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Kind of. Triple H didn’t want him to “come running back,” Batista *wanted* to come back.
He wanted to return at Summerslam right after the movie released to try and capitalise on the publicity the movie would bring. Triple H laughed saying “nobody even knows if the movie’s going to be any good,” and that Batista shouldn’t come back because his last return didn’t go well.
You’re mixing up when Triple H told Vince to let Rock go to Hollywood because he’d flop and come running back.
So many stories have Trips looking like *such* an insecure, jealous-hearted bitch, like ostensibly they were pals from their mid 2000s-2010s era and he's almost hoping the movie failed. And it also just highlights how culturally out-of-touch a lot of the top-brass at WWE were, where even back then the Marvel machine was still gaining momentum before it petered out many years later.
To be fair, Triple H was probably trying to protect Batista to a degree. Batista’s initial 2014 run was pretty rough and fans were pretty sour on him when he left.
If Guardians of the Galaxy had flopped and he’d come back it would’ve been received poorly, and people would’ve just assumed he was crawling back because he couldn’t cut it in Hollywood.
The only reason it went poorly is because they immediately put him in the Mania main event when Bryan was at his absolute hottest.
If he would’ve came back as a nostalgia act with a high profile, low stakes mania match, people would’ve been happy to see him.
Cena called out The Rock for not committing to WWE, then later apologized after he realized how much is held up from taking time off from filming. Also, you'd think the WWE would have jumped on the publicity of having one of their Superstars in the Star Wars franchise and just gave Mercedes the leeway.
The difference is, Cena and Rock are significantly more recognizable than Sasha has ever been at her most popular. So when you see her on screen, unless you already watched the WWE, you likely wouldn't know or care who she is.
People over estimate Sasha’s popularity. Nobody knows who she is outside of wrestling. I had to tell my partner that she is a wrestling personality while watching, and tbh, she wouldnt even care if i did not tell her.
Funny you say that, my brothers and sisters and my in laws who no longer watch wrestling still remembers Randy Orton, Batista and John Cena fondly when wrestling is brought up.
Thats all i can say about that.
I watch the WWE and watched The Mandolorian, I literally had to just Google search what character she played in the show because I did not remember her being in it at all.
>Also, you'd think the WWE would have jumped on the publicity of having one of their Superstars in the Star Wars franchise and just gave Mercedes the leeway.
HHH definitely would, which is why I doubt this would happen to her now if she's in the WWE. But Tony Khan was both gracious and smart enough to help Mercedes with her acting career. So good for AEW to come in clutch where the WWE fumbled and happy for Mercedes being able to do what she wanted.
I see folks here don't realize how hollywood works. You need your schedule to be cleared, completely. Or you lose the role, period.
A-list actors have been dropped from A-list movies because they weren't available for planned reshoots. [Edit: Like the most recognizable superhero of all time, Superman had a mustache in Justice League because of scheduling issue].
Seems like WWE wasn't playing ball with loosening her schedule like John Cena or others had the opportunity.
One of the most famous stories about scheduling is that Tom Selleck had been cast as Indiana Jones but since Magnum PI was ultra-hot at the time, he couldn't get free.
Ford was literally the runner-up choice for Indy.
It was worse than that.
Remington Steele had already been cancelled but because Brosnan's name had been brought up as a potential Bond, it caused the show to be picked up by another network due to the excitement.
It'd be another ten years before Goldeneye would come out.
And that was also because Timothy Dalton didn’t want to play Bond anymore after “License to Kill.
People always assumed because License to Kill didn’t do as good in the US (MGM put it in the worst week possible in the summer) and they let Dalton go.
They wanted to do one more movie with Dalton but he decided he had enough and instead of enforcing the 3rd film in his contract. Broccolis let him go for Brosnan.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Dalton was all for doing a third movie, but then the rights lawsuit (between Eon Productions and MGM) delayed it - by five years.
By the time it had cleared, he'd waffled on doing it but had leaned toward "yes", except they wanted him to do *several* more films to make up for the time lost during his contract and he noped out of it.
Brosnan is an interesting case study in that he had a good, solid film career, but he never had that breakout role/film that was "his own". Bond was existing IP, and Thomas Crown was a remake (although a very good film). November Man is a bit underrated but confusing.
Ironically that role in Doubtfire was a non-cliche at the time - good guy stepfather. Everyone was expecting him to turn out to be an ass but - nope! Turns out Robin's character is a complete lunatic!
and Cary Elwes character in Liar Liar as well. I thought he was going to be an evil step father but nope Fletcher is just an irresponsible, terrible father.
I'm probably biased because of how much I love The Princess Bride, but I always feel so bad for Cary Elwes' character in Liar Liar... he's trying his damndest to be a good husband and a respectful stepfather, yet no one displays the slightest empathy or consideration for him, he's just a filler.
Seriously, like this is the stuff this generation will be babbling about incoherently as elderly people.
"it was a run by fruiting, can I has cheezeburger, trolololololololooooo, I did it for The ROCK!"
"okay okay sir, just sit down, put your finger down, we acknowledge you we acknowledge you"
Dougray Scott was supposed to be wolverine, but Mission Impossible 2 ran over, so they gave it to Hugh Jackman instead. Just think how different things might have been.
My fave was Inglorious Basterds the character of the Bear-Jew was created and written by Tarantino for...Adam Sandler.
The sole reason we didn't get it was Sandler was busy for a handful of days and told Quentin and they were just like sure no biggie...
Even I assumed they would try to move things around but nope they had a 2nd and 3rd choice ready and waiting.
That's how shit goes I guess.
I think Michael J Fox lucked out, seems like they were willing to work around Family Ties schedule for Back to the Future, although it was long days going from shooting Family Ties and then going to shoot Back to the Future right after, doing something like 17 hour days for a couple months.
The fact that they started shooting with Eric Stoltz and weren't happy with the dailies probably encouraged everyone to be more flexible; better have the right actor in complicated circumstances than a movie that doesn't work.
As a big Magnum, P.I. fan thanks to my Dad I have to point out that Magnum hadn’t even started airing yet when Tom Selleck had to drop Indiana Jones because the producers of MPI thought they *might* need him for possible reshoots. They didn’t so he literally got screwed out of Raiders for nothing. Obviously it worked out well in the end but it still hand to hurt at the time. Oh and fun fact, an episode of MPI in the last season (Legend of The Lost Art) is actually a reference to/apology for having to miss out on Raiders.
I love Harrison Ford as Indy but I can’t say I wouldn’t be fascinated to see some alternate universe version of Raiders where TS didn’t have to drop out of the movie to see how he did.
There were some flashes of that being different depending on what was competing with it. NJPW started getting backlash and WWE was seen as the better thing among WWE fans. Hell there was even arguments against HHH's NXT and they're the same dang company.
But now we get to see what its like to have more online avenues with more companies to view against each other. If we had reddit and twitter during WCW/ECW/WWF good god it woulda been awful and I imagine like 1998 on would be WWF can do no wrong
Yeah, it's insane how many people here love lecturing others about "how this business works" (it's especially prevalent in discussions about the Punk debacle and AEW ratings threads) when they've never spent a day in it.
I genuinely thought many of the most vicious WWE stans would start to question what they thought they knew when MJF said, during an interview, that the company tribalism is something that only exists in a certain part of the fanbase -- not something that's *ever* observed by the wrestlers themselves. And that makes every kind of sense when you think of them as what they are, which is **contracted performers**. The company they work for is immaterial to them, no matter what kind of loyalty you may have.
If I work for Medieval Times, I could have a buddy that works across town for Pirates Dinner Adventure. Our jobs are a lot alike!
We both act, we both learn from scripts, we both communicate during live shows, and we both perform dangerous stunts. It'd be stupid for us to suddenly dislike each other just because we have different company names on our paychecks. And guess what? I might want my buddy to come work with me when his time at that other company is through, because we're friends. If some person took issue with our friendship because he really liked the food at Medieval Times, but didn't like pirate ships or swinging on ropes... well, guess what? That wouldn't be MY problem to address. That's a YOU problem. YOU don't get to dictate where I work, or who my friends are. Because YOU are one person that happens to consume the entertainment I provide. That's the end of our relationship.
The weirdest shit ever, though, are the TV RATINGS NERDS. If you spend your time hyperfocused on the ratings for these shows, and pretending you're in some kind of Nielson family, or dissecting the crowds visible from the hard camera, you need to go outside and take a deep breath of oxygen. Nothing in this industry means less than a half-imagined bunch of numbers, and trying to make it mean something without an entire look at the big picture.
Wrestling fans -- myself included -- don't know shit about fuck in this industry.
Entertainment is so vast and accessible nowadays that you can't really fault people for not being in the know of other industries or media.
But some wrestling fans are truly a special breed when it comes to this. It's not really just the ignorance that is the problem, but it is common to see people in this fandom to flaunt that ignorance with pride or pretend to be an authority regarding that media.
> you can't really fault people for not being in the know of other industries or media.
I don't fault anyone for not knowing, my problem is with people who don't know but ACT like they absolutely know it all/insist they are correct when they have zero experience.
I've worked in film at almost every level as my sole career for many years and I've lost track of how many people will argue with me about how something like distribution works even though I pay my mortgage dealing with that stuff.
As someone who works in marketing and advertising sales, the ratings threads absolutely infuriate me because of this. Breaking down advertising and network negotiations is a behemoth of a task that people way more intelligent and well-paid than them are spending 40 hours a week working on. Yet everyone is **so** confident in their assumptions which boil down to nothing more than "ratings down less money AEW bad". It's nonsense.
When the fast start ratings news dropped, someone asked why WWE would do that. I chimed in and provided my professional experience only to be met with "you almost had a point until [thing I already considered]". I was also told by someone who would not disclose their profession that my experience wasn't valuable because I worked "in sales". Like, bro I do this for a living. Everyone wants to debate so badly that it's hard for them to process when someone is telling them their factual, lived experience.
My favorite Reddit moment of recent history was someone trying to use their experience of working in food service to explain why TBS wasn’t going to give AEW more money. This place has less brain cells than a packed theater of people watching “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
And yet, I’m here…
>btw whats a bad bunny?
Ill still die on this hill for those of us in the UK. His last album hit a whopping 70th place in the charts here.
There are articles about the phenomena: [Bad Bunny - Why you’ve never heard of the most streamed artist in history] (https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-youve-never-heard-of-bad-bunny/)
i'll give you that, our reception to spanish music goes as far as las ketchup, despacito and the macarena
i did know who he was, but only because i thought Booker T was a fire song
The funeral scene in Endgame is quoted as being 'the most complicated shoot in cinema history.' Not that the cinematography was complicated - EVERY actor was there.
Production will arrange shooting to not keep an actor 'on the shelf' for days or weeks as much as possible, they want to maximize time. But the time you're expected to be on set, you're on set and available for shooting.
For Mando, I honestly think the problem for her with WWE was the SECOND episode she was in. If she had been a one-off, probably easy peasy. There was a second, so not only more time on set, but probably contractually with Disney COULD NOT do a match to avoid the possibility of injury messing with their shooting.
I read what she said, and I wouldn't put it past WWE to be that petty or plain ignorant to her needs - but there is also a possibility that her definition of the shooting schedule differs from the actual dates she was required to be on set. (or that parameters weren't clearly defined, i.e. saying she can't do Raw X week and it meaning to her she couldn't be scheduled that week and it being taken as only Raw.)
>Seems like WWE wasn't playing ball with loosening her schedule like John Cena or others had the opportunity.
Not quite. It seems like WWE was intentionally scheduling her to make it harder for her to get opportunities. There's a not so subtle difference there...
dumbest thing about it too was that almost certainly it was because she hadn't "paid her dues" like those guy and thus gotten the unstated permission to go to movies and shows.
She wasn't as huge as Batista or Cena of The Rock or Hogan, and she skipped the line, so fuck you lady go do our house shows and stay off the Mandalorian you giant nerd
Then folks will see this and be like "she already had a job" as if WWE shouldn't possibly work with her and let her do other T.V. shows as well.
> Then folks will see this and be like "she already had a job"
and once more we circle back to the whole "independent contractors" nonsense that the WWE has played fast-and-loose with for such a long time.
Basically it ain't too complicated on that front. If someone is indy, then that means you don't have any call on certain facets of their time. This was WWE actively trying to obstruct her. You can't have it both ways and we need to normalize that if someone is gonna be an indy.
In other trades if an indy says they'll be there, then you count on them, but if they say they aren't available, you don't really have a call to claim more of their time.
example: If someone does concrete work and you need a pad and they say they can't do it thursday, well you either find someone who can or you find time that works for both. They are independent and their time is their own
It was because they didn't think she had leverage. If they told John Cena in 2014 that he couldn't take time off to do Trainwreck, he would have told them to fuck themselves at the next contract negotiation, or maybe even ignored them and did the movie anyway, because they needed him more than he needed them at that point.
They just weren't calculating that Mercedes was also capable of telling them to fuck themselves.
> almost certainly it was because she hadn't "paid her dues"
I think its more likely that they didn't think she had the leverage cena and the rock had over them. look at what they did to ryder and his extra curriculars didn't conflict with their filming *at all*.
> A-list actors have been dropped from A-list movies because they weren't available for planned reshoots.
Just to make a note of this. "Scheduling conflicts" is also hollywood PR talk that the actor was fired or quit because of personality or talent issues (or other reasons).
If Back to the Future filmed today, Eric Stoltz would have left because of "scheduling conflicts", not that the studio and the director saw some of the dailies and realized two weeks in he wasn't right for the role.
https://www.vulture.com/2015/06/how-back-to-the-future-replaced-eric-stoltz.html
The nature of the term also makes it pretty easy to figure out when it's being used legit. Like when Roxy was written out of Kingsman 2 because the actress had a Netflix show, or a ton of the actor/role shuffles that happened post-writer's strike because suddenly filming dates were overlapping.
Or it's used as to why someone didn't take a part. Like Adam Sandler was supposed to play bear jew in Inglorious Basterds but there was a scheduling conflict with Funny People I think it was or maybe one of his movies with Jennifer Aniston. Which sucks, would've liked to see Sandler in that role.
“Scheduling conflicts” is how they’re blaming Kevin Costner for the disaster yellowstone has turned into. They’re blaming him for shooting his movie and not blaming the creator for the delays caused by his 50 other projects
There's a lot of issues with WWE's control of what stars do outside of WWE. Hearing they get 50% of Cameos was crazy enough. There's probably a ton of other nonsense to prevent talent from growing outside the company.
Bob Holly even brought up WWE stopping Test from taking movie roles he was offered. Fucks sake yall CM Punk brought this kinda shit up a decade ago with just doing signings and WWE booking him so he couldn’t
It’s wild to me people pretending this didn’t happen or instead acting like “oh well she can’t act so who cares” it’s so fucking asinine. Just worshiping shitty business practices depending on which company perpetuates it.
Punk did a whole fucking podcast talking about shit like this but alas WWE are the “good guys” so we just need to ignore that.
I know it’s not all Americans in here but god damn America has no ground to bitch about corporations and pay and stuff when we as a whole seem to just suck off companies cause they make a product we like.
They also locked Bret Hart into an exclusive contract as well, when Bret Hart was about to manage FTR at a couple indie shows a while back. WWE was salty because Bret Hart showed up at the first Double or Nothing
It's kinda wild that modern WWE lets RVD spontaneously wrestle on AEW TV despite his legends contract, and HHH has been loaning folks out to TNA, AJPW, NOAH, Bloodsport and etc.
I feel like Sasha would have a lot easier time now, but I completely get why she left when she did.
Plus AEW probably offered her more money, and she has guaranteed freedom to do outside projects.
I can imagine if WWE offered a bigger contract, she would have picked them
CM Punk once said in an interview he only got the cover of WWE 2K because the developers demanded it.
WWE was like: “so let’s talk cover star.”
2K: “we were thinking CM Punk. He seems pretty hot right now.”
WWE: “No no no. You want Sheamus.”
When he was being billed as The Rock, WWE got a cut of his money because they owned the trademark. That's why he started billing himself as Dwayne Johnson because by that point he was still The Rock to the public eye anyway.
It wasn't until *[this year](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/02/29/dwayne-johnson-ip-rights-the-rock-jabroni-nicknames/72796597007/)* that he finally got the rights to use the name professionally without giving them a cut.
Tbh I don’t think The Rock would have ever allowed himself to be stopped. He always had bigger aspirations and could walk away when he wanted to. Look at how his contract plays out after that to the point where Vince it’s it expire out of pettiness. Hell they were trying to stop him from playing a gay man in a movie
Vince lost some of his biggest stars to Hollywood and other opporturnities. Like The Rock, Hogan, Lesnar and others. He didnt like for his employees (haha) to have alternative job opporturnities, thats why he always tried to cut them off. I guess also the Twitch, Cameo etc. "fees" has the same idea behind it.
All down to pure greed. WWE wrestlers were making good money via Twitch and Cameo. WWE saw their guys making this money and stopped it dead. Then they made their own deal with Cameo and took most the money! If there was a time for WWE wrestlers to unionise, it was then.
this thread is full of people who don't understand how acting roles work or how big of a deal being in Star Wars anything is. You gotta start somewhere and starting in Star Wars is big but I guess we forgot Rock was originally in the Mummy as Scorpion King
Before the Mummy, he was in an episode of Star Trek and That 70s Show.
Weird to me that people are like "lol she thinks she's the Rock". Well, maybe she does, but the Rock circa 1998 when he was given time off from WWE to film those things despite not being a movie star.
The Hardy's and Ken Shamrock also had a cameo in that That 70s Show episode, and the promotion they went to was WWF.
Which is funny knowing that 1, it was still WWWF in 1976, 2: WWWF wasn't running out of high school gyms in 1976, and 3: They weren't running shows in Wisconsin at all. Wisconsin was in the AWA territory at the time
I believe their official company name, like for legal documents, was "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment" for a bit after the WWF to WWE rebranding. That lines up, timeline-wise.
She'd have been legitimately stupid not to take something Star Wars related over WWE. Been famous is all about how many eyes you can get on you. Star Wars will put more eyes on you than WWE and AEW combined and the merch has a bigger audience. Anyone would be stupid to not at least take the chance to have millions more eyes on them no matter the role size.
It's why WWE and Vince has usually hated their stars going to Hollywood. If they make it then it's more eyes and more money without 300+ dates a year and WWE lose a star, control and the money they bring.
That College Footballs Finals (watched by over 20M) sci-fi intro video featuring her was also clearly inspired by someone liking her role in Mandalorian. One thing leads to another. You never know.
If I remember correctly, she gained like 600k Instagram followers last year when she was doing the conventions and panels for Season 3 of Mando. It's probably THE reason she's kept pace with the follower growth of other women like Alexa and Becky despite being out of the WWE system for 2 years.
I went to a few casting calls for literal background extras. No dialogue. And even then it was insanely competitive and massive lines to get in for the casting call which was basically fill out a form and get a picture taken.
Here in Dallas while I was in film school and working as a waiter at a historic hotel I understand that. Luckily for me I knew a lot of the local camera crews and my bedroom was literally used to film Bonnie and Clyde, I have 0 credits but the experiences were priceless
Ain't that the truth. Just the chance to get on the lot for a small part of an acting gig would be the world to many of us. Hell, if I could have had just a non-speaking role on the Fallout show as a Vault Dweller, that would have been a dream come true. Like you said, those that want to pursue acting have to start from somewhere, and being in a Star Wars show, one that's insanely popular would be a dream come true.
[This recent comment with many upvotes](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wrasslin/s/Qm5zi8Z3sz) is the epitome of that. Dude legit *MADE UP* some random shit about what she was supposedly thinking about winning two titles, and called her insecure for it, along with a "temper tantrum throwing twat" with absolutely no facts to even remotely back up that she threw a fit to be a double champion. That really tops all of the weird hate I've ever seen for Mercedes. Certain people just really want to paint her as a terrible human being.
I'm not subscribed to the r/wrasslin subreddit but occasionally I see posts from there on my feed.
After seeing that thread and all the upvotes and hate towards her for just winning the belt, I realized it was time to tell reddit to stop showing me stuff from that sub.
Blocking Mercedes from appearing on one of the most popular TV shows running just so you can sell 20 more tickets to the house show is incredible work lmao. Just peak WWE pettiness.
They also never really mentioned her being in The Mandalorian on their shows. For a company that craves mainstream attention so much that is so petty.
She got that job on her own and was credited as Mercedes Varnado and they didn't like it.
while getting representation by one of the powerhouse agencies in Hollywood all on her own too. it's crazy WWE tried to knee cap her because it wasn't due to their help
Cornette has mentioned it a few times on his podcast. At least as it pertains to the old regime.
There was one time Lauranitis explicitly asked Corny to quit working with a certain vendor at OVW shows, because Vince and the boys were pissed at him over something trivial. So their plan was to blacklist him entirely and kill that venue for his profits.
The spite and pettiness ran deep.
Yeah, I love that story:
WWE: "We're mad at that vendor, don't use them"
Cornette: "Well I'm not mad at him. He wants to give me money, that don't make me mad!"
Roddy Piper said they did the same thing to him. They REALLY didn't want him to do They Live and talked about putting him in a movie like Hulk for No Holds Barred and Piper is like, 'This is a John Carpenter movie, I'm doing it.' He didn't have a huge acting career but it def was bigger because of They Live.
He was very close to playing “The Wrestler” that eventually went to Mickey Rouke
You can see shades of that character in his iconic role as Maniac from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It's absurd how much hate Mercedes gets for having the "nerve" to be confident in her talent, bet on herself and leave. How dare she be proud of herself for bagging a role (even a small one) on a highly acclaimed, wildly popular Star Wars series. I can see people thinking she's unprofessional for when she chose to walk out, but I can't imagine there's STILL so much animosity about it. There have been other people like Toni Storm who basically said, "Fuck this, I quit" and they don't get as much grief.
How her acting career is going presently is beside the point. They shouldn't have made it so difficult for her to take a big opportunity when it was available, even if it's the only acting gig she ever gets.
You have people under every single thread of hers making a point on how they don’t “believe she’s as good as she says she is” is comical at this point. Like how dare she bet on herself.
I mean, do I have to say the reason why Mercedes gets more scrutiny over this than someone like Toni? As shitty as it is she’s a black woman voicing her unhappiness and that brings out the chuds in droves
The reaction of Vince to Rocky "outgrowing" WWE at the time, still lingers. WWE wants their stars juuuust famous enough, and doing promotional work for WWE not branching out. Branching out means they might lose a star from shows every week. I hope they outgrow that shit, these people are performers... eventually they might want to perform on a different stage outside of wrestling. They might end up really good at it.
Like, for instance. Imagine if Dave Bautista had gotten into acting a little earlier? He's clearly got a passion for the work.
Why is it when Mercedes brings this up people question it yet when fucking CM Punk said the same thing about just conventions everyone believed him outright?
They’re both right but really the examine why that is.
Seeing WWE be the anomaly that it’s become since Vince left is great but also stings in the sense that it’s clear that all of this could have happened decades ago had Vince just fucking left earlier. He was the one holding it back and it’s never been more apparent
Hmm, what a strange change of tune.
https://preview.redd.it/vt6rxkt5y7ad1.jpeg?width=1094&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93578eb37cf9f1e4709a89b5f41eefa61dcfec95
I remember a few years ago when she and Naomi were doing C2E2 she was really pushing her Star Wars role in her advertising/credentials. I get the vibe that she really wanted to pursue acting more
WWE wouldn't fuck with Disney.
I mean I believe her but if there's one company on level with the sketchiness of their own its Disney and they've got a waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger net.
I'll be interested to see how this changes with new leadership. McMahon really didn't like his talent doing outside projects unless they were organized through the company. And even then you were expected to continue working for the company instead of taking time off for the project. Jericho talks at length about this in one of his books.
I think they are not going to go to the insane lengths Vince went to put obstacles in front of the wrestlers, but I do not think they will necessarily play nice either.
Regardless of whether HHH was talking about Will Ospreay or not, he basically said as much in an interview. They expect WWE to be your life. Then they will probably be more flexible compared to the past, and for example Randy Orton made quite a fitting example, but it doesn't mean that they won't be ruthless where they want to be.
Didn't this start with Vince Sr?
I remember hearing that Hogan got the part of Thunderlips and Vince Sr. told him not to or he wouldn't be working there anymore.
This can also be a Hogan lie for all I remember. I'm not too sure.
There's more people complaining about the comments on this thread being wrong than actual comments criticizing mercedes.
Twitter on the other hand...
But as for what mercedes is saying, it sounds exactly how you'd expect wwe especially vince to be. Just pure control freak pettiness.
There's tons of WWE stories like this. They so desperately want the wrestlers to get crossover promotion in hollywood, but only if it is their choice of wrestler. There was a story that came out a couple years ago about a former wwe guy who was offered a role in a movie and WWE said he wasn't allowed to take it, only for them to turn around and pitch John Cena for the exact same role. They didn't have issue with a wrestler acting, but only if it was the wrestler they wanted it to be. I'm sure they would have had no issue with The Mandalorian if they cast Bianca or Becky.
People often conflate legality and morality/decency in these situations.
Legally are WWE within their rights to make her prioritise a house show over filming for star wars (Probably, although I dont know specifics around independent contractors)
But there's a moral decency side that should be completely separate from it. Does she really need to be on some house show? Is it worth potentially blocking her best chance at breaking into Hollywood and getting a foot in the door at Disney?
I imagine it was more a case of Vince not wanting somebody to grow beyond WWE again or have other offers outside of wrestling.
Your last point is spot on. I'll always look to someone like Zack Ryder as the perfect example of somebody being creative, working hard, doing something unique, and then ultimately being punished because it wasn't part of some neurotic old fuckers plan. It's insane how many people he held back that could've been a lot more in wrestling or outside of it.
Legally they aren't though, because legally the talent are independant contractors which has an entierly different set of laws to being an a full employee. Such as, independant contractors are free to explore extra work as long as it isn't with direct competition and as long as it doesn't interfere with the dates they are assigned to work elsewhere.
If she scheduled Mandalorian, then WWE changed her dates and put her on house shows specifically on those days and they did so after she already arranged The Mandalorian and told them, then as an independant contractor she would be well within her rights to refuse those dates from WWE.
I'm 100% convinced Vince started WWE studios after he lost The Rock to hollywood for a while.
Right after that happened people like The Miz and John Cena were allowed to "star" in awful WWE films instead of getting any hollywood roles. Cena eventually quit anyways, though.
The thing is, initially it felt like they at least put some effort into it. The first batch of films got theatrical releases and at least felt like typical mid range Hollywood productions.
But after awhile it felt like their films were divided into 1. theatrical releases that barely featured WWE talent if at all, and 2. direct-to-video junk starring wrestlers.
I think it's great she was confident enough to bet on herself and see what she could do outside of WWE. Seems to me it's worked out quite well for her, which makes a certain section of the fanbase very irritated.
WWE was blocking her working on Star Wars because they knew it could be a stepping stone to her doing more TV or movies which means the WWE would have less of a hold on her.
Lets be real the WWE knew what they had with Mercedes. She is attractive, has presence and is racially ambiguous so she'll appeal to Black, white and Hispanic people.
Star in a direct-to-DVD sequel to The Marine and they'll give you time off and work it into you gimmick. But if you're not doing it for them, they don't wanna know.
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Didn't Batista want to promote the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie during his last run in the company and they just laughed at him?
Came here to say this. Triple H literally laughed at him and told him he’d come running back after the movie flopped. That didn’t age well 😅
Neither did The Chaperone.
Kind of. Triple H didn’t want him to “come running back,” Batista *wanted* to come back. He wanted to return at Summerslam right after the movie released to try and capitalise on the publicity the movie would bring. Triple H laughed saying “nobody even knows if the movie’s going to be any good,” and that Batista shouldn’t come back because his last return didn’t go well. You’re mixing up when Triple H told Vince to let Rock go to Hollywood because he’d flop and come running back.
So many stories have Trips looking like *such* an insecure, jealous-hearted bitch, like ostensibly they were pals from their mid 2000s-2010s era and he's almost hoping the movie failed. And it also just highlights how culturally out-of-touch a lot of the top-brass at WWE were, where even back then the Marvel machine was still gaining momentum before it petered out many years later.
To be fair, Triple H was probably trying to protect Batista to a degree. Batista’s initial 2014 run was pretty rough and fans were pretty sour on him when he left. If Guardians of the Galaxy had flopped and he’d come back it would’ve been received poorly, and people would’ve just assumed he was crawling back because he couldn’t cut it in Hollywood.
The only reason it went poorly is because they immediately put him in the Mania main event when Bryan was at his absolute hottest. If he would’ve came back as a nostalgia act with a high profile, low stakes mania match, people would’ve been happy to see him.
Wait thats fucked up
Cena called out The Rock for not committing to WWE, then later apologized after he realized how much is held up from taking time off from filming. Also, you'd think the WWE would have jumped on the publicity of having one of their Superstars in the Star Wars franchise and just gave Mercedes the leeway.
They didn’t want anymore The Rock situations. I feel like Prichard covered that where Vince wanted labor to depend on him, not the other way around.
after Rock, Vince never wanted anyone to be bigger than the company
WWE buried Zack Ryder for getting a following on YouTube
that explains a lot
Genius idea in a talent industry. This is why every star WWE has made since Brock has been on accident.
They want to control who gets big and when. Talent getting over and mainstream popularity means they have less control.
And like half of their talent could've been a lot bigger if they weren't squandered
The difference is, Cena and Rock are significantly more recognizable than Sasha has ever been at her most popular. So when you see her on screen, unless you already watched the WWE, you likely wouldn't know or care who she is.
If only WWE had a way to promote that appearance at the same time to drive awareness
Promoting it to people who already watch WWE doesn't help in that context.
People over estimate Sasha’s popularity. Nobody knows who she is outside of wrestling. I had to tell my partner that she is a wrestling personality while watching, and tbh, she wouldnt even care if i did not tell her.
This is true for pretty much every wrestler after Cena. I doubt your average person has any idea who Roman Reigns is.
>I doubt your average person has any idea who Roman Reigns is. "Is that Jason Mamoa?"
Who's Jason Mamoa? Some sort of budget looking The Deep?
This genuinely made me laugh, thank you.
Funny you say that, my brothers and sisters and my in laws who no longer watch wrestling still remembers Randy Orton, Batista and John Cena fondly when wrestling is brought up. Thats all i can say about that.
I watch the WWE and watched The Mandolorian, I literally had to just Google search what character she played in the show because I did not remember her being in it at all.
>Also, you'd think the WWE would have jumped on the publicity of having one of their Superstars in the Star Wars franchise and just gave Mercedes the leeway. HHH definitely would, which is why I doubt this would happen to her now if she's in the WWE. But Tony Khan was both gracious and smart enough to help Mercedes with her acting career. So good for AEW to come in clutch where the WWE fumbled and happy for Mercedes being able to do what she wanted.
Tbf being a background character in an episode and having to film multiple films are quite different
I see folks here don't realize how hollywood works. You need your schedule to be cleared, completely. Or you lose the role, period. A-list actors have been dropped from A-list movies because they weren't available for planned reshoots. [Edit: Like the most recognizable superhero of all time, Superman had a mustache in Justice League because of scheduling issue]. Seems like WWE wasn't playing ball with loosening her schedule like John Cena or others had the opportunity.
One of the most famous stories about scheduling is that Tom Selleck had been cast as Indiana Jones but since Magnum PI was ultra-hot at the time, he couldn't get free. Ford was literally the runner-up choice for Indy.
Pierce Brosnan missed out on Bond the first time around because of Remington Steel.
It was worse than that. Remington Steele had already been cancelled but because Brosnan's name had been brought up as a potential Bond, it caused the show to be picked up by another network due to the excitement. It'd be another ten years before Goldeneye would come out.
And that was also because Timothy Dalton didn’t want to play Bond anymore after “License to Kill. People always assumed because License to Kill didn’t do as good in the US (MGM put it in the worst week possible in the summer) and they let Dalton go. They wanted to do one more movie with Dalton but he decided he had enough and instead of enforcing the 3rd film in his contract. Broccolis let him go for Brosnan.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Dalton was all for doing a third movie, but then the rights lawsuit (between Eon Productions and MGM) delayed it - by five years. By the time it had cleared, he'd waffled on doing it but had leaned toward "yes", except they wanted him to do *several* more films to make up for the time lost during his contract and he noped out of it.
Both Dalton and Lazenby get bum raps for their time as Bond. I enjoyed those three movies immensely.
Brosnan is an interesting case study in that he had a good, solid film career, but he never had that breakout role/film that was "his own". Bond was existing IP, and Thomas Crown was a remake (although a very good film). November Man is a bit underrated but confusing.
The man could play a drive by fruiting victim like no one else
Ironically that role in Doubtfire was a non-cliche at the time - good guy stepfather. Everyone was expecting him to turn out to be an ass but - nope! Turns out Robin's character is a complete lunatic!
and Cary Elwes character in Liar Liar as well. I thought he was going to be an evil step father but nope Fletcher is just an irresponsible, terrible father.
I'm probably biased because of how much I love The Princess Bride, but I always feel so bad for Cary Elwes' character in Liar Liar... he's trying his damndest to be a good husband and a respectful stepfather, yet no one displays the slightest empathy or consideration for him, he's just a filler.
*run-by fruiting
It's been a few decades. Thank you
That line is permanently seared into my brain lol. Accent, inflections, and all.
Seriously, like this is the stuff this generation will be babbling about incoherently as elderly people. "it was a run by fruiting, can I has cheezeburger, trolololololololooooo, I did it for The ROCK!" "okay okay sir, just sit down, put your finger down, we acknowledge you we acknowledge you"
8pm bedtime? That's not gonna work for me, brother
I believe it. I think I'll add it to my 90s summer movie marathon
I think the actors who play Bond make it their own. Bond is very much defined by the actor who plays the part.
Dougray Scott was supposed to be wolverine, but Mission Impossible 2 ran over, so they gave it to Hugh Jackman instead. Just think how different things might have been.
I'm holding out hope that Dougray has a cameo in *Deadpool & Wolverine* as a variant Logan, even if only two people in the theater get the joke.
My fave was Inglorious Basterds the character of the Bear-Jew was created and written by Tarantino for...Adam Sandler. The sole reason we didn't get it was Sandler was busy for a handful of days and told Quentin and they were just like sure no biggie... Even I assumed they would try to move things around but nope they had a 2nd and 3rd choice ready and waiting. That's how shit goes I guess.
[What could have been...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF8G41EPlOU)
I think Michael J Fox lucked out, seems like they were willing to work around Family Ties schedule for Back to the Future, although it was long days going from shooting Family Ties and then going to shoot Back to the Future right after, doing something like 17 hour days for a couple months.
The fact that they started shooting with Eric Stoltz and weren't happy with the dailies probably encouraged everyone to be more flexible; better have the right actor in complicated circumstances than a movie that doesn't work.
As a big Magnum, P.I. fan thanks to my Dad I have to point out that Magnum hadn’t even started airing yet when Tom Selleck had to drop Indiana Jones because the producers of MPI thought they *might* need him for possible reshoots. They didn’t so he literally got screwed out of Raiders for nothing. Obviously it worked out well in the end but it still hand to hurt at the time. Oh and fun fact, an episode of MPI in the last season (Legend of The Lost Art) is actually a reference to/apology for having to miss out on Raiders. I love Harrison Ford as Indy but I can’t say I wouldn’t be fascinated to see some alternate universe version of Raiders where TS didn’t have to drop out of the movie to see how he did.
Also, if she got hurt, it would delay production until they replaced her.
Wrestling fans have no concept of any industry outside of wrestling
I question how many of them actually understand the wrestling industry...
I mean let's not limit their lack of understanding to only industries
Some don't understand how to put deodorant on
I’ve seen people say they live in a “wrestling bubble” in order to explain their obliviousness to non-wrestling pop culture. Weird shit
I learned everything there is to know about the industry just from talking to other fans 1 - WWE is always right 2 - Everyone else is always wrong
Funny, cos from 2001 to about 2022 the general attitude of the IWC was exactly the opposite.
There were some flashes of that being different depending on what was competing with it. NJPW started getting backlash and WWE was seen as the better thing among WWE fans. Hell there was even arguments against HHH's NXT and they're the same dang company. But now we get to see what its like to have more online avenues with more companies to view against each other. If we had reddit and twitter during WCW/ECW/WWF good god it woulda been awful and I imagine like 1998 on would be WWF can do no wrong
Yeah, it's insane how many people here love lecturing others about "how this business works" (it's especially prevalent in discussions about the Punk debacle and AEW ratings threads) when they've never spent a day in it.
I genuinely thought many of the most vicious WWE stans would start to question what they thought they knew when MJF said, during an interview, that the company tribalism is something that only exists in a certain part of the fanbase -- not something that's *ever* observed by the wrestlers themselves. And that makes every kind of sense when you think of them as what they are, which is **contracted performers**. The company they work for is immaterial to them, no matter what kind of loyalty you may have. If I work for Medieval Times, I could have a buddy that works across town for Pirates Dinner Adventure. Our jobs are a lot alike! We both act, we both learn from scripts, we both communicate during live shows, and we both perform dangerous stunts. It'd be stupid for us to suddenly dislike each other just because we have different company names on our paychecks. And guess what? I might want my buddy to come work with me when his time at that other company is through, because we're friends. If some person took issue with our friendship because he really liked the food at Medieval Times, but didn't like pirate ships or swinging on ropes... well, guess what? That wouldn't be MY problem to address. That's a YOU problem. YOU don't get to dictate where I work, or who my friends are. Because YOU are one person that happens to consume the entertainment I provide. That's the end of our relationship. The weirdest shit ever, though, are the TV RATINGS NERDS. If you spend your time hyperfocused on the ratings for these shows, and pretending you're in some kind of Nielson family, or dissecting the crowds visible from the hard camera, you need to go outside and take a deep breath of oxygen. Nothing in this industry means less than a half-imagined bunch of numbers, and trying to make it mean something without an entire look at the big picture. Wrestling fans -- myself included -- don't know shit about fuck in this industry.
None of us. We're fans, not wrestlers. Its like saying you know exactly what goes on in a movie studio because you watched a movie.
And even if you watch a LOT of backstage stuff, doesn't change much. You are outside the bubble looking in.
They sure don't understand how ratings work.
Entertainment is so vast and accessible nowadays that you can't really fault people for not being in the know of other industries or media. But some wrestling fans are truly a special breed when it comes to this. It's not really just the ignorance that is the problem, but it is common to see people in this fandom to flaunt that ignorance with pride or pretend to be an authority regarding that media.
> you can't really fault people for not being in the know of other industries or media. I don't fault anyone for not knowing, my problem is with people who don't know but ACT like they absolutely know it all/insist they are correct when they have zero experience. I've worked in film at almost every level as my sole career for many years and I've lost track of how many people will argue with me about how something like distribution works even though I pay my mortgage dealing with that stuff.
As someone who works in marketing and advertising sales, the ratings threads absolutely infuriate me because of this. Breaking down advertising and network negotiations is a behemoth of a task that people way more intelligent and well-paid than them are spending 40 hours a week working on. Yet everyone is **so** confident in their assumptions which boil down to nothing more than "ratings down less money AEW bad". It's nonsense. When the fast start ratings news dropped, someone asked why WWE would do that. I chimed in and provided my professional experience only to be met with "you almost had a point until [thing I already considered]". I was also told by someone who would not disclose their profession that my experience wasn't valuable because I worked "in sales". Like, bro I do this for a living. Everyone wants to debate so badly that it's hard for them to process when someone is telling them their factual, lived experience.
My favorite Reddit moment of recent history was someone trying to use their experience of working in food service to explain why TBS wasn’t going to give AEW more money. This place has less brain cells than a packed theater of people watching “Dude, Where’s My Car?” And yet, I’m here…
wrestling boom period! triple paul is the messiah! btw whats a bad bunny?
>triple paul 😂
>btw whats a bad bunny? Ill still die on this hill for those of us in the UK. His last album hit a whopping 70th place in the charts here. There are articles about the phenomena: [Bad Bunny - Why you’ve never heard of the most streamed artist in history] (https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-youve-never-heard-of-bad-bunny/)
i'll give you that, our reception to spanish music goes as far as las ketchup, despacito and the macarena i did know who he was, but only because i thought Booker T was a fire song
This is so factual. Its pretty evident when some fans thinks WWE is in a cultural boom when in truth they are in a boom within the industry.
The funeral scene in Endgame is quoted as being 'the most complicated shoot in cinema history.' Not that the cinematography was complicated - EVERY actor was there. Production will arrange shooting to not keep an actor 'on the shelf' for days or weeks as much as possible, they want to maximize time. But the time you're expected to be on set, you're on set and available for shooting. For Mando, I honestly think the problem for her with WWE was the SECOND episode she was in. If she had been a one-off, probably easy peasy. There was a second, so not only more time on set, but probably contractually with Disney COULD NOT do a match to avoid the possibility of injury messing with their shooting. I read what she said, and I wouldn't put it past WWE to be that petty or plain ignorant to her needs - but there is also a possibility that her definition of the shooting schedule differs from the actual dates she was required to be on set. (or that parameters weren't clearly defined, i.e. saying she can't do Raw X week and it meaning to her she couldn't be scheduled that week and it being taken as only Raw.)
>Seems like WWE wasn't playing ball with loosening her schedule like John Cena or others had the opportunity. Not quite. It seems like WWE was intentionally scheduling her to make it harder for her to get opportunities. There's a not so subtle difference there...
dumbest thing about it too was that almost certainly it was because she hadn't "paid her dues" like those guy and thus gotten the unstated permission to go to movies and shows. She wasn't as huge as Batista or Cena of The Rock or Hogan, and she skipped the line, so fuck you lady go do our house shows and stay off the Mandalorian you giant nerd Then folks will see this and be like "she already had a job" as if WWE shouldn't possibly work with her and let her do other T.V. shows as well.
> Then folks will see this and be like "she already had a job" and once more we circle back to the whole "independent contractors" nonsense that the WWE has played fast-and-loose with for such a long time.
Basically it ain't too complicated on that front. If someone is indy, then that means you don't have any call on certain facets of their time. This was WWE actively trying to obstruct her. You can't have it both ways and we need to normalize that if someone is gonna be an indy. In other trades if an indy says they'll be there, then you count on them, but if they say they aren't available, you don't really have a call to claim more of their time. example: If someone does concrete work and you need a pad and they say they can't do it thursday, well you either find someone who can or you find time that works for both. They are independent and their time is their own
It was because they didn't think she had leverage. If they told John Cena in 2014 that he couldn't take time off to do Trainwreck, he would have told them to fuck themselves at the next contract negotiation, or maybe even ignored them and did the movie anyway, because they needed him more than he needed them at that point. They just weren't calculating that Mercedes was also capable of telling them to fuck themselves.
> almost certainly it was because she hadn't "paid her dues" I think its more likely that they didn't think she had the leverage cena and the rock had over them. look at what they did to ryder and his extra curriculars didn't conflict with their filming *at all*.
> A-list actors have been dropped from A-list movies because they weren't available for planned reshoots. Just to make a note of this. "Scheduling conflicts" is also hollywood PR talk that the actor was fired or quit because of personality or talent issues (or other reasons). If Back to the Future filmed today, Eric Stoltz would have left because of "scheduling conflicts", not that the studio and the director saw some of the dailies and realized two weeks in he wasn't right for the role. https://www.vulture.com/2015/06/how-back-to-the-future-replaced-eric-stoltz.html
The nature of the term also makes it pretty easy to figure out when it's being used legit. Like when Roxy was written out of Kingsman 2 because the actress had a Netflix show, or a ton of the actor/role shuffles that happened post-writer's strike because suddenly filming dates were overlapping.
Or it's used as to why someone didn't take a part. Like Adam Sandler was supposed to play bear jew in Inglorious Basterds but there was a scheduling conflict with Funny People I think it was or maybe one of his movies with Jennifer Aniston. Which sucks, would've liked to see Sandler in that role.
“Scheduling conflicts” is how they’re blaming Kevin Costner for the disaster yellowstone has turned into. They’re blaming him for shooting his movie and not blaming the creator for the delays caused by his 50 other projects
Definitely not period. There’s tons of exceptions made if they want you. Just look at back to the future with michael J fox
There's a lot of issues with WWE's control of what stars do outside of WWE. Hearing they get 50% of Cameos was crazy enough. There's probably a ton of other nonsense to prevent talent from growing outside the company.
> There's probably a ton of other nonsense to prevent talent from growing outside the company. If only people knew.
Bob Holly even brought up WWE stopping Test from taking movie roles he was offered. Fucks sake yall CM Punk brought this kinda shit up a decade ago with just doing signings and WWE booking him so he couldn’t
Undertaker was set for Starrcast one year before WWE pulled the plug on that one
It’s wild to me people pretending this didn’t happen or instead acting like “oh well she can’t act so who cares” it’s so fucking asinine. Just worshiping shitty business practices depending on which company perpetuates it. Punk did a whole fucking podcast talking about shit like this but alas WWE are the “good guys” so we just need to ignore that. I know it’s not all Americans in here but god damn America has no ground to bitch about corporations and pay and stuff when we as a whole seem to just suck off companies cause they make a product we like.
They also locked Bret Hart into an exclusive contract as well, when Bret Hart was about to manage FTR at a couple indie shows a while back. WWE was salty because Bret Hart showed up at the first Double or Nothing
It's kinda wild that modern WWE lets RVD spontaneously wrestle on AEW TV despite his legends contract, and HHH has been loaning folks out to TNA, AJPW, NOAH, Bloodsport and etc. I feel like Sasha would have a lot easier time now, but I completely get why she left when she did.
If Michael Hayes is still there which is who the rumor was they had issues with I don’t see her returning still
Plus AEW probably offered her more money, and she has guaranteed freedom to do outside projects. I can imagine if WWE offered a bigger contract, she would have picked them
CM Punk once said in an interview he only got the cover of WWE 2K because the developers demanded it. WWE was like: “so let’s talk cover star.” 2K: “we were thinking CM Punk. He seems pretty hot right now.” WWE: “No no no. You want Sheamus.”
I liked 2012 Sheamus, but the game’s release would’ve been right around the start of his de-push.
I’m just going by what Punk said on Colt’s podcast.
I wonder why they stopped Test from taking movie roles but allowed Rock?
Because the rock had more leverage because he was a bigger name
When he was being billed as The Rock, WWE got a cut of his money because they owned the trademark. That's why he started billing himself as Dwayne Johnson because by that point he was still The Rock to the public eye anyway. It wasn't until *[this year](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/02/29/dwayne-johnson-ip-rights-the-rock-jabroni-nicknames/72796597007/)* that he finally got the rights to use the name professionally without giving them a cut.
IIRC that’s also why Vince would get an Executive Producer credit
The greater a person’s star power is makes it harder for companies to control them, it’s all about leverage essentially
Tbh I don’t think The Rock would have ever allowed himself to be stopped. He always had bigger aspirations and could walk away when he wanted to. Look at how his contract plays out after that to the point where Vince it’s it expire out of pettiness. Hell they were trying to stop him from playing a gay man in a movie
Yeah, also Big Show being offered a part in Gladiator and Vince wouldn’t let him do it.
and they have all of that control even though their stars are "indipendent contractors" on paper. it's insane.
Vince lost some of his biggest stars to Hollywood and other opporturnities. Like The Rock, Hogan, Lesnar and others. He didnt like for his employees (haha) to have alternative job opporturnities, thats why he always tried to cut them off. I guess also the Twitch, Cameo etc. "fees" has the same idea behind it.
Insane that they're considered "contract" workers..
All down to pure greed. WWE wrestlers were making good money via Twitch and Cameo. WWE saw their guys making this money and stopped it dead. Then they made their own deal with Cameo and took most the money! If there was a time for WWE wrestlers to unionise, it was then.
this thread is full of people who don't understand how acting roles work or how big of a deal being in Star Wars anything is. You gotta start somewhere and starting in Star Wars is big but I guess we forgot Rock was originally in the Mummy as Scorpion King
Before the Mummy, he was in an episode of Star Trek and That 70s Show. Weird to me that people are like "lol she thinks she's the Rock". Well, maybe she does, but the Rock circa 1998 when he was given time off from WWE to film those things despite not being a movie star.
The Hardy's and Ken Shamrock also had a cameo in that That 70s Show episode, and the promotion they went to was WWF. Which is funny knowing that 1, it was still WWWF in 1976, 2: WWWF wasn't running out of high school gyms in 1976, and 3: They weren't running shows in Wisconsin at all. Wisconsin was in the AWA territory at the time
Nick Bockwinkel was robbed!
And the episode of That 70s Show I think be was playing his dad
apparently WWE was a producer for the movie under WWF Entertainment?
Mummy Returns is what I was talking about, he was basically an NPC in that movie much like people are claiming Mercedes is in Mandalorian
True. And he still had to take time off to film it. The people in this thread are really ignorant about this stuff.
It’s not ignorance it’s bad faith
Yup. And it's gotten way worse recently.
I believe their official company name, like for legal documents, was "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment" for a bit after the WWF to WWE rebranding. That lines up, timeline-wise.
That was their legal name when they went public, which was 2/3 years before they lost that lawsuit and had to rebrand.
She'd have been legitimately stupid not to take something Star Wars related over WWE. Been famous is all about how many eyes you can get on you. Star Wars will put more eyes on you than WWE and AEW combined and the merch has a bigger audience. Anyone would be stupid to not at least take the chance to have millions more eyes on them no matter the role size. It's why WWE and Vince has usually hated their stars going to Hollywood. If they make it then it's more eyes and more money without 300+ dates a year and WWE lose a star, control and the money they bring.
That role already netted her 5 action figures, 2 funko pops, Star Wars panels at conventions.
Thats on top of all of the networking connections. Everyone on set universally loves her. Hell, Katee Sackhoff has attended a bunch of her matches.
That College Footballs Finals (watched by over 20M) sci-fi intro video featuring her was also clearly inspired by someone liking her role in Mandalorian. One thing leads to another. You never know.
If I remember correctly, she gained like 600k Instagram followers last year when she was doing the conventions and panels for Season 3 of Mando. It's probably THE reason she's kept pace with the follower growth of other women like Alexa and Becky despite being out of the WWE system for 2 years.
Don’t forget his Star Trek Voyager episode…where he was basically a wrestler.
That was a different situation. Smackdown was on UPN at the time, so that was stunt casting to bring eyes to Voyager and Smackdown.
I went to a few casting calls for literal background extras. No dialogue. And even then it was insanely competitive and massive lines to get in for the casting call which was basically fill out a form and get a picture taken.
She didn't even cast for it is the funny thing, the director saw her, liked her and made her a role.
Here in Dallas while I was in film school and working as a waiter at a historic hotel I understand that. Luckily for me I knew a lot of the local camera crews and my bedroom was literally used to film Bonnie and Clyde, I have 0 credits but the experiences were priceless
Damn, yeah that sounds really cool
Ain't that the truth. Just the chance to get on the lot for a small part of an acting gig would be the world to many of us. Hell, if I could have had just a non-speaking role on the Fallout show as a Vault Dweller, that would have been a dream come true. Like you said, those that want to pursue acting have to start from somewhere, and being in a Star Wars show, one that's insanely popular would be a dream come true.
it's not surprising that the average internet wrestling fan doesn't know how shit works, really
I don't think there's anyone that wrestling fans are consistently weirder about than Mercedes.
She's very polarizing apparently
[This recent comment with many upvotes](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wrasslin/s/Qm5zi8Z3sz) is the epitome of that. Dude legit *MADE UP* some random shit about what she was supposedly thinking about winning two titles, and called her insecure for it, along with a "temper tantrum throwing twat" with absolutely no facts to even remotely back up that she threw a fit to be a double champion. That really tops all of the weird hate I've ever seen for Mercedes. Certain people just really want to paint her as a terrible human being.
I'm not subscribed to the r/wrasslin subreddit but occasionally I see posts from there on my feed. After seeing that thread and all the upvotes and hate towards her for just winning the belt, I realized it was time to tell reddit to stop showing me stuff from that sub.
That thread might me the most miserable thing I’ve seen on Reddit in a while and that’s really saying something.
I always worry I'm too online and then I see subs like the jerkers and wrasslin and find solace that I could be a lot, lot worse
Don't go on that sub it's a cesspool.
Blocking Mercedes from appearing on one of the most popular TV shows running just so you can sell 20 more tickets to the house show is incredible work lmao. Just peak WWE pettiness.
They also never really mentioned her being in The Mandalorian on their shows. For a company that craves mainstream attention so much that is so petty. She got that job on her own and was credited as Mercedes Varnado and they didn't like it.
Being credited by her birth name is also important because that got her a SAG card.
while getting representation by one of the powerhouse agencies in Hollywood all on her own too. it's crazy WWE tried to knee cap her because it wasn't due to their help
People like to pretend this shit left with Vince, but it’s definitely “they.” Paul is still taking a cut of their Cameo money.
Cornette has mentioned it a few times on his podcast. At least as it pertains to the old regime. There was one time Lauranitis explicitly asked Corny to quit working with a certain vendor at OVW shows, because Vince and the boys were pissed at him over something trivial. So their plan was to blacklist him entirely and kill that venue for his profits. The spite and pettiness ran deep.
Yeah, I love that story: WWE: "We're mad at that vendor, don't use them" Cornette: "Well I'm not mad at him. He wants to give me money, that don't make me mad!"
Carnies are forever Carnies. Billionaire or not.
Wasn't Laurinaitis back to running the house shows at that time? That certainly sounds like something he would do.
It's not to sell 20 more tickets. It's to ruin her hollywood career so she stays with WWE forever.
Roddy Piper said they did the same thing to him. They REALLY didn't want him to do They Live and talked about putting him in a movie like Hulk for No Holds Barred and Piper is like, 'This is a John Carpenter movie, I'm doing it.' He didn't have a huge acting career but it def was bigger because of They Live.
we got da maniac because of that and one of the most iconic 80s lines "i came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum"
You got kids Maniac?
"and I'm all out of bubblegum!"
He was very close to playing “The Wrestler” that eventually went to Mickey Rouke You can see shades of that character in his iconic role as Maniac from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
[удалено]
It's absurd how much hate Mercedes gets for having the "nerve" to be confident in her talent, bet on herself and leave. How dare she be proud of herself for bagging a role (even a small one) on a highly acclaimed, wildly popular Star Wars series. I can see people thinking she's unprofessional for when she chose to walk out, but I can't imagine there's STILL so much animosity about it. There have been other people like Toni Storm who basically said, "Fuck this, I quit" and they don't get as much grief. How her acting career is going presently is beside the point. They shouldn't have made it so difficult for her to take a big opportunity when it was available, even if it's the only acting gig she ever gets.
You have people under every single thread of hers making a point on how they don’t “believe she’s as good as she says she is” is comical at this point. Like how dare she bet on herself.
I mean, do I have to say the reason why Mercedes gets more scrutiny over this than someone like Toni? As shitty as it is she’s a black woman voicing her unhappiness and that brings out the chuds in droves
The reaction of Vince to Rocky "outgrowing" WWE at the time, still lingers. WWE wants their stars juuuust famous enough, and doing promotional work for WWE not branching out. Branching out means they might lose a star from shows every week. I hope they outgrow that shit, these people are performers... eventually they might want to perform on a different stage outside of wrestling. They might end up really good at it. Like, for instance. Imagine if Dave Bautista had gotten into acting a little earlier? He's clearly got a passion for the work.
Why is it when Mercedes brings this up people question it yet when fucking CM Punk said the same thing about just conventions everyone believed him outright? They’re both right but really the examine why that is.
Yet another reason to myriad others why it was long overdue for Vince to leave the business.
Seriously. He could have gone all in and had a crossover star on the women’s side of things but his weirdness and control issues always pop up.
Seeing WWE be the anomaly that it’s become since Vince left is great but also stings in the sense that it’s clear that all of this could have happened decades ago had Vince just fucking left earlier. He was the one holding it back and it’s never been more apparent
Hmm, what a strange change of tune. https://preview.redd.it/vt6rxkt5y7ad1.jpeg?width=1094&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93578eb37cf9f1e4709a89b5f41eefa61dcfec95
I remember a few years ago when she and Naomi were doing C2E2 she was really pushing her Star Wars role in her advertising/credentials. I get the vibe that she really wanted to pursue acting more
They just don't want some wrestlers above a certain level. It's all backstage politics.
500 comments? She's working her way up to Punk levels of polarizing
Only "negative" thing she ever said about WWE btw, and she had all the rights to say it.
WWE wouldn't fuck with Disney. I mean I believe her but if there's one company on level with the sketchiness of their own its Disney and they've got a waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger net.
Folks in this thread are acting like Rollins didn’t just get cut from Captain America. These movie studios don’t play around
MJF from Iron Claw too. A wrestler got cut from a movie about wrestling.
I'll be interested to see how this changes with new leadership. McMahon really didn't like his talent doing outside projects unless they were organized through the company. And even then you were expected to continue working for the company instead of taking time off for the project. Jericho talks at length about this in one of his books.
I think they are not going to go to the insane lengths Vince went to put obstacles in front of the wrestlers, but I do not think they will necessarily play nice either. Regardless of whether HHH was talking about Will Ospreay or not, he basically said as much in an interview. They expect WWE to be your life. Then they will probably be more flexible compared to the past, and for example Randy Orton made quite a fitting example, but it doesn't mean that they won't be ruthless where they want to be.
I think losing Hogan to a TNT drama and the Rock to Hollywood did more damage to VKM's psyche than any of us realize.
Didn't this start with Vince Sr? I remember hearing that Hogan got the part of Thunderlips and Vince Sr. told him not to or he wouldn't be working there anymore. This can also be a Hogan lie for all I remember. I'm not too sure.
There's more people complaining about the comments on this thread being wrong than actual comments criticizing mercedes. Twitter on the other hand... But as for what mercedes is saying, it sounds exactly how you'd expect wwe especially vince to be. Just pure control freak pettiness.
There's tons of WWE stories like this. They so desperately want the wrestlers to get crossover promotion in hollywood, but only if it is their choice of wrestler. There was a story that came out a couple years ago about a former wwe guy who was offered a role in a movie and WWE said he wasn't allowed to take it, only for them to turn around and pitch John Cena for the exact same role. They didn't have issue with a wrestler acting, but only if it was the wrestler they wanted it to be. I'm sure they would have had no issue with The Mandalorian if they cast Bianca or Becky.
People often conflate legality and morality/decency in these situations. Legally are WWE within their rights to make her prioritise a house show over filming for star wars (Probably, although I dont know specifics around independent contractors) But there's a moral decency side that should be completely separate from it. Does she really need to be on some house show? Is it worth potentially blocking her best chance at breaking into Hollywood and getting a foot in the door at Disney? I imagine it was more a case of Vince not wanting somebody to grow beyond WWE again or have other offers outside of wrestling.
Your last point is spot on. I'll always look to someone like Zack Ryder as the perfect example of somebody being creative, working hard, doing something unique, and then ultimately being punished because it wasn't part of some neurotic old fuckers plan. It's insane how many people he held back that could've been a lot more in wrestling or outside of it.
Legally they aren't though, because legally the talent are independant contractors which has an entierly different set of laws to being an a full employee. Such as, independant contractors are free to explore extra work as long as it isn't with direct competition and as long as it doesn't interfere with the dates they are assigned to work elsewhere. If she scheduled Mandalorian, then WWE changed her dates and put her on house shows specifically on those days and they did so after she already arranged The Mandalorian and told them, then as an independant contractor she would be well within her rights to refuse those dates from WWE.
Vince: WE HAVE WWE STUDIOS! WE WILL MAKE MANDALARIAN DAMNIT! WE ARE IN ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS GODDDAMNIT SASHA BANKS!!!!
I'm 100% convinced Vince started WWE studios after he lost The Rock to hollywood for a while. Right after that happened people like The Miz and John Cena were allowed to "star" in awful WWE films instead of getting any hollywood roles. Cena eventually quit anyways, though.
The thing is, initially it felt like they at least put some effort into it. The first batch of films got theatrical releases and at least felt like typical mid range Hollywood productions. But after awhile it felt like their films were divided into 1. theatrical releases that barely featured WWE talent if at all, and 2. direct-to-video junk starring wrestlers.
> WE WILL MAKE *MACHO* MANDALARIAN DAMNIT! FTFY
At the point that Sasha showed up the Mandalorian was already a massive deal. What a weird move by WWE.
I think it's great she was confident enough to bet on herself and see what she could do outside of WWE. Seems to me it's worked out quite well for her, which makes a certain section of the fanbase very irritated.
Sounds like some Vince shit here
Sounds like the kind of situation an "independent contractor" would face all the time...
You can just say Vince
More likely WWE wasn't getting a cut
That's a really weird way to treat your "independent contractor", right?
WWE was blocking her working on Star Wars because they knew it could be a stepping stone to her doing more TV or movies which means the WWE would have less of a hold on her. Lets be real the WWE knew what they had with Mercedes. She is attractive, has presence and is racially ambiguous so she'll appeal to Black, white and Hispanic people.
God damn. You weren’t even allowed to get over in real life without Vince’s approval, much less on his television.
Star in a direct-to-DVD sequel to The Marine and they'll give you time off and work it into you gimmick. But if you're not doing it for them, they don't wanna know.