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JANUARY 2015 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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The TV-14 thing would be horribly mismanaged. I'd rather have great matches and great writing than "the return of the ATTITUDE." However, to mirror the opinions above, a little blood here and there isn't going to kill anyone.

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Dave Meltzer is reporting that WWE is moving back to TV-14.

 

Word is The Game-aaah has wanted to do this for years-aaah only to have Daddy Steroids in Law shoot him down-ahhh. Well The Game-aaah is slowly being given more and more power-aaah and Geriatric Mega Pecs has finally told him they'll do it given the ratings the past few months have been shit and they believe making the change will possibly bring some older viewers back.

Meltzer says the change will come in the near future...meaning 2015-2016.

Meltzer is also saying that WWE is talking about counting on the former Shield members (still as singles competitors) to lead the new TV-14 programming.

 

Anyone have a link to this (assuming it's not 100% fake)?  I can't find it anywhere.

 

I'm skeptical that they ever go back to PG-14.  I don't mind blood and the like, but I will never miss most of the Attitude Era's "mature" content.

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People who pine for the glory days of the late 90s are morons.  That shit was like 75% puerile Vince humor.  For every cool thing, we got 10 Beaver Cleavage skits.

 

Things that made the "Attitude Era" good: Austin, Rock, Foley, Undertaker.  Once in a lifetime talents doing their thing without being overwritten or overproduced.

 

Things that made the "Attitude Era" garbage: poop jokes, dick jokes, fake tits, HHH being dominant because he was a member of the family

 

If we returned to "PG 13" or whatever now, all we'd get is the latter, because the former are all gone. 

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People who pine for the glory days of the late 90s are morons.  That shit was like 75% puerile Vince humor.  For every cool thing, we got 10 Beaver Cleavage skits.

 

Things that made the "Attitude Era" good: Austin, Rock, Foley, Undertaker.  Once in a lifetime talents doing their thing without being overwritten or overproduced.

 

Things that made the "Attitude Era" garbage: poop jokes, dick jokes, fake tits, HHH being dominant because he was a member of the family

 

If we returned to "PG 13" or whatever now, all we'd get is the latter, because the former are all gone. 

I am so glad that people are finally saying this out loud. The Attitude era was, for the most part, the cultural equivalent of a boys locker room. 

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I re-read my post about the Attitude Era and found myself thinking about McMahon, Russo and Kevin Dunn (I know, I know).  It was always conventional wisdom that Russo had batshit crazy ideas and McMahon was the one who cut off the worst ones and took the bad ones and made chicken shit into chicken salad.  I'm not sure how true that is, in hindsight.  What has McMahon done, creatively, since then?  All we've ever seen out of McMahon is his penchant for Beavis and Butthead humor but with less nuance.

 

The more I think about it, the more it feels like Vince McMahon is not the genius that so many say he is.  I think has the absolute worst creative instincts and when he actually succeeds it is in spite of himself. 

 

His most successful eras both revolved around Mount Rushmore type talents.  Hogan in the 80s and the Attitude Era guys I mentioned above.  The success of these boom periods is owed more to these guys than Vince, in my option.  Outside these eras, he's been pretty much a failure.  Wrestling is still the niche product it always has been.  He has failed at every venture outside wrestling as well. 

 

The guy is a great promoter and businessman but that's about it.  He had the drive and acumen to run those other promoters out of business and take over, but that's the extent of what he's good at.  He's not creating stars, he's just taking advantage of the stars that come along and even then it's a struggle because his creative instincts are just so unbelievably bad.  It's pretty depressing that he's still in charge.

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His most successful eras both revolved around Mount Rushmore type talents. Hogan in the 80s and the Attitude Era guys I mentioned above. The success of these boom periods is owed more to these guys than Vince, in my option.

Not to disagree with you, but in all fairness to Vince, it should be said that during the Attitude Era he was a Mount Rushmore type talent himself, as a performer if not a creator.
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I re-read my post about the Attitude Era and found myself thinking about McMahon, Russo and Kevin Dunn (I know, I know).  It was always conventional wisdom that Russo had batshit crazy ideas and McMahon was the one who cut off the worst ones and took the bad ones and made chicken shit into chicken salad.  I'm not sure how true that is, in hindsight.  What has McMahon done, creatively, since then?  All we've ever seen out of McMahon is his penchant for Beavis and Butthead humor but with less nuance.

 

The more I think about it, the more it feels like Vince McMahon is not the genius that so many say he is.  I think has the absolute worst creative instincts and when he actually succeeds it is in spite of himself. 

 

His most successful eras both revolved around Mount Rushmore type talents.  Hogan in the 80s and the Attitude Era guys I mentioned above.  The success of these boom periods is owed more to these guys than Vince, in my option.  Outside these eras, he's been pretty much a failure.  Wrestling is still the niche product it always has been.  He has failed at every venture outside wrestling as well. 

 

The guy is a great promoter and businessman but that's about it.  He had the drive and acumen to run those other promoters out of business and take over, but that's the extent of what he's good at.  He's not creating stars, he's just taking advantage of the stars that come along and even then it's a struggle because his creative instincts are just so unbelievably bad.  It's pretty depressing that he's still in charge.

 

You could sub Jerry Jones for Vince there, change some other names around and have almost exactly the same post.  Why, it's almost as if people think people are brilliant because they got rich...

 

Personally, though, I'm also very content with PG.  Yeah, I'd like a little color here and there, and a little more salt and pepper in the language.  PG certainly does no favors to characters like Wyatt, either.  But those are all perfectly fine sacrifices to make if it means that I'm not exposed to constant degrading smut, disgusting and humorless sex jokes, poop jokes that are even worse than we get now, and all the homophobia you can fit into three hours. 

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His most successful eras both revolved around Mount Rushmore type talents.  Hogan in the 80s and the Attitude Era guys I mentioned above.  The success of these boom periods is owed more to these guys than Vince, in my option.  Outside these eras, he's been pretty much a failure.  Wrestling is still the niche product it always has been.  He has failed at every venture outside wrestling as well. 

 

The guy is a great promoter and businessman but that's about it.  He had the drive and acumen to run those other promoters out of business and take over, but that's the extent of what he's good at.  He's not creating stars, he's just taking advantage of the stars that come along and even then it's a struggle because his creative instincts are just so unbelievably bad.  It's pretty depressing that he's still in charge.

 

With Vince, you can't just discount the enormous successes he's had as due to talent and all of the failures he's had as due to Vince. You have to look at everything as a whole.

 

When things are hot, no one can do wrong. That's why so much garbage drew during the attitude era. 

 

When things are stale or slow, no one can do anything right.  What makes the current era so frustrating is the audience is very vocal about what they want to see. And it's not limited to a minority who posts on message boards. You can see it with the reactions the audiences have. You can see it with the rating trends. And yet, no matter what, the audience is being force-fed the vision of a 70-year old man.  

 

Last year WWE was foaming at the mouth about bringing Batista back. Then they were foaming at the mouth about turning a green Roman Reigns into the next John Cena. They gave Brock Lesnar, someone who has zero loyalty to the company and a quickly approaching expiration date on his contract the two most decisive wins over main eventers in recent memory and allowed him to essentially disappear with the championship.

 

All of these things are indicative of Vince going to the same well over and over again. Is Vince a genius? Yes. Has he lost his fastball? Undoubtedly.  

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While you're right regarding credit vs blame and how we're always a little to quick with both, I disagree about Vince being a genius.  He's a guy who used to have uncanny skill for striking while the iron was hot but that's about it, IMO.  He's not a guy who is going to make his own breaks or create stars from nothing.  I do agree that whatever skill we think he had, it's long gone now.

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Building on this topic, whom do you guys think are the antithesis of Vince McMahon in terms of being able to create stars and strong draws out of nothing? Historically, who took talent and squeezed every drop out of that talent the most as a booker or creative exec?

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The biggest problem WWE has had is creative and it's made all the more difficult with all of the TV they produce because they don't let shit breathe. A guy is fired and two weeks later he's back. Two people are feuding and two weeks later they are friends again. There's no plan for anything. The plan is for "next week" and forget about last week.

 

Overproduced promos is such shit too.

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Building on this topic, whom do you guys think are the antithesis of Vince McMahon in terms of being able to create stars and strong draws out of nothing? Historically, who took talent and squeezed every drop out of that talent the most as a booker or creative exec?

 

That's always been the selling point of Heyman's ECW - that he found pretty much the perfect use for every guy on the roster regardless of talent level and put together an incredibly popular show out of mostly spare and broken parts. Hard to argue.

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Building on this topic, whom do you guys think are the antithesis of Vince McMahon in terms of being able to create stars and strong draws out of nothing? Historically, who took talent and squeezed every drop out of that talent the most as a booker or creative exec?

 

That's always been the selling point of Heyman's ECW - that he found pretty much the perfect use for every guy on the roster regardless of talent level and put together an incredibly popular show out of mostly spare and broken parts. Hard to argue.

 

 

That what I was going to say.  Nobody but nobody shined a turd like Heyman.  He'd take a turd and make you think you got a diamond.  How many guys had success in ECW and pretty much nowhere else? Off the top of my head, PE, Douglas, Sandman, Sabu, Dreamer, Taz, The Eliminators.  These were top guys who never amounted to much before or after ECW.

 

Fuck, man. John Kronus was shoot retarded and Heyman had you thinking him & Saturn were the butt babies of the LOD and the Bulldogs.

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The shame of it all is the talent is right there. There's an absurd number of guys who can work on the roster. Even most of the guys who routinely show up on the WWEs B and C shows are above average workers and average promos. That should be all the clay creative needs.

 

We don't even have to be having the who got the most out of the least conversation. This is not a period where WWE is working with the least. The roster is stacked. The WWE just has tunnel vision and only sees what they want to see unless their hand is forced (Punk/Bryan). They literally give 85% of the roster no angles and limited character work.

 

The example I point to over and over again is Tyson Kidd. Here's a guy who has been around as Superstars-fodder for years. While always recognized as a worker, he had no character and no angles since the Hart Dynasty split. When he first showed up in nXt I was not excited to see him. He had been an afterthought and a D-level talent for so long it almost felt like he was beneath the nXt main event scene. It took around a month to rehabilitate him. Give him a character. Give him a angle. Give him some mic time. Give him a purpose. Now he's about to land a spot in March Madness.   

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A major part of the problem, which I forgot to mention, is that there is no more competition.  WWE has gone from being a competitive wrestling promotion to just a content generator, which is kind of what Niners Fan said above.  They need to create a shit ton of content and it doesn't even have to be good enough to beat another promotion, just good enough to keep their base group of fans happy enough to keep watching.  That makes for a shitty product.

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Building on this topic, whom do you guys think are the antithesis of Vince McMahon in terms of being able to create stars and strong draws out of nothing? Historically, who took talent and squeezed every drop out of that talent the most as a booker or creative exec?

Yep. Heyman. When he had guys like Malenko and Guerrero, he didn't screw around with gimmicks, he put them out there to put on brilliant matches. When he had guys like Balls Mahoney and the Sandman, he put them in a position to get the most out of what they had. And when he was running Smackdown, he put out arguably the best WWE TV ever. It's Heyman-era Smackdown vs NXT for me, and nothing else is in the conversation.

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To go back to what others were saying, The Atittude Era was mostly successful because it was a collection of really talented dudes and they were given an opportunity to showcase what they did well and pretty much create their own promos and personas. They had some help from creative also but it was like less than five people in the room,  These days there are far too many cooks.

 

Meltzer was saying the other day that he thinks the roster is thin on talent but I don't see it that way. Nearly everyone on the roster can work. Some of them are the best wrestlers in the world. What IS lacking is star power but again I think that goes back to terrible creative putting these guys in incoherent story lines and overproducing their promos.

 

I'm not saying they have a Rock or Austin on the roster. I'm saying we have no way of knowing.

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I'm not saying they have a Rock or Austin on the roster. I'm saying we have no way of knowing.

 

This is a company that almost lost John Cena, their top guy for over a decade now, because they weren't able to see anything in him.  It's conceivable that we DO have the next Rock or Austin, and he'll be cut or quit.  The current system has no creative outlet for guys to get over organically and it's only getting worse.

 

Heyman could take what McMahon sees as the bottom 1/4th of the current roster (all those guys who "don't have it," "can't connect," or "are Swiss") and make a successful promotion.

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Imagine Heyman with a roster of

 

Cesaro

Tyson Kidd

Fandango

Cody Rhodes

Xavier Woods

Mizdow

Justin Gabriel

The Colons

Heath Slater

Titus O'Neill

Zack Ryder

Kofi Kingston

Sin Cara

Albert

Alex Riley

William Regal

Some guys in the developmental (Not the obvious ones)

 

I'd watch it.

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