Your News: WWE held their 2007 shareholders meeting today in Connecticut. Vince McMahon addressed many questions from the audience. Highlights are below. My Thoughts in Bold.

- Said that WWE had a good year but that he wasn't satisfied and never will be. He said that some things they tried didn't work but that happens and that their goal is always to look to the long term.

Good, they should never be happy. When you get complacent, like they did right after the failed Invasion and they started to suck a cock.

VKM needs to improve the in ring product no doubt and as he has said so many times competition is good it makes you strive harder to improve and innovate the selling of wcw to WWE was a disaster of the industry in Northern America

- Talked about WWE Films. He really blasted Lionsgate for how they marketed The Condemned, basically blaming them for the film's lack of success. He went as far as to say that they "sabatoged" the film. He said that they never promoted Steve Austin as the star, never properly explained what the story was about in the poster and trailers, and said that nobody outside of the WWE fanbase knew about the film. He put over 20th Century Fox for the job they did on The Marine. He said that WWE is close to reaching a new deal with Fox, which will see two theatrical releases and several DVD releases. He said that he doesn't want to do anymore R rated films. He also said that with their current financial model for films, it is very hard for them to lose money on any of them.

Well, I am sure that there is some truth to this, because outside of WWE programming pushing the movie, I didn't see a lot of Lion's Gate promotion. But you can't place all the blame on them. It was rated R, so they alienated a part of their audience. Austin isn't active anymore, so honestly, doesn't have the huge following he once did. And really, it didn't look like a MUST SEE movie. I'll see it, but apparently not everyone wanted too.

false basically Austin is past his sell by date and at his hottest period of 1998-2001 would ahve sold the film alone on his name but now his fan's interest is waning, as for the marine I never was sure there were enough Cena marks to make it successful, excluding the fact that Cena is wooden.

- He talked about WWE expanding into MMA, saying that they considered it but have decided against it. He said that MMA is everywhere it can be right now and that it will burn out soon. He said that MMA has no major stars and that it is difficult to invest in a fighter because all that investment can be undone if he loses or gets knocked out. He said the upside isn't there for MMA or boxing in terms of WWE going in those directions.

"He said that MMA has no major stars and that it is difficult to invest in a fighter because all that investment can be undone if he loses or gets knocked out." And that is why I am glad that you are not getting into MMA, because you know both jack and shit about it. If there are no stars, why did Shamrock and Tito do 700,000 buys? Why did Chuck and Tito do 1.2 million buys, DOMESTIC? Because the market well and have built stars. You know, I wish that when people didn't know about things that they wouldn't talk about them.

Then if that is the case was Wrestlemania only JUST the top ppv buy? MMA is here to stay and VKM should accept it and realise that unless he actually presents a decent in ring product given a couple of years WWE will be overtaken in the financial stakes by the MMA companies in terms of buy rates.

- He talked about the XFL, saying that the failure has not humbled him. He once again said that if NBC had not of backed out, the league would have been a success. He said that NBC backing out made all their other TV partners nervous and caused the demise of the league.

Yeah, he wasn't humbled, that's why people said he was going insane back then and his family was worried for his health. Also, he is delusional in thinking that it would have been a success, people set their opinion, they associated it with him and it got the negative stigma and they tuned out.

DELUSIONAL

- Said the brand extension will continue despite the tri-branded PPVs. Said that injuries forced them to adapt.

The brand extension is fucked because of this. The wrong execution of the right idea, and Edge is a shining example of why this should have worked. He has been off of Smackdown for a long while, the injuries happen and he jumps, wins the title and NOW you have this:

Edge vs. Taker
vs. Kennedy
vs. Benoit
vs. Rey
vs. Booker
vs. Henry

Right there you have 18months to 2-years of the top booked. Why? Because he has been gone for so long and this is all fresh.

Brand Extension would only work if you treated them as seperate brands and did not cross book alllowing fans to make a choice of red or blue, instead we had cross booking and in fact now now one cares who holds what title as the titles are worthless anyway

- Said that the ECW brand has not met his expectations. He did add that it takes time to build a brand and that ECW has a bright future.

And when you sabotage it, it also takes longer.

ECW was screwed the moment VKM got Paul E out of the book honestly no one cares about ECW anymore as the fans now realise its the dumping ground for WWE stars who can't cut it on the red and the blue brands

and China, and that Linda McMahon is going to China in July.

Smart.
KERCHING!
at WWE has tested high definition and will be going to it within the next year.

Shocking, as they hated the HD tests because it "Exposed" them.
WHY? the use of hd will basically mean fans will see everything in the ring including the blade jobs so it will be harder for fans to suspend their disbelief


OLE that keeps emailing me about WM, see, if you plan ahead, Every match CAN be a title match. Once again, I am right, and you fail at life.

- Said that PPV is headed in a direction where everyone will eventually watch them online or through other digital means and that the middle man of PPV providers will be eliminated.

That would suck, I like watching on my TV.
Agreed
- Said that the cable companies are happy with WWE 24/7 but that WWE hasn't put enough energy behind it yet.

I need to get that, it is supposedly available through my provider now.
Don't get WWE 24/7
- He said that there is an effort going on in the company right now to delegate more of his duties to other people because it isn't wise to have so much responsibility fall completely on him. He said that if your last name is McMahon or Levesque, you have a good chance at succeeding him.

Smart, you never know when his heart will explode. Roids and 80-hour work weeks are a BAD combo.
Legally I can't say what I feel but surely a man as "ripped" as VKM isn't natural at his age
- Said he doesn't have time to do a book on his life.

Damn, that would be interesting if he would be honest.
No chance of that just another account of the McMahon genius at work and how he beat all of his enemies through out the years there is no way in hell of McMahon ever being honest with his life story
- Said that WWE is trying to get back to the fundamentals inside the ring and that the in-ring product will be a place of big improvement over the next year.

Tremendous news.
About F*****G time too!
- Put over WWE's production and said they will continue to get better in that department.

Their production is great, and if they can get better, that will be an amazing thing.

- Said that TNA can succeed as a "niche product" but added that their biggest mistake would be to try and compete with WWE. He said he doesn't have time to watch their product. Said that TNA needs to produce a different product to succeed.

TNA can be more than a niche product, so he is wrong there. But he is dead on in saying what you, I and others have said. TNA needs to produce a different product to succeed, not be WWE-Lite.
TNA at the moment is screwed as long as it uses Vince Ruso as its booker he cannot understand that audiences want anything other than crash TV. When they do understand that and fire Russo TNA could be seriously a threat to the McMahon crown
- Said that using celebrities has its place but only sometimes, since promoting celebrities takes away from promoting regular wrestlers. He mentioned how WCW never had success using celebrities.

Agreed totally.
Celebrities in wrestling only work outside the ring rarely in it!
- Said that he "doubts" WWE will ever follow the route of other major American companies and work with companies in terrorist states.

Terrorist States? WTF? Are Japan and Mexico Terrorist States now?