Technico Support Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Dog said: I was with you until "they're fucked." They'll do fine as a sanitized IP factory. I should have quantified that better! They’re fucked as far as ever having another massive crossover megastar goes. They’ll probably be fine generating CONTENT~! featuring 2-3 top guys and 20x as many interchangeable midcarders exchanging meaningless wins until the sun burns itself out. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 2 hours ago, Technico Support said: Maybe to put it more succinctly, the biggest stars WWE ever had developed on their own, usually in spite of creative, not because of it. Now WWE doesn’t allow that. They’re fucked. Yeah it's crazy considering when ever they go over the narrative of Rock and Austin they highlight the fact that they got over by finding themselves in spite of their original directions or gimmicks they were given. There's no way the Ringmaster was going to be a gimmick that would've been a main event act anyway. Atleast you could see Rocky Maivia as a Main event act if the crowd would have reacted like they wanted that type of babyface. It might have worked 3 to 5 years earlier or even 10 to 15 years earlier as an ethnic babyface in the New York territory 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 3 hours ago, Technico Support said: They’re fucked as far as ever having another massive crossover megastar goes. I can see thinking this but like... John Cena came up under fairly similar circumstances and while megastar is too much he has successfully crossed over fairly well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 Cena was also almost fired, until writers happened to hear him rapping in the back of a bus. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 26 minutes ago, Dog said: Cena was also almost fired, until writers happened to hear him rapping in the back of a bus. Wasn't it specifically Stephanie? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 (edited) I'd thought so, but he didn't mention her in the Buzzfeed interview I pulled up. He did say Stephanie on the Network special, though, so who knows. Edited January 11, 2022 by Dog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 It's WWE. If it worked out well, credit goes to Stephanie. If it worked out badly, credit goes to "the writers". Of course, their big idea to capitalise on him freestyling on a bus was actually just to have him dress as Vanilla Ice for the Smackdown Halloween party that year. It was the fans popping for it that made it his gimmick. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted January 14, 2022 Share Posted January 14, 2022 The one thing I do reflect on is that FCW didn't act like the characters they were coming up with were what these people were going to be on the main roster, we didn't get the Prototype or Leviathan and that was probably for the best. I do at times wonder if the expectation that whoever you are on NXT is who you are gonna be on the main roster wasn't in fact a bit of a problem, that it is better to come up with a blank slate as opposed to already being perhaps pigeonholed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted January 14, 2022 Share Posted January 14, 2022 3 minutes ago, username said: The one thing I do reflect on is that FCW didn't act like the characters they were coming up with were what these people were going to be on the main roster, we didn't get the Prototype or Leviathan and that was probably for the best. I do at times wonder if the expectation that whoever you are on NXT is who you are gonna be on the main roster wasn't in fact a bit of a problem, that it is better to come up with a blank slate as opposed to already being perhaps pigeonholed. True but NXT ended up being run like a super workrate Independent promotion when most of their pushed talent were already established names. Even before airing on USA to go up against Dynamite it was to be precieved as more than just a regional promotion that OVW , Deep South and FCW were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lounging Posted January 14, 2022 Share Posted January 14, 2022 On 1/10/2022 at 7:58 PM, Technico Support said: @supremebveDon’t forget WWE didn’t even have anything to do with Rock or Austin breaking out. Vince’s initial ideas for both, Rocky Maivia and The Ringmaster, were garbage. The best thing Vince did for them was get out of their way once both men found their groove. Now everything is so controlled, these current guys will never have room to figure it out like Rock and Austin did. Nobody is allowed to go out there and cut their own promos, let alone radically change their character on their own. So what hope do they really have of ever having a breakout superstar again? Maybe to put it more succinctly, the biggest stars WWE ever had developed on their own, usually in spite of creative, not because of it. Now WWE doesn’t allow that. They’re fucked. You can add Mick Foley to the list! He wasn't having any of that Mason The Mutilator crap! He might have been the only wrestler that a had game plan before meeting with Vince! Must have charmed Vince like nobody else! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted January 14, 2022 Share Posted January 14, 2022 1 hour ago, Guest lounging said: You can add Mick Foley to the list! He wasn't having any of that Mason The Mutilator crap! He might have been the only wrestler that a had game plan before meeting with Vince! Must have charmed Vince like nobody else! Yes and no. I believe Foley to be incredibly important to the late 90s WWE, but I don't think they're looking for the next Foley. They want the next Rock or the next Austin, and won't ever be satisfied until they fin him. The problem is that The Rock and Steve Austin are perhaps the most complete pro wrestling talents that have ever existed. I don't think anyone ever played a wrestling character better or more consistently than Stone Cold Steve Austin. He understood every note that needed to be played at the time, and played his character like a mother fucking virtuoso. Then you have The Rock, who just went on to be one of the biggest movie stars of the century. Neither is replicable. If they were looking for someone like Foley, they'd have a better chance, but there hasn't been another one of those either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted January 14, 2022 Share Posted January 14, 2022 31 minutes ago, supremebve said: Yes and no. I believe Foley to be incredibly important to the late 90s WWE, but I don't think they're looking for the next Foley. They want the next Rock or the next Austin, and won't ever be satisfied until they fin him. The problem is that The Rock and Steve Austin are perhaps the most complete pro wrestling talents that have ever existed. I don't think anyone ever played a wrestling character better or more consistently than Stone Cold Steve Austin. He understood every note that needed to be played at the time, and played his character like a mother fucking virtuoso. Then you have The Rock, who just went on to be one of the biggest movie stars of the century. Neither is replicable. If they were looking for someone like Foley, they'd have a better chance, but there hasn't been another one of those either. The problem is there have been 60,000 Foley clones, but they don't really understand timing is everything. Foley came around when the advice veteran workers would tell younger guys or guys new to the territory (see what Barry Darsow/Smash told Tully and Arn when they got to WWF) is never leave your feet. I mean Arn told the story on his podcast about Ole getting super pissed about him taking bumps for everything when they started tagging together. Just like when Arn was doing jobs as Marty Lunde, you could see when Mick was a jobber on WWF TV and early in his career in the dying days of the territory wrestling that he was a special talent. There definitely are and have been a bunch of great deathmatch wrestlers, brawlers, and garbage wrestlers post Mick Foley. Some even before. However, some of the guys who came after Mick and were trying to be the next Foley sucked bad. I mean just horrific. They want (or wanted) to be Mick Foley so bad, but they aren't cut from that cloth. At all. Learning your craft just seems to be elusive for many young workers post Attitude era/boom period. That said, it makes me respect that Wardlow and Punk recreated the Diesel/Bret Survivor Series 95 finish. If you're going to steal, might as well steal from the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 23 hours ago, Ziggy said: True but NXT ended up being run like a super workrate Independent promotion when most of their pushed talent were already established names. Even before airing on USA to go up against Dynamite it was to be precieved as more than just a regional promotion that OVW , Deep South and FCW were. That is fair and late stage televised NXT sorta gave up on much of the developmental aspect of the show, and yes certain people came through who were so established (Nakamura, Joe) that they were simply just gonna be who they were regardless of if they were in NXT or WWE proper. I just wonder about the people who weren't that and if in retrospect they'd have benefited from having whatever they did in NXT be less... defining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 The thing about Foley was that he probably came across as the more relatable personality inspite of his hard-core style. I didn't get to see his ECW stuff till after the fact but even those promos as a heel in ECW he came across as a real person with a family. It wasn't difficult for guys to try to immulate his hard-core approach but I think the fact that he was established as a down to earth person made fans invested in him. Kinda how Kevin Owens is now. Owens is good as a heel but at the same time as a face people know how much of a family man he is. Even in his program with Cena when he got to the main roster it was established that he was a Prize fighter. The same way when Jim Ross interviewed Mick to get him over as a face, they established that he was a life long wrestling fan that grew up wrestling with his friends wrestling in the back yard doing things most of us did growing up as a wrestling fan. Aesthetically and Stylistically Foley and Owens for that matter are probably the furthest away from the idealistic top guy in WWE and Vinces mind specifically I think that is so endearing 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramo2653 Posted January 15, 2022 Share Posted January 15, 2022 I don't think it's a big shock that most of the biggest names that came up from NXT have switched their characters up from what they were on once they got the main roster or didn't spend that much time on NXT TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zimbra Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 I guess this goes here. Mustafa Ali is publicly asking for his release 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonzombie Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 They either do release him or punish him then release him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted January 16, 2022 Author Share Posted January 16, 2022 There is a chance that it is part of whatever this new gimmick he is doing is He tweeted this back in Nov Which was a promo that got edited off of SDL I mean the NEWZ~! is reporting it as a shoot but who knows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COLETTI Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 I sincerely hope this is a legitimate story, Ali gets his release, and after the no compete he goes to AEW because motherfucker has everything needed to be a top star and, by most everything I've heard, is an incredibly fucking awesome human being as well so dude deserves it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarheel Moneghetti Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 Does going public and asking for your release via social media ever work out well? Personally, I feel like it should be a private conversation between Vince and Ali. Or maybe he tried that already. I really don't see Vince as being to the type to release a guy because he's taking the conversation public. Actually, if I was talent, I'd expect Vince to be annoyed and keep me under contract out of spite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted January 16, 2022 Author Share Posted January 16, 2022 More from Fightful Quote A Fightful report indicates that an argument with Vince McMahon regarding a pitch McMahon made to Ali regarding a direction for his character could have been the catalyst for Ali not being used. Ali shared a vignette on his Twitter account back in November that was filmed, initially approved, then ultimately rejected by WWE brass. The report goes on to say that Ali was off on paternity leave, but has been ready to return since December. Ali's last television match came on the October 29, 2021 SmackDown, where he lost to Drew McIntyre in two minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 On a certain level, An extended paternity leave is not a bad thing for someone. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 3 hours ago, christopher.annino said: I sincerely hope this is a legitimate story, Ali gets his release, and after the no compete he goes to AEW because motherfucker has everything needed to be a top star and, by most everything I've heard, is an incredibly fucking awesome human being as well so dude deserves it. In addition to all of that, he's a Chicago dude. That's just the cherry on top for everything else. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted January 16, 2022 Share Posted January 16, 2022 4 hours ago, RIPPA said: There is a chance that it is part of whatever this new gimmick he is doing is He tweeted this back in Nov Which was a promo that got edited off of SDL I mean the NEWZ~! is reporting it as a shoot but who knows Vince would've pushed him to be a heel, obviously. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted January 17, 2022 Share Posted January 17, 2022 I like Ali, but to be completely honest, I don't know if pro wrestling is the right medium for that story. It's not exactly built for nuance. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts