The Wrestling Thread: WWE WrestleMania 31 [NSFW]

[Mafro]

2 comments about Raw

Not even any from KKLEIN

[Cosmo]

I decided to stick it out for a bit, but I quickly lost interest.

[Prototype]

Sandow is still brilliant.

[KK]

I watched Thursday's IMPACT WRESTLING instead, therefore an improvement over previous Monday's by at least 75%.

[Cosmo]

I've just been alerted to this



The trousers on Jeff. That Blueblood gimmick.

[Jeffrey]

Raw gifs:

[KK]

Controversial WWE figure: Pro-Linda Tweet got me fired

Brian Jossie won't be stumping for Linda McMahon.

On Friday, the McMahon family-run WWE terminated its contract with Jossie, a wrestler-manager who goes by the stage name A.W.

Jossie wound up in the WWE's doghouse after making an ill-advised Kobe Bryant rape joke during a live broadcast of "Monday Night Raw" on July 30.

The 34-year-old from Tampa, Fla., told Greenwich Time in a telephone interview Monday that it was a post from his Twitter account last Thursday telling his social media followers to support McMahon for Senate that ultimately led to his dismissal, however.

"#AWPromotion$ says vote for Linda McMahon!!! The PTP'z support Linda and so should you!"

Jossie ended his Tweet with the hashtag, #voteordie4Linda

"That's how they show support for their employees who want to support Linda. They fire them. That's complete bull(expletive)," Jossie told the newspaper.

WWE, which is based in Stamford, rejected Jossie's claims in a statement from company spokesman Brian Flinn to the newspaper.

"WWE is a non-partisan organization. Superstars as well as employees are free to support any political party or candidate they choose," Flinn wrote. "Unfortunately, Brian Jossie, playing the character of A.W., was terminated because he continued to exhibit poor judgment by making offensive and inappropriate comments on live television and on social media."

Jossie said he received a phone call Friday afternoon from Jane Geddes, a former LPGA golfer and vice president of talent relations of the WWE, telling him he committed a major faux pas with his Tweet.

"For some reason they don't want to associate her with anything to do with wrestling because it's in the past," Jossie said of McMahon, the company's former chief executive.

"Vince (McMahon) doesn't want any association with her campaign. They told me it's two totally different entities, which I didn't know. I thought I was doing a good thing."

A spokesman for Linda McMahon, who is favored to prevail in Tuesday's Republican Senate primary, had no comment.

Jossie expressed regret for likening wrestler Titus O'Neil to "Kobe Bryant at a hotel in Colorado" and calling him "unstoppable."

In 2003, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar was arrested and accused of sexual assault by a 19-year-old hotel employee in Eagle, Colo. The charges were later dropped after Bryant's accuser refused to testify.

"If I had made a Jerry Sandusky or a Colorado shooting joke, OK, fire me right there," Jossie said.

Jossie complained that he was never suspended or put on probation by the WWE, which he accused of pandering to voters and consumers out of political correctness.

He also accused the WWE of applying a double standard between him and Mike Tyson, who the conglomerate honored earlier this year.

"The WWE put a convicted rapist in the hall of fame," Jossie said.

Several hours after he was warned to cease his Twitter activity, Jossie said he was informed he was being released from his three-year contract with the WWE.

Jossie's Tweets didn't end there, however.

A.W., short for Abraham Obama Washington in a play on the names of the presidents, had a Twitter rant for McMahon and her campaign narrative as a job creator.

"Creates jobs my ass! I'm fired thanks to you and your campaign."

Shortly thereafter, Jossie's Twitter privileges were suspended.

Jossie acknowledged that he has never met Linda McMahon and started with the company around the same time as she turned over the CEO's reins to her husband.

"I don't hate the WWE. I love the company," Jossie said. "But the way the politics are with her campaign, it screwed me."

http://www.greenwichtime.com/default/ar ... 785579.php

Last thing WWE wanted was this becoming a story in the mainstream press.

[Jeffrey]

LOL, I didn't know AW had a middle name and it was Obama.

[Pell]

History of the WWF/E's SummerSlam posters...








http://www.wwe.com/shows/summerslam/201 ... ers-photos

Oh look, Triple H's poster is bigger than everyone else's. Fancy that.

Was there last year. Going this Sunday too - woo! Some awesome interview potential I can't talk about just yet.

Guess I'd better do a sign this year...

[Dante]

I cannot remember anything from RAW and I just finish watching it 5 minutes ago - so forgettable and I swear they had end of show segments every 5 minutes making me think it was about to end but it just kept going on and on and on and on and on and on...

I don't remember Nitro being this bad at it's start of 3 hour shows

[KK]

Nitro's 3 hour shows really didn't become an issue until around about August of 1998, which coincided with the arrival of Warrior. Some episodes really dragged, but they were usually stupid rather than boring.

There were two benefits WCW had though; 1 being we got the show condensed into about 2 and a half hours, and 2 WCW had so much more depth to their roster than WWE have now. Also seeing stuff recapped from Thunder was a novelty as we didn't get it until October 1998. Have to admit I don't recall a ton of recapping at first, though numerous vignettes involving Hogan, Nash, David Flair, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Torrie Wilson stick in the brain from the start of 1999. They were pretty torturous to sit through...twice.

Nitro would feature anywhere between maybe 9 to 13 matches, so this meant things, certainly at first, wouldn't outstay their welcome. Not only were you getting a big variation in matches, such as the cruiserweights, you were getting to see a number of different wrestlers every week, on top of these massive main events. Whereas WWE put Triple H and Lesnar on PPV, WCW would have had that headlining Nitro.

It certainly doesn't help that RAW's overall formatting is so rigid. Don't usually know what's coming up on IMPACT, but you can pretty much guess every week when the good stuff is happening on RAW. It's so bad I automatically know when they're going to a commercial break, because the way matches are put together is always the same. It's become predictable, which results in you watching the show on a type of autopilot.

[Psychic]

Guess I'd better do a sign this year...

Vince fears KKLEIN

[KK]

A sign with a massive photo of Alan Partridge's face on it.

A favourite from the past was always SPOILER: TRIPLE H WINS. Would probably get confiscated these days.

[captain red dog]

I have no idea why HHH has been given so much influence over the last decade or so. The fact he needed HBK and Paul Heyman to sell his fued with Brock is pretty damning. Heyman was absolutely incredible and I wish he was given a Bobby the Brain role with a stable in competition against Vicki.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Watching raw at the moment. Very good show so far. Love that cena came down to save punk for no reason whatsoever considering that they only decided two weeks ago that they now hate each other. Pun also punk appeared to be booked as the face in the big show match. Did his clobbering time entrance which I don't think he's done since he turned heel and was cheered by the crowd.

Also what's the latest on Jericho? Is he off again on tour after summerslam?

I'm loving all this blocky tout video gooseberry fool. It's great, I mean why would you want a hd quality backstage promo when you can just have two superstars argue over a 15 sec videorecording in a $20 motel room.

P.s. there was a serious question in there some where.

[E-Man]

Just watched Hardcore Justice, overall a solid PPV. Enjoyed the Angle/Styles/Joe/Daniels and Heavyweight title matches in particular.

Also lol at Magnus looking for a chair

[Dark Ritual]

We don't have the rating number, but the show did about 4.1 million viewers, which is a well below usual number for the show. The rating should be either a 2.8 or 2.9.

ESPN ran pre-season football that did 5.37 million viewers. Traditionallly, preseason football doesn't hurt Raw, nor does it usually beat Raw. The big hit on cable was the final episode of The Closer, which did 9.08 million viewers. Mostly likely the drop in Raw rating was a combiation of those two things. But even so, they did bigger against the Olympics.

The third hour was the biggest at 4.35 million, so it didn't lose at least major audience, and probably peaked during the key angle at the end. It's still a lot more valuable to have a slightly smaller audience see a strong go-home angle on the big show than a bigger audience see a lackluster show.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Ok so I've no finished watching raw. I don't really mind what happened as a storyline between Lesner, HBK and hhh however it does seem to point at a HHH win which I don't like. Lesner needs to win or he might as well just pack his bags and leave.

CM punk has now been completely ruined, I know some people had grown tired of him but I hadn't, it was just poor story lines and writing that were holding him back as a face. punk has obviously been a great heel in the past however his current turn is awful. im just finding him annoying.

Also cenas high knee when he was supposed to be copying punks move set was awful.

[KK]

I do like how, since the 1000th episode, ratings have been falling every single week. Started out at 6,019,000 and is now at 4,134,000.

Almost 2 million viewers have strawberry floated off.

Currently watching RAW myself. Just finished Piper's Pit. On my 2nd beer.

[KK]

And the amount of Twitter and Tout related bullshit on this week's show is driving me round the twist. It's almost EVERY SEGMENT.