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WWE in 2026

I don’t think it was even an option to bring in those high-priced WCW guys. You can’t just force someone to perform for the WWF after they’ve signed a WCW contract. All the wrestlers whose contracts they picked up were young wrestlers, not making that much money and on a 90 day cycle. They wanted to keep working in the business, they wanted to work for the WWF and so they were willing to let Vince terminate their WCW deals (which would not obligate them to perform for the WWF) in exchange for a new WWF contract. But if any of them hadn’t wanted to work for WWF, their contracts just would have been terminated at the end of the 90 day cycle.

So the only way to get those top guys would have been if they, like Booker and DDP, were willing to take Time Warner’s buyout offer of roughly 50% of monies owed and then sign a WWF contract with a downside guarantee. Goldberg didn’t want to go, neither did Sting. Nash was on a $1.6 million per year deal and wasn’t going to pass up getting paid 30k a week to sit at home. Hogan is an interesting case because his contract technically ended in May 2002 but the last year was just as a consultant with the provision that a deal for him to wrestle would be negotiated later. So he actually wasn’t being paid that much under his contract, and that’s before we speculate on how his lawsuit affected things. (Though obviously he got out of the deal early since he was wrestling for XWF in November.)

But they could have got Flair. He was highly paid but not making seven figures, he always wanted to be one of the boys. He would have taken the buyout if they offered him a decent deal, and the WCW side needed him as a mouthpiece more than anyone. And when he was ready to wrestle he could have drawn a good buyrate with Austin, assuming that in this alternate universe they don’t kill Austin’s drawing power by turning him heel.
 
Sting was still anti-WWE for their content, so it made sense in a way to not jump at the time. That Taker match is the only one that could've drawn for 20 more years. Hell it still could, even if it's a sadder notion.

Goldberg was under contract to Turner Entertainment or something and not WCW, right? Like he couldn't have gotten out of it if he wanted to.

Steiner and Sid being hurt sucks because they'd have been great additions until they flamed out. I feel like Nash could be coaxed if you bring Hall in, similar to what actually happened iirc. In hindsight Jarrett would've added more than detracted. Luger maybe as well but he's dead by 2004 if he is brought in. You can dump Bigelow in the hardcore division, I guess, based on name value even if he was in horrible shape.
 
The Invasion angle is the biggest fumble in wrestling history to me and killed a lot of my fandom. Things were never that exciting again. Vince just had to prove he was superior, and hurt his own business to do it. Obviously things worked out for wwe in the end financially, but that’s part of the disappointment too; they learned at that point that they didn’t need to bother putting out a good product, they were gonna print money anyways.
 
I think Vince is much less to blame than WWE talent. Taker, the Rock, and Austin all refused to put anyone from WCW over because they won. Every story about the original plans make it sound like Vince was going to put plenty of WCW guys over.
 
Not enough people talk about how Rock murdered Booker right out of the gate. Set him back years.
 
I also think WCW was so damaged as a brand that WWF fans were hostile to seeing it on TV in any context. The idea of running it as a separate brand or as a babyface challenger to WWF led by the ultra-cool Shane O'Mac were both non-starters. Introducing a bunch of cold acts all at once also took the show down several notches.
 
Good! This is a strong, deserving class this year. I wish they had a physical hof because they get the inductions right far more often than baseball or football. And it'd payoff all those buried treasure shows on cable.

On the Invasion failing: letting Rock, Taker, and Austin and their deeply fragile emotions book themselves was the same problem WCW and Bischoff had before they lost. McMahon leaning into that after winning was dumb.
 
as for the physical WWE HOF, when they relocate the performance center to Vegas to join the UFC venue, i would say it’s a high likelihood it will include a physical representation of the HOF.
 
They will build a physical HOF when some city (or kingdom) pays them to do it. They’re not building all those statues for free.
 
They want a casino to do it, but that’s a tough sell because every time a casino sticks something like the Star Trek expo in their casino, it doesn’t make money and eventually it closes.
 
And like Ovaltine should really be called Roundtine, time isn't square so shouldn't it be called Time's Not Square?
 
Your Nancy Boy oil got all over the suit.. suit's ruined, Roman!
 
WWE going back to a celebrity host for WM and have announced that hollywood movie star, John Cena will be this years host.
 
Hogan/Andre from WM 3 will be the match inducted into the HOF this year
 
That's so stupid it must be a fake out.
 
And McAfee cut a promo talking about the poor ticket sales for mania and the low ratings for SD. And said the business sucks now because it’s about 5 foot 5 guys wrestling for 60 minutes and the people backstage having a circle jerk putting themselves over

Yeah I guess this actually happened on wwe tv
 
strummer said:
And McAfee cut a promo talking about the poor ticket sales for mania and the low ratings for SD. And said the business sucks now because it’s about 5 foot 5 guys wrestling for 60 minutes and the people backstage having a circle jerk putting themselves over

Yeah I guess this actually happened on wwe tv
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Damn wrestling is back
 
Ticket sales are way down for WM. According to WrestleTix, who is pretty good at tracking these things, they’re at about 38,000 for Saturday and just under 40,000 for Sunday.

They’ll move a lot close to the show, but it’s been rough.
 
This has been the most pathetic Wrestlemania build in forever. Everything is see is almost deliberately bad, because there's no way someone without significant disabilities would book this in earnest. And anyone paying to see this isn't far behind.
 
Part of that is crappy WWE creative and a poor build to Wrestlemania, part of it can easily be attributed to the ridiculous WWE ticket prices, but part of it is also a larger tourism problem they are having in Vegas in general.

I was reading an article recently that was talking about how overall tourism to Las Vegas is nearing historic lows over the last year or so. Apparently things are so bad that many of the major casinos and entertainment venues are even getting rid of the comp meals and drinks that Las Vegas hospitality is famous for. Even the entertainers that have year long residencies there and ongoing shows are really suffering from terribly low ticket sales. For whatever reason, people just aren’t going to Vegas like they used to.
 
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