Whatdaya mean they don't plan ahead? Roman Reigns to the moon!

This is unbelievable sad, and there is frankly no excuse for the lack of planning.

It's also utterly illogical. WWE tends to base its decisions on anything it perceives to provide a bump in ratings; this unfortunate relic of the Monday Night Wars is proving to be a big albatross because short-term ratings are essentially meaningless right now since WWE just signed their big TV extension. Ratings won't really matter for another several years.

They can therefore *afford* to invest in the future by planning some long term story arcs that may initially drag on the ratings. There are 3 hours of Raw. No excuse not to provide mid-card guys the time they need to feud in a meaningful way. Instead Vince probably has a real-time ratings measure that drives booking decisions on a ten-minute time horizon (Turn Big Show! Now!).

Finally got to listen to the entire thing over the weekend after reading a few summaries.

- I never thought Punk would be back once he left, and the podcast basically comfirmed it. Not because he wouldn't be brought back, but because he doesn't want to come back. He sounded generally happy and at peace with life, much happier than, say, when he did the Best in the World DVD. And listening to the stories he told, it seems like part of him realized he'd never get fair treatment as long as HHH was at the top, so why would he put himself through all of that anymore? Life's too short.

- The one thing that really puzzles me was why Punk waited so long to go to a private doctor in the first place. He spent all that time running down Amann as basically incompetent, but trusted that he was giving him good advice on the lump in his back? Especially when the lump just kept getting bigger? Doesn't make any sense.

- HHH and Stephanie's reaction to the whole thing is very bad in a number of ways. I think it's the first real sign that these two won't be as good as Vince in dealing with the business side of things, not even close, really. On top of just being petulant and childish -- I mean, really, how immature do you have to be to tell someone you want to kill a guy for what he said about you in a podcast? -- it shows that they (HHH in particular) might not be willing to put ego aside and work with a guy who left on bad terms. Whatever knocks people have against Vince, and they are legion and well-deserved, he's always been able to hire a guy or bring him back if he thought he could draw money, regardless of history (Hogan and Warrior multiple times, Bret Hart, even Eric F'n Bischoff). Of course, maybe HHH has deluded himself into thinking Punk isn't a draw, but there's so much evidence to the contrary that I can't imagine he'd believe that.

- Also, the whole "Well, we were considering hiring Cabana as an announcer, but he had Punk on his podcast to say all those mean things, so **** Cabana now"...honestly, what kind of ****ing nuthouse are they running over there? I don't know what the number is as far as how much money they'd have to pay me to work there and put up with that ****, but I'm pretty sure it's Cena money at the very least.

- **** Roidback.

- Road Dogg was on Twitter the other day, basically saying, "You don't know the whole story!" and then later admitting he didn't know the whole story himself. Thanks for clearing that up. Oh, and saying we'd never get WWE's side of it because there's nothing good that can come out of responding for them. Yeah, sure, nothing other than maybe refuting that their company's a giant cesspool.

Looking forward to the second podcast later this week, especially if he goes off on HHH some more.

Punk will be back imo

in b4 punk is gm on raw tonight

Bret Hart thought WWE killed his brother and he came back.

The Ultimate Warrior came back.

Punk's wife still works for the company. I'm confident Punk won't be back for a long time, but you can never really say never in wrestling.

Besides, Vickie Guerrero obvious new GM of Raw.

Vince seemingly has a good ability to deal with these egos. Think of how big of an ego the average nobody has. Then think of the ego the high school QB types had. Then multiply that by a hundred thousand and add being rich on top. I've heard in podcasts that Vince can get these guys to listen (even Punk seems to have kept doing things he didn't want to do because of Vince for quite some time; all the 'I owe you ones') whereas in other companies the guys would mock the very idea of following directions from whomever happened to be giving orders in the company.

On the podcast after Raw:

Austin: What about CM Punk?

Vince: I didn't screw Punk. Punk screwed Punk.

Probably because he's lying.

I mean **** HHH, #TeamPunk and all that, but there's probably a fair amount of embellishment on the part of Punk when he looks back. That's just the nature of this sort of thing.

CM Punk is the anonymous GM.

Sure, that's possible, but considering wwe's fetish for litigation if there was even the possibility of defamation or slander the lawsuits are coming heavy on punk and cabana

Otoh even if punk is embellishing maybe it opens them up to being forced to expose stuff they wouldn't want to and not suing is the +EV move

Right, if you sue for defamation then you have to overcome truth as an affirmative defense and you have to open up a lot. And since there's almost no chance that he's lying on the majority of it, functionally it would end up being a bunch of admissions to stuff while going at whatever they perceive to be lies.

It seems really unlikely Punk or Cabana worried (or should be worried) about the threat of a lawsuit.

If even half of what Punk alleged re: medical stuff is true (and it almost has to be), the WWE doesn't want all this in court. They'll just lol @ anyone who would listen to it and say they don't care.

Someone mentioned it earlier, but when the host and close Punk friend responds to an issue Punk had with "Well, you were probably being an ******* to a lot of people", it lets you know that Punk is probably one of those people that always sees himself as the hero (it's what made him awesome). It's pretty likely that his issues with management and the like aren't as one-sided as he'd make it seem.

Punk's obviously in the right here, and ultimately it doesn't matter if he's embellishing a little because of how bad the story was.

Any chance this is a work? The fact they aren't burying aj makes me think so

WWE does not think remotely long-term enough to do this as a work for that long. They cum in their pants within five days of every idea they hatch.

There's always a chance something is a work, but I agree with LKJ that this isn't a work. I think it's more likely the case that now if WWE does bury AJ it will just get them even more bad press with the spotlight on them right now.

I did find it interesting to see the YouTube interviews that show that Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman are pretty damn convinced that the Montreal Screwjob was a work. I might be able to get my tinfoil hat on tight enough to buy that one.

They also can't bury AJ because she is the only talented and over women's wrestler they have on their roster right now. They butchered their opportunity with Paige so badly that they are already resorting to ****ing Bellas again.

This is false

2nd part of Punk Cobana podcast is up.

Link?

https://soundcloud.com/coltcabana/ao...m-punk-returns

Which part? I honestly don't know....

Do you think Emma is gonna carry the division or something? Or do you think Paige still could make it in her second round?

Thinking that Paige is done is false. She is only 22 and has already shown how diverse she can be. WWE giving up on her now would be depressing.

Yeah I agree she has a lot of talent, but it does seem her whole run has been so butchered thus far. WWE isn't the best at using women well.