WWE Superstars Uproariously React As News Surfaces Of Lebron James Signing With LA Lakers
The recent announcement of the news that Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James will be heading out west to play for the Los Angeles Lakers has caused a stir far beyond the bounds of the hoops community alone.
Even the officially named “Superstars” of World Wrestling Entertainment have started weighing in on the news, variously expressing their outrage, alarm or excitement as King James prepares to don the gold and purple jersey next season. The who’s who of professional wrestling in North America took to Twitter to chime in on their thoughts, with the official communications arm of the WWE organization leading the way, proclaiming via photograph and pithy caption that all LA needs to do is bring on a Lakers jersey-clad John Cena to have a super team. While Cena is famously a fan of the Lakers already, as one of the biggest sports and entertainment (or “sports entertainment”) companies in the US the WWE is practically required to make some kind of comment.
That said, other wrasslers in the company’s roster were a little more, shall we say, “authentic” when offering their hot takes on King Jame’s signing with Los Angeles for 2019. For instance, Bulgarian native Miroslav Barnyashev – billed under the ring name Rusev (or Русев if you care to sharpen up on your Cyrillic alphabet) forebodingly advised his fellow LA Clippers fans to “Stay stong” as the team appears to have been set “back into Stone Age” with LeBron coming to town as a player on the crosstown rival squad. Angelo Dawkins was more positive about James’ decision to sign with the Lakers, saying LeBron – who Dawkins called the G.O.A.T. or “greatest of all time” - “brung (sic) a championship to Cleveland” and will “bring one back to L.A!! (sic)”
On the opposite ends of the spectrum there were the much more circumspect Corey Graves (who is anything but when on the mic or in a match), who intoned that he had “just ordered 5 pairs of the ‘Bron1s’” – a clever marketing tie in that will almost assuredly follow James’ start for LA by the time next season rolls around. Michael Gregory Mizanin, a Parma, Ohio, native who goes by the ring name “The Miz” was seemingly devastated by the news of LeBron’s change in allegiance, donning a somber gray Cleveland Cavaliers ball cap when he, head in hands, informed his Twitter followers that he was not in the mood even for their condolences.
“Don’t call. Don’t text. I need a minute.” That was all The Miz had to say on the matter on his way to collecting fully 72,228 (presumably) sympathetic likes on Twitter as of this writing. There will probably be more likes coming in the next few days as the hurt really sinks in among Cleveland’s other diehard fans.
Perhaps the man known as The Miz is right to be concerned, as the CBS Sports web outlet released the newest Las Vegas futures odds on the eventual winner of next year’s championship toward the end of the evening news cycle on July 1. According to CBS Sports, the Cavalier’s odds to win the 2019 NBA Championship plummeted to 500/1 in the fractional (or British odds) system, which amounts to +50,000 on the moneyline (or American odds) system, and that, frankly, is darn near the saddest thing we have seen in a long time. Conversely, the bookies out in Sin City have apparently massively uprated Los Angeles’ chances to claim the 2019trophy, assigning some early futures odds of 7/2 or +350 on the Lakers, which are the same futures odds on the Boston Celtics (almost universally agreed upon by fans to be the Lakers’ most significant rival on the East Coast).
Just by way of a counterpoint, the reigning 2018 pro hoops champs, the Golden State Warriors, have current futures odds of 10/11 or -110 to win what could, apparently, easily become their third championship in four years’ time. The bookies at the online sports betting industry’s leading offshore sportsbook operator, Bovada.lv, have also issued updated odds on the 2019 NBA Finals Championship as well – and it looks like Golden State is in first place on the betting boards with +105 odds, while the Lakers have odds of +350 in second place thus far. The Cavs, on the other hand, have already plummeted to the fifth lowest spot on the ‘boards with +40,000 odds (a tie with the Sacramento Kings, the Brooklyn Nets and the Orlando Magic and truly ahead of only the woeful Memphis Grizzlies) to get the 2019 championship ring.
Maybe, like so many other aspects of the sporting world – and perhaps even the broader culture at large – professional wrestling can be seen as a fairly accurate bellwether or at least a predictor of the feeling of the times. It might seem like a stretch, but if you think about it – our loyal reader and sports aficionado that you are – everything will make sense. Take, just for instance the ascendance of mixed martial arts, a combat sport that arose from the combined traditions of pro boxing and pro wrestling to become a bigger phenomenon than either. Nowadays, professional wrestling and MMA have crossed over back and forth numerous times, creating legit competitors (see Brock Lesnar, Frank Shamrock and Bas Ruten) and forging new performers (Ronda Rousey went from dominant champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship to a currently pushed WWE superstar-to-be, maybe).
Those might seem like an only tangentially related anecdotes, but it tends to follow that professional wrestling companies, especially ones on the level of huge promotions like the WWE, have to keep up with the times to remain relevant despite the changing courses of the culture. And it also makes sense that the WWE’s stable of wrestlers, being athletes in their own right, would know a thing or two about sports and the business of sports, so they probably have a pretty good handle on the goings and comings in the sports world too.
LegalGamblingUSA believes that, rather than discounting the Twitter ruminations of professional wrestlers on a seemingly unrelated subject like which NBA team LeBron James will play for next season as a distraction, it may even help us – in however minor a way – to gain some insight into what might be a sure-thing position to place wagers on pro hoops in 2019. It’s a long shot, we will give you that, but if LeBron’s fans and his detractors in the WWE are talking a lot about how they are feeling regarding his joining the Lakers for ’19, then that could be a solid indicator of broader betting trends that might be taking place in the sports wagering world as well. It is certainly something worth considering as you gear up to get in on the action at your favorite sportsbook prior to the start of next season.
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