WWE Thread (Spoilers)

[Big Boss Man]

[Dr. Zoidberg]

-- Last night's WWE Raw drew an overall average viewership of 4.497 million viewers, by far the best viewership this year and resulting in the most watched WWE show in many years.

Raw finished first overall among shows on cable in viewership and each hour of Raw also finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd for the 18-49 demographic rating.

This is the most watched Raw since 2014, when the night after WrestleMania saw 5.6 million people tune in. It is also the first time Raw has topped 4 million viewers since 2016 and each hour of Raw also broke 4 million:

Hour 1 - 4.803 million
Hour 2 - 4.641 million
Hour 3 - 4.147 million

[Bandit]

My suspicion he was fired for hiding the investigation from WWE was confirmed. So whether he's charged or not he's never going back. So if one good thing can come from this he'll be a cautionary tale for future wrestlers. That Heath Slater did the right thing by telling them and took the suspension but was able to come back and even get a push when he was cleared. And Enzo gambled and lost.

Another bad thing for Enzo is it looks like he was blowing all of his money living the high life. You'd see him on social media living like Batista in the 2000s, but he wasn't making WWE main eventer money. So he's screwed if he can't get indie bookings because nobody wants to be associated with him.

[Big Boss Man]

Outside WWE Enzos options are very limited, he's only just about passable in the ring and he's not like a AJ, Y2J etc who can work in Japan and get a huge payday on the indies. Plus if he is guilty he'll no doubt be blackballed in the industry and rightly so.

[Bandit]

Yeah, he's going to be a conventions guy, not a "ex-WWE star wrestles indy dream matches" guy. Nobody wants to see Enzo vs Matt Riddle and Enzo vs Cody.

If an indie that did weekly TV still existed he could be in demand for promos, but everybody just runs monthly cards and sells VOD. So that won't work. Somebody will take him, though. And if he were completely acquitted by police or found not guilty by a jury maybe Impact would wait a few months for the heat to die down and hire him.

[Bandit]

PWINSIDER says not only did Enzo not tell WWE about the investigation, when they confronted him about it Monday he pretended like he didn't know what they were talking about. So Vince was enraged because they had media requests to talk about Enzo when he obviously wanted the media talking about Raw 25.

He was also despised by most people for acting too arrogant for the level of star he was. They thought him flashing money and acting rich in night clubs made other wrestlers who were bigger stars like AJ or Roman look bad because they don't do that. He also still had heat for the incident on Roman's bus where they threw him off and drove off because he was up all night being noisy while the rest of the wrestlers were trying to sleep and refusing to apologize.

He also brought up injuring Big Cass on twitter, which they asked him not to do because they were trying to drop the angle so the star of one brand doesn't have to be squashed by a wrestler on another brand when Cass comes back.

So I see him going in the elite group of people Vince refuses to even think about rehiring like Jarrett, Luger, Konnan, Maxx Payne/Man Mountain Rock, and the late Chyna and Randy Savage.

[Big Boss Man]

Even if he's exonerated on the allegation then I highly doubt WWE will hire Enzo back. He's not just burnt his bridge he's nuked it.

Moving on from Enzo talk, one UK tabloid have mentioned Chyna as a HOF inductee for 2018. Well deserved if true.

[Bandit]

I heard Bam Bam was going to be the posthumous induction this year and Ivory the female wrestler (because now they want to piggyback on GLOW being popular and her involvement.)

Chyna is kind of a tricky issue right now given the accusations she made about HHH and Waltman before she died.

[Big Boss Man]

I heard Ivory mentioned last year so surprised Chyna was mentioned. IMO she should have been in before Beth but like you say her accusations about Hunter and Kid were detrimental to her potential induction. I definitely think Joanie should go in though she's a pioneer in women's wrestling and had she didn't go of the rails when she broke up with Triple H been a bigger star. But good point about Ivory and GLOW. Everyone's bound to go in eventually if they want to and/or aren't blackballed. Would like to see Bam Bam in too thought he was really good as a heel in the WWF and in ECW and WCW. Also for a big dude was a solid worker too.

[Bandit]

I wouldn't have put Beth Phoenix in at all. She doesn't have any memorable moments, so there's probably two dozen other women more deserving. It's not that she was bad, but she was part of the post-Trish and Lita women's division where you had 2 minute matches on Raw and women who weren't good wrestlers like Candice, Kelly Kelly, Maria and Tiffany. It was like a dark ages period between the Trish and Lita era and the Divas Revolution era. Most of those women were signed as valets and forced into wrestling, whereas the ones now would be pissed off if they were just made valets. She'd be a bigger deal if she was there now.

[Big Boss Man]

Yep that's true. Plus they tried to make her China 2.0 and that didn't happen. Miss Elizabeth should be in, like her or not Missy Hyatt, Chyna, Molly, Sable, Jazz, Victoria, Ivory and Luna. I'd have put Liz in with Randy since they were synonymous with each other. Also they'll probably induct Kelly Kelly, Michelle et al ahead of like Victoria. If Paige is definitely retired is it too soon she goes in but she's wrestled since a teenager, I would wait til a UK based Mania and put her in with Davey Boy, Dynamite, Regal et al.

[Bandit]

Dynamite will never go in, Davey will go in solo or maybe they induct Owen & Bulldog as a tag team as a way to sneak Owen in. But Dynamite was a locker room bully who made JBL look as beloved by the locker room as Yokozuna was in comparison, and a domestic abuser (plus the Benoit connection) so they're just asking for trouble if they put him in.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Bandit]

Reports are in the national sports media news XFL will relaunch in 2020. It's going to be so pointless. Vince had hoped the percentage of NFL viewers who stopped watching due to the national anthem protests would watch XFL instead. But that's more than likely going to be over in 2 years (it will probably be sorted out in the off season.) So I don't know what he's going for. The real issue is there's too many nationally televised games that suck so people stop watching (especially the Thursday games are rarely that great.) So he's wanting to capitalize on football overkill with more football.

[Bandit]

WE FOUND THE XFL COMMISSIONER!

[Bandit]

Pick two



Who was going to be pick three and is no longer in the running

[Big Boss Man]

Dynamite will never go in, Davey will go in solo or maybe they induct Owen & Bulldog as a tag team as a way to sneak Owen in. But Dynamite was a locker room bully who made JBL look as beloved by the locker room as Yokozuna was in comparison, and a domestic abuser (plus the Benoit connection) so they're just asking for trouble if they put him in.

True, actually forgot about his bullying because he's in such a bad way now health wise. Cool the Coliseum videos are coming to the Network, but will the Hulk ones be omitted?

[Bandit]

I think they'd put Hulk ones up. They just don't want him on current shows. Like everybody still enjoys Seinfeld but you wouldn't want Michael Richards on a new sitcom.

I think they'd just omit the Benoit one if they put WWE Home Video stuff up.

[Big Boss Man]

Ok cool,they took Rock and Wrestling off the Network so assumed they'd do the same and blacklist him from having any content centred around him.

[Bandit]

They did take Hogan stuff off for a few months in 2015 when it originally happened. But the cartoon was the one thing they didn't put back up. Maybe not enough people watched it or something.