Best North American in ring performers of last 20 years

[OSJ]

1 hour ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

 

Balor is not much over, he is not super carismatic, but with the right booking he could have been a great babyface. His character could have been so much important if the writing team would have went in depth, but his demon's character is nothing. It's always himself with a paint on his body.

 

@Francesco, I'm going to agree with you and disagree with you at the same time... Balor has oodles of charisma, in fact, he's probably right below Daniel Bryan in terms of charisma. If you watched him in NJPW he was a great arrogant heel, in WWE he's been about as good a babyface as Steamboat, it doesn't get much better than that. As I've said elsewhere, "The ladies come to see him and the fellas want to be him!" Buried in that cliche is the fact that he is one of the most marketable people in WWE. Men like watching him because he's a good wrestler, radiates toughness and seems like a pretty chill dude that you would enjoy hanging out with. Women like watching him because let's face it, he's a good looking guy. 

Now, what's wrong with his act? It's simple to fix and Devitt's a smart guy so I'm surprised that he hasn't made this adjustment... Demon Finn needs to work differently than normal Finn. Be it more heelish tactics (my preference), either more mat based or more high flying (doesn't matter which one, just pick one and stick with it), a different basic moveset (probably too subtle for the WWE universe to pick up on), but SOMETHING has to differentiate the personalities to a degree that can be easily understood, otherwise it's a bloody waste of time and Finn in body paint which means nothing. I hate to point to something as silly and simple-minded as Mankind/Dude Love/Cactus Jack/Mick Foley; but damn it, it worked. Even the bonehead writers that WWE employs were able to get across the many faces of Foley to the point where even a child would understand it. Why they can't do the same with Balor has only one explanation and that's that VKM lost interest once he got hurt and went on to the next bright, shiny thing that captured his attention. This is the problem when you have a company run by a 71 year-old man with the attention-span of a chipmunk. The whole "creative has nothing for you" translates to "Vince forgot that you work here."

[francescofuoco1998]

1 minute ago, OSJ said:

@Francesco, I'm going to agree with you and disagree with you at the same time... Balor has oodles of charisma, in fact, he's probably right below Daniel Bryan in terms of charisma. If you watched him in NJPW he was a great arrogant heel, in WWE he's been about as good a babyface as Steamboat, it doesn't get much better than that. As I've said elsewhere, "The ladies come to see him and the fellas want to be him!" Buried in that cliche is the fact that he is one of the most marketable people in WWE. Men like watching him because he's a good wrestler, radiates toughness and seems like a pretty chill dude that you would enjoy hanging out with. Women like watching him because let's face it, he's a good looking guy. 

Now, what's wrong with his act? It's simple to fix and Devitt's a smart guy so I'm surprised that he hasn't made this adjustment... Demon Finn needs to work differently than normal Finn. Be it more heelish tactics (my preference), either more mat based or more high flying (doesn't matter which one, just pick one and stick with it), a different basic moveset (probably too subtle for the WWE universe to pick up on), but SOMETHING has to differentiate the personalities to a degree that can be easily understood, otherwise it's a bloody waste of time and Finn in body paint which means nothing. I hate to point to something as silly and simple-minded as Mankind/Dude Love/Cactus Jack/Mick Foley; but damn it, it worked. Even the bonehead writers that WWE employs were able to get across the many faces of Foley to the point where even a child would understand it. Why they can't do the same with Balor has only one explanation and that's that VKM lost interest once he got hurt and went on to the next bright, shiny thing that captured his attention. This is the problem when you have a company run by a 71 year-old man with the attention-span of a chipmunk. The whole "creative has nothing for you" translates to "Vince forgot that you work here."

Yes, I agree with. Maybe I didnt't explained well what I meant. 

Everything you said in the second part of your post describes my opinion. Demon Balor should work in a different way than normal Balor.

 

However John, I find a post of jdw on pwonly in which he talked about DVDVR matches poll at the end of the year. I find a post in which he said that Bryan entered in the list of best matches for year since 2003. Do you remember about these polls? Are there lost?

[(BP)]

Dying WCW did a better job booking the Kiss Demon gimmick than WWE does with Balor's Demon deal. And yeah, it's been pointed out quite a bit he puts no effort into differentiating the characters. 

[John from Cincinnati]

2 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

For a top face wins are very important. Imagine in the 80s if Hogan would have lost clean against Kamala: if drawing power would have been hurt.

The problem of WWE is that every face, except Reigns, in part Strowman (but he will finish like Kane and Big Show, unfortunately)  is booked with the 50/50 rule. So nobody is over.

I'm not advocating 50/50 booking. I'm saying that when you've developed the kind of equity that an AJ Styles has with the audience, taking a loss here and there isn't a death knell. Similarly, Hogan could have afforded a fall here and there.

You suggested earlier that people should remember his losses. And I really don't. I remember him being prominently featured for the last two years and being over like rover. 

[OSJ]

Well, let's cut to the heart of the matter; through his insistence on 50/50 booking, too many titles, hot shotting everything and stressing that it's the package, not the people, VKM has created a self-fulfilling prophecy where he has the greatest assemblage of talent I've seen in fifty years  of watching and not one performer who is capable of spiking revenue or viewing numbers with the possible exception of a guy who has been away for two years. A millionaire who should be a billionaire is such a spot on accurate assessment of VKM it's not funny. Some of their mis-handling of talent is fucking late-era WCW level of inept. Managing to make arguably the best wrestler in the world just another upper mid-card guy in a matter of weeks is stupidity of a level not seen since WCW failed to properly use La Parka. The bright spot remains NXT, where are given the ability to develop personas that for the most part aren't screwed around with when they're called up to the main brand. Of course, even there major faux pas occur, alas poor KENTA!, we hardly knew ya.

[Brian Fowler]

Not to argue the broader point, but Vince's current net worth is significantly closer to $2 billion than $1 billion.