SDL is Kevin Owens to AEW CONFIRMED - 9/10/2019

[JonnyLaw]

39 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

1) They have established over the past few weeks there were stakes to KO getting any sort of licks into Shane. Now KO has nothing to lose, which is when he can act freely.

We’re normally on the same page, but KO didn’t get any licks into Shane. He impotently did what Shane wanted and still got fired.

[Craig H]

Do you know who NEVER needed any stakes to getting one over on the boss/heel or who never needed to have nothing to lose?

Steve Austin, the Rock, Undertaker, HHH, HBK, Hogan, etc.

And having two faces standing tall on the same show doesn't diminish either one because there's plenty of history of more than one top face looking like a badass and standing tall. 

This is why this company can't create stars because they don't fucking understand basic fundamentals. No one wants to watch a show when there's no one worth watching. What incentive is there for me to tune in to watch if I'm a Kevin Owens fan? There is none! I may as well not even be a fan! The biggest things that have sold the best have been anti-establishment characters or badass characters who don't look like dumbasses, who don't act like little bitches, who don't do what the boss tells them to do, WHO DON'T BEG THE FUCKING BOSS TO NOT FINE THEM, who outsmart the top heel at nearly every turn, and who beat someone's ass each week. 

I don't want to hear these bullshit excuses for why the booking makes sense because it doesn't. This creative isn't good for business and if it was, more than barely 1.5 million people would watch each week. Instead WWE has conditioned an entire generation of fans to not give a fuck and if that generation doesn't care, then those fans aren't going to pass their fandom down to the next generation.

[w. josh]

On one hand, the King of the Ring should pretty much always be a heel, so that they can be obnoxious and sniveling and mistreat underlings. On the other hand, Baron Corbin is as exciting as watching a receding hairline and bad tattoos dry. King Joe would have been great, and Joe vs. Gable (or Ricochet vs. Gable if they wanted to go with a face) could have been potentially classic matches. But they seem to have this pathological need to troll the audience at this point.

Gable is fantastic, and they could easily sell him as the second coming of Kurt Angle between the Olympic credentials and the great comedy timing. Instead, they're harping on his biggest perceived weakness (his height) and have dropped everything about him that made him stand out. He looks like a Create-A-Wrestler now, and every other sentence on commentary is a short joke. That works if he 's proving everyone wrong (or at least popping Corey in the mouth in an opening segment next week), but if/when he loses to Corbin, or wins and immediately fades back to the lower midcard...

Edited September 11, 2019 by w. josh

[brandonr4s]

It's amazing how unappealing the current product is. Nothing else to say, really.

[J.T.]

It was good to see heel Bayley get a win in a decisive manner.

My thoughts about the RAW women's tag were initially positive, but then I remembered how much heel Bayley, the fucking Smackdown Women's Champ no less, unselfishly bumped like a pinball that night for everybody and even got pinned clean as a fucking sheet, so I have come to the conclusion that Unstoppable Becky Lynch is beginning to grate at my nerves and I will be pulling for The Legit Boss at the PPV. 

I also hope that heel Bayley keeps her strap.

Yes, I know that's blasphemy.

Edited September 11, 2019 by J.T.

[Just Dave]

I know it's a small sample size, but I am blown away at how rejuvenated Bayley's whole presentation is as a heel. And she appears to be having a ball...

[Casey]

14th letter is N

24th letter is X

20th letter is T

[w. josh]

Owens getting fired and heading to NXT would be a pretty hot storyline for the USA debut, honestly. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I didn't know if Bayley could pull off being a heel but so far she is.  And considering she wanted this since a couple years ago I can see why she's having such fun with it.

And whoever came up with the Shane/KO stuff needs to be fired, and that's doubly true if it was Vince behind it.  Yeah, I'd be cool with Owens going to NXT but unless he MurderDeathKills Shane on next week's SD then he's fucked.

Edited September 11, 2019 by NikoBaltimore

[Burgundy LaRue]

What gets me about the Gable short jokes is how they presented Andrade as being the bigger deal between the two. Andrade is one inch taller than Gable and not as strong.

The KO situation is confusing. He's become a smaller version of Big Show where he can be menacing as a heel, but becomes weepy as a face. I think they screwed up by having him destroyed by Braun last year. It's one thing if KO had gotten the best on Braun at least once during their feud. But it was all Braun, throwing KO off every ladder and cage in the arena. Getting flipped over in a port-a-potty. Having rental cars destroyed. Being a putz for Shane is par for the course.

But there are also several bright spots. Who could have predicted Cedric Alexander and Chad Gable winning main event matches at MSG? Or Erick Rowan getting anything resembling a push? Or Kofi Kingston still being WWE champ this far out after WM? For all the talk of WWE being status quo, they have worked new people into the mix, at least for now.

This isn't to say WWE is perfect, far from it. But there's some good stuff being put on the table, IMO.

[Just Dave]

Those are all good points, @Burgundy LaRue. I have been absolutely dumbfounded at how completely competent Rowan has been the last few weeks. On the mic, in the ring, all of it. And I wouldn't be shocked if this "no dq" thing is a way to get a schmozz win for Rowan before Reigns takes him apart. Either bring back Harper to interfere on his behalf or have Bryan help Rowan and reveal the whole brawl between Bryan and Rowan was a sham. 

I'm glad you brought up Kofi, because I forgot to mention it earlier, but I really thought they'd made New Day look pretty weak the last month or so. They've been absolutely levelled by Randy Orton and two midgets. I know the Revival is something of a sacred cow around here, but c'mon. If Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder were to approach Big E and Xavier Woods at a bar in your hometown, and you didn't know anything about any of them, you'd expect Big E to lay them out by himself in seconds. There isn't an argument related to physical prowess at all to be made for the Revival to have dominated New Day how they have. I know Revival has like, continuity or whatever, but Midnight Express had that too, and they ran into a few buzzsaws in their day. Anyway, I spend a lot of time talking about the Lollipop Guild, but Kofi needed to look strong after weeks of one sided beatdowns from FTRKO. A cool callback there.

[SorceressKnight]

3 hours ago, Craig H said:

Do you know who NEVER needed any stakes to getting one over on the boss/heel or who never needed to have nothing to lose?

Steve Austin, the Rock, Undertaker, HHH, HBK, Hogan, etc.

And having two faces standing tall on the same show doesn't diminish either one because there's plenty of history of more than one top face looking like a badass and standing tall. 

This is why this company can't create stars because they don't fucking understand basic fundamentals. No one wants to watch a show when there's no one worth watching. What incentive is there for me to tune in to watch if I'm a Kevin Owens fan? There is none! I may as well not even be a fan! The biggest things that have sold the best have been anti-establishment characters or badass characters who don't look like dumbasses, who don't act like little bitches, who don't do what the boss tells them to do, WHO DON'T BEG THE FUCKING BOSS TO NOT FINE THEM, who outsmart the top heel at nearly every turn, and who beat someone's ass each week. 

I don't want to hear these bullshit excuses for why the booking makes sense because it doesn't. This creative isn't good for business and if it was, more than barely 1.5 million people would watch each week. Instead WWE has conditioned an entire generation of fans to not give a fuck and if that generation doesn't care, then those fans aren't going to pass their fandom down to the next generation.

Similar to this point, the Stone Cold-ification of Kevin Owens kind of loses something given how the whole gimmick started,talking about all the undercarders who lost time for Shane McMahon on TV.

Stone Cold Steve Austin would have never said to Vince "well, I would really like a World Title shot against Undertaker, but what about poor ol' D'Lo Brown? He NEVER gets a World Title shot and it's so unfair! Give him the title shot instead!". No, Stone Cold would have stunned Vince,  stunned Undertaker, then stunned D'Lo for good measure. 

Neither did Rock (he'd make fun of anyone out there), neither did Hogan, etc. The only top faces who would do that were Cena and Bret Hart, and even with them they did it with "You think you're good enough for the big time and want a title shot so badly? I'll fight you. Put your money where your mouth is."

The whole nature of Kevin Owens being Stone Cold because he's standing up for the poor downtrodden lowercarders hurts Owens's character (Owens is supposed to be the prizefighter trying to make a better life for his family. Why should he be happy to see Ali get some title matches that Owens could have, and presumably use to make more money for himself? In Owens's mind, it should be "I'd love to see Ali get some time to support his family- but if i have to take food from his children's mouths to put that food in my children's mouths, I'm sorry, but i'm looking out for my family first."), it hurts the capability of him being Stone Cold as said...heck, it actually hurts those lowercarders (Apollo Crews in particular looks absolutely pathetic for just waiting for someone else to stand up for him to get opportunities all the time- first Rollins, then now Owens).

It's hard to be a Stone Cold in that era of superstar parity and friendship, because pro wrestling is ostensibly supposed to be treated as a sport- and even if you're friends with other wrestlers, you're supposed to know "one day the two of you will be in direct competition, and you will have to stomp out your friends' dream of making it to the top so YOU can make it to the top instead.

[PB-13]

So it's all the fans' fault, in other words?

[Firebreaker Chip]

1 hour ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

What gets me about the Gable short jokes is how they presented Andrade as being the bigger deal between the two. Andrade is one inch taller than Gable and not as strong.

Lmao yeah. Also acting like this Olympic-level grapplefuck machine has been getting bullied his whole life for being 5'8 or whatever

[Curt McGirt]

I just don't get why they do anything they do anymore. Andrade is a great heel worker who can make anybody look good in a match -- he loses every night. Strowman looks like he's gonna explode -- he's kicked back to sidekick status (which they could change at the PPV but do you trust them?). KO looks to be over as a tweener as he is a heel -- let a McMahon bury him. They book a King of the Ring and their final ends up being an admittedly talented yet forgotten former tag guy vs. Baron Corbin?! 

Maybe this is a lot of me bitching about the use of my favorites (they are at least taking care of the women) but this is really, really stupid. They got possible competition coming for the first time since the '90s and this is really all they can come up with.

[Dolfan in NYC]

35 minutes ago, Firebreaker Chip said:

Lmao yeah. Also acting like this Olympic-level grapplefuck machine has been getting bullied his whole life for being 5'8 or whatever

Settle down Chipernetico. 

[Gorman]

5 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

And whoever came up with the Shane/KO stuff needs to be fired, and that's doubly true if it was Vince behind it.  Yeah, I'd be cool with Owens going to NXT but unless he MurderDeathKills Shane on next week's SD then he's fucked.

What has Vince never done on TV? Fired himself.

[Craig H]

1 minute ago, Gorman said:

What has Vince never done on TV? Fired himself.

Well, I mean, he has tried to blow himself up. I guess that's a firing of some sort.

[Burgundy LaRue]

3 hours ago, PB-13 said:

So it's all the fans' fault, in other words?

SK has a point. I don't think he's blaming the fans. One of biggest keys of being a strong babyface in WWE is to have self-agency. One of the recent examples of this is when Shane called for a SDL town hall. Nearly everyone, face and heel, was waiting for whatever Principal Shane O'Mac had to say. Roman Reigns walks in from the back, goes to a microphone, and tells Shane to kiss his ass. Then leaves to huge applause because he didn't kowtow to the Authority figure.

It's simple, but only a precious few get to do it. When KO was being coronated Universal Champ by Triple H or headbutting Vince a while back, it felt like he was going to be in that rarified group. What happened? I have no clue.

SK's overall position isn't much different than anyone else's. We're all thinking the same thing: when everyone is put on the same level, no one feels special. It's not a surprise Roman and WWE's Four Horsewomen are the only ones who feel unique. And even they can/have fallen victim to bad booking/writing. But they've been elevated to where they can weather most storms or at least be rebuilt with some tweaks if needed. 

So the big question is why aren't wrestlers given more agency in storyline? I know many believe we're in the Brand Era where wrestlers are de-emphasized. I agree with some of that viewpoint. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it feels like something else is part of that decision. What can be said for Roman and the 4HW is they fill several key demographics. It may be just a case of following the money.

 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Random aside (though it was on Smackdown), but they really fucked Beth Phoenix's face-turn by having a similar dynamic with Vicki Guerrero. 

[SorceressKnight]

Well said, @Burgundy LaRue.

The booking isn't just "everyone is special, so no one is special", but rather the "is wrestling performance art or is it a sport?" aspect- where the whole crux of this is believing that wrestling is a sport, and as such every wrestler is inherently fighting to get the championship title that ultimately, only one person can have.

As such, you shouldn't see one wrestler stand aside to give another wrestler more opportunities, any more than you'd see, say, the Dodgers say "We win the NL West too often. We're stepping aside this year and letting the Padres take our place in the playoffs because they never get to be in the playoffs and that's just not fair."  It's not rocket science- make me believe 'You want to be in my spot? Here's a match, here's your opportunity. Come take it from me."

Heck, it's why Buddy Murphy came across so well in that same open forum segment- he was saying "Wait a second. I can speak for myself, I can earn spots myself. Asking for a big buddy in Kevin Owens to speak for me is actually kind of pathetic. If I get opportunities because someone else got them for me, I didn't earn them myself so how does it matter?"

[piranesi]

10 hours ago, Casey said:

14th letter is N

24th letter is X

20th letter is T

Obviously he means that his contract is up on Smarch 24, 2020 and he can go to AEW.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

The firing gimmick has no legs in a world with AEW in it. Everyone knows a guy like Kevin Owens has options.

Although I think sometimes there is room for leeway, I also agree that your baseline should be 'what if this was actually a fucking sport?'. Al Snow is basically on the money on this point re: psychology.

[JonnyLaw]

20 hours ago, just drew said:

Those are all good points, @Burgundy LaRue. I have been absolutely dumbfounded at how completely competent Rowan has been the last few weeks. On the mic, in the ring, all of it. And I wouldn't be shocked if this "no dq" thing is a way to get a schmozz win for Rowan before Reigns takes him apart. Either bring back Harper to interfere on his behalf or have Bryan help Rowan and reveal the whole brawl between Bryan and Rowan was a sham. 

I’ll keeping beating this drum, but they absolutely need to have Harper come to Rowan’s aid, then Bryan comes to Roman’s aid only to get continually rebuffed until Roman finally agrees to tag with Bryan. At which point, Bryan turns on Roman during the match revealing it was all one big ruse.

Buddy Murphy later joins them to form the Four Bludgeonmen

[The Man Known as Dan]

20 hours ago, Firebreaker Chip said:

Lmao yeah. Also acting like this Olympic-level grapplefuck machine has been getting bullied his whole life for being 5'8 or whatever

I mean building up a guy as being small in order to show him doing shocking strength spots isn’t a bad play, right. The thing is everyone has made short jokes about him before his KOTR matches, and then he’s made them eat there words each time by beating the guys who take shots at him. Hell, he beat Shane twice! That’s Shane who took AJ Styles to the limit (as groan worthy as that can be)

 

For as blah as WWE has been for years now, I will say this last month has probably been there highest point in terms of week to week TV since Bryan, Cesaro, the Wyatts, and the Shield were dominating the landscape.  The KOTR overall succeeded in giving people reason to care about random matches nobody would give a shit about otherwise. Now they just need to give people a reason to care about the average match. Hell Raw finishing with a big 10 man tag that ended up doing more to highlight the War Raiders and Alexander then Strowman and Rollins was a great move.

 

It feels like WWE has been going back to basics in recent weeks which is great for them. Just sucks they kinda botched the Owens storyline a good deal.