WWE Midcard Purges

[bradhindsight]

If you got rid of all these guys, who would replace them?

You don't need to replace most of them. Half of these workers aren't even on television most of the time, the ones who are just make up filler roles. Shorten Raw would be the obvious solution, but since there is no chance of that happening then invest more time in the ones you have left on the roster. Less squash matches, less pointless matches and more actual feuds, well written, well booked that play out over a few weeks.

 

The roster is unbelievably bloated, and really needs some fresh blood. Give some young wrestlers a chance, and introduce them properly and slowly, rather than push them to the moon and then job them out to the moon which is the current ridiculous cycle.

 

I'll respond to some of the more specific points later.

 

The other factor here is two house show tours. That's where guys like JTG earn their paycheck.

[mookeighana]

You'd keep Camacho but not Hunico? And you'd keep Khali citing popularity with the kids, but not R-Truth? Dude is over like a motherfucker still, at least with kids.

All Valid points.

 

I picked Camacho because he was younger and his dad is Haku. I love Meng. And I think he could be repacked and do something.

 

Khali at least is a freak-show. I have a softspot in my heart (I should have a doctor check that) for the Giants of the world. R-Truth was around a decade ago and I was bored of him then. I will admit he's a hell of a WWEShopzone shill and an efficient hand. I just picked a guy out of the group and Truth was the one that didn't make the cut.

 

But you're right - I would rather have R-Truth & Santino around for the kids. When I went to a Smackdown taping a few months ago (while Cena was out), I was marvelling at how weak it was for characters that kids could get behind (the Orton/HHH storyline wasn't really their thing). Still need to get Sin Cara over as Rey Jr Version 2.0 PRONTO.

[Mad Dog]

The current WWE roster really reminds me of WCW as 1998 progressed. All these interesting names in the mid-card and guys doing nothing. You start realizing there's a glass ceiling and those guys are just stuck. That's how I feel watching the WWE. Guys like Punk, DB, Cesaro, Barrett, PTP, Sheamus and Ziggler are stuck and just end up being fodder to the main eventers. I think to really fix the issue you need better booking and you need to get rid of the dead weight main eventers like Randy Orton that need uber protected because they can't stay over.

[Matt D]

Wait, when in 1998 WCW did guys like Bryan and Punk get a chance to be the focal point of the show?

[Mad Dog]

Benoit and Booker T TV title feud. DDP and Raven feud.

[vicious&delicious]

The difference between 1998 WCW and 2013 WWE is in the old WCW days the inmates were running the asylum. There was a glut of older established main eventers who were all very protective of their spots and rarely did jobs or made someone beneath them look good.

 

In today's WWE there are only a handful of guys who are protected by WWE creative and Cena, the top dog, comes off as a team player who loves to make people (see Punk, Bryan and now Cesaro). Orton, the second most protected active wrestler just spent the last 4+ months making Bryan look good.

 

Creative just has no idea what they're doing.

[anarchistxx]

. You start realizing there's a glass ceiling and those guys are just stuck. That's how I feel watching the WWE. Guys like Punk, DB, Cesaro, Barrett, PTP, Sheamus and Ziggler are stuck

Don't get this at all. CM Punk and Sheamus have both bad extended runs with the title and pushed very strongly in the main event. Daniel Bryan beat John Cena clean at Summerslam. You can't compare those three to Wade Barrett, Cesaro or the PTP. Cesaro especially seems to be being built very well; a slow move up the card, getting over in the tag division before presumably being tried out higher up. That is how it used to work, how it worked for Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Jeff Hardy.

 

The problem isn't the glass ceiling, it is inconsistent booking. Ziggler, Bryan, Punk and Sheamus have all been booked to defeat top stars, often cleanly. But they have also been booked to job left and right as well, and wasted in pointless feuds and saturated matches that happen over and over again, winning one week, losing the next. Once they decided to push Taker, Bret, Shawn, HHH, Rock etc they were all protected. Now they have serious booking ADD, so they elevate all these people and then don't know what to do with them. They smash them through the glass ceiling and then throw them back down again after a couple of months.

[El-P]

Kane has had one of the most entertaining 12-16 months of his career, first in Hell No and now with his corporate character

And he's sucked for twenty years. Kane was the first name that came to mind when I thought "If I could get rid of anyone, one single person, who would it be?"

 

Mask, no mask, heel, face, serious, comedic...it doesn't matter. He's done it all & it's all tired at this point. We've seen him shock Shane McMahon's testicles with a car battery, set Jim Ross on fire, use a voice box to tell people to "suck it!", cut a "Kanenites" Hulk Hogan promo, wrestle a technical match with Big Show for some reason, do the Hell No therapy comedy skits & "hug it out." His entire career is ridiculous. He's always just been a second-rate Undertaker at best & an unfunny, lumbering goof at worst.

 

Thank you.

[Jimmy Redman]

I'm no Santino fan, but I didn't list him for that reason. There's always a spot for niche guys like that.

His schtick is pretty embarrassing, though. It is something that would really turn off a new fan, or an old fan trying to get back into the show. Surely there are better ways to do a comedy character than that?

 

People who say this I think betray a real lack of awareness outside of the "bubble", because in my experience, every casual and non-smark fan I've ever met loves the shit out of Santino.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I'm no Santino fan, but I didn't list him for that reason. There's always a spot for niche guys like that.

His schtick is pretty embarrassing, though. It is something that would really turn off a new fan, or an old fan trying to get back into the show. Surely there are better ways to do a comedy character than that?

 

People who say this I think betray a real lack of awareness outside of the "bubble", because in my experience, every casual and non-smark fan I've ever met loves the shit out of Santino.

 

Yup, an anecdotal point, but the only person who Bryan Alvarez' wife marks out for? Santino. Now, I do think there's a point that there are too many 'joke' characters on TV, but Santino is the cream of that crop.

[Big Rob]

Santino can also turn it on every now and then too. His performances in the 2011 Rumble, 2012(?) Elimination Chamber and also the battle royal to qualify for the EC were all pretty great.

[Coffey]

I think the women are a lot more interesting to talk about. Mainly because in WWE, there seems to be a lot quicker of a turnaround. You rarely see a lot of Divas in WWE once they hit the age of 30 or so. Usually, anyway.

 

Right now, on the WWE Diva roster you have: AJ Lee (26), Aksana (31), Alicia Fox (27), Brie Bella (30 in a week), Cameron (26), Eva Marie (29), JoJo (19!), Kaitlyn (27), Layla (36), Naomi (25), Natalya (31), Nikki Bella (30 in a week), Rosa Mendes (34), Summer Rae (29) & Tamina (35).

 

On the NXT roster you have: Alexa Bliss (22), Bayley (24), Charlotte (27), Emma (24), Paige (21) & Sasha Banks (21).

 

Aksana, Layla, Rosa & Tamina could be released & WWE could call up Emma, Paige & Sasha.

 

One of the biggest "problems" WWE has ran into over the last few years is they either hire models & make them wrestle, or they hire wrestlers & make them model. If they hire wrestlers to wrestle & models to model, they're fine...but for whatever reason, we never get that. So we have had to watch stuff like Stacy Kiebler & Torrie Wilson wrestling matches. Now though, there's just beautiful women that know how to wrestle & with TV-PG, WWE doesn't do a lot of the raunchy stuff anymore.

 

AJ Lee is pretty damn over. She has 1.15 million Twitter followers. A lot of little girls look up to her & that's with her portraying a heel on TV. If WWE would bother to spend the time to do so, I think the women's division could be a big thing for them right now. They have to shed the stigma that it's the "piss break" match. Give them actual stories, let them work real matches & I think with AJ, Kaitlyn, Summer, Emma & Paige they could have something. But it'll never happen if they keep putting people like Eva Marie, Aksana & Cameron in the ring...

[Jesse Ewiak]

The basic problem with the Diva's division is the WWE still hasn't learned that not every woman they hire has to wrestle. There's no reason, for example, the Funkadactyls or Askana needs to be in the ring. The same thing for prior Diva's like Maryse. They can be characters without getting into the ring even semi-regularly while other characters can be wrestlers.

[cm funk]

Don't lump Maryse in that category. She may have been hired because she was a model, but she became pretty damn entertaining in the ring over time. But I agree, not every Diva needs to be in the ring on tv, that's for damn sure.

 

In the latest Observer Meltzer had a blurb about one of their latest hires, and how she has a strong athletic background as well as modeling experience, and that's what they are looking for now. Which makes sense in theory, but you can only have so many women like that on the roster, and you can't just throw them on all on tv and ask them to learn on the job. And they should at least have a concept of what wrestling is and what it takes to make it. That girl on Tough Enough who said her favorite match was Alicia Fox vs. someone......lol

 

The whole "casting call for potential WWE divas" system is fucked, and it leads to someone like Eva Marie hired because she wants to be famous and this is the only way she's getting on tv

 

Take Trish Stratus for example. Hired because she was a bombshell fashion model, with an athletic background, but she was also a wrestling fan, and had a good head on her shoulders. And they didn't throw her in the ring on tv her first month on the job. It was several years before she was expected to wrestle tv matches, and when it came time to do that she was actually decent, and got better and better with experience.

 

WWE now chews up and spits out girls so fast they don't even have a chance to get good. An Eva Marie who appears to be dangerously uncoordinated and oblivious in the ring will likely never get better...but some girls that have potential never get a chance to improve

 

And what the womens division really misses right now is an Ivory, or a Victoria, someone who can teach girls how to work while in the ring with them. Nattie is in that role right now and I don't think she's really the best person for the job. I don't understand why they wouldn't take someone like Cheerleader Melissa or Alison Danger and pay them good money to be in that role. It's not like they're unattractive to the average person

[mookeighana]

And what the womens division really misses right now is an Ivory, or a Victoria, someone who can teach girls how to work while in the ring with them.

Well, presumably that's what Sara Del Ray & guest trainer Mickie James are doing down in NXT right now.

[Matt D]

WWE now chews up and spits out girls so fast they don't even have a chance to get good. An Eva Marie who appears to be dangerously uncoordinated and oblivious in the ring will likely never get better...but some girls that have potential never get a chance to improve

Are you totally discounting the NXT women's roster or something? I'm not digging for the pics of young Paige meeting Goldust or young Bailey decked out in her Hardy Boyz gear and I'm sure rovert would love to come in and tell you about what's her face. And Sasha Banks isn't great but they still pulled her from Kowalski's school and the indies and I suppose there's some inherent value to Charlotte (and Shaul Guerrero if she's on her way back in).

[cm funk]

No, I'm not discounting that at all. But it's telling that Eva Marie and Jo-Jo get put on tv before someone like Paige

[Matt D]

 

I think she'll be ok.

[cm funk]

I think you guys are missing the point I was trying to make. I'm not white knighting for Paige here.

[Matt D]

Personally, I'm not too worried about your point because I see how things are shaping up in developmental.

[goodhelmet]

What do you see?

[Matt D]

What do you see?

WWE now chews up and spits out girls so fast they don't even have a chance to get good. An Eva Marie who appears to be dangerously uncoordinated and oblivious in the ring will likely never get better...but some girls that have potential never get a chance to improve

Are you totally discounting the NXT women's roster or something? I'm not digging for the pics of young Paige meeting Goldust or young Bailey decked out in her Hardy Boyz gear and I'm sure rovert would love to come in and tell you about what's her face. And Sasha Banks isn't great but they still pulled her from Kowalski's school and the indies and I suppose there's some inherent value to Charlotte (and Shaul Guerrero if she's on her way back in).

 

What I said. I see a bunch of female wrestlers coming up in the system who are fans or not just in this for the fame, who have experience already or are second generation (and Paige is as well). The entire next generation of "divas" seems to fit into that. The ones that might not completely are being taught to really work their character into their matches and to work focused, narrative-driven short matches that have been consistently good. Emma and Summer Rae are excellent at working their characters into their matches, way better than even a lot of guys on the NXT roster like Neville and Graves (they had a 2/3 falls this week which was really lacking in in that, even though it was sound in other ways). The Bailey/Charlotte vs Rae/Banks match from this week was a ton of fun. Bailey, through body language and working her character, garnered a ton of sympathy, to the point where the crowd was audibly shocked when Charlotte turned on her. I'm not super high on Banks or Charlotte either, though I'm enjoying Banks more as a heel.

 

Maybe the current crop of Divas that just got brought up are frustrating, but there's a half dozen in the farm system that aren't, whether that's due to Del Ray's training or what, and I think it's pretty obvious that since this is Hunter's baby, they're going to be fairly well insulated.

 

While on the topic of NXT, I also think you should go back to last week and watch Harper vs Ohno if you haven't yet, Will. I think you'd really like Harper's stuff in that match.

[goodhelmet]

I don't have HULU.

[Matt D]

NXT is on the free version of Hulu, though I could imagine that they'd block it in foreign countries such as Texas.

[goodhelmet]

Hahaha... I didn't even know there was a free version. Well shit.