Giving modern WWE a chance

[Kostka]

There was a great spot early with Henry powering down Orton and then doing the outstretched arms Randy Orton pose with a huge shit eating grin on his face.

That sounds fucking awesome.

[Loss]

Bumped just to say I haven't forgotten about this. I'll probably come back to it when finished with the '95 Yearbook while waiting for the '94 Yearbook to be completed. But I plan to start in 2005 instead of 2008 -- because that falls more in line with when I stopped paying close attention, and also because we probably won't do any yearbooks past 2004. I will probably also encompass other promotions, as there's a ton of stuff I have missed.

[NintendoLogic]

I think 2005 is a good starting point since it really represents the beginning of the modern era of the WWE. The period from 2002 to 2005 is the most "workrate" (in the Meltzer/SKeith sense)-centric the WWE has ever been, with at least one of Angle, Michaels, Benoit, Guerrero, and Jericho being prominently featured at pretty much every PPV. Starting in 2005 and continuing over the next couple of years, guys like that start to move into the background/leave/drop dead. This coincides with the elevation of guys like Cena, Batista, and Orton, who represent a completely different style of worker, into the main event.

[Chess Knight]

If you're starting in 2005 then that means you should be going through the SmackDown 2006 run. And SmackDown 2006 =

 

I'm using

as a guide for what to watch from 2008.

Am I the only one that gets a youtube video when clicking this link?

[Jingus]

The funny thing is that the modern WWE is just as workrate-friendly as it has been at any time in its modern history. Compare the amount of time they spend on in-ring action now to any other era, and the difference is rather surprisingly big. Despite the still-common received wisdom that the WWE is all talk and no action, they devote a larger percentage of their show to actual wrestling than they have at any point in recent memory. For the past several years, even the most talk-heavy show Raw has roundly spanked Impact when it came to number of minutes spent in the ring.

[El-P]

Well, I tried, I failed. Watched Big Show vs Mark Henry vs Danuel Bryan from the Rumble. It was a nothing match. Seriously, I guess Mark Henry showed way more than this last year, otherwise I don't get the Henry pimping at all. He showed zilch here, he was the same Mark Henry I last saw in 2004 or so. But the structure of the match didn't allow him to do shit anyway, and I don't get why he was put in this in the first place, since the focus was clearly Daniel vs Show. They threw Daniel a hundred time in the fence. No blood of course. Really a nothing match, that should have been much better. The finish was nice.

Then I ff to the Rumble, because I figured I wasn't gonna enjoy Cena vs Kane one bit.

Then comes The Miz. Seriously people, this is what wrestling looks like in 2012 ? Then came a guy named Alex Riley. I figured it out. Way too metrosexual for me. Give me Arn Anderson.

Hey, I tried. I'll watch Rock vs Cena, because I can't miss The Rock's return (yeah, I know, he returned already at SS, but that doesn't count).

 

Oh, I saw the fat guy doing the Flash Funk gimmick. Well, at least he's different, and the new Funkettes are much better dancers than the original. MAn, why didn't they pushed Scorpio as a major pimp back then ? He would have been awesome in the Godfather's role, as a heel.

[Cox]

Henry was working with both a knee and a groin injury, so that's why he wasn't doing much. He probably should not have been in the match at all.

[JerryvonKramer]

Just reading El-P's account there is painful. Basically, as long as Will is still willing to make and send out sets, I should have enough material from the 80s and 90s to satiate my wrestling needs for the foreseeable future.

 

I can't see any reason to watch the modern product at all -- WWE or TNA.

 

I'll watch that Legends House thing they are doing and the 6 episodes of Legends of Wrestling they put out every year and that's it.

[El-P]

Henry was working with both a knee and a groin injury, so that's why he wasn't doing much. He probably should not have been in the match at all.

Ok, thanks, it makes sense. He was only doing one little spot and was knocked back down selling for a long time, it didn't felt right.

[El-P]

Just reading El-P's account there is painful.

The Rumble match was overscripted as it's been in the last 10 years, with some comedy during the middle, the token surprise spots (Duggan was crazy over, and Road Dogg did his routine like 2000 was yesterday). I found the Cole / Karma stuff rather funny although it was predictable as soon as Cole entered the ring that the next "guy" would kill him. The guy walking on his hands was the token "incredible way of staying in teh match" spot of the year, and was funny. Everything looks so programmed at this point... First good Rumble that felt this way was 2000, things haven't changed a bit since then.

Then the finishing stretch between Jericho & Sheamus was excellent I thought, with some actual rope work, which is something that has been totally lost as early as the late 90's.

But yeah, something makes it impossible for me to get into. I hate the production and the way everybody looks the same with stupid random names. Seems like they pretty much all look like those guys from the Power Plant back in 2000. Coming in and not knowing half the guys, exactly no one stood out to me except a black guy who seems like a power worker, Sheamus, and the old timers. Even Jericho kinda looks like everyone else with the short hair and short black trunks, although he hasn't lost a step in the charisma and work department.

[JerryvonKramer]

When I was on the way to that TNA show on Satuday, I said to my wife something along these lines:

 

"I don't know who any of the guys we'll see tonight are apart from Hogan, Sting, and Kurt Angle. If they do their jobs well, we'll know who to cheer, who to boo and -- without knowing any context -- we'll be rooting for one guy to beat the other."

 

The PROBLEM was that they all looked the same and worked the same. It's was ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to distinguish faces from heels, and to work out if a guy had a gimmick or not. That whole metally-goth thing is too played out. There were A LOT of guys in that crowd with sort of black metal style hoodies and things like that -- my wife even said "why are there so many goth types here?" Why is wrestling stuck in that shit sub-genre now?

 

Anyway, my point here is that you take ANY ICON OF THE 80s and 2 things are automatically clear:

 

1. His gimmick

2. Whether he is a face or a heel (with the possible exception of Jake Roberts)

 

Wrestling has lost its COLOUR. Everyone wears different shades of black. Everyone is a goth or metal-head. Everyone looks like fucking Jeff Hardy or Raven but on steroids.

 

One of the two major promotions has to figure this out soon. Who are they appealing to with the goth stuff?

 

What made the kids, and the old women, and the casual fans, and even the parents of the kids tune in and turn up back in the day? What caused the 80s boom? It was COLOURFUL CHARACTERS. That's it. It's Bigbossman and Akeem, it's Honkytonk Man, it's even fucking Brutus Beefcake.

 

I'm not saying that wrestling needs to rewind to the 80s per se, but it needs more of THAT and less of ... well, what it's being doing for ages now.

 

THAT SAID, I think WWE has moved on and is sort of ... a tiny bit ... more colourful than it has been and has moved away from they whole metally/ goth thing to an extent but the trouble is that no one has any real charisma and everyone STILL looks the same. You know that lampoon on Dreamworks characters all having the same face? Y'know this one:

 

 

That's basically WWE wrestlers now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's just the same guy again and again and again. I'm not talking about work here or even promo skills, but just about LOOK. How the fuck are we meant to tell these guys apart?

 

Just for the visual comparison, look at this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why one group of them were SO OVER and the other group aren't.

[Chess Knight]

That's was what I noticed about the Rumble above all else. Pretty much all the midcarders and shit from today looked like Create-A-Wrestlers who had no special features added to them while there were stupendous Booker T chants floating around the arena. The crowd looked disappointed as hell when someone like Epico or that Uso came out, and guys like Justin Gabriel got bad responses in the ring.

 

One thing I really hate about current WWE guys is they all randomly yell. All the time. They press slam someone, they yell. They get on the top rope to pose, they yell. They give a clothesline, they yell. They don't even yell anything specific; just "AAOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" with them flexing muscles.

 

How can WWE not see that a guy like Drew McIntyre stands out from the rest? I really don't know what else they want from him.

[CodySave]

To further develop something Jerry briefly touched on, it's not even just the "look", the colorful characters of the 80s and 90s WWF people have fond memories of.

 

Look at 1980s NWA territories - tons of wrestlers everywhere in plain black, red, white, blue tights. Yet, depending on the territory, every person had a distinguishable gimmick due to the fact that the wrestler was given promo time to explain who he is, what his focus is, his background, etc. And people would still pop today if they saw them appear in something like the Rumble because they've remembered all this info for 25+ years!

 

I think promo time would go a long ways right now - even a return to the 20-30 second promo boxes in the corner as they make their entrance. Or, simply have these midcarders take the mic for a minute before or after matches.

 

Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston are at least known as high flyers. But look at Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, even The Miz right now - now that Rhodes dropped the "mask" gimmick, they all seem like the exact same heel character with the same motivations.

 

Even though the broadcasters mention Swagger's amateur credentials, he doesn't seem to do much in the ring to set his abilities apart from the others I listed.

 

This is exactly why your local indy is working harder to try to book anyone who took part in Wrestlemania 3 compared to any WWE low-to-midcarder the past five years. People will still come out to see the classic gimmick, but you'll be lucky to draw much beyond your core fanbase for people like Bam Neely, Kenny Dykstra or the Bashams - regardless of talent - because they aren't presented very distinctive on TV (obviously, Kenny had a memorable run in the Spirit Squad, but he quickly fit into the cookie-cutter mold when that gimmick was dropped).

 

They had a good thing going in 2005 with the development of Chris Masters and Carlito on TV. And those are honestly the first two names that came to my mind as recent WWE midcarders with clear characters/gimmicks. That was 7 years ago!

 

It's tough for even dedicated fans to pick out the differences in Trent Baretta, Caylen Croft, or Curt Hawkins, not to mention the arrivals of the "one name" Latino/Puerto Rican contingent of Hunico, Epico, Primo and now Camacho.

[NintendoLogic]

I don't disagree with the overall point, but are there really that many goth guys in TNA? Jerry seems to be classifying anybody who wears a hoodie to the ring as goth.

[ohtani's jacket]

Well, I watched the pimped Bryan/Henry cage match from November and it was a whole bunch of nothing. Is it just me or are they using a smaller ring these days? Something about the whole arena & ring set-up always bothers me when I watch WWE.

[Johnny Sorrow]

It's tough for even dedicated fans to pick out the differences..., not to mention the arrivals of the "one name" Latino/Puerto Rican contingent of Hunico, Epico, Primo and now Camacho.

 

 

 

Really?

[El-P]

Thanks for the laugh Jerry, I needed that. It's stricking.

 

As far as the random yelling, I noticed that too. They are robots, they all look the same, they have no idea how to interact with the crowd (no surprising since they are forbidden to do so) or to get over. The Royal Rumble was always my favourite event of the year when I was younger, I loved watching all the characters show up every two minutes, it was exciting. I'm pretty sure that if I was 12 today, watching this, I wouldn't be interested very much. And if you can't at least interest the 12 year old in me to watch pro-wrestling, it's really bad.

[kjh]

To a certain extent I think there is some rose tinted nostalgia going on. In the mid 90s there were plenty of colourful mid card gimmicks, but that's not to say they were that over either.

[ohtani's jacket]

The 1/17/11 Punk/Cena match is something you might want to check out, Jerome. It's a pretty good match in spite of an awful backstage vignette, a shitty CM Punk gimmick and angle and a crappy finish.

[El-P]

It's a pretty good match in spite of an awful backstage vignette, a shitty CM Punk gimmick and angle and a crappy finish.

You sure do make me want to check it out.

 

And I don't think nostalgia has anything to do with it. There has always been crap all over the cards (shit, I'm watching WCW TV from 91, with the godawful PN News). The fact is, wrestling had never be so dull has it is now. It's a product of its era. I'm convinced a 12 year old me would not become a wrestling fan with the current product.

If nostalgia there is, it's the fact that the only "big" things for WM are old timers from another era coming back (Taker, Jericho, Rock). The only thing that made me watch WM last year was the Rock. It will be the same this year, although I hope Jericho gets a cool match that I can enjoy. I guess we get Taker vs HHH again, which will be the requisite overrated self-conscious epic of the year. Taker's entrance to Johnny Cash's song was the best thing of the match last year.

[JerryvonKramer]

To a certain extent I think there is some rose tinted nostalgia going on. In the mid 90s there were plenty of colourful mid card gimmicks, but that's not to say they were that over either.

I think they were still over. I bet you IRS still got a bigger crowd reaction than 70% of the current roster in 94-5. And he had limited charisma.

 

Pollack and Wai Ting were talking about this the other day: how even the 93-5 guys with colourful gimmicks were more over then (i.e. with the limited amount of people watching) than guys from the past 5 years. The example they pointed to was Doink.

 

The downturn in wrestling in the early 90s was because of a variety of factors -- some internally generated (steroids scandal), some external. Fact of the matter is that wrestling in 94-5 was very simply out of fashion. The fad was over and the moment had gone, kids by and large had moved onto something else.

 

That doesn't mean that the guys left weren't OVER. It's just means business was down, way down even.

 

That said, I do get your point to an extent -- Men on a Mission, Adam Bomb, The Godwinns -- that whole period was horrible and I don't think there are many people with fond memories of that time. Partly, because they weren't watching, but also partly because it was fucking awful, and badly booked on top of that.

 

Fairly sure that gimmicks from 92-3 are more fondly remembered -- the likes of Repo Man, The Mountie, Yokozuna and so on.

 

I think in 94-5 they probably went overboard, when everyone on the roster had a gimmick based on a day job. I've never been able to get my head around quite what the thinking was coming out of 93. I did make a long post about it somewhere -- about how Vince and Pat Patterson wanted to strip things back to WWF rock 'n' roll era fundamentals with Luger etc. -- but somewhere along the line they totally lost it, went insane and booked a 100% cartoon undercard and mid-card with Bret playing a 94-version of Bob Backlund on top. That was a good thread if anyone can find it, Loss was on fire IIRC.

[El-P]

Even without speaking about pure gimmicks, there's nothing to identify one guy from another now. And I don't speak figuratively. I watched the Rumble with a fresh eye of someone who don't know 80% of the roster and I had zero idea of who these guys were supposed to be and don't even ask me who is a face and who is a heel. It's just a big blur of look/act-alike. You watch NJ is the 80's and everyone is sporting the infamous NJ black trunks and boots. Yet it doesn't take long to figure who is who and what their personnality is, so I'm not even talking about straight gimmicks. I'm coming off the Rumble knowing shit about the current guys. It's no wonder Road Dogg and Hacksaw got one of the biggest pop of the night... I found interesting that Karma got a big pop too. That was probably my favourite part of the Rumble.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I bought tix for Raw in Feb. so I started watching the current product last night to try and figure out what was going on. I also tried getting back into it when the Rock returned before last year's Wrestlemania, but it was so bad that I only lasted a few weeks.

 

There's more hope this time around.....but not much.

 

The only people on last night's show that I can see myself being remotely interested in for an extended period of time are Punk, Bryan, and the dancing funky fat guy.

 

Obviously, the older guys like Rock, Jericho, Taker and Foley will keep me interested, but they'll be gone again in due time. Also, John Laurinatis is a good character, but I really don't give a shit whether he's Raw general manager or not.

 

Finally, what was with the nauseating Rock video package they showed? Good Lord, why not just bring the Rock into the ring so the WWE can give him a company blow job.

 

One more thing....does the WWE still pipe in crowd noise? The crowd heat actually seemed good last night, but it seemed like a lot of the noise was piped in.

[FLIK]

Don't have much to add to the current conversation but i'll say that while today's crop of guys are def more on the bland side, I have no problem telling them apart and actually don't think the "clone" talking point is as valid as it was a couple years ago.

 

It's tough for even dedicated fans to pick out the differences..., not to mention the arrivals of the "one name" Latino/Puerto Rican contingent of Hunico, Epico, Primo and now Camacho.

I can remember 1 guys got braids & one guy doesn't for the team with the girl and 1 guy is big and 1 guy is small for the team with the bike but which one is Hunico beats the fuck out of me

 

I liked the Rumble a lot this year, much better then 2011's show. I only watch a handfull of WWE shows a year now and this is the only 1 that's always a 100% lock for me. Nothing was blow away great but I enjoyed every match on some lvl atlest and thought the Rumble match itself was one of the better one's they've had in a few years. Not a lot of star power but it had a lot of fun/cool/memorable moments and they kept the action moving so it rarely draged which is all I really want out of the match.

 

Guess I just haven't seen the right match but I don't get the love of Dolph Ziggler, he's good but i've never seen him on the lvl that most others seem to. He always comes across too forced to me, like he's trying too hard and just rubs me the wrong way. I thought the cage match was the best thing on the undercard. Besides the idiotic "never had a girlfriend" talking point they're trying to push I didn't find the announcing that bad either.

 

Funkasaurus = best thing possible that could have EVER happened to Brodus Clay's career. He's gonna be able to milk this shit for life Honky Tonk man style if he wants to, so so so much better then being generic big guy monster #47 on a roster full of them.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Don't have much to add to the current conversation but i'll say that while today's crop of guys are def more on the bland side, I have no problem telling them apart and actually don't think the "clone" talking point is as valid as it was a couple years ago.

I'm not sure I agree w/ the clone talking point either. To me it's more about the lack of excitement and blandness of the product. Raw is a scripted television show, but it shouldn't feel like a scripted television show. It feels too much like an episode of Two and a Half Men.