The Business of WWE

According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, some insiders in WWE believe Aleister Black was released prematurely. Black did excel during his NXT tenure and even won the NXT championship. The timing of this release from the company did seem a little peculiar. Why would you bring him back on TV May 21 if you were going to release him a week later? It doesn’t make much sense (unless we get context). The Dutch superstar was not used on TV for about six months prior and releasing him would have made all the sense in the world but not after bringing him back on TV for one episode and foreshadowing a program with Big E.

Now the situation is affecting E, and Mr. McMahon cannot come up with anything for him to do right now. In the meantime, Aleister has the option to go to AEW or elsewhere. The combination of layers, debts, and history/subtext he adds to his character would fit correctly with the long-term storytelling AEW likes to do (Kenny Omega, the AEW world champion, is a master of this).

WWE has set the lofty goal of booking the 2021 edition of SummerSlam to be as big as WrestleMania. It may even be a little bigger. The event is advertised to be held on August 21 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Raiders had a successful move to this Stadium which manifested during the 2020 NFL season. WWE is planning to book John Cena vs. Roman Reigns in the main event for the Universal championship. Reigns faced Cena at Night of Champions in 2017 in which he was put over and the torch was proverbially passed between the two stars – one generation off to Hollywood and another being crowned at the top of WWE.

This match was originally set to take place at SummerSlam 2017 on a much bigger stage. Now four years later Cena will get the opportunity to main event the second biggest (this year the company intends to make it the biggest) Pay-Per-View of the year with WWE’s current top star in Reigns. Cena’s filming schedule in 2017 would not allow him to wrestle at SummerSlam.

2021 is a great year for John considering he is now a more established Hollywood actor and has a little more freedom in his schedule. 2021 is a massive year of exposure for the former Franchise of WWE – Wipeout is currently airing on TBS, F9 is scheduled to come out in just a couple of weeks (in which he replaces The Rock’s character), the new Suicide Squad movie after that, and now a main event but at SummerSlam.

This will be the first time Cena has interacted with Roman since The Tribal Chief turned heel upon returning to the company at SummerSlam 2020 after a five-month hiatus to take care of his family. The only one I can remember possibly being bigger than this was the ’92 SummerSlam which featured a familial showdown between two brothers in law when Bret Hart took on The British Bulldog (Davey Boy Smith).

Paul Heyman is absolutely right when he calls the Heel / Babyface dynamic in WWE “antiquated.” This is without a shadow of a doubt an outdated concept – WWE is still in 2021 trying to recapture the magic of the 80s with guys like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. This old-school “superhero” mentality behind WWE’s character development lasted through the mid-90s until Stone Cold Steve Austin cut his Austin 3:16 promo at King of the Ring in June 1996. This was most likely not the case of Vince McMahon telling Steve to cut a promo this derogatory toward Jake “The Snake” Roberts but rather a case of Steve just by chance having the audacity to cut a promo like this – probably being aware that he would get reprimanded.

In 1996, the promo happened to strike the right chords with the audience and WWE slowly started to adopt a more attitudinal mentality which began to fully resonate with the audience and become embedded in the minds of WWE fans about a year and ½ after this (about the time of the first Hell in a Cell match involving Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker – and the debut of Kane. This strategy worked extremely well until the end of 2001, and WWE even attempted to carry on that mentality to a degree with the Ruthless Aggression era.

WWE has been treading water for the past 12 years since the Ruthless Aggression era ended. That is very evident now with characters like Braun Strowman and Randy Orton. I am not referring to the character of these men off-screen, because thank God there have been documentaries about these men telling the complex layers to these individuals’ characters as people.

Where is the depth in Strowman’s character? Who is this guy behind The Monster chasing titles? WWE may want to explore this on television. And most people are aware that Randy Orton is not a sociopath in reality. The later years to these guys and girls as people my need to be explored.

John Cena was WWE’s top dog during this time, and it carried the company extremely well, but Roman Reigns wanted to take the company in a different direction by pushing it forward rather than relying on what worked in the past. Roman had to pay his dues and earn his respect with everyone in the locker room as well as the higher-ups in the company for several years first. The company had already been around for about 30 years (under Vince McMahon) so Roman knew he would have to earn trust in order to take the company in the direction he ultimately envisioned.

Now The Tribal Chief has finally accumulated the trust from WWE to integrate what the company should be about from this point forward: present the human being first and the good guy – bad guy thing will be secondary. This is the model AEW is following – incorporating many different layers and nuances in wrestlers’ characters – and this is one way the why AEW is becoming so successful and regularly averaging over 1 million viewers on TNT every week. This company is being fully transparent with its audience and they appreciate the honesty.

Reigns’ character is extremely relatable because his downfall – like nearly all human beings – will be primarily because of his own insecurities. Roman feels the need to be acknowledged and this will most likely get the best of him eventually and ultimately bring the title reign of The Tribal Chief to an end within the next few months. This is so relatable because the primary downfall of most human beings is their own insecurities which most of them do not want to admit.

Daniel Bryan has suggested in a roundabout way that WWE may want to begin cultivating another developmental territory. Bryan’s reasoning was that WWE has done such an incredible job with turning NXT into a third global brand under the WWE umbrella, and now it has evolved to a point where it is no longer considered a developmental territory. So, in essence, that brings up the question of whether WWE has a developmental territory at this point in time (which the company needs in order to be able to cultivate new stars and give them a taste of what life would be like on the main roster).

Bryan believes it may be time for the company to start planting the seeds for the inception of a new developmental territory since NXT is already promoted globally and has a TV show every week on the USA Network (same as the main roster). The brand also delivers quarterly Pay-Per-View events on the WWE Network.

Daniel told Michael Morales Torres of Lucha Libre Online that the company needs to address the situation by creating a new developmental territory to fill the void left by NXT as a result of its growth:

“I definitely don’t think NXT is considered as a developmental territory anymore, which leaves a question: do we have a developmental territory? Those guys are awesome and I do consider NXT a third brand for our company.” Bryan believes young talent in WWE might work better at first performing “under the radar” without quite as much pressure as a global brand like NXT now brings.

One can see evidence of this in the fact that NXT was heavily featured as WWE’s third brand on par with RAW and SmackDown at Survivor Series 2019. Superstars such as Roderick Strong, Keith Lee, and Rhea Ripley all received a major career-defining moments at the event – Ripley even received an opportunity to defend her NXT Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 36.

Daniel might have more leverage than just about any other performer because he has not only accomplished so much and was one of the favorites to win the 2021 men’s Royal Rumble, but he is also a current member of the writing team for SmackDown on FOX. Because of this, Bryan has a significant amount of pull backstage over the company’s direction.

This is not to say necessarily that a new developmental territory in WWE will be established, but it bodes well for the inception of this that Daniel Bryan voiced his advocacy for it to be established. It would not be the most surprising thing in the world if a new WWE developmental territory was at least explored.

Raymond James Stadium in Tampa will host WrestleMania 37 across two nights on April 10 and 11, 2021 as it was scheduled to last year.

SoFi Stadium was originally scheduled to host Mania this year before it was moved to Tampa, but Los Angeles will host WrestleMania 39 in 2023 and AT&T Stadium will hold WrestleMania 38. Anymore, you always need to be extremely prepared because circumstances can and will change on a dime (this year’s WrestleMania location is a perfect example)

WrestleMania 37 will emanate from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. The 36^th edition of the event was originally scheduled to take place at Raymond James Stadium as well but was unable to do so with the pandemic. WWE had to act swiftly and move the event to the Performance Center in Orlando.

WrestleMania 37 was also likely moved to Raymond James Stadium because the state of Florida has been more relaxed than most other states in terms of allowing fans to attend sporting events. This will mean more money for WWE as well as the entire Tampa area if there are fans present.

Florida has cleared all its sports teams to fill their stadiums to maximum capacity as of October 2020, but even the state’s NFL franchises are being cautious and only filling their stadiums to about ¼ capacity. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, this has meant allowing roughly 16,000 fans to attend home games – and the attendance will probably be similar for WrestleMania 37 which is scheduled to take place across two nights for the second straight year on April 10 and 11, 2021. WrestleMania has never emanated from Raymond James Stadium (although Miami and Orlando have), so it’s encouraging for the entire state of Florida that they will finally get their WrestleMania moment.

Florida is likely more relaxed about allowing fans in attendance for sporting events than in any other because WWE is already doing its TV tapings every week at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg (the Amway Center in Orlando before that, and even the WWE Performance Center before that) and has been for months. Florida is also allowing fans in attendance for sporting events and AEW, based in Jacksonville, is allowing some fans to attend each episode of Dynamite at Daliy’s place right next to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ home field (Tony Khan is a Co-Owner of the team).

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statement saying “Florida is excited to welcome back WrestleMania to Tampa in April at Raymond James Stadium. Florida has continued to work with professional sports and entertainment to safely operate while generating revenue and protecting jobs. WrestleMania will bring tens of millions of dollars to the Tampa area, and we look forward to hosting more sporting and entertainment events in Florida this year.”

WrestleMania 37 was originally scheduled to take place at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the new home of the Rams and Chargers. California has been strict about fans attending sporting events since the pandemics started in March. No fans were allowed to attend home games at SoFi Stadium in 2020 and the San Francisco 49ers were forced to play their final two home games in Arizona. This occurred because local health officials “temporarily prohibited” any sports involving close proximity and contact.

The moving of WrestleMania 37 to Tampa works in favor of all parties because the Tampa area will be able to make more money now and will bring in the revenue increase they were expecting last year. On the other hand, if the event were to take place at SoFi Stadium this year, California would not make anywhere near as much money as they could collect if there were fans present and that cannot happen with the present circumstances. Instead, SoFi Stadium will host WrestleMania 39 on April 2, 2023, which will hopefully be a very profitable event. “Our time will come,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said.

Between these two WrestleMania’s, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas will host WrestleMania 38 on April 3, 2022. This Stadium did about the same thing as Raymond James Stadium for their home NFL games, allowing roughly 25% attendance beginning week 2 of the NFL season against the Atlanta Falcons. JerryWorld also hosted WrestleMania 32 in 2016 – one of the many times WWE tried and failed to give Roman Reigns a proper coordination moment and establish him as the face of WWE. Fortunately, that is all behind us now and Reigns’ career is better than ever with Paul Heyman by his side.

Damien should debut on the main roster any time now after New Year’s because Mr. McMahon wants to create a new babyface star on the main roster

According to multiple reports, Damian Priest was scheduled to debut on SmackDown on New Year’s Day in the main event segment with Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns and get involved in that storyline as Kevin Owens’ friend, but it was scrapped at the last minute. Dave Meltzer claimed on Wrestling Observer Radio that Reigns and Owens were at least partially responsible for the angle being scrapped. Reigns feels there is no point in adding a “random person to the main event mix.” Priest well likely be headed to RAW instead.

Meltzer stated, “WWE had decided this idea that we need to make stars on SmackDown… we need new babyface stars. It’s kind of like somebody asked, who can be the next new babyface in NXT that can come on the main roster,” and the guy was Damian Priest. So they had a story where Damian Priest was supposed to be Kevin Owens’ best friend (similar to how Chris Jericho was back in 2016 – 2017) and he’s helping him against Roman Reigns and Jey Uso. In fact, they were going to do a tag match on the show Friday night and Damian Priest is there and Randy and all that. Kevin Owens said essentially that it makes no sense for him to be my best friend, what do we have in common, why would he be my best friend, we can do it but why is he my best friend? Roman Reigns agreed and since it’s Roman Reigns, it was nixed. I don’t know where Heyman stood on it but, it was nixed.”

It is encouraging to see that Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens were treated, at least in this scenario, so leniently and were given some form of creative freedom. No superstar has ever had that level of pull regarding creative direction aside from Stone Cold Steve Austin (who earned the trust of the boss many times over throughout the years. He orchestrated his own heel turn in 2001. It was not as successful as he predicted, but it was a massive step in terms of earning Mr. McMahon’s trust).

Regardless of this situation surrounding Damian Priest, he likely participated in his final NXT match at the New Year’s Evil event in which he took a loss and put over Karrion Kross. This match had a similar feel to Matt Riddle’s final match in NXT in June when he made his departure by putting over Timothy Thatcher. Based on this result, Priest might be expected to make his debut on the main roster.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Radio, Riddle’s current WWE contract, which expires in August 2021, has been extended for another three years at $400,000 per year with a $50,000 bonus for every Saudi Arabia show he works. This will lock him up for the foreseeable future with WWE as he made his main roster debut just six months back (on the SmackDown immediately following the Backlash Pay-Per-View in June – The Original Bro made his debut by defeating AJ Styles on June 19).

Riddle is on track currently to challenge Bobby Lashley for the United States championship at Royal Rumble. Riddle is one of the best in-ring workers in the entire company in terms of stamina, so this match might serve to open some eyeballs as it pertains to Bobby Lashley’s current reign as United States Champion (and hopefully convince the WWE universe to perceive it with the legitimacy). In other words, the match might steal the show. It might also prove that Riddle is ready for a higher spot on the card on Monday Night RAW if all goes well. Riddle’s Spiccoli-inspired character from the movie ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ will be gracing our televisions for years to come.

Some superstars are shaken mentally after being called to RAW/SmackDown and experiencing adversity regarding the ability to get over

Several WWE superstars have been called up to the main roster from NXT only to not be booked properly and therefore have either lost all momentum or, much of it. Many of the superstars (Lars Sullivan comes to mind) have experienced exorbitant amounts of success nearly everywhere they have gone, so all the sudden when they are told no or just have difficulty getting over they do not know how to respond because they have never been presented with a situation like this. Many of them have experienced “mental health issues” (such as panic attacks as with Lars Sullivan in 2019).

I believe it’s almost better to have at least some difficulty or adversity in one’s life (particularly early life) and to not necessarily have everything handed to you on a silver platter. Growing up with these circumstances breeds toughness, resilience, and resourcefulness that a person might not develop if they did not grow up in these circumstances. Some challenges in early life are a positive thing because it teaches kids the value of hard work and earning things (rather than entitlement).

Other WWE superstars such as Ricochet, Andrade, Aleister Black as well as Shinsuke Nakamura were former NXT champions and carried the brand before being called to the main roster but have not been nearly as successful since departing. Perhaps these superstars might want to try various nuances to their gimmicks (with approval from the creative team of course). On another note, Triple H is looking to expand the NXT brand and start building a team to operate down in Mexico much like he did in 2018 in the UK.