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WHAT ROSTER IS ASUKA ON NOW, HARDY-LITA-EDGE REVISITED, REIMBURSING TALENT FOR COSTUMING AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2018-03-15 10:00:00

Is Asuka officially part of Smackdown Roster now? Or will she still be part of Raw?

Technically, Asuka remains part of the Raw roster.  Should she defeat Charlotte Flair and become the Smackdown Women’s champion, she would shift over to that roster and remain there.

This was the first ‘first ever’ womens match that I thought was poor. HIAC, MITB, RR, Ironman etc were brilliant but the elimination chamber felt flat to me? It also became impossible for me (and my 12 year daughter, incidentally) to 'suspend my disbelief' when Banks completely no-sold a picture-perfect twisted bliss from the top of the chamber pod onto the ‘metal' exterior, only to succumb to a DDT variant shortly thereafter. On the other hand, Bliss’ promo at the end was great. What’re your opinions on the womens chamber match?

I wrote the following about the match during my PWInsider.com coverage of the show: “Real good match.  They told a nice story and built the drama the right way with the entrance order.   Everyone had their moments to shine and this was really enjoyable for the entire 40-minute plus run of the match.  Well worth going out of your way to see.”

I stand by what I wrote.  I can see your point about Banks, but that was a tremendously well laid out match.  Wrestling is all subjective, so you are certainly not incorrect in how you feel, however.

Following up on the Matt Hardy/Edge/Lita love triangle question, it seems like Matt was being punished or on the odds instead of Edge and Lita. Why would WWE favor Edge and Lita when it was clear Matt was the victim? The two pretty much got a huge push after the incident, so not only were they not fired, but got rewarded. If I were Matt, I would have pushed the issue as well since I was wronged.

WWE’s issue at the time was not who was cheating on who or who was involved with who.  The problem at the time was that the company felt that Hardy, by pushing the matter into the workplace, had to go.   Lita and Edge received a huge push but that was only after the issue became public and fans were so loudly chanting about the situation that the company made the decision to go all the way with those characters together.   WWE realized they had to embrace it and it worked for both Edge and Lita, so in some regard, Hardy’s actions backfired at the time.  You can say you would have pushed the issue, but if you worked for the Post Office, if you worked in an office or worked for a police department and reacted the same way, you’d have been reprimanded as well.  I sympathized with Hardy at the time and I don’t feel it was fair he was released at that point, but I also think that WWE’s hands were tied behind their backs.

I have a follow up question to the one asked about WWE picking up the bill for attire. I remember reading when The Rock was doing his gimmick with the expensive Versace shirts, and John Cena was doing the Thugonomics gimmick with all of the jerseys from different teams that they both paid for those themselves. Any truth to either of the two? And if so, did WWE ever reimburse them since it popularized their characters so much? 

I’ve heard of talents having outfits made for them and WWE deducting the cost from their pay, but not WWE reimbursing the talent.  It’s possible that certain top talents have wardrobe expenses included in their contracts, but if so, it’s not a clause that runs the gamut across the board.  In the case of Rock and Cena, my guess is they were investing in themselves and it paid major dividends along the way.

If Vince hypothetically retires or whatever would happen, would Triple H have that title of Chairman & Chief Executive Officer? He is an excellent  I don't know what his knowledge and background is on the business side such as dealings with stockholders, the NYSE, marketing and revenue, legal affairs, etc. Does he even have a higher education degree, if not a Harvard MBA? Anyway, I was joking on that end but what do you think?

It's impossible to know who would be named Chairman or whether it would be Triple H, but at this point, Michelle Wilson and George Barrios would be immediately tasked with running the company.

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