SorceressKnight

...given how often they talked about how he was from the Colorado Rockies on commentary, just assumed that sometime in 1995, they traded him to the Dodgers. Given the nature- it could be better or worse than possible with timing. Molly would be VERY good in 2020 (she'd likely project as Bayley if Bayley could cut a promo), but Trish would look far worse in 2020 than she was (there's no doubt in my mind- Trish would end up the same as Alexa Bliss in this era, for every benefit and weakness.)

Exactly. WWE shirts right now don't look like weak Ed Hardy ripoffs. They look like the weak non-licensed shirts you'd get at Walmart or Kohl's that badly want to be as snarky as the Spencer Gifts T-shirts, but still have to be clean enough so the mother of the 7 year old who wants it will let them wear it...just not at school or around the family.

If this is the path for Shayna, why didn't they put Sheamus on Raw instead to ally with her? After all, he's incredibly strong and fast. His pale white skin sparkles in the light.

If they HAVE to do a move from five to seven teams, can't they at least do the closest thing to a traditionalist way to do it: First and second place teams in each division, plus the best third-place team, make the playoffs. It's still a lot, but at least it seems to reward the top teams per division.

The problem with that for a conglomerate's developmental promotion is that ultimately, it ties to the same point: If you don't use developmental, then you'd inevitably be going to a "bring in top stars from the independent scene as your newcomers", and ultimately it's down to that same issue: The vast majority of independent wrestlers just don't LOOK like stars. They just don't. And the ones who you could argue do look like stars? They don't look like enough of stars to be good on a conglomerate's taste. That would mean a move like UFC wouldn't work- if you use indies as developmental, they'd be hiring people who are very talented from the indie scene, but who just don't pass the eye test. It'd also be a problem because of the important tools a wrestler needs: you can teach someone how to wrestle if they can't work a lick. If someone isn't charismatic, it's going to be a harder road- but there's some cases where a wrestling promotion taught an uncharismatic worker how to be snarky and cut some good one-liners and make it look like they're charismatic. But with the look- you either got it or you don't. There's not that much you can do to give someone a great look, and even if you have a Jinder Mahal-type situation where a wrestler who didn't really have "the look" decides to kill themselves to change that, they'll end up looking like...uh, Jinder Mahal on steroids. Considering that "the look" would be a big core to making a star- especially by conglomerate standards, you'd NEED development to take people with the look and teach them to wrestle.

Honestly, that is true, but it's not exactly the point I was making...and indeed, it helps the point I'm making a bit. My point is that a conglomerate owning WWE would be the same thing: A conglomerate with this much power would build by marketability, and indie stars wouldn't have the blind star power that would make a conglomerate take them. It's more like that we don't get an NXT-like system of "find the best indie talents and use their marketability to make stars", but rather the FCW-era developmental movement of "this person would look great on a poster, and it'd be easier to take them and teach them how to rudimentarily wrestle than it would be to take a great wrestler and teach them to be marketable on a poster." Heck, the move to IPs over actors as bankable draws makes it even more obvious- the stars are interchangeable, so you can run them for as long as you need and when they are failed experiments/ask for too much money/need to freshen things up, replace them with someone else.

On the contrary to this (and for the people who think a bigger business will think based on the indie experience): We're not talking about some business buying WWE, we're talking in particular about an ENTERTAINMENT conglomerate buying WWE, and in all likeliness they're the only ones who would want WWE. With that in mind: How many major Hollywood blockbusters can you remember that were built around "this star is one of the best actors/actresses in local community theater for over two decades, and now finally, at long last, we're giving this unsung hero of the acting scene their chance to be the lead star in a summer blockbuster!" Hell, even lower it to 'this person was a great actor for a long time on Broadway and they're making their debut as the lead in this summer blockbuster"? The closest example you can think of is stand-up comics getting TV shows, and even then you'd have to be in the top echelon of stand-ups, and a TV show isn't as big a deal as a big summer movie. By comparison to that, how many major motion pictures can be built around "well, they don't really have much talent, and they're not really well known by any means...but LOOK AT THEM! Cast them in the major motion picture because they'll look good on the poster. If they can act, it's a plus. If not...eh, who cares?" That's how we'd get in this instance- it'd be far less likely a entertainment conglomerate says "wow, this person has 10 years of indie experience and is considered one of the best in the business. Let's hire them", and much more likely they go past "college football player with no wrestling experience" and into "this person has no relevant athletic experience to speak of, much less wrestling experience...but their Instagram account is amazing. Let's hire them and make a wrestler out of them." An indie wrestler would not be likely to get past the door in this world, and if they do, even if you have a Yes! Movement or a post-Pipebomb world for that star, where WWE currently goes "...don't care don't care don't care...aww fuck, you won't give up on this? Fine. We cave. You win. We'll give it to you", the entertainment conglomerate would invariably respond to that movement with "don't care don't care don't care OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE they have no star quality and it'll never change, we're going with this person as the star, DEAL WITH IT".

Well, he DID get an injury this year, so technically the Madden Curse still hit him, even if he came back and went on to win Super Bowl MVP. Which makes it even more impressive- the Madden Curse hit him and he still managed to go all the way.

Even with that, the nature of people hating people obviously pushed down our throats with no reason yet relates to the same point: Hating someone before we love them is also manufactured in that instance. It's not just about "just turn someone heel and the fans will love them as a face" isn't the point- because if the fans didn't start to like them anyway, they won't care about them more because they wear black tights and talk smack about the local sports team. This is the whole problem with the "but you can't turn Roman heel, the smarks will just cheer him!" argument- it's not that smarks would just cheer Roman if you turn him heel, but rather if you turn Roman heel, it won't make smarks care about him. The reaction won't be smarks cheering that you finally turned Roman heel so he can organically turn face, because Roman has been so manufactured that it is impossible for him to ever have an organic rise. A Roman heel turn would just be met with "Oh, BULLSHIT WWE! You're only turning Roman heel because you think that'll make us like him! Get it through your skulls, WWE- I WON'T like Roman Reigns, and YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

The bigger problem right now with the "how do you rebuild Roman Reigns" thing is that WWE, like any other wrestling promotion, doesn't truly realize the ultimate issue to save the wrestling product flies in the face of every entertainment business manifesto: Sometimes, you just have to let someone walk away. Whether it's an excursion, whether it's firing them, letting them show up in some other promotion and get fans excited about them, then see what happens later, whether it's "how can the fans miss you if you won't go away? So...uh...GO AWAY!", or even if it's "you're a failed experiment, we need to give the roster an enema. We don't really care. Go to AEW or New Japan- go be their problem, but we're better off without you"- sometimes, to make a bigger star, it's not even about "turn them face!" or "turn them heel!" , but as serious as 'you have to let them walk away." Drew McIntyre's success right now should be seen as the best example of that. McIntyre was always pretty good, but never quite clicked as a big prospect. He was a failed experiment, he tumbled down the card. No one wanted him as a heel, they barely bought it trying to make him flirt with a face turn in the Kelly Kelly stuff, they didn't totally buy in when he did comedy...and ultimately, the best thing WWE could do was to fire him, let him walk away. He gives the WWE audience the chance to miss him, he gives the smarks the chance to see just how good he was outside the company. He comes back, he's put it all together, and now it seems like it's finally taken.

Well, it's appropriate here. Just like there must always be a lich king, there must always be one coach every other team can mock. Andy Reid winning a Super Bowl and getting the monkey off his back can officially take him away as that lich king, and Shanahan's two collapses probably handed it to him.

Honestly, that ties to the problem with making new stars right now: It's hard to make new stars for the company when kayfabe no longer matters. To make a new star, it's not just about main eventers giving you the rub, but also by making the fanbase feel like the wrestler GAINED SOMETHING from this. Whether it's as big as "you won the World Title and solidified yourself as one of the all-time greats", or as simple as "hey, Roman Reigns just hung out with Heavy Machinery- they made a cool new friend!", there has to be SOMETHING that the wrestler gained that makes them seem more important than they were before this happened. Cena's an example- he's always been willing to give the rub to younger talent and make new stars well- both by letting them rub shoulders with greatness and putting them over as having Cena's seal of approval like Hogan did in the '80s, and outright losing to them. Unfortunately, if kayfabe doesn't matter, then Cena's attempts to put people over and make them new stars can't work. When kayfabe matters, the prospect of putting over a wrestler by coming so close to beating Cena, or even beating Cena clean makes that wrestler seem more important. If it doesn't? Cena can't put someone over in the US Open Challenge because it becomes "who cares how good this guy looked against Cena, Cena still beat him. Back to the midcard for you"...and worse, if kayfabe no longer exists? Cena actually LOSES to that other wrestler, it becomes "so what? You won. But tomorrow morning, he will still be John Cena, and you will still be you, and that means John Cena REALLY won."

Honestly, that's ultimately the real problem for why people keep coming back- especially with wrestling right now. Real sports works because in real sports, hope springs eternal. Just a few years ago, the Chiefs looked like a sad-sack team just good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to win a game, and the 49ers were a team that fell from a rising star to the biggest joke in the NFC in a couple years. Today, they're in the Super Bowl. THAT is why sports fans will keep coming back- if you walk away from an inferior product, you'll never know if THIS is the year it all comes together. The worst part about wrestling right now isn't just that it's bad- but that we know for a fact WWE could be SO GOOD if they just tried to. The quality of wrestler, top to bottom, may be the best it's been ever (somehow even including the post-InVasion era when WWE had everyone). You can't really say there's anyone truly BAD in the WWE right now- and even the worst wrestler in the company is at least "pretty good." That has put WWE into the same problem as real sports. It's become a promise of hope springing eternal of "Yeah, we know. We suck. But you know how good these workers are. We're SO CLOSE to being good. It's right in front of you. Why, next week could be the week we turn the corner and finally become awesome again, and if we do the show will be SOOO GOOD and you'll be SOOOOOOOO SORRY you stopped watching and missed out. I bet you'll cry and cry and be miserable forever because you put so much time in bad wrestling and missed out when it finally became good. You don't want to miss when we're good again, do you? DO YOU?"

Yeah- JT Southern's credibility is like Maxx Payne, and bother give the excuse for why Van Hammer failed- unlike Van Hammer, Southern and Payne actually knew how to play guitar and were able to show that they could onscreen. Van Hammer was an example of the longstanding wrestling rule: If you have a prop as part of your gimmick, and you don't use it on your way to the ring, then everyone knows for a fact you don't know how. (Similar to the Dynamic Dudes carrying skateboards to the ring, etc.)

Honestly, it's further than that and with zero tolerance rules, even the students who sit around and get hit will be suspended for getting in a fight because the other person hit them. (Hell, some groups of bullies make zero tolerance rules part of their bullying: 5-10 bullies get together, and one day each bully will attack the victim- so they each get one day suspension and the victim gets a day per bully, then repeat.)

With NXT as World Championship, there's also the question mark since if NXT's titles count, you'd have a case to claim the NXT Women's Championship is the pick: It's always been sold as equal to the NXT men's championship (so the "but it's the women's title" doesn't count), and there's not only no questionable titleholders in the NXT Women's title history thus far and everyone who did hold the title being a worthy champion, but more specifically it's basically the one title in the modern era which you can truly say elevates the titleholder and makes them special, by virtue of holding that title belt. (That's a big difference, because with other major titles, the questionable holders drag it down- but if the title has that presence, the questionable titleholders get raised up by "well, they are good enough to hold this title, there must be SOMETHING there!"

That really ties to the big problem where Charlotte saying "she has a bad won-loss record" vs. people's complaints occurs: People hate to hear "Wins and losses don't matter" anymore...but really, they don't. In this era, more than almost any other, perception is reality. At least in prior eras, a big string of wins could make someone a big threat in the company, but now it really can't do that much to make a star. A worker can go undefeated for a long time, but if they're perceived as a lowcarder, they'll always be treated like that. A worker can be winless, but if they're perceived as a big deal, they'll be treated as one. It's similar to the question with Roman Reigns- the line is "just have him lose matches"...he loses matches all the time. They say "drop him to the midcard"...he spends a lot of time in midcard feuds. But none of it matters because at the end of the day, people perceive Roman Reigns as the face of the company, so he is the face of the company, and that lens dictates what Roman does- so even if Roman broke Curt Hawkins's losing streak record, he'd still be perceived as the face of the company. Likewise with Charlotte- any won-loss record never matters, because Charlotte is perceived as the biggest female star, so that means she is the biggest female star, and anything she does do will go through the lens of "Charlotte is a big star."

Jeter...yeah, we all knew he was going in. Nothing to see there. Walker...it's a positive that the BBWAA is slowly but surely getting their heads out of their asses. First they elect two DH's last year, then they elect the first Rockies player to get in and have the "81 games in Denver" hanging over their head...next, we can see about the PED cases.

This ties into another problem with these as well, though: If you pay the lower-tier workers too much on exposure, eventually you're going to insulate the business further. There's always got to be a little bit of "bet on yourself" in wrestling to say "okay. I'll take this lesser amount or work for free for this match to get my foot in the door so I can get some regular bookings and go further." By contrast, if you're telling a big company "you MUST pay at least this much to every worker on the card", then for those low spots, the question becomes "do I take a chance on this unknown, or do I bring in this bigger name who I know for a fact will be worth the money?" End result, less people break into the business. Same weakness for the unions- unionized wrestling works, but it will price the small promotions out of existence. Wait, did I say "small promotions"? I meant "any promotion that is not WWE, AEW, Impact, and ROH- the four promotions owned by big conglomerates who can pay what a union would demand." Hope you enjoyed the late 2000s developmental era where they ignored top indie talent in favor of finding a person who looked like a model, taught them how to pull their punches and maybe one nice move for a finisher, and sent them on TV, because those are the only people breaking in now.

This seemed like a "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" situation. If Tessa wins tonight...they reward one shitty person. If Sami wins tonight, and thus beat Tessa three straight times and dispatched her? There's no coming back for the Knockouts division ever being seen as equal to the men. You really can't do that angle of a woman getting to the World Title picture in Impact for years...and you possibly can never do it again. It'd be saying "the women can't compete with the men", and they probably never will. It's pretty much done for.

Seems like par for the course with that gimmick- wasn't there also some guy in 2011 who had the trademark to the nickname "The Last Outlaw" when WWE wanted it for The Undertaker. They offered him a flat fee of $25,000 for the trademark, he demanded a development deal instead. So they gave him the deal, cut him after three months, and only had to pay him $4,500 total.

What a shame. They ignore the battles that man had in the '80s fighting the forces of COBRA for us. If it wasn't for Sgt. Slaughter and those brave GI Joes, you'd all be...well, Cobra spoke English too, but you'd probably all be going "I wasssss a maaaaaannnnnn..."

If you're using those standards for best "other guy"...by that logic, wouldn't it be a tossup between John Morrison, Christian, and Matt Hardy (the only three "other guys" who also managed a World Title reign on their own merits)?

More of it seems to be a mutual problem with New Japan changing WWE and AEW, instead of the vice-versa. New Japan has been on fire with a bunch of good long matches- and because they're on fire, they convinced the American audience that "long" equals "good". As a result, now people seem to believe a match has to be at least 10-15 minutes and go through at least one commercial break or it's inherently a bad match, and ignored the joy of a good sprint. End result- we get a bunch of weak 10-15 minute matches that mean nothing and will be forgotten about until next week's 10-15 minute rematch to eat up time between two people who don't matter onscreen...but the match is LONG! Long like the New Japan matches! That means it's good!

I don't know- considering they said the records will go back to 0-0 on the new year, that looks positive to Jungle Boy. If he starts out good in the new year, it'd be no different than in a real sport of "well, yes, this team finished in last place last year, but they finished strong and have something to build on, and now it's a whole new year so they could succeed.