Vince McMahon Not the Primary Reason for Talking Smack’s Cancellation

It was reported last week via Sports Illustrated that one of the reason’s Talking Smack was canceled was because Vince McMahon was not a fan of the format, however those claims appear to be false.

Dave Meltzer received word from a source within WWE that the cancellation of the weekly show had nothing to do with Vince McMahon not liking the format but to do with the viewership numbers the show was receiving.

“Despite all rumors, Vince doesn’t hate Talking Smack. Also, he does not watch it but gets a weekly report about it every Wednesday. The one thing he didn’t like was when the New Day appeared right after Kofi (Kingston) got cleared (the 5/23 episode). That was technically their Tuesday night debut and Vince felt the first Tuesday appearance should have happened on Smackdown.”

As previously noted, the Talking Smack episodes will still air after SmackDown-brand pay-per-view events, as those numbers seem to perform well.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap w/ Kristian Harloff – Writing for WWE, Relationship with Roddy Piper, WWE Limiting Their Talents, More!

Russo welcomes former WWE writer Kristian Harloff to the show.

Harloff says that he was always a huge wrestling fan, and his favourite performer was ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage. He moved to Los Angeles to become a writer and a stand up comedian, and he met Paul Heyman through a WWE event one evening. He asked Heyman how to get a chance to write for WWE and Heyman told him to write a letter. He told Heyman he already did that, so Heyman told him to write another one.

He wrote the company again, this time including his take on an in-depth ‘Invasion’ angle. This caught the attention of Stephanie McMahon and she flew him into Stanford for an interview.

Russo asks Harloff why he’d want to make the jump from being a stand-up comedian to writing professional wrestling. He says that he always wanted to work for WWE and he had to take the chance. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving in WWE he realized that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows behind the curtains.

Harloff informs that he got on management’s radar quick, but not in a positive way. During his first pre-show production meeting which was led by Vince McMahon, Harloff raised his hand to ask questions on multiple occasions. Coach came up to him after that and told him to settle down a little bit, because you don’t want to be ‘that’ guy.

Justin Roberts Reveals What It Is Like Working With Vince McMahon

Justin Roberts recently talked to the Cult of Whatever about a number of topics. During the interview, Justin was asked how he felt working for Vince Mcmahon and what he thought of him.

Here’s what Roberts replied:

“He is on top of everything; he makes sure everything goes the way he wants it to go. He micromanages everyone and everything. Sometimes he isn’t clear on direction and what he wants you to do, sometimes his direction doesn’t make sense, sometimes he will tell you one thing but he wants something else. It’s not easy to work for him but you’ll learn a lot from him, I can say that much because there is brilliance somewhere in there, it’s not everywhere but there is a brilliance that is a part of it. It prepares you for when you’re done to go and work anywhere else because once you work for Vince you can go anywhere.”

What do you think about Roberts’s thoughts on Vinnie Mac? Let us know in the comments.

Dinner with the King Recap – ‘This is Your Life’ Reaction, Invading the ECW Arena, Hatred from Fans, More!

Lawler opens today’s show speaking about the ‘This is Your Life’ segment featuring Alexa Bliss and Bayley on this week’s episode of RAW. He says that WWE probably wishes they had another opportunity to re-write this or scrap it altogether, because it certainly didn’t go as planned.

He says that you have to give WWE creative a break from time to time because they’re producing 5 hours of live television every single week of the year, and not everything is going to be must-see television. It’s impossible to write the best segment of all time every single show, so he has no issue cutting WWE some slack on this segment.

Moore says he’s not buying that, and he feels that somewhere along the way someone should have pulled this segment from the show. It was very difficult to watch and it probably should have been scrapped during rehearsals. Lawler says that he’s worked on RAW and Smackdown for many years and he has seen a lot of stuff that was hard to watch. Sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you hope.

Lawler also points out that this was live television, and anything can happen on live television. Vince McMahon and the company’s philosophy is that nothing can go wrong on live television, because whatever happens happens.

Hulk Hogan Reportedly In Negotiations with Vince McMahon for WWE Return

Hulk Hogan recently told fans at an autograph signing that he is in negotiations with Vince McMahon to return to WWE.

“Hulk Hogan did an autograph signing over the weekend in Los Angeles and when asked about the obvious question, just said he and Vince are talking,” Dave Meltzer said in the May 8, 2017, issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

“Then again, it is Hogan. The answer to the question of his returning is always about when the feeling it is a time when the company feels there will be no potential sponsor backlash.”

As noted earlier today, The Hulkster was featured on a double-sided poster in the WWE Kids magazine that was being handed out during WWE’s recent tour overseas. This is another indication of his return to the company.

Talk is Jericho Recap w/ Jinder Mahal – Becoming Number One Contender, Relationship with Great Khali, Origins of 3MB, More!

Jericho welcomes Jinder Mahal to the show.

Jericho mentions that Mahal appeared to come out of nowhere to become the new number one contender for the WWE Championship. He says he was told the day before winning the 6-pack challenge on Smackdown Live that he was going to become the number one contender. Concerning his run as an enhancement talent prior to this, Vince McMahon told him that WWE’s audience has a short memory and Mahal says, “I guess we’ll all find out about that”.

Mahal says he got pretty down on himself emotionally after being released from WWE a couple of years ago. He was drinking a lot and his weight ballooned to 260 lbs. He realized that he needed to change his lifestyle, so he began dieting and getting into shape, and soon enough WWE came calling. He says that Impact Wrestling actually called him about coming to work for them as well, but he chose to come back to WWE.

He says that during those two years he was very negative and was working the indie scene and just didn’t care. As soon as he started to care about himself and his wrestling again, everything changed and opportunities started to arise again. He says he’s remaining very positive now, and he keeps a daily planner of his goals. One of his goals is to have the best body in WWE, and another is to win the WWE Championship.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Triple H Working Vince McMahon, Safety Concerns in Wrestling, Booker T’s Commentary, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo comments on the dynamic at the top of WWE between Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Russo says a fan wrote him a letter this past week suggesting that Triple H is ‘working’ his father-in-law, Vince McMahon, in an attempt to ascend to the top of the mountain that is WWE.

Russo truly believes that Triple H is working Vince McMahon, and although he had a lot of pleasurable experiences with Triple H in the past, he also remembers times when he wasn’t as easy to deal with. He recalls one time when Triple H refused to do the job for D-Lo Brown, who had put Triple H over for months upon months. This really aggravated Russo because the creative team wanted to keep D-Lo Brown strong and the one time they asked Triple H to return the favour, he refused to do so.

The fan who wrote Russo suggested that Triple H has convinced McMahon that social media is WWE’s most important statistic at this point, ahead of television ratings and things of the sort. Since social media is compiled mostly of hardcore fans, WWE’s product has skewed towards a niche fanbase in an attempt to get positive reinforcement from their social media target base.