Coming Up - the real reason WWE is pushing Aalyah Mysterio, WWE ban CM Punk, changes
to Retribution and more.
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After starting sometime in the mid-19th century, the Seth Rollins vs Rey Mysterio feud took
a controversial new turn last month - transitioning from the Messiah faction trying to take down
the Mysterio family storyline, to a star-crossed lovers relationship angle between Seth’s
disciple Murphy and Rey’s daughter Aalyah.
Because where do you go once you’ve ripped out a man’s eye?
Book a ginger guy to go out with their 19 year old daughter.
Friday’s SmackDown saw the first onscreen kiss between the two, with Aalyah declaring
her love for Murphy in front of her father and brother.
The angle received renewed criticism from Twitter, with many fans made uncomfortable
by the 32 year old Buddy kayfabe going out with 19 year old Aalyah - especially in the
wake of July’s SpeakingOut movement.
But, as the storyline’s defenders point out, both are above the legal age of consent,
and there is no position of trust relationship being abused.
No matter what your personal feelings are on the matter, though, one Eric B. from Wyoming’s
wrestling booking philosophy still holds true: controversy creates dem clicks.
WrestlingNews.co has reported that Vince McMahon is a big fan of Aalyah and her work so far.
Originally she was only meant to be onscreen for a short while, likely only in the background
as part of the Dominik push, but Vince asked the writers to come up with more for her to
do because clips of her segments were performing “above average” on YouTube - which, as
Vince himself said on last Thursday’s Q3 investors call, is one of the only metrics
that shows WWE fandom is increasing.
Gotta love those Russian bots.
Note to self, buy more subscribers.
Rather astoundingly, Aalyah’s segments have averaged over 1.5 million views, which is
far higher than other clips from SmackDown, and just as much as ones featuring Roman Reigns.
Even a clip from Friday’s Talking Smack of just Rey and Dominik discussing her relationship
with Murphy - which she wasn’t even on - far outdrew a lot of SmackDown on YouTube, pulling
in over 800,000 views alone.
So Vince has got his main man on the case, with RingSideNews adding, so do take this
with a pinch of salt, that with Executive Director Bruce Prichard not at this week’s
SmackDown, Triple H had a “big influence” on the Aalyah angle on Friday’s show.
WrestlingNews.co even noted Vince might offer her a full-time contract as he “sees star
potential in her”.
Alexa Bliss, start a 24 hour timer for Aalyah Mysterio’s WWE Push Ending.
But while Vince is high on Aalyah, it’s a very different case for the man who sung
happy birthday to her all those years ago at WrestleMania 26…
Back in August, facing disatariously declining ratings, WWE panicked and threw Raw Underground,
Retribution and the ThunderDome at a wall.
But one out of three ain’t bad, as while those first two have been dropped or buried,
the ThunderDome has been a resounding success.
But because the Internet is also the place that made Boaty McBoatFace happen, letting
fans stream their live reactions directly into nationally televised broadcasts of Raw
or SmackDown were going to have a few people exploit the situation.
Because this wasn’t just the Internet.
This was the Internet plus wrestling fans.
The majority was harmless fun, with more Pikachus than you could shake a Metapod at.
But it also saw genuinely douchebag behaviour like streaming footage of a KKK rally, and
a graphic beheading video.
WWE have eradicated this since those first two weeks of teething issues, and thanks to
a new behind-the-scenes video tour of the ThunderDome by the company that created it,
called The Famous Group, it’s been revealed what else they’ve banned from their shows
- briefly glimpsing a printed off list stuck to playout monitors so operators can catch
any other undesirables like underage drinkers in a University bar.
The list unsurprisingly includes promotions like AEW, IMPACT Wrestling and New Japan,
and top AEW stars like Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, MJF, Cody and Brandi Rhodes, the Young Bucks,
President Tony Khan, and easily the biggest WWE to AEW defection of them all, Vickie Guerrero.
But what’s really interesting are those people WWE dislike so much, they’ve put
them on the banned list despite not being affiliated with their main competitor AEW.
Some are obvious, like former WWE stars Chris Benoit, who committed a double murder suicide
15 years ago in one of the darkest days in wrestling history, and Alberto El Patron,
who is currently facing life in prison for kidnapping and battery charges.
Others are more because they’re pesky thorns in WWE’s side, like Enzo Amore, who was
controversially released from the company two years ago, and has since tried himself
to invade WWE crowds in real life.
Marty Scurll, a big part of the Bullet Club angle that invaded Monday Night Raw two years
ago, who has since found Ring of Honor distance themselves from him following SpeakingOut
allegations.
Jim Cornette, a former booker in WWE who was most recently removed from NWA commentary
after they broadcast racist comments he’d made - and who has a very outspoken podcast
on the idea of wrestling being in any way fun.
The controversial Superstar Billy Graham, who publicly encouraged Kofi Kingston to take
steroids during his WWE Championship run last year.
And Ryback, who is a constant critic of his former contractor, arguing for unionisation
in wrestling.
Others are more nefarious - like banning any images of former Diva Ashley Massaro, who
tragically died last year.
Massaro had previously alleged she was sexually assaulted while on a WWE tour of Kuwait, claiming
WWE never reported it to the authorities.
And oddly are the rather insidiously political bans of the Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet flags
from ThunderDome screens - implying WWE don’t want to offend China, who dispute the autonomy,
and, in some cases, existence, of those states.
No other political censorships are visibly present on the list.
But arguably the most interesting banned name wrestling-politics-wise is CM Punk…
Despite semi-working with them up to June this year, when his Fox Studio show WWE Backstage
was unceremoniously cancelled, CM Punk’s image is also included in the banned ThunderDome
list.
They’ve done it, after years of trying to get rid of CM Punk chants at live events,
WWE can finally silence the voice of the voiceless.
This same month last year, Punk made his shock kind of return to WWE, appearing unannounced
on the 12th November episode of Backstage.
The next three months of wrestling news was dominated by CM Punk return confirmed - with
Triple H teasing ‘never say never’ about an in-ring WWE return for him, and Seth Rollins
even starting to build a feud on Raw and social media.
These were quickly shut down by Vince McMahon, though, who apparently thinks you can indeed
say ‘never’, reportedly never wanting to work with either him ever again.
And with him still being on the banned list, that ‘never’ is still holding true.
Hopefully soon any mention of Retribution will also be banned from WWE.
The WWE faction Retribution have been heavily mocked and criticized since debuting back
in August because there’s clearly no creative direction for them and, most recently, they’ve
been totally buried by the Hurt Business on back-to-back episodes of Raw following Ali
being unveiled as their leader.
Ali is now promising, however, that changes are coming:
“Tomorrow on #WWERAW I turn this ship around.
But I don’t want you to change.
I want you to continue to ignore the warning.
I want you to continue having no faith in us.
After all, “having no faith in us” is what made us in the first place.
#RETRIBUTION” - with a picture of him looking at his phone screen rather than the camera,
classic selfie mistake.
This follows Ali responding to a fan late last week, who specifically called Retribution
a sinking ship - where he seemingly confirmed his own frustration with WWE’s booking,
disowning the current creative: “No, I love it.
Yelling at performers about a show they don’t write makes me smile.”
What do you think WWE can do to save RETRIBUTION?
Or is this just another case of a RETRIBUTION member desperately using Twitter?
Let me know in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA THE
TITANIC!
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