[Emperor Smeat]

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Tough Enough has been seen as a major priority within the company, to the point that since it launched Vince McMahon has skipped Smackdown tapings in order to personally oversee Tough Enough's production at Full Sail University every week.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that the recent high level of WWE executive turnover had continued with the recent firing of their Executive Vice President of Content, Lisa Fox Lee, and the departure of their Senior Vice President of Digital Content, Rob Bernstein, for a more senior position elsewhere. As I mentioned in my post, executive turnover has become so high over the last five years that it's difficult to keep track of all the comings and goings ... You may be wondering why over a dozen high ranking WWE officials have either left or been let go in such a short space of time. The answer can be found in last week's extremely detailed cover story for the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (a month's subscription required but recommended for this article alone) by James Caldwell that looked in-depth at what is driving corporate execs out of the company. He paints a picture of talented individuals being initially attracted to WWE by their seeming openness to new thoughts, but quickly growing frustrated by an out-of-touch Vince McMahon's whimsical nature where he frequently changes his mind and only listens to ideas that fit within his narrow, and in his mind superior, way of doing things ... Regarding the short-lived promotion of Lisa Fox Lee to the newly created position of EVP of Content, this was an unsuccessful attempt to put the WWE Creative, Digital and Network divisions under one umbrella, because she was ill-equipped for the position. Lee had worked underneath Kevin Dunn in his TV department for the vast majority of her two decades with WWE, and it seems that Dunn lobbied for her promotion in order to get his tentacles even deeper into the company and have greater influence over the WWE Network and their other digital platforms without the responsibility. However, Dunn's attempted power play quickly failed when Lee was exposed in creative meetings with Vince McMahon and Triple H, likely due to her lack of product knowledge. After her firing, WWE went back to their old way of doing things ... Caldwell's argues that Staeger's departure from WWE was an underreported story in the wrestling media having been an Executive Producer in ESPN and a SVP for Dick Clark Productions, and there was even thoughts of him replacing Dunn at one point, but he left the company "because he saw the writing on the wall". As former head writer of Smackdown, Alex Greenfield, found out to his peril any attempts to replace Dunn, even on the secondary show, will be fought by him tooth and nail. Greenfield believes that Dunn "is not one lick more talented than the EP/director of a mid-market NBA team", let alone one that worked for ESPN, and that WWE "would be well served bringing in someone just like that to take over television production because they would be more creative". Not only is Dunn a barrier to more innovative production, but he's also a conservative force creatively, a devil in Vince's ear to hold firm and not fix what ain't broken.

More details at http://officialfan.proboards.com/thr...ng-blame-vince and at CageSideSeats website about the mess behind the scenes at the WWE.

As noted, next week on the WWE Network will be "Kliq Week" to promote the upcoming "Kliq Rules" DVD and Blu-ray set that comes out on Tuesday. Below is the current line-up: Monday after RAW: 30-minute sneak peek at "The Kliq Rules" DVD. The description reads like this: "A First Look to watch exclusive content from WWE Home Video's latest release, The KLIQ Rules!" Tuesday at 10pm EST: 30-minute "The Kliq: Behind The Curtain" special. The description reads like this: "Triple H, HBK, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman reunite in this revealing look at the most dominant group in WWE history, The KLIQ!" Wednesday at 9pm EST: 90-minute "The Kliq Moments and Matches" special. The description reads like this: Relive the sweetest moments and matches in KLIQ history, and hear never before told tales from the men themselves in this retrospective." Thursday after SmackDown: 30-minute "Kevin Nash: Too Sweet" special. The description reads like this: Celebrate the career of Big Daddy Cool as WWE cameras follow Kevin Nash during his 2015 Hall of Fame induction."

Global Force Wrestling’s first TV tapings take place tonight, July 24th from Las Vegas. Here is the card for GFW Amped: Global Championship Tournament Brian Myers (formerly Curt Hawkins) vs. Chris Mordetzky (formerly Chris Masters) Global Championship Tournament Bobby Roode vs. “The Tollman” Kevin Kross Global Championship Tournament Kongo Kong vs. Nick Aldis (formerly Magnus) Tag Team Championship Tournament The Bollywood Boys vs. The Akbars NEX*GEN Championship Tournament PJ Black (formerly Justin Gabriel) vs. Seiya Sanada NEX*GEN Championship Tournament Jigsaw vs. Sonjay Dutt Women’s Championship Tournament Christina Von Eerie vs. Mickie James vs. Lei’D Tapa Bestia 666, Blood Eagle & Steve Pain vs. Phoenix Star, Zokre & Misterioso Jr. Plus, KUSHIDA will be wrestling in a NEX*GEN one on one match!

In regards to the ring, seems like GFW hasn't made up its mind if it wants to stick with a regular or the 6-sided ring. The Amped event used a 6-side ring. http://i.imgur.com/Ter3yvw.jpg

Originally Posted by PWI Bully Ray, who JUST returned to TNA TV as the new GM brought in by Dixie Carter, is already gone from the company. Ray hasn't been at any of the TV Tapings that are currently being held in Orlando, Florida (where he lives) and when people started asking where he was (since he lives locally in the area and the Team 3D Wrestling Academy is located there as well), word began making the rounds that he was gone. The story I heard this morning is that Ray told the company he was done as he wasn't happy with the current state of affairs of the company and felt it was better to distance himself. Obviously, he was working on a per appearance deal and wasn't under contract. Nonetheless, it has to be seen as a negative when TNA spends an entire week building up his return on TV and then he almost immediately quits the company. How they will handle his departure from a creative standpoint remains to be seen.

TNA has invited Liam and Noel Gallagher to compete in a wrestling match at next year's UK Tour. Jeremy Borash and Rockstar Spud have offered to train the brothers so they can settle their differences and reunite Oasis.

Originally Posted by Observer You see, TNA, no matter what, TNA is going to survive. Even if they lose their TV in the United States, they're still going to tape, um, and they're gonna try to get on television, because they're a wrestling company, whereas Lucha Underground, if they don't get new money, you know, if they don't get enough money for the next season, they're done, and it's a lot of money. I mean, they needed twenty million for last season, so it's not like, um, you know, it's not like it's some small amount of money ... Yeah, so, so, you know, I mean El Rey will pick them up and pay them something, but not enough to make it worth their while to promote the shows and do the shows. And there's a lot of frustration because some of the owners realize that El Rey is just not strong enough, they're not getting enough viewers off El Rey. They can't do merchandising off of it. They can't do house shows off of it. Uh, but they don't have anything else. They didn't make that deal with Televisa in Mexico, which would have saved them. And so...we're waiting. You know, it's just a wait and see what happens next. I don't know what happens next.

From the recent Observer radio show related to the financial problems Lucha Underground is having at the moment. http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircl...m_betting_tna/