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OCTOBER 2015 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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WWE creative can't book a RAW without Seth Rollins and/or Steph and/or Triple H eating up 30+ minutes in promo time/backstage segments and Kane and Big Show (combined WWE tenure of one hundred years) receiving main event pushes and John Cena putting on the same 20-minute PWG 2.9 match every week. 

 

Speaking of 2.9, WWE creative would be fucking thrilled with a 2.9.  2.3 this week?  2.3 the week before?  Lowest ratings in 20+ years? 

 

But yeah..  NXT and the movement behind wanting to see something different is totally the problem.. 

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Rant

Preach on brother. I feel at least one of those a day bubbling up. I believe 100% and there is nothing anyone could say or write to change my mind that if there were a real alternative on major US TV

1. The WWE would be out of business

Or much more likely

2. The shit presented on WWE would be completely different then what is there now.

And I think NXT proves that.

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I was watching an episode of To Tell The Truth this morning, probably from around 1961.  For those not familiar, it was a game show where three contestants all claimed to be the same person and a celebrity panel had a certain amount of time to ask them questions and figure out which one was the real person.  In this case it was Richard Smith, who was both a hairdresser and a professional wrestler.

 

Johnny Carson was the first to ask a question..."What is a rat?"  I laughed way harder than I should have.

 

Apparently, he was referring to something that was used to enhance hairpieces or something.

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WWE creative can't book a RAW without Seth Rollins and/or Steph and/or Triple H eating up 30+ minutes in promo time/backstage segments and Kane and Big Show (combined WWE tenure of one hundred years) receiving main event pushes and John Cena putting on the same 20-minute PWG 2.9 match every week. 

 

Speaking of 2.9, WWE creative would be fucking thrilled with a 2.9.  2.3 this week?  2.3 the week before?  Lowest ratings in 20+ years? 

 

But yeah..  NXT and the movement behind wanting to see something different is totally the problem.. 

 

Well the problem is who is at the wheel. Senile Vince is what's getting those 2.3's. You could have the creative teams from Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, and any other number of shows booking RAW and the shows would still be shit because Vince is like "NOPE, DON'T LIKE IT CHANGE IT". Leadership is always the problem in television.

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WWE creative can't book a RAW without Seth Rollins and/or Steph and/or Triple H eating up 30+ minutes in promo time/backstage segments and Kane and Big Show (combined WWE tenure of one hundred years) receiving main event pushes and John Cena putting on the same 20-minute PWG 2.9 match every week. 

 

 

I won't have you insulting PWG like that. 

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The biggest problem right now with creative is they care so little about whether or not the audience is actively engaged in a wrestler or a storyline. For midcard or higher storylines WWE should be asking, is this something the audience cares about and if not, is this something the audience will care about. And if they think a storyline is something the audience will care about, but the audience sits on their hands, then drop it.  It's really that simple.

 

Look at the Rusev/Ziggler storyline. It wasn't working for months, the audience was not engaged and yet every week it would just continue. 

 

Look at the Reigns rumble mishap. It had everything. A wrestler fans werent particularly engaged in, A storyline (his journey to the title) the fans werent engaged in. Heels (Big Show/Kane) the fans werent engaged in.  And they even had the opportunity to drop it (Reigns/Bryan). Because they stubbornly refused to veer from their creative path until the last possible minute at Mania, we ended up with a Rollins title reign. 

 

What I can never understand is why WWE is so headstrong in their vision. Why they can't just ride the waves.

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I don't understand how Vince didn't at least learn SOMETHING from the time business was in the shitter from 92-97. I spent most of last year talking about how they were setting Roman up to fail like they did with Diesel, but now that he's even less hot somehow, it's like he's Lex without the bus.

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I was watching an episode of To Tell The Truth this morning, probably from around 1961.  For those not familiar, it was a game show where three contestants all claimed to be the same person and a celebrity panel had a certain amount of time to ask them questions and figure out which one was the real person.  In this case it was Richard Smith, who was both a hairdresser and a professional wrestler.

 

Johnny Carson was the first to ask a question..."What is a rat?"  I laughed way harder than I should have.

 

Apparently, he was referring to something that was used to enhance hairpieces or something.

 

To be fair, Carson was probably familiar with both.

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And more importantly, no WCW to fall back on

 

Shit, ten years ago when top rosters guys had become an embarresment, they could (and would) demote them to FCW for a while. Even guys who'd been in the title picture and main events, like Big Show. But now... unless you're at the Emma level, I don't see any way they could send someone back to NXT (or let them go to TNA*) without putting a 'failure' tag on them for life.

 

* Christian made the jump, had a couple of years that were easier on his body, and got to prove he could viably be a top singles guy in a company. The TNA he was a part of is not the TNA that exists now.

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I don't understand how Vince didn't at least learn SOMETHING from the time business was in the shitter from 92-97.

 

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a thing.  I'm sure Vince has always told himself:

 

  • When business is good, it's all my doing
  • When business is bad, it's because of extenuating circumstances

I mean come on.  The official WWE line is STILL that WCW beat them only because they had Ted Turner's money and used stars Vince had made.  He'll never admit, in just this one example, that somebody presented a better product that people enjoyed more and wanted to see more than his.

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And this is how fucked WWE is right now. Our answers for most over babyface are "someone who's been on the shelf 15 of the last 18 months", "someone who hasn't wrestled on the main roster, so WWE creative hasn't had a chance to ruin her yet", and, "a heel diva." Throw in "guy that gets actively booed by about half the crowd" and you've got the complete set from the island of misfit toys.

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Sasha Banks is a more over babyface than Bayley, and she isn't even a babyface.

I think you need to learn that a babyface isn't actually determined by how a crowd reacts. It's based off of how he or she is booked. And it's always been that way.

 

 

Uh, if that's the case, then Cena is the #1 face in the company without question with Roman right behind him, but I think there's definitely a difference between being booked as a face and being over as a face in the sense that the crowd really likes you. I know Morelock can be abrasive at times, but he's pretty right on this one. With all the necessary caveats about how much I love Bayley as a worker, she's not even the most over face on NXT, let alone all of WWE.

 

In NXT, Enzo and Cass are definitely the #1 face act as far as getting crowd heat goes. Sami Zayn is Bryan-status, meaning he would easily be the most over face if he wasn't hurt. Finn and Bayley are neck and neck after that.

 

 

And this is how fucked WWE is right now. Our answers for most over babyface are "someone who's been on the shelf 15 of the last 18 months", "someone who hasn't wrestled on the main roster, so WWE creative hasn't had a chance to ruin her yet", and, "a heel diva." Throw in "guy that gets actively booed by about half the crowd" and you've got the complete set from the island of misfit toys.

 

Shit, you could make a case that the most over pure babyface on the full-time roster right now is Randy Orton, and he hasn't done anything relevant in almost a year. He still gets some of the best pops every show, though. You could also throw New Day into the "faces that are supposed to be heels" category with Sasha. They're getting unsolicited "New Day Rocks" chants in almost every city.

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