— CNN.com ran a piece looking at five companies that are pushing the boundaries of television. First on their list is the upcoming WWE Network. CNN wrote:
“WWE: With its forthcoming WWE (WWE) Network, the pro wrestling monolith will be the biggest and most influential company to completely circumvent traditional television. With its $10-a-month streaming network, content from its cable offerings will also be available through the service. There will also be new original series developed exclusively for the network, and all 12 of its pay-per-view shows will be live-streamed to subscribers at no additional cost.”
You can check out the complete article at Money.CNN.com.
— Former WWE Official Wes Adams wrote a new column on the rise and fall of the Ryback character. Here is what he had to say…
“The WWE’s organically grown superstar that they’ve been waiting for all this time was destroyed forever in a matter of months. As soon as Cena threw him out of the Royal Rumble, everyone was told that this guy wasn’t as good as Cena. Then Ryback is thrown into a feud with Mark Henry. Great idea, and the weightlifting challenge segments were fun to watch. But Ryback lost any chance of getting his momentum back when he dropped Mark Henry and lost at WrestleMania 29. So from there, WWE is panicking and don’t know what to do with him. They turn him heel. Start a ridiculous crybaby gimmick that is so terrible that people are calling him Cryback. Then they start turning him in to a bully, obviously influenced by the Impact Wrestling character Bully Ray.
They try to make him a Paul Heyman guy, but only after a few weeks, that is stopped and he is being phased out of TV because “he has backstage heat”. Why does he have backstage heat? Well I sure as hell don’t know but from what I have read, WWE feels he has a negative backstage attitude. Well holy tap dancing shit WHY SHOULDN’T HE HAVE A BAD ATTITUDE??? From what I’ve read, he has been a wrestling fan his whole life. He has spent over 7 years in the WWE system. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he understands the business. He understands how booking works and he understands the difference between good booking and bad booking. He has probably been told for 7 of those 7 years in the WWE system that they are going to make him a superstar, a millionaire, a world champion and lord knows what other kinds of promises he’s been told. And due to the WWE’s bad booking of him and his character, why wouldn’t he be upset? If WWE would had some patience and stretched out his feud with the Miz and put him into the WWE title picture AFTER the Rock and Cena were through, maybe things would have been way better. Or, if the WWE would have struck while the iron was hot and put him OVER CM Punk for the title at WrestleMania after winning the Royal Rumble, maybe things would be better.”
