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[SEPT 2019] WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Six stars instead of visceral justice through simulated violence?

I mean Cody’s recent big singles matches are essentially that, and the fans are on the babyfaces side for the story, as well as reacting positively to the matches. So to say you can’t get fans to react to that is wrong. You just got to set the chess pieces correctly on the board to earn it. 

You want to blame somebody? Blame Vince’s storytelling style that leaves gaps for fans to be able to side with the heels. A style of storytelling he’s loved to use for years. It’s now more obvious with wrestlers chasing after seven star matches, and implementing a million finisher kick outs, with guys acting out “Oh my god, he kicked out” reactions.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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3 hours ago, Matt D said:

I can say this with a straight face: the fans are the problem. The difference isn't in suspension of disbelief but instead what fans in 1983 wanted relative to fans in 2019. Wrestlers react accordingly.

WWE spent 20 years on the promotion being the heel.  That's not the fans fault.  They are conditioned to boo the creative teams and cheer for the guys who they perceive to be held back.  They should have never exposed the business to the degree they did.  Leave that to the Meltzers of the world.  Everyone knows it's entertainment and fans are fine with buying into the story you are telling. 

"Good matches" still gets wrestlers over.  Daniel Bryan was held back but part of the reason he got over was the hot tags with Kane. Ali is over because of good performances. Kofi Kingston is over in part because of his gauntlet match performance... And buckle your seat for this one.....    SETH ROLLINS is over to the point he is because he had a stretch of matches on RAW where he was going 100mph for an hour.  Fans ate it up.  I know that's not your cup of tea or mine, really..  but it's true. 

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On the Seth Rollins point,  he is bringing a combination of 2000s Ring of Honor,  PWG and New Japan to a wider audience.  In my opinion, he is not really great at it but the styles got over long before they were introduced to a WWE audience.  

If you want to complain about Rollins that's fine but the thing that is disingenuous about these complaints is these types of matches were praised outside of WWE for many years,   the complaints resemble the guy who is depressed because his favorite indie band signed to RCA or something. 

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Plenty of people loved Guns n Roses and thought Faster Pussycat were shit. Even though that style of sleaze metal got over long before they were introduced to an MTV audience.

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13 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

There are plenty of classic radio stations.   Why complain about the top 40.   You know where to find your music. 

Oh, I'm pretty good at maximizing my joy and minimizing my misery. People were inquiring about the potential root of their malaise with the current state of affairs and I was offering helpful analysis to my ol' DVDVR message board pals. 

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2 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Oh, I'm pretty good at maximizing my joy and minimizing my misery. People were inquiring about the potential root of their malaise with the current state of affairs and I was offering helpful analysis to my ol' DVDVR message board pals. 

I don't think it has anything to do with workrate or fans love for workrate etc..  Current WWE is bad at story telling and continuity.  It's also overproduced to a ridiculous degree.  Then you have the issues with WWE creative and Vince himself positioning as the bad guy.   That's going to create indifference. 

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1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I don't think it has anything to do with workrate or fans love for workrate etc..  Current WWE is bad at story telling and continuity.  It's also overproduced to a ridiculous degree.  Then you have the issues with WWE creative and Vince himself positioning as the bad guy.   That's going to create indifference. 

But that's related to the same problem, because ultimately the "bad storytelling and continuity" is related to it.

WWE is very bad at storytelling and continuity...but continuity is very hard to do well when fans bring the continuity from other promotions into WWE and expect them to follow it. If modern fans demand that Kevin Steen (NOT! Kevin Owens!) and El Generico (TRAINER OF! Sami Zayn in an orphanage in Mexico!) have their continuity go all the way back to the random match in JAPW mentioned a few pages ago, then best case scenario, you've hindered the amount of stories you can tell with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn (and it's important to mention- Owens and Zayn have done very good work this year, now that they're allowed to do something besides "these two guys are really, really good friends who had a falling out and now they hate each other.") 

Storytelling is even worse. WWE is bad at storytelling, but it is impossible for WWE to be GOOD at storytelling when the modern fanbase made it clear: They rejected WWE's reality and substituted their own. WWE can tell any and every story they want, but the only storyline the fans want to hear is "this is the story of your favorite indie wrestler, as they try to navigate all the backstage politics and bad writing of WWE to rise above and win the World/Women's Title at Wrestlemania".

This makes things worse all around- because this nature is backwards for modern fans wanting to be smarter fans: Focusing on just one wrestler's rise to the top means you can't truly KNOW how good the show is because you're too busy brooding about "well, this wrestler isn't getting what they deserve" that you can't appreciate all the good things going on in the show. And when there's so many good wrestlers and equally, so many wrestlers who people feel deserve to be the World Champion at Wrestlemania and get all glory that it's impossible to give EVERYONE their fair due. Even if they depush all the "bad workers" and push only the good workers, there's only one title and they can't all share it...so someone is going to be depushed, and those same fans will have some reason to whine and complain "well, maybe all these guys got their fair due...but what about HIM?"

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Let's be clear.  Fans didn't "reject" stories involving guys from the indies.  WWE wanted street credibility with NXT.  They decided it'd be easier creatively and offer the alternative to what was going on with the main rosters by marketing every single guy as "huge star from all over the world!" and it got over with that indy demographic that was used to watching all these dudes have back and forth matches up and down the super indy circuit. 

You can't blame the fans.  Hunter said "oh you guys like PWG and New Japan?  Well,  come watch our show with all your favorites."    To be fair to Hunter,  they have told a lot of very old school and simplistic stories in NXT that have worked wonders but the best characters are the people like Bayley,  Sasha Banks, Dream,   Bianca Bel Air,  people who didn't have a previous character or fan base.  Those are the true developmentals.  

NXT programming was never a developmental.  It was a territory.  

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I actually agree with Niners on this.  You really don't have to look hard at recent history to find examples of the same fans who are being blamed for pushing pro wres toward exhibition instead of catharsis proving themselves perfectly willing and able to "play along" and get deeply invested into storylines.  Cody/Dustin, the early days of the Gargano/Ciampa feud before the booking fucked it up, the Golden Lovers reunion, just to name a few.  Give the people something to sink their teeth into, and they will.  If not, all they're left with is to appreciate the ringwork, ******, etc.

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DDT with the best name of a show in years.
 

Quote

DDT "BEST WESTERN LARIAT SERIES 2019", 22.09.2019
Tokyo Best Western Rembrandt Hotel Tokyo Machida B1F "Sango no Ma"

 

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19 minutes ago, EVA said:

I actually agree with Niners on this.  You really don't have to look hard at recent history to find examples of the same fans who are being blamed for pushing pro wres toward exhibition instead of catharsis proving themselves perfectly willing and able to "play along" and get deeply invested into storylines.  Cody/Dustin, the early days of the Gargano/Ciampa feud before the booking fucked it up, the Golden Lovers reunion, just to name a few.  Give the people something to sink their teeth into, and they will.  If not, all they're left with is to appreciate the ringwork, ******, etc.

I agree with all of this except the "actually" part.  You make it sound surprising ?

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58 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

Storytelling is even worse. WWE is bad at storytelling, but it is impossible for WWE to be GOOD at storytelling when the modern fanbase made it clear: They rejected WWE's reality and substituted their own. WWE can tell any and every story they want, but the only storyline the fans want to hear is "this is the story of your favorite indie wrestler, as they try to navigate all the backstage politics and bad writing of WWE to rise above and win the World/Women's Title at Wrestlemania".

This isn't completely wrong though you really need to drop the indie wrestler aspect you keep pushing. Its tired talking point that has lost its luster over the course of years. Take that indie part out and you are more right than wrong. People on the other side aren't completely in the wrong though about part of that being on WWE itself for their refusal to leave management (who nearly always become defacto heels) out of the stories. If they would limit that more then stories would probably work a bit better for them. NXT is kind of a decent example of that where the GMs are mostly just there for matchmaking and try to stay in a neutral position.

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I'm never sure when SKnight says 'the fans' which particular fans he's talking about. If his argument is that the members of the WWE universe who attend tv events are to blame, that's one thing. But if he means all Wrestling fans, I'm not sure how watching Impact on 5Star every week whilst ignoring Raw, Smackdown and NXT's existence has me contributing to Vince's bad booking.

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2 minutes ago, AxB said:

I'm never sure when SKnight says 'the fans' which particular fans he's talking about. If his argument is that the members of the WWE universe who attend tv events are to blame, that's one thing. But if he means all Wrestling fans, I'm not sure how watching Impact on 5Star every week whilst ignoring Raw, Smackdown and NXT's existence has me contributing to Vince's bad booking.

Am I part of the problem for thinking Tessa Blanchard vs Sami Callihan is the feud of the year? If that's wrong then I don't want to be right. 

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