Why WWE Wrestlers Are So Unhappy Right Now

Australian Cinephile

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Transcript

00:00Right, here we go. We're always going to have to chat about it because when you do walk out of WWE, doesn't matter who you are, or when you do it, it becomes massive news.

00:08Stone Cold Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar, Pac, Mustafa Ali.

00:11And I know there are some variants in there, but when a wrestler stands up towards the machine, boom, away we go.

00:17And the reason I threw Mustafa Ali's name in there too is because he recently was in a similar situation to where many wrestling fans started to go, why, why are wrestlers so unhappy?

00:28So when you ask the question why, I take my hand, I slap my head, and I say here's why.

00:39In case you don't know the story, let me catch you up quickly because I don't want you to be left behind.

00:43But on a recent episode of Raw, the main event was supposed to be a number one contender match to decide who was going to take on Bianca Belair at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view.

00:51It was going to be Becky Lynch taking on Oscar, taking on Nikki Ash, taking on New Drop, taking on Sasha Banks, who was also going to be taking on Naomi.

00:58So understandably, when Naomi and Sasha Banks heard about this, they went to Vincent Mann and they were like,

01:03well, what's going on here? I thought we had a little thingamajig going. Why are we going off in a different direction?

01:08Now at one point, it sounds like this all did come together and we made plans so that Sasha and Naomi would not interact when they were in the ring.

01:14Even though there is another rumour that despite all that, it was still going to be Naomi versus Bianca Belair at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, excuse me, premium live event,

01:23and that Sasha Banks would return to SmackDown and go after Ronda Rousey.

01:27This still irked the pair, however, because as other sources have stated, in February, they were both promised big WrestleMania feuds.

01:34They were then put together as a tag team. They then decided to make the best of it.

01:37They won the championships. They got over. They sold a bunch of merchandise.

01:41So probably thought, well, there you go. You gave us lemons and now we've made lemonade.

01:46Why don't we build this into a palace?

01:47I think that's really fair too. Like you wouldn't call it the greatest thing in the world.

01:51But given how much rope any WWE superstar is allowed to have, I think they picked this ball and they ran with it.

01:58And bam, from nowhere you're told, no, we're not going to do that anymore because you wanted to go left and we wanted to go right.

02:04And aside from the obvious, this brings up another problem, specifically wrestlers' momentum.

02:09Because how many times have we seen this before?

02:12You're a rockin' and you're a rolling, and then you get injured, you vanish off TV,

02:17and within a few weeks, you ain't even an afterthought because out of sight, out of mind.

02:21It's why people try to fight through being hurt in order to stay on Raw or SmackDown,

02:26because they don't want their opportunity to go away.

02:28Sometimes you get that one sole, single opportunity, and then poof, it vanishes, and now you're just a sad panda.

02:35I mean, I can't even imagine what that does to your insides, but going back to this situation,

02:40it then kind of seems to have transpired that everything was okay,

02:44but then a producer or an agent didn't like it and they went and stooged off.

02:47Anyway, the brilliant end all was Sasha Banks and Naomi took their women's tag team titles,

02:52they gave them to John Laurinaitis, and they went, see you pal, and they left halfway through Raw.

02:57So they just decided they weren't going to do it, hence queuing the madness, and I do understand that.

03:01But what's really crazy is that this is happening all over the shop at the moment.

03:06I mean, in the last few days, as I make this video, we've had the Sasha Banks and Naomi situation,

03:10there's all these rumors that Tony Khan and MJF may have come to an impasse,

03:14and if you follow Kota Ibushi on Twitter, he has taken his accusation gun,

03:20and he is firing bullets at New Japan.

03:21I mean, we won't get into it here because we don't have the time, but it is safe to say he isn't happy,

03:25and if these two can actually work this out, I will be absolutely stunned.

03:31Because some of the things he has said, if they're true, what the flub is going on?

03:36Let's also take a moment and not pretend that this is anything new, because it's not,

03:39and it's just the fact that the current world we live in has social media at the heart of it,

03:44so as soon as anything does drop, it can be here, there, and everywhere in around about 47 seconds.

03:49If we do go back to 2002, when Stone Cold Steve Austin walked out, it still had that kind of a buzz,

03:56but we didn't have the technology to let it explode in the way that this one did.

03:59In WWE, we didn't release a statement within the hour saying, oh, Stone Cold Steve Austin upset our scripted programming,

04:06and while over the next few weeks and months, they did take shot after shot at him,

04:10it wasn't like you live in the United Kingdom, you go to bed thinking, well, I wake up in the morning and I watch Monday Night Raw,

04:15and then when your eyes do open, all of a sudden you look at your phone and go,

04:20well, there's a whole thread here, I'm going to have to walk down a road.

04:23The other part of this is the landscape.

04:25While it is really hard to get out of your contract these days,

04:28I bet one of the reasons Mustafa Ali said, well, actually, I'm not very happy here, I'd like to leave,

04:33is because in 2022, it's no longer WWE or the indie.

04:37I mean, AEW has created a new old way to do business, or an old new way, you choose whichever one you want,

04:42and if you are a professional wrestler of note, you can bet your ass that the other company probably wants to try and pick you up.

04:49I mean, do you think All Elite Wrestling doesn't want Sasha Banks? Come on, man, they would do a backflip.

04:55This does put some kind of power in your hand, though, because you don't have to sacrifice your level of stardom just to be creatively satisfied.

05:01If we go back to Christian Cage, who has told this story before, when he left WWE in the mid-2000s to go to TNA,

05:07sometimes people would see him and go, oh, did you retire from sports entertainment?

05:13Because TNA just didn't have that big of an audience, so people just thought he'd gone away.

05:17So the goal between total non-stop action and WWE was huge, but it is not the same when it comes to WWE and AEW.

05:24Now, the former's still the big dog, the former is still the king,

05:27but you are more than able to make a bunch of money and be really smart and go,

05:31oh, maybe we can do this and maybe we can do that at the other brand.

05:34This is why all of a sudden, you start standing up for yourself.

05:38And I have talked about this a lot, but it's why this so-called war is so important to begin with,

05:42because you can have far more control over your careers because you are not trapped.

05:47Like when Brock Lesnar decided, I don't want to do this wrestling thing no more in 2004,

05:51WWE were a little bit worried about New Japan and actually triggered an entire lawsuit, but don't worry about it.

05:57But do you think they felt the same about that as they do someone like All Elite Wrestling or WCW back in the day?

06:03Of course not.

06:04It's why when someone like Ali does ask to be released, he gets told,

06:07no, you can just get home, we'll freeze your contract, and you can sit it out

06:10because they don't want somebody else to go across the battle lines,

06:13even if it's just from a perception point of view.

06:16It's why they were so desperate to sign Cody Rhodes, because it sent out the message going,

06:20okay, well, some of our guys are going to go there, but damn it, look at this,

06:24some of their guys are also going to come here too.

06:25So wrestlers have always been unhappy, but now they can be more boisterous with it.

06:29I mean, it certainly sounds like Chris Jericho was this way in the late 90s

06:32when they wouldn't give him anything, so he went, okay, fine, I'm going to the WWF.

06:37And when Stone Cold did decide to take his ball and went home,

06:40he knew if worse came to the worse, he would have an entire movie career waiting for him.

06:44And believe you me, at the time, I bet others would have followed him

06:48if World Championship Wrestling still existed, but the truth of the matter by then, it was dead.

06:53Ultimately, you do want to keep your talent happy, and it does kind of sound like Sacha

06:57Banks and Naomi had a point.

06:59If you have invested three months of your time and life into something,

07:03and somebody just wants to push it to one side,

07:06of course you're going to put your hand up and quite ironically ask,

07:09why?

07:10If nothing else, it's going to leave you questioning what's going to happen in the future.

07:15What can I invest in?

07:16What can't I invest in?

07:17What can I trust?

07:17What can't I trust?

07:19Because I've already gone all the way out for you,

07:22and now you're just telling me that I suck.

07:24I mean, compare it to where you work now.

07:26You were told you have to work on the 2023 budget, so you do that for a month,

07:30and just when you're about to present it, they go,

07:31oh, sorry, Steve, you now have to go into the HR department.

07:34So you go and do that, and then you're in production, then you're in finance.

07:37One day, you're probably going to go to work absolutely shaking,

07:40because you're like, I have no idea what they're going to tell me.

07:42Your confidence is going to be shot,

07:44and maybe just on one Monday night, you decide, you know what, flub it, I'm going home.

07:50And it is always good to caveat this stuff by saying,

07:52we have no idea what has actually happened, because we weren't in the room,

07:57but just remember that professional wrestlers are human beings.

08:00They have highs, they have lows, they have ups, they have downs,

08:03and sometimes they get sad, and sometimes they get anxious, and they react according to that.

08:08I mean, the only real reason we're talking about it is because they are celebrities,

08:11and wrestling, Twitter, love stuff like this, and jumps right on it.

08:14And I totally get that too, it is a major story,

08:17but never forget the human element, because we don't know how they're feeling.

08:21It is crazy though, right?

08:22I mean, if you are a wrestling fan right now,

08:24you have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.

08:27I mean, maybe we wake up, and Tony Khan says,

08:30I bought WWE, and I'm the new Vince McMahon.

08:32Or Tony Khan rips off his Mission Impossible type mask,

08:35and he is Vince McMahon.

08:36We have gone to the point where I would just do emoji shrug,

08:39and say, yeah, I should have seen it coming.

08:42What a mad, mad place we've arrived in.

08:45Now, please do leave a comment, and honestly,

08:47let me know what you think about all of this, but be nice.

08:49Don't be rude.

08:50Sometimes it goes crazy down there with these things.

08:52Remember to be respectful.

08:53Like the video, share the video, and subscribe.

08:55Head over to WorldCulture.com, where you can read yourself some articles,

08:57and keep up to date with this news.

08:58Make sure you come say hello on social media.

09:00We'll also update you there.

09:02And we're going to have a lot of videos about it.

09:03I know you're probably like me.

09:04You just want information.

09:05Information will give you as much as we've got.

09:08My name is Simon of WorldCulture.

09:09Thank you for joining me as always.

09:11You take care of yourself,

09:12and if somehow Sasha Banks or Naomi do see this,

09:14which they won't, I just want you to be happy.

09:17That's all I care about.

09:18I know.

09:19What a cheesy idiot.

09:20Goodbye.

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