Hell In a Cell

[Dylan Waco]

Based on what?

[cm funk]

Based on I think that booking Cena as "superman" is over the top, and I'm getting tired of it. And I like WWE. And I like Cena. And I appreciate why they are booking him like this, I just think it's been too much.

 

I'm objective.

[cm funk]

Put it this way: In a sense it's cool what they're going for here, and Cena worked his ass off in the Del Rio and Sandow matches, and there's legit drama of "oh shit, what if his arm falls apart!"

 

But I'm tired of the SuperCena act. And a lot of fans are tired of it. It's just been going on too long now. Notice the muted pop he got for his "huge return" at the PPV. Notice a ton of apathy and booing on RAW. And of course he's still over, and the act is over, and he's always going to appeal to kids because he's the superhero, but it's almost reaching Hogan levels where they seem desperate to keep him the top star despite everything

 

And I like Cena, and I don't actually hate the idea of booking him as "Superman".......it's just tired at this point. CENAnuff as a brilliant sign once said

[Coffey]

And I think that extends to all mediums, and it's one of my least favorite things on the internet. People just shitting all over stuff that they hate, yet can't turn away from. It's ugly.

Why don't you just stop reading the internet?

[cm funk]

And I think that extends to all mediums, and it's one of my least favorite things on the internet. People just shitting all over stuff that they hate, yet can't turn away from. It's ugly.

Why don't you just stop reading the internet?

 

Got to separate the good from the bad

[El-P]

Yes, a lot of longtime fans HATED the Attitude Era because of the short match times, too much shooting, all the backstage stuff, 20-minute dueling promos, etc.

I was driven away by this product from both WWF and then WCW in 1999. Never went back. So yeah, Attitude era drove some longtime fans (since 1989) away.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

- When people don't watch who criticize WWE, they are told they really shouldn't criticize something they don't watch.

- When people who do watch criticize WWE, they are told if they don't like it, they shouldn't watch. I suppose this means when they stop watching, they are no longer in a position to criticize.

 

It seems like an attempt to shut down conversation. Like WWE or shut up, basically. Only positive comments are welcome.

I appreciate objective criticism. And that's why I qualified with "I really hate when people say don't watch it" because it's generally a dumb and reductive thing to say

 

But some people seem incapable of having any sort of objectivity when it comes to WWE, and would be better off for their own health if they just ignored the product

 

Myself, you can go back through my posts on this board and I've certainly criticized WWE for a lot of things. But I enjoy their product as well. If I didn't I wouldn't watch it or follow it. Objective criticism

 

And I think that extends to all mediums, and it's one of my least favorite things on the internet. People just shitting all over stuff that they hate, yet can't turn away from. It's ugly.

 

With all due respect, this is a serious middle of the road fallacy since you're parameterizing what objectivity means. I find the booking to be extremely piss poor and to blow up HHH's ego, and it's not worth my time to watch after two years of trying. Keep in mind that I often catch shit for defending the product as being workrate friendly, which it is. But for what I ask for from a product I make a choice to invest in, I expect better than mediocre undergrad writing and a company willing to take risks as opposed to reverting to status quo antebellum. Besides, 3 hours of Raw is a lot of time to invest, and 24 hours of TV to get 3 non-decisive finishes is a waste of time to me. Some six-man tag matches with the Shield doesn't compensate for that.

[ohtani's jacket]

But there's a really interesting discussion to be had and I don't understand why people are so averse to it and dismissive of it. How many hardcore football fans don't watch or care about what goes on in the NFL? Wrestling is completely unique in that there is a huge segment of the overall population that is open to watching wrestling and either likes other versions of it now or has liked it in the past that simply doesn't watch because they don't like the way it's presented.

I don't know about the NFL, but there are plenty of sports fans who don't like the way the modern game is played compared to the sport they grew up on. And plenty of older fans who have dinky memories about the way their sport used to be played.

 

Complaining about wrestling is nothing new. When I watch Crockett, I'm enamoured with the excellent wrestling, but the Observer was full of criticism at the time. The same is true of WCW. My favourite period for that promotion was the early 90s when they were in the doldrums, but I don't care, because when I look back on WCW I pick out the good stuff and don't particularly care about whether the promotion was a success. At some point in the future, people may do the same with the current WWE product, cherry picking the good stuff that Cena, Punk or Bryan produced without caring about the ongoing criticisms of the booking.

 

Wrestling is more of a creative pursuit than sports. Creativity dries up and folks burn out. A lot of people give up on television shows after a few seasons. I gave up on the comics I was obsessed with as a child. Folks stop listening to their favourite bands or the musical genre they were into. Throughout wrestling history, we've seen that promotions can only be super successful for short periods at a time. Compared to most other forms of entertainment, it's a wonder that wrestling is still chugging along. It should have disappeared at the end of the 80s. But it hasn't, instead it's passed a lot of us by. You'd have to be the hardest of the hardcore to watch the same promotion continuously for twenty or thirty years without dropping out at some point. Only men like Johnny Sorrow are capable of such feats.

[kjh]

WWE does fine doing business the way they do now, and lots of people profit from it.

Of the last six financial quarters, they've lost money in two of them and profits were way down in another two from the prior year. Only one quarter saw profits increase. The stock is high at the moment due to the market being bullish about the potential of a WWE network. Looking how FS1 is struggling to get off the ground and that's a free channel, it's hard not to see how WWE isn't setting themselves up for a big fall past WrestleMania 30 if they do indeed pull the trigger on their pay channel.

[NintendoLogic]

A stale but stable company doesn't throw truckloads of money at Brock Lesnar to work three matches a year. Nor does it make a Hollywood actor who hasn't wrestled full-time in over a decade its world champion.

[Johnny Sorrow]

But there's a really interesting discussion to be had and I don't understand why people are so averse to it and dismissive of it. How many hardcore football fans don't watch or care about what goes on in the NFL? Wrestling is completely unique in that there is a huge segment of the overall population that is open to watching wrestling and either likes other versions of it now or has liked it in the past that simply doesn't watch because they don't like the way it's presented.

I don't know about the NFL, but there are plenty of sports fans who don't like the way the modern game is played compared to the sport they grew up on. And plenty of older fans who have dinky memories about the way their sport used to be played.

 

Complaining about wrestling is nothing new. When I watch Crockett, I'm enamoured with the excellent wrestling, but the Observer was full of criticism at the time. The same is true of WCW. My favourite period for that promotion was the early 90s when they were in the doldrums, but I don't care, because when I look back on WCW I pick out the good stuff and don't particularly care about whether the promotion was a success. At some point in the future, people may do the same with the current WWE product, cherry picking the good stuff that Cena, Punk or Bryan produced without caring about the ongoing criticisms of the booking.

 

Wrestling is more of a creative pursuit than sports. Creativity dries up and folks burn out. A lot of people give up on television shows after a few seasons. I gave up on the comics I was obsessed with as a child. Folks stop listening to their favourite bands or the musical genre they were into. Throughout wrestling history, we've seen that promotions can only be super successful for short periods at a time. Compared to most other forms of entertainment, it's a wonder that wrestling is still chugging along. It should have disappeared at the end of the 80s. But it hasn't, instead it's passed a lot of us by. You'd have to be the hardest of the hardcore to watch the same promotion continuously for twenty or thirty years without dropping out at some point. Only men like Johnny Sorrow are capable of such feats.

 

Hey, even I had my period of time not watching wrestling. From mid 88 til 91 I barely watched and from 91 to 94 it was sporadic . Shit I didn't watch any in 89, lol.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

WWE does fine doing business the way they do now, and lots of people profit from it.

Of the last six financial quarters, they've lost money in two of them and profits were way down in another two from the prior year. Only one quarter saw profits increase. The stock is high at the moment due to the market being bullish about the potential of a WWE network. Looking how FS1 is struggling to get off the ground and that's a free channel, it's hard not to see how WWE isn't setting themselves up for a big fall past WrestleMania 30 if they do indeed pull the trigger on their pay channel.

 

In fairness, profits are down FWIU due to the overhaul of WWE Network, not because they're not drawing, which is seen as an acceptable loss since it's a matter of investment. Factoring out the network, buys have increased but not to the extent that justifies paying Lesnar and Rock their asking price. Stocks are up primarily because buys are up.

[Sean Liska]

A stale but stable company doesn't throw truckloads of money at Brock Lesnar to work three matches a year. Nor does it make a Hollywood actor who hasn't wrestled full-time in over a decade its world champion.

There is no company in the history of the world that would have declined giving Rock the belt if he wanted it, especially with his plan ending with him doing a clean job to their top star.

[S.L.L.]

You're right, but it's not a view I understand. It's pro-wrestling and as such its range is limited in presentation: Either you make it Russo-like, which has proven to be a failure, the nepotistic route as seen by modern WWE and Dusty or Nash booking, or you go the purist route of doing angles, letting guys get over, and running a big show. The only possibility I see is WWE going the purist route and letting guys get themselves over. Why anyone would be upset or annoyed by this is beyond me. In other words, I don't see any "radical change" happening, unless you want to define "radical" in wrestling land as letting younger guys get the spotlight and not having them booked as inferiors to HHH & Pals or anyone else from the Attitude Era.

That's true on a very, very macro level, and it's kinda what I'm talking about, in that the fundamental reasons Rock 'N' Wrestling and Attitude (and for that matter, every successful promotional run in wrestling history, probably) succeeded are the same. However, when we look at Rock 'N' Wrestling and Attitude (and for that matter, every successful promotional run in wrestling history, probably), we can see that they're very different in very obvious ways. The most basic and important principles are the same, but different times, different places, different wrestlers, and different bookers and promoters create different circumstances, which mean the same rules get applied in radically different ways, and sometimes, what might work for a promotion and it's fans now won't appeal to people who were fans then. It's not so much that people might be upset or annoyed by a competently run wrestling promotion...it's that "competently run" does not automatically equal "something you like". I mean, Rock 'N' Wrestling-era WWF was arguably the most competently run wrestling promotion ever, but old timers still talked about how Vince McMahon killed wrestling because it wasn't what they wanted. People aren't afraid of a competent WWE. People are afraid of a competent WWE that they don't like, at which point they become the old guy who bitches about how these fancy-dan tumblers ruined wrestling by making it "entertainment" instead of real sportsmen like Triple H and The Undertaker who didn't need any fancy gimmicks and worked 60-minute technical classics every night.

 

Every time a wrestling promotion moves forward, it inevitably leaves things behind, including fans, but since WWE's company policy is to stand completely still, there are a number of fans who are in a sort of twilight zone - things are recognizably not what they want, but not so alienating that they'll abandon it. It's safe. It's like the wrestling equivalent of the Eagles. If the Eagles released a new concept album inspired by alternative R&B sounds, and they actually managed to pull it off and it became a huge hit that justified pushing their sound in that direction, you know that a lot of people who are comfortable listening to the Eagles as they are/were - even people who don't necessarily love the Eagles as they are/were - are not going to want to follow them in this new direction, even if it worked out great for the band. And it's just the same with WWE. If they suddenly became a company that was willing to reshape itself to capitalize on the popularity of Daniel Bryan and maximize potential gains from that popularity the way they were for Hogan and Austin, there would be fans left behind, and the possibility of someone as smark-friendly as Bryan being the center of that does not necessarily make change any easier for people, nor does it guarantee that they'll like the change. It's a risk, and current WWE cultivates a following by the easily-threatened. I mean, look at this mess.....

 

I appreciate objective criticism. And that's why I qualified with "I really hate when people say don't watch it" because it's generally a dumb and reductive thing to say

 

But some people seem incapable of having any sort of objectivity when it comes to WWE, and would be better off for their own health if they just ignored the product

 

Myself, you can go back through my posts on this board and I've certainly criticized WWE for a lot of things. But I enjoy their product as well. If I didn't I wouldn't watch it or follow it. Objective criticism

 

And I think that extends to all mediums, and it's one of my least favorite things on the internet. People just shitting all over stuff that they hate, yet can't turn away from. It's ugly.

TIL you can get battered wife syndrome from a wrestling promotion. Seriously, "objective criticism"...does he even know what those words mean? This is not someone you can push change to, and I wish WWE would stop booking towards him.

[Strummer]

According to Mike Johnson at PWI Bryan is not scheduled to be part of the title picture anytime soon and that the higher ups in the company believe he was elevated by the program. Seems to me he'll fall into the "Punk/Jericho spot" within the next 6 months to a year. I in no way think he has been buried but as I posted the night before the PPV he needed to go over in that match. I don't think he'll get the belt during "mania season" though probably going to have to wait till next spring/summer

[Dylan Waco]

He's already in the Jericho role right now, as they have put him and Punk with the Wyatts to get them over.

[cm funk]

Is "The Jericho Role" a bad thing?

 

and let this play out

[Marty]

But there's a really interesting discussion to be had and I don't understand why people are so averse to it and dismissive of it. How many hardcore football fans don't watch or care about what goes on in the NFL?

Up here in Canada? Many.

 

This probably isn't comparable, but many only follow the NFL for the sake of office pools or fantasy football. Out of those people, there's a good segment who don't really care that much what goes on, or even have a favourite team, it's just become something to bet on.

 

What I do wonder is if there's a large segment of people who love NCAA football, but could care less of the NFL? I know of some people like that, but is it a noticeable, large group? I knew of a ton of people back in the day who found the NBA boring, but absolutely loved NCAA hoops. Is it the same for football?

[bradhindsight]

According to Mike Johnson at PWI Bryan is not scheduled to be part of the title picture anytime soon and that the higher ups in the company believe he was elevated by the program. Seems to me he'll fall into the "Punk/Jericho spot" within the next 6 months to a year. I in no way think he has been buried but as I posted the night before the PPV he needed to go over in that match. I don't think he'll get the belt during "mania season" though probably going to have to wait till next spring/summer

You could kind of gleam this when he hit his running knee on HHH. Their envisioned payoff was Bryan finally blasting HHH, even though Big Show already did it (which makes it considerably devalued). So much for that Bryan/HHH match.

 

Along the way Bryan pinned Cena clean and was generally booked strong in matches with Orton. He was not buried in those matches by any means - but neither Bryan or Orton "won" with those finishes.

 

Bryan putting HBK in the YES lock was the payoff to the HiaC match - which is pretty terrible.

 

Punk got a year-long run with the title months after his hot angle cooled off. I don't see that happening here so while Bryan was certainly elevated - I don't think he's at Punk's level.

 

Has Bryan been Luger'd? Parv asked me that the other day. You may need another 6 months to really answer that question as there was faint hope that his story would lead through winning the Rumble.

[NintendoLogic]

A stale but stable company doesn't throw truckloads of money at Brock Lesnar to work three matches a year. Nor does it make a Hollywood actor who hasn't wrestled full-time in over a decade its world champion.

There is no company in the history of the world that would have declined giving Rock the belt if he wanted it, especially with his plan ending with him doing a clean job to their top star.

 

The goal of the program was to make Cena a bigger star by having Rock give him the rub. It was a complete failure in that regard.

[Sean Liska]

I think the main goal was to make tons of money and they did that with the three biggest money shows in wrestling history.

[Timbo Slice]

If they suddenly became a company that was willing to reshape itself to capitalize on the popularity of Daniel Bryan and maximize potential gains from that popularity the way they were for Hogan and Austin, there would be fans left behind, and the possibility of someone as smark-friendly as Bryan being the center of that does not necessarily make change any easier for people, nor does it guarantee that they'll like the change.

This is something I find very interesting because the perception of how we see something when it's presented is a lot different than what the presenters intended sometimes. I think this idea that Bryan is "smark-friendly" is a moot point considering that he has crossed the fan threshold into being widely appreciated, regardless of whether you saw him before he came to the WWE. We as diehards contemplate every little decision the company makes and criticize it when we feel they missed the boat on something because our attention to detail is (for the most part) highly attuned.

 

The more I think about it, we who are criticizing how WWE is booking Bryan are not seeing the forest through the trees. For three months, Bryan was presented as someone who was respected by his peers, but not by the guys making the decisions because in the end, the decision-makers get to dictate direction. They can manipulate certain responses or portions of any show into how they want to perceive it. The stuff in all those promos about Bryan being a B+ player and all that, that wasn't put in the angle as storyline bait to show that Bryan could overcome the odds. It was the actual perception of the company at the time.

 

That's the problem with this angle: It wasn't about someone finally ascending to the top spot that he has earned the old-fashioned way. It was about the guy running the show showing that he's above reproach. As was said previously, the angle hurts because there is no criticism towards Triple H for his own faults because outside of the tried and true "Sleeping your way to the top" theme that has been pounded into the ground, Trips knows that if someone actually dug deep with some criticism that his on-screen credibility would be shot to hell. The idea that Show is where he is and Bryan is in his spot is due to the fact that Trips thought Show would put the angle over better than Bryan would. It's perceived that Bryan couldn't get this type of angle over where he was, when it's pretty obvious that the fans were ready to see Bryan have his time in the sun.

 

The idea that Bryan got elevated and looked great in defeat is how they perceive it just like how they perceived Sandow losing to Cena during his cash in. Except that Bryan's goal was to be the WWE champion and he didn't get there, and Sandow was trying to be the World Champion and didn't get there. There's only so much "elevation" that can be done without actually letting someone go over before "elevation" becomes another useless buzzword.

[anarchistxx]

Is "The Jericho Role" a bad thing?

When CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were in ROH, nobody would have dreamed they would ascend to "The Jericho Role". The "Jamie Knoble Role" was about the best we could have dared to hope. Most people assumed that if they signed with WWE they would be mishandled completely and be jobbers in a year or less, before being wished all the best in their future endeavors, with an RF Shoot to look forward to a few months later.

 

It is a fucking awesome position for those two guys to be in; they are comparatively small, with looks, personalities and wrestling styles not usually favored by the WWE. They and we should be thrilled that they are in a strong place at the top of the card, working with the premier wrestlers on the roster, given extensive performance time on the marquee show every Monday night. It is a minor miracle that they have both made it so far, obviously due to their own skills in getting themselves over and learning to adapt to the environment. But also credit the WWE for pushing them instead of bringing them down like other people who have got themselves over.

 

Problem is, it looked as if Daniel Bryan was about to be pushed into "The Steve Austin Role". He had beaten the superman top face clean, was getting monster pops and was opening and closing most shows in extended segments. In that respect, "The Jericho Role" seems slightly disappointing; but in a wider context, it is still an amazing position for someone like him, and also fantastic for the fans who have followed him for the last twelve years and never dreamed he would get this big.

 

We've still won the lottery; it's just that due to machine complications our prize has been downgraded slightly.

[Strummer]

Bryan putting HBK in the YES lock was the payoff to the HiaC match - which is pretty terrible.

yeah according to PWI Bryan Yes-locking Shawn was the blowoff to their mini storyline and Shawn is not scheduled to return any time soon

[Migs]

Has Bryan been Luger'd? Parv asked me that the other day. You may need another 6 months to really answer that question as there was faint hope that his story would lead through winning the Rumble.

I don't think so. He got a real, clean, clear win at Summerslam - his loss of the title wasn't a choke, it was stolen from him. He then got to win the title again in September. I can't imagine anyone with the perception that Bryan can't win the big one.