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DECEMBER 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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3 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Going back a few pages.  The time to give RVD a run was during the Invasion.  Triple H isn't really responsible anymore than say Austin or Angle or booking at the time.  RVD would have been absolutely massive as champion in 2001.  

They missed a trick having face Austin vs Heel RVD in 2001. Angry alcoholic vs relaxed stoner would've been awesome. Just RVD promos on how he doesn't know why Austin's so angry every week.

 

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6 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Part of the fun of watching Japanese wrestling is the random English word inserted in the commentary. 

" xxx xXxX xXxX xXxX xXxX  brain-bustah!"

I can't for the life of me remember the match, but it was a main event NOAH show. Wrestler A gets stopped on top turnbuckle, Wrestler B goes for a high spot as the commentator gets more and more excited and as Wrestler B sets up then hits the move I swear the announcer said "AUDI! AUDI! AUDI! SAUSAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!"

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So Mike Elgin is probably a piece of crap. He got caught on Twitter talking shit in DMs about a woman accusing one of his students of sexual assault when in public he was talking about defending the accuser and taking her claims seriously.

Then again, this shouldn't be surprising considering he laughed about the time he peed on a woman and bragged about getting paid to do that.

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7 minutes ago, Craig H said:

So Mike Elgin is probably a piece of crap. He got caught on Twitter talking shit in DMs about a woman accusing one of his students of sexual assault when in public he was talking about defending the accuser and taking her claims seriously.

Then again, this shouldn't be surprising considering he laughed about the time he peed on a woman and bragged about getting paid to do that.

See the US Indy thread...

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On 12/3/2017 at 4:50 PM, OSJ said:

Well, I'm not on that particular bandwagon yet... For me, there are two kinds of heat: First we have the classic heel heat as exemplified by Tully Blanchard,  (is there any red-blooded wrestling fan that DIDN'T want to punch Blanchard right in the mouth?) Rowdy Roddy Piper, as soon as he got done cutting a promo, you raced to the box office to get a ticket for next week's show because you wanted to see  him get his ass kicked. Arn & Ole, yeah they were great, we knew and they never stopped reminding us, we prayed for Hawk and Animal  to get ten minutes with them. preferably locked in a cage.

Then we have what for lack of another term, we'll call B & B heat (after Beavis & Butthead, with their great catch-phrase, "Change it, change it; this sucks.) Examples of this, or what we in the book reviewing call "the eight deadly words" = I don't care what happens to these people!" Dolph certainly has achieved this dubious distinction, back in WCW days you had this lumbering oaf that couldn't work a lick, Ron Reis or Rice, something like that.

To me, on the current roster, Jinder and Enzo have both become instant channel changers for me. It's not that Jinder is a completely inept promo, he's not, he just isn't very interesting; he's pretty mediocre in the ring, but Trips can drag a decent match out of most performers,  we'll see what happens. I'm still unsure if India will get behind a Canadian of Indian descent. I have a funny feeling that WWE is going to be very disappointed...

 

But that ties to the other problem- fans right now are just too smart for that type of heat. 

The fans right now love whoever is good at their job- face or heel, because of how good at their job they are.

Because of that, the first classic heel heat doesn't work- because if a heel is good enough at their job to get good heel heat, inevitably fans will say "he's too good at his job" and start cheering them because they're talented.

With that in mind, there's a problem since, if wrestling fans are going to cheer true heels for being good heels, then by definition the only heels you can build around and know the fans will hate them are B & B heat workers, solely because the fans will boo someone inept at their job more than someone good at their job. (And there's even a case now where a lot of fans will even cheer THEM just to be ironic.) 

With that in mind, how can you make a good show if the most compelling villains end up becoming heroic by being compelling villains, and the most inept villains become the most hated because they suck?

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People love good villains, and good villain performances, in all kinds of stories. This is only a problem when you don't have good protagonists to balance things out. If you're invested in the hero of the story, then you'll get mad at the villain, even while you relish how good a character they are and/or how well they're being played.

So I think the problem here, for wrestling and especially for WWE, is more about faces than heels.

This is not to say that things could go back to the way they were deep in the kayfabe era. But I do think you can still have wrestlers getting good heel reactions based on their actual characters, rather than a perception that they're bad performers or overpushed or whatever.

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Is it that fans are too smart or that fans have moved on from the traditional heel/face dynamic and the WWE refuses to acknowledge it? 

There are exceptions, but most of the time I have a hard time understanding the difference in motivations for a WWE face or heel. 

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3 hours ago, JohnnyJ said:

Is it that fans are too smart or that fans have moved on from the traditional heel/face dynamic and the WWE refuses to acknowledge it? 

There are exceptions, but most of the time I have a hard time understanding the difference in motivations for a WWE face or heel. 

The problem there would be more that WWE does know the future of face/heel dynamics, but they explained it the right way as "Team Edward vs. Team Jacob" (when Rock/Cena I happened), and wrestling fans rioted saying "EEW! TWILIGHT!" as the visceral response to it.

 

This despite Team Edward vs. Team Jacob IS the way to get past the traditional heel/face dynamic, because it boils down to

"This is wrestler X. This is wrestler Y.

This is wrestler X's motivation and why he hates Wrestler Y.

This is wrestler Y's motivation and why he hates Wrestler X.

...so who's side are YOU ON?"

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I can't disagree enough with the crowd blaming for WWE's inability to create compelling characters and then put them in some sort of storyline that gets people invested. It's the HHH "well if we turn them heel the crowd will just cheer because that's what they want us to do" nonsense. Yet there is no real historical example of it, at all.

I mean, the Miz is probably one of the most over acts online, everybody loves his character and work, and yet the guy almost universally gets booed out of the building.

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That's because Miz may get cheered for a fiery promo, but in ring he does nothing to get cheered for. Easier to boo him than a guy like AJ who is literally the best and just can't get boos as a heel because he's too good.

It's Ric Flair syndrome - at a certain point you can't boo one of the best wrestlers in the world. I'm sure Jinder could do better matches, but then he'd be cheered.

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57 minutes ago, DeathyBoy said:

I'm sure Jinder could do better matches, but then he'd be cheered.

Not to be too harsh/flippant/etc., but... are you really sure? If so, why?

Broadly speaking, I think WWE has a problem with villain/hero narrative agency, which is common in basically all genre fiction. Essentially, the villain is the one who is given tangible motivation. They plot, they plan, they attack. We know what they want, and so it's easier, on some level, to empathize with them. The hero, on the other hand, is reactive. They try to stop Bad Thing X from happening, or eventually are roused by the bad guy attacking them. But otherwise, what would they be doing? What do they want? To win things, I guess, but WWE does a poor job of making wins and championships things of real value. I think this was part of the reason The Shield was so over, even before formally turning face: They instigated things. Their motivations weren't even clear or consistent, but it was clear that they were very motivated and active, rather than blandly reactive. People like that sort of dynamism and drive in a character, since they're fundamentally the ones disrupting the status quo, and as such, creating narrative momentum. 

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Even putting star rating vagueries aside, I don't see how "good matches" and "cocky heel who cheats" are mutually exclusive. (Miz manages just fine these days.) I don't think he'd suddenly be a better worker without the assists--but we'll probably get a chance to find out, if the Singh Bros are indeed gone. I hope he is! Roids are terrible and I'd never encourage them... but like all fans I'm a bit of a hypocrite, and there's a corner of my wrestling fandom heart best occupied by jacked guys who just wreck people.

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So, I don't think Instagram stories are postable, but Hard Knocks South has a post possibly teasing a return at NXT:Philly or the Rumble.

Spoiler

A pair of legs is shown doing leg curls to Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia". (Not exactly a workout song.)  Eventually it pans up, and reveals Ethan Carter III bopping along to the music.   

The video ends as the song does. 

I may be reading WAY too much into it, but, wanted to say something nonetheless. 

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10 minutes ago, Hagan said:

Someone hacked his wife's account and had fake posts about the state of his marriage. Complete fabrications. 


So, yeah, social media is terrible. 

This just...

I mean the dude is a mega heel who incorporates how much he loves his family into his character. What sort of asshole would try messing with his home life?

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