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Raw 10-12-15


MGFanJay

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WWE is really inconsistent about talent kayfabing on social media. I don't think WWE should have modified the story for this.

But there should be a punishment involved for Lana if it was made clear to her that the Instagram was to be used for character development.

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I get it but wrestling has rarely incorporated the personal lives of wrestlers. Look at how many sleaze balls have been pushed as heroic good guys.

Also, the fact that Savage and Liz got married on a WWF PPV while their real life marriage was failing.

Don't push this bullshit "you don't understand rasslin" point when I point out that wrestlers (especially WWE wrestlers) are actors playing characters. Lana, a Russian character, is played an American, CJ Perry. They literally have no obvious personal traits in common.

Its not bullshit. When you start using terms like "actor" you have already lost.

 

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The reason the Rusev/Summer segment was so awkward is that kayfabe has been dead for so long it was surprising to see someone actually get punished for breaking it. Like everyone knew Rusev and Lana were a real life couple even though they were feuding on screen, so I'm not sure how acknowledging their engagement off screen changes anything.

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The reason the Rusev/Summer segment was so awkward is that kayfabe has been dead for so long it was surprising to see someone actually get punished for breaking it. Like everyone knew Rusev and Lana were a real life couple even though they were feuding on screen, so I'm not sure how acknowledging their engagement off screen changes anything.

 

WWE is just inconsistent with incorporating the personal lives of workers into their characters (as they should be). Dean Ambrose and Renee Young have acknowledged their relationship but they're not paired up on screen, ditto for Cena and Nikki Bella. Why they felt the need to put the characters of Rusev and Lana back together with no build is beyond me. I feel the same way about Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.  We could've gotten a reunion angle that led to The Authority instead of "remember that divorce angle? lol. we're still together. kayfabe is dead." As Stephanie's Twitter description says, "I play a bad guy on TV." I like storytelling and WWE sometimes just lazily doesn't do it. 

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I guess the other possibility is that they didn't want to wait for Lana to get healthy to finish this angle, and this was a convenient excuse to drop it. The way it was done didn't help anyone involved or make any sense if you think about it for more than 2 seconds, but it does free everyone up to go in different directions.

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What's the difference between people knowing about Lana/Rusev's engagement and people knowing who all of the women are Total divas are dating/married to?  The only difference is a writer or Kevin Dunn or some other loser wanted to break them up and failed. 

Total Divas is authorized by the company.

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I get it but wrestling has rarely incorporated the personal lives of wrestlers. Look at how many sleaze balls have been pushed as heroic good guys.

Also, the fact that Savage and Liz got married on a WWF PPV while their real life marriage was failing.

Don't push this bullshit "you don't understand rasslin" point when I point out that wrestlers (especially WWE wrestlers) are actors playing characters. Lana, a Russian character, is played an American, CJ Perry. They literally have no obvious personal traits in common.

Its not bullshit. When you start using terms like "actor" you have already lost.

 

 

WWE_Network_Advisory.jpg

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Also, is Rusev still supposed to be the good guy in all this?  The way Summer berated him you'd think they're trying to build sympathy for him.  But in the story he was with both at the same time.  So he'll either be seen as a Bulgarian playa or a two-timing pieced of shit.  With all that's been done it would be nonsensical to end this cold, so it'll be interesting to see how he's portrayed.  Also, why would Lana be engaged for a month knowing he's with Summer?  If they reveal he was playing Summer all along that would make Summer sympathetic and not him.  And I guess Dolph's just not part of this anymore which is weird in itself.

 

And despite all that I feel I'm putting more thought into this than they are.

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I suppose they could have had Lana/Rusev reveal that their work visas were about to expire, and they were considering marrying Ziggler/Summer to get green cards.  But Putin got the situation straightened out, and now they're getting back together to bring honor to Mother Russia/Eastern European bloc.

 

A cheap way of ending the story.  Then again, the story itself has been cheap.

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Earlier comments doubting Seth Rollins: I was never sold on him, but the cash-in was done well, and he's worked hard despite being hamstringed by Authority involvement...in that much of the time he just can't develop his own personality, with HHH or Steph talking over top of him. But he must be doing something right, as month after month his action figures are the best or second-best sellers. People dig him; might be time for a face turn.

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. But he must be doing something right, as month after month his action figures are the best or second-best sellers. People dig him; might be time for a face turn.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the USA Network executives, the guys who pay millions of dollars to the WWE to provide highly rated content, don't give a flying fuck about action figure sales.

 

They're more concerned with the sinking ratings over the last three months.

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I get it but wrestling has rarely incorporated the personal lives of wrestlers. Look at how many sleaze balls have been pushed as heroic good guys.

Also, the fact that Savage and Liz got married on a WWF PPV while their real life marriage was failing.

Don't push this bullshit "you don't understand rasslin" point when I point out that wrestlers (especially WWE wrestlers) are actors playing characters. Lana, a Russian character, is played an American, CJ Perry. They literally have no obvious personal traits in common.

Its not bullshit. When you start using terms like "actor" you have already lost.

 

 

WWE_Network_Advisory.jpg

 

Which is another good example of how bad things have gotten.

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This is so fucking silly that this is even a conversation in 2015. WWE just needs to either embrace kayfabe 100% or get rid of it and TRULY step into the realm of all other entertainment. No actor is living a movie gimmick in real life and if he DOES decide to do it, its usually in a fun way that grabs headlines and put smiles on people's faces. Everyone moves on from there. WWE trying to do a balance of kayfabe in 2015 leads to situations like this. That makes WWE look absolutely terrible.

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Kayfabe is the reason people snicker when you say you like wrestling. Maybe it made a little sense when there was a non-zero percentage of the population that believed it was real, but for at least the last 30 years, it's just fucking embarrassing for grown adults to pretend they're the same people they portray on an obviously fictional television show. Not that that's ever stopped me from enjoying wrestling, but I'm pretty glad kayfabe is dead and it makes way more sense for an "entertainment company" like WWE to get rid of it altogether. The next step is understanding that people will still enjoy old-school rasslin' storylines and characters without needing to believe they're real, and letting the wrestlers have normal lives (at least as normal as celebrity lives can be) off screen.

 

The main shows are in an awkward place where they can't find the balance, but NXT has it down. They have lots of outlandish characters all played completely straight and the crowds eat it up. As far as I know, none of them live the gimmicks 24/7.

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Kayfabe is the reason people snicker when you say you like wrestling. 

 

Which made me dig in my heels and like it more.

 

but I'm pretty glad kayfabe is dead and it makes way more sense for an "entertainment company" like WWE to get rid of it altogether. 

 

You're part of the problem. The further WWE has tried to get away from "kayfabe" the worse things have gotten for them. 

Even going back to the Attitude Era, you never saw Austin or Vince acting out of character. You never saw them on the WWF website acting like best pals. You would not see the Undertaker out of character. 

Now lets go back even further to the 80's. Did you see Hulk Hogan hanging out with Piper or Orndorff or Andre post heel turn? They fired Piper and Duggan when they got busted for pot together.

Now you could bust out the stuff Vince said to get deregulated by the New Jersey State Athletic Commission. But even at the time guys like Piper and Albano were able to reasonably explain it away in the media.

Beyond that, the WWF never put it in their magazines or mentioned it on their TV programming. 

 

Finally "kayfabe" cannot be killed. You can kill yourself trying to kill it. Which Lana and Rusev successfully did. 

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