JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 I said it. True? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Entirely possible. Its not just how many up and down the card, but where they're mixed in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Yes and no. First off I don't have faith in WWE's ability to actually do a cheap finish in a way that gets the right kind of heat. But in some cases it's true, I mean there's no good reason to have Rusev losing clean to Cesaro on fucking Smackdown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 My thought watching battlegrounds is that too many name guys on the roster are eating too many pins too regularly. Why not throw in some DQs and countouts? Smart fans think they want clean finishes all the time, but since when do promoters do what smart fans want? The art of the cheap finish is being lost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAC Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Some well placed count-out and disqualification finishes might help a bit, but the WWE would do it to death. There's nothing worse than watching a match knowing that a fuck finish is bound to occur. It kills promotions. You're doing a podcast with Grimmas about a promotion that found a way to succeed without screwy finishes. It can be done well--just not by Vince & Co. It would require competent booking, something not seen in the WWE since... 1992? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stomperspc Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 I am not sure the volume of cheap finishes in WWE is the problem so much as the type of cheap finishes are the problem. WWE is a big fan of “wrestler comes out mid-match, one wrestler in the ring gets distracted and is rolled up” finish. That is a cheap finish but it is a terrible one. Nobody looks good coming out of that. The guy who won only won because his opponent made a dumb mistake. The loser looks stupid for being so easily distracted. Even the wrestler providing the distraction doesn’t look all that smart (“play my music and I’ll walk to the ring” is not exactly a genius plan). If a heel cheats to win to build heat on him leading to a the face winning the payoff match, I would say that is generally a good cheap finish. I know you were in favor of Rollins cheating to beat Brock. If the follow up was handled correctly, I think that would be a good cheap finish. The finish we got was a bad cheap finish. Rollins simply benefited from the circumstances and the match did nothing to make him look good. If he cheats and gets away with it, at least he looks smart and as if he had a plan. It is also probably a bad idea to do a cheap finish on a PPV unless the feud is clearly still on the rise and would benefit from building to a re-match. So I wouldn’t say they need to do more cheap finishes as much as they need to be smarter in how and when they do them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Incidentally, I count run-in leading to a pin as clean finish of sorts. A pin is a pin. A cheap finish to me is a count out or DQ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Parv, do you understand the prevailing thought behind the start-stop pushes of the last ten years or so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 I mean what happened to protecting guys? What happened to a double co draw brawl to the back leading to a rematch? What happened to a champ getting a DQ win to hold on to his belt leading to a cage match or stip blow off? The old ways were the old ways for a reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAC Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 I am not sure the volume of cheap finishes in WWE is the problem so much as the type of cheap finishes are the problem. WWE is a big fan of “wrestler comes out mid-match, one wrestler in the ring gets distracted and is rolled up” finish. That is a cheap finish but it is a terrible one. Nobody looks good coming out of that. The guy who won only won because his opponent made a dumb mistake. The loser looks stupid for being so easily distracted. Even the wrestler providing the distraction doesn’t look all that smart (“play my music and I’ll walk to the ring” is not exactly a genius plan). If a heel cheats to win to build heat on him leading to a the face winning the payoff match, I would say that is generally a good cheap finish. I know you were in favor of Rollins cheating to beat Brock. If the follow up was handled correctly, I think that would be a good cheap finish. The finish we got was a bad cheap finish. Rollins simply benefited from the circumstances and the match did nothing to make him look good. If he cheats and gets away with it, at least he looks smart and as if he had a plan. It is also probably a bad idea to do a cheap finish on a PPV unless the feud is clearly still on the rise and would benefit from building to a re-match. So I wouldn’t say they need to do more cheap finishes as much as they need to be smarter in how and when they do them. All good points. A CO, DQ or no contest ending can be used effectively to build to a pay-off. I just have such bad memories of times when promotions forgot the part about the actual pay-off! One cheap finish that I actually like is seeing the babyface get DQ'd. It fits with the Bill Watts philosophy of having the babyface beat himself. It's great for building to a rematch, as the babyface has to control his temper to gain a victory, and it doesn't require the heel to look weak by angling for a cheap win. Rollins would have looked much better if he could have gotten a pin on a prone Lesnar after Undertaker laid him out. I'm not really a fan of that sort of finish, but at least he wouldn't have come across as being ENTIRELY irrelevant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAC Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Incidentally, I count run-in leading to a pin as clean finish of sorts. A pin is a pin. Yuck. I think I hate that worse than anything else. Run-ins are the absolute worst. They just scream "phoney", as no real sport would allow crap like that to happen. I wonder if I'll one day be able to watch the Boston Bruins stage a run-in (skate-in?) to deprive the Montreal Canadiens of a victory in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 I mean what happened to protecting guys? What happened to a double co draw brawl to the back leading to a rematch? What happened to a champ getting a DQ win to hold on to his belt leading to a cage match or stip blow off? The old ways were the old ways for a reason. There are three issues, I'd say, that are more important than what you're looking at. You're seeing a symptom, not the illness. 1.) There's no more fluidity of the roster. Guys don't come in and out nearly as much. A guy like Kofi Kingston or Dolph Ziggler has been on the active roster for eight years or so. We're not talking Smackdown/Raw split, let alone territories. 2.) The sheer amount of TV/PPVs in a world where every match is a match between two stars. The sort of hierarchy you like on your roster doesn't really exist. I'm not sure it can exist. It's much looser and more nebulous. They're on TV for 5 hours (main shows) a week with something like 15+ special PPV type events now. 3.) This is theory and rumor, but they don't want anyone to get over too much. They don't want anyone to be more important than the company. WWE is the draw not any specific wrestler. Brock's an exception. Cena's an exception. I always thought this had a lot to do with how Rock left and with how Brock left especially but the usual way WWE will debut a guy is with a big push and then a drop down the roster so that he knows his place and they can see how he handles it. Then, they'll build him back up but so much of that initial momentum can never be recovered. Basically, no, they don't want to protect guys. That's the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 1. Bring in more guys from new Japan, ROH, indies, whatever. 2. Bring back jobbers. 3. No wrestling company can operate without stars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Smart fans think they want clean finishes all the time, but since when do promoters do what smart fans want? The art of the cheap finish is being lost. I actually wish we had more non-established jobbers that could just go out & get crushed to help get someone (and their offense) over. Even the throwaway matches on RAW are superstar vs. superstar, which is a layover from the Monday Night Wars rating battle days and just makes everyone feel like they're not special. Why is Rusev Vs. Cesaro on free TV even happening in the first place, let alone them trading wins? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 2.) The sheer amount of TV/PPVs in a world where every match is a match between two stars. The sort of hierarchy you like on your roster doesn't really exist. I'm not sure it can exist. It's much looser and more nebulous. They're on TV for 5 hours (main shows) a week with something like 15+ special PPV type events now. It could. New Japan pulls it off and they have a lot more relevant guys to work with. They don't have nearly as much TV as WWE but let's be realistic, Raw is the only show that matters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 1. Bring in more guys from new Japan, ROH, indies, whatever. 2. Bring back jobbers. 3. No wrestling company can operate without stars. They're not trying to sell people to go to the weekly show. TV is their highest form of revenue, with the network being second. Live events would be third? Or Merchandising? I don't know. Bix or someone can break this down better. I'm not saying you're wrong, but they feel that having jobber matches on Monday (and to a lesser extent Thursday) night would hurt the ratings too much. This is a good Dangerous Alliance Podcast challenge, actually: Try to rebook 1984 Mid South or 1984 Crockett if they were primarily worried about going up against Breaking Bad and selling a digital network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 The days of using your TV solely to sell the PPV & house shows is over. They have to make Raw must watch on it's own which you can't do with 3 hours of squashes. They could do one per show but I think more than that would probably be stretching it. They make more money off TV revenue than house shows. The real problem is they just run the same matchups on TV as they do house shows & PPV so you get really sick of it fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 The TV was stronger when they had 1-2 Six Man Tag groups running around to run matches against. That seemed like the magic bullet a couple of years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Star vs star matches can't mean anything if no one is a star. Even back in Monday Night War days there was a great sense of hierarchy on both shows. Hogan was still Hogan, the undercard was the undercard. Hogan didn't trade wins with Chris Jericho. You might criticise him for that, but it still maintained the aura of Hogan being a whole cut above a Jericho. Cena trades wins with Kevin Owens, let alone a Jericho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 This is a small problem that comes with having so many big shows and having so many big matches on TV. They to protect guys whether it be cheap wins or by not having them match up as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 If you think there isn't a hierarchy of Cena over everyone else, I am not sure what to tell you. Yes he wrestles a lot of dudes underneath him but he lost once to Rusev after a distraction & a lowblow and one loss to Owens after which he established himself as better in the next 2 matches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 So many matches are completely unmemorable because of the parity booking. Nothing means anything because guys are pinned so much. Forget about Cena for a minute. Shamus vs Orton. Who won the match? Who cares? Who ate the pin? Who cares. Clean finishes for the sake of clean finishes hurts the value of everyone on the entire roster. Not having jobbers hurts the value of everyone on the roster. And the jtts. They have NXT now. Nxt guys could make good jtts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 How can you use NXT guys at JTTS? You're supposed to be grooming them as your next main eventers, you can't do that by starting them out losing to everyone. You can't just say "well they used to do that" because they also used to go away for 2-3 years in between their JTTS period and getting brought in for a real push. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 Right now it means nothing for Randy Orton to win a match or to see him get pinned. Have Randy Orton win fifty matches in a row and lose only at the next Mania and it might mean something. He can't go over Sheamus every week. There needs to be lower rung guys to put him over. There needs to be more Baron Sciclunas and Victor Riveras. Who is the modern equivalent of a Bobby Eaton in late 90s WCW? Need a much stronger sense of hierarchy in general. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 RAW is 3-hours long, which is obviously WAY too long in 2015. That being said, all of RAW doesn't have to be wrestling matches. I mean, I'm not a subscriber to the "wrestling doesn't matter" Vince Russo philosophy or anything but the characters need more character, the stories need more story & the winners/losers need more consequences/repercussions. WWE doesn't feel like anything actually builds to a match anymore. It's more like Wrestler A beats Wrestler B. Then Wrestler B beats Wrestler A. So here's match #3 because it's one win apiece. Kevin Owens knew he was good enough to be on the main roster. Then he beat John Cena to prove it. Cena gave him props, said you're good, Owens didn't need his seal of approval...then Cena beats him twice and now Owens is just there and Cena is challenging Seth? There wasn't any direction. Although beating John Cena in his main roster debut was obviously huge, after a couple months, did it do more for his perception to the WWE audience than his debut squash over CJ Parker in NXT did to that audience? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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