MAY 2019 WRESTLING TALK

[Burgundy LaRue]

48 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

But there are only so many segments per week.  Lacey Evans is getting a segment a week for her promos/altercations.   Lars Sullivan is getting a segment a week to come out and attack people.  Roman Reigns is still getting a segment and a commercial break leading into the end of his segment/match per week to go along with the whole "fresh new" authority figure, Shane.  

In order to get more tag matches or make room for another women's segment or make room for a couple more of the midcard guys to get on TV,  you would have to cut down on that other stuff that really nobody seems to care for. 

 Roman, Becky, Charlotte, AJ and Seth are going to get a lot of time. Because they're the stars of the company. 

Kofi and KO got more time last week than Roman. Which is correct, because Kofi is the WWE champion.

Anyone who they're trying to build will get a segment.

Does someone like Corbin get too much attention? Yes. No one denies this.

I'm not sure what the problem is other than you don't like specific wrestlers and want them off your screen. That's your opinion and that's fine. But what if I don't feel the same as you? That's why listening to fans is often futile. Millions of voices with no one singing in harmony.

One way to free up some space to cut out the 20-minute opening promos. They may have made sense 20 years ago during the Monday Night Wars, but they're albatrosses in 2019. Start the shows with a hot midcard match or backstage segment. It'll take half the time and leave 10 minutes for someone else. 

[RIPPA]

Lars also had an issue with Lacey Evans awhile back on social media but I’m old and can’t remember the details 

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

The notion that the screen time being given to Roman or Lacey or Lars is part of the ratings problem could not be farther from the mark. The problem goes so much deeper than what talents are being featured. They need to blow up the stale, sterile format their shows have followed for years and find a difference maker or two in terms of star power. The show could be all Seth and Becky and AJ Styles and whoever we're pretending isn't a "pet project" this week, and the ratings would still be in the toilet with this stale format. They could change things up and do more tag matches or whatever, and the ratings would still be in the toilet. The damage is so systemic and baked into the brand at this point. 

But Roman and Lacey and Lars being featured is the problem. 

You're 100% right. Everything needs to be blown up. From the way the show is shot, to how wrestlers behave backstage, the no looking in the camera stuff, everyone being given the same scripted promo in the same voice (unless you're Joe), to when they run commercial breaks during matches, how the matches are called, and so on. Everything needs to be changed, but I doubt any of that even happens.

The most we'll get is a new intro video and song, a new logo, and a new set.

[Brandon-E]

Corbin isn't any good but at the same time I doubt he's Stevie Ray level terrible.

[LoneWolf&Subs]

You know what would fix everything? Move the RAW announce desk to ringside.

[Raziel]

7 minutes ago, Craig H said:

You're 100% right. Everything needs to be blown up

 

 

So you're saying they should...

[Ryan]

Time to bring back Hogan full time.

[Sublime]

Hogun could manage/mentor Sullivan they seem like they have similar interests

[Kang]

Turn Raw into Hustle.

[odessasteps]

It was interesting to hear Cornette talking about how they shot the Crockett Cup show trying to emulate the JCP TV and Jackie Crockett told them that they used to shoot at two different heights to give an alternative. 

[Casey]

7 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Hogun could manage/mentor Sullivan they seem like they have similar interests

Sullivan has no interest in protecting Asgard, get the fuck outta here!

[John from Cincinnati]

Just now, Casey said:

Sullivan has no interest in protecting Asgard, get the fuck outta here!

Is it that time of the month where we have the Viking heritage conversation? 

[Raziel]

2 minutes ago, D.Z said:

Turn Raw into Hustle.

I am 10000% behind this.

[Eivion]

1 hour ago, OSJ said:

Disgusting. Fucking meathead should never be allowed near a keyboard. How is it he still has a job with a publicly-traded company? You can't be saying shit like that without well-deserved repercussions. 

It all happened years before Sullivan was in WWE.

[Casey]

1 minute ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Is it that time of the month where we have the Viking heritage conversation? 

Ivar and Erik, the Asgardian Experience?

[Infinit]

Didn't Lars also post some garbage belittling people with anxiety/mental issues? Which actually is kinda funny as well as disgusting given his own recent anxiety/mental issues...?

[OSJ]

19 minutes ago, Ryan said:

Time to bring back Hogan full time.

ban plz

[OSJ]

10 minutes ago, D.Z said:

Turn Raw into Hustle.

Thought that had occured years ago when they had an 80 year-old woman giving birth to a hand.

[Raziel]

11 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Thought that had occured years ago when they had an 80 year-old woman giving birth to a hand.

No, HUSTLE was the mid-20's woman laying an egg that turned into Akebono.

[SorceressKnight]

1 hour ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

 One way to free up some space to cut out the 20-minute opening promos. They may have made sense 20 years ago during the Monday Night Wars, but they're albatrosses in 2019. Start the shows with a hot midcard match or backstage segment. It'll take half the time and leave 10 minutes for someone else. 

Even beyond that, they may have to get rid of these super long matches more than anything and make more promos/backstage segments.

Again- people are starting to be aware "long" is not equal to "good", and a long match is only going to make someone a superstar if you have something like "holy shit, Seth Rollins/Kofi Kingston went an hour on free TV!"...and even that only works because that type of thing almost NEVER happens. (If someone was going an hour on Raw/Smackdown every month or so, it'd cease to mean anything.) 

It even openly hurts superstars' draw to go that far. For the most damning example: Ronda Rousey became a draw because she was steamrolling women in 30 seconds on UFC PPVs. If Rousey's suddenly taking 10 minutes to dispatch even the jobbiest jobbers in the women's division because "well, the match is LONG, so it must be good!", you're actively going against how people would want to see Rousey matches. Sometimes, the top stars SHOULD be dispatching the lower names quickly.

Take away the random two-segment matches that go nowhere and cut them down, and suddenly you have more time to explore the room with the lowcard, more time for promos and segments to get performers over...shit, even if you have to use wrestling, it might be better to use two 7 minute matches than one 15 minute match.

20 minutes ago, Eivion said:

It all happened years before Sullivan was in WWE.

Normally if it was some idiocy from long ago, there'd be a chance he was contrite- but in Sullivan's case: There was a second name besides the one in those screenshots attributed to Sullivan, which had similar viewpoints to the ones said, and had posts attributed to it as close as three months before he formally reported to the Performance Center in 2013. 

So, the "it happened years before he was in WWE" thing doesn't help.

[Tromatagon]

Wait...he was in developmental for six years?

[Eivion]

8 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

Normally if it was some idiocy from long ago, there'd be a chance he was contrite- but in Sullivan's case: There was a second name besides the one in those screenshots attributed to Sullivan, which had similar viewpoints to the ones said, and had posts attributed to it as close as three months before he formally reported to the Performance Center in 2013. 

So, the "it happened years before he was in WWE" thing doesn't help

Ah, I was only aware about the ones a decade before he was in WWE. Not sure about the 3 months before really matters when still something years ago they weren't even aware of. If he showed bad behavior during his time there it would be an issue. At that point there wasn't much they could realistically do that would make sense

[Godfrey]

WWE definitely needs a revamp and now. And not a shake up or some new call ups but serious, infrastructure changes. Their presentation is tired, their touring is an unsustainable grind, and the independent contractor system is an embarrassment that they should be ashamed to still be pulling in 2019, but on top of that you have baffling booking decisions and morally bankrupt business deals being struck despite their very clear PR downsides. Long story short, WWE is burning through any good will they might still have with fans and industry types and eventually that shit comes back to you.

The frustrating part, and the thing that keeps fans from abandoning them entirely, is that they do get it right every now and again. Sometimes the fans force them to, sometimes they just know they've got something. But those moments are becoming less and less frequent while disappointments are the norm now. Literally the whole internet shit on Corbin being chosen as Angle's last opponent with good reason and they did it anyway. So they're either incompetent or they just don't care, neither of which is a good look for an entertainment company.

[Niners Fan in CT]

2 hours ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

 I'm not sure what the problem is other than you don't like specific wrestlers and want them off your screen. That's your opinion and that's fine.

Hold on a sec because it's not just my opinion.  Ratings are worse than ever. I'm not blaming one singular act.  There's enough blame to go around but the key is that they are presenting nothing that people want to see. 

[Burgundy LaRue]

4 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Hold on a sec because it's not just my opinion.  Ratings are worse than ever. I'm not blaming one singular act.  There's enough blame to go around but the key is that they are presenting nothing that people want to see. 

You actively complained about Roman, Lacey and Lars getting segments/time.