WRESTLEMANIA 33 POST SHOW THREAD

[OSJ]

2 minutes ago, joseph2112 said:

And I think, unless someone can show me a specific, long term example, that this is not true. In fact, I'm pretty sure that nobody has gotten more Internet cred over the past year then Miz, and I don't particularly remember him getting many face pops recently. The WWE wants your 10 bucks and they will safely and comfortably make their money. They are not (and don't particularly have to) try to start the next wrestling boom. Romans the man and that's that, who cares if people boo.

You know, the funny thing is that I suspect in twenty years time people are going to remember Roman fondly as one of the greats and will completely have forgotten all the instances of him being booed out of the building. I base this on what I suspect will be a tremendous post-wrestling career as an action film star. Once Vince leaves him the fuck alone and lets him be himself, the crowds will be eating out of his hand. The guy has tremendous natural charisma, he's funny, articulate, and has a great sense of timing. All that gets lost in scripted promos and poor booking. I've watched a lot of wrestlers over the years and this guy has "it" in spades, Finn Balor and Nak are the only others that are even close.

Have him go on a heel rampage for a year and then turn baby again, it will blow the fucking roof off of whatever venue it takes place in and the boom in merchandise sales will more than make up for any downturn during the heel phase. Ya know, sometimes running a business takes, uh, a little long-term planning... For that matter, do a double turn with Finn, (who is much better as a cocky heel), Finn's charismatic enough that he'd stay over as a "cool heel" and would still sell tons of stuff and a Finn / Roman feud with Finn playing 1980s Flair with a gang of supporting characters to negate Roman's obvious physical advantages would great fun to watch.

[Jiji]

6 minutes ago, jaedmc said:

I fucking love Roman Reigns. He's not Cena or Cena 2.0. He's the new Batista. And I fucking loved Batista when he was leading the Blue brand back in the day. And with people wanting him to turn heel I can see it'll be just like Batista, where no one will appreciate him until he walks to the ring like this: 

Because as soon as that happens, and he starts dressing in tight jeans, and talking about fat girls at ringside, people will be like "Oh man Roman Reigns, he's really put it together, what a great wrestler he's become." 

And I'll sit back and shake my head in disgust, because you never loved him like I did. You don't deserve this. 

Dude, Batista as the bland babyface figurehead of Smackdown was pretty ugly. I mean, the whole Mania 21 story was fantastic but after that... I'mma pass. When he was doing the spotlight gimmick, then yeah, you saw his strengths and he was so good. I'm with you though. He's not the superman babyface. He's the secondary big star like Luger, Orton or Batista. 

We saw last Monday how good Roman's heel character can be. He was such a great piece of shit, rubbing his push in the face of the antagonistic crowd. If we got Roman drinking smark tears, that'd be great. I'd love to hate him but at least it would be channeling the hate in a productive way instead of swimming against the current. If he were doing the whole cocky jock thing, I would be on board but he's not. There are no "baby girl" promos. 

[JohnnyJ]

23 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

WWE is that guy who has a girlfriend anyone else would be happy with. She loves him despite all his faults and puts up with all his shit because she knows he's a good guy deep down. However, WWE keeps going after girls that are way out his league despite them never showing any interest and just look at him like he's some pathetic sap.

WWE is that bastard step-child nobody wanted. He's now 43 and an enormous success. He has a loving and supporting wife and children. The envy of the neighborhood. He is financially set for live. From the outside, he has everything. But from the inside he'd sell out his own family for a phone call from daddy on his birthday.

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Because Roman is a sure thing at this point. 

He is but then he isn't. He sells a lot of merchandise but anyone with his push would sell that same amount. House shows, television ratings, pretty much any metric you want to use he is FAR behind John Cena. So if this is going to be your new face of the company..  it's not that great..

[Brysynner]

The rumor is Orton got the strap as payment for letting Brock kill him at SummerSlam. I can totally believe Orton would ask for the belt in order to let Brock brutalize his head

[Craig H]

I get where jae is coming from, but i just see Roman's ceiling as a more motivated Orton. And maybe that becomes something special because people have been saying for years that if Randy just gave 100% then he would be amazing. Hell, HHH said the same thing again this past week.

Here's the thing though...Orton was being groomed to be the man/the guy too and all the while it was someone else who wasn't yet being pushed like that that would come up and be the face of the company. So while Roman is getting this push now, someone else is going to rise up and be the Cena-like face of the company they want Roman to be. It just takes time. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, (BP) said:

There's no point in overthinking Roman's booking here.  It was a net gain of zero for him. He didn't gain or lose a following from it. Even in kayfabe the story of the match was really Taker vs the inevitable march of time.  The follow up to build the Brock match is going to be much more important. 

And here's another issue. Brock Lesnar will have the crowd 80/20 whenever this match occurs. Brock Lesnar could announce he's leaving and oh by the way "fuck all of you" and he'd still get cheered over Roman.  This idea that the top guy doesn't need to be cheered because "hey, he gets a reaction"  is completely absurd.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Twenty year smart mark talking point about the older generation being selfish and refusing to put over younger talent and pass the torch proven to be the biggest crock of shit ever. 

No one complains had Reigns destroyed Hogan or Taker puts over AJ or Strowman instead. My guy needed to beat your guy, and that makes you the biggest mark of all. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

It's like I'm back in 2006, and everyone's whinging about turning Cena heel because the crowd boos him and he's rammed down our throats, oblivious to the fact they will never turn him heel

I don't think anyone is oblivious to that fact. The issue is he isn't John Cena.  Cena wasn't Rock/Austin and now Reigns isn't Cena.  That's not a good pattern..

[Charlie M.]

The fans chanted for Miz over the biggest star on the show so I can kinda understand why Vince and WWE have a warped perspective. Plus, they keep making a ton of money so they're gonna roll with the big good looking guy as the face of the company.

[RIPPA]

If nothing else - wrestling fans can keep their shit together better than football fans (and longer too)

[Fallacy!]

Problem is that Reigns isn't nearly as charismatic or good on the mic as Batista was. We saw how good of a character/actor Batista was dating all the way back to the slow burn of him leaving Evolution. Reigns has never shown that kind of versatility on screen, so I don't think his heel turn would go nearly as well as Batista's did.

[Overly Critical Man]

6 minutes ago, Fallacy! said:

Problem is that Reigns isn't nearly as charismatic or good on the mic as Batista was. We saw how good of a character/actor Batista was dating all the way back to the slow burn of him leaving Evolution. Reigns has never shown that kind of versatility on screen, so I don't think his heel turn would go nearly as well as Batista's did.

You could say the same thing about a certain guy named Rocky Maivia before he turned heel...

...but Roman doesn't need to turn heel. He doesn't even need to be cheered. He evokes a visceral reaction from the crowd unlike anyone else on the main roster.

"This is Big Dog Roman Reigns and he makes all the smarks in the crowd go apeshit by existing...and you can't teach that."

[Craig H]

Masahiro Batista is still one of my favorite wrestling acts. 

[OSJ]

18 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

He is but then he isn't. He sells a lot of merchandise but anyone with his push would sell that same amount. House shows, television ratings, pretty much any metric you want to use he is FAR behind John Cena. So if this is going to be your new face of the company..  it's not that great..

Some of y'all are forgetting an important aspect of human nature. When we go shopping to buy a certain thing, or just shopping in general, we don't like leaving empty-handed.  If Cena merch is no longer a part of the equation because he's retired, sales of whoever is being pushed will go up. Here's an example of how this works: There's a new Caitlin R. Kiernan book coming out which I want, I thought it had already been released, so I clicked on my favorite bookseller's catalog to search for it and buy it. Apparently it isn't out yet, I'm already predisposed to spending forty bucks, I'm on a website that's listing a bunch of other cool shit. What do I do? I buy two other books $18 and $20 respectively and call it good. That's the same thing that's going to happen at WWE merch tables, "Oh, you don't have any Cena shirts? Okay, gimme a Roman Reigns "Believe That" shirt!"

[jaedmc]

8 minutes ago, Fallacy! said:

Problem is that Reigns isn't nearly as charismatic or good on the mic as Batista was. We saw how good of a character/actor Batista was dating all the way back to the slow burn of him leaving Evolution. Reigns has never shown that kind of versatility on screen, so I don't think his heel turn would go nearly as well as Batista's did.

...I disagree. Batista wasn't that great of an actor. And didn't really say shit. In his title fight with king booker he said right before the bell rang: 

"I've got a comment. Do you want your body buried or cremated?"

It was monotone and not even a comment. That shit is a question for sure.

And he was like that all the time. But I loved him for it because he didn't try. He knew how to do one thing and that was pick people up and throw them down.  He didn't have give rah rah rah speeches, he was just like "You're a jerk. I'm going to break you." And he didn't have to say any more because he was a monster. 

Roman Reigns wrestles like he's hunting dumb animals. It's fucking awesome.

[Greggulator]

I think people need to watch a lot of The Shield matches and see the reactions Roman got. He had a one-on-one showdown in a handicap match against Titus O'Neil and the crowd was electric. He got giant reactions when he saved his Survivor Series team and set the record for most toss-outs in the Rumble. There are all sorts of other times in The Shield's run when Roman just took over the reactions of the match.

There was absolutely no reason against trying to make him the next big thing. He had a great, natural reaction from the audience. He, more than anyone else, stood out in The Sheild.

The thing that changed was when he was injured. All of a sudden, people did the whole "They're going to ram him down our throats!" deal. Yeah, they should. He's a big dude who is athletic as all get-out who has had nothing by great matches with almost everyone he's up against. But a lot of people wanted to hate him for no real reason. 

I absolutely get why they want to push Roman. I have no idea why people still hate on him. He's a beast. But no matter what, he still gets a gigantic reaction. 

[Fallacy!]

16 minutes ago, Overly Critical Man said:

You could say the same thing about a certain guy named Rocky Maivia before he turned heel...

...but Roman doesn't need to turn heel. He doesn't even need to be cheered. He evokes a visceral reaction from the crowd unlike anyone else on the main roster.

"This is Big Dog Roman Reigns and he makes all the smarks in the crowd go apeshit by existing...and you can't teach that."

 

Is that reaction a result of Reigns' performance, or is it a result of his push?

[Overly Critical Man]

 

2 minutes ago, Fallacy! said:

 

Is that reaction a result of Reigns' performance, or is it a result of his push?

Does it have to be either or? Roman gets just as many "This is awesome!" chants as anyone else.

[Jiji]

11 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

I think people need to watch a lot of The Shield matches and see the reactions Roman got. He had a one-on-one showdown in a handicap match against Titus O'Neil and the crowd was electric. He got giant reactions when he saved his Survivor Series team and set the record for most toss-outs in the Rumble. There are all sorts of other times in The Shield's run when Roman just took over the reactions of the match.

There was absolutely no reason against trying to make him the next big thing. He had a great, natural reaction from the audience. He, more than anyone else, stood out in The Sheild.

The thing that changed was when he was injured. All of a sudden, people did the whole "They're going to ram him down our throats!" deal. Yeah, they should. He's a big dude who is athletic as all get-out who has had nothing by great matches with almost everyone he's up against. But a lot of people wanted to hate him for no real reason. 

I absolutely get why they want to push Roman. I have no idea why people still hate on him. He's a beast. But no matter what, he still gets a gigantic reaction. 

Dude, they booked him to get those big moments. Of course he was going to get cheered loudly and stand out! People love a bad ass.

If you can't understand why people are rejecting Roman Reigns, who is so manufactured and phony, especially after he followed Daniel Bryan, the most organic babyface the company has perhaps ever seen, I don't know what to tell you. They even subbed Roman into the whole Authority is out to get him and he's not what they want storyline after Bryan's injuries. He's fucking exactly what they want! 

I think Roman is a very good worker. He's not at the level where he can carry a match and elevate guys that are less talented than himself. But, that's fine! He's got tremendous natural charisma that he's shown in glimpses. There were times in The Shield where he looked like a million bucks in promos. But he didn't have to say or do much and he wasn't being over-written by Vince yet. Despite his delivery often times being wooden and just a little off, he's still got promo skills. His work last Monday was a fucking classic heel promo. He was sticking it to the haters and it was so fucking good. He has his strengths in terms of character work but they're working against them way too much and the idea that if you just keep plowing ahead with his current incarnation the crowd will eventually turn around on him is absurd. It's been three fucking years! Turn him heel, let him show his natural charisma and play on the crowd's hatred, then turn him face. It's not that hard.

[Fallacy!]

15 minutes ago, jaedmc said:

...I disagree. Batista wasn't that great of an actor. And didn't really say shit. In his title fight with king booker he said right before the bell rang: 

"I've got a comment. Do you want your body buried or cremated?"

It was monotone and not even a comment. That shit is a question for sure.

And he was like that all the time. But I loved him for it because he didn't try. He knew how to do one thing and that was pick people up and throw them down.  He didn't have give rah rah rah speeches, he was just like "You're a jerk. I'm going to break you." And he didn't have to say any more because he was a monster. 

Roman Reigns wrestles like he's hunting dumb animals. It's fucking awesome.

 

No way dude, those weeks of backstage segments where Batista teased turning on Evolution, and they were trying to appease him were fucking great. It was like a little wink-wink between Batista and the audience, where we knew that he knew Hunter and Flair were full of shit, but he still entertained them anyway until he got what he needed from them.

He certainly excelled as a heel, but he's always been smooth on the mic, even if he wasn't always given the best material to work with.

[Fallacy!]

7 minutes ago, Overly Critical Man said:

 

Does it have to be either or? Roman gets just as many "This is awesome!" chants as anyone else.

 

"Nobody gets a reaction like Reigns so we have to keep pushing him!" is the biggest self-fulfilling prophecy in WWE history. 

[Jiji]

[jaedmc]

 

25 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

I think people need to watch a lot of The Shield matches and see the reactions Roman got. He had a one-on-one showdown in a handicap match against Titus O'Neil and the crowd was electric. He got giant reactions when he saved his Survivor Series team and set the record for most toss-outs in the Rumble. There are all sorts of other times in The Shield's run when Roman just took over the reactions of the match.

 

People on this very board were praising Roman Reigns for outshining the other two. They all thought he was supposed to be carried by Seth and Dean but that wasn't the case at all. Actually I believe this was the year that I ran March Madness and Roman Reigns out did the other two easily.

He's changed NOTHING about his act since becoming a good guy(which was the complaint people had about Cena when he went from the beloved Thug Life to a Rainbow Marine). Even last night he treated Undertaker like a stupid dumb deer with an arrow sticking out of its neck. The only difference is the machine listened and got behind him. Then Daniel Bryan had to do all those Yes Chants and ruin it. I think if Daniel Bryan stayed healthy, after 6 months people would be like "Ugh turn him heel again so he can tell the referee he has until FIVE."

This post was paid for by "Friends of the Empire".

[Overly Critical Man]

All I know is Samoa Joe had his WM autograph session cut short due to lack of interest and they used his space to accommodate the huge overflow for Roman's autograph session.

May the Roman Empire last for a million years.