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Smackdown Presents Raw - 5/6/2019


Dolfan in NYC

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It's like staring at the sun, but I can't help but dig in a bit. There are honestly ways to make this work. If a few Smackdown guys will be on Raw every week, figure out the motivation behind it. Have them be elements of chaos or as an opportunity. Bring back the Open Challenge for the IC/US belts. Have it so there's a feud leading to the PPVs in brand but fill time every week by having a surprise mid-carder go for the title. Not only does this give an interesting/fresh match up and helps to put over a lower-level guy by giving him a chance, it'll also protect those main feuds because it means you won't have to have the two guys feuding buried in endless tag matches every week. 

Have a SD person invade Bray's Funhouse every week and build up some feud on the other show, or just let them present themselves and get over. Or flip it and have the talk show on the other brand for a night.

There are ways to do this that aren't completely lazy but they're probably just going to dump people into random tag matches or whatever. 

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51 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

What's happening now is not working either.

You say not viable, but it's not working now either and it's completely eroding at the seams. First they got rid of brand only PPVs. Now they are doing this wildcard nonsense. 

They also got rid of the kayfabe rivalry between Steph and Shane (along with their respective GMs).

The wildcard nonsense is going to potentially be a bigger problem on Smackdown, because it's a 2 hour show and 3 wildcards from RAW can potentially dominate it.

Now as Meltzer has hinted at, the shitty ratings are not a short-term problem unless somehow the execs find a way out of their deals. But at the end of the day, unless the execs who made the respective decisions at Spike and FOX get canned they're probably going to stand by their decisions - and what are they going to fill out their schedules with that's going to draw better? They may have bought a shit sandwich, but they're probably going to have to eat it and consider it fibre.

Now whether it's a problem for AEW at Turner is a different matter. And long-term it's a problem - I'm not an expert on American TV demographics but I know that in the UK the principlal remaining audience for TV is Women 35+. That's not a wrestling audience. I am aware that the immediate decline of TV is somewhat overstated, but the writing is on the wall. One day WWE will be liberated from having to produce RAW and that may actually be a good thing in a weird way. I personally question AEW's decision to get into producing two hours of television every week, when essentially their buzz comes from barely having any matches.

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3 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:

Everyone seems to still be responding well to the Bray Wyatt stuff, to which I ask: How the hell is any of this going to translate to Bray Wyatt as a semi-main event level wrestler? I don't care about any of this Adult Swim Lite garbage if it doesn't lead to anything in the ring.

I would say transition it into a live Piper’s Pit segment, with a stage set, and not an in-ring set(This is fucking billion dollar company for fucks sake). For 3, or 6 months make it a talk show segment, with hints of Bray returning to the ring, and shades of him either being a face, and heel. Then turn him face, on the feud that sets up his first match back.Thats how I’d do it.

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You know what's weird? With this whole humiliation angle for the Revival, the people coming out looking even worse are the Usos. They've completely lost any kind of edge they once had. They used to be one of the most over acts in the company because of how different they were and now they're playing practical jokes and just being clowns.

Anyway, WTF is the point of this wildcard thing if they break the rules of it in the very first night? And they wonder why people are tuning out in droves. Nothing matters. Nothing. Wins and losses don't matter. Continuity doesn't matter. Their own rules don't matter.

To make matters worse, you have Big E on twitter roasting WWE for this completely unimaginative booking by saying "Everyone loves rematches!!!" We're really already running back Roman and Drew and Kofi and Bryan, and on free TV? With no build? 

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Just to followup on this bit - Meltzer said on the radio show this morning that NBC Universal and FOX are both already pressuring the WWE about the ratings.

Basically - both companies want "Star Power" on their shows but also want storylines that carry over from to RAW to SDL (and vice versa). (Basically unsaid was that they want the Brand Split over).

Vince is stubborn and doesn't want to end the split so this is "compromise"

The way Meltzer explained it is that a different set of 4 guys will be on both shows every week. (So in theory it won't be like Roman 24/7 - though he will be on both shows fairly often).

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I thiought that was the most entertaining the Revival’s ever been. One 5 minute women’s segment is a bad look. Thought the Miz/Shane thing was shot well. Seth Rollins is boring. He’s not a star, even though they so desperately want him to be. Samoa Joe is awesome.

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22 minutes ago, ComingToAmerica said:

They also got rid of the kayfabe rivalry between Steph and Shane (along with their respective GMs).

 The wildcard nonsense is going to potentially be a bigger problem on Smackdown, because it's a 2 hour show and 3 wildcards from RAW can potentially dominate it.

 Now as Meltzer has hinted at, the shitty ratings are not a short-term problem unless somehow the execs find a way out of their deals. But at the end of the day, unless the execs who made the respective decisions at Spike and FOX get canned they're probably going to stand by their decisions - and what are they going to fill out their schedules with that's going to draw better? They may have bought a shit sandwich, but they're probably going to have to eat it and consider it fibre.

Now whether it's a problem for AEW at Turner is a different matter. And long-term it's a problem - I'm not an expert on American TV demographics but I know that in the UK the principlal remaining audience for TV is Women 35+. That's not a wrestling audience. I am aware that the immediate decline of TV is somewhat overstated, but the writing is on the wall. One day WWE will be liberated from having to produce RAW and that may actually be a good thing in a weird way. I personally question AEW's decision to get into producing two hours of television every week, when essentially their buzz comes from barely having any matches.

How does Spike figure into this? Did you mean USA?

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Also, show of hands.

How many people watched Raw last night but haven't seen the Flair/Slaughter and Freebirds/Road Warriors dream matches that they posted last week?

At this point, you guys are really just doing it to yourselves.

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20 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Just to followup on this bit - Meltzer said on the radio show this morning that NBC Universal and FOX are both already pressuring the WWE about the ratings.

Basically - both companies want "Star Power" on their shows but also want storylines that carry over from to RAW to SDL (and vice versa). (Basically unsaid was that they want the Brand Split over).

Vince is stubborn and doesn't want to end the split so this is "compromise"

The way Meltzer explained it is that a different set of 4 guys will be on both shows every week. (So in theory it won't be like Roman 24/7 - though he will be on both shows fairly often).

Network pressure, too many wrestlers signed, brand split failing, fan disinterest, XFL failure incoming... They are a big balloon that needs to let out some air, or it is ready to...

latest?cb=20161113011006&path-prefix=es

 

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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5 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

How does Spike figure into this? Did you mean USA?

Yeah. Forgive me I'm from the UK, and I'm in Thailand at the moment where WWE just post RAW and Smackdown onto Youtube.

I will need to check the Flair/Slaughter match. I was thinking the other day about their later match where Mountie unveils his new super shock stick, which he was never allowed to use again or he'd be fired - which was a bit of a stupid end to the gimmick really.

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18 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

I would say transition it into a live Piper’s Pit segment, with a stage set, and not an in-ring set(This is fucking billion dollar company for fucks sake). For 3, or 6 months make it a talk show segment, with hints of Bray returning to the ring, and shades of him either being a face, and heel. Then turn him face, on the feud that sets up his first match back.Thats how I’d do it.

My issues with that:

1. They already have like four dudes doing talk show segments semi-regularly, and *all* of them are worthless. Not a single one of them has been used to effectively push a storyline in YEARS.

2. That's six months of build up...to nothing. Six months of interviewing other wrestlers isn't in and of itself a storyline that leads anywhere. Not being able to figure out what his first match back IS is kind of the entire problem - where is any of this going? The interview format has really only ever worked with Piper. It worked with Piper not just because of who he was, but because they actually used the segment to meaningfully build up matches, angles, and wrestlers. Now *EVERY* talk show segment (no matter how talented the person doing it - Miz, KO, etc.) is just another 20 minute borefest that's almost impossible to sit through.

3. Bray already is a face. He was last seen teaming with Matt Hardy for a face tag team title run. He hasn't done anything to turn, so why would a face "turn" at the end of six months of slog mean anything?

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14 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:

 

2. That's six months of build up...to nothing. Six months of interviewing other wrestlers isn't in and of itself a storyline that leads anywhere. Not being able to figure out what his first match back IS is kind of the entire problem - where is any of this going? The interview format has really only ever worked with Piper. It worked with Piper not just because of who he was, but because they actually used the segment to meaningfully build up matches, angles, and wrestlers. Now *EVERY* talk show segment (no matter how talented the person doing it - Miz, KO, etc.) is just another 20 minute borefest that's almost impossible to sit through.

3. Bray already is a face. He was last seen teaming with Matt Hardy for a face tag team title run. He hasn't done anything to turn, so why would a face "turn" at the end of six months of slog mean anything?

1.Drop the other talk-shows that nobody likes, and see how this does live. If he can’t do this live, then this gimmick is straight up dead.

2. Bray’s first real face turn is something. Who you program him with is the real question. Maybe feeding Lars to him would be the right thing to do to give him his credibility back. Because if they decide to program him with Corbin, they might as well tell him “We have nothing for you creatively”.

3. Before his injury, we all saw Bray turning on Matt as the only real conclusion to that angle. So I never bought that face turn.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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Didn't Meltzer originally say that Fox wanted the brand split and wanted talents and storylines that would be exclusive to Fox (so they wouldn't be promoting a show/wrestlers on another network)?  That's just not realistic right now given the level of interest in WWE programming.  Fox and NBC Universal need crossover so they can get as much star power on each show.  Of course, WWE has something like 1,019 wrestlers under contract and the real problem is the creative side of things, so I kinda feel like shuffling wrestlers from one brand to another is only going to exacerbate some of the problems, so....

Felt like show was awful.  Watched it this morning so I could FF through a lot of it, and it was still largely awful.   Wasn't feeling the Wildcard gimmick to begin with and it was kinda dead by hour three.  Cole shouting "What RAW superstars will be on Smackdown tomorrow night" as the show went off the air seemed really forced to me.  I could probably care less about the Wildcard Rules, but it wouldn't be easy to make myself care even less.

You would think Vince would have learned by now that desperate overreactions to one week's tv ratings are part of this company's long-term issues, but... nope.

A couple of the matches were good, but, yeah, running Bryan's rematch with Kofi on free tv with no build or advertising is dumb.  Especially since, with the Saudi show looming.  Bryan isn't going to be given anything major to do until that's over with.  Guess his mystery injury really was Saudi-itis?

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44 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

3. Before his injury, we all saw Bray turning on Matt as the only real conclusion to that angle. So I never bought that face turn.

Maybe that's what *you* saw - the team already came at the conclusion of a long feud between the two, so I'm not so sure. 

 

I'm guessing Vince hasn't thought for one second that the way to appease Fox is to actually stack the SmackDown roster for once, instead of the Raw one?

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There are a ton of problems with WWE's TV shows right now (I still enjoy the PPVs, but TV is a slog) that I wouldn't know where to start to fix. Watching last night though, one thing was especially grating. I find Michael Cole's fake enthusiasm insufferable. Dunno how many more times I can put up with him hyping boring shit.

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58 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

He will be fed to somebody by WrestleMania. Why not throw him the bone, instead of Cena, or Roman? 

Not to be a jerk, and I'm sure this question will sound like I'm a jerk, but do you actually watch Raw and SDL each week? I've seen you make other comments that seem...disconnected from what's actually on TV.

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45 minutes ago, MORELOCK said:

Maybe that's what *you* saw - the team already came at the conclusion of a long feud between the two, so I'm not so sure. 

We’ll never truly know, but it looked like another situation similar to the ones he had with Orton, and Bryan, where the feuding rivals took a break, and became allies.

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6 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Not to be a jerk, and I'm sure this question will sound like I'm a jerk, but do you actually watch Raw and SDL each week? I've seen you make other comments that seem...disconnected from what's actually on TV.

Practically just watch it in clip form some weeks, but from reading Meltz, the plan looked like a program with Cena. Probably not be fed to him since it would’ve been too soon, but maybe Cena would’ve gotten his win back.

 

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2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

The way Meltzer explained it is that a different set of 4 guys will be on both shows every week. (So in theory it won't be like Roman 24/7 - though he will be on both shows fairly often).

He's back to getting booed out of the building by SummerSlam.   Great.  

Though frankly, if I'm the WWE, I'd make lemonade out of lemons and happily up my offer to the Revival and hand them the Smackdown tag titles tonight because frankly, the tag situation over there is fucking dire. 

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For those tracking 

Cedric Alexander beat EC3 and Peyton Royce beat Nikki Cross in the Main Event taping

And Mojo yelled at shit on YouTube 

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