NXT TakeOver Brooklyn

[Fando]

I thought we were talking about why it might not be realistic to expect Sasha Banks or the rest of the NXT crew to be busting out Takeover level performances on Raw. I never said anything about it being "unusual" to practice/rehearse a match.

 

There's a couple things. Bill brought up a point about people maybe holding that against them. Like them rehearsing is somehow less honorable or something. I dunno. I know that's not what you were saying either. But by now I think Sasha/Becky and maybe Charlotte could have a good TV match one on one with less prep time. There have only been a couple men's matches on the level of a Takeover level performance the whole year on RAW that i've seen so...But based on their chemistry and how many times they've already worked together, I think that at least those 3 could go. Not so sure about the others yet.

[Jingus]

Since when is it unusual that PPV matches are rehearsed beforehand?

Sure, people will get in the ring before the show and walk-and-talk through their matches. That's common. What's NOT common is having an entire training center with several different rings, in which you could literally do your entire match at 100% intensity (and do it several times over) if you felt like it. That's not an option on Raw, when you've got a dozen different people in the ring at the same time, all trying to work around each other while planning their different matches in the limited time that they have to do that.

 

And, what Slasher said about modern house show matches typically being completely different from TV matches. The time given to the wrestlers is different too; Divas get handed an ocean of time on a house show, compared to the trickle of minutes and/or seconds they get to shine on television.

[MJH]

There's a world of difference between a match looking as though it was planned in advance, and a match that any knowledgeable, common-sensical fan can tell must have been. You simply cannot ad-lib one of the great AJ matches in the same way that I refuse to believe Faulkner's first draft story about As I Lay Dying or that "the music just flowers from Mozart" and he didn't correct (/barely corrected) his manuscripts. Every time Steamboat tells the Mania vs. Clash story I want to crack him in the face with Hamlet carved in granite and scream "redrafted, motherfucker".

 

Matt's point is worth repeating.

 

(All the planning in the world isn't gonna turn Brie Bella into Bayley).

[Jingus]

Steamboat's story about the '89 matches is true. The point that gets downplayed is that it stemmed from he and Flair having wrestled countless times before that, and already having so many shared spots that they could basically do an hour broadway in their sleep.

[Parties]

Came in here to discuss something totally different: Emma winning the 4-way. From where I was sitting you couldn't tell that it was a botch, and in fact looked like smart booking. Charlotte and Lynch don't need the win as they won't be there, and Brooke doesn't yet seem at that level. Even if it was an accident, I would definitely go with Emma as Bayley's first challenger. She's pretty much the fallen hero version of Bayley: a wacky childlike savant-turned-smug, shoplifting runaway.

[Slasher]

Wait, are they really playing up the shoplifting thing for Emma?

[El-P]

This should be separated into his own thread of "pre-planned vs called on the spot" btw.

 

Steamboat's story about the '89 matches is true. The point that gets downplayed is that it stemmed from he and Flair having wrestled countless times before that, and already having so many shared spots that they could basically do an hour broadway in their sleep.

 

Agreed. This is totally overlooked. Familiarity plays a big part in creating greatness. When you have worked a billion times together in more than ten years, of course you don't need to talk about what you're gonna do. First occurence is rarely the best one.

 

(that's also why one night stands kinda suck, BTW)

[stomperspc]

 

Couldn't they just use house show matches to the same effect. While they can't redo their screwups they get the benefit of seeing how a live crowd would react.

 

This is why it's a silly argument. The wrestlers on the main roster have chances to work on their televised matches as well. They have the house show circuit, they have time before events, time in the back, etc. Wrestling has always been that way, and suddenly holding it against the people in NXT that they practice their matches beforehand strikes me as disingenuous and willfully ignoring wrestling history that is full of great matches that were practiced beforehand.

 

 

Nikki Bella wrestled Paige at Money in the Bank. During the two weeks in between Elimination Chamber (where she wrestled Paige and Naomi in a triple threat match) and Money in the Bank, she wrestled seven times. One was a 5-minute RAW match with Paige the day after Elimination Chamber and another was a 2 minute RAW match with Summer Rae. The five house shows she worked were three rematches of the triple threat EC match and two tags against Naomi and Tamina. The tags were the weekend of the PPV. So Nikki Bella and Paige wrestled an 11 minute match on PPV after having been in the ring alone once in the prior two weeks and never having a one-on-one match on house shows in the lead up. If you go back further, you find the same thing. Before the 3-way EC match, Nikki worked Tamina and Naomi in singles matches on house shows (not Paige). I don't think it is fair to assume that PPV opponents are working one another every night leading into the PPV match.

 

I didn't find anything misleading about Dave's statement. Bayley and Sasha Banks got to practice their match for two weeks in a controlled environment. The main roster women do not get that advantage and as noted above, they sometimes don't even get the chance to work out their PPV matches on house shows. Maybe all of the NXT women will adapt just fine but until they do, you cannot really compare the two. I think that was the only point Meltzer was making and it seems reasonable to me. I don't care if people practice or don't (as long as, like Loss said, their matches don't look rehearsed) but it is fair to point out that their matches might not be as good as without that advantage.

[Slasher]

A big part of the practice thing is that it also instills confidence in the workers to be more convincing in what they do. Throw them out on live TV though? Plenty of good wrestlers have wilted under that spotlight. Having a road agent go over it with you for 15 minutes before showtime is nothing really to help the nerves. I think Sasha is someone who could handle it. None of the other girls are.

[Grimmas]

A big part of the practice thing is that it also instills confidence in the workers to be more convincing in what they do. Throw them out on live TV though? Plenty of good wrestlers have wilted under that spotlight. Having a road agent go over it with you for 15 minutes before showtime is nothing really to help the nerves. I think Sasha is someone who could handle it. None of the other girls are.

Really?

 

What are you basing that on? The fact they have been booked in horrible shit over the last month? Is that really a fair statement. It may be true, but to assert that now is ridiculous. Give them a fair chance with booking and then we could tell.

[ZThomas]

Athena got signed, It seems like they are already trying to make up for losing 3 of the 4 horsewomen.

I really dont they are done with NXT yet anyway because they are still doing houseshows and tapings

[Slasher]

 

A big part of the practice thing is that it also instills confidence in the workers to be more convincing in what they do. Throw them out on live TV though? Plenty of good wrestlers have wilted under that spotlight. Having a road agent go over it with you for 15 minutes before showtime is nothing really to help the nerves. I think Sasha is someone who could handle it. None of the other girls are.

 

Really?

What are you basing that on? The fact they have been booked in horrible shit over the last month? Is that really a fair statement. It may be true, but to assert that now is ridiculous. Give them a fair chance with booking and then we could tell.

What does booking have to do with in ring quality and/or their ability to wrestle on the fly. They have not done it yet as far as I know. Is it really that unreasonable to think they are not ready for that kind of responsibility?

[El-P]

But what are they supposed to do ? Improvise ?

[Ready_Willing_Gable]

Raw matches bomb all the time due to WWE's general philosophy of wanting the next segment on as quick as possible, it's just more under the microscope now as they attempted to push their women which is another story. Well actually it isn't, because the 'divas revolution' (wonderfully contradictory phrase there too guys) seems to be centered around them having more regular Raw-style matches + excessive tags, just a higher quantity of them. Squeezing everything they can out of a little angle, rather than y'know organically setting up a match with a storyline that wouldn't confuse or annoy us, then giving that match its due time. Until then expect no change with any of the women.

It's not even that other Raw matches bomb, how many classics has Neville had since he got promoted?. It's all time and focus, which they lack the drive to do when it comes to it. I feel like they many missed opportunities for better matches at Summerslam as well, lots of stuff that could've flourished/been more over had it been given more focus, it just got so shown up by Takeover in every way.

[Jingus]

What does booking have to do with in ring quality and/or their ability to wrestle on the fly. They have not done it yet as far as I know. Is it really that unreasonable to think they are not ready for that kind of responsibility?

According to most ex-WWE wrestlers, you have to improvise about half the time on Raw because your time is constantly getting cut. "You've got eight minutes including entrances. No, wait, five minutes. No, wait, your entrance is during the commercial break and now your match can't go more than ninety seconds." Apparently that happens all the damn time. I would imagine that's one major reason why the Divas matches tend to feel so rushed and disjointed when they're short, because they had been planning something much longer and then suddenly had to edit it down to practically nothing.

 

And if they're not ready to call it in the ring: that's on the company, not the wrestlers. They should be training their rookies how to call it on the fly, every competent wrestling school does that. I'm sure Sara Del Ray knows how to do that shit, let alone a thousand-year international veteran like Finlay. If they're not passing it on to the trainees, it's because the office is actively telling them not to do that, for whatever dumbfuck reason. And if the problem is simply that the girls are too green and don't have enough experience to improvise a match on their own (which is why most first-year rookies are either matched against veterans who can carry them, or fellow trainees whom they've practiced with for months and have a collection of shared spots) then the company shouldn't be putting them on TV yet.

[Slasher]

But what are they supposed to do ? Improvise ?

Prove themselves capable of working in whatever circumstances the company provides. 20 minute PPV? No problem. 12 minute Smackdown main event? Nailed it. 6 minute Raw sprint? Popcorn fun. If they can do all of that, I can believe that they can work on the fly if called for it because they would have shown the ability to get what it takes to make a match good regardless of platform. Right now they only proved they can have great matches with a few weeks of prep, that is cool but not exactly a good indicator of their overall wrestling ability. I need to see more.

[Slasher]

 

What does booking have to do with in ring quality and/or their ability to wrestle on the fly. They have not done it yet as far as I know. Is it really that unreasonable to think they are not ready for that kind of responsibility?

According to most ex-WWE wrestlers, you have to improvise about half the time on Raw because your time is constantly getting cut. "You've got eight minutes including entrances. No, wait, five minutes. No, wait, your entrance is during the commercial break and now your match can't go more than ninety seconds." Apparently that happens all the damn time. I would imagine that's one major reason why the Divas matches tend to feel so rushed and disjointed when they're short, because they had been planning something much longer and then suddenly had to edit it down to practically nothing.And if they're not ready to call it in the ring: that's on the company, not the wrestlers. They should be training their rookies how to call it on the fly, every competent wrestling school does that. I'm sure Sara Del Ray knows how to do that shit, let alone a thousand-year international veteran like Finlay. If they're not passing it on to the trainees, it's because the office is actively telling them not to do that, for whatever dumbfuck reason. And if the problem is simply that the girls are too green and don't have enough experience to improvise a match on their own (which is why most first-year rookies are either matched against veterans who can carry them, or fellow trainees whom they've practiced with for months and have a collection of shared spots) then the company shouldn't be putting them on TV yet.

I don't disagree with a single word of this. It is my perception as well. I wasn't laying the blame at the girls' feet. I was just saying I don't think they can improvise yet. There is no evidence of it. But it doesn't mean they can't do it in the future when they log enough live wrestling hours on the main roster and build on each match they have.

[Loss]

I know this is a bit basic, but it's really hard to be good at pro wrestling. Think about all that is required of a wrestler physically, then add in doing the right things at the right time that make sense for the audience while also keeping your cool so you don't hurt yourself or your dance partner. Even the worst wrestlers are part of a special breed.

[El-P]

My Tony Schiavone quote went over everybodys head.

[goc]

My Tony Schiavone quote went over everybodys head.

It needed something like this to go with it

 

[Loss]

I split all of the entrance music talk off into its own thread.