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JULY 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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1 hour ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

It's kinda telling how this article lumps Seth Rollins in with the stale old guys (Orton, Show and Rey in this instance), while he's only been on the main roster a shade under 8 years. I mean, Seth sucks, so I get it, but I think it says a lot about how quickly people become completely overexposed in WWE.

To put it into contrast, Bret was with the company for 7 years before winning his first world title. For Shawn it was closer to 8 years. Now, whole careers play out in the space of a couple of years, and guys just spend the rest of their careers simply existing.

The flip side is that a) ten year careers in the wwe used to be rarer (they made a big deal when Undertaker had his “Decade of Destruction”) and b) Bret and Shawn had long journeys in tags and undercards before hitting the main event, where they spent a relatively short time. Compare that with Rollins, who has been heavily featured his entire career.

1 hour ago, Matt D said:

Issue with Ember, and this wasn't her fault, was that you couldn't sum up her character easily. I think she was a character from a magical girl vampire manga, maybe?

50 minutes ago, nate said:

I thought she was a werewolf ...

Same.

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5 minutes ago, MavsFan77 said:

I don’t see anyone doing well with eye for an eye bs they’ve had him doing with Rey. That’s been some extremely bad booking even for a company that specializes in it. 

That was just a shitty story, not all of Seth's character.

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58 minutes ago, JonnyLaw said:

 

Same.

Didn't Corey Graves one time say she did a great impression of a tree.

She's probably someone (Like Bayley) who needs to change her WWE character, such as it is, to something that lines up with the main show fans (if they ever come back) a little better.

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2 hours ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

.

To put it into contrast, Bret was with the company for 7 years before winning his first world title. For Shawn it was closer to 8 years. Now, whole careers play out in the space of a couple of years, and guys just spend the rest of their careers simply existing.

Before Nitro was a thing PPVs was only 5 times a year, not nearly as many PPV quality matchups on free tv. Only one brand a few title. Every moved slower. Today everyone can make a case for their favorite wrestler deserving a title because they are half way decent. Until the mid 90s you could be Hall of fame level and not hold a title. Today you could be 5 years on the main roster and had a top title 5 times already. I  explain that to lapsed fans all the time because they get so shocked at how Edge or Orton are like 9 time or 11 time champs. It's hard for old fans to believe that a person can be world champion so many times when there is only one major promotion (until recently).

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1 hour ago, Eivion said:

I can't agree with this. Seth has a perfectly solid character right now. Its Seth himself who just can't really pull it off.

 

I flip-flop on Seth a lot, sometimes I love him (his post-Shield solo run), sometimes I think he’s the worst (The Messiah stuff). 

Generally I think he’s great when he’s playing a slimy manipulative snivelling heel and he’s up against an all powerful ass kicker like Roman or Cena or Braun.

His current run proves not just anyone can be a crazy cult leader (side note - AEW needs to take note of this too).  It’s even more jarring when Bray already exists in the same ‘universe’.

 

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Dude, dork odor* is pretty good! Come for the Cult Cabana (first time I've cared about him since Second City Saints days) and stay for the comedy of John Silver. At least in my eyes, they have recovered and are interesting. I knew Uno and Grayson could go but their presentation was pretty bad out of the gates. The cult videos helped. Then Brody came in and it was a bit of a stumble out of the gate but he's found his footing as frustrated leader of goobers for the time being. 

* I'm on my phone and don't have access to the Larry Z gif. Close your eyes and think about his finger bow thing (does that have a name?). 

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50 minutes ago, Ultimo Necro said:

I flip-flop on Seth a lot, sometimes I love him (his post-Shield solo run), sometimes I think he’s the worst (The Messiah stuff). 

Generally I think he’s great when he’s playing a slimy manipulative snivelling heel and he’s up against an all powerful ass kicker like Roman or Cena or Braun.

His current run proves not just anyone can be a crazy cult leader (side note - AEW needs to take note of this too).  It’s even more jarring when Bray already exists in the same ‘universe’.

Honestly, I think Seth just isn't particularly good at character work. Character wise I think what most of WWE has given him to work with has been fine. Its just not material Seth can pull off believably because he is a terrible actor even by wrestling standards. Wrestling wise I think his best work has been tag based.

Edited by Eivion
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6 hours ago, nofuture said:

I think Ember has expressed before that all the titles being on just 2 women is bad because it's leaving a lot of other women on the sidelines with nothing to do.

Shayna and Nia are feuding now and Asuka is a challenger, Nikki is a challenger and Bianca and Ruby are joining forces to battle the IIconics.

Naomi is feuding with Lacey Evans. 

Carmella is out of the bubble, Charlotte is on hiatus, Becky is on maternity leave, Liv Morgan is rumored to have Covid, Mandy Rose was on a honeymoon with Otis.

Who else is there?

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2 hours ago, Eivion said:

Honestly, I think Seth just isn't particularly good at character work. Character wise I think what most of WWE has given him to work with has been fine. Its just not material Seth can pull off believably because he is a terrible actor even by wrestling standards. Wrestling wise I think his best work has been tag based.

I liked his last IC title run. He was on a nice streak of PPV matches, it didn't really translate into his Universal title run because he was forced to talk alot more plus he was booked like a geek on top of the exploiting the fact that he was dating Becky didn't help. They force him into being this vocal locker room leader.

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5 hours ago, MavsFan77 said:

I don’t see anyone doing well with eye for an eye bs they’ve had him doing with Rey.  

I'm thinking the best way to book the eye for an eye thing is the Moxley/Santana/Demogod version. Mox loses use of his eye, ends up unhinged, goes after one of the goons, takes his eye too. They have a heated match with Santana giving the promo of his life. Mox wins that one, still plays up the injury luring the final boss into complacency and ends up winning the feud

 

Maybe Seth takes out the eye, rey goes after buddy's eye, rey lures seth in then wins the big one?

Nope, too complex for the team of writers at WWE. Needs more farts and pants wetting

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1 hour ago, Hayabusa said:

I'm thinking the best way to book the eye for an eye thing is the Moxley/Santana/Demogod version. Mox loses use of his eye, ends up unhinged, goes after one of the goons, takes his eye too. They have a heated match with Santana giving the promo of his life. Mox wins that one, still plays up the injury luring the final boss into complacency and ends up winning the feud

 

Maybe Seth takes out the eye, rey goes after buddy's eye, rey lures seth in then wins the big one?

Nope, too complex for the team of writers at WWE. Needs more farts and pants wetting

Hey you forgot people randomly throwing up. Because we all know “That’s good shit pal.” ?

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5 hours ago, Death From Above said:

One of the few similarities between WWE and AEW right now is both have a shitty cult I don't care about.

I was in agreeance with you about Dark Order in the beginning, but they've turned the tide for me in the last couple months and now I'm into them more. I like the whole Colt/Brodie thing a lot, and they've done some humorous stuff on BTE (which admittedly, wouldn't be airable on TNT anyway). 

Also note I haven't seen tonight's Dynamite yet so not sure how the tag match went

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2 hours ago, Ziggy said:

I liked his last IC title run. He was on a nice streak of PPV matches, it didn't really translate into his Universal title run because he was forced to talk alot more plus he was booked like a geek on top of the exploiting the fact that he was dating Becky didn't help. They force him into being this vocal locker room leader.

I think the other problem with it is Rollins was super-over as guy who "Burns it down" and has solid, long matches that got great crowd reactions every week.  But instead of jumping on it while he was, arguably, the most over face on the show.  They decided to prolong it until WM so he'd get his WM moment, by that point the flame had burned out a little, he'd been saddled with crappy feuds (Like Ziggler and Ambrose) and the booking for the Lesnar feud was awful (Lesnar repeatedly destroying him, then that quick match to open WM with Rollins needing the low-blow to win). 

It's one of WWE's major booking flaws: an unwillingness/unability to strike when the iron is hot.  Sometimes you have to throw the long-term plan (Presuming they have one) out the window and jump on the bandwagon when something is taking off.  Remember when they spent 4-5 months building to Triple H's return and World Title win, then abruptly took the title off him only a month after he won it because people went Hogan crazy?!  It didn't hurt Triple H, didn't hurt buyrates (The 2002 Backlash did 25,000 more buys than the previous year's), and took advantage of an act that was hot at the moment.

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7 hours ago, MavsFan77 said:

I don’t see anyone doing well with eye for an eye bs they’ve had him doing with Rey. That’s been some extremely bad booking even for a company that specializes in it. 

They tried to work it like it was a regular match at times. It was really good at parts. If they didn't have to work around that stipulation they would've put on a Match of the Year.

 

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12 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

They tried to work it like it was a regular match at times. It was really good at parts. If they didn't have to work around that stipulation they would've put on a Match of the Year.

 

I did enjoy the parts of the match you referenced. I meant in general the storyline and then the stipulation for that match were BS. I think if they’d told a more simple story of Seth trying to recruit Dominick, and then run a straight match like you suggested then it would have been much better.

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40 minutes ago, MavsFan77 said:

I did enjoy the parts of the match you referenced. I meant in general the storyline and then the stipulation for that match were BS. I think if they’d told a more simple story of Seth trying to recruit Dominick, and then run a straight match like you suggested then it would have been much better.

Certain people say that stipulation was a way to get back at Rey for holding them up with contract renegotiations

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10 hours ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

It's kinda telling how this article lumps Seth Rollins in with the stale old guys (Orton, Show and Rey in this instance), while he's only been on the main roster a shade under 8 years. I mean, Seth sucks, so I get it, but I think it says a lot about how quickly people become completely overexposed in WWE.

To put it into contrast, Bret was with the company for 7 years before winning his first world title. For Shawn it was closer to 8 years. Now, whole careers play out in the space of a couple of years, and guys just spend the rest of their careers simply existing.

On the other hand Rock was in and out in less than 8 and Austin's WWE run was under 8 years in total as well. These days with so much air time to fill, having the same people work each other over and over and over gets stale really quickly. It also doesn't help that, outside of a very rare gimmick change, most of the workers remain much the same people.

A lot of the late 90's/early 2000's was helped by the constant change ups in presentation. It didn't always work but it gave us something different. Austin had a few different versions of his theme, some with lyrics, some without. Rock's theme evolved. Taker, Hunter, Angle... Even guys like the Outlaws, the APA, Edge and Christian, The Hardys, the Dudleys... They all changed things up form time to time to at least appear fresh and different.

Different gear, different moves, different music.

How long has Orton been hearing voices? How long was Cena's time? Lord help him if Roman comes back with the SHIELD motif again...

WWE could do such much more in terms of build for matches/stars but they have their formula, the believe it works, and they will stick to it until the end.

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8 hours ago, Ziggy said:

Before Nitro was a thing PPVs was only 5 times a year, not nearly as many PPV quality matchups on free tv. Only one brand a few title. Every moved slower. Today everyone can make a case for their favorite wrestler deserving a title because they are half way decent. Until the mid 90s you could be Hall of fame level and not hold a title. Today you could be 5 years on the main roster and had a top title 5 times already.

You’re right, and these things actually work to make people even more stale.

First, things used to move slower and guys stuck around for less time. Now we have so much more programming and guys are sticking around, so they’re getting stale that much faster.

Combine that with their willingness (at least a while back, less so now) to put the title on basically midcard guys (Swagger, Miz, Sheamus’s first run, Jinder) and it typically marks those guys as bombs rather than do anything to help them. 

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Honestly, this is more the problem with wrestlers' being "stale". WCW taught people that there's two different ages that matter: "real age" and "TV age." The names who were seen as "stale" vs. "young talent" is the best example: Chronologically, Randy Orton and Shayna Baszler both turn 40 this year, but "2020 Main Roster Rookie Shayna Baszler" is far, far fresher than "18 year main roster veteran Randy Orton." 

If this is an example of any problem with WWE, it's an example where WWE getting the best athletes is starting to bite them in the ass. Traditionally in wrestling, wrestlers seemed to peak in their mid-late '30s, make it to the top at that time period, and after a few years of stardom they take a shorter schedule and wind things down. Now, since WWE can get top-tier athletes and prospects when they're younger, you're seeing a bumper crop of wrestlers who are still in the prime of their career, still doing a lot of great wrestling and haven't even come close to losing a step, much less being ready to wind things down...but they've been on WWE TV for so long they've gone past stale and gone to petrified, and it's impossible to care anymore since we've basically seen them do everything possible. Using the example @L_W_P used:  Austin's WWE career was 7 years long. The Rock's career was only about 8 years long.  ...by contrast, Dolph Ziggler has played "The Showoff"- not even Ziggler's career as a 15 year main roster veteran, but merely playing the "The Showoff" character- for 9 years. Even if you have @Yo-Yo's Roomie using Bret as a 7 year veteran and Shawn as an 8 year veteran before winning the World Title, at least then you have the "I love this midcarder and I'd really like to see him win the big one" factor to it. You don't even have that for Ziggler since his character is "he's a good midcarder who never wins the World Title except for that time he totally did, oh- and I guess we can count that other time he totally did on a technicality."

The WWE's biggest problem is that they need someone who's willing to give the roster an enema and say "We're done. You've gone as far as you can go. The audience just doesn't care anymore. You want out? Fine. Leave the company. Go to AEW, New Japan or Impact- go be their problem now. We're better off without you because we'll remain fresh"...but it's not even like the washed-up WCW main eventers because most of the WWE main eventers are still very, very good in the ring.

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