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JULY 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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8 hours ago, JonnyLaw said:

This talking point isn’t exactly right. AEW decided to run against NXT when it was on the network. In response, WWE was able to move NXT to USA at the same time with a second hour, which had been rumored to be happening for a while, prior to the Dynamite announcement, IIRC.

I dont believe it was a reason they chose Wednesday, NXT being running on the Network I dont consider AEW running against them seeing as it isn't on tv. I could be wrong but I believe it had more to do with not running against on nights NFL games are televised and NBA games on TNT. Going up against NXT I dont believe was something put in to consideration.

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Big difference between a show airing live on Wednesday and a taped show that goes up on streaming on Wednesday.  I’m betting most people didn’t even watch the old NXT show live.  I know I certainly didn’t.  That’s the whole deal with streaming: you can watch it anytime.  You can’t counterprogram it.

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Hypothetically, if WWE decided to cut way, way down on the screwjob finishes, ref bumps (and visual falls therein), run ins, wrestlers getting pinned because someone else's music played et cetera, if they just went to clean, decisive finishes and did like one or two screwy deals a year maximum... would that affect the quality or popularity of their TV stuffing instead of potatoes at all?

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@The Natural posting some memories of Punk/Cena made me think of something.

The big narrative in the WWF in the 80s was Hogan vs Monsters. In the late 90s, it was Austin vs McMahon and WCW vs WWF with the idea anything could happen. I think in the 2010s, it was WWE vs the Fans, one of the last big conflicts people could get behind. It was about whether or not they'd really change their plans and make main eventers out of Punk/Bryan. We'd seen Benoit/Guerrero/Rey in the 00s but the pushback there in each case was obvious, punctuated with Rey's title run. For the most part, the fans won. That was pretty much evident in how the Roman stuff went and the long-run push of Rollins as a top guy. He's the sort of person 2013 fans who were rebelling against the product would want on top, a ROH alum workrate guy. 

That last conflict, however, was pure meta. It wasn't about anything in a narrative. The narrative was the behind-the-scenes workings of the company against the fans. It wasn't some sort of ECW rallying where it was one company and its fans as underdogs against other companies. It was the fans AGAINST the company itself. Not against some corporate overlord (though that was personified in the form of the Authority) but really against the WWE. After you go to that, it seems very hard to come back to some fictional narrative for people to get behind. What sort of fictional feud with Drew Macintyre could be compelling. How can people not just think of it again as "are they really going to book it this way or that way?" as the main narrative thrust instead of what's being presented on screen.

WWE vs AEW seems like it could be vaguely compelling but it's such a niche audience for both right now. 

I think their only real hope is to engage a new generation of fans with different interests. Are the younger AEW fans into the storytelling or are they more into the progressive/throwback hybrid attitude of the promotion? 

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2 minutes ago, AxB said:

Hypothetically, if WWE decided to cut way, way down on the screwjob finishes, ref bumps (and visual falls therein), run ins, wrestlers getting pinned because someone else's music played et cetera, if they just went to clean, decisive finishes and did like one or two screwy deals a year maximum... would that affect the quality or popularity of their TV stuffing instead of potatoes at all?

I doubt it. The problem isn't even the screwjob finishes and the rest of the shit you mentioned. The overall production sucks and the stories are even worse.

This whole quarantine issue gave them the perfect opportunity to flip everything on it's head and be wild as fuck. Instead it's still the same, overly sterile, dumb product. I always thought the way to go would be to turn Raw or SD into something like Lucha Underground. Hit the reset button and really turn the whole show into a big soap opera about this is where these wrestlers go to work and work is super fucked up. Have interwoven storylines, all sorts of craziness that still made sense so that the show felt unpredictable, and good wrestling matches throughout. 

Hell, it's the best time to have a figurehead. On the very first quarantine episode you have the wrestlers showing up at the building and milling around in various places. Someone from production tells everyone that they're expected to meet in the ring right now for an important meeting. The next shot is Vince and some others talking things through until the wrestlers show up around the ringside area. Vince then says you're in his world and in his world, he makes the rules. Each of them works for him and they'll do his bidding. To the audience, they don't know any better and figure these people are contracted so Vince isn't wrong. Vince says it's the start of a new era and gold rules. He holds up a new title specifically made for this period. He tells everyone that if you want a seat at the table, you'll run for the gold.

That begins a lot of plotting and shit starts turning into something like The Challenge on MTV where people form alliances or factions and there's betrayals along the way.

All of this shit would then need to be mapped out from week to week to week with no deviation. Take a long wall in the PC and plot out the entire story with note cards and string pinned to the wall.

Of course, none of this would work because as we've all mentioned a million times, Vince has the attention span of a gnat and is surrounded by yes men. It would require Vince to be on air talent only while someone else, not Bruce, and not Heyman, run the show.

Instead we got the same old shit that just ages like milk when you don't have an audience or an arena.

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Doesn't help that every hobby is super niche now. There is a streaming service for everything imaginable. Blaxploitation films have their own streaming service, CBS All Access is essentially star trek, we have how many wrestling streaming services? Why watch WWE when you can go elsewhere? I don't watch Raw or Smackdown anymore because I can go watch the style I like. It won't deviate from the set formula until Vince is gone. That could lead to changes no one will like. 

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I've said this a couple times, but current day WWE is a turn off for me. The presentation has no life. As others have said, over produced super sterile. Perfection is boring. It's the same overly scripted format, with the commentators shouting the same overly repeated specialized Vince language. I grew up on 80s & 90s WWF & WCW. If you showed me the current product back then it would have bored me to tears.

The pulse is in the moments of reality that show through. 80s & 90s promos, while yes being directed to tell the story the promoter booked, were largely dudes who created their own characters riffing on the story in their own words. Hulk Hogan didn't say 'sufferin succotash'. Macho Man didn't say 'WWE Universe' 100 times. Ric Flair didn't talk about 'championship opportunities'. Yes wrestling is worked, but it was still real people saying real things that came to their brain. Same with ring work. You'd have agents that just passed on what type of finish to go with, and make sure finishes weren't repeated back then. Now a days you legit have agents scripting what camera to be facing for each big spot, & calling spots through IFBs to the refs who make the wrestlers do those spots whether they want to or not.

Now don't get me wrong WWE is making record breaking profits, I get that. But the quality of the shows are the worst of all time. It's cookie cutter guys doing cookie cutter scripted promos, rinse & repeat. Until they drastically overhaul the process they use and the format they force, this is just what WWE is. It's a show at a theme park. The script never changes. Just the employee saying the lines & doing the stunts that day. 6 shows a day. Same thing every time. No life. No art. No pulse.

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I’m watching Clash of the Champions. Vinnie Vegas (aka peak Kevin Nash) is arm Wrestling Tony Atlas and every time Atlas pushes he makes a noise that is exactly like his laugh... and now I’ve fallen down an Abraham Washington rabbit hole on YT

 

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I agree with @NoFistsJustFlips, WWE has industrialized their product to the point where it often doesn't matter who the performer even is. Individual wrestlers do what they can within their limited scope but the overall product is assembly line wrestling. The number of times I see wrestlers start to go for a pin or a hold and then quickly readjust so they're properly camera facing takes me way out. But the brand is the draw, right?

Edited by Godfrey
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"The brand is the draw". That is so fucking pathetic. "People down the street are making good food; our food is terrible but it has a good reputation and well recognized logo. They're gonna like us no matter how terrible we taste."

Yet it works for actual food operations so what do I know

Edited by Curt McGirt
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12 minutes ago, nofuture said:

You've described every corporate fast food burger and pizza place.

True but in that case the product is relatively the same.  I mean McDonalds have been the same except for 1 or 2 things for about 30 years. Except for the type of oil that was used KFC is basically the same in the last 20 years.  

The "brand" in terms of wrestling is changing every since time 

Edited by hammerva
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2 hours ago, hammerva said:

 I mean McDonalds have been the same except for 1 or 2 things for about 30 years. 

Given that the McRib came back around 89-90, I feel like Undertaker is the McRib of wrestlers is an adequate metaphor.

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53 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Given that the McRib came back around 89-90, I feel like Undertaker is the McRib of wrestlers is an adequate metaphor.

Haha, 100%.  He’s not on the menu all year but when it shows up, you think “Do I really need a McRib?” you end up getting it and enjoying it.

Life comes at you fast, I didn’t check the board all day and come on to find out wrestlers seemingly can’t get ring time or weed from anyone... in Florida... in 2020... and now I’m taking about McRibs.

All this weed and McRib talk at this time on a Friday is going to do me no favors later on.

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10 hours ago, Ziggy said:

I dont believe it was a reason they chose Wednesday, NXT being running on the Network I dont consider AEW running against them seeing as it isn't on tv. I could be wrong but I believe it had more to do with not running against on nights NFL games are televised and NBA games on TNT. Going up against NXT I dont believe was something put in to consideration.

Yeah you you have nba on tnt on Tuesday and Thursday and nfl on Monday. Wednesday was the day. 
 

Edit: Their preferred day was Tuesday because smackdown was leaving Tuesdays for Fridays, so you had a night cleared up with a couple million wrestling fans used to watching wrestling. They thought about it but there would have been too many weeks of moving the show around so that would have been worse. 

Edited by matt925
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@Matt D Honestly, if people think I'm mostly anti-fans, what you said is really the problem that my biggest issue is more than anything.

Once the meta-storyline of "WWE vs. The Fans" took hold, the real issue that's hurt the show is in place that we've entered a world where the storyline on TV no longer matters. The ability of writing in WWE or lack thereof is not even an issue anymore, because it just...doesn't matter, and once the actual writing of the show no longer matters, then nothing on the show can possibly matter. The only time WWE seemed to be able to adjust the new storyline for it was in Daniel Bryan vs. The Authority, just because they managed to redirect the Pipebomb from "CM Punk being angry he didn't have John Cena's Spot as the face of the company', and adjust it to a kayfabe-friendly "If you're the WWE Champion, that fact alone means that you're the Face of the WWE and you're the top star in the company", and that was killed when Bryan got injured and WWE made it clear "don't matter, still a B-Plus Player."

End result, we're in a level where it's impossible for WWE to matter because...well, nothing matters. The matches don't matter because whatever match happens, the other guy will win next week. The feuds don't matter because they don't have any reason to hate each other that matters. Even the titles don't really matter, because the 2012 Punk turn (and later the Becky Lynch/Charlotte Flair feud) made the plot line "Oh, you think you are THE STAR because you're champ? Make no mistake. You have A BELT. THIS PERSON is THE CHAMP. And even if you beat them? Tomorrow morning you will be you, they will be them, and that means they're STILL THE CHAMP.", and so nothing can possibly change.  People are either "haves" or "have-nots" in WWE right now. A Have-Not can win every match, hold the title for decades, and they'll still be seen as a Have-Not, and a Have can lose every match, and they'll still be seen as a Have.

How's it possible to fix WWE when nothing matters on the show?

 

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On 7/14/2020 at 6:19 PM, Casey said:

I see nobody posted/posts at EWB besides me then, huh? It’s way better than the Grey Dog forums, which is the “official” home of talk about Ryland’s games now (used to be EWB before TEW came out).

Bruh.

I just rarely post here, and when I do it's usually about sports and not wrestling.

Edited by DMN
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WWE lost me 100% in like 2006 due to two major factors.

1) LOLCENAWINS. the storylines didn't matter. the character progression didn't matter. All that mattered was that Cena would prevail, again, no matter the odds. gag me.

2) ECW reboot. by this point, WWE put on one of my all time favorite wrestling events, ECW One Night Stand (2005). it was a massive success that led to a follow up the next year and relaunched as a brand in 2006. it was a dismal failure, as they actively found ways to undermine every single wrestler and "attitude" that the original ECW stood for.

what's ironic here is that i was never some Heyman ECW superfan. i had seen a few PPVs and the ECW on TNN show, but i never had access to their earlier years until later. Yet WWE still found a way to alienate me.

 

long story short (too late) WWE has done everything in their power to largely eliminate their Attitude Era audience while relying on them to pop a rating. Gee, i wonder why their ratings fell for years........

 

 

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At least McDonald's gets your shitty sodium bomb of a burger to you in two minutes. The pro wrestling equivalent takes three hours on Monday to make your body seize up in discomfort and get the shits. 

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