Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: espn, wrestling, WWE WrestlePalooza

ESPN Locks WrestlePalooza Megathread After Reddit Revolt

Comrades! ESPN created a discussion megathread for WrestlePalooza, then locked all comments after fans criticized ESPN and WWE's capitalist greed.

Greetings, comrades! It is I, your El Presidente, reporting to you live from my newly renovated Social Media Monitoring Bunker, located three stories beneath my presidential palace's infinity pool! Today, I bring you a tale of censorship so absurd, it makes my own Ministry of Propaganda look like a beacon of free speech!

Our friends at ESPN have created what they call a "megathread" for their inaugural WrestlePalooza event – a thread meant to gather all discussion in one glorious place. But here's the plot twist that would make even my good friend Kim Jong-un spit out his cognac: they've locked all the comments! That's right, comrades – a discussion thread where no one can discuss anything! It's like throwing a party and then nailing all the doors shut because you're afraid someone might criticize your choice of appetizers!

You see, ESPN discovered that when you let the people speak freely, sometimes they say things you don't want to hear. The masses were apparently flooding their precious megathread with complaints about WWE's new partnership with ESPN, making their Premium Live Events more expensive than a black market shipment of blue jeans in my country! The people were also upset that YouTube TV subscribers, amongst various other cable providers with whom ESPN has yet to strike a deal to include their streaming app access with cable subscriptions, can't access ESPN Unlimited tier content without a separate subscription, unlike my state-run television network, which is free to all citizens (whether they want it or not).

But wait, there's more! The commenters had the audacity to criticize WWE's partnership with Saudi Arabia to bring WrestleMania 43 to that beacon of human rights. Now, as someone who regularly plays poker with various strongmen and autocrats, I find it hilarious that WWE thinks they can just waltz into these situations without backlash. Just last week, I was sharing mojitos with my old friend Bashar al-Assad, and even he was like, "El Presidente, that Saudi WrestleMania deal seems a bit much, no?"

The people were also bringing up WWE management's cozy relationship with the Trump administration, which, let me tell you, reminds me of the time the CIA tried to infiltrate my cabinet by sending an operative disguised as a WWE Hall of Famer. Nice try, American intelligence services, but I spotted that fake mustache from a mile away!

And speaking of corporate greed that would make even my Swiss bank account manager blush, the masses were complaining about TKO executives jacking up ticket prices while simultaneously whining they're not expensive enough! Comrades, this is capitalism at its finest – squeeze the workers until they squeak, then complain the squeaking isn't loud enough!

But perhaps the most delicious of of the topics criticized was how WWE obviously scheduled WrestlePalooza for tomorrow at 7PM purely to counterprogram AEW All Out, which airs at 3PM Eastern on traditional pay-per-view. AEW announced their event months earlier, but WWE has made a habit lately of trying to take attention away from AEW events by booking their own for the same weekends, even though WWE constantly claims that it doesn't even consider the upstart promotion to be real competition! It reminds me of the time the CIA scheduled a coup attempt during my 29th birthday party (I've been having a 36th birthday party every year since 1997) while simultaneously claiming they weren't bothered in the slightest that they didn't get an invitation!

ESPN tried nuking and restarting the thread multiple times, like my IT department trying to restart our national internet after I accidentally clicked on a phishing email from "definitely-not-the-CIA@gmail.com." But eventually, they just gave up and locked the whole thing down, despite paying to promote it on social media! Imagine spending money to advertise a conversation that no one can have – it's like building a swimming pool and then filling it with concrete!

This whole debacle perfectly illustrates the beauty of corporate America's approach to public discourse: create the illusion of openness while maintaining iron-fisted control over the narrative. My own Ministry of Propaganda takes notes! Though at least when we suppress dissent, we're honest about it. We don't pretend to host "megathreads" for discussion while simultaneously forbidding all discussion!

The locked so-called megathread can be viewed here, promoted and pristine, a digital mausoleum to ESPN's fear of criticism. Meanwhile, one of the nuked versions still exists in the shadows of Reddit, like samizdat literature circulating in the underground, where you can still read some of the complaints listed above as well as other sentiments from the people's true thoughts before ESPN's censors descended upon them like a squad of corporate commissars.

So remember, comrades, when you're deciding how to spend your Saturday afternoon and evening tomorrow, you have choices! You can support AEW All Out at 3PM Eastern on good old-fashioned pay-per-view, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Triller TV, amongst other options, where at least they're honest about what you're paying for. Or you can subscribe to yet another streaming service to watch WrestlePalooza at 7PM, assuming you can figure out which combination of services and cable packages actually gives you access, and assuming you're comfortable supporting a company that's bringing WrestleMania to a country that makes my regime look like a Nordic democracy!

As for me? I'll be watching both events from my underground bunker's 200-inch projection screen, funneled through a complex series of satellite relays that the CIA still hasn't figured out. Because if there's one thing this socialist dictator loves more than seizing the means of production, it's seizing the means of sports entertainment distribution!

Until next time, comrades, this is your El Presidente, reminding you that in a truly democratic society, megathreads would belong to the people, not to corporate overlords afraid of their own shadows!

¡Viva la revolución! ¡Viva los comentarios libres! And most importantly, ¡viva la lucha libre!

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