The Rock (who raised his hand and looked aghast at the reaction). I guess it depends on what kind of fans they get in the stadium.

Maybe they believe it’s now or never with The Rock, didn’t want to do it at anything other than WrestleMania (and that at least is a big positive; can you imagine doing this in SAUDI ARABIA ), and when The Rock loses, they can do Cody vs Reigns next year, but WWE has completely screwed themselves with the writing. Between the space of Saturday’s Royal Rumble and Monday’s RAW it’s like they’ve completely changed direction. I think it’s pretty evident they absolutely have. Maybe Punk’s injury and the bad press WWE has been getting all week has suddenly panicked them into doing it early. Because logically you would not put yourself into a situation where you have Rhodes win, heavily insinuate he’s facing Reigns at Mania to end that event, and then back out of it with some claptrap about the World Title (which isn’t even the real WCW World Title, despite the fact it’s clearly heavily inspired by it). To then have Roman Reigns bury it further on SmackDown by calling it “The Loser Bracket Title” was strawberry floating stupid. Yes, it really is, we know. Logically Seth’s promo on RAW was also all over the show (‘do you want to challenge for the title that’s never defended?’ Well maybe if you actually beat Reigns it would be defended, duh!).

Billed as some sort of war to bring down Roman Reigns, they could have done The Rock on night 1 of WrestleMania, with the winner going on to face Rhodes on night 2, but then you’re still kind of in a situation where you’re undermining both the Rumble match (so The Rock can just waltz on in there and get a title match, huh) and Rhodes' win on night 2 as he’s beaten a less than 100% opponent…but Reigns always cheats anyway to retain, and that gives you an excuse to do the match again at SummerSlam or whenever as Reigns can moan about the injustice of it all. There’s the Triple Threat option of course between all three, but I think that waters things down too much - that's a SummerSlam type match - even if it does hide The Rock’s potential failings in the ring (he looks shattered these days doing 2 minutes). The pace of Reigns/Rock is going to be booked like a late ‘90s WCW main event involving Hollywood Hogan, that I can guarantee you. They’ll be stalling up the wazoo. Rock will throw a punch, Reigns will drop to the outside and walk around the ring for 9 hours…

As for this pending card for Elimination Chamber, you’ve got to feel for the Australians…WWE’s giving them a Sky Box Office show at this point.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Yeah WWE have got to be super careful that they don't end up with a disaster at wrestlemania akin to Lesnar v Goldberg from WM20 (I think). The Phili crowd could be hostile.

I'm without doubt one of Rocks biggest fans and want to see him in WWE as much as possible before it's too late. But it just feels right to have had Cody beat Reigns at mania this year.

However what some people may not have considered is WWE don't want Reigns to lose the belt yet. Rock won't win the title from Reigns. He could beat him in a non title match but not for the title.

I'm still convinced Cody is the one to dethrone Reigns unless injuries etc get in the way.

Also when rock and Cody hugged, and rock spoke to codys ear that was a genuine smile from Cody. I would say he's happy with whatever is happening.

[KK]

I'm presuming by moving Cody and Reigns it also allows Reigns to overtake Hulk Hogan's WWE title reign, unless they're doing another U-turn and having Rhodes vs Reigns at Elimination Chamber (with maybe even The Rock as referee or enforcer).

twitter.com/pushlaknight/status/1753619187363467540