Dre013 Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 We have such lowered expectations..."I love the Rusev/Swagger feud"???? It was a few months of back and forth on Raw with two wrestlers that don't talk, and two ppv matches that will be forgotten soon. And I actually like Rusev's gimmick. I have a follow up...besides Cena, who is the last star WWE built that isn't a legacy guy or came from the indies? Just seems like that part of creative is lacking and there's a certain Steinbrenner-esque aspect to raiding talent that's already been discovered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Big Dave? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I mean, Cena was from the indies too. In the history of wrestling, there's two places you can get people from - wrestling families, or other feds/sports. I think Sasha Banks might be the only person with no experience prior to NXT (she went to a "fantasy camp" and showed a good aptitude) It's a smart business move to hire guys from the indies because they've (hopefully) gotten what it takes to get noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebbie Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Okay, so I will ask: What does Cesaro bring to the table that Sheamus, Ziggles and a plethora of talent on the roster that can churn out great matches if told to do so? They have plenty of guys who can go. They need more guys who can own a shitty gimmick and get it over. Barrett's shtick didn't get much traction at first but he was dedicated. They put him back in the ring and it's clear that he lives to shit in Cheerios. And he got it over. Cesaro had that 5 languages thing with Aksana and didn't do anything with it. And they got promo time and segments. Talk shit in German. Say sorry in Russian. Something! Hell, that King of Swing shit should be easy too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cristobal Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Okay, so I will ask: What does Cesaro bring to the table that Sheamus, Ziggles and a plethora of talent on the roster that can churn out great matches if told to do so? Also, the Arrival match with Zayn. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Fixit Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Cesaro got over when he was a JTTS with the Real Americans. They also sent him back to NXT basically as a full time member of the developmental roster and he turned that around and made it work for him. I just don't understand why you think he's not good at making bad booking work. That's what he's been doing for a year now at least. If he's not dedicated I don't know who is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I mean, Cena was from the indies too. Cena was trained in a developmental territory. He'd signed a dev deal before he had his first match. I only recall him doing one or two matches outside of UPW before he got called up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nofuture Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I mean, Cena was from the indies too. In the history of wrestling, there's two places you can get people from - wrestling families, or other feds/sports. I think Sasha Banks might be the only person with no experience prior to NXT (she went to a "fantasy camp" and showed a good aptitude) It's a smart business move to hire guys from the indies because they've (hopefully) gotten what it takes to get noticed. Sasha Banks wrestled in indies before coming to NXT. Dolph Ziggler's is the last guy to come up purely from developmental and had no indie experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dre013 Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 My point was (poorly made) that we haven't seen any successes purely built through the system in a long time. Probably an indicator that a) the regional system is a better option that wwe development and that the death of it is a bigger loss than they expected and b) triple h isn't more than a checkbook at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 All the people called up in the past few months years have been pre-performance center/HHH reign, so give him a couple years, maybe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEmanWITHnoNAME Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 New RAW intro for tonight. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THEmanWITHnoNAME Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakk_Sabbath Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Y'know, I'm not a huge freak for it, but Cena/Lesnar is an example of a match that could've probably used a little blood. Don't get me wrong, it was fantastic without any, too, but it would've been a little something extra that visually drove the point home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 However, if you think that the company's hand regarding Bryan was not forced by the crowd, you would have to be incredibly optimistic about the company's record with hot acts over the past ten years to take that position. Why is the story that WWE's hand got forced? They listened to the audience which is what we all wanted. They stuck the landing at Mania. Forget their record. Why do you need to frame the issue in a way that takes that victory away from them? They got that one right. And have been getting it right with the Shield. And in spite of how much the Wyatt's have cooled off, the amount of time they get and their placement on the card suggests that the Powers That Be still see great things for them. Cesaro petered out (a result of miscasting or a lower ceiling than most smarks see for him) and they continue to see nothing in Ziggler (a point of view I tend to share), but they've still been handling their business a lot better recently than you're giving them credit for here. They'll never win them all. But they're not as bad as you're making them out to be. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 My point was (poorly made) that we haven't seen any successes purely built through the system in a long time. Probably an indicator that a) the regional system is a better option that wwe development and that the death of it is a bigger loss than they expected and B) triple h isn't more than a checkbook at this point. It's funny, a few months ago I was reading a transcript of a Bill Watts interview he did not long after he left WCW in the early 90's. He specifically mentioned how when McMahon was expanding in the 80's, he suggested to Vince to not go out of his way to kill the territories and actually let them live as they'd be the best possible feeder system but Vince didn't care/listen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 However, if you think that the company's hand regarding Bryan was not forced by the crowd, you would have to be incredibly optimistic about the company's record with hot acts over the past ten years to take that position. Why is the story that WWE's hand got forced? They listened to the audience which is what we all wanted. They stuck the landing at Mania. Forget their record. Why do you need to frame the issue in a way that takes that victory away from them? They got that one right. And have been getting it right with the Shield. And in spite of how much the Wyatt's have cooled off, the amount of time they get and their placement on the card suggests that the Powers That Be still see great things for them. Cesaro petered out (a result of miscasting or a lower ceiling than most smarks see for him) and they continue to see nothing in Ziggler (a point of view I tend to share), but they've still been handling their business a lot better recently than you're giving them credit for here. They'll never win them all. But they're not as bad as you're making them out to be. The story is that WWE's hand got forced because typically, getting over with the crowd doesn't seem to matter if the office isn't interested in strongly pushing you. This has happened multiple times with guys in the past decade or so beginning with RVD in 2001. We can list a number of guys that they didn't really push very strongly when the crowd was ready for it (or worse, de-pushed when they got hot). Their odd de-pushes of hot wrestlers as some weird test for their wrestlers isn't made up by fans that just love to hate. They also tend to go in their own pre-conceived direction rather than paying attention to the audience, which is why the audience being particularly vocal by the beginning of January was so striking - this time, I guess fans weren't going to put up with a de-push for Bryan. In the end, do I care how WWE gets it right? Not particularly. However, the original conversation was sparked by Gregg, whose optimism I love but whose sometimes blind belief in WWE's approach to building wrestlers and feuds I find confusing, saying that fans just love to hate on WWE and that many fans think they could do better. Well, yeah, but that's only because fans actually pay attention to what other fans seem to want. You bring up Ziggler right now. I don't particularly like Ziggler either, but it's pretty clear that the guy should at least be in the Edge role of "upper-midcarder that works as a transitional champ in a handful of instances" because the crowd buys him as that and clearly wants to see him do well. I won't be interested in it, but a bunch of other people will. I also don't think WWE is getting it right with the Wyatts. In January, they were very clearly ready for primetime according to the crowd's response to them. What sense does it make to then have Bray lose a feud to John Cena and have the Usos kill Harper and Rowan each week? That sort of booking is just objectively awful no matter what one thinks of the Wyatts. We'll see how The Shield's singles booking turns out. They want to force Reigns as the future champ when the crowd seems to want Ambrose. If in February, they're pushing Reigns into the main event, but the crowd gets vocal again about wanting to see Ambrose in that spot, we'll see if they change course again. It might take the crowd getting ugly at multiple shows to do it, but even if that works in this hypothetical situation, it shouldn't have to get that far. It likewise shouldn't have had to get that far for them to clearly set Bryan up to stand alone at WM. I'm not a WWE-hater at all. The only reason I said anything is that Gregg got over-the-top in his defense of WWE booking, though I should have ignored it because that's what Gregg does occasionally and he's simply a good guy with a lively fandom 99.9% of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick B. Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Cena-Wyatt on Raw tonight. The gods of hustle, loyalty, and respect demand sacrifice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 However, if you think that the company's hand regarding Bryan was not forced by the crowd, you would have to be incredibly optimistic about the company's record with hot acts over the past ten years to take that position. Why is the story that WWE's hand got forced? They listened to the audience which is what we all wanted. They stuck the landing at Mania. Forget their record. Why do you need to frame the issue in a way that takes that victory away from them? They got that one right. And have been getting it right with the Shield. And in spite of how much the Wyatt's have cooled off, the amount of time they get and their placement on the card suggests that the Powers That Be still see great things for them. Cesaro petered out (a result of miscasting or a lower ceiling than most smarks see for him) and they continue to see nothing in Ziggler (a point of view I tend to share), but they've still been handling their business a lot better recently than you're giving them credit for here. They'll never win them all. But they're not as bad as you're making them out to be. The story is that WWE's hand got forced because typically, getting over with the crowd doesn't seem to matter if the office isn't interested in strongly pushing you. This has happened multiple times with guys in the past decade or so beginning with RVD in 2001. We can list a number of guys that they didn't really push very strongly when the crowd was ready for it (or worse, de-pushed when they got hot). Their odd de-pushes of hot wrestlers as some weird test for their wrestlers isn't made up by fans that just love to hate. They also tend to go in their own pre-conceived direction rather than paying attention to the audience, which is why the audience being particularly vocal by the beginning of January was so striking - this time, I guess fans weren't going to put up with a de-push for Bryan. In the end, do I care how WWE gets it right? Not particularly. However, the original conversation was sparked by Gregg, whose optimism I love but whose sometimes blind belief in WWE's approach to building wrestlers and feuds I find confusing, saying that fans just love to hate on WWE and that many fans think they could do better. Well, yeah, but that's only because fans actually pay attention to what other fans seem to want. You bring up Ziggler right now. I don't particularly like Ziggler either, but it's pretty clear that the guy should at least be in the Edge role of "upper-midcarder that works as a transitional champ in a handful of instances" because the crowd buys him as that and clearly wants to see him do well. I won't be interested in it, but a bunch of other people will. I also don't think WWE is getting it right with the Wyatts. In January, they were very clearly ready for primetime according to the crowd's response to them. What sense does it make to then have Bray lose a feud to John Cena and have the Usos kill Harper and Rowan each week? That sort of booking is just objectively awful no matter what one thinks of the Wyatts. We'll see how The Shield's singles booking turns out. They want to force Reigns as the future champ when the crowd seems to want Ambrose. If in February, they're pushing Reigns into the main event, but the crowd gets vocal again about wanting to see Ambrose in that spot, we'll see if they change course again. It might take the crowd getting ugly at multiple shows to do it, but even if that works in this hypothetical situation, it shouldn't have to get that far. It likewise shouldn't have had to get that far for them to clearly set Bryan up to stand alone at WM. I'm not a WWE-hater at all. The only reason I said anything is that Gregg got over-the-top in his defense of WWE booking, though I should have ignored it because that's what Gregg does occasionally and he's simply a good guy with a lively fandom 99.9% of the time. While Gregg might get OTT in his defence of WWE at times, I find you're still being a little too harsh. It's still a bit too soon to indict the push of Reigns. Nothing about the booking of Wyatt suggestions they're de-pushing him. This Jericho detour has been poorly handled and Jericho's nowhere near as hot as they'd like him to be. But it's still indicative of the Powers That Be's commitment to the act. They should push Ziggler (barf), but as I said they won't ever win them all (yay!). I also think your being too harsh in decrying Bryan original direction as a de-push when he was still getting as much airtime as anyone in the fed. If Gregg is too forgiving, I think you represent those who are too hasty to judge. Of course I'm not sure why I'm speaking up. This conversation has been going on forever, and I've largely resigned myself to keeping out of it. My voice makes no real difference. I'm going to back away from my keyboard now. Otherwise, I know I'll let myself lose a few hours of my life over pointless wrestling discussions I've had countless times already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Oh, there are no worries. I do disagree that I'm too harsh. I am generally pretty positive, though there are some things that I just don't like and will probably never be positive about. It never hurts to hash things out, though. It's about talking about wrestling more than making a difference. at least for me. I also think that I probably am not taking this position in 2002; I do think there is something deficient about WWE's booking patterns over the last decade that has me thinking this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Oh, there are no worries. I do disagree that I'm too harsh. I am generally pretty positive, though there are some things that I just don't like and will probably never be positive about. It never hurts to hash things out, though. It's about talking about wrestling more than making a difference. at least for me. Full disclose, seeing as I'm new here: I've gotten myself less and less invested in WWE's booking foibles over the last few years, taking the stance that very little of what they do matters or moves the needle. I suspect my apathy simply makes me look more positive in the face of the constant negativity. If I cared enough to really take an interest in WWE's booking and examined it like the perfectionist I can be in other areas of my life, I'd probably lose my mind. For me, it's the CM Punk problem: No reason caring about WWE if they don't care. Nothing wrong with hashing things out, obviously. Wrestling discussions can be fun. I simply know I enjoy wrestling more if I keep myself from travelling down certain rabbit holes. You're just fine. This is a me problem. I feel like I'll look at this post in the morning and feel like Kurt Angle after a night of vigorous tweeting... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hooks Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 I'm a few hours late to this portion of the conversation, and I sincerely mean it when I say I mean no offense towards anyone. But I don't get the idea of not wanting my children anywhere near pro wrestling because some bad things have happened or some people have died or some storylines have been controversial over the years. I mean, I loved both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams and their deaths really hit me in emotional places, but I can't imagine saying "I'll never encourage my children to get invested in movies because the people they look up to might die tragically." Same with music......so many musicians I've loved over the years have come to a sad end, but it would never cross my mind to avoid listening to music. And movies/TV/music have always had their share of controversial moments and projects, but it comes with the territory. I'm so glad I grew up as a wrestling fan, and at times I miss being able to watch it with the eyes of a kid. I don't have any kids of my own, but at one time in my life I was engaged and raising my ex's kids because their own dad was so absent. And I LOVED watching wrestling with them, and they LOVED coming to my shows. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I remember watching Wrestlemania 24 with them. Her son particularly was into it. He has Aspergers, so especially at that age he could get pretty emotional. He was SO wrapped up in Ric Flair vs Shawn Michaels. Later that night when I was tucking him into bed he was so sad, and I sat and talked with him for awhile and consoled him and assured him that Ric Flair was going to be OK.......and that even though Shawn Michaels beat him, he was still his friend. That's a moment in life I'll never forget. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranesi Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Rusev is the best outsider poet. Here is his love song to the world: Rusev @RusevBUL 16m You fight me I crush. You fall down I crush. You stand up I crush. I crush. #Raw @LanaWWE 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tromatagon Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Great, now fun means sex and crush means fuck This is going to make the Weekend at Bernie's style Demolition reunion even more awkward 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranesi Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Remember that if you ever meet Rusev. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tromatagon Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Im busy rethinking Kenta Kobashi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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