Post by KITN on Jul 21, 2018 17:49:31 GMT
{Backstory}
In the spring of 2018, everything was looking like roses for WWE. Sure, attendance, TV ratings, and overall audience interest were all down, but what did that matter? Network subscription was high as long as people were watching NXT and 205 live (like a gaggle of marks), revenues were up, they'd just had a show in Saudi Arabia for a massive payday, and they were on the cusp of inking an obscene television deal with Fox worth a billion dollars. Not to mention all the talent they were hiring and the establishment of NXT UK by outright purchasing PROGRESS Wrestling and ICW, folding both companies into the burgeoning feeder system's roster. Which was really more Hunter's thing, but still. Vince McMahon felt invincible. But Summerslam 2018 was barely off the air before things quickly started to turn ugly for the WWE's fortune and its fortune.
All during the summer, the class-action suit being prepared by various former WWE employees was taking new shape. Long derided as a cluster of has-beens and never-weres trying to get a payday now that the luster was off their careers, regardless of how brief their tenures in the WWE had been or how long their careers had gone before they'd even reached the reached the promotion, it had quickly mutated into something far deadlier and more serious (rumored to have gotten assistance from the Mueller team). Several of the would-be clients were weeded out once it was learned that they would have more or less been happy with a cash payout, which was given to them, while several new witnesses were brought on, with many having been in prominent positions in the WWE, both as on-air talent and road agents, writers, and other backstage personnel. They were all willing to testify against WWE's unsafe business practices and working conditions, not to mention not covering performers' insurance or travel costs, the toxic atmosphere and environment of backstage hazing and "Wrestler's court", and racial or sexual discrimination and harassment. By November of that year, enough evidence and testifying witnesses had been brought together to bring the WWE to trial. Sponsors and advertisers were wary before the trial even got underway and some started to pull, but that was fine. Vince didn't care. It was just money. He had more of that than he could ever spend and he'd make it all back once this was over. He'd been attacked once before by the government and come out squeaky clean in the end. And that was in 1994 when they weren't nearly as powerful as they were now. He was Vincent Kennedy Goddamn McMahon. He was invincible.
But if one court case was troublesome, two were disastrous. In January of 2018, following a sweeping and unprecedented Democratic victory in the midterm elections, as well as a mountain of evidence and guilty pleas compiled by Special Council Robert Mueller, proceedings began not only for an impeachment hearing, but for the criminal trial of President Donald J. Trump, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and nearly every member of the White House Cabinet and Senior staff, as well as several high-ranking members of the Republican Party such as Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Orin Hatch, and even the President's children. This meant that Linda McMahon, a member of Trump's cabinet, was now on trial and Vince McMahon, already on trial in his own case and a close friend of the Trump Family for years, was now going to be called to testify. Things went from bad to worse for Vince McMahon as the two suits, exposing not only the corruption within the company itself and to the people the company affiliated itself with, caused strife within the locker room and led to a mass exodus of talent, particularly the young talent that the WWE had hoped to build its future on, including stars like (using their former WWE names for the sake of brevity) Daniel Bryan, Sonya DeVille, Finn Balor, The New Day, Velveteen Dream, EC3, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Dean Ambrose, Bayley, Corey Graves, Mauro Ranallo, and several others, as well as goodwill ambassadors like Titus O'Neil. Brock Lesnar left the company without ever officially dropping the Universal title, which only made fans angrier that he had ever been there, to focus entirely on UFC competition and the promise of big-money superfights. John Cena left to focus on his burgeoning Hollywood and television career and started his own nonprofit organization. Many still stayed though, either out of similar political allegiances (AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Big Cass, etc), contracts being too new for them to be able to afford to buy out of (Keith Lee, Ricochet, War Raiders, etc), didn't care about American politics (Shinsuke Nakamura, Kairi Sane, Io Shirai, Marcel Barthel), or felt a sense of loyalty to the company, either because their careers had started there, or due to a family connection, or other reasons (Lars Sullivan, Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns, the Usos, Naomi, Charlotte Flair, Bray Wyatt, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, The Miz, Ronda Rousey, Rusev, etc). Those that stayed were rewarded, with Randy Orton winning the Universal Title in his third Royal Rumble match victory and got his second WrestleMania Main Event (though he still put over Roman Reigns) and AJ Styles' historic title reign lasted until WrestleMania, where he finally dropped the title to The Miz.
Still, it was a heavy loss for WWE talent-wise, only compounded when advertisers and sponsors started to leave en masse, taking ad revenue with them, and attendance and TV ratings took a further hit as stock prices dropped sharply. Total Divas was dropped from the E! Network (though it just wound up going on the Network, anyway) and there were rumors that the USA Network was going to drop Raw (it would probably just wind up on the Network as well if that happened). It was all too much for Vince McMahon to bear and, on March 14th, under oath and on national television, the chairman of the WWE had a complete psychotic breakdown and had to be tranquilized and restrained by court security after he attempted to beat Special Prosecutor Mueller with a shoe. Still in a dangerous mental state, Vince McMahon was forcibly removed from his position as Chairman and Paul Levesque stepped in to take control. He did his best to smooth things out with advertisers and sent feelers out to those who had departed the company, with little success, as many of them had already signed contracts with other promotions (Prince Devitt returned to New Japan and brought Tyler Black, Samuray Del Sol, and Bryan Danielson with him, the Brotherhood of Positivity, EC3, Becky Knox, and Devina Rose had signed with Impact Wrestling, Mauro Ranallo had become the voice of the NWA, KENTA had returned to NOAH and Tozawa and Uhaa Nation were back in Dragon Gate, just to name a few). So the coffers had to be refilled, both in terms of the roster (WWN was finally bought outright and several contracts were put out to former talent like MVP and Mr. Kennedy), and in terms of all of the money that had been lost. Which meant, reluctantly, that Levesque would have to sell off some assets. There was one asset in particular that one buyer was very adamant about.
"You're sure this is what you want? I can't interest you in anything else?
"No, this is definitely it. And my money's good for it, don't you worry."
"..If Vince knew about this, he'd kill me. Alright, fine. Once the check clears, WCW's all yours, Steve."
In the spring of 2018, everything was looking like roses for WWE. Sure, attendance, TV ratings, and overall audience interest were all down, but what did that matter? Network subscription was high as long as people were watching NXT and 205 live (like a gaggle of marks), revenues were up, they'd just had a show in Saudi Arabia for a massive payday, and they were on the cusp of inking an obscene television deal with Fox worth a billion dollars. Not to mention all the talent they were hiring and the establishment of NXT UK by outright purchasing PROGRESS Wrestling and ICW, folding both companies into the burgeoning feeder system's roster. Which was really more Hunter's thing, but still. Vince McMahon felt invincible. But Summerslam 2018 was barely off the air before things quickly started to turn ugly for the WWE's fortune and its fortune.
All during the summer, the class-action suit being prepared by various former WWE employees was taking new shape. Long derided as a cluster of has-beens and never-weres trying to get a payday now that the luster was off their careers, regardless of how brief their tenures in the WWE had been or how long their careers had gone before they'd even reached the reached the promotion, it had quickly mutated into something far deadlier and more serious (rumored to have gotten assistance from the Mueller team). Several of the would-be clients were weeded out once it was learned that they would have more or less been happy with a cash payout, which was given to them, while several new witnesses were brought on, with many having been in prominent positions in the WWE, both as on-air talent and road agents, writers, and other backstage personnel. They were all willing to testify against WWE's unsafe business practices and working conditions, not to mention not covering performers' insurance or travel costs, the toxic atmosphere and environment of backstage hazing and "Wrestler's court", and racial or sexual discrimination and harassment. By November of that year, enough evidence and testifying witnesses had been brought together to bring the WWE to trial. Sponsors and advertisers were wary before the trial even got underway and some started to pull, but that was fine. Vince didn't care. It was just money. He had more of that than he could ever spend and he'd make it all back once this was over. He'd been attacked once before by the government and come out squeaky clean in the end. And that was in 1994 when they weren't nearly as powerful as they were now. He was Vincent Kennedy Goddamn McMahon. He was invincible.
But if one court case was troublesome, two were disastrous. In January of 2018, following a sweeping and unprecedented Democratic victory in the midterm elections, as well as a mountain of evidence and guilty pleas compiled by Special Council Robert Mueller, proceedings began not only for an impeachment hearing, but for the criminal trial of President Donald J. Trump, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and nearly every member of the White House Cabinet and Senior staff, as well as several high-ranking members of the Republican Party such as Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Orin Hatch, and even the President's children. This meant that Linda McMahon, a member of Trump's cabinet, was now on trial and Vince McMahon, already on trial in his own case and a close friend of the Trump Family for years, was now going to be called to testify. Things went from bad to worse for Vince McMahon as the two suits, exposing not only the corruption within the company itself and to the people the company affiliated itself with, caused strife within the locker room and led to a mass exodus of talent, particularly the young talent that the WWE had hoped to build its future on, including stars like (using their former WWE names for the sake of brevity) Daniel Bryan, Sonya DeVille, Finn Balor, The New Day, Velveteen Dream, EC3, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Dean Ambrose, Bayley, Corey Graves, Mauro Ranallo, and several others, as well as goodwill ambassadors like Titus O'Neil. Brock Lesnar left the company without ever officially dropping the Universal title, which only made fans angrier that he had ever been there, to focus entirely on UFC competition and the promise of big-money superfights. John Cena left to focus on his burgeoning Hollywood and television career and started his own nonprofit organization. Many still stayed though, either out of similar political allegiances (AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Big Cass, etc), contracts being too new for them to be able to afford to buy out of (Keith Lee, Ricochet, War Raiders, etc), didn't care about American politics (Shinsuke Nakamura, Kairi Sane, Io Shirai, Marcel Barthel), or felt a sense of loyalty to the company, either because their careers had started there, or due to a family connection, or other reasons (Lars Sullivan, Braun Strowman, Roman Reigns, the Usos, Naomi, Charlotte Flair, Bray Wyatt, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel, The Miz, Ronda Rousey, Rusev, etc). Those that stayed were rewarded, with Randy Orton winning the Universal Title in his third Royal Rumble match victory and got his second WrestleMania Main Event (though he still put over Roman Reigns) and AJ Styles' historic title reign lasted until WrestleMania, where he finally dropped the title to The Miz.
Still, it was a heavy loss for WWE talent-wise, only compounded when advertisers and sponsors started to leave en masse, taking ad revenue with them, and attendance and TV ratings took a further hit as stock prices dropped sharply. Total Divas was dropped from the E! Network (though it just wound up going on the Network, anyway) and there were rumors that the USA Network was going to drop Raw (it would probably just wind up on the Network as well if that happened). It was all too much for Vince McMahon to bear and, on March 14th, under oath and on national television, the chairman of the WWE had a complete psychotic breakdown and had to be tranquilized and restrained by court security after he attempted to beat Special Prosecutor Mueller with a shoe. Still in a dangerous mental state, Vince McMahon was forcibly removed from his position as Chairman and Paul Levesque stepped in to take control. He did his best to smooth things out with advertisers and sent feelers out to those who had departed the company, with little success, as many of them had already signed contracts with other promotions (Prince Devitt returned to New Japan and brought Tyler Black, Samuray Del Sol, and Bryan Danielson with him, the Brotherhood of Positivity, EC3, Becky Knox, and Devina Rose had signed with Impact Wrestling, Mauro Ranallo had become the voice of the NWA, KENTA had returned to NOAH and Tozawa and Uhaa Nation were back in Dragon Gate, just to name a few). So the coffers had to be refilled, both in terms of the roster (WWN was finally bought outright and several contracts were put out to former talent like MVP and Mr. Kennedy), and in terms of all of the money that had been lost. Which meant, reluctantly, that Levesque would have to sell off some assets. There was one asset in particular that one buyer was very adamant about.
"You're sure this is what you want? I can't interest you in anything else?
"No, this is definitely it. And my money's good for it, don't you worry."
"..If Vince knew about this, he'd kill me. Alright, fine. Once the check clears, WCW's all yours, Steve."
