As long as Dunn is there and they're doing the Saudi shows, I'm not going to be tuning in. Gonna be a few years before I consider giving them my attention, but I'm sure others have different thresholds and that WWE's ratings are gonna spike for the next little while.
The Saudi stuff is so messy. When they first announced it I cancelled my WWE Network sub and to this day the only one of those shows I've seen is The Greatest Royal Rumble (I still had it through to the end of that month so I figured I'd watch it since it was paid for). My cousin's still had a sub (I have a special needs cousin who loves wrestling) so for some of the bigger shows I'd go over their houses to watch them. Then I subscribed to Peacock's $5 tier to watch IndyCar which was followed by that Peacock/WWE deal. With the weirdness around streaming deals and how companies make money from them I've allowed myself to watch some WWE "Premium Live Events" on there (though still no Saudi shows). That said, with the state of NXT and WWE has been such that I tend to only watch old stuff, the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam and maybe the occasional other show here or there if I have nothing better to do. If I wasn't already subscribed to Peacock for other reasons I would not have subscribed to watch WWE content but since I have the sub I figure I'll allow myself to watch some.
It's interesting because Khan (or Kahn? Can't remember) becoming Co-CEO with Stephanie and HHH replacing Pritchard in creative means we could actually see the booking situation improve sooner than expected? I mean, the story has long been that the writers would finish the script for the next show and then 30 minutes before the show Vince would tear up the script and completely rewrite it. For as much as writers got blamed for shitty promos and booking a lot of signs have pointed to the writers actually getting very little onto the show over the years. Maybe HHH takes a more collaborative approach with the writers? Also, HHH is a worker, workers hate scripted promos. NXT being what it is it makes sense for promos to be scripted but I genuinely wonder if we see WWE proper take a more AEW-like approach in wrestlers having more control over their characters and promos with HHH just having final say? And maybe wrestlers lower down the card and wrestlers who aren't as proven on the mic are still fully scripted but maybe don't see talent like Becky Lynch get these awful gimmicks thrust upon them anymore? I can't see myself watching weekly WWE TV as I literally don't have the means to but this is probably the most exciting WWE news since the Network was originally announced.
So many suspect Dunn's departure won't be too far off now. With Vince gone as all signs seem to point to Vince being the only reason Dunn lasted as long as he did and had as much sway as he did. Unfortunately Dunn's shitty production style will probably linger but maybe we see an immediate improvement in commentary? As I've said before, this company has been built around Vince and his way of doing things not to mention I believe he's still a majority shareholder in the company (and his daughter and son-in-law hold major positions in the company) so unless Vince is pressured to sell off his stock I think it'll be awhile before we truly leave behind Vince McMahon's WWE but the future of the company and where things could go is admittedly kind of exciting.
I have no doubt that TK could've and should've done better. However if any of Gresham's issues included the belief that he should've gone over clean over Claudio then I'm not sure what to tell him. They're trying to get this promotion off the ground and having the title on a known star helps that. I think it would have been interesting to have him in the main heel faction but he'd probably have taken a back seat to Brian Cage as the main singles focal point of that group so I completely understand any problems he had with that.
I wonder about that. Obviously Gresham took a lot of pride in being ROH's champion and he's a super talented guy that I think could've been built up to be the face of ROH but that's not what happened. It's unfortunate because if the long view on this was always to have a big pre-established star come in and win the world title then I think they should've actually moved the title off of Gresham before this most recent show.
I say that because with the fierce passion Gresham had for ROH and his talent in the ring he should be the modern face of ROH and thus kept away from top talent like Claudio until they were ready to put him over. I think the way to go would've been for Bandito to beat Gresham back at Supercard of Honor and from there on Gresham becomes ROH's Adam Page. Hangman wasn't necessarily the most oozing with personality guy his first year in AEW, but he improved and was built up over time and now he's one of AEW's top stars. Does Gresham have Hangman potential? Not sure but I definitely think he has the potential to be built to a top guy even if he ended up on the lower end of that tier.
You could argue that perhaps that was their long term plan for him but even setting aside what happened at the PPV based on how he was being booked leading up to Death Before Dishonor I would not have found my future there to be very promising either. His heel turn was so unearned and not a way to lean into Gresham's strengths that I don't blame him for being upset about that.
And you're right that there was never a scenario where Gresham beats Claudio, let alone beat him clean but maybe there should've been? Think about. At this point in his career Claudio is such an established star that he could easily put over someone like Gresham and be fine but also doing so would've basically made an overnight star out of Gresham. Not to mention that kind of result would get more attention than the result everyone expected. I loved Supercard of Honor but I skipped this show. Why? Even though I knew the matches would be at least a baseline of good the build to it was terrible, I knew the result of basically every single match beforehand and I am not hard up for good wrestling right now. Between AEW, NJPW, Stardom and whatever else happening elsewhere you can find great wrestling everywhere so I didn't need to see a $40 PPV that was solid on paper but they didn't actually sell me on.
It seems like that show did well so maybe that show solidified a bright future for ROH and will land them a TV deal but ROH currently feels like the island of misfit toys to me. The ROH talent hasn't been built up at all so they mostly all feel like jobbers particularly because none of them ever stand a chance against established AEW talent. So then ROH is this thing where lower in the card ROH talent faces off against ROH talent (sometimes for meaningless titles), lower in the card AEW talent wrestles AEW talent (sometimes for meaningless titles) and AEW stars beat ROH talent for, again, meaningless titles.
There was a time where there was good reason to watch NXT because in addition to it having great wrestling on a regular basis it felt very distinct from WWE. Now it's just less important WWE with worse wrestling. Having Gresham beat Claudio helps build ROH's identity and helps it feel like a more distinct product. Claudio beating Gresham instead just makes ROH feel like less important AEW. The wrestling is just as good but the booking and angles are way worse and none of it matters anywhere near as much as AEW. Why should I watch ROH when the top people are people I regularly see on Dynamite and Rampage often in feuds and angles I care more about?