PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

 
 

WILL VINCE CHANGE NXT, SHOULD EDGE RETURN, DO BIG BUILDINGS MATTER FOR TV AND MORE

By Dave Scherer on 2019-10-13 10:00:00

You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A at pwinsider@gmail.com.

Wednesday nights have thus far been must see tv for wrestling fans.  I've loved NXT for a long time now and AEW is off to a great start.  In comparing the shows on their respective networks, do you think AEW is enjoying an aesthetic advantage with the sold out arenas compared to the smaller Full Sail venue for NXT?  I think the two are neck and neck from a quality standpoint, but AEW has had a bigger feel in my opinion.

If you are asking me, personally, no I don’t care at all who is in the bigger building. Much like what sets look like, that stuff doesn’t matter to me at all.  I care about the stories, characters and matches.  But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to people like you.  So I guess the answer is it depends on whose eyes are on the product.

Whatever happened to WWE's "We're looking for tens" recruiting policy?

They decided to start going after elevens and twelves.

I heard a rumor that Edge has been medically cleared, and was wondering what you thought of that. Should he come back? Personally, I think he should leave his legacy alone and stay gone, except for special appearances. Edge was great in his time, but times are different now. Your opinion?

I don’t ever tell anyone what they should do but if there has been no change in his spinal stenosis diagnosis, I think he’s insane to wrestle again.  He’s almost 46 years old and has a family.  I don’t see any reason to risk paralysis just to wrestle again, even if I needed the money (and I don’t think he does).  To me, my health would come first (and second, third, fourth, etc.).  I am sure if he can get cleared WWE will throw big money at him for shows like the events that they do in Saudi Arabia, as they have done it to many other older talents.  If it’s me, I would pass.  Now, if it ends up he was misdiagnosed years ago, that is another story.  But if the diagnosis hasn’t changed, I wouldn’t take bumps.

Jeff Hardy just got arrested for his 2nd DWI offense in less than one year. WWE's attitude towards their superstars was to distance themselves and just say that they are responsible for their own actions. My question is at what point does WWE step in and order the talents to clean up their act or else?

WWE can’t order someone to go to rehab because they aren’t employees, they are independent contractors.  What they can do is not use the talent while they are spiraling, and also offer them any help that the person needs (which they do).  They could also cut them loose from their contract in almost all cases.  Even if they could order someone to rehab, it almost never works unless the person wants to get healthy again.  If they don’t, they go through the motions and then relapse again. At this point, it rests on Jeff to decide what his future will be.  No one else can do it for him, other than if he were sentenced to jail and couldn’t get his hands on alcohol.  Otherwise, he needs to decide what he wants his life to be.

A lot of people have been asking questions along the lines of "if AEW gets strong ratings, will it force Vince to change the way he presents Raw and Smackdown?"  I am going to ask a similar question, but one that from my perspective should be a much bigger concern for us fans: if AEW continues to get better ratings than NXT, at what point will Vince say "see, people don't want pure wrestling, we need to make NXT more like Raw and Smackdown?"  

I would hope that point is far down the line.  I would hope that Paul Levesque can tell his father-in-law that the reason AEW is doing what they are now instead of a higher rating is due to the fact that the fans have two similar products so they have to choose.  I would hope he could convince his father-in-law that if Vince were to make NXT more like Raw, it would make it easier for the pure wrestling fan to skip it and just watch AEW, meaning they would get stronger.  But since it’s Vince, who knows what he will do.  I hope they stay the course.

You can send us questions for the PWInsider.com Q and A at pwinsider@gmail.com.

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!