Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A by clicking here.
So I've seen some posts on social media asking when people feel the Intercontinental Championship lost its prestige. I say 1999 or 2001 when it was getting tossed around with most reigns not lasting more than 3 months. Thoughts?
I still think it mattered at that time. It became an afterthought years later, when it was clear that the IC Title holder was no longer someone in the mix for a spot at the top of the card. Back when it was important, that wasn’t the case. Once they started having the IC champ lose non-Title matches to guys further up the card, it told the world what the belt was all about.
It appears as if John Cena has begun to shift his career priorities some and that's a good thing; not just because Super Cena crushing the new guys is bad for business, he can't wrestle forever and it's only wise to plan for the second and third acts of life. Do you think he will be limiting himself more and more, or will he be doing the Hulk Hogan plan? I hope it's the former, Cena should be used more like Brock Lesnar nowadays.
Keep in mind that they are launching Smackdown Live, so they need him there. With that said yes he is doing more outside projects and he enjoys that. I don’t see him wrestling as little as Lesnar does, but he will definitely continue to do more outside of wrestling as he starts his second career. Good for him.
Had Cody Rhodes stayed in the WWE, which brand do you think he would've been drafted to and would he gotten somewhat of a push as Cody or do you think he would've appeared mainly on Superstars or Main Event as a blond Stardust?
Had he stayed, he would have been drafted playing whatever his character was at the time, so it would have probably been Stardust.
Would WWE have been better served if they had simply not acknowledged that Brock Lesnar failed his USADA test or at least wait for the appeals process to conclude before responding to questions surrounding it? It seems to me that WWE has left the door wide open for questions about other members of the company and if they are subject to the wellness policy. I believe they even mentioned that it was intended for performers wrestling 200 matches or more per year. With the brand split and expanding rosters, one may surmise that many performers will be wrestling less matches, is the 200 match threshold a hard number? If not, how do they determine what is considered to be full-time? And who thought it was a good idea to make such a statement?
Frankly, I think if you are asking how they would have been best served, it would have been to go to Brock and say, “Listen, we let you go do UFC and you got popped for two failed tests. Because you got us into this, you are going to get us out. We are suspending you for a month, even though you are not subjected to our policy. You brought on this issue so you are going to man up and take the bullet here for the good go the company.” If he refused, only then would I have made a statement along these lines: Due to the terms of his contract, Brock Lesnar is not subjected to our Wellness Policy. He has informed us that if we suspend him, he will challenge the decision. Rather than get into messy legal action, we are instead publicly condemning Brock for his behavior and stating that is not representative of the values of World Wrestling Entertainment. We can not legally suspend him but we are very disappointed to hear that he has failed two tests. As it was, they made a weak statement and as you stated, it now creates suspicion that did not need to be created for others. I think it was handled all wrong.
I know you guys have both stated that WWE operates in a world with little to no regard towards TNA and I think that you are probably right. With that said, WWE is in the process of bringing on a lot of new performers as well as former WWE performers to pad the rosters. Doesn't this seriously drain the well as far as available established wrestlers that TNA could have possibly used? I don't think it really affects ROH because of their relationship with New Japan and they have done extremely well in developing their own performers, something TNA has been lacking for a while now.
Sure, any person that WWE signs comes off the market. But with that said, TNA has been shedding a lot of their high priced talent, for obvious reasons. It could potentially hurt TNA with younger names, for sure, but if you give a younger guy the choice between TNA and NXT, well I think we all know how that will go.
You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A by clicking here.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
