Slasher

It stands to reason that the postmatch ruined the match retroactively much like the Rollins cash in ruined the previous 10+ minutes of Lesnar vs Reigns for some.

The whole point of the video Triple H produced before his match at Wrestlemania against Daniel Bryan is that he knows people know he buried people. He was feeding the paranoia that Bryan would be next.

I remember all the times where a heel actually heeled on fans and stood by those actions. Like Owen Hart pretending to give out the Hart glasses only to rip them up in a kid's face. Didn't see Owen befriending that guy on TV afterwards. So for someone to say Sasha heeled like nobody heeled anymore is silly when we see otherwise. Although I will grant that things are different overall so I don't know if it would have been good for Sasha not to come back for that kid.

You can do entertaining tv without doing that. I am not saying they won't do that because like I said, it would just be like them to do that but Big E deserves better than that.

Taker's career vs a night with Nikki Bella?

That would be so WWE with how lacking in confidence they have with Big E if they put the world title on him via a MITB that he wasn't the actual winner of-under some stupid Freebirds rule for a stupid title gimmick like MITB.

Yet, Kofi's the one on the Mania poster, so I wouldn't be surprised if WWE views this as a launching pad for him. They've never fully gotten behind Big E IMO. That doesn't make any sense. All you have to look at is how they book New Day in matches to see Big E is the obvious powerhouse and big threat while Xavier and Kofi alternate between being the fall guys or the ones to sneak in a pinfall the few times they get to do it. Big E. is obviously their guy out of the three, although I agree the WWE isn't that invested in it.

The reason why Brock/Reigns hasn't been talked about much on tv is because 1. Reigns and Brock didn't face off again after that match and 2. Rollins took the belt and therefore the focus. But that is what I meant earlier, when Reigns gets the belt finally, the match will be referenced to and inserted into WWE lore. It probably would be like Cena vs Show at WM 20, a year before Cena became the man officially but that is the match that let people know what's coming for Cena. When Reigns becomes the man, they will look to that match and talk about how that was the moment Reigns really showed who he was as a main event singles wrestler. He was the first in a long time to really survive Lesnar's onslaught of suplexes and shit. The longer the divas' revolution goes on where they undo all the good stuff they started, where they stubbornly stick to Charlotte as the ace, when NXT womens wrestling probably disappears after both Bayley and Asura leaves, the less significant Sasha/Bayley becomes. Now since we are talking about MOTY, I won't and can't fault people for preferring Sasha/Bayley, but its not where I choose to measure MOTY qualification. I pick MOTYs on not only the beat match of the year but best chance of long term impact- and in that case, its Lesnar/Reigns for me.

I'm not sure I get this. Yeah me neither. The match was sold as Brock Lesnar defending his championship against Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns. Never was Seth Rollins used in the marketing of the match beyond the wink wink manner of "But this guy could cash in...". The bell rang to indicate match started when it was Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar standing in the ring. It was an official match and sold as such. However, it never got a "proper" conclusion as obviously the match got altered in the end to include Seth Rollins. That match got the conclusion, but Lesnar/Reigns was officially started as a match so it was a match, period.

It will be pushed if Roman Reigns becomes the guy. I think the reason Cena/JBL wasn't is because its JBL. But Batista/HHH on the same card was pushed as important to WWE canon.

Easily Lesnar/Reigns. It is a match that I can see becoming part of WWE lore like Austin/Hart, Razor/HBK, etc. Until the WWE proves they can sustain the womens wrestling movement long term, I can't place that kind of importance on Sasha/Bayley...and that seems to be what the match is being sold as, some kind of cultural relevance and shift in thinking for women's wrestling in WWE. I just have more faith that Lesnar/Reigns will be sold as important 10 years later, and that really is how I judge MOTYs.

Seems like Orton is too old for a mentor now, but that would have worked 10 years ago. It's more of a role that teaches him the DDT and psychology more than a mentor. Like a month or two of vingettes. 1. it uses a guy on a legends contract instead of them just sitting at home. 2. Randy drops the RKO and maybe only uses it once/twice a year in big matches 3. Randy can prolong his career by doing less-is-more like Jake did. At least that's what I got out of Austin's idea and I would buy it. It would actually refresh Orton to a point of relevancy. I don't buy it. For any of the 3 reasons listed. To drop the RKO? Why? It is one of the more recognizable and over finishers that is out there in the WWE...probably the most over part of Randy Orton, even. Less is more? Jake has never won a world championship. Orton is like a 10+ time champion or close to it. Obviously Jake is more revered a wrestling character in history but Orton is arguably more successful a wrestler and his is not a character that seeks out tutelage...at least not from Jake the Snake. Using legends because they are under contracts? Good idea in theory but you also don't want to shoehorn people in roles just to justify their contracts. If its really a problem, don't sign them to a contract.

It is not irrelevant but the concept of pointing to Nielsen ratings is irrelevant. Loss, I am not excusing the WWE or letting them off the hook by any means. What they have done in losing fans definitely merits a closer look. I just don't think ratings is the measurement in which to use to condemn them. Losing Network subscribers would appear to me as more of a real indicator of poor performance to me than Nielsen ratings. Raw's target demographic is young males...which is pretty much Breaking Bad's target demographic. If you are talking about income, then obviously the fact that the blue chip brands won't advertise with Raw is a major problem but that has been the case since pro wrestling started airing on televisions in the 50s. To me, ratings is just as much of an antiquated argument/notion as "You do know wrestling is fake, right?" Shit just doesn't even apply anymore with how different things are. If they devised a system where they find a composite rating that measured live viewers, DVR viewers and Hulu viewers plus whatever else methods there might be into one tidy number and it proves to be a poor number for Raw, then I am totally in with the idea that Raw sucks (but to be fair, I don't need to look at ratings to know the product sucks, it does suck, period). But the idea of trotting out Nielsen ratings numbers nowadays is just not a good argument anymore.

Even with the saggy rating, what does the USA network have that rivals or even exceeds Raw? All their homegrown shows like Psych, Burn Notice, Monk, and others over the years would be lucky to pull in a rating of 1.0. So in that sense, WWE has nothing to worry about. Wrestling popularity is on the downswing but I guarantee if USA no longer wanted WWE, there would be other media corporations willing to pay for their programming. Failing that, they can always focus exclusively on the WWE Network. They are doing fine.

Oh I know ratings don't matter. But to Vince they always did, so it's kinda weird that all of a sudden he doesn't give a fuck anymore. If we are to assume Vince still controls the WWE creatively, which obviously he is, I think it is obvious he has caught on to the fact that the television landscape is much different than it was in Attitude Era or earlier. If not, then you have to think people like Stephanie and Triple H who are naturally probably more privvy to that information has talked Vince into adjusting his expectations. Or worst case, he really just doesn't give a shit anymore. Sami thing again- how do you propose he "hack" into stuff when his head is bouncing off the turnbuckle by his opponent? Is he going to have a tablet with him while wrestling so he can do that stuff? Like I said, the gimmick is good only for the out of ring interference. It can't logically extend into his working style as a character without it looking either contrived or worse, stupid. If he had developed a secondary layer in his character that he could translate while working in matches, then I would say there is something to it, but from the little I have seen of it, he doesn't have it. Agreed about the goofiness of the wrestler himself. I think Sami should have just come in with a similar gimmick as Owens...an indy monster heel who emerges as some dangerous outsider who has the potential to upset tbe WWE ecosystem.

Because ratings is an extremely outdated system of measuring interest? It amuses me every week someone runs in to report record low ratings each and every week, and I am thinking...you don't get it, do you? No one cares anymore about ratings. Of all the cable television channels out there, Raw would finish in the top 5 ratings for the week, for each and every one of those channels. No, it isn't good to have people tune out, but nobody is putting up much better ratings any week. Even the acclaimed shows like Breaking Bad, never did Raw numbers. So yeah again, total idiocy to care about it. On the Sami thing, someone said that the gimmick was "good"...is this the hacker gimmick you are referring to? If so, no, that is an awful gimmick. What do you even do with a hacker in pro wrestling context? The only way he can make use of those "skills" are in matches he isn't involved in, messing with his opponent's music or video or whatever, but once he steps in that ring, there is nothing he can do to sell thr gimmick.

I think the complaints that people had with the finish to HIAC are the kind of complaints that illustrated how effective it actually was. Shawn Michaels was this unlikable juvenile douchebag who was being forced to get locked in a confinement with the Undertaker, who had plans to rip him apart limb by limb and for Shawn to not only escape that fate, but to WIN outright, earned the fans' ire. So I would argue that finish was just as effective to the plan as any clean finish the fans have enjoyed over the years. Mind Games though? Just a case where Michaels and Foley built a match up so well that it changed what the fans wanted out of the outcome. No one expected Mankind to win and yet they had such a good match as far as building Mankind up goes as the stuff he had with Undertaker in his debut, that the finish, which the fans wouldn't have been bothered by if the match wasn't as good as what it was. The fact it was that good, it kinda have to have had a better way to end the match and preserve the mojo both guys had going for it. Mankind was built up as such a danger to Michaels and the finish kinda makes him an afterthought, which hurt the match slightly (but not that much).

The matches against Scott Steiner? But only because the actual body of the matches deflated the crowds that the finish was a mercy killing. Also the match against Kevin Nash for the same reason. But yeah, Triple H was a guy where they keep building matches up so that it seemed impossible to put Triple H over...then they put him over, killing the matches and storylines. Heck, it was pretty amazing that although they had no prayer following the Rock/Hogan match that Triple H deflated the crowd even more for winning...as a babyface. This happened too a few years later against Randy Orton when Orton got red hot with the renegade head kicking heel act. As well as Punk after the Summer of Punk angle.

Answer is the same for all of them- heel. It is just that those guys clearly had more fun with their characters when they got to just be heels. And for guys like Austin and Eddy, their babyface characters were essentially heels by moral definition anyways. Although in Hogan's case, I think it is a situation where it depends on the era that he was part of. Hogan as a heel in the 80s wasn't really as interesting I think as his superhero babyface act but that same hero act wouldn't and didn't work in the 90s because of how wrestling was moving towards a more grittier pulp fiction type storytelling. But Hogan as the bitter formerly revered babyface star who decided "Screw it Im just gonna look out for myself" heel worked so well and he was able to extend his career quite a bit. In the 2000s though they were moving towards this feeling of "These guys arent stars like the good old days" so Hogan's nostalgia act worked well in small doses. Austin was a guy who felt really outdated by the time he was the sheriff of Raw, so I think that was a good case of where trying to be a babyface didn't work for him because he lost his edge that he used to have as a heel playing hero in the late 90s that was so popular. One instance where being a heel almost felt like a waste was Eddy in 2005. He was still producing good storylines, mind you, but I think his failed title run and heel turn kinda felt like people were disappointed that they didn't have as much of an opportunity to be given permission to love and cheer for him. And it did seem like he was about to rediscover that spark in the fall of 2005 when he was the crafty heel playacting as Batista's buddy. It was definitely something where he was headed back to becoming a top level babyface but then he dropped dead.

To me a finish is part of the match that is probably the most important. I equate it to like films. A crappy ending can just totally kill a movie dead and people are like "what the fuck is this? I sat through two hours for this nonsense? Fuck them". I think its the same thing. But obviously pro wrestling does allow for more forgiveness to finishes if it isn't so egregrious and the work was pitch perfect up to that point. But yeah it does matter a lot. Look at that Summerslam elimination chamber match in 2003. Compare how people felt about the match because of that finish to the Survivor Series 2002 version because of the finish. Goldberg had the crowd eating out of his hands big time with how destructive of a force he was, then Triple H is given a sledgehammer and it ends like a fart in a church with the pope present. Whereas in 2002 Shawn Michaels got to pay off part of the storyline he had going with Triple H by taking the belt off him after his comeback at Summerslam and the postmatch ending where Triple H tries to take out Shawn with the shot to his back.

In terms of the athletic abilities that their wrestlers have, it is more likely that the women have a background that is more focused on flexibility than the guys. Guys think being in shape means weightlifting, cardio exercises, etc while the women come from more of a diverse athletic background. Then you think of like John Cena vs Neville in terms of their body frame. Cena is more bulky with more muscles while Neville is more lean. So you would expect Neville to have better flexibility than Cena. Same applies to their women vs men.

I don't think it is that he is fat that is the reason for the stop start push. It is that Brock walked out of the WWE off the heels of maybe the best push anyone could ever possibly dream of in his first two years. So Vince is very determined to make sure the guys he does push in the end are the lifers that he wants them to be. That is the biggest reason. The smaller reason is that although Owens debuted on the main roster in such a way that people expected him to be a main eventer, they were never going to push him on that level yet. It was just that Owens came up at a time where they were doing the Rollins and Authority vs Shield guys and Randy Orton at the top of the card for the world title and there was no one else really for them to put their top star John Cena against for any meaningful length of time. Sure, they could just have had Cena beat Owens straight up all the time if they really didn't care about him, but I think Cena in real life had respect for Owens as a worker and Triple H had respect for him as a project. So it was just perfect timing in that regard, however... he was never meant to be one of the top guys after the Cena program. Where he ended up settling in now is where they anticipated him being when they planned his debut. This doesn't mean he won't get a main event push. It just means he has to wait in line while the other guys they did have big main event plans for play it out before they can turn to Owens. I wouldn't be surprised if Owens is one of the key opponents for Roman Reigns's first world championship run. Like maybe at Summerslam or the 2017 Royal Rumble or even Wrestlemania XXXIII.

Fair enough. I guess then all I have to say is that isn't happening. Finishers are the same as catchphrases and gestures, everyone has to have identifiable things for marketing purposes. The other reason being that even though there is obvious tiers or hierarchy of people with pushes vs people without, I think they try to afford everyone that has SOME marketability a certain degree of respect that only a finisher can beat them. Having Cena pin guys off springboard stunners may make for some interesting things but if Stardust falls to that while Kane requires a finisher, Stardust looks worse. Well unless you were a former WCW champion who happens to be black, then the WWE doesn't mind you falling to an extremely delayed pinfall at Wrestlemania that is.

It's actually more common than you think. Seth Rollins- Curb Stomp to Pedigree Daniel Bryan- Adding the running knee after using the Yes Lock solely. Rey Mysterio- Stopped doing the West Coast Pop and switching to other flying moves. Kurt Angle- Angle Lock after the Angle Slam was pretty much devalued significantly. Big Show- Knockout Punch added. Wade Barrett- Bullhammer after using Wasteland as finisher. Dean Ambrose- Switching from a headlock driver to a DDT but keeping the same name for it. There's more but that is just off the top of my head. Thanks to the WWE's desire to manufacture the "epic" match, it is always inevitable that a finisher gets devalued and they have to add a new finisher before ruining that as well.

I have no problem with fat wrestlers as long they can work well, so even if Owens is a fat guy, obviously he can still go so it isn't really the hinderance those people think is. That being said, his problem visually is that he's not really that tall at all. He might tower over a guy like Kalisto but if he is in the ring with the average sized wrestler, he comes across a bit short. So for the fact that he weighs 260+ pounds on that frame, it makes it look like he is a fat slob even if he's actually not. Wearing basketball shorts and a top while wrestling only accentuates that perception. If it was a 6 ft 4 guy weighing the same, that would be carried better visually than a guy who is barely 6 foot. So I mean, I don't think they are wrong to have that opinion. Of course they are wrong for thinking it even matters. Fat man wrestlers have always been around in pro wrestling. They even had a few of them headline Wrestlemanias, so they do need to let it go.