Wasn't there a management change since they left?

If he comes into AEW I want him to drop his gimmick. He is so naturally charismatic but the gimmick likes sucks it all out of him. AEW ends up with him, he should thrive. His Renee interview showed he is smart as a tack, and we really have not scratched the surface of what he can be.  He has real Danielson / Punk energy of being like the everyman.  

And yeah, if they sign him they need Scarlett.  They are too fun together.  Scarlett as a manager is top notch.  Also pretty sure she is happy to just manage.

Should have checked twitter.  He purposely did not just Mondo which is a good touch.  Also new gimmick confirmed.  Not who I wanted him to become, but shows more of his personality.  Also, sounds like he will be doing his cenobite gimmick that he has been dying to do.

Feb 2, 2022 21:54:34 GMT Lony said:

Yeah, if I were in charge of Impact, I'd avoid bringing in Kross and possibly Scarlet, given how they left the company. If you were Impact, I assume you would want to avoid that unprofessionalism.

Didn't The Invisible Hand help do something sexual on Scarlett? 

Alright sooooo…

Tony Khan said there would be some big info on Rampage last night. That info turned out to be an announcement that someone will be debuting and signing with AEW on Wednesday. Said person will fight Isiah Kassidy in a qualifying match for the Face of the Revolution match at, you guessed it, Revolution (remember the big brass ring ladder match? That).

People have been trying to guess who it is and some front runners are Keith Lee, Jeff Hardy, Karrion Kross, etc. Guys who are free agents or can pretty easily work elsewhere without and legal issues.

Then Tony tweets this:

Then follows up:

AEW’s twitter account has been tweeting about it too.

No leaks or sources are saying anything. Yet.

So I ask you: is this Tony Khan over-hyping someone again, a la Christian Cage? Or is he going to deliver a mind-blowing debut a la Adam Cole/Bryan Danielson?

They have a good working relationship with everyone but the WWE, so if it’s someone from there that is still under contract, this could be an insane debut that literally changes everything. Imagine if Mustafa Ali showed up?

I’m heavily leaning towards Jeff Hardy. I think he’s still under a no compete but I could be wrong. If he is, and Tony is going to pay his legal bills to get him on the show, that’s still pretty big. In the same vein it could also be Johnny Gargano.

But it’s sounding like it’s even bigger than that.

I just hope we’re not let down.

Matt said what Tony means is someone who used to be in another fed will debut in AEW and not return to the old fed. So Keith Lee is likely who he is talking about. Jeff will not return until March.

Feb 2, 2022 23:54:27 GMT Blindy said:

Feb 2, 2022 21:54:34 GMT Lony said:

Yeah, if I were in charge of Impact, I'd avoid bringing in Kross and possibly Scarlet, given how they left the company. If you were Impact, I assume you would want to avoid that unprofessionalism.

Didn't The Invisible Hand help do something sexual on Scarlett? 

All I heard was Scarlet was unhappy with her pay. That's why she left the company.

Literally anyone from WWE with some indie cred would get a hero's welcome in AEW.

Pretty much. I do hope this is Lee though, as he can be a huge star.

The funny thing with WWE now is basically NXT taught all these guys how to work on TV and play to cameras then released them for AEW.  AEW should be grabbing them, as indy guys occasionally do not get working for cameras but working for cameras is what NXT was all about.

Feb 2, 2022 23:54:27 GMT Blindy said:

Feb 2, 2022 21:54:34 GMT Lony said:

Yeah, if I were in charge of Impact, I'd avoid bringing in Kross and possibly Scarlet, given how they left the company. If you were Impact, I assume you would want to avoid that unprofessionalism.

Didn't The Invisible Hand help do something sexual on Scarlett? 

Pretty sure you heard that from Last but I can't find any evidence on the internet to back it up.

Feb 6, 2022 2:26:25 GMT c said:

Pretty much. I do hope this is Lee though, as he can be a huge star.

The funny thing with WWE now is basically NXT taught all these guys how to work on TV and play to cameras then released them for AEW.  AEW should be grabbing them, as indy guys occasionally do not get working for cameras but working for cameras is what NXT was all about.

Tony how do you save money on developmental?

I let WWE do it.

Feb 6, 2022 12:05:49 GMT @ness said:

Feb 6, 2022 2:26:25 GMT c said:

Pretty much. I do hope this is Lee though, as he can be a huge star.

The funny thing with WWE now is basically NXT taught all these guys how to work on TV and play to cameras then released them for AEW.  AEW should be grabbing them, as indy guys occasionally do not get working for cameras but working for cameras is what NXT was all about.

Tony how do you save money on developmental?

I let WWE do it.

Vince, how do you save money on developmental?

Let AEW do it.

Feb 6, 2022 13:12:19 GMT NATH45 said:

Feb 6, 2022 12:05:49 GMT @ness said:

Tony how do you save money on developmental?

I let WWE do it.

Vince, how do you save money on developmental?

Let AEW do it.

I mean WWE has always done that with things like ECW, etc. Guessing it only became a thing because Hunter needed something to fill time with.

Also considering all the signings and daddy's money, I'm not sure saving money is in AEW mission statement lel.

Feb 6, 2022 13:12:19 GMT NATH45 said:

Feb 6, 2022 12:05:49 GMT @ness said:

Tony how do you save money on developmental?

I let WWE do it.

Vince, how do you save money on developmental?

Let AEW do it.

Naw, Vince then has to untrain them.  WWE would rather start from scratch than break bad habits.  This is why they do not want indy guys anymore really.  

Feb 6, 2022 19:27:02 GMT c said:

Feb 6, 2022 13:12:19 GMT NATH45 said:

Vince, how do you save money on developmental?

Let AEW do it.

Naw, Vince then has to untrain them.  WWE would rather start from scratch than break bad habits.  This is why they do not want indy guys anymore really.  

The point of the litte quip was.. on more so the theory behind it is,

WWE releases the talent.
The talent then gets better working else where.
WWE resigns then in a few years time as established and more experienced workers.

Similarly to how Drew became a bigger deal. But by design. And on someone else's dime.

Very true in a way. This is what WWE used to do. Since the Nick Khan it is only business brotha era a lot of people just will not go back to WWE. They wanted to work for Vince's company. Despite Vince being knowing for weird decisions and all of the drama and politics his inner circle brought, WWE was still a family in a weird way. Vince could not like you, but he was still Vince and you still worked for him, so there was a bond of sorts. Vince may not like you, but he would try not to just dump you if you made yourself useful to him or other guys liked you.

That is said to be gone now now that Khan wants business to drive all decisions. And many wrestlers do not want to work for a company for like this. They do not want to just be contracted actors, they want to be part of something bigger than just work for hire.

Which in a way is hilarious itself, as it means people like Heyman, Bischoff and Vince did work everyone hard by underpaying them but convincing them what they are doing was so important they needed to be here and kill themselves for the product. Khan's system is likely the fairer system as you could counter shit with no dawg, not doing a cell unless I get X dollars. The other guys would just work you until you did it for your base pay.

Gonna be a lotta favors owed that's for sure.

WWE has never taken developmental seriously. OVW only produced 4 main eventers.

FCW like OVW, produced only a handful of notable success stories.

Almost every NXT allumi has fallen to the mid card on the main roster because they fitted someone else's ( Hunter's ) vision and not Vince's WWE archetype of a main eventer.

So, let the territories do the work and when the time is right, you hire the AJ Styles type - the established worker with a world class education and established fanbase.

That is all developmental had to produce though. OVW produced a lot more than four guys too. John Cena, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, Batista, Angle, Punk, Kofi, Dolph Ziggler and Miz were all OVW. The fed was designed to feed WWE their next big star.

NXT did not work as creative had nothing for the people when they debuted on the main roster and most asked to move back down because they did not want to sit in catering.  There was actively push to not have people come out of NXT and be successful likely due to a power struggle between Dunn and HHH over who would run WWE after Vince.

The issue with NXT is, Triple H begun hiring guys who were the exact opposite of what Vince McMahon wanted.

The power struggle is rubbish. He was tasked with building " WWE Superstars " and hired ROH instead. The exact opposite of what was asked of him.

So, Vince is expecting 'John Cena' and Triple H hires a bunch of guys barely 5'9" or so niche they confuse the old man.

NXT was successful though. A large amount of the talent on the main roster are former NXT wrestlers. Surprisingly. Has NXT produced a franchise player? Charlotte? Becky? Certainly not a male counterpart.

Feb 8, 2022 21:55:31 GMT NATH45 said:

NXT was successful though. A large amount of the talent on the main roster are former NXT wrestlers. Surprisingly. Has NXT produced a franchise player? Charlotte? Becky? Certainly not a male counterpart.

FCW.

And if the entire staff of FCW became NXT how are they different again? I mean is Paige FCW or NXT? What about Wyatt family?

Feb 8, 2022 23:06:06 GMT c said:

And if the entire staff of FCW became NXT how are they different again? I mean is Paige FCW or NXT? What about Wyatt family?

- In June 2012, WWE ceased operating FCW. NXT as the developmental territory came shortly afterwards.

- Reigns was signed in 2010, was sent to FCW and made his FCW televised debut in August, 2010. Reigns made his debut on the main roster on November 18, 2012 as part of The Shield. 

- Bray Wyatt, was signed in 2009 and did 2 stints in FCW either side of The Nexus angle and being part of NXT " the game show " as Husky Harris - the Wyatt Family gimmick made it's debut in April, 2012 in FCW and after a few months in the rebranded NXT, they made their main roster debut in July, 2012. 

So yeah, if that's a hill you're willing to die on, then sure, " Roman Reigns was a NXT Guy " - despite the 2 years in FCW, and only a few months in NXT. The same for Wyatt. 



But, but.. Seth Rollins.

- He was signed in 2010 and spent 2 years in FCW, before NXT being rebranded in 2012. And like Reigns, he made his debut on the main roster on November 18, 2012 as part of The Shield.

I actually agree completely with nath’s take. You can’t be developmental and alternative at the same time. It’s like having an under 21 football team playing five a side every week. What happens when they get promoted? They have the wrong skill set.

Are you guys high? You're acting like every single NXT grad was a niche indie darling that totally flopped on the main roster. I'm only looking at the list of people who won the NXT title and there's plenty of successful talent of all sizes just from that list alone.

I'm going to omit Seth Rollins because he mainly came up in FCW and that doesn't count for some reason even though all they did was rebrand and everything else stayed the same, but there's also Big E, Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode...all main roster successes. And one could argue that Keith Lee, Aleister Black, Adrian Neville and Andrade all had the talent to be successful and were popular at one point, but didn't work out for whatever reason and got released. That's another argument altogether.

Point is, Triple H didn't just hire and spit out under-sized ROH/indie guys. The last few years, yeah, Gargano, Ciampa, Cole, etc. But they were the best talent they had at the time and deserved to be main-eventing like they were. But they all wanted to stay in NXT anyway so their size/main roster utilization is a moot point anyway. And almost everyone of those guys is gone now.

I like how people act like NXT 2.0 is not HHH guys. But the people who came over from FCW into NXT were.

For this week, Kross is a free agent. Loving his new gimmick. Won his first match back by ref stoppage after just landing MMA elbows to the back of the head until the ref called it.

Part of me hopes AEW gets him.  

Feb 9, 2022 0:35:10 GMT c said:

I like how people act like NXT 2.0 is not HHH guys. But the people who came over from FCW into NXT were.

I don't think anyone is saying that.

And sure, NXT 2.0 are obviously Triple H guys. And look at Bronn Brekker! Totally a 5-foot-nothin indie darling!

I understand nath's point on Roman. Not only was Roman working WWE Live Events before NXT came around, but the Performance Centre wasn't opened until July 11th 2013 which is when things really began to change. I don't think it's fair to tarnish the show's entire legacy but certainly in the last few years the show was split between being a viable third brand and a developmental and it couldn't really succeed at either. The production line of talent became congested because the show revolved around the same characters for years, meanwhile when NXT would build new stars like Rhea Ripley, Matt Riddle, Keith Lee etc. they'd get called onto the main roster and leave a void.

Something had to give and with NXT no longer in control of that niche market, they decided to scale down and become more ruthless with their roster. Sure, a guy like Bron Breakker would have been pushed eventually, but would he have been NXT Champion? Impossible to say, but given HHH's track record it would be some slow burn angle and he'd be on the lower mid-card.

How torn would you be as Triple H.

You've been hand delivered a young, legitimate looking athlete with all the upside in the world. But he's Scott Steiner's nephew, and you'd just fuck with him, because he's Scott Steiner's fucking nephew.