Current WWE

[Mad Dog]

The thing that stands out to me about John Cena is how little they protect him. They do more on a weekly basis to protect Randy Orton, who has failed repeatedly as a main eventer, than they ever have for John Cena. They go to some absurd lengths to protect Orton. Cena will repeatedly get bested by the heel every week, go to the PPV and lose.

Cena losing frequently is a pretty new development, and it's mostly been against Punk

 

Other than Punk, who they've invested heavily in, what heels have gotten over at Cena's expense?

 

Miz beat him at WM, but that was entirely focused on The Rock. Rock beat him at WM, but it's The Rock.

 

When he was programmed with Barrett and Nexus he never lost clean.

 

I don't see the case for Cena not being protected. He never loses to anyone beneath him. They're very selective about who, when and how he loses.

 

He's always lost quite a bit. It always feels like he's been setting up to look worse than his opponent.

[Sean Liska]

Explain to me how they were making record money in 2007 without Cena having a hand in it. I'm not seeing it.

Plus, wrestling in America is as unpopular now as it's ever been. Cena's not the main problem, but he's not completely blameless either.

 

I see this a lot, but there were no $10 million on-sale ticket days happening in 1994.

 

So they've managed to preserve Wrestlemania's value as a special attraction. What about the other 364 days of the year? For that matter, how did the last Rock-less Wrestlemania do?

 

It did a hell of a lot better than anything in the mid-90s.

[S.L.L.]

I don't see the case for Cena not being protected.

I'm trying to puzzle out the circumstances that one could seriously believe this to be true without just being a disenchanted fan/ex-fan who uses Cena as a scapegoat for their problems with the company these days. I'm coming up with these:

 

1. Post-Attitude Era WWF/E is the only wrestling you know, and you don't have any real point of reference for an actual protected main event star

2. You really believe that wins and losses alone determine how protected a wrestler is

3. You JUST DON'T CARE to the same extent as WWE

 

Beyond that, I've got nothing.

 

I'm not trying to be nasty here. Honestly, I'm not. But understand, I've seen greatness in professional wrestling. I'm a guy who has said over and over again that wrestling is an incredibly simplistic and incredibly limited form of entertainment, and yet, with the narrowest of margins to work in and the barest of elements to work with, it is capable of so much. So to see people looking at WWE's treatment of Cena and - whether they like him or not - honestly saying to themselves, "yeah, they're doing the best they can do with him"...it's honestly kind of disheartening.

[Alchemy]

To go in a slightly different direction. The Miz and Kofi Kingston pulled a really good match out of their collective asses on Main Event several weeks ago. It was probably the best match I've seen since starting to watch again in August.

 

Rollins defending the NXT Title against Joe Hennig from last month was also really good.

 

Main Event is my new favorite WWE show. You get at least one long match and one shorter match but it's not a squash. I really enjoyed Ziggler vs Miz. Only problem with Main Event is the commercial breaks. It's worse than a CMLL show in that department.

 

Haven't seen the Kofi match, has Miz ever had a better match then the one with Ziggler this week?

 

Don't know how long it's going to last but i'm gonna attempt to start watching WWE regular again via the stuff I can find online so I can skip commercials and other crap I have no interest in like the Vickie/AJ/Cena angle.

 

Pick any of his 2010s with Bryan

[NintendoLogic]

Explain to me how they were making record money in 2007 without Cena having a hand in it. I'm not seeing it.

Plus, wrestling in America is as unpopular now as it's ever been. Cena's not the main problem, but he's not completely blameless either.

 

I see this a lot, but there were no $10 million on-sale ticket days happening in 1994.

 

So they've managed to preserve Wrestlemania's value as a special attraction. What about the other 364 days of the year? For that matter, how did the last Rock-less Wrestlemania do?

 

It did a hell of a lot better than anything in the mid-90s.

 

In 2010, WWE did 3,631,100 PPV buys. 61% of those were domestic, which comes out to a little over 2.2 million. By comparison, they did 2,252,200 buys in fiscal 1997 (that is, the period ending in April 30 of that year and beginning on May 1 of the previous year) and 2,831,700 buys in fiscal 1996, all of which were domestic. The comparison looks even worse when you consider how much bigger the PPV universe is today than it was back then.

 

Also, I said that wrestling was at a low point, not just WWE. Compare mid-90s WWF+WCW+ECW+SMW+USWA+whatever else to today's WWE+TNA+ROH+whatever else.

[cm funk]

I don't see the case for Cena not being protected.

I'm trying to puzzle out the circumstances that one could seriously believe this to be true without just being a disenchanted fan/ex-fan who uses Cena as a scapegoat for their problems with the company these days. I'm coming up with these:

 

1. Post-Attitude Era WWF/E is the only wrestling you know, and you don't have any real point of reference for an actual protected main event star

2. You really believe that wins and losses alone determine how protected a wrestler is

3. You JUST DON'T CARE to the same extent as WWE

 

Beyond that, I've got nothing.

 

I'm not trying to be nasty here. Honestly, I'm not. But understand, I've seen greatness in professional wrestling. I'm a guy who has said over and over again that wrestling is an incredibly simplistic and incredibly limited form of entertainment, and yet, with the narrowest of margins to work in and the barest of elements to work with, it is capable of so much. So to see people looking at WWE's treatment of Cena and - whether they like him or not - honestly saying to themselves, "yeah, they're doing the best they can do with him"...it's honestly kind of disheartening.

 

I don't even know how to respond to this. I tried to formulate something, but it didn't lead anywhere productive.

 

You think Cena isn't protected because you don't like the way he's booked and you think WWE doesn't care about how they book him. Ok.

[NintendoLogic]

I forgot to mention another problem with this:

 

This was a point I always struggled to be sympathetic towards. I mean, fan turnover happens. You can't please everybody. As a promoter, I'd be more interested in playing towards a growing young fanbase than a dwindling aging one. I mean, if the new fanbase doesn't actually come, fine. We can abort the plan in the early goings if that's the case. But in 2007, the lights were all green. There was no reason to not at least try.

The problem with this line of thinking is that adults tend to be more stable in their viewing and purchasing habits. Children, on the other hand, are more likely to follow the latest fad. In fact, that's largely what has happened.

[S.L.L.]

I forgot to mention another problem with this:

 

This was a point I always struggled to be sympathetic towards. I mean, fan turnover happens. You can't please everybody. As a promoter, I'd be more interested in playing towards a growing young fanbase than a dwindling aging one. I mean, if the new fanbase doesn't actually come, fine. We can abort the plan in the early goings if that's the case. But in 2007, the lights were all green. There was no reason to not at least try.

The problem with this line of thinking is that adults tend to be more stable in their viewing and purchasing habits. Children, on the other hand, are more likely to follow the latest fad. In fact, that's largely what has happened.

 

I'm even less sympathetic to this point. TV Tropes' entry "What Do You Mean It's For Kids?" is really about two different concepts, but the one I'm pointing to here is this:

 

Whenever a show or movie aimed toward younger viewers has a large enough Periphery Demographic, many of the older fans will vocally argue that it isn't a "kid's show", and become offended when anyone says it is. This is tied heavily to the idea that anything for kids must be crappy, or lack appeal to adults.

 

One of the biggest causes of this is that, if a popular kids' franchise is over a decade old or so, the majority (if not the entirety) of its older fanbase loved it when they were kids, but are adults now. Unfortunately, this can lead to certain deluded fans thinking that the company should cater exclusively to them, thinking they are the only audience for this franchise. The sad, hard truth of the matter is that, often enough, you stop being the franchise's focus the moment you stop being a kid. Fortunately, there are plenty of fans who know this, and to be fair, plenty of these companies do like to give little bonuses to their older fans (some more than others).

 

The other main cause is that fans of certain works (or indeed entire mediums) have had to deal with people dismissing their interests as immature (and thus, by implication the fan themself) for years. This sort of stigma gets tiring real fast. It's much easier to argue for the "Adultness" of an individual work than to convince a skeptic of the concept that something can be equally appealing to adults and children. It shouldn't have to be this way, but it is.

Frustratingly for me, just about every example they actually cite is for the other definition (kid's shows with questionable content...admittedly something wrestling would also fit even at it's most kid-friendly), but if you're capable of objective thought, you're probably capable of seeing how wrestling fits the first definition. I've seen more than a few revisionist historians try to convince me that the thing that was obviously marketed as working class family entertainment for decades was actually super-serious adults-only fare. Sorry, but I can't really take you seriously when you say that it's a bad business move to aim at a younger audience in a medium whose all-time biggest star is this guy:

 

 

No...no....just...just no.

 

And as far as adults being more stable in their purchasing habits and kids being more fad-driven, well, I can't really dispute that, can I can also point out than Hogan had a pretty long run as a big money draw for someone who was aimed at kids probably moreso than any other wrestler in history. I can point out that there have been no shortage of successful and enduring works aimed at families and children. I could point out that WWE's "stable" adult audience actually abandoned them quicker when the Attitude "fad" died out than the kids did when the longer-lived Rock 'N' Wrestling "fad" died out.

 

I don't think you're interested in hearing that, though.

 

What was it that I said a few posts earlier?

 

Maybe the reason we look for quick fixes that address surface-level issues rather than attacking real problems is because attacking real problems means WWE making major changes on a level we're not all comfortable with. Maybe we'd rather have a WWE that will never be wildly successful, important, or even good again, but will at least be stable, rather than one that changes drastically, but - whether that change pans out for them or not - leaves a large chunk of us behind.

You know everything I've just told you. You ignored it because there's no way to address the woes of WWE meaningfully without running risks that would likely destabilize the audience - specifically, you - to some degree or another. Forget Cena for a second. That was an idea I had in 2007, and I long ago accepted that they were never going to go anywhere with it. Last year, I think they had a window of opportunity with Punk. I'm not sure it's entirely closed yet. They also may be opening one now with Ryback. Now, if I'm running WWE, I'd probably try to set up some kind of Three Musketeers deal with the two of them and Cena, but you could just pick one or two of them and give them a real Hogan/Austin-type push to make WWE their "show". But ANY of those moves would jeopardize the bland but stable environment they've cultivated for the last few years.

 

So what I ask you is this:

 

1. Are there any circumstances under which it would be advisable for WWE to make a large enough change that it would risk current audience stability, and if so, what are they?

 

2. Is a bland but stable WWE really preferable to one that runs a risk in an attempt to better itself?

 

3. Is the long-term success of WWE dependent on maintaining an adult male fanbase?

 

4. Is this really about what's best for WWE business, or is this about you?

[Johnny Sorrow]

I'll tell ya what they have being doing right lately and that's Antonio Cesaro. He's been awesome in his matches. He's committed to the character. His promos have been great. And now they seem solidly behind the guy. They've made the US Belt important again after god knows how long. They've quickly gone from "Aksana's boyfriend who played Rugby" to "Old school throwback tough guy with uncanny strength and skill" mixed with a great "Anti- America/ Obnoxious European" that isn't a bad stereotype. He's on the road to the main event someday the right way. Granted, we'll see if they jump the gun and put him in the main event too soon as a test as they've been prone to do in recent years, ala Swagger, but right now he's doing great at the perfect level for him right now.

 

I'm also totally digging the repackaged Wade Barrett. He's been great in the ring and his mic work is just the best.

[sek69]

The only thing I don't like about Cesaro is how it seems like they are forcing the anti America part of his character. I don't know if it's because it seems like a throwback to cliche 80s heel #69791 that Hogan used to dispatch every month, or that it's hard to get really worked up against someone who's Swiss. I mean, they don't fight in any wars and make awesome watches and chocolate.

[Johnny Sorrow]

The only thing I don't like about Cesaro is how it seems like they are forcing the anti America part of his character. I don't know if it's because it seems like a throwback to cliche 80s heel #69791 that Hogan used to dispatch every month, or that it's hard to get really worked up against someone who's Swiss. I mean, they don't fight in any wars and make awesome watches and chocolate.

It's the whole "people who think Americans are assholes but Americans don't care" deal. Like the USA/ Canada stuff they've done over the years. It was always the Canadian fans all behind their guys and Americans going "We don't hate Canada. We don't even think about Canada."

 

And Cesaro does the whole "douchey European" thing so well without being French. So he can be a tough guy and not Rene' Dupree.

[El-P]

And Cesaro does the whole "douchey European" thing so well without being French. So he can be a tough guy and not Rene' Dupree.

Dupree isn't French, he's Canadian. Andre the fucking Giant was French.

 

I would love to see a good French douche gimmick done *right*. I know they have got the French Stallion signed, but they already gave him a shitty name so I have no hope (Sylvester Lefort ? I mean, really ?). I doubt anyone in WWE actually knows anything about France beyond clichés, so there's that too. But damn if I could not create a complete French hipster douche like you see in Paris. Or an altermondialist leftist coming out to Manu Chao's "Clandestino" or an old Berrurier Noir tune, telling Americans to shove their capitalist way of life up their ass and shit. Or a arrogant, higher than thou rich pervert who pathologically goes after every woman (you know who I'm aiming after here). There's so many good gimmicks you can do. Oh, I guess the next in line will be a guy wearing a beret, carrying a baguette and a French flag who listens to accordion and surrenders a lot. *sigh*

 

(well, now that I think of it, they did had a guy with an actual legit French name, and who has been a giant douche for years... hum...)

[Matt D]

I doubt anyone in WWE actually knows anything about France beyond clichés, so there's that too.

All they need to know is what their audience knows and would respond to. Vince has never exactly created nuanced foreigners.

[Loss]

The United States is far more multicultural than it was 20 years ago. I don't think anti-American talk will get the heat it's gotten in the past. America is more populist than it's ever been. Wealth, privilege, greed, elitism ... those should be the themes they are exploiting.

[Johnny Sorrow]

The United States is far more multicultural than it was 20 years ago. I don't think anti-American talk will get the heat it's gotten in the past. America is more populist than it's ever been. Wealth, privilege, greed, elitism ... those should be the themes they are exploiting.

Well what he's really doing is just calling everyone fat, lazy, and entitled. Just adding on "You Americans are...". It's working for him.

[Loss]

To their credit, they are sort of using Damien Sandow in this way. He's my favorite of all the younger guys, both in the ring and as a character. But he does represent the cultural elite in a way. I want to see him in main events, but I also see no reason to hurry that along.

[Badlittlekitten]

His push has been executed well but I think everything else they've done with Cesaro has been poorly done. The anti-american thing is outdated and isn't getting over to the point that his match last night with the intercontinental champ was getting boring chants. He was a rugby payer weren't he? Utilise that a bit more. Surely the kids that they're aiming to would dig more 'larger than life' characters. It's no coincidence that Sandow has gotten more over in the space of a few months than a lot of other guys on the roster that have been there years.

[NintendoLogic]

I'll respond to SLL later, but the problem with the anti-American gimmick is that if he makes his case with any degree of specificity, he's going to end up saying things that a significant portion of the audience agrees with. Not to mention the fact that he's basically a babyface in every other country.

[Ricky Jackson]

I will say this about current WWE: they seem much more committed to getting new guys over than they were a few years ago.

[Johnny Sorrow]

he's going to end up saying things that a significant portion of the audience agrees with.

I seriously doubt a "significant portion" of the WWE audience are the types of people who agree with the idea that Americans are all fat, lazy, and entitled.

[NintendoLogic]

he's going to end up saying things that a significant portion of the audience agrees with.

I seriously doubt a "significant portion" of the WWE audience are the types of people who agree with the idea that Americans are all fat, lazy, and entitled.

 

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing...I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

[Johnny Sorrow]

he's going to end up saying things that a significant portion of the audience agrees with.

I seriously doubt a "significant portion" of the WWE audience are the types of people who agree with the idea that Americans are all fat, lazy, and entitled.

 

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing...I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

 

Ok, umm.

1.Are you trying to say that the rich and powerful of this country are WWE Fans and look down on the rest of the country?

 

 

2.Or are you implying that the audience will think Cesaro is talking about "the 47%" that they as a bunch of hillbillies and republicans consider the poor and non white are, so they'll agree?

 

3. Can I have what you're smoking?

 

4. Have you been to a WWE show? They're not exactly filled with either a bunch of Bill Mahers who agree that Americans are fat and entitled, nor are they filled with people who would think Cesaro is talking about the 53%, but not them.

 

[NintendoLogic]

You couldn't have missed my point more egregiously if you had tried. I'm pointing out that most right-wingers do, in fact, believe that most of their fellow citizens are lazy and entitled.

[tomk]

I don't see the case for Cena not being protected.

 

The WWWF/WWF/WWE is a formula fed. They have formulas that have worked in how to protect and promote fed around ace for half century. They are ignoring those formulas.

 

WWF traditionally hasn't been an ace chases the belt fed. It has been an ace holds the belt fed. When your top guy holds the belt it helps give the top guy more value and it helps to give the belt more value.

 

From January 1, 2008 to Jan 1, 2013 :

 

John Cena has held the WWE belt 265 days

HHH has held the belt 280 days

Randy Orton has held the belt 334 days

CM Punk has held it for 435 days

 

I guess if you want to combine in the world heavyweight championship (which makes sense as when ace holds the title it means something although again not sure how much it means when its held by anyone else)

 

Cena has held heavyweight gold 346 days

Sheamus has held heavyweight gold 371 days

Randy Orton has held heavyweight gold 444 days

CM Punk has held heavyweight gold 526 days

 

( Figure all numbers are plus or minus 5 as this was done quick finger counting).

 

The idea of using belt to try to make a star is not the way the WWF traditionally did things.

Working against the ace with belt makes you a star.

 

One of the long held booking truths of the WWF is you don't run face v face matches as they hurt the faces as they split crowd.

Bruno v Morales is often said to be something that seriously hurt Morales' cred.

Hogan v Ultimate Warrrior hurt Warrior.

HHH as a guy who was repeatedly passed over is somewhat uncomfortable about his face opponent's going into match with him too hot and Meltzer would regularly talk about the booking of Booker T v RVD section in HIAC match as something done to cool down opponent for HHH. Meltzer is a HBK apologist and wouldn't talk about the use of HBK for same purpose. But still structurally everyone in the WWF understands that face v face is going to split a crowd.

 

Cena is regularly put in face v face title matches. One of the stories from when Lashley left the WWE was that he had a rep for hvaing a big head since he asked if he could turn heel to work Cena. The WWE cared more about proptecting Lashley by keeping him face than they did about protecting their ace by providing the ace with a heel opponent.

 

They cared more about their investment in Lashley than in their investment in their "ace" Cena.

 

SLL talks alot about creating a diffferent mood for fed to be built around Cena. I'm less concerned in mood than actual structure. The WWWF/WWF/WWE traditionally has been constructed like a bee hive with goal of feeding queen. Purpose of good chunk of the booking is too build up credible heels to feed to ace. Heel goes over Dominic Denucci or Antonio Pugliese and he's suddenly credible for Bruno, heel goes over Strongbow or Monsoon on way to Morales, I think Strongbow filled same function for Backlund, my memory is at point where Roberts was face- heel program with Roberts led to heel program with Hogan. HHH is first time the fed was built around a heel ace but still the goal of the fed was to build up faces for him to eat (even if you had built into the structure the hbk match to cool face down). Brand split was really good at building up face to send to RAW, the whole Shane Douglas Triple Threat Evolution formula was all about building up challengers for HHH (as an aside I'd say Undertaker was guy during recent era who structurally filled Bobo-Andre role of guy who you sent heel to post being eaten up by ace). Is there any structure in place to build up and feed challengers to Cena, or do people for the most part just attack Cena leading to match? What's purpose of having a hive if it isn't going to do the work of building up food for queen to eat? What is structure, what is goal of rest of fed.

 

If your just building up guys to be stars who float around with no purpose that's pretty shitty.

 

At point where Cena didn't have a challenger for Mania, instead of building up heels you had DX squashing Orton/Edge. The blowoff to Randy Orton v Cena at 07 Unforgiven was a DQ finish because they wanted to protect Orton for Michaels return from injury. This is a hive that is failing to feed it's ace, more commited to feeding others.

 

The Cena as guy who adult men don't like is a problem going back to at least the expansion of the female wrestling audience in the post WWII era. Guys who appeal to women and children alienate men who are scared of women and the children that ruin their bachelor lives tying them down to women. Anyone with any dealings with contemporary nerd culture has seen the "men not wanting women invading thir world" phenomena. Wrestling has figured out a variety of ways to deal with this over last 67 years. CMLL which is always talked about (incorrectly) as a fed that doesn't invest alot of thought into booking, used a variety of time tested strategies for pushing appropriate heels to deal with this problem when it arose with both Tarzan Boy and Mistico. In the WWE nothing structurally has been done, instead you have a situation where the men in the audience are booing the presence of the women.

 

The WWE traditionally has been a fed built around protecting their ace, it's a formula fed that has formulas to do so. They've abondoned those formulas with Cena.

[NintendoLogic]

I had planned on responding to SLL's last post, but recent events have rendered a response superfluous. If you want to know what going out of your way to not protect someone looks like, look no further than Dolph Ziggler's current booking. Anyway, tomk with the run-in:

 

From January 1, 2008 to Jan 1, 2013 :

 

John Cena has held the WWE belt 265 days

HHH has held the belt 280 days

Randy Orton has held the belt 334 days

CM Punk has held it for 435 days

We've already been over this. To make this argument, you picked an arbitrary starting point that omits Cena's year-plus reign and his earlier 280-day reign. Not to mention that in 2012, Cena was in the main event of every PPV where he was on the card despite holding the world title for exactly zero days during that period. Divorcing the ace from the world title doesn't constitute not protecting the ace.

 

At point where Cena didn't have a challenger for Mania, instead of building up heels you had DX squashing Orton/Edge. The blowoff to Randy Orton v Cena at 07 Unforgiven was a DQ finish because they wanted to protect Orton for Michaels return from injury. This is a hive that is failing to feed it's ace, more commited to feeding others.

Unforgiven wasn't supposed to be the blowoff. They were clearly building toward Orton taking the title from Cena at No Mercy, but Cena got injured.