That sounds like twitter spam seriously, omg AEW is dying!

Meanwhile they are about to get a huge bump in tv rights pay.

All you have to do is look at the crowds to know.

They're pricing is off and if you wait they lower tickets but to be frank, no one has a ton of excess money anymore so it's affecting things. It's not going to affect WWE as much since you know they have more fans, and are friendlier to families.

And are we so sure they're actually in line for a major bump in pay? The chatter was WBD would drop them like a bad habit if they managed to secure RAW and I can't imagine they're too thrilled with creating a Saturday night slot on the back of CM Punk only to have him ran off to WWE while the show they created for him cratered.

They should..also this is the part of wrestling I ****in hate talking about.

I watch AEW because it's full of top of the line ring work all the time.

Its not like I'm rooting for them to fail. But it's the reality of their current situation and they need to do a ton of work to turn this perception around.

And they absolutely have to figure out how to thrive without trading on the bad will of scorned former WWE fans. That just isn't going to work anymore with Vince ****ing off to the shadow realm.

A lot of their perception is created on social media because for a lot of fans the WWE having competition is something they don't like..which is stupid.

I love AEW. I love the wwe. I hate the tribe mentality from fans.

To an extent, I guess, but a lot of that is Khans own doing nowadays. Somebody has got to take his phone away when he goes on those tirades.

And for me, the shows are just stale and boring. The Devil storyline in particular made me lose a considerable amount of interest in watching, and as talented as some of that roster is eventually it's all the same stuff you've seen before.

And to be fair to them, some of it is just out of their control. Omega is currently out and even when he's active unfortunately his body just can't hold up, and MJF is off doing whatever it is he's doing.

He had surgery for a torn labrum, a lot of their storylines have been shot due to injury.

But at the end of the day I watch wrestling for matches, when I can get a top 10 match of the year on rampage, that is good shit.

Also if you've watched wrestling very long you've seen it all, everything is a rehash.

To add this is why I said what I said..

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">At least one person in the industry Fightful spoke with said they are aware of others involved in the McMahon misconduct, and will identify them if the investigation doesn&#39;t. <br><br>Our free story on Fightful Select: <a href="https://t.co/svEtf0z4Xz">https://t.co/svEtf0z4Xz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zwFqysTUw7">pic.twitter.com/zwFqysTUw7</a></p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1753467913753739628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Other potential victims of Vince McMahon have been contacted by both attorneys and mainstream media outlets, and are gauging their next steps if they wish to take them, Fightful can confirm.<br><br>Our free story on Fightful Select: <a href="https://t.co/svEtf0z4Xz">https://t.co/svEtf0z4Xz</a> <a href="https://t.co/zyA3Faky0a">pic.twitter.com/zyA3Faky0a</a></p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1753467876814545243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The lawyer for John &quot;Johnny Ace&quot; Laurinaitis, McMahon&#39;s co-defendant in the suit, told me “We will go where the evidence leads” when asked if other WWE execs were involved in or aware of McMahon’s alleged trafficking scheme.</p>&mdash; Tim Marchman (@timmarchman) <a href="https://twitter.com/timmarchman/status/1753457777815507342?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Other people are going to be thrown under the bus...if H is one of those people, why on earth would you hitch your big chance in America to a company dealing with all this?

If Triple H and Steph were involved we'd already know about it, I'm guessing. TKO had all those contingencies put in place for McMahon because they'd already known this would be coming out soon (and I'm not convinced it wasn't someone there that leaked it). If they went through all that trouble yet didn't properly vet HHH that would be incredibly dumb on their part.

It would not shock me at all...the WWE for being a huge money maker and being on the stock market is still to this day extremely carny and has things go on that wouldn't fly anywhere else.

Oof. So TKO sources are claiming they didn't know the extent of it. Welp, that whole organization may be torn down to the foundation yet.

If you're a fan of The Rock, may want to watch tonight. Leave it at that

Yeah it’s already advertised he’s going to be face to face with a Roman tonite

That was an absolutely awful way to handle that. Jesus Christ they managed to bury Rhodes, Rollins, that worthless title, AND completely wasted a years+ of buildup.

Oof. It's true though.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="zxx" dir="ltr"><a href="https://t.co/EQwWxUZZxk">pic.twitter.com/EQwWxUZZxk</a></p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1753613354923332049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I really hope HHH is just setting this up as some sort of swerve and that its going to be a triple threat or something.

It's too late. They committed character assassination on Rhodes tonight with his shit promo. And he knew it too. Looked like his entire family just got executed throughout that entire promo, and especially when the Rock came out.

lol lol and lmao

Loser ass Cody Rhodes shoulda stayed in AEW

They genuinely may have just squandered ALL the momentum they garnered recently. An all time bad booking decision, and one they pulled at the worst possible time with the Vince scandal intensifying by the day.

Cody should walk out and go to Japan.

Wonder how quickly they pivot back to the original plan. At the rate they're going Rock is going to get booed unmercifully in Philadelphia. He's public enemy #1 right now with the smarks for what he's done.

Numerous WWE sources have concurred that the decision to go with The Rock vs. Roman Reigns Mania weekend, expected to be officially announced this Thursday in Las Vegas for the Philly event, was a push by The Rock to move into the Mania main event, backed by top TKO Group Holding execs.

While WWE had been expertly building to a Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns rematch, some sources believe it was done by Johnson to, as one source stated, “save Wrestlemania” after CM Punk and Brock Lesnar, for very different reasons, were taken off the board from the biggest weekend of the year.

Others believe that Rock pushed for the move and likely would have no matter what, given his massive $30 million stock payday is, in part, contingent on him hitting certain milestones. Sources familiar with the situation believe one of those milestones was Johnson returning to the ring this year and that Johnson pushed for the match to happen sooner than later with the idea he felt Reigns vs. The Rock was the far bigger attraction for the company,

So, it’s very possible that no matter who was injured or not, Cody vs. Reigns would not have taken place because The Rock was back in the game and the most important members of company management were going to acquiesce to Dwayne Johnson’s ideas.

With Johnson’s power as a member of the TKO Board of Directors, his Hollywood standing and the backing of Ari Emanuel, Nick Khan and others, the decision was made to go with Rock vs. Reigns as the headline bout, believing it would be a greater attraction for the mainstream and also help push some positive momentum for the company.

Nah no way full steam on this shit lol

Absolutely hilarious how Roman buried Seth and the title and everything and Cody proceeded to be like I choose to be a loser bitch at WM. *shakes Rocks hand*

One source compared it to Johnson’s attempts to take over the overall creative for the DC film franchise, noting that he came in originally as an actor to portray Black Adam, but by the time that process was done, had changed the original trajectory for the plans from playing the opposition for Shazam!, instead pushing that Adam should have his own film so he could eventually be set up to face Superman instead and even went over the heads of executives to their superiors to get ideas approved. Johnson’s long-game was to gain control of the entire DC film franchise, only to lose that attempt when Warner Bros. Discovery gave that power instead to James Gunn and Peter Saffron.

But, in WWE, there isn’t going to be anyone that’s not going to at least consider Dwayne Johnson’s ideas. He's The Rock and has a big history of selling tickets and merchandise and movies and at the end of the day, Wrestlemania is about spectacle and The Rock equals spectacle.

PWInsider.com is told this wasn’t done to target and politic Cody out of his main event out of malice, but out of the belief that Johnson was the best idea to make money now and respect his new position with the company’s parent company. This was a strategic move to give Johnson more political power overall and to show Endeavor’s faith in his involvement and that even Paul Levesque, who has done an admirable job as the Chief Creative Officer, would "lose that power struggle with Johnson at this point", as one source surmised.

One source confirmed to PWInsider.com that former Senior Vice President of Development at Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions, Brian Gewirtz will be in the mix as the voice representing Johnson in the WWE Creative process going forward. There are some who believe Gewirtz, who at one point was one of the longest tenured WWE Head Writers, will be around physically at least for major shows going forward, could even be there as a “Plan B” if Endeavor ever needs to pivot WWE's direction and go with a Johnson-backed creative team down the line.

Wow. Pretty telling they're actually considering contingencies in case HHH doesn't make it through the scandal. Figured he'd already be safe but apparently I was wrong on that one.

There's no way they have Rock beat Roman for the title though....right? So this all ****ing pointless.

Absolutely pathetic. Similar to the league gifting Brady EVERY call including multiple PIs setting up TDs on balls thrown OOB instead of pushing Mahomes ROFL

Did Hunter write our Superfarce loss script?

Even without Brock and Punk you could have the Saturday main event still be: Bailey vs Iyo Sky as the Damage Ctrl story is hot and it gives SD a main event or Gunther vs Seth/McIntyre vs Seth. Heck if Rock wanted to be on the show let him give the rub to Gunther or Bronn as the new monster of the WWE.

What the **** was the point of having Priest win money in the bank if he never cashes it in?

From everything I've seen this isn't Hunter. In fact, it seems that Rock went over his head to get the match.

And as self serving as Rock apparently is nowadays, he was also a master at reading the room and adjusting throughout his career. He has to know what's coming if they keep on this path. It'll be changed to a Triple Threat match like Daniel Bryan at XXX.

Good Lord. Apparently he's actually pushing to win the damn belt.

I think that Roman beats rock for the title then Cody walks in and says your night not over then beat Roman to be champion

Or do Rock/Roman night one and winner/Rhodes night two.

This is how'd I'd play it. Covers both main event spots.

Rock vs Reigns is a match I'd like to see. But then Cody finally beating Roman night 2 is what should happen.

It wouldn’t remove the stink they’ve added to this all but it would at least be a favorable outcome.

It really should be Gunther challenging Seth.

I don't know who you have to beat Gunther for the IC title though.

There are any number of guys who would do well.

Sami Zayn. Jey Uso. Chad Gable.

Yep. Even if they pivot Roman buried the entire roster 6 feet deep with that promo on Rollins and his belt, and it was made all the worse by Rhodes meekly bowing out of the way for Rock. The damage has been done, only thing to do now is mitigate it as much as they can.

The Rock is going to Black Adam WrestleMania.

Why? Rock hasn't wrestled a match in 11 years. Last time he did he tore muscles and the dude is gassed after one move and a promo. The match will suck big ones.

It's backfired massively. Only reason you do this is for the casual fan and media attention. They sure got it. The angle has the most dislikes EVER for a WWE video, well over 300k at this point, the #1 hashtag on Twitter at one point was #WeWantCody, and most of the media coverage is about the backlash, not Rock vs Roman.

Now, if this was some 5d chess move to divert the controversy away from McMahon then nice try, but as soon as the next domino drops there it'll be right back to being one of the main story in the media.

I don't think they could've botched the post Rumble fallout much worse even if they were actively trying to.

Only way forward I see that may actually be better is Rock just goes full Hollywood Heel again and instigates Cody to the point Cody says **** You and cashes back in while Roman goes tweener and the Bloodline ally with Rock (Hell, maybe even bring in Jacob Fatu finally).

The rock gets the last laugh stealing THE WWE from HHH.

Everyone complaining about the insertion of the Rock in Wrestlemania and yet no one sees the Yawn status of Roman Reigns continuing to remain champion for so long...

Huh? That's a huge part of the problem. People were willing to grudgingly put up with it because the story they were telling logically led to Rhodes finally dethroning him at Mania. Hell, they even acknowledged that his reign sort of sucks, and that's why they gave Rollins the 1b title.

Oh they are very close to NWOing the bloodline storyline.

Honestly the whole Rhodes beating Reigns was silly to begin with unless you throw in a Paul Heyman betrayal to make it interesting.

How sure are we that he was going to bear Roman at Mania?

They’re pushing Roman to beat Hogans record. He’s 226 more days from breaking it

How would people react if Cody lost?

Also people have been telling for Rock Vs Roman for years. We knew this match was going to happen. It was teased in the Young Rock Rock even discussed it on the McAfee show when they were out in Boulder last September. He showed up that same night on Smackdown Then a few weeks ago he teased it

All of a sudden people are upset? We knew it was going to happen. It wasn’t going to happen any where else besides Mania. It’s too big of a match

Now I can see why people are upset on how it was presented to us. Rollins ahead o e of the great promos putting over the importance of the title. The rititlr meant something. That they made the titke so it could be the workhorse He propped up Cody

Cody said he’ll think about it

Here is we here it detailed. Roman trashed Roman and Seth. Horrible decision. Also Seth should’ve been there In the ring The go back and forth The. Cody comes out. Talks to both of them. And picks Seth and explains why. That Seth was a true defending workhorse and the title Actuslly means something not a joke of a title where the champ never wrestled

Then the rock comes out to everyone’s surprise. Saying Roman even though Cody isn’t facing you I will


Now that’s how it should’ve gone sone

But hey we still have time. Things can change and develop.

The overarching story of the entire WWE FOR A LITERAL YEAR was Cody finishing the story. They've alluded to Rock/Roman here and there but this was not the year to do it. And quite frankly, if they were going to have Cody lose AGAIN just so Roman could continue this awful run and beat Hogan's time they should've never even went down this path to begin with.

If they really wanted Rock/Roman then they should have had Roman drop the title to Cody at WM. Afterwards he goes mad and starts attacking the Bloodline. That way Rock steps in as a challenge for the head of the table and Roman disappears for a while.

They would walk allover anyone to shoehorn The Rock into WWE. They will just mute the boos and pipe in cheers.

Let's not act like they did this for a decade for Cena and Roman.

WWE reloaded the video to YouTube but cut Cody looking sad or leaving the ring. Full on damage control.

LMAO Yeesh, who knew Rocky took all the wrong lessons from McMahon.

Rock is already getting outright boos at house shows when they show the segment.

I think Wwe is doing this to recreate the Daniel Bryan and Batista storyline, with alittle bit of Benoit vs HHH and HBK also in there. Make Cody a mega baby face to beat Roman and the Rock in a triple threat at mania.

If you think about it and many are starting to believe this

WWE needs this controversy badly. It’s taking away from the major scandal

Anything to help deflect from what’s going on with Vince

Cody already is a mega baby face. He is the face of the company and the highest merch seller and there aren't really split crowds as with Cena and face Reigns.

Hadn't read anything about that yet....

It may end up that way, sure, but it absolutely was not the plan to start. Punk being injured, Lesnar being a piece of shit, and Rock being an egomaniac all contributed to this current debacle.

And for real, they planned to destroy a good bit of the good will Rocky had with the last remaining fanbase that will tolerate his antics? No, this was just a very badly executed pivot.

That looked like a pretty sparse crowd....a lot of empty seats.

There was a smattering of boos....including the guy filming.

I'll give it a few more days to see more negativity that tells me more of the fan base hates it.

To me this isn't the only thing you can point to that shows the WWE is really starting to look like WCW in it's last year. The Bloodline story had so jumped the shark that it is almost unbearable to watch. Nia Jax storyline...meh.....bringing back the old guys.....Cena, Orton and now the Rock...desparate moves that will not pay off.

My wife used to chase me out of the room to watch Monday Night Raw because she hates 'Rasslin" so much....now she knows she can always count on watching a movie or picking up reruns of NCIS, Bones, or BBT.

Booed pretty heavily at NXT tonight.

Thou Carmelo turn on trick was awesome.

LMAO So the story now is Rock, Nick Khan, and Ari Manuel agreed to have Rock vs Roman at WM 40 as part of the deal when they have Rock his trademark and had him join the board. This was back on January 3rd. They didn't tell anyone actually involved in the creative process until AFTER the Rumble.

So basically, Dwayne is engaging in a hostile takeover of the WWE?

Sure seems like it. He already tried it with DC and essentially succeeded in the Fast and Furious franchise.

Just a personal theory but it really seems like they're preparing to oust HHH. Perhaps he's going to be directly implicated soon, or he's going to be a victim of collateral damage, but bringing in Gerwitz as a "Plan B" for head writer is bullshit. They've probably already worked this out and it's just a matter of legalities now.

If Khan is smart he offers Trips and Michaels the book and control of AEW the minute they are let go from WWE,

Depends on what gets uncovered. Sure seems like the WWE is about to have all of their skeletons laid bare, and HHH and Michaels unfortunately are very likely to get ****ed (or they're just as guilty as McMahon) once Federal Prosecutors actually do a proper investigation. Grant only accounts for 3 million of the 18 Million Mahon paid out and that "investigation" they did in house seems more and more like it was just a sham to try and put this away quickly and quietly.

I would never think hunter will get busted he too into the family man routine. Plus he a nondrinker.

Hunter doesn't need to be an active participant to be indirectly implicated. He's held various EVP positions since the Early 2010s with aspirations to one day head the whole company, and he didn't have an inkling his father in law was sex trafficking in the corporate offices? Bullshit

Yep, the WWE is basically going to be run by the Rock and his pals. If you notice once the Rock's show got cancelled and he lost his mind on WB and those execs didn't care..his DC movie bombed, he got ejected from fast and furious..and his personal disasters such as having to donate a bunch of money to the writers strike after he said something stupid..and Hawaii...

Seems to me like this guy is back to stroke his ego after some things didn't go his way.

Thinking a bit on it, you know who almost certainly is going to be implicated if it goes to trial? Heyman. It's not a secret he handles almost everything for Lesnar both business wise and creatively. Not a chance he didn't know about Vince arranging for Grant to meet up with Lesnar.

Do you smell what the Rock is cookin?