WWE Talk September 28 to October 4

[Slasher]

I don't think Triple H looked at the Rumble crowd and decided "I gotta get in on that action with Bryan". Everything they did for months prior was built up to Bryan/HHH, even though that was apparently not their original intent. They absolutely had to have Bryan vs Triple H to blow off the whole half year storyline. It was one of the rare cases where Triple H was actually the right and logical opponent for the hot property. This isn't like that time where they had the Rock return to ask Eugene who his favorite wrestler was and getting Triple H as an answer. Now that was Triple H shoehorning himself into the hot act's storyline.

 

As for the NFL thing, again, really, what CAN they do at this point? There is no answer that is so obvious that they could just pull a trigger on something with a big windfall. If there was, they would have done it already by now. Yes sure, changing the presentation and the aesthestics of everything they do would make it fresher but that doesn't necessarily translate to better numbers. The fans weren't turned off because they use the same color of ring ropes from 1998. They are turned off because the product itself creatively speaking is way beyond stale and sucks. But that isn't something they can turn around in short order. It would require something mindblowingly drastic like opening the show with Vince McMahon showing his toy chest and then tossing it in the dumpster and declaring a new era of new faces, new announcers, new agents and new sets. And you know that isn't ever happening or is not even anywhere close to realistic.

[Grimmas]

If they had a great product all year then the drops in September wouldn't be bad like they are now.

[rvd356]

The Benoit deal was unfortunate timing. They lost Lesnar, the greatest talent they ever had and #1 guy of the next 20 years. Should have had Eddie drop the WWE title to Triple H on a Raw and Benoit take the Big Gold Belt back to Smackdown in the draft

 

Punk was treated so good as far as his booking(his injuries and doctor issues I'll never know the truth). Best title run of the century so far or atleast top 3. What else did he want ?

 

And They did put the Shield over. They straight up beat them in 2 awesome matches and damn if so and so is nt going over or didn't get the right push or whatever insider junk, does it ruin awesome stuff for you? And am I the only one that loved Blue-Tista? Same with the H/Bryan match, shit, other than v. Punk(Over the Limit) and v. Cena(SS) it was Bryan's best WWE match. All 3 were *****

 

I heard Jericho's podcast with Batista awhile back and he was right about the smart fans kinda ruining a lot of the shows. Chanting for Bryan during every segment of the show was annoying after awhile. And everyone screamed about how politics are "sabotaging Bryan!" Because Batista didn't face Bryan at the show after Mania.and what a power move that was. He did get it, he literally just tapped out to Bryan in the world title main event of WrestleMania, after him beating Triple H straight up, all with an injured shoulder. No one has ever had a more impressive(kayfabe or in reality),big show performance than that.

 

I really think Trips has tried his best to get over with the internet smarts(half of the audience now) and just can't catch a break. First Punk, then Danielson, Kings of Wrestling(Cesaros been godly, Hero was always a weak link, especially compared to this group), Pac, Steen, KENTA, Generico and now finally Joe. Now if you told me in 10 years ago, in October 2005 that this crew would have had this success and future potential I wouldn't have believed it(Punk in UFC after being WWE champ for 18 months, KENTA on Mania, and Danielson ME of WM with Batista and Orton?)

[Alucard]

Bryan did get stuck with Kane, but they didn't get put in the undercard. It did headline over Shield/Evolution and were set to with the rematch too before Bryan's injury.

 

I agree that Shield looked their best off the Evolution feud, that final win felt like a real "taking down the machine" moment and they looked like total stars doing a clean sweep in that war of a match. Didn't care for breaking up the next night but at that moment finishing off Triple H last, they were on fire.

[Slasher]

If they were going to do Bryan/Batista, it should have happened the pay per view after Extreme Rules. Orton as the former champ should have logically gotten his rematch first, especially since it wasn't him that Bryan beat to win the belt. No matter how you slice it, Kane was an awful choice to kick off the Bryan championship defense tour. They had history to be sure but Kane was just previously feuding with the Shield when Bryan won the belt. The earliest they should have pencilled Kane in as a challenger was MITB or thereabouts. Of course we all know what was coming Summerslam regardless of who the champ was gonna be at the time.

[sek69]

I don't think Triple H looked at the Rumble crowd and decided "I gotta get in on that action with Bryan". Everything they did for months prior was built up to Bryan/HHH, even though that was apparently not their original intent. They absolutely had to have Bryan vs Triple H to blow off the whole half year storyline. It was one of the rare cases where Triple H was actually the right and logical opponent for the hot property. This isn't like that time where they had the Rock return to ask Eugene who his favorite wrestler was and getting Triple H as an answer. Now that was Triple H shoehorning himself into the hot act's storyline.

 

As for the NFL thing, again, really, what CAN they do at this point? There is no answer that is so obvious that they could just pull a trigger on something with a big windfall. If there was, they would have done it already by now. Yes sure, changing the presentation and the aesthestics of everything they do would make it fresher but that doesn't necessarily translate to better numbers. The fans weren't turned off because they use the same color of ring ropes from 1998. They are turned off because the product itself creatively speaking is way beyond stale and sucks. But that isn't something they can turn around in short order. It would require something mindblowingly drastic like opening the show with Vince McMahon showing his toy chest and then tossing it in the dumpster and declaring a new era of new faces, new announcers, new agents and new sets. And you know that isn't ever happening or is not even anywhere close to realistic.

 

 

Isn't that pretty much what happened when the Attitude Era started when Vince said he wasn't going to insult everyone's intelligence with heels and babyfaces? They ushered in new sets, new announcers, and so on. I agree it's not something we're likely to see but it's not anything that hasn't happened before.

[Slasher]

Sure but I also meant basically getting rid of 95% of their roster who are all overexposed and really stale to the point there is really nothing left the fans haven't seen already with all of them. Then putting an all new cast of characters front and center of it all. I mean that kind of drastic. That kind of ridiculousness that would never happen.

 

I mean what good is a makeover if all of it is boiled down to the same feuds and same programs we have already? Sheamus vs Dolph in the snow of Siberia probably would be out of the world weird in terms of viscerality but it is still two tired midcarders fighting for the same tired reasons.

[Coffey]

How do you keep a character/wrestler fresh in this day & age of WWE? I don't even know what the solution to that problem is. They can't start putting guys (or gals) on part-time schedules. There's not some place you can send them...I mean we're not going to see Randy Orton go to NXT, right?

 

Heel/Face alignments don't seem to change anything. Time away/off doesn't either. Look at Sheamus, Orton, Big Show... it doesn't matter if they're heel/face, get time off/injured, change from heel to face or vice-versa. They're so horribly overexposed I'm not sure there is a solution.

 

WWE does have a ton of air to fill. They do burn through matches too quickly & then run them too often. I'm not sure what the solution is to keep guys interesting though.

[Grimmas]

WWE coud:

 

Put people in tag teams to give them a role.

Do way more six mans and less star vs star one on one matches on TV.

Give time off. Why not let every wrestler take 3 months off a year?

Not everybody has to been on TV and PPV every time.

 

All those things would help to keep wrestlers fresh.

[Strummer]

Apparently Cena's hiatus is not injury related. He asked for the time off over the summer

[rvd356]

While I agree the Shield as a unit was one of best things in WWE to happen since forever, I gotta disagree that they have not reached higher heights since they broke up. Overall not *better* but certainly higher in 2015 than 2014.

 

-Reigns/Lesnar world title bout main evented Mania, and had the MOTY so far and his best singles match ever. And Rollins stole the title to close Mania on top.

-Reigns/Big Show LMS was awesome(I like Big Show though so maybe it's just me)

-Reigns main evented Fast lane v. Bryan

-Rollins has been Undisputed World Champion for 6 months, had 2 MOTYC world title matches:Rumble Triple Threat, v. Cena SS, 2 really good title matches with Dirty Dean and a super surprising nostalgia old v. new match with Sting

-Dean Ambrose had the 2 good title matches with Rollins. Just having 2 Tyler Black/Jon Moxley WWE World titl matches to main event PPVs is awesome.

-All 3 had that super fun Four Way Dance w/ Orton, another PPV main event

 

Basically The Shield was so awesome that probably just the Lesnar/Reigns WM main event and maybe the Rollins/Cena SS were better or equal quality wise. The Shield had at least 5 matches that were ****3/4 or ***** and that's hard to top

 

That reset is a terrible idea, a Vince Russo idea. Just destroy all characters, titles and continuity that's been going on for decades? What do we have then, WSX? Kil Purge 95% of the roster? Who's left, just Daniel Bryan? Russo basically did that in WCW when he took all the titles and trashed the shaky lineage. Would Sid just not drop the World Title?

[Slasher]

WWE coud:

 

Put people in tag teams to give them a role.

Do way more six mans and less star vs star one on one matches on TV.

Give time off. Why not let every wrestler take 3 months off a year?

Not everybody has to been on TV and PPV every time.

 

All those things would help to keep wrestlers fresh.

I am a fan of the idea of part time schedules and maybe rotations of wrestlers available at any given season but there is just too much tv they have to fill. They would probably end up burning out guys even more quickly if they are featured more heavily in their time showcased to offset the loss of the other popular wrestlers who are off. I am not sure a 3 month hiatus is enough. Batista and Lesnar only really felt fresh returning because they were gone for YEARS. I don't think it is possible to take guys off that long even though definitely guys like Orton would probably be one to benefit greatly from that kind of absence.

[DMJ]

Jobber matches would also help and I don't think it would damage ratings the way they fear or feared during the 90s.

 

Kevin Owens roughing up the hell out of some no-name, followed by a passionate promo about Ryback, is more enticing to me than seeing Owens wrestle a competitive match with a midcarder like Neville because, at the end of the day, the finish is predictable in both. Similarly, I'd rather see Neville beat a jobber than lose to an established guy. That way, down the line, when we were to see an Owens/Neville match, it would be a battle between two guys who, up to that point, seem almost "unbeatable."

 

Ryback's initial run was based entirely on him squashing jobbers.

 

Sid, Warrior, etc. all got over with that formula.

 

Hell, this week on NXT, I saw Apollo Crews take out Johnny Gargano (who I don't believe is even signed by the company?). Gargano got a touch of offense in, but it was a Crews showcase...and it generally worked and at no point did I say to myself, "I better change the channel because this is too predictable! Where are the stars?!?"

 

 

 

Also, on the idea of time off/returns, someone said that even giving people time off doesn't freshen them. I disagree. The problem with Orton, Sheamus, and, most recently, Barrett's returns is that, when they do return, they are almost always thrust back into the exact same stale positions/feuds/gimmicks that they always had OR they come back in a big way but, by the next week, are wrestling in a midcard throwaway match. Look no further than Orton - he comes and goes, but never comes or goes in a remotely interesting way. They brought him back recently to serve as a 6-man in a Wyatt feud because why? That's the most interesting character development you can come up with for this guy? When's the last time Orton was in a relevant storyline over actual stakes? WM30?

 

Just playing fantasy booker, there was a time when Orton/Lesnar seemed like it could've been a big deal. I think a face/face mentor/protege thing with Ambrose could've worked a year or two ago. I even think Orton vs. the Wyatt Family - with the Viper having no one to back him because of years of him being the untrustworthy Viper - could've been decent midcard fodder if you re-established Orton as a loner who RKOd everyone, friend or foe, and the Wyatts had stuck together in their original form. But one bad booking decision leads to more bad booking decisions and now everyone mentioned in the last paragraph, except Lesnar but including Randy, is stalled.

[sek69]

I think sometimes it's undersold how much even Steven booking is killing everyone not John Cena. Winning a match on PPV no longer has any value when the loser gets their win back the next night on Raw 90% of the time.

[Parties]

Probably worth noting again that Vince is 70 years old. Writing a show which they claim is marketed to children, when it should be marketed to the 18-49 set, and is in fact most watched by folks 35-54. All of which in Hollywood/entertainment terms makes Vince seem downright ancient. Look at the most powerful showrunners of episodic programming. Even the oldest vets in the game – Carlton Cuse (55) of The Strain, Christopher Lloyd of Modern Family (55), Neil Baer of Under the Dome (58) – are way younger and considerably more in touch with the zeitgeist. (Exception to the rule is someone like Dick Wolf (68) of Law and Order, and he's now pretty hands off nowadays given that the franchise has been on the air since 1990.) The hottest shows on TV are being produced by people Steph/HHH's age, or younger. Part of why NXT feels fresh is likely that Ryan Ward is in his late thirties and watches a lot of indies.

 

I was stunned to see the opening of this week's show was house show action from a Hype Bros/Gable-Jordan match that looked more shoestring than an Evolve show. I can't imagine what the reaction from someone like Vince or Dunn would be/was to showing footage like that.

 

Even someone like David Stern of the NBA retired at 72. Bud Selig was 80, but serving as commissioner of the MLB is really different than being the guy micromanaging out 5-10 hours of scripted episodic TV every week.

 

There's this notion that Vince will refuse to relinquish any control of these shows for as long as he's around, and that his employees expect him to die mid-bite of the roast beef sandwich he's choking down while over-producing some Sheamus video montage or screaming at Byron Saxton to stop using split infinitives or whatever. But if the slide continues, I don't think it's unthinkable for Vince to realize he's hurting more than he's helping. Especially given that from what I see week to week, it really doesn't seem like he likes the current roster at all. Even with Reigns, I don't get the sense that Vince views any of this crop as giving him the same rumbling down below that he got from Hogan, Warrior, Austin, Rock, or even Foley. He's a workaholic, but there are plenty of aspects of the business that he could still run while relinquishing day-to-day creative. He already did it once in his decision that he was too old to keep appearing on television. He may likewise one day soon realize that he's too old to be producing it.

 

Lastly - the idea that they have too many hours to kill for the shows to be good is ridiculous and always has been. Vince's insistence on lining up all his toy soldiers when he's so apathetic about 90% of them hurts. But there are several better ways that they can fill three hours of RAW, none of which are a reset button. We talk about them here every week. The situation is not hopeless. It's a failure of imagination and longterm vision.

[Parties]

And just to talk about some actual stuff from this week:

 

RAW: Really liked Wyatt-Reigns. Smash mouth brawl that got over by the end. Did not see the rest of the show and don't care to based on the reactions.

 

NXT: Decent if unexciting. Joe isn't much fun to watch these days. Highlights were the continued hotness of heel Emma, the increasing size of Breeze's hair and bell bottoms, and the highlight reel from Banks/Bayley.

 

Smackdown: BAD vs. Team Bella was shockingly good. Not great, but really worth watching. Nikki throws some mudhole-stomping kicks, and both teams were worked way stiffer than most Divas matches. Naomi is a tale of two cities right now: one minute she botches a standing switch, the next she hits some lightning fast tilt-a-whirl counter that looks like 1995 Rey Mysterio. Tamina and Brie were barely in this and did fine when they were. Alicia Fox remains incredibly good (she hits a Yakuza kick here that's better than that of anyone in New Japan), and Nikki was trying to take Sasha's head off with repeated flurries of Misawa elbows. I can't believe how good the Banks-Nikki stuff was. That pairing is worlds more exciting than anything PCB is doing, and Charlotte might be the worst worker in this division right now.

 

Then Owens and Ryback had a pretty lousy IC title match - with a terrible finish - and no one cared. If anyone wants to see why no one is over in this company, here you go. Both guys are better than this, but there's no excuse for how uninspired this was.

 

Neville/Dragons vs. Wasteland was actually a very fun, fast-paced trios tag. Everyone worked hard and even the Ascension got some good stuff in.

 

Main event was lame. Dudleys continue to suck, Kane's gimmickry was goofy bad, and Rollins continues to be booked as moron wimp poseur. Even New Day came out of this worse off.

[sek69]

Of all the things mentioned in the thread, Vince coming to the conclusion he's hurting things more than helping seems to be the least likely to happen though. I think admitting he's too old to be a regular on screen character is the closest we'll get to him having any self realization.

[fakeplastictrees]

In all honesty, WWE shouldn't be running shows past SummerSlam. SummerSlam should be the yearly blow off until Jan of the following year where WWE returns to television to start building toward The Rumble. 8 months on and 4 months off. WWE can then have Network specials for Oct. (Halloween Havoc), Survivor Series(Traditional), and a NYE type of show. This would be 3 non-canon shows where WWE can try out new things to see what works and doesn't work for the following year. New commentary team for each show, bring in Quentin Taratino to conceptualize and direct Survivor Series, let Chael Sonnen call tthe NYE card featuring the main event consisting of the part-timers who should not be part of WWE canon at this point. So maybe something like Chris Jericho/Rollins/New Day vs. RVD/Neville/Usos.

 

Taking this break will also give the writing team a time to re-charge for a month or two before coming back in Nov/Dec. to start hashing out ideas for the following year.

[goodhelmet]

I think they are proud of their "We don't take days off" mantra. It's stupid but they love it.

[fakeplastictrees]

I think they are proud of their "We don't take days off" mantra. It's stupid but they love it.

 

Its pretty sad that WWE still runs with that carny mentality with all the information have about CTE and concussions. Factor in the lawsuits WWE is facing regarding these things (and its attempt to hide it) and its pretty mind blowing that this 52 years a week menatality is still a thing in 2015.

[Ready_Willing_Gable]

This isn't too related to anything but does anybody else really dislike the recent-ish saying "if you're in WWE/NXT and you don't aim to be WWE Champion then get out of the company" Seriously? Oh, so D-Von Dudley reckons he's gonna be WWE champion yeah? Christ.

Variety keeps the fucking show going so that a Rusev/Cesaro/Ryback doesn't have to eat a pin to each other at the shittiest of shit times.

[Johnny Sorrow]

That trope has been around forever, number one. And number two , I think it's a sentiment not meant to be taken literally. It's more about saying that you need to have that kind of ambition.

[Ready_Willing_Gable]

Fair enough, I just heard Titus O'Neill come out with it recently. Struck me as peculiar with his age and being a hot-tag guy.

I'd quite like to be WWE champion too, but different people have different ceilings and being realistic doesn't hurt either.

[Slasher]

One of the things that held Daniel Bryan back for so long was that he was just happy to be in the company wrestling in front of the fans. He was pretty much the embodiment of the attitude that Vince hates about the "millennials". Like Johnny says, this isn't meant to be literal. It is just their way of saying you have to go after something big. To aspire to be the best worker you can possibly be, someone that can actually stand out with the fans as opposed to being a ham n egger who comes to the shows with their heads down and just committing enough effort to get through a match before going on to the next town.

[El-P]

This is so much bullshit. Get over by yourself and they will break you because you're "not supposed to".