KonaKrush

Hi, I'm doing research on lucha libre in this era and I was hoping someone on the boards could give me a crash course on the business side of things during this time; while cagematch and other resources have a ton of information about what was going on elsewhere in the world, there seems to be a sort of black hole when it comes to figuring out what was running where, who was drawing cards, etc. For instance, who were the biggest stars of the time? Meltzer seems to think it's Perro Aguayo, but did he have a particularly big-name opponent? I know El Canek had a reputation of being some sort of Hogan-like figure who loved bodyslamming big foreigners, but could he sell out arenas? How does Konnan become a top star almost overnight? And is there a great resource for this sort of stuff that I haven't been able to find because google is hiding Spanish results from me?

You lost me when you said this, because not only is Titus a great worker the argument could be made that he's currently the best worker in the WWE. I just said Titus should be booked better than being used as a jobber, but no, the argument really can't be made that he's the best worker in the company, that's pretty hyperbolic. He might have potential (and I think he does), but you can't really argue that a guy that has what, 3 matches six minutes long since his turn is the best worker in a company that employs Cesaro, Ambrose and Rollins, Luke Harper, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan, and others that have put on match of the year type matches. But seriously I like the guy and think he could be a solid monster heel, he's legitimately huge and does a good job showcasing it when he's not eating pinfalls in 30 seconds.

You can keep making that point if you want, but I would hope WWE at least has realized that they get better sponsors, don't deliberately exclude the significant percentage of their audience, and generally don't need to put over local strip club talent at the expense of their midcard. Like I said, I actually like that there's less "turn the channel" garbage then there was 12-15 years ago. I miss how stale the roster is, how little change there is at the top, and plenty of other stuff, but I don't miss Jerry Lawler screaming about "puppies" at all. I think there's still potential with Rose as a comedy character, but I agree he hasn't been great in the role. But to be fair, Santino, who is admittedly better at it, had a pretty dreadful 2014 as well, so a lot of it is just the non-NXT writers. Like I said re: Sheamus, it would only be worth doing if Orton takes a break and he's given a run as a legitimately top heel, and you just hope enough of the crowd doesn't remember how weak he looked as heel champ during the whole Nexus thing, otherwise what's the point?

Except the whole point is he's a goofy comedy character, we don't need a super realistic portrait of clubbing, and we certainly don't need more Jersey Shore characters in wrestling. I already explained why there's not really a need to turn Cena, and Sheamus should only be turned if they get behind him and make him the #1 guy and sent Orton home for a few months. Sheamus has the size and the look of a top guy, he's just been plugged into that boring "Batista on Smackdown" spot that kills the character's heat the same way it did when it was Batista or Orton. It's not a question of needing to turn him, especially if you're turning Cena, it's a question of giving him an actual character that makes some internal sense. I know the WWE is planning on Reigns being a main eventer by next year, but Dean Ambrose's ability to have a character that makes sense seems to be getting him a huge boost on a show where every other babyface is white noise. With a lot of these guys, it's more the booking than face/heel alignment. Titus O'Neal isn't a great worker, but he's a huge dude with a good look, and WWE can't think of anything for him to do except lose to Sheamus 20 times in a row. It'd make a ton more sense to have a guy like that with a "traditional" look just going out there and crushing little guys so that it actually means something when a babyface beats him (they're doing that with Rusev, but I've got a sinking feeling that's just to feed him to Cena in 2-3 months).

I struggled getting through this and eventually turned it off because I was basically just disagreeing with everything. Yes, WWE writes shitty babyfaces, but the solution to that isn't to turn all their babyfaces heel. One of the best things about Cena is that he can work with actual heels and with flavor of the month babyfaces the crowd is behind, the same way the Rock did in 99-2000. Unless WWE has a guaranteed home run idea, turning Cena heel isn't a great idea because right now he sells merch and can still main event a show against Brock Lesnar one month and Roman Reigns the next. Also a bit disturbed by how many fixes were just "add hot chix." I actually like that wrestling has far less "change the channel if your family is in the room" segments than they did in 1999.