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[SEPT 2019] WRESTLING DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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Killing kayfabe killed real heels.

Why am I going to boo Alexa Bliss after hearing about her eating disorder? Why would I boo Corbin for not coming from the indy scene?

Daniel Bryan nailed being a heel because he ramped his personality up to 11 but even then, a massive chunk of the fan base agreed with his points about the environment and wealth distribution and sustainability. Why am I booing the guy that wants to leave a better world for his kids?

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I think the long and the short of it is the most of WWE mainstream programming is just bad TV. The only people left watching it are those that love wrestling, and the cool stuff wrestlers do is it. If there was a show on tv with as many terrible story lines and fake characters with horribly scripted lines as Raw that wasn't pro wrestling it would be cancelled in two minutes because nobody would watch it.

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This is a weighty issue and I will add this personal observation:

Even in this post-modern media culture and this post-modern fans-of-fans (as per Matt D, nice post) as consumers and producers era, I really feel that pro wrestling that works on evoking emotion via story telling can resonate and become pertinent and popular with a large fanbase. It is how it used to be done much of the time and it sold tickets. It's hard to do, and not every is able to do it or teach or even learn how to do it. It was always difficult and it is harder now but that makes it all the more important and effective. Emotion can trump self-awareness momentarily, and that all you need for escapism and resonance.

- RAF

 

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Just want to say that the announcer not only not knowing Rey Mysterio but saying it was Nacho Libre-like is very on brand for Fox.  Considering they're hyping up Smackdown hopefully he gets clued in as that was very cringe-worthy.

As for MJF I would recommend his panel from Starrcast.  It's 45 minutes of him messing with people and I personally thought he was tremendous in it.

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What's everyone's opinions of Daisuke Sekimoto and Ilja Dragunov? I'm a big fan of both.

Sekimoto doesn't have loads of personality or charisma, but he is fun to watch as a bulldozer bullying smaller folks and tossing them around or as a stocky pitbull putting on incredible feats of strength and pulling off crazy deadlift throws on guys much bigger than him. I wasn't too high on his early death match work, so I'm glad he transitioned away from that and made a name for himself in regular matches. There's tons of footage of his available for free and he's been around forever, so I'm sure a lot of you have seen him at some point.

Dragunov brings a ton of intensity to his matches, really connects with the live crowds, excels as an underdog who can take a brutal beating and mount a fantastic comeback as his matches with WALTER from last year from wXw in Germany and his match with Cesaro at TakeOver Cardiff showed. He's been around for a lot less time than Sekimoto and a lot of his footage is behind paywalls, so he maybe more unfamiliar to a lot of folks.

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7 minutes ago, Edwin said:

Dragunov brings a ton of intensity to his matches, really connects with the live crowds, excels as an underdog who can take a brutal beating and mount a fantastic comeback as his matches with WALTER from last year from wXw in Germany and his match with Cesaro at TakeOver Cardiff showed. He's been around for a lot less time than Sekimoto and a lot of his footage is behind paywalls, so he maybe more unfamiliar to a lot of folks.

That entrance is wonderfully wacky and I absolutely love him for that.  I don't watch much NXT UK but did love his part in the match against Cesaro.  If I'm going to see more it may as well be before next week.  But I'd be down for another couple matches of his.

Oh, and for added hilarity check out Botchamania 294 as the ending pairs up his entrance with "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".  That had me in stitches.

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2 hours ago, Tromatagon said:

It's all wrestling fans you're just not around enough fans of other stuff too

Like a Disney Park. You’d be surprised that some of those people aren’t carrying John 3:16 signs just by looking at them. Funny enough though, those same fans of other franchises will crossover with wrestling when accidentally let slip out a wrestling insider terminology when discussing Frozen, or something.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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20 hours ago, SorceressKnight said:

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?"

 

Honestly dude, enough.  Every post is just "blah blah blah eeeeeeeeevil smarks blah blah blah."  Did a smark run over your dog or something?  You legit blame some mythical strawman version of smart fans -- which you have completely made up in your mind -- for all that's wrong with wrestling today.  You generalize the thoughts, motivations, wants, etc of a whole group of fans, and treat it as some monolithic entity that is somehow ruining the business.  Nothing personal, man, but god damn.  It gets so tiresome when every argument of yours boils down to "these people (whom I've never met and have pretty much made up) are harming wrestling because they want something that I don't." 

I mean are you kidding me with this shit?  "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."  Really?  Really?  WWE can choose to write anything they want and the fans can take it or leave it.  WWE's "reality" happens to be hot garbage.  And it's not because some mythical "smart mark" demands it be bad.  It's mostly because everyone there writes to the ever-changing whims of a crazy old man who changes the whole show 20 minutes before belltime. 

I don't block anybody on here because it's pretty rude but fuck, man.  Fuck.

Also, demonizing "smarts" while being an active member of a wrestling message board is a study in cognitive dissonance. 

 

19 hours 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.

Yeah, this.  As a fan of wrestling who doesn't like WWE, I don't demand they change it to my whims.  I just watch something else.  I seriously doubt there's this massive, monolithic group of fans, in misery over WWE's awful product, still watching it just to complain.

Edited by Technico Support
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The "Nacho Libre" thing aside, there was a genuinely awesome plug during the USC game on FS1, as during a replay where they were discussing whether a tackle was actually an illegal slam, that announcer spontaneously transitioned with "and to find out what IS a legal slam, tune into WWE Smackdown on FOX, debuting Friday night October 4th!"

It was delivered in a way where even his fellow announcer afterwards said "wow, that was good."

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14 hours ago, BrianS81177 said:

So I pose the same question to those of you on here who, like me, have cut the cord with WWE. What, if anything, could they do that would bring you back?

Without really even getting into issues with the product, what really drove me away was the increase in programming. It was not that long ago that Raw was a two-hour show that with a DVR you could get through in an hour. Smackdown was b-level content with replays of the highlights from Raw that was largely skippable unless there was a match with a little buzz.  Monthly ppvs were usually a pass for me unless something big was happening (who was coming up with $60 to pay for these things?). So even when things were lousy (and they usually were), the time commitment of a fan to follow everything that was going on was 1 to 2 hours per week. That seems like a reasonable amount of time to expect a fan to follow a tv show.

Now it seems like the requirements to follow everything have perhaps tripled or even quadrupled. It's quicksand. It can feel completely overwhelming to keep up with everything. And it's not like you are rewarded. It's the same lazy content with a little magic mixed in it always was except now you need to treat it like a job.  

So, while I still watch highlights and will continue to do so, unless WWE starts cutting down on content, I will never be a full-time watcher again. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah, this.  As a fan of wrestling who doesn't like WWE, I don't demand they change it to my whims.  I just watch something else.  I seriously doubt there's this massive, monolithic group of fans, in misery over WWE's awful product, still watching it just to complain.

Now we know who has Craig H blocked. ?

I switched cable providers in July. The channel that airs Raw and Smackdown is no longer part of my package, and they wanted an extra 10 dollars a month for it. The channel shows pretty nothing else worth watching, so I took a pass. I haven't watched Raw or Smackdown in over two months. I catch clips of stuff I want to see on WWE's youtube page. If you don't like a show, it's very easy to just not watch it. 

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10 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Honestly dude, enough.  Every post is just "blah blah blah eeeeeeeeevil smarks blah blah blah."  Did a smark run over your dog or something?  You legit blame some mythical strawman version of smart fans -- which you have completely made up in your mind -- for all that's wrong with wrestling today.  You generalize the thoughts, motivations, wants, etc of a whole group of fans, and treat it as some monolithic entity that is somehow ruining the business.  Nothing personal, man, but god damn.  It gets so tiresome when every argument of yours boils down to "these people (whom I've never met and have pretty much made up) are harming wrestling because they want something that I don't." 

I mean are you kidding me with this shit?  "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."  Really?  Really?  WWE can choose to write anything they want and the fans can take it or leave it.  WWE's "reality" happens to be hot garbage.  And it's not because some mythical "smart mark" demands it be bad.  It's mostly because everyone there writes to the ever-changing whims of a crazy old man who changes the whole show 20 minutes before belltime. 

I don't block anybody on here because it's pretty rude but fuck, man.  Fuck.

Also, demonizing "smarts" while being an active member of a wrestling message board is a study in cognitive dissonance. 

giphy.gif

(Sorry @RIPPA ?)

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1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

Just want to say that the announcer not only not knowing Rey Mysterio but saying it was Nacho Libre-like is very on brand for Fox.  Considering they're hyping up Smackdown hopefully he gets clued in as that was very cringe-worthy.

I hope you are prepared for that to happen about a 1000 more times

And on TNT too if they start hyping AEW during basketball

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10 hours ago, PB-13 said:

Sad thing is that now WWE is not only "their show doesn't do much for me" but also "their fans aren't people I want to be around".

*Their fans aren't people I've wanted to be around for a long time. I'm also quite happy to have given up on the main roster shows.

*NXT crowds being the exception

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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3 hours ago, JonnyLaw said:

Honestly, “he’s like a luchadore!” is almost worse than referencing one of the few luchadores in recent pop culture.

Somewhere from beyond the grave, you can hear Art Donovan asking how much dis guy weighs.

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