SomethingSavage

Except I haven't seen anything since the women's Chamber match? And before that the Rumble? I watched two WWE shows last year. The Rumble and Evolution. But yes. I'm a regular die-hard fanatic. Absolute edge of my seat, I tell ya what.

Bret/Austin was clearly the only thing I mentioned & absolutely the only thing I was referring to there. My point was that they managed to sidestep landmines and still cobble together something amazing. It wasn't only one match either. It was a match so awesome, it practically salvaged an entire show. I never compared this year's build to any others. But when you start getting shit tossed out like mentions of 9 and 11 as comparisons, then that's not exactly a glowing endorsement. Their booking sucks.

That wasn't reaching. Pretty sure it was right there, which your post only reiterated. The point being - the one year they had all those hurdles & obstacles and still produced something memorable and exciting. They haven't done that this year. They reached the point of hurdles & obstacles and took a wrong turn. Followed by a dead end. Their booking sucks.

... I guess? I mean, NOLA was the last time their Mania build was any good, if that's your point. This year's doesn't feel like total trash, thanks to a strong heel in D-Bry and the unexpected Kofi development. Becky felt like something until they applied that supposed "focus" to her. Once they started paying attention, she's seemingly grown colder & colder with every passing week. Their handling of everything is detrimental, basically. Things only seem to get over or gain traction when they're hands-off.

The same company in 1997 would've booked the Bulldog to submit Austin CLEANLY on the same night he won the Rumble. And then they would've added Rocky Maivia to round out the Bret/Austin triple threat match, since they see big things in Dwayne. And then they would've had him win the IC belt a week before the show. For reasons. By the time they got to Chicago, Austin would've been significantly colder as a character. His momentum would've been randomly disrupted for the sake of a meaningless, throwaway Davey Boy win. And Rocky would be taking up space as a third wheel, tacked on so they can say he's on the right side of history in a few years. This is basically your "focused" Mania main event this year, people.

Asuka's booking has been atrocious, too. I mean, sure. She's ice cold. But your blame is misdirected, because her performances have remained on point. Asuka was given nothing to do before she won the belt. Then she came out of nowhere one month to win the belt & tap out Becky cleanly. She's been given literally NOTHING to do ever since. How exactly would you expect her to have any buzz or momentum with that sort of shitty booking? It's bizarre, scatterbrained bullshit. All their ideas are in a constant state of disarray. Mania season is no better than the rest of the calendar year for them, really. A lot of fans just seem to decide to pretend it is - that's all.

The "lol jk" curtain call stuff is just the dirt fucking worst. Normally that's the sort of thing that would do irreparable damage to a character like Becky's, but I'm not so sure anyone cares about that stuff anymore. Everything is just done to be a moment and to get people tweeting about it or whateverthefuck. There's no real reason to adhere to logic or continuity anymore.

Naive, innocent Allie in Impact was one of the best white-meat babyfaces in wrestling. Anyone disappointed about how Bailey's character was handled when she moved up to the main roster should love Allie from that era. Stoked to hear she's on board.

Should've replaced Seth with Jinder and gave us the Survivor Series 2017 main event that could have been. Two years in the making! Epic storytelling! Long-term booking!

What do you call the dumbest guy to graduate medical school? Doctor. He's still out there practicing medicine. And some poor souls are still regularly seeing him for all their ailments & issues & diagnoses. He's stupid as shit & probably shouldn't be insured to safely practice his craft, but there he is. Doctorate degree & everything. Seth Rollins is that joker for professional wrestling. Here he is in main events, on a big stage, having people believe this is what good wrestling looks like. There's a whole herd of people being educated to think this clown is a good wrestler, because his matches have a lot of motion & impact moves. And nothing else really. Essentially it's, "What if Davey Richards had actually succeeded in convincing the world he was really very good?" That's Seth Rollins. Mr. Nightmare Fuel himself. Go on & add that to his list of two dozen ridiculously nonsensical nicknames or whateverthefuck. So yeah. He sucks. Gun to my head and you're asking me to pick between a fourth failed Seth Rollins main event run or a second doomed run for Jinder? I'm giving Mahal a second shot every time. Maybe I'd even fantasy book him to beat Brock a few times, too.

Replace Jinder Mahal with "Seth Rollins" and welcome to 2019. At least people aren't remembering the Jinder push "fondly" enough to spend two years fantasy booking him as the guy to beat Brock. I'm hardly a huge Jinder stan. But yeah. Fuck it. He's not even the worst over-pushed guy with a shitty gimmick & poorly defined character on their TV in the last two years. We've had to suffer through at least three separate attempts to make the Seth Rollins Main Eventer act stick, and it just doesn't. Stoppp ittt. Stop trying to make it a thing. He's atrocious.

Is Jinder even still being used? I don't follow their TV but only know he hasn't been mentioned by anyone here or elsewhere in a long while. What a fucking waste. Dude actually comes across really well in interviews & stuff, but the outdated "evil foreigner League of Nations" gimmick is the KOD. It's every bit as embarrassing as any of the gross, deranged sexual deviant shit from the Attitude Era that everyone makes fun of in hindsight.

The Starrcade series is the bee's fleas, for sure. And the AWA one is all about Eric's origin, which is fascinating and filled with fun stories. Don't sleep on his two surrounding his signing & first year with WWE though.

Good point. I mean, God forbid they put together a match where the outcome may matter or may have fans speculating. Outrageous.

It's all about the sales pitch. As with most things, it comes down to how it's presented. I could be swayed either way on the subject of intergender wrestling & how receptive I am to the idea. Even so, with that being said, Steve Austin ain't never wrestle no lady. Bret Hart ain't never wrestle no lady. Hulk Hogan ain't never wrestle no lady. Top guys - at least traditional top guys, who were strategic and smart and careful in how they were presented & promoted - would never work a program or a competitive match with a woman. Sorry if that offends anyone, but it's straight truth. And I know Eli Drake isn't a top guy by any means. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't aspire to be one. And if he hopes to ever see himself in a super valuable spot, then yeah. I won't fault him for caring about how he's used.

I watch most television shows this way in 2019. I don't know too many people who don't. It's just that pro wrestling isn't actually good TV in 2019. There's no hook. No attachment. No storyline progression. No endearing character. No character progression to follow. No sense of urgency to entice you. No stakes to keep you invested. It's basically devoid of any element that keeps me watching a TV show. God bless you guys that keep on keeping on. It just isn't for me anymore. I went through my phase of analyzing and rating matches. To death. That trend is over for me though. I feel like I outgrew it after going HARD AF with it between 2012 to about 2014. It burned me out to the point that I couldn't care less how many stars something gets, how something is rated, etc. I actually believe there's an argument to be made that watching SO MUCH wrestling - in such massive quantities, in such small spaces of time - can dumb you down and desensitize you to the silly shit. The women's Chamber match is a perfect example. That finish with Sasha bending her foot around someone's face for a Crossface submission was downright embarrassing, but fans were calling out creative and brilliant. Because they've been educated to react to ANY hint of "psychology" that way. Fuck that noise. It was silly and embarrassing and BAD. It wouldn't harm a fly. It was the antithesis of psychology, because psychology should mean more than just "remembering to sell." It should be reasonable, logical, sensible storytelling. And pressing the top of your foot across somebody's nose is not ANY of that. And yeah. It's just bad. Real bad. Ridiculously bad. It's even bad on the imagination island that is pro wrestling. Okay. I got wayyy sidetracked there. But I'm just saying I see no reason to watch their TV in 2019 - whether it's in manageable chunks or massive unending installments that would have me questioning my life choices by hour 3. It's just not interesting (or entertaining, really) TV anymore. More power to you guys though. I do still read your thoughts in these threads and stuff, so there's that.

I definitely appreciate some of the enthusiasm for the modern product that can be found around here, but yeah. It's absolutely not for me anymore. I will likely select some matches from this show and eventually watch them (a month or so after the fact probably), but there's zero chance of me watching another Mania in full - at least in it's current condition. These 7-hour slogs hold no appeal to me. Just not my thing. One upside to Bruce Prichard being around again might be that he could push for the Rey/Andrade wager match to happen. Bruce is a fan of stakes matches, and he's helped put together programs for them in the past. So there's that. Just keep him away from any supernatural stuff & all's good.

Right. There have been a few exceptions here & there (Sid, Taker '04+, even Lawler to a degree) that have had a little bit of spark to them, but yeah. This show has been mostly lifeless for awhile now. It's a shame, but the project itself may have run its course. You could tell Bruce was all about the live shows & the merch towards the end anyway. But yeah. Scope out some 83 Weeks, man. It's an easy listen, it's informative, and Eric comes across as genuinely engaged. There should be plenty of episode recommendations over in the 83 Weeks thread if you want to cherry pick to get started.

Eddie is Dom's papi. Believe the 'fabe, brutha.

Ethan Page is a guy I really started to like in PWG. That's an environment where it's easy to overboard with the crowd interactions & whatnot, but I thought he really shined with his taunts. Dude was busting out some smooth, well-timed heel tactics. I'm not following ANY weekly wrestling shows at the moment, but if I were - Impact would be number one with a bullet. Even so, I will definitely be going back and catching all their shows retroactively at some point. I just don't have the time with my schedule right now. But it should be fun to do a binge watch at some stage in the future & enjoy this little period that is totally going unrecognized & underappreciated by a large section of the fandom.

Totally. And that's what I'm saying. Even with all the damage of bad booking, 2019 Braun isn't being used to his full potential. Rewind back to 2017 and the guy still had an actual shot of breaking through. I'm not suggesting he was Goldberg over. But he was Ryback over. And, in today's landscape, that's about as good as it gets. No one in their system is permitted to stand out. So they should treat it like God's gift anytime someone actually gets over on their watch. Just how much "measurable success" can a Braun or a Ryback expect to have if they're cut off at the knees before they're ever actually allowed to run with the ball in the first place? Braun got over as a monster & a killer performing feats of strength. So keep doing that. It's irrational to step back and wonder, "But what if he needed to wrestle a 45 minute clinic??" Nobody cares. And nobody is calling to see that shit anyway. Dude was over based on what he COULD do. Fuck what he can't. That's nonsense. "Great" matches aren't even great without narrative anyway. We have all these supposedly classic 5-star matches happening today that won't stand out one bit with a little distance & time. Because they're just hollow matches. With no narrative. Without context. Without meaning or emotional attachment. There's no reason for anyone outside the bubble to give a fuck or recall a single thing about them. Getting over is the struggle. That's the goal. If Braun could do that without having to fit some traditional template or mold, then that's fine.

Sounds to me like some studio is sitting on a goldmine.

Where is the line when it comes to that thinking? When does that cautionary booking stop being beneficial and start being detrimental? Do we avoid putting the belt on Steve Austin in 98 because his neck is busted & he's on borrowed time? Do we sidestep John Cena in 2005 because he's clunky and still noticeably green? Do we derail Jeff Hardy in 2009 because he may happen upon a drug den? For real. Sometimes you go with a hot hand, simply because it's hot. I dislike a lot of things about modern WWE, but that mentality ranks among the very worst. Stop searching for reasons NOT to go with an over act. Because you'll always find faults when that's what you're seeking. Look at Bill Goldberg for the ideal scenario of a green guy who gets over. You strap the rocket to him. You push him to the moon. You pair him with the right guys along the way. And you hope like hell he adapts and improves. But you ride that momentum until the wheels fall off. You don't stall him out at stage one to teach him. Because it saps his credibility and slows him to a halt. That's what they've done with Braun. They've effectively repeated the same mistakes they made with Ryback once he caught on. When something catches on & gets over, people will overlook flaws in "work rate" and athleticism. It isn't necessary for everyone to work a lengthy fucking five-star match. The name of the game is to get over. If good matches are what get a guy over, then okay. That's fine. But it's a device. Just like interviews. Promos. Cool gear. Awe-inspiring entrances. An endearing back story. Whatever. Great matches are NOT the endgame. They are a device to get over. Stop pretending that it's the end-all, be-all. Because that's what leads to this shitty state of storytelling the entire business is stuck in right now. Braun not being able to have long matches of 5-star quality doesn't make him any less valuable a commodity. For fuck's sake. He was OVER. That is literally his value right there. That is currency is pro wrestling, people. Nothing else matters. No. Not even great matches, which are as commonplace as the ring ropes on any wrestling show these days anyway. And it's also ass backwards that anyone would look at a monster like Braun and say. "Yeah. But can he work an Iron Man Match?" or whateverthefuck. Hey. Hey there. This shit's fake, y'all. They can literally create ANY scenario they want around his matches. He can have garbage brawls. Violent spectacles. Short, powerful sprints. WHATEVER. But any decent booker would spot these hurdles and offer up easy solutions. And any reasonable promoter would recognize the value in an act that's over & realize they should play to his strengths - rather than try to fit a square peg into a late 70s NWA Champion sized hole. For fuck's sake. This. Exactly this. The first guy to take off automatically wins the race, because everyone on their roster is running in place.

Bischoff brings it up all the time - mainly as a way to dismiss something whenever Dave speculates or includes guesswork in his reporting. Tbf I find that Eric is actually a less hostile toward Dave these days, especially when compared to Bruce. The "Mabel was the third man" bit does still get used regularly though.

The Corbin feud was the final nail for him. It was clear he wasn't recovering after the loss to Brock at the second Saudi show though. What a waste. Braun (well, Braun plus Joe promos) brought me back to WWE temporarily. They felt like they had hot, believable opponents for Brock. And it seemed like they literally couldn't wait to undo that.