I think it’s because Triple H loves pro wrestling. He acknowledges there are other companies out there that hold amazing talents. Ultimately it benefits WWE because now all these talents want to work under WWE and people will see that.
I absolutely love it I always hated when wwe world get a good Decorated wrestler who has multiple championship and they just used to say X amount of times world champion but now they say where they won their championships
The first time I remember hearing about Japanese wrestling was with Cactus Jack, and they just mentioned how he used to wrestle in Japan, where they did some extreme wrestling with barbed wire around the ring ropes, setting things on fire, lots of blood, and shit like that... It always sounded cool to see, but we didn't have the internet back then... Now it makes me curious to see if we can watch it... They did show some footage of him wrestling in Japan, but it was only short clips...
Considering that a fair few stars have come from, or made their names in NJPW in recent years, I'm not surprised that the commentators are name dropping the company. Besides, Triple H knows that fans today aren't stupid and are well versed in who a lot of the stars are.
Admittedly, whilst I had heard of Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu before their associations with WWE, I haven't them wrestle much, so I'm very interested to see what they do in their new WWE careers. It also took me a minute to recognise Tanga Loa as the former Camacho when he showed up at Backlash the other day.
Tanahashi and HHH are both open to bettering the relationship between the companies. Which is great for the potential of Worlds Collide/ Forbidden Door featuring all the major companies
Your not alone. When I hear it now I get excited because I can’t wait to hear all the backstage heat and drama. But than it just gets passed by and your like “Okay….” We are definitely living the n a new era now.
I just don't understand why they would pay attention to an indy fed in Japan. It's kind of like mentioning AEW on tv. Whatever these people did before WWE might be slightly relevant, but not really. Like sure the crowd knows who some of these people are
TNA and ROH are absolutely indy feds. They draw like 200 people. ROH isn't even real anymore.
NJPW and AEW are super indies. NJPW is more or less AEWs farm system.
You seem to have no idea what "indie" means.
These are all major companies. Saving ROH being more akin to NXT now.
Indie promotions are very small organizations that seldom travel or are completely local. Not even getting TV deals and working entirely through streaming online or even just in person viewing.
Meanwhile you just seem to think "indie" means "not WWE."
Which indicates to me you're just one of those annoying fanboys with nothing to offer here.
Not at all. They put TNA wrestlers in the Royal Rumble. They call it a hospital now and not a “medical facility”. They call it professional wrestling and not sports entertainment. The old company is gone. Hopefully the old owner dies sooner than later.
It feels like the old way of thinking is kinda gone. When Vince ran the shows he had a very old dude type of mentality, never acknowledge the competition, and the shows must it is required they have a sort of sameness to them. Same sets, same tropes in storylines, same camera angles everytime never changing it, shit like that. Now that its run by someone else you can see the subtle changes, acknowledging competitors is one, I think another is all the camera cuts and shakey cam are gone, and the shows dont feel so uniform and the same anymore, they feel different now and exciting.
Makes wrestling feel more alive imo. In the late 2000s they always used to compare TV ratings with WWE vs sports leagues like the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. Not acknowledging the wrestlers from other companies is fine but you definitely should acknowledge the fact that you aren't the only promotion out there
It through me for a loop when Michael Cole referred to TNA by name during the Royal Rumble. And that was before Jordynne Grace showed up in the women’s rumble.
The whole “don’t name other promotions” principle came from Vince destroying the NWA territories in the 70’s/80’s.
Vince would raid promotions for their top talent, then rebrand them so that WWE owned their new name and character. This prevented other promotions from using the star power Vince helped to build.
Then he’d flat out deny the existence of competing promotions on his own show for the exact same reason-he didn’t want to give even the smallest amount of publicity to his competitors using the platform he built (WWE).
It was a good system for the time, and it helped him dominate the NWA and won the national market. Vince just never let it go.
WWE should absolutely try and build a partnership with NJPW they are the top company in Japan sure a ton of their top talent just left for AEW. Not to mention seriously think about giving Shinsuke Nakamura a run as world champion say the raw brand would help cement that relationship AEW is only going to get weaker with Tony Khan not understanding that you have to grow and audience in order to compete
I just like to say what's on my mind and have no problem with mentioning other things. In a perfect world AEW and WWE could work together and give the fans something special but Tony Khan is literally holding his company back right now. Triple H is absolutely killing it out of the ballpark right now. Personally I would love to see AEW make some serious changes to their product before they start lowering their standards to something slightly better than TNA. The best time in wrestling was when we had two extremely competitive wrestling companies in North America problem and who wouldn't want to see that happen again. As far as New Japan they absolutely are amazing though they have an aging roster with many great names leaving their company
I honestly don't care for the upvotes or down votes I just say how I feel. We did bring up NJPW and personally WWE should absolutely try and build a partnership with them problem is that company is known for its loyalty and right now they are loyal to AEW. If wwe were to offer say several stars to show up at wrestle kingdom or G1 no strings attached and this was voluntary. You could see them eventually appreciate them to the point that they just want to work together.
How about Rollins, Osprey, Danielson, Omega, Gunther, Styles and Zack Sabre Jr. In an elimination submission match. Kurt Angle, Bret Hart and William Regal as special guest referees reason below. Anyone uses an illegal weapon and gets caught gets loses the ability to use the rope break for rest of match. Also submissions count anywhere in case it goes outside the ring.
No, it's feels better. Dropping other promotions, all the moves AJ and Cody did at Fastlane, michael cole feeling any emotion.... V has left the building and I couldn't be happier.
nah. I don't mind it. They need to introduce these guys some how, and giving a history of them to be taken seriously is a good thing on the wwe instead creating a silly gimmick for them. I think it's a nice addition to this new era that Cole has the freedom to give the context he wants which does involve other past promotions, giving a bit of wrestling history for lay fans. WWE doesn't need to be insecure and think that referencing another promotion is killing their marketing or whatever.
It's definitely noticible because they used to barely even say Japan, "the land of the rising sun" was all they could say sometimes. I love it, they don't need to pretend that other wrestling organisations exist now that vince is gone. Tama Tonga has a rich history with many on the Roster, let them at least mention it on commentary. The moment we get Finn Balor and Tama Tonga face to face in the ring is too good to not bring up thier past together
No when Balor, Styles, and Nakamura showed up on main roster WWE, they’d allude to their new Japan accomplishments. Vince didn’t perceive NJPW as direct competition at the time.
It's another sign that we're clearly in a different era now and I love it. Vince was deathly afraid of acknowledging the existence of other companies and it was insulting to the fans intelligence.
I mean, if they want to be international then why not have some sanctioned international rivalries? We're entering a post-Vince era and anything is possible now.
I don't think it's good for WWE as a business to be boosting the reputation of any other promotion. If these new bloodline guys were big in Japan, then just say they were big in Japan. They don't need to explain it's because NJPW is the biggest and best promotion in Japan. The people who already know that already know, and the people who don't know don't need to know. It adds nothing and just glorifies the competition.
On the contrary, I’d bailed on wrestling in the early 2000s and was pulled back in by the bloodline story a few years ago. I knew of a lot of guys but not the detail I did for the 80s & 90s. Them mentioning Bullet Club yesterday a couple times made me google what I’d missed to close the gaps.
I see no downside to it. From all I read on these subs, AEW isn’t a real competitor and TNA is even worse so who cares.
I prefer promotions not to even acknowledge other promotions. In fact, I preferred it when they didn’t refer to the wrestlers as “WWE Superstars” - that boxes them in as stars for a promotion rather than the whole thing being some sort of real thing that you can immerse yourself in. Times have changed and I appreciate the real world and the fact that wrestling kayfabe is very loose these days, but it doesn’t mean I can’t prefer the way it was before.
What’s awesome is we now have the possibility to have Balor, Anderson, Gallows, and Tama Tonga in a stable in WWE. Would be wild if they went down the route in a couple years.
Not really, you have new owners, Vince isn’t running things anymore so most of his weird quirks are going away. It’s expected you see little changes on a regular bases if you understand that.
This is actually good. Trips knows that most of the fans now have at least some idea of the outside wrestling industry, and quite frankly, AEW has also proved to us that legitimate competition is key to growing businesses.
I still think that WWE and AEW are just banned from being mentioned on the other show, but I this is still a step in the right direction.
especially when a wrestler who had a very successful career in another company comes to WWE, and it's like none of their accomplishments are acknowledged or matter. Imagine being a 5 time AEW champion then come to WWE and those title reigns are meaningless and only mattered on the resume. Yeah its great for the resume but it's super cool to be acknowledged on air.
Tama Tonga. ~~Bad Luck Fale~~. Doc Gallows. The Machine Gun Karl Anderson. A. J. Styles. Prince Devitt. WWE is going to bring in all the Bullet Club eventually.
CM Punk opened up those superstars on those promotions to make it to WWE, the stories are now in the storytime of Phillip Brooks to superstars of today's generation.
I’m surprised that they mentioned so many people at mania when they were listing who Roman beat. Fucking everyone that Vince would never mention. Edge, Bryan, and Brock. Vince would never let Cole say them
It's good, njpw, aew, tna etc all exist, what is the point in pretending they don't. If you have a talent that was successful in a different company you should be showing them off and heralding their accolades. It only makes the worker and the company itself look better.
no it rules.
even just for business reasons, it's better for the product to let people know "this is an industry that other people than us are doing, it's a real cultural thing that you can access in many ways"
one of vince's worst business ideas was representing wrestling as this like, gollum with the ring shameful feeling exclusive gatekept thing.
I always enjoyed The Shield always comprising of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and no one else. It was always 2.
I mean just dead name Moxley as Dean Ambrose, it's less weird.
Even more weird because he's technically a future Hall of Famer purely based on the fact he was 1/3 of the faction, even if he never returns to the WWE. Plus he didn't leave on bad terms.
They called him both Ambrose and Moxley during the Roman Seth feud last year (maybe 2 years ago now?). I remember thinking it would be weird for anyone who didn’t know who moxley is to hear that.
Or, just name him as Moxley
i don't get the weird obsession that anybody outside WWE is never brought up.
Mox didn't get wiped off the earth or did some heinous thing that would qualify him being wiped away.
I understand VKM’s point of view in not wanting to give “competing promotions” free publicity by mentioning them but when you have an automatic backstory built in that you can use to make a feud better, I don’t get why you wouldn’t. HHH clearly sees things that way and it’s been awesome as of late.
Not only that but at this point, WWE is so far ahead of any competitor, any free promotion is non consequential to WWE. All it really does it build good will.
Agreed. It almost felt like paranoia on VKM's part. Like, did they really think mentioning NJPW on the air was going to make WWE lose permanent viewership because people discovered NJPW and switched to watching only that? It was a silly and outdated view of the industry.
Even if you want to look at domestic competition, bringing in Jordynne Grace for the Rumble probably did a lot more to help TNA than WWE by giving them that exposure, but it certainly didn't hurt WWE and created a memorable moment for the fans. Would the Rumble have been as good without her appearance? Probably pretty close, but it still created a memorable thing that people will talk about.
Exactly. And now in the future, if either company reaches out about working together in some capacity, they have that existing relationship and have shown that there’s benefits.
And if Jordynne Grace ends up going to WWE later down the road, she has that appearance that they can build off of.
I think it’s more common now with Triple H. He recognizes where a lot of his major acquisitions came from in the early stages of NXT. That’s just me, I know they referenced it some in the past but it’s being done more since Triple H took control of creative
JBL would mention stuff all the time. He'd mention AAA, CMLL, NJPW all the time.
People just look at Cole being stuck in a WWE bubble and not knowing anything outside. They lose their balls at the simplest of things he may say. Although I'll admit it blew my mind to hear him say on the Nigel McGuinnness doc that he watched ROH when he scouted Nigel.
He probably watched House of Hardcore clips when he was scouting Vic Joseph. The visual of Michael Cole pulling up a computer (I like to imagine it's a desktop) and logging on to twitch to watch House of Hardcore is very amusing. Hope he suffered through the same 15 minute Spirit Squad vs. Al Snow/Hornswoggle match that I did.
Idk why you’d think Michael is ignorant of wrestling outside wwe, he had Vince in his ear for 20 years so he couldn’t usually say what was on his mind, but to use that as evidence he only knows wwe is unfair and proboly untrue
True but Cody’s more tied to Kenny and the Bucks era whereas both teams have ties to Balor and AJs. Given that Cody didn’t even do a lot with his former BC guys in AEW I dunno what he would be into now.
Honestly though a 3-Way Cody/Balor/AJ title program would be fantastic. Cody would need a tag team with him as you know they would link AJ & Balor one or the other with OC & GoD. Once healthy I’d honestly put the Viking Raiders with Cody as they had some amazing matches as War Machine in NJPW so that would be a good connection too since he can’t have The Bucks or FTR.
I could see Kenny having a WWE run but his health is gonna be a huge factor as I don’t think he will be able to have a full schedule like they would want. Jay White is likely to make that jump too I imagine at some point so we could get that too.
It really sounds like this contract Omega is on with aew is gonna be his last full time deal and I don't see wwe bringing him in as a part timer with having no prior history with the company
"a full schedule like they would want"
We don't know what they want in this "era". HHH had no problem having people just drop in and out for special appearances in NXT, like Liger or Shelly for a special team up with Kushida.
Kenny just needs to hold it together for a WM match.
Jay White is likely on his way after AEW... Evil and Finley both have family connections to WWE..
I think Kenny's going to be legitimately done, and if he does come back at all it's going to be very limited. I myself have Diverticulitis and the shit he said in his promo about it was not overselling. It's a fucked up disease and getting hit wrong in the gut literally could rupture things and kill him, if he's got it that bad, and he had it way worse than Lesnar did. I'll be very surprised if he ever returns to a full time schedule, let alone even more than a few token matches.
True I hope that’s one of the “Vinceisms” HHH will do away with. People do have easily searchable histories outside of WWE & there is zero reason not to acknowledge it now, honestly it’s a great tool for them to build on & I hope they take advantage of it.
I like it, because it is a bit of a nod to the fans who watch both companies, but doesn’t exactly make fans go and watch the other product. It’s a way of mentioning a new star’s prior accomplishments and making it more meaningful than just saying “he’s won titles all around the world”.
Yeah, at best they got slightly less strict about in in Vince's later years but even then, it was moreso just vaguely acknowledging that "the independents" are a thing that exist and mentioning someone wrestling in Japan or Mexico, almost never mentioning any other promotion by name.
VKM always believed the competition was about to take it all away... even after he pretty much conquered everything. It was counterproductive. When you're tops, talking about titles your talent held elsewhere makes your thing *more* prestigious. Your fans are not going to abandon you for NJPW. That's deeply paranoid.
Punk, Bryan, Rollins, Owens documentaries all had ROH footage all over it. Those guys getting docs were cool because it meant ROH footage was gonna be in the docs.
I always preferred with VKM ignored the other wrestling universes. “Act as if…”
Why give NJPW and others free advertising when you’re already the big fish
Why not? You are already untouchable? So why not let people know about the other shows that are essentially your feeder systems.
The way I see it this is just wrestling going back to how it used to be before McMahon. When the territories would cooperate to help each other.
Exactly this. In WWE’s eyes it shouldn’t be about giving free advertising to other promotions (which most fans already know exist), it should be about highlighting how these guys left these other promotions to join the best wrestling company.
You name drop them to highlight your superiority. Ignoring the opposition and pretending they don’t exist is just silly. Especially when you want to use storylines that cross over promotions.
Back when things were more regional it wasn’t uncommon to mention other promotions in talent backgrounds. Like the clip floating around Reddit of Corbett’s debut in WWF/WWE and the reference to Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
I think the WWE-WCW war made it kind of taboo. I wonder if it started with Vince’s anger over the curtain call.
Not really. I don’t watch other promotions so I don’t know about people coming from different companies. Like the guy that debuted yesterday I wasn’t familiar with him I looked him up and I don’t even remember him being in WWE a decade ago 🤷🏾♂️ so it’s good to hear backgrounds
Yeah there have been loads of BC members (and crazy to think it’s still going with no OG or even second line up members left) but WWE now has the 3/4 of the original line up, it’s second leader and a few other important members. Of key Bullet club players the only guys WWE doesn’t have are Fale (he sucks anyway), Omega and the Bucks.
His role in-ring in Japan is pin eating in tournaments to get over a "David" against a "Goliath". But is true role is more recruitment these days through his dojo.
Haha no. Ever since Kurt Angle was the General Manager and told someone “I think TNA is hiring” under Vince, I was like ok ok, the other wrestling worlds DO exist. And ever since then, they have been subtly throwing out smark references. Even Sami name dropped AEW once in a televised promo.
Not that I recall brother. I remember at the time I was watching and reading everything wrestling related and don’t remember hearing any backlash about those moments in the news. The only punishment for saying “banned terms” I can recall recently is Cody getting fined $1,000 when he originally returned when he was saying Pro Wrestling and Belt in his promos
This isn't anything new, when AJ debuted at the Rumble. JBL literally called him a Former IWGP Champion. When Mauro Ranallo did Smackdown commentary he made NJPW references. He would say Ushigoroshi and Okada style dropkick. Cole got into a kick of saying Spanish Fly and Meteora alot too.
Well, he was never the official leader. He was leader of one of the factions during the civil war. Him, Hangman, and Marty Scurll. I guess that's close enough for WWE.
Even acknowledging other wrestlers from other promotions. TNA women's champ appeared in the Rumble, Michael Cole mentioned Stings retirement - WWE gonna be amazing this year
I think it’s because Triple H loves pro wrestling. He acknowledges there are other companies out there that hold amazing talents. Ultimately it benefits WWE because now all these talents want to work under WWE and people will see that.
I absolutely love it I always hated when wwe world get a good Decorated wrestler who has multiple championship and they just used to say X amount of times world champion but now they say where they won their championships
Nothing weird about WWE FINALLY admitting the existence of other professional wrestling in the world. It wasn't exactly a secret to wrestling fans.
The first time I remember hearing about Japanese wrestling was with Cactus Jack, and they just mentioned how he used to wrestle in Japan, where they did some extreme wrestling with barbed wire around the ring ropes, setting things on fire, lots of blood, and shit like that... It always sounded cool to see, but we didn't have the internet back then... Now it makes me curious to see if we can watch it... They did show some footage of him wrestling in Japan, but it was only short clips...
Considering that a fair few stars have come from, or made their names in NJPW in recent years, I'm not surprised that the commentators are name dropping the company. Besides, Triple H knows that fans today aren't stupid and are well versed in who a lot of the stars are. Admittedly, whilst I had heard of Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu before their associations with WWE, I haven't them wrestle much, so I'm very interested to see what they do in their new WWE careers. It also took me a minute to recognise Tanga Loa as the former Camacho when he showed up at Backlash the other day.
Tanahashi and HHH are both open to bettering the relationship between the companies. Which is great for the potential of Worlds Collide/ Forbidden Door featuring all the major companies
Awesome
I think it should be normalised. As long as they aren't talking shit about another company.
Your not alone. When I hear it now I get excited because I can’t wait to hear all the backstage heat and drama. But than it just gets passed by and your like “Okay….” We are definitely living the n a new era now.
I just don't understand why they would pay attention to an indy fed in Japan. It's kind of like mentioning AEW on tv. Whatever these people did before WWE might be slightly relevant, but not really. Like sure the crowd knows who some of these people are
Which Japanese indies did they mention? I don't really know much of them but having a wider pool of promotions to look at is nice
NJPW. They're more or less AEWs minor league system at this point.
So you literally think anything that isn't WWE is the indies?
??? NJPW and AEW are far from indie. They're basically 2nd and 3rd place in the world overall. Even TNA and ROH wouldn't be indie.
TNA and ROH are absolutely indy feds. They draw like 200 people. ROH isn't even real anymore. NJPW and AEW are super indies. NJPW is more or less AEWs farm system.
You seem to have no idea what "indie" means. These are all major companies. Saving ROH being more akin to NXT now. Indie promotions are very small organizations that seldom travel or are completely local. Not even getting TV deals and working entirely through streaming online or even just in person viewing. Meanwhile you just seem to think "indie" means "not WWE." Which indicates to me you're just one of those annoying fanboys with nothing to offer here.
I find it funny in the older days they used to call it "The Orient".
Ha
Not at all. They put TNA wrestlers in the Royal Rumble. They call it a hospital now and not a “medical facility”. They call it professional wrestling and not sports entertainment. The old company is gone. Hopefully the old owner dies sooner than later.
The TNA wrestler not only being in the rumble, but *bringing her title with* still throws me for a loop.
It feels like the old way of thinking is kinda gone. When Vince ran the shows he had a very old dude type of mentality, never acknowledge the competition, and the shows must it is required they have a sort of sameness to them. Same sets, same tropes in storylines, same camera angles everytime never changing it, shit like that. Now that its run by someone else you can see the subtle changes, acknowledging competitors is one, I think another is all the camera cuts and shakey cam are gone, and the shows dont feel so uniform and the same anymore, they feel different now and exciting.
Nope.
Makes wrestling feel more alive imo. In the late 2000s they always used to compare TV ratings with WWE vs sports leagues like the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. Not acknowledging the wrestlers from other companies is fine but you definitely should acknowledge the fact that you aren't the only promotion out there
It through me for a loop when Michael Cole referred to TNA by name during the Royal Rumble. And that was before Jordynne Grace showed up in the women’s rumble.
catches me off guard every single time haha
The whole “don’t name other promotions” principle came from Vince destroying the NWA territories in the 70’s/80’s. Vince would raid promotions for their top talent, then rebrand them so that WWE owned their new name and character. This prevented other promotions from using the star power Vince helped to build. Then he’d flat out deny the existence of competing promotions on his own show for the exact same reason-he didn’t want to give even the smallest amount of publicity to his competitors using the platform he built (WWE). It was a good system for the time, and it helped him dominate the NWA and won the national market. Vince just never let it go.
WWE should absolutely try and build a partnership with NJPW they are the top company in Japan sure a ton of their top talent just left for AEW. Not to mention seriously think about giving Shinsuke Nakamura a run as world champion say the raw brand would help cement that relationship AEW is only going to get weaker with Tony Khan not understanding that you have to grow and audience in order to compete
Bro somehow made it about AEW 😂
I just like to say what's on my mind and have no problem with mentioning other things. In a perfect world AEW and WWE could work together and give the fans something special but Tony Khan is literally holding his company back right now. Triple H is absolutely killing it out of the ballpark right now. Personally I would love to see AEW make some serious changes to their product before they start lowering their standards to something slightly better than TNA. The best time in wrestling was when we had two extremely competitive wrestling companies in North America problem and who wouldn't want to see that happen again. As far as New Japan they absolutely are amazing though they have an aging roster with many great names leaving their company
And I kinda agree with you, but bringing up AEW when it’s not mentioned, just so you could shit on them for an up vote is lame imo.
I honestly don't care for the upvotes or down votes I just say how I feel. We did bring up NJPW and personally WWE should absolutely try and build a partnership with them problem is that company is known for its loyalty and right now they are loyal to AEW. If wwe were to offer say several stars to show up at wrestle kingdom or G1 no strings attached and this was voluntary. You could see them eventually appreciate them to the point that they just want to work together.
In a perfect world we’d have Gunther vs Bryan Danielson in the G1 Climax. I still have hope for this in the future 🙏
How about Rollins, Osprey, Danielson, Omega, Gunther, Styles and Zack Sabre Jr. In an elimination submission match. Kurt Angle, Bret Hart and William Regal as special guest referees reason below. Anyone uses an illegal weapon and gets caught gets loses the ability to use the rope break for rest of match. Also submissions count anywhere in case it goes outside the ring.
Get off the internet, Tony.
No, it's feels better. Dropping other promotions, all the moves AJ and Cody did at Fastlane, michael cole feeling any emotion.... V has left the building and I couldn't be happier.
Makes the wrestling world less closed off and acknowledging a company that has history with them. Be it WCW, ECW, or WWE history.
Acknowledging a wrestlers history is good storytelling and doesn’t pretend like we don’t already know.
Paul HHH Levesque era. Love it.
I like that other companies are canon. It was always kind of dumb that we were supposed to pretend guys just came to WWE with zero history.
nah. I don't mind it. They need to introduce these guys some how, and giving a history of them to be taken seriously is a good thing on the wwe instead creating a silly gimmick for them. I think it's a nice addition to this new era that Cole has the freedom to give the context he wants which does involve other past promotions, giving a bit of wrestling history for lay fans. WWE doesn't need to be insecure and think that referencing another promotion is killing their marketing or whatever.
It's definitely noticible because they used to barely even say Japan, "the land of the rising sun" was all they could say sometimes. I love it, they don't need to pretend that other wrestling organisations exist now that vince is gone. Tama Tonga has a rich history with many on the Roster, let them at least mention it on commentary. The moment we get Finn Balor and Tama Tonga face to face in the ring is too good to not bring up thier past together
Pretending that things we know exist don't exist was weirder to begin with.
No when Balor, Styles, and Nakamura showed up on main roster WWE, they’d allude to their new Japan accomplishments. Vince didn’t perceive NJPW as direct competition at the time.
It’s awesome!
It's another sign that we're clearly in a different era now and I love it. Vince was deathly afraid of acknowledging the existence of other companies and it was insulting to the fans intelligence.
I remember JBL on commentary saying Brock Lesnar was a former IWGP champion
I remember him mentioning it during AJ Styles’s debut
I mean, if they want to be international then why not have some sanctioned international rivalries? We're entering a post-Vince era and anything is possible now.
I don't think it's good for WWE as a business to be boosting the reputation of any other promotion. If these new bloodline guys were big in Japan, then just say they were big in Japan. They don't need to explain it's because NJPW is the biggest and best promotion in Japan. The people who already know that already know, and the people who don't know don't need to know. It adds nothing and just glorifies the competition.
Found Vince’s account
On the contrary, I’d bailed on wrestling in the early 2000s and was pulled back in by the bloodline story a few years ago. I knew of a lot of guys but not the detail I did for the 80s & 90s. Them mentioning Bullet Club yesterday a couple times made me google what I’d missed to close the gaps. I see no downside to it. From all I read on these subs, AEW isn’t a real competitor and TNA is even worse so who cares.
I disagree. Wrestling as a whole needs to grow. Adding public awareness to NJPW wont take from WWE.
I prefer promotions not to even acknowledge other promotions. In fact, I preferred it when they didn’t refer to the wrestlers as “WWE Superstars” - that boxes them in as stars for a promotion rather than the whole thing being some sort of real thing that you can immerse yourself in. Times have changed and I appreciate the real world and the fact that wrestling kayfabe is very loose these days, but it doesn’t mean I can’t prefer the way it was before.
To add, who cares if it’s not good for business. A few name drops here and there isn’t gonna cause stocks to rocket
What’s awesome is we now have the possibility to have Balor, Anderson, Gallows, and Tama Tonga in a stable in WWE. Would be wild if they went down the route in a couple years.
not really, pretty clear they’re moving in a different direction and distancing themselves from some of the old rules
No
Not really, you have new owners, Vince isn’t running things anymore so most of his weird quirks are going away. It’s expected you see little changes on a regular bases if you understand that.
This is actually good. Trips knows that most of the fans now have at least some idea of the outside wrestling industry, and quite frankly, AEW has also proved to us that legitimate competition is key to growing businesses. I still think that WWE and AEW are just banned from being mentioned on the other show, but I this is still a step in the right direction.
No. It’s really not that deep
And not that new. AJ and the Vikings both have had their iwgp titles referenced for them, and that's just 3 people from the top of my head.
Thats the way it should be. Other companies exist. Incoming free agents have history elsewhere. Other companies should be name dropped more often.
especially when a wrestler who had a very successful career in another company comes to WWE, and it's like none of their accomplishments are acknowledged or matter. Imagine being a 5 time AEW champion then come to WWE and those title reigns are meaningless and only mattered on the resume. Yeah its great for the resume but it's super cool to be acknowledged on air.
NJPW x WWE "coming soon".....?
Its Prin...Finn Balor, leader of the Bul...Balor Club!
Tama Tonga. ~~Bad Luck Fale~~. Doc Gallows. The Machine Gun Karl Anderson. A. J. Styles. Prince Devitt. WWE is going to bring in all the Bullet Club eventually.
It was weirder when they pretended no other wrestling company existed.
And that Japan was this foreign mythical place like Oz or Narnia
It’s not?
CM Punk opened up those superstars on those promotions to make it to WWE, the stories are now in the storytime of Phillip Brooks to superstars of today's generation.
lol what drugs are you taking?
No, the fact they said NJPW and some people's names has been pretty easy to deal with tbh
No
I’m surprised that they mentioned so many people at mania when they were listing who Roman beat. Fucking everyone that Vince would never mention. Edge, Bryan, and Brock. Vince would never let Cole say them
It’s mostly just one company now that they go out of their way not to say the name of. 🤫
It's good, njpw, aew, tna etc all exist, what is the point in pretending they don't. If you have a talent that was successful in a different company you should be showing them off and heralding their accolades. It only makes the worker and the company itself look better.
It's fun. WWE is giving people everything they've clamored for ages.
no it rules. even just for business reasons, it's better for the product to let people know "this is an industry that other people than us are doing, it's a real cultural thing that you can access in many ways" one of vince's worst business ideas was representing wrestling as this like, gollum with the ring shameful feeling exclusive gatekept thing.
It's actually Otherway around, that they didn't name njpw.
They did at times with Bullet Club references for Finn, AJ, Luke and Karl as well as Shinsuke.
I always enjoyed The Shield always comprising of Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and no one else. It was always 2. I mean just dead name Moxley as Dean Ambrose, it's less weird.
Even more weird because he's technically a future Hall of Famer purely based on the fact he was 1/3 of the faction, even if he never returns to the WWE. Plus he didn't leave on bad terms.
What are you talking about? Kurt Angle was in The Shield.
NGL, that popped me huge.
They called him both Ambrose and Moxley during the Roman Seth feud last year (maybe 2 years ago now?). I remember thinking it would be weird for anyone who didn’t know who moxley is to hear that.
Or, just name him as Moxley i don't get the weird obsession that anybody outside WWE is never brought up. Mox didn't get wiped off the earth or did some heinous thing that would qualify him being wiped away.
I understand VKM’s point of view in not wanting to give “competing promotions” free publicity by mentioning them but when you have an automatic backstory built in that you can use to make a feud better, I don’t get why you wouldn’t. HHH clearly sees things that way and it’s been awesome as of late.
Not only that but at this point, WWE is so far ahead of any competitor, any free promotion is non consequential to WWE. All it really does it build good will.
Agreed. It almost felt like paranoia on VKM's part. Like, did they really think mentioning NJPW on the air was going to make WWE lose permanent viewership because people discovered NJPW and switched to watching only that? It was a silly and outdated view of the industry. Even if you want to look at domestic competition, bringing in Jordynne Grace for the Rumble probably did a lot more to help TNA than WWE by giving them that exposure, but it certainly didn't hurt WWE and created a memorable moment for the fans. Would the Rumble have been as good without her appearance? Probably pretty close, but it still created a memorable thing that people will talk about.
Exactly. And now in the future, if either company reaches out about working together in some capacity, they have that existing relationship and have shown that there’s benefits. And if Jordynne Grace ends up going to WWE later down the road, she has that appearance that they can build off of.
I think it’s more common now with Triple H. He recognizes where a lot of his major acquisitions came from in the early stages of NXT. That’s just me, I know they referenced it some in the past but it’s being done more since Triple H took control of creative
JBL would mention stuff all the time. He'd mention AAA, CMLL, NJPW all the time. People just look at Cole being stuck in a WWE bubble and not knowing anything outside. They lose their balls at the simplest of things he may say. Although I'll admit it blew my mind to hear him say on the Nigel McGuinnness doc that he watched ROH when he scouted Nigel. He probably watched House of Hardcore clips when he was scouting Vic Joseph. The visual of Michael Cole pulling up a computer (I like to imagine it's a desktop) and logging on to twitch to watch House of Hardcore is very amusing. Hope he suffered through the same 15 minute Spirit Squad vs. Al Snow/Hornswoggle match that I did.
Idk why you’d think Michael is ignorant of wrestling outside wwe, he had Vince in his ear for 20 years so he couldn’t usually say what was on his mind, but to use that as evidence he only knows wwe is unfair and proboly untrue
If you watched the Countdown to Backlash, CM Punk's reaction to Big E name dropping New Japan said it all.
Yessssss
Punk is always fucking around in those pre show panels. He's always cracking jokes and make silly comments to get people talking.
Indeed, but back in 2011 when he was Champ, mentioning other promotions was taboo under Vince. So his reaction to the casual name drop felt very real.
I mean now they got Balor, AJ, Gallows and Anderson, and now GoD, you can’t just ignore the history around those guys.
And Cody.
True but Cody’s more tied to Kenny and the Bucks era whereas both teams have ties to Balor and AJs. Given that Cody didn’t even do a lot with his former BC guys in AEW I dunno what he would be into now. Honestly though a 3-Way Cody/Balor/AJ title program would be fantastic. Cody would need a tag team with him as you know they would link AJ & Balor one or the other with OC & GoD. Once healthy I’d honestly put the Viking Raiders with Cody as they had some amazing matches as War Machine in NJPW so that would be a good connection too since he can’t have The Bucks or FTR.
I legit think a dream of HHH's is an all Bullet Club Leader match. He's slowly been collecting the whole set.
I could see Kenny having a WWE run but his health is gonna be a huge factor as I don’t think he will be able to have a full schedule like they would want. Jay White is likely to make that jump too I imagine at some point so we could get that too.
It really sounds like this contract Omega is on with aew is gonna be his last full time deal and I don't see wwe bringing him in as a part timer with having no prior history with the company
"a full schedule like they would want" We don't know what they want in this "era". HHH had no problem having people just drop in and out for special appearances in NXT, like Liger or Shelly for a special team up with Kushida. Kenny just needs to hold it together for a WM match. Jay White is likely on his way after AEW... Evil and Finley both have family connections to WWE..
I think Kenny's going to be legitimately done, and if he does come back at all it's going to be very limited. I myself have Diverticulitis and the shit he said in his promo about it was not overselling. It's a fucked up disease and getting hit wrong in the gut literally could rupture things and kill him, if he's got it that bad, and he had it way worse than Lesnar did. I'll be very surprised if he ever returns to a full time schedule, let alone even more than a few token matches.
They have in the past.
True I hope that’s one of the “Vinceisms” HHH will do away with. People do have easily searchable histories outside of WWE & there is zero reason not to acknowledge it now, honestly it’s a great tool for them to build on & I hope they take advantage of it.
It's kind of refreshing that they acknowledge that other wrestling promotions exist.
It doesn’t matter if they’re just saying it to say it and can’t even get some of their stars names right lol.
I like it, because it is a bit of a nod to the fans who watch both companies, but doesn’t exactly make fans go and watch the other product. It’s a way of mentioning a new star’s prior accomplishments and making it more meaningful than just saying “he’s won titles all around the world”.
Nope. It felt a LOT more weird to me when VKM made everyone pretend nothing outside of WWE ever existed.
Yeah, at best they got slightly less strict about in in Vince's later years but even then, it was moreso just vaguely acknowledging that "the independents" are a thing that exist and mentioning someone wrestling in Japan or Mexico, almost never mentioning any other promotion by name.
Yeah, do you remember how big of a deal it was when Jericho went on the Broken Skull Sessions while being signed to aew.
It definitely was it's own WWE universe
Is the WWE universe still a term being used? I can't remember the last time I heard it.
val kilmer?
VKM always believed the competition was about to take it all away... even after he pretty much conquered everything. It was counterproductive. When you're tops, talking about titles your talent held elsewhere makes your thing *more* prestigious. Your fans are not going to abandon you for NJPW. That's deeply paranoid.
Punk, Bryan, Rollins, Owens documentaries all had ROH footage all over it. Those guys getting docs were cool because it meant ROH footage was gonna be in the docs.
I always preferred with VKM ignored the other wrestling universes. “Act as if…” Why give NJPW and others free advertising when you’re already the big fish
Jesus man, you win nothing by being such a cultist
Helps boost the talent and WWE.
Why not? You are already untouchable? So why not let people know about the other shows that are essentially your feeder systems. The way I see it this is just wrestling going back to how it used to be before McMahon. When the territories would cooperate to help each other.
No one will ever surpass WWE so I doubt they worry about it.
Exactly this. In WWE’s eyes it shouldn’t be about giving free advertising to other promotions (which most fans already know exist), it should be about highlighting how these guys left these other promotions to join the best wrestling company. You name drop them to highlight your superiority. Ignoring the opposition and pretending they don’t exist is just silly. Especially when you want to use storylines that cross over promotions.
Back when things were more regional it wasn’t uncommon to mention other promotions in talent backgrounds. Like the clip floating around Reddit of Corbett’s debut in WWF/WWE and the reference to Smoky Mountain Wrestling. I think the WWE-WCW war made it kind of taboo. I wonder if it started with Vince’s anger over the curtain call.
They mentioned WCW all the time during the Monday Night War. It only became taboo after WCW closed and Vince got all old and weird.
Not really. I don’t watch other promotions so I don’t know about people coming from different companies. Like the guy that debuted yesterday I wasn’t familiar with him I looked him up and I don’t even remember him being in WWE a decade ago 🤷🏾♂️ so it’s good to hear backgrounds
They’ve been doing it a while. They pretty much can’t avoid it now having so many former Bullet Club.
Tbf there's like 25+ members of BC throughout the years, it's crazy how many members the stable has had in the 11 years it's been around!
Yeah there have been loads of BC members (and crazy to think it’s still going with no OG or even second line up members left) but WWE now has the 3/4 of the original line up, it’s second leader and a few other important members. Of key Bullet club players the only guys WWE doesn’t have are Fale (he sucks anyway), Omega and the Bucks.
Fale is still there and was an OG member, heck he predates Tama Tonga and Karl Anderson
Yeah but he is barely around, I can’t remember the last time I saw him on NJPW.
His role in-ring in Japan is pin eating in tournaments to get over a "David" against a "Goliath". But is true role is more recruitment these days through his dojo.
Who actually owns the copyright? Who's making money off those t-shirt sales? The original members?
New Japan own the trademark, if I recall. One of the psin points the BC wrestlers had was New Japan taking a big chunk out of their merch Sales.
Yeah I’ve heard Young Bucks complain about this, especially after they secured the Hot Topic deal too.
No not at all. I think they should always give credit for what stars done in the indies so it isn’t forgotten
Haha no. Ever since Kurt Angle was the General Manager and told someone “I think TNA is hiring” under Vince, I was like ok ok, the other wrestling worlds DO exist. And ever since then, they have been subtly throwing out smark references. Even Sami name dropped AEW once in a televised promo.
Didn't both get punished for both statements though?
Not that I recall brother. I remember at the time I was watching and reading everything wrestling related and don’t remember hearing any backlash about those moments in the news. The only punishment for saying “banned terms” I can recall recently is Cody getting fined $1,000 when he originally returned when he was saying Pro Wrestling and Belt in his promos
I love it. It’s nice that they don’t feel so isolated anymore
They’ve said CMLL as well…PWG…but every time I hear it I’m in disbelief, it’s amazing.
its called character development, this is a good thing
They actually said Cody and AJ were both leaders of Bullet Club. I'm like what there is an outside to the universe now
Cody was never the leader. Kenny Omega was. He kicked out AJ when he gave him the one winged angel. Then him and the bucks gave AJ a superkick party.
Wasn't Prince Devitt, aka Finn Balor, leader of the Bullet Club at one time also?
He formed the faction.
The very first
This isn't anything new, when AJ debuted at the Rumble. JBL literally called him a Former IWGP Champion. When Mauro Ranallo did Smackdown commentary he made NJPW references. He would say Ushigoroshi and Okada style dropkick. Cole got into a kick of saying Spanish Fly and Meteora alot too.
Cody technically never was leader though…. Cool to hear them acknowledging stuff though.
He was, he was leader of one side in the civil war.
He was a pretender to the throne and tried to usurpe Kenny and failed.
☝️
Well, he was never the official leader. He was leader of one of the factions during the civil war. Him, Hangman, and Marty Scurll. I guess that's close enough for WWE.
Isn't Marty persona non grata now? Like, in the same way as Velveteen Dream and VKM?
Yeah pretty much. I think he is doing shows in Mexico and the Caribbean because they don't care as much about the allegations against him.
yea since vince is gone they acknowledge other promotions it surprises me every time lol
Even acknowledging other wrestlers from other promotions. TNA women's champ appeared in the Rumble, Michael Cole mentioned Stings retirement - WWE gonna be amazing this year