Has WWE made themselves unaffordable to the average wrestling fan?

Today on Wrestle Talk with Arabbidb3aver: We discuss Rhea Rippley's injury and if we think she will be back in time for Survivor Series. John Cena on finally becoming a Grand Slam Champion by obtaining the intercontinental championship.  Seth Freaking Rollins Wardrobe attires. The Phenomenal A.J. Styles and what we think would be a nice retirement present for him!  Finally the Elephant in the room WWE raising ticket prices again, and moving networks again causing the average fan who only may get one opportunity to ever see them unobtainable. 

We also give shout outs to both New World Wrestling who is hosting Friday the 21st of November in Briceville TN, and EGO Pro wrestling who is hosting the 22nd of November for their 20 year anniversary show in Athens TN.  So join us and let's get slammed together!  

Help us keep the Podcast and Video Cast on the air! Donate as little as 3 dollars today to keep the great content coming your way @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289100 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:55

Hello and welcome to WrestleTalk with Rabbit Beaver. I'm your host, the elusive Rabbit Beaver. And man, we've got a lot to talk about and what's been going on in the world of wrestling. We're gonna start with John Cena becoming a grand slam champion by winning the Intercontinental Championship in Boston just last night. Man, it was spectacular. Great match with him at Dirty Dom. All the little secrets, all the little cheating that uh Dirty Dom tried to pull from not only the late great Eddie Guerrero, but things that he's added to his repertoire as the years have gone by from Sergeant Slaughter and so many others, the great Sheik. It's great to see these two competitors actually get it on and John Cena come out with the win, becoming that intercontinental champion that we all know and love that he can be. Uh, this is gonna definitely bring a lot of prestige to him in his going away tour. I thought that they were uh even I even said this publicly a couple days ago. I thought that they were gonna give him a chance with CM Punk uh coming up for that world title, you know, a big world title shot now that CM Punk's got that title on him. Uh, but now that he's defending the Intercontinental Championship, it could have more mystique to it because who do they want to carry that belt is a big question for the WWE currently. And I don't know that we have that competitor in anybody bigger than LA Knight. I mean, to be honest with you, I would almost be willing to bet that they're gonna put LA Knight in that position to carry the company uh against John Cena. But like I said, the option is still open there with him facing CM Punk coming up uh on his going-away tour. So we we will see what happens with this. This is definitely gonna be interesting. And they've also opened the door for a rivalry between Dirty Dom, Domining Mysterio himself, and John Cena moving forward, especially now that John Cena took that Intercontinental Championship away from Dirty Dom. In the days to come, we're gonna see how Dom responds to this. And if he will be the man that we all know that he can be or should be, or is his little feud with his father gonna be getting in the way of him beating none other than John Cena. I mean, it's it's great time in professional wrestling, great time to be a professional wrestler, and what a great way to start off this week than having a grand slam champion in John Cena. Now, this is for this has gone on far too long, where we have been wondering if he was gonna get the Intercontinental Championship in his career, and he just did it. He just climbed that peak. He's at the top of the mountain in professional wrestling once again with the Intercontinental Championship. And man, what a time it is to be in professional wrestling altogether. All right, moving on. Hey, uh, if those of you that are interested in wrestling news, you can catch all the greatest and latest wrestling news at wrestlingincorporated.com or wrestlinginc.com is where you want to find it. And Eric Muter uh recently on the 8th of November wrote a great article where he was talking about Samoa Joe and speaking very highly of him. He went on to say that AEW Samoa Joe is one of the few wrestlers in the world that can say he's found success whenever he has gone winning world championships in Ring of Honor TNA WWE AEW, the latter just a few years ago uh at World's End. But months later, Joe has been unable to win the belt back and twice this year has come up short in attempting to regain the title. First against John Moxley and recently against hangman Adam Page in an interview with STL Sports Central just a few days before he failed to beat Paige for the for the title at AEW Wrestle Dream. Joe was asked if he felt similar to the host that his first AEW world title reign could have gone a bit better. A thought Joe gave uh to the answer and then also informed his mindset regarding the championship when the wrestler doesn't have it. He says, Oh lord, you'd be absolutely correct, Joe said. He further on to went to say, anytime you're not the possessor of the AEW World Championship, you should be taking it personally. So, yes, 100% correct. It was not what we had hoped it would be, but like in all things, in the future, this too can be amended, Joe went on to say. Fortunately for Joe, he will have a chance to amend his mistakes really soon. No sooner did he lose to Paige at WrestleDream did Joe and Ops team, you know, uh the Powerhouse Hobbs and uh Shabita turn on Paige, laying him out with a brutal beatdown and signaling that Joe would be coming for the title once again. You know, the fans chant all the time for Joe. They say, Joe's gonna kill you. Joe's gonna kill you. But man, with him teaming up with Powerhouse Hobbs and Shibata, I uh I think that Joe has it in his best interest to regain that title in AEW and become uh once again the world champion of AEW. The question is who can challenge him and be a great challenge to him? We know that Hangman Page currently has that title, and Hangman Page will do anything and everything to hold on to that title, including double cross uh people that he has held near and dear to his heart for years just to retain that title and hold on to that title for good. So uh both men are dangerous. Samoa Joe is dangerous, hangman page is dangerous. What will happen with the world title in AEW? You will have to watch it, you'll have to stick around and watch it to find out. But I think Samoa Joe does recapture that title. He recaptures the glory in AEW and he climbs once again to the pinnacle, the top of the mountain in professional wrestling, and to be able to claim that he will be the world champion soon. And I see it happening, to be honest with you. Now, speaking of world champions, TNA's Mike Santana names WWE Starr as the only dream match that he has left. And you can catch the story on wrestlingincorporated.com. That's right, wrestlinginc.com is where you want to go to catch this story. Scroll down just a little bit. It was done on November 9th by El Ella J is who actually wrote this story. And uh it says across his runs in TNA, AEW, and the independent circuit, Mike Santana has shared the ring with some of the world's greatest wrestlers. The only one he'd consider a dream, however, while appearing on No Contest Wrestling, Santana revealed that he is eyeing a match with current WWE World Tag Team Champion and former TNA star AJ Styles. I think that's a fabulous choice to want to go out on a bang with AJ Styles. The question is, will we ever get to see this match? As Santana definitely deserves this match, but will AJ Styles ever agree to it? That would be the question of the day for those of you that keep up with it. Uh, do you think AJ Styles has it in him to do a match with Santana? Do you think that do a cross-promotional match with AJ Styles going out on top as the TNA champion? I mean, that would be something phenomenal for him, especially in retirement. You know, this is a retirement year as well. So uh you gotta wonder if that's something that they've got planned in mind to do something special for AJ Styles coming up with Santana. I think it would be a great, uh, a great show. My personal self, uh thinking about it, thinking about the styles, how they clash, how they would look together, what moves they would do inside the ring. I think Santana may have the advantage being a little bit younger, but my God, the mind of AJ Styles, the body of AJ Styles, and the body of work that AJ Styles has put in throughout the years, there is nobody, nobody, and I mean nobody that could stand in his way to actually defeat him if he puts his mind to it. AJ Styles is definitely the man. So this would definitely be a dream match, to say the least, not only for the fans, but for you, Mr. Santana, Mike Santana. I think that we deserve it as the fans. I think TNA deserves to put this on. I think WWE should get behind the ball and the pony and make this bad boy happen. Just one last time for us. Now, Santana went on to say that AJ Styles for me, there's no one like him. I think when he's God, there ain't gonna be no one like him. The fact that he hasn't been in TNA since 2015, the fact that he's still recognized, still to this day, after every amazing thing he has done since leaving, the fact that he's still synonymous with TNA and still considered the face of the original homegrown talent of TNA just speaks volumes. And I couldn't agree more, Santana. I think that he was the face of TNA, he is the face of TNA, and he will forever be the face of TNA that helped put them on the map. Uh, as well as talents like Sting, I think Sting did a great job putting TNA on the map and bringing his star power to show the next generation that they were ready to run. Jay Lethal is another one that comes to mind when I start talking about TNA. Jeff Jarrett is another one that comes to mind. I mean, there's a lot of people who really had their hands in mixing this up and making TNA great, but the greatest one of them all, the superstar of superstars world, was none other than your boy himself, the big man, AJ Styles. Moving on just a little bit though, according to Click This and none other than Big Sexy Kevin Nash, uh, he has called Rollins, Seth Rollins, that is who we're talking about, the modern day macho man. He says, especially with his flamboyant dressing, his attire, uh, he definitely is looking like a modern-day macho dan. Now, you got to remember in his day to heyday, the late great Randy Savage, the macho man himself, was one of the world wrestling federations or the WWF, WW World Wrestling Entertainment's biggest stars. And a lot of it came down to the attire that he chose. He took his attire so seriously that he hired and developed people to definitely make over his personality for him. And boy, did they do it in a very big way as we saw him evolve throughout the years as the macho man, the macho king, uh the the bad macho madness man. I mean, we saw it all. We saw the superpowers, we saw everything come out. And I think he's absolutely right. I think that Seth Rollins is definitely evolving, especially with the attire he's worn the last couple of years. He is for sure flamboyant and uh on the eccentric side, to say the least, becoming one of the most colorful characters in professional wrestling history. And he is not done yet. I'll tell you that for sure. Nash kind of joked about it on his radio show. Uh, he said that Rollins' choice of attire over the last several years, with the WWE star choosing to wear some of the brightest and most outlandish outfits possible. In the segment from last month on WWE Raw, the that we all got to see Rollins get ousted by the vision by Braun Breaker and Bronson Reed, the former NWO member, compared Rollins' clothes to the fabric from a student's couch at a University of Michigan. I mean, he's not wrong. I mean, you can say what you want, but the man is definitely outlandish. He's definitely trying to be seen out there. And as we mentioned earlier, he's one of the brightest, most vibrant characters that the WWE currently has. I don't know what to say. If they lose him, who has the vision to see into the future to see what WWE holds and what type of flamboyant characters they come out with next? Moving on just a little bit. In a uh recent interview, Bully Ray expressed that he's not really too happy with WWE's creative and thinks that they need a creative reset. Uh, if you want to read the article, you can go to wrestlinginc.com. That's right, wrestlingincorporated.com, inc.com, and you can scroll down. Uh, it was done on November 7th by Julian D.Asandro, and you can read all about it right there, but we're gonna get into it. It says over the last few months, many wrestling fans have been pleased with AEW's creative direction for its world champion hangman Adam Page, as well as the booking of the women's division. However, others would argue that there has been a shortage of intrigue in the in most of AEW's programming from storytelling perspective, including WWE Hall of Famer bully Ray Dudley, who sounded off on the AEW president Tony Khan during a recent episode of Busted Open Radio when he was talking about the lack of excitement for full gear on November 22nd. I mean, uh, I think he's right. I think he's right on the money. I think that they haven't promoted it really well. Uh, I think that they're they're kind of holding back a lot of what could be you, you know, the business is give a little, give a little, get a little. Sometimes you just gotta get the cat to show its head out of the bag a little bit. And people want to pull that freaking cat out of the bag. Let's just call it what it is. And uh I think that he's upset with AEW. I think he's upset with WWE a little bit too over the way that creative has been gone on, but he really expressed it with AEW for sure, um, talking on busted open radio. And, you know, he's not wrong about how they're not really putting this out and not really making the intrigue. Now, I spoke about uh Samoa Joe earlier. I think that we all can agree that Samoa Joe deserves to be in the title pitcher, uh, especially after WWE gave up on Samoa Joe and they basically uh labeled him as hot garbage. You know what I mean? Like I hate to say that, but they they pretty much did. They pretty much labeled him as hot garbage, but he's not hot garbage. He is freaking hot. And uh, I think the direction that you've got to take is you've got to do something drastic November 22nd. You have to do it, you have to make something drastic happen November 22nd in order to bring the fans back, in order to get the storytelling back to where it needs to be. And you have to listen to people who have been inside the business and help run the business and create the business and move the business forward in a direction where it needs to go. I don't think you can do the same things you're doing now and be successful. I mean, if you want to keep selling only a quarter of the freaking arenas that you're going to out, by all means do what you're doing. But if you want to sell the whole arena out, you've got to do something great. And see, WWE has kind of ran into this as well the last couple months, as we've seen with some very bad moves. The television network move was a horrible move for them. I will never let them die down on that, especially moving away from the WWE network a few years ago, moving to Peacock and now moving from Peacock to ESPN and moving to ABC and moving all that. I mean, you guys have just created a monster in order to for people just to watch your product. It's not supposed to be this hard to get your product. It's not supposed to be this hard so that people can care about what they need to care about with your product again. And I think you've made some really bad moves, WWE, on your part with the television deals. Uh you got to remember your fan base is kids. Kids are your fan base. Ages nine to 22, Mel is your total fan base. The rest of your fan base are moms and dads who grew up with it that want their kid to have something wholesome to watch or somewhat wholesome to watch, where they can have an outlet so that they can feel like they're doing something important in their child's life and something they can bond with in their child's life. So, do I think Bully Ray is wrong? Absolutely not. I think Bully Ray is 100% right on this. I think he has it down to a T that if AEW and WWE want to be sustainable in the future, they are gonna have to do some drastic changes to make it sustainable for their audience again. Ticket pricing is a big thing. Bringing WrestleMania back home is another thing. The average person cannot fly to Saudi Arabia on a regular basis three times a year now, now, mind you, three times a year to do pay-per-views. They want to be somewhere that's closer to home. They want it to be in Los Angeles or Atlanta or Dallas or Houston or New York City or New Jersey. They want it to be close to home so that the average American can get to it. They want it to be in Las Vegas. I mean, that's where they want it to be. That's where they want this stuff to happen. And you're completely ignoring your fan base here at home for a little bit of money overseas. That little bit of money may not sustain you for 10 more years or 12 more years. You know, it will sustain you, your home fans and your home base and your television deals right here at home. We used to get up in the morning, Saturday mornings on UPN. God, I'm telling my age here, and we would watch heat. You know what I mean? We would we would get up and we would watch the 53, uh WB53. We would get up and we would watch Saul Professional Wrestling. We would get up and we would watch the National Wrestling Alliance until they went completely defunct. We would watch WCW on Mondays. We would flip between the channels in the Monday Night Wars. That's because that's the fan base you're going for. You want it to be special, you want somebody to have something special, you gotta make it special for them. You've completely lost touch with your fan base, WWE. You've completely lost touch with them. Yeah, there's still gonna be some hardcore fans that are gonna do it, there's still gonna be some hardcore fans that are gonna buy it, there's still gonna be some hardcore fans that are gonna go, but you gotta remember the average American, the average American lives on$27,000 a year.$27,000 a year is the average American. That's the average American wage.$40,000 is the next medium that you hit. Is that enough to survive? Well, not with the way that things have gone today. So they're hoping that that one chance that they get to see you at the UTC Arena, for instance, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, or that one time that you're in Louisville, Kentucky, or the next time that you show up to Las Vegas, Nevada, that you are gonna be affordable for them to go to. You can't be affordable if you raise your average ticket price every three months since you've taken over. The average ticket price for WWE has raised three months, every three months since you've taken over. I don't see how it's gonna be sustainable for you long term. You're gonna have to make some drastic changes in order to be sustainable. Do you have some good deals with the video games? Do you have some good deals with people that are out there that really want to watch your product? There's people that are bundling together right now that will say that they'll put$10 into a hat for this guy and$5 to a hat for that guy, and we'll all bundle together and do it like we did old pay-per-views. Absolutely, there are. There's people that are doing that just trying to watch their shows and going and being at somebody else's house to do it. But my lord, it should not be that way every week. We shouldn't have to pay that much every week just to see your product. You're you're isolating your fan base, guys, both of you, AEW and WWE. And if you want to get back to the pinnacle where both of you guys are on top again, TNA included, TNA, if you want to get in on this, I'll just shoot it, shoot you straight, guys. You guys want to get back to the pinnacle of professional wrestling, you got to make it affordable for the average fan, the average parent, the average single mom, single father who wants to take their kid to go and see John Cena on his farewell tour, who wants to go and see Sam Punk that only time that they may ever get to see him in their life. And you never know who's gonna be in the crowd. Edge was in the freaking crowd, and look what he did in his future. Christian was in the crowd, look what he did in his future. Samoa Joe was in the crowd, look where he became in his future. That's the thing, you don't know the impact that you will have on the future generation if you make it affordable again. Make it affordable. That's gonna be my rant for the day, guys. Uh, we will be moving on shortly. All right, but moving on for a little bit, uh, let's talk about Rhea Ripley. So we know that last month she sustained an injury at a live show in Japan, having having broken her nose uh while she was teaming with EOSky and the Kabuki Warriors. Uh, Ripley has just been absent from WWE Rawl since the injury. We don't know what's gonna be going on, and we're questioning whether she's gonna be available for Survivor series in in less than three weeks now. Um, I don't know. We haven't really got the inside scoop, but Dave Meltzer was able to kind of get an interview and kind of project himself on his show this week, The Wrestling Observer. And uh he said, quote, Ripley was gonna be there. I don't know if she's gonna make it on time because she's broke her nose. So Stephanie Vaker is probably gonna be in there. Uh, he said in the most recent edition of The Wrestling Observer himself, uh, Melzer also predicts that Vaker could be joined by AJ Lee and Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Fair, uh Flair, excuse me, and possibly Nikki Bella to go against Naya Jax and uh the last legend, uh Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez in the women's war games match. Um, I I really hope that Rhea Ripley recovers well. I really want to see her back on TV. I definitely want to see her come back and dominate the women's division like she did before and definitely put them on the forefront of WWE television to be must see once again. Uh, and I think that she will. I just don't know if she's gonna be recovered in time to be there for SummerSlam or sorry, Survivor Series, pardon me, survivor series in uh less than three weeks away. So let me correct myself. It is survivor series, not SummerSlam, guys. Um I I think it was kind of gruesome, you know. Re uh, you know, Ripley reportedly broke her nose when she attempted to catch Eosky during the match in Japan as the genius of the sky collided with mommy, of course, you know, uh, when she was tossed over the top rope to the outside of the ring. Following the match, Ripley took uh to social media to share some gruesome images of her nose. Uh, and that thing was swollen up. I mean, it was it was swollen, swollen. I mean, you could definitely tell that it was broken in the pictures that she posted of it. Uh, and you can catch those at Rhea Ripley underscore WWE. It's how you follow her, and you can see what's definitely going on with her. And hopefully we'll be able to see her before Survivor series. I'd like to see her before Survivor series. I'd like to see her come back and make a good, good impression. Hey, you gotta remember they did this once before with Cody Rhodes. Remember the beautiful Cody Rhodes? I mean, they could do it again with her, give her the mask, let her run that exact same skip, but do it from the women's perspective in the women's division. I mean, I think that would be a uh a great thing to do in the days to come. I don't know about you guys, but I think it would be very interesting to see to say the least. Uh, and that would be very fun to see as well. What do you guys think? I mean, leave us some comments. Uh, don't forget to like, subscribe wherever you guys are listening to this at. We'd love to have you guys come on in and be with us at least once a week uh as we cover some of the wrestling news that's gonna be going on. And uh, guys, for those of you that don't know, you can definitely uh help us out here on Buzz Sprout by going to our Buzz Sprout page, which is Buzzsprout.com forward slash 2289100 forward slash episodes. That's how you get all your Wrestle Talk with a Rabbit Beaver, and you can hit that support button for as little as three dollars a month. You can definitely get all of the contributions to Wrestle Talk with a Rabbit Beaver, the radio show and the original podcast, which is on Facebook Live Spotify, um, and very many others rumble all of it. You can catch the video cast and you can catch the radio just as just like what's going on right now. Uh, we'd love to have you guys come on in. But I think that's gonna be a good stopping point for us today, uh, as of right now. I mean, I've kind of rambled for about 25 minutes and some change here, but I definitely want to introduce you guys to the world of wrestling. I know that in a couple days, there's gonna be a lot of indie shows that are gonna be taking place, including one in Athens, Tennessee for Ego Pro Wrestling. And uh let me see if I can find Mr. Chris here while we're on a little hiatus. All right, so Christopher Wright uh has taken over Ego Pro Wrestling, and he's gonna be hosting on November 22nd. The King of the North intends to end the career of a missionary, just keeping Velaska away from me, is what he said, as she as she's lost weight and caught him in the presence back there. So Andrew Thomas will be taken on Lucas da Silva Saturday, November 22nd in Athens, Tennessee, at the Army National Guard Armory, right there on beautiful Athens Highway. You don't want to miss any of that. Bell time is gonna be at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Uh, and there's some other matches that are gonna be taking place there. Jay Sparks, oh yeah, Oreo himself, is gonna be taken on none other than Octavius Black. You guys don't want to miss any of the action that's gonna be taking place there at Ego Pro Wrestling. That's right, the 20th anniversary show, November the 22nd in Athens, Tennessee. It's where you guys want to be each and every week. And as we're speaking about it, we've got so much more to talk about here. That's right, Friday, November the 21st in Bryceville Elementary School, 103, Slate Stone Road, Bryceville, Tennessee. Autumn Rains by New World Wrestling will be taking place. And you can see the one, the only, the great RT3 take on MJ Davis. Uh, my lord, Jordan Mavia is gonna be there, or supposedly is gonna be there. We're gonna see if that comes out. Devon Belcher is gonna have a mystery opponent. Devon Belcher is gonna be there. Get him Kilgore is gonna be taking on Chris Hendricks. That's gonna be a slabber knocker of a match, guys, to tell you the truth. Uh now, Devon Belcher was originally gonna be taking on Jordan Modevilla, but I believe Jordan Maivia attained an injury here recently. So his surprise opponent is definitely gonna be out there. We don't know who it's gonna be. It's gonna be somebody great. Andrew Thomas is scheduled to be there as well. Big deal, Bobby Kane and Crazo will be tagging up against Nick Bawinkle and none other. Sorry, Blackwink and uh Ryan Austin. The Doctor of Distraction, Joe Briggs, will be going for the New World Wrestling Heavyweight Championship as he faces off with no joke, Johnny Poke. And baby, it's gonna be a slobber knocker of a match that's gonna be Friday, November 21st, 7 p.m. Bryceville Elementary School, 103 Slate Stone Road, Bryceville, Tennessee. You don't want to miss a moment of this action. Oh my God, it's gonna be amazing to see. Uh Sam Street is scheduled to be there against none other than Big Booty Judy, baby. And Sam Streak is definitely been on a tear has a recent, and Big Booty Judy has been fighting against all the men in the independent circuit, and she is making a huge name for herself. How can we forget the golden child? The golden child himself, Evan Goldens, is gonna be taking on Red Riggins, the hardworking man, baby. And he's got something to prove against the Golden Child. He's gonna try to pull that silver spoon right out from under his butt and get the one, two, three. Red Riggins is looking for some fun. Guys, you don't want to miss any of that action. It's gonna be auto-range by New World Wrestling right there in the lovely Bryceville, Tennessee, Friday, November 21st. Come on out and enjoy the show. We're definitely gonna be a part of that. We're gonna be going to it uh this Friday. Doors can be opening at 6 p.m. Uh East the Central Standard Time, and belt time's gonna be at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. So you're gonna be losing an hour if you guys are on Eastern to be going to it, but we're gonna be having some fun out there for it. And I think that's gonna be enough for today, guys. I uh appreciate you guys for coming on and being here. And until the next time, you heard it right here first on WrestleTalk.