Lurker > Wanglicious

logan paul straight up reminding me of a jojo character in that pic.

i was thinking it wasn't him because it wouldn't make sense with the way Steph is praised in the same dirt sheet reports and how she's viewed positively. if it was HHH then i'd expect a reaction similar towards him to what she gave her father. there's still something to both of them knowing more and being way too close to know nothing but that's something to be figured out over the court case.

edit:
especially as she's mentioned by name in the case it seems. def something sketch but probably not the worst

https://twitter.com/DMcIntyreWWE/status/1764911920249774259

this man has gone through so many phases and i think this is my favorite one.

GTM posted...

To clarify I meant in kayfabe. Sounds like it was simply Cody like "i have chosen, im using my shot for rollins, this guy is facing reigns" then at some point later "I changed my mind i have chosen again to face reigns im allowed to change my mind" or did the slap happen in between

yeah that was how that Vegas conference went. like Stife said, Cody went to the conference to call bullshit after Rock's powerpoint presentation of Samoans, said that he's made his decision, and that he has the right to pick because he won the rumble. i was just clarifying that Cody made the choice at that time first, then HHH reinforced the pick the night after. there's blurred lines of reality and kayfabe in everything here and dirt sheets have been fed misinfo enough that we don't know what genuinely happened. probably a bit of everything is true and a lot of everything is exaggerated or made up - initially people wouldn't have expected a Rock heel turn but here we are. they've done a good job playing it up and if you want a brief one sentence version it basically all comes down to "Cody realized he was being an idiot and getting played."

they could technically long game that but i hope it stays that way as opposed to a very quick turnaround of some bizarre conspiracy.

slight correction, Cody didn't just call bullshit, he said that he has the right to pick the main event match as the Rumble winner and that he's picking Roman. then HHH comes out the next night to clarify that Rock doesn't get to call the shots so it's Roman/Cody.

and now we're set up for a tag team of Rock/Roman vs Rhodes/Rollins on night 1. Jimmy and Jay will probably be a different match or just setting things up for later.

there's also an implication of Cody/Rollins vs Rock/Roman. keeps getting pushed as an idea, easily can be used for a cash-in moment, and gets the Rock on the WM card in a very favorable place (see: tag match).

ah, so Nash went with the sugar baby position in full.
like it's fair to say that at some point early on yeah, it was consensual and a very clear and explicit case of sex for favors, sex for work, sex for money. but once she wanted out of that part of the relationship you're on the line of when that crosses over to something not due to the power imbalance, vince's previous threats, and his constant pressure. at that point she's just broken and that was still in the first of 3 years, it's not a "at some point" Linda found out, it's 3 years later and it seemed to be serious enough to cause a rift with his own daughter. besides, that kind of arrangement for actual employment, especially on a public company, isn't something you can legally do; can't make sex and literally shitting on a girl's head a part of her job.

as for her getting a million yeah, she got a mil. he promised 3. if he didn't want this to come out, should've paid her properly considering you could've added a 0 and it still would've been worth the cost to keep this info from the public.

also nevermind on Sami lol

technically could do Rollins/Orton. that way when Damien cashes in he's able to cash-in on a face and you have Orton one shy of Cena/Flair. personally i'd still prefer Drew but that's just because his work is way too good for jobbing and he's got history with everyone involved. then again reality kicks in and i remember his contract still isn't supposed to last after WM40 unless he signed it and no dirt sheet reported on it.

SD did feel weird with HHH getting cheered by using the Rock's lines. felt like it's actually face hunter feuding with heel rock but 1) HHH can't wrestle anymore as he literally has a defibrillator in his heart, and 2) at this point that'd be a godawful match. legit not sure where this arc is going but it's at least nice, from a wrestling standpoint, to see HHH and Rock have some kind of WM feud as they never did fight there. it's at least an interesting storyline.

...also i kinda want the tag titles on R-Truth and Miz/Whoever Truth thinks Miz is but that's just goofy.

GTM posted...

Is there a reason Roman is a part timer? Was it to increase the mystique like a brock type on purpose or is he doing other things?

mystique thing for sure is part of it.
helps with injuries is the other.
his actual real life health issues is the other big one and WWE really, really, really loves his look + Rock influence, so they'll cave on all of that.

UltimaterializerX posted...

So uh.

I want Roman to keep the belt. Any chance of this or no?

i mean rock is being a heel right now talking about his family line so yes. they double team cody, then fight amongst themselves, then at some point cody gets hit with like the 4th rock bottom, roman gets the pinfall off of that, he retains and we set ourselves up for roman vs rock at a saudi show.

we can also do Seth/Sami/Drew

we don't know what was written on those contracts. pretty much everyone is using the same report that was posted earlier and it says the only people that know the details are Rock, head of WWE, and head of TKO. don't know the sponsorships, don't know the arrangement or requirements to Dwayne getting to legally have "The Rock", don't know what the merch is. it could be a super well kept secret only known to 3 people and their lawyers or it could be a purposeful leak with half truths so they win no matter what (no reaction, Rock continues; get a reaction, Cody's story replaces Bryan's).

i mean, Rock can always pivot in some way by saying he's the people's champ and he'll do what the people want or whatever, to essentially elevate Cody. he's got a way out as long as he doesn't force it.

i'd like to believe that it's actual company infighting but that would mean WWE's secondary youtube channel is also fighting against the company's directive. to be clear the main channel didn't have all that, it just had a bit more of the Drew section and cut out the Rocky Sucks part as opposed to literally titling a video "The Crowd Chants, 'Rocky Sucks'" which is uh... well, what i expect from fans, twitter vids, or whatever else that isn't actually a major official source. besides that, gotta remember that at some point company infighting also becomes a work. it's starting to look like that technically but we'll see.

WWE actually posted that on youtube. including in the title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-UoAmRZsh4

...is this seriously a work to essentially replace bryan's rise to WM due to punk's exit with cody's rise to WM due to punk's exit.

for something that "died" it sure is doing well getting 500 million a year from Netflix for up to 10 years. it was putting up some of the best numbers since the attitude era, consistently topping charts on viewership, and financially the company has never been better. money talks yeah, and it already did. when they announced WM40 they sold 90k tickets - more tickets than they ever have in a single day. people are into the product and the would-be main event of Roman/Cody ends up combining two of their top 5 sellers and draws. the financial argument just doesn't make sense here, either for the people, the company as a whole, or the event.

https://twitter.com/DMcIntyreWWE/status/1753859198692040852

legit the only person coming out of this story laughing, even if he's losing and isn't renewing his contract.

cody's was top 3 in merch in 2022 and last year was #1, it's not like he's something casual fans don't want. dude consistently gets some of the best pops, has some of the best sales, and hits well across every demographic. it ain't a casual issue as much as it's the guy who took cody's place is literally is a board member of TKO. could they fix this, sure. hell they could easily say Cody vs Roman is set for elimination chamber (they really have nothing going for this show right now), get the belt into a different match at WM. will they, no.

i mean there's another way they get out of this and it's called "a 51 year old gets injured before WM."

like the big 4D chess move would be they're baiting Rock vs Roman but then Rock is taken out/is injured or unable to compete, Cody still hasn't finalized his decision, picks Roman with Rock's blessing.

it's not the move happening unless there's a legit injury but is dumb to do all around. much like this build!

it's as prophetic a line as you get.
the only upside to this is that Drew is gonna have a field day talking about how Cody jobbed out his opportunity. legit the only person in that title scene worth watching after this and his contract may or may not be renewed.

Seanchan posted...

I guess he had to know his role and shut his mouth?

pretty much. just literally had Cody come out, talk up the title, then say he's not going for it this wrestlemania and introduced the rock.

it's a terrible decision all around.

both punk and bryan have had way too many injuries in the past 3 years that it's been rather painful to see just how all their younger damage has piled on. at least bryan's daughter wants him to retire soon and he's essentially working in AEW creative/management too.

this appears to be the rumored injury spot
https://twitter.com/AIRGold_/status/1751520125713281475/video/1

i... don't know how you get injured off that exactly considering it's a pretty safe move. but if punk is out i guess it's a good thing they set up Gunther as Plan B already and Drew is, well, Drew.

Seanchan posted...

Not watching the weekly shows, maybe KO, LA Knight, AJ Styles, and Randy Orton (who were in non-Rumble matches) all feature on Smackdown?

correct actually.
basically almost all the upper card talents were in a match already. now that doesn't prevent them from joining the rumble too the way Brock or Angle have but it very much so was matches are Smackdown, rumble is Raw. realistically there is no story with Roman on any of the SD guys because it's not like any of them are taking the belt; it has to be Cody for that one. Raw meanwhile has a very active scene with the WHC (even if Rollins was just injured) so there's people to contend for that.

and i get that people are talking of a triple threat but i still think a "head of the table" match does not need the belt. that can easily be worked into a separate fight, a storyline tool to limit their interference at WM, or put at another location.

Punk of those 3 since there's others who could win. one leak has it that Gunther will win. no leaks i'm aware of say Cody but that's always possible depending how they do his matches (e.g., Night 1 for title, Night 2 for head of the table with the Rock).

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WWE_complaint.pdf

i should've read this instead of whatever internet articles. those somehow didn't cover enough because the source material is so much more depraved. said it in the top devoted to this too but just check the first 6-7 pages.

the sex toys things has a slightly amusing and then a significantly darker detail in the claims. amusing part: he racially color codes his dildos. black one for a black wrestler, white one for a white wrestler. this in my head paints an image of him having to make some bizarre custom builds to have his own personal sex toy hall of fame. ...the darker reason: it's coupling a word and action. if he says that she's going to play with the dildo on top of a UFC belt, gradually she'll associate her actions and that name until it's indistinguishable if he asks for it from a real person or not. literally how you would train a dog or bird.

i'm not making that theory, it's summarized right in the lawsuit.
also it isn't just shitting in her hair in a threesome.
he shit in her hair, told her to keep pleasuring the other guy as she had shit in her hair and back, showered, came back, and then continued.

gonna be real, i'm not sure how at some point none of these women just straight up shot him in the dick with a shotgun because they'd be 1000% innocent.

oh yeah, and the screenshots are worse.
so many of them.

legend has it that when vince left the office a broken dildo was found with the letters SLI- and -IM written on it.

Maniac64 posted...

I mean yeah, she consented to taking a job at the WWE, with whatever was written in that job description/contract. That isn't consent to your boss forcing you to have sex or be fired though.

oh well yeah, agree with that. realistically you can't consent to future actions like this, just the ones occurring at the moment. i don't think any consent there lasted long considering where her mind was and where vince's eventually took her. also to be clear, he's a total scumbag for even having the base "job for sex" offer in the first place, that's just the least incriminating part of the story.

ivysnow posted...

ringboy scandal, rita chatterton, snuka and nancy argentino, blackballing sable, the death of ashley massaro, numerous incest storyline pitches. he's always been this way

fair point really. there's tons of petty or criminal or just plain weird sex fetish shit but the worst ranged from coverups (murder, rape) and rape (which is just about every one of his NDA). taking on a literal sex slave for years after all that just feels like he somehow got worse. decades of some of the worst behavior and as he nears the end of his life just triples down, turns a broken woman into a sex slave, then pimps her out for years. that's a whole other level.

Maniac64 posted...

She says he offered her a job when she was desperate and then revealed the actual job was being his personal prostitute. I'm not sure you can get truly consensual if that is the case. Too much power imbalance.

i'd see accepting the start of that contract as consensual but extremely damaging, then at some point it's not because you've lost all control and are effectively mind broken. which vince totally did do here. power imbalance speeds that process up dramatically, 3 years of this shit? yeah, no.

YoBlazer posted...

McMahon repeatedly mentioned having his world-class lawyer on speedial, and how his lawyer could make problematic people disappear. He spoke about things like taking care of loyal people.

...yeah okay this bit i must've missed.
how did he get so much worse with age. sex pest, predator, probable rapist back in the 90s and 2000s sure but this is just five years ago. what kind of head trauma turned him into a bonafide supervillain?

YoBlazer posted...

No one in here can know the pressure of feeling indebted to, subservient to, and socially/financially trapped by one of the most powerful people in entertainment. Compound it with the fact that this whole thing started because she was unemployed after losing her job as her parents' caregiver because both her parents died.

oh totally. there's a certain point where what was a bad but consensual decision turns into something that's full on abuse, is just rape, and it definitely gets there in the allegations. where, i don't know, but it's somewhere in there. between this and the countless NDA he's done with women, totally think he's a rapist and needs to be jailed for the rest of his life. just gotta also see her current circumstances and timing to know that this ain't a neutral ploy, she meant to hit him for everything he's got and she absolutely should.

was also trying to think of the timing of this... 2019-2022 it seems like and the NDA occurred because Linda found out. so really, she's the one to probe because what the fuck lady, send your husband to jail. what dirt could he have on you that's remotely close? still that does give hope for the rest of the locker room because if it's something that even she didn't know for years, maybe most guys didn't. except brock who got a pissing video. which is a whole other question and a good reason he's skipping wrestlemania entirely this year.

but the timing makes what was going on make sense in the company now. 2022 WWE was full of management back and forth. take Steph: first she quit. month later, her dad quits at which point she returned as co-CEO. thenher dad came back for 2023 at which point she quit again. finally with TKO holdings her dad "quit" one more time and her husband just about fully took over. which hey, as long as he's not one of the execs that was raping women uhh.... yay?

all that said i still can't get over the stopped payments. it's a 3 mil NDA and you sold so much stock, just pay it. and what's the conversation there, "Vince, why in the hell did you stop payments on the one where, after giving her the "Dudley Boys", you decided to give her the Spike and shit on her head?" surely, surely he could've stiffed on some other deal.

you've gotta laugh at the dark stuff, it's what keeps you sane. also helps bring you back to remembering that these are just her allegations, happening right before the rumble, and because he essentially stopped payments on an NDA. if she had been a little faster, could've fucked up the netflix deal. some of this is going to be exaggerated or factually incorrect, with some clear flags that say early on she was okay with it - nobody sane is doing a closed door meeting with a dude in his underwear. obviously wrong but at the start something had to be consensual. like this is by far the worst accusation he's ever had and there's gonna be a lot to prove. public opinion-wise and company-wise though, he's done. especially as sponsors hear this and she scares lesnar off too. if her first goal was to set the rest of his career and life on fire, mission accomplished. if the second is to get him jailed, i look forward to seeing the case and more NDA-for-rape getting broken because fuck those.

that all said, there are some crazy and funny details in there like Vince naming sex toys after wrestlers. does he have a lineup of toys from the Morrison to the Batista? does he play entrance music? does he have a blank spot next to a toy called the John Cena? then there's shitting on her head. just what the hell happened there?

rumor going around that if it's true says vince is done:
slim jim no longer is sponsoring the rumble tomorrow.

oh Vince should've been in jail decades ago. i don't think there's anything anybody can do to redeem him, re-watching stuff from the attitude era or after and the way he treated women on Raw kind of made it clear that this wasn't just a "character" he was playing. everything from his obsession with Trish to whatever blond of the month existed to Eva Marie's return, it all ends up a case of he literally booked all of these things and i'm not surprised he's got worse skeletons in the closet. i wasn't expecting literally shitting on somebody's face but i also can't be terribly surprised.

YoBlazer posted...

I think (and hope) that the younger guys are a lot less fucked up. "Carny gonna carny" doesn't seem like it applies as much to Millennial/Gen Z wrestlers.

that's kind of the demographic i think is more OK overall, yeah. i mean okay i forgot Rollins dated that chick with the MLP nazi but he's got a way, way better person and fortunately that lasted just a year. willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in saying that he's still a good guy who doesn't believe the shit she does, he was just thinking with his dick at the time.

and maybe i'm just too hopeful with trips, at times it seems like his relationship with Vince is estranged considering all the back and forth we've had over the past few years. but you guys are probably right in that he knew shit but didn't say anything. i just don't think he partook in it either and is shifting the company away from all that, if for no other reason then because of all his daughters. or hope, anyway.

Rollins also seems good. also think HHH is okay overall, the dude became a family man real quick and his health issues definitely changed his perspective.

i never expected punk to be hogan 2.0 but he proved it twice in the same promotion which is kind of amazing. even giving him the second chance made no sense unless it was for legal reasons but i imagine they got enough for lawyers to go fuck it, go home.

_SecretSquirrel posted...

SRS just confirmed that the rumors were correct.

https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1694865077621359086

damn, that's brutal. the recovery was also rumored but then this news hit and now he's gone way too young. glad SRS got permission first to reveal that, the family kept it real close so that should give some degree of closure to fans over not knowing anything.

there were rumors that Bray was out for so long not because of something light but because it was life threatening. just rumors though. that is not one anybody wanted to be true.