Matt D

It's funny. They hire TV writers but they don't seem to use any real narrative ploys. For instance, I watch Revenge with my wife. In the last two episodes of the third season, which just happened, they paid off a few big story arcs, set up 2-3 new things for the next season, had a couple of character deaths to help build up either new/returned characters or to set up a grudge, and introduced both new mysteries and new character problems for the next season. And this isn't exactly a brilliantly written show. WWE almost never manages to do those sorts of thing in any meaningful way, and when they do, and we can find examples of such things, that's when we go nuts about the product. The long term planning is pretty nil. People are so afraid of watching new shows right now because fox is going to cancel them within a season or whatever. WWE is there. It's not going anywhere. It can be a fix and something to follow, but they rarely play up the strengths of the serialized storytelling.

I think they're frankly better off continuing to try to tap into growing foreign markets, maybe?

There almost has to be a Hostile Takeover story in the next month, no?

I think a good corollary discussion to this is just how wrestling WILL Change, now that we have some idea about both the network and the tv rights. How is WWE going to react to this week? Etc? What do we think will really happen?

Alright, here's what I think they should do with the belt: -Strip Bryan -Turn the Cena vs Wyatt match at Payback into a title match -Put Wyatt over after Cena loses his cool, does not rise above hate, and makes a stupid mistake which gives a good mind game payoff to this whole storyline, one that it sorely needs. -Put the Wyatts over the Usos so they have three+ belts on the chair -Put Wyatt over a few babyfaces -On the July PPV Have Cena/Bryan beat the Wyatts for the titles -The Main Event of Summerslam is Cena vs Bryan for the #1 Contendorship (or at least that's the big match). Have it like Summerslam 92 where one or the other seem to have gone with Wyatt maybe? Have it end in dispute. -Then, to get people to renew their subscriptions since Night of Champions is now key, run the blowoff Wyatt vs Cena vs Bryan there as the main event and culmination of the story.

I want to see Vince pissed off about all this news and put the belt on himself.

I was wishing on a star, big guy. Johnny Sorrow explains New Japan booking using the TV show Rhoda is high art waiting to happen.

I think it's more of a business analyst/intellectual exercise. Past "Better storylines" I don't think most of us would be happier with a more mainstream product. But here we're crafty enough to put that aside for the sake of stretching our brains.

Monday should be pretty interesting. It's a shame it's a taped show.

Isn't the mindset that Brock left THEM? That he turned his back on them and on the thing that they love? They invested their time and attention and fandom in him and he spurned it? And for what? Football which he failed at? MMA which a lot of them resent? Living with Sable? I don't mean to say that any of this is particularly reasonable, but let's understand why they feel like they do. A lot of these people are so caught up in wrestling that for someone to decide to leave it after being pushed to the moon, well, weird things happen.

Also, I wasn't saying the work done over the last couple of months wasn't useful, even if WWE didn't get their way. In some ways, it shows how amazing it was that things ended up as low as they seem to and can be a case study for value vs perception or who knows.

Just ask Johnny Sorrow. You would have never guessed that what's going on with Okada right now is based on an old episode of Welcome Back Kotter.

The world didn't screw Chris; WWE did.

So much crunched data and articles, all for nothing because the world refuses to cooperate?

They are father and mother to all of us, to be fair.

I feel for Trips a bit when it comes to the debut of NXT guys. How can even the best new characters survive the weekly TV grind, the need for content, the post-Lesnarian start-stop booking, and the writers?

Are we rooting for WWE in this? It's interesting to watch everyone's reactions. I kind of am, and I don't really know why. Will it trickle down to the wrestlers who might be hurt by the shift to the network? Maybe? Probably not as much as it ought to. From what I understand, everyone's contracts are set up in a way that "TV DEAL" doesn't really impact things. Is it because it makes us feel more legitimate as fans? Do we think WWE will be able to do more products now and give us more content?

I think you can learn a lot about serialized storytelling from wrestling, actually: things like how to build up a threat or how to have someone lose but not lose their heat.

SNAP INTO IT

Both RVD and Santino talking about how the RVD vs Eddy ladder match was Eddy's first was very weird.

It's nothing huge but I really loved the Luger vs Alex Wright TV title match from the March 11 nitro. Great Luger performance.

I don't really like either the Jericho (Last Man Standing) or Austin (3 stages of hell) matches. Both of them have very good patches but they end up as these hugely bloated affairs. HHH, more than any wrestler other than maybe TNA era Jarrett, just doesn't get that less is more. I bet there are dozens of Triple H matches that are 2/3rds good.

I buy almost nothing wrestling related. I will buy the e-book.

Does anyone ever call them on this stuff during the stockholder calls?

maybe if he is out they can use the time to build up a heel?