FMKK

They'll make more money selling motherhood related Becky Lynch merchandise than they would in doing a phoney angle to set up a comeback match in like a year. People are into the human interest stories in their wrestling, which is something WWE itself completely misunderstands a lot of the time, but not in this instance.

Who cares about your stupid relationships and pregnancies? Everyone's priorities should be da business.

I hate that excuse for him too. He's sold all manner of bollocks over his career, including a lot worse than anything AEW has done.

Too much of the humour, as with a lot of WWE skits, was *person turns up and says catchphrase* repeated three or four times.

Well there was also Ryan Satin tweeting about how Tamina deserves a run with the belt. For existing I presume.

I think the empty arena stuff highlights the most artificial and alienating parts of the WWE product, as mentioned by Sek. We've also seen pretty substantial ratings falls after Wrestlemania for the past number of years. So it seems like empty arena has exacerbated a trend rather than creating a new one. The sheer lack of star power on these shows is not helping of course. But a part of me can't help but think that a lot of the WWE habit viewers were waiting around for an excuse to check out. And as someone who hasn't watched the weekly TV in a while, I can't imagine ever going back. The question is if the people turned off by empty arena will feel the same way.

Ronaldo and Messi > Pele. Maybe Maradona as well. (Partially trolling haha. My country has only ever produced one great footballer so I can't rag on Brazil too much.)

Michael Jordan got over big on Raw last night it seems!

Roman Reigns three feuds since coming back from cancer were vs Shane McMahon, the 'who attacked Roman' angle that made no sense and ended up as Reigns vs Rowan and then Vs Corbin. In a year where The Fiend didn't exist, those could all be in the running for worst feud of the year. We've kind of just forgotten how horrendous that whole mystery angle over the summer was because WWE is always bombarding us with the next awful thing. Guy went from having people in the crowd crying for him to having his heat utterly extinguished before the year was out.

Luke Harper/Brodie Lee was in Jericho's podcast recently and said that CM Punk told him that even when WWE does something good, it could be so much better. Lynch falls into that category.

Getting to the bottom for the WWE flight delay in Saudi Arabia would be fascinating but unless Anderson and Gallows want to burn their bridges forever, it's probably too soon for anyone to want to go on record.

Kevin Owens is a smart guy and I'm sure he's aware he's got a lot of miles on the clock. Even if his injury is something he could usually work though, it makes sense to step out, heal your body up, spend time with your kids and take nothing to do with these lame duck shows that are dying a death right now. If he can wait it out until there's an audience again, he'll make himself look like a megastar by getting the first 'return' pop post-Covid. In saying that, KO has had multiple returns and character changes that have started up hot and ended up being booked into oblivion over the last year or so. That's gotta be demoralising. I didn't know that about Becky's hips and shoulders but I do think she's been noticeably clunky in the ring for the last while. I'm not sure she ever found a ring style that matches with this persona. In fairness to her on the acting front, anyone playing a broad Vince McMahon wrestling character is going to come off cringey put in a different context. I'd like to see her get a try in a different role to see what she can bring. Maybe something a bit more low key, because everyone from wrestling ends up doing bombastic action roles. I could see her in a comedy or a sweet but offbeat drama playing something more like her previous babyface character.

An interesting wrinkle I heard today is that The Rock specifically requested to do the segment with her on Smackdown last October and then set her up with his agent afterwards. The fact that he has his own production company as well bodes well for her because if he sees her as a pet project, he can ensure she gets decent roles in films and shows he has a stake in. I did see a couple of clips of her appearance in Billions. I know nothing about the show so I don't have much context but I thought it was a bit cringey.

Honestly, the start of Becky slowly losing her heat was the moment Stephanie became involved in that programme.

Everything about Seth Rollins - including his resume - screams tag worker. He can do highspots and he can be explosive in small doses. Putting together an actual main event quality singles match is beyond his remit. Give him a team mate and have him be the hot tag guy. And never give him a microphone ever again. Of course, he thinks he's the best wrestler in the world so that might be a tough sell for him...

They've already got Bad Luck Fale and Yano do to the two-star night off matches

Not in terms of influencing other workers but in terms of influencing the business, I think Kenny Omega vs Chris Jericho at Wrestle Kingdom sets in place a lot of things including Omega's star rising in the West, Jericho getting the taste for the creative freedom of non-Vince McMahon wrestling and ultimately the creation of WWE's first competition in 20 years. There were a lot of other stops on the road to get to AEW but this seems like a particularly pivotal one looking back. Another modern one is Sasha Banks vs Bayley in Brooklyn, 2015. For all the shoehorned Stephanie McMahon-endorsed first-time-ever milestones we've had over the last few years, this stands out at the most clear display that women could get over as serious pushed acts in the WWE realm.

I think that the loss of the 'old-school' feeling is something they used to have that was lost over time as opposed to something that never existed. Hour long TV shows with squashes and green guys as well as a smattering of stars and big matches has become a two hour show with more talent than they have time for and hotshot title matches etc. to pop a rating that never comes. Same with the Takeovers. At the last Takeover, everyone was shooting for star ratings. But if you look at the early ones, you had Ascension and Baron Corbin squashes and comedy acts like the Vaudvillans and Enzo & Cass as well as the big Sami Zayn matches. I wonder if this is connected to Dusty dying and them losing that older school connection or whether it was just because of them changing the business model to focus on killing off indy wrestling by making their own big budget version. Both probably.

I don't think Shane ever had a run as bad as the Authority stuff from 2013-2016 where HHH and Stephanie would bury babyfaces and heels alike on the microphone every week and never get comeuppance. That was demoralising to watch as a fan, whereas Shane can at least be dumb fun if you don't think about it too deeply.

Tiger Mask vs Dynamite was the first match that came to mind when I read the thread title so it's interesting that other influential matches have essentially built on it. I'm sure there's a garbage or death match somewhere that was the inspiration for ECW, which eventually became omnipresent in WWF/E. I'd also love to know if there are any specific tapes that the likes of Daniel Bryan or Chris Hero watched that influenced them above any others. It's too easy just to say All Japan 90s matches. It would be great to know specifically what matches really stuck out to those guys.

Vince as Henry VIII is a fascinating comparison. Maybe all of his top babyfaces over the years can be the six wives.

I think it's been a slog for ages too. It peaked with Zayn winning the title and then Bayley vs Sasha. But HHH in a way had the easiest job in wrestling. He only had to book an hour a week, hadn't much pressure to make money and had a seemingly unlimited budget to sign talent and cycle them in as fresh acts when others got called up. Plus he got to market himself as the in-house alternative of the shows that nobody likes. When he was finally counted on to draw on Wednesday nights, he failed. The competition with AEW has exposed a lot of NXTs flaws (lack of call ups and exciting new faces, horrendous main event scene, Shawn Michaels agenting) and they've lost their 'alternative' cache because now they're an instrument of WWE attacking a new promotion. HHH worked so hard to rebuild his credibility with hardcore fans and now it kinda looks like he's back to square one again.

No one who watched any Lance Archer match from 2019 could possibly think he's garbage. Guy had a great G1 and projects the monster character as well as anyone in wrestling atm.

This is where having no roster hierarchy comes back to bite them. You can have an underdog babyface who wins all his regular TV matches against midcarders but can't quite get over the hump against the people above him in the pecking order. That's the story AEW are able to tell with Darby Allin because there are clear people beneath or on his level for him to go over and there's a clear person above him, Cody, that he's working towards getting his big win over. WWE can't do that because they just have a midcard vortex and once you're in it, the fans lose interest and Vince blames you for not being over. Yeah, once you lose the trust of the audience so comprehensively, it's hard to ever get it back. Not that they're really made a concerted effort to. But honestly, even if they made drastic changes it would take years for people to fully invest in them because Vince is so flighty these days.

The worst thing about it is that the whole Daniel Bryan ascent seems to have broken their brains. So they think the way to get a face over is to book them to lose all the time so the crowd will get behind them as a rebellion against the booking. One look at the guy would tell you that Roman Reigns should work short and explosive matches that worked like his Shield hot tags and yet he was selling all the time and doing TV jobs to Kane and The Big Show as they desperately hoped he would get the fan sympathy cheers. WWE have had their good moments since 2014/15 but something about those Rumbles especially really did a number both on them and on the fanbase.