soup23 Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Heard sensible theories from both sides of this argument and now feels like the pivotal point in choosing a side and seeing where the trajectory of Reigns plays out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I said "No". My belief is that his awful push is the result of Vince being caught in two minds and losing confidence in him because of crowds, but then effectively being forced to go back to him after injuries to Bryan and Cena and Rollins all forced his hand. I see a lack of conviction and faith in Roman, and indecisive reactive booking, not a political hit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 You don't "sabotage" someone by booking them in the main event of your biggest show, no matter how poorly the specifics of said booking are handled. When the WWE buries someone, they take them off TV or drop them way down the card or give them an embarrassing new gimmick, or any of countless other things which aren't "stick them in the main at Mania for the second year in a row". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jushin muta liger Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I thought Dylan was out of mind when he said it last year on one of the Reaction shows after Payback (might have been that show but in that time frame). But now it's getting ridiculous. I turned off Raw after the Golden Truth segment but I woke up and saw the closing segment (not the YouTube version). You have Reigns holding his arm (which he sold well) playing scared to Triple H (without a sledgehammer btw) but at least he brawled with him. But to bang his head on the table to the rhythm of the fans chanting "Yes" was alarming to me. Even Vince Russo of all people on Wrestling Inc thought something might be there. To me, the most sensible angle to shoot during that segment is what they did with Roman vs Bryan : brawl like hell until everybody breaks it up. Reigns getting over is lost cause now so you might as well make him look strong but nope. To be fair, most of the roster is booked horrible but the bungling of Reigns since Mania of last year has been so glaring bad. Dylan and Kris stated on the Reaction show and Parv laid it out in his article at PTBN. But last night proved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FMKK Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I said "No". My belief is that his awful push is the result of Vince being caught in two minds and losing confidence in him because of crowds, but then effectively being forced to go back to him after injuries to Bryan and Cena and Rollins all forced his hand. I see a lack of conviction and faith in Roman, and indecisive reactive booking, not a political hit. They seemed to finally be getting on track when he beat up HHH at TLC and then won the title on Raw the next night but they stripped away all the fire and defiance he showed during those moments even though they were actually starting to get him over. Even if Vince was suffering from a crisis of confidence in the guy, you'd think he would realise what was working and sustain that for a few months just to have a good Wrestlemania. And it's pretty hard to deny that there's been a lot of egotism in how Hunter has been presented in all of this, and not the good kind that he showed in the build-up to the Bryan match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 This sums it up perfectly: You don't "sabotage" someone by booking them in the main event of your biggest show, no matter how poorly the specifics of said booking are handled. When the WWE buries someone, they take them off TV or drop them way down the card or give them an embarrassing new gimmick, or any of countless other things which aren't "stick them in the main at Mania for the second year in a row". There's no political hit. Reigns has been given chance after chance. He has now main evented two WrestleManias in a row! If that's a "political hit," I bet half the roster would love to be "hit" the exact same way. Trips is a great heel when he wants to be, but as we've seen time and time again, he isn't always self-aware and doesn't know how to get out of his own way sometimes. We saw the same with the misguided Trips-CM Punk feud. The booking is bad and has been for years, and the over-reliance on scripting has hurt Roman's natural personality and charisma. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 #whywrestlinggetstheadvertisersitgets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 All I know is they were seemingly able to reverse a lot of the negative fan reaction by booking him strong at the end of 2015 and then flushed it all down the toilet at the Royal Rumble. Reigns is DEAD as a babyface. Totally, completely dead. If this isn't a plan to make Reigns the biggest heel and HHH a babyface then I don't know what the fuck they are thinking. If Reigns is a pawn in some kind of backstage power struggle that is sad. I'm not "in the know" so all I can go on is what I see on TV. What I see is a bunch of inconsistent, scattered booking that suggests a bunch of last second changes and no clear vision and as a result we have a huge muddled mess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 The presentation of HHH and the booking of Reigns are two different things, and Dylan is right about HHH being presented consistently strongly. However, I think something like this has gone on at Titans towers: 1. Some bod in marketing has got in Vince's ear and convinced him that he has two different audiences to cater to, the hardcore crowd and the mothers and children. 2. Either Vince himself or some dude in creative, decided to TRY TO BOOK TO MULTIPLE AUDIENCES. 3. And the idea is that for one set of fans Cena and Roman are heroes, and to another set represented by John Stewart, the heroes are HHH, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles and other such "real" wrestlers. HHH is seen as having the same legitimacy as Bryan or Styles among a certain set of fans, or so they tell themselves. And so ... 4. You get all these scenarios that make batshit zero sense to traditional booking logic, because they think they are being clever. It's something like this, On top of cold feet and indecision at different times I see this as a rational explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 There is a lot of misunderstanding about what my theory actually is. A lot of the arguments against it are based on those misunderstandings. This is my fault for not discussing it or covering it consistently in one place. This week I'll try to write up something in a longer form that explains what I mean by the term, my theories on motivations for it, et. Until I get to that please note that my theory has never been that the WWE as a whole has put a political hit on Roman Reigns, but rather that his "mishandling" is at least in part deliberate sabotage of a sort, and that his booking is representative of the internal war in the company right now over its future direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiva Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I do like how "Political Hit" has gotten over more than just about any other WWE buzzword/catchphrase has in years. Dylan is a born worker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Dean Ambrose responds to being beat up by stealing an ambulance and driving it onto the RAW set. Roman responds to his friend getting beat up by checking his texts. Someone surely has to realize which of these things will get over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted February 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Agreed, Political Hit has become as much a part of my wrestling lexicon as Montreal now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I want to believe it's true and much of it makes complete sense but I can't get "incompetence" out of the back of my wrestling fan brain. Incompetent and wrestling go together most of the time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I think the only reason why Triple H put over Bryan and the Shield so strongly was to prove Punk wrong when he did that podcast saying he couldn't really trust Triple H to put his ego aside if they went with Punk vs Triple H. He probably realized that people were going to listen to that podcast and that he couldn't get away with it at that point. Now? It's been two years since then. He just reverted back to the person Punk accused him of being. To me, it feels like they probably thought that they could artificially create the Rocky Maivia/The Rock transformation. Rocky got booed for being booked as lame a babyface as they could possibly. The Rock was organic and eventually made the superstar that he ended up being. They could look at that and think they could force the same thing with Reigns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Punk's pod with Cabana came out long after HHH put over Bryan and the Shield though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 For some reason I thought it was before. My mistake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stomperspc Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 The fact it is even up for debate shows just how illogically WWE (and Vince) have acted in the past, because otherwise it reads as straight up tinfoil hat stuff. There is no doubt that they are utilizing Reigns in a way where it is almost entirely certain that he will fail. I think everyone agrees with that. Is the promotion purposefully and systematically doing this to ensure that Reigns will fail? I tend to doubt it, largely because they have failed Reigns in a lot of ways they have failed other guys. They have failed him in a lot of the same ways that they have failed almost every wrestler in the promotion over the last x-number of years. Vince has outright said that Cena “feeds their families” yet (as Dylan has pointed out in the past) Cena is one of the least protected major baby faces WWE has ever had and generally has been booked poorly. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that even when WWE likes a wrestler and wants to push him hard, that more often than not they are not competent enough to do so. I think Triple H was doing Triple H things last night with the way that final segment was booked but I doubt it was part of a larger concrete plan that Vince and/or others are on to ensure that Reigns fails. It was Triple H being his usual insecure, manipulative self. I think this is a situation where WWE’s general incompetence is crossing paths with Triple H’s political maneuvering to create a perfect storm where Reigns is being used in an almost unbelievably poor fashion. I don’t think there is a larger conspiracy going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 The theory, by the way, isn't that *Vince* is deliberately sabotaging him. Nothing of the sort. It's that there is a power struggle between HHH and Kevin Dunn over the future of the company. HHH only wants his pet projects to get over, and Dunn is doing what he can to take them down a notch on the other side, because HHH and Stephanie have made clear that as soon as they get the chance, Dunn is out the door. The more Dunn can make HHH's ideas and judgment of talent seem questionable to Vince, the longer he can put off that happening. HHH was an advocate for Reigns and had no problem with him as the guy for a long time. Then Vince and Dunn got a little too on board with Reigns as the top guy and he was no longer just seen as HHH's project like The Shield was. HHH only wants guys who are HHH projects through and through getting over at the top level because he's planning on taking over the company one day and the transition may or may not be a peaceful one. The more guys who are around that owe him their success, the less resistance he is likely to face. So by getting rid of guys like Dunn, HHH is ultimately neutralizing Vince the same way chemotherapy often neutralizes a tumor by cutting off its blood supply. Vince may be CEO and Chairman of the Board for the next two decades, but when all of Vince's old cronies have been replaced with HHH cronies, Vince's title is just a vanity one because "his" guys are gone. One day, he'll look up and realize he doesn't run his company anymore, and it will have all happened so incrementally that he didn't even notice it until after the fact. It affects Reigns because HHH puts forth ideas that he absolutely knows will hurt Reigns under the guise of helping him. That's my interpretation of the theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Does Shane coming back from nowhere change any of this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 The theory, by the way, isn't that *Vince* is deliberately sabotaging him. Nothing of the sort. It's that there is a power struggle between HHH and Kevin Dunn over the future of the company. HHH only wants his pet projects to get over, and Dunn is doing what he can to take them down a notch on the other side, because HHH and Stephanie have made clear that as soon as they get the chance, Dunn is out the door. The more Dunn can make HHH's ideas and judgment of talent seem questionable to Vince, the longer he can put off that happening. HHH was an advocate for Reigns and had no problem with him as the guy for a long time. Then Vince and Dunn got a little too on board with Reigns as the top guy and he was no longer just seen as HHH's project like The Shield was. HHH only wants guys who are HHH projects through and through getting over at the top level because he's planning on taking over the company one day and the transition may or may not be a peaceful one. The more guys who are around that owe him their success, the less resistance he is likely to face. So by getting rid of guys like Dunn, HHH is ultimately neutralizing Vince the same way chemotherapy often neutralizes a tumor by cutting off its blood supply. Vince may be CEO and Chairman of the Board for the next two decades, but when all of Vince's old cronies have been replaced with HHH cronies, Vince's title is just a vanity one because "his" guys are gone. One day, he'll look up and realize he doesn't run his company anymore, and it will have all happened so incrementally that he didn't even notice it until after the fact. It affects Reigns because HHH puts forth ideas that he absolutely knows will hurt Reigns under the guise of helping him. That's my interpretation of the theory. Great summary! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Probably. All I know there is that Dave said there was a reason HHH wasn't in that opening segment, and that art and life in this storyline are much closer than you would think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 The theory, by the way, isn't that *Vince* is deliberately sabotaging him. Nothing of the sort. It's that there is a power struggle between HHH and Kevin Dunn over the future of the company. HHH only wants his pet projects to get over, and Dunn is doing what he can to take them down a notch on the other side, because HHH and Stephanie have made clear that as soon as they get the chance, Dunn is out the door. The more Dunn can make HHH's ideas and judgment of talent seem questionable to Vince, the longer he can put off that happening. HHH was an advocate for Reigns and had no problem with him as the guy for a long time. Then Vince and Dunn got a little too on board with Reigns as the top guy and he was no longer just seen as HHH's project like The Shield was. HHH only wants guys who are HHH projects through and through getting over at the top level because he's planning on taking over the company one day and the transition may or may not be a peaceful one. The more guys who are around that owe him their success, the less resistance he is likely to face. So by getting rid of guys like Dunn, HHH is ultimately neutralizing Vince the same way chemotherapy often neutralizes a tumor by cutting off its blood supply. Vince may be CEO and Chairman of the Board for the next two decades, but when all of Vince's old cronies have been replaced with HHH cronies, Vince's title is just a vanity one because "his" guys are gone. One day, he'll look up and realize he doesn't run his company anymore, and it will have all happened so incrementally that he didn't even notice it until after the fact. It affects Reigns because HHH puts forth ideas that he absolutely knows will hurt Reigns under the guise of helping him. That's my interpretation of the theory. This seems plausible. But it also seems perfectly normal for the wrestling business, where bookers have their favorites and pet projects. This "political hit" talk makes it sound a whole lot more atypical and sinister than what is likely just the latest round of deciding who to push. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 Dylan is much better qualified than I am to speak to the word choice, but I do think the theory is solid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted February 23, 2016 Report Share Posted February 23, 2016 I think Shane coming back might explain any increased insecurity on Triple H's part at the moment, although I doubt he'll be around past WrestleMania. Vince choosing Shane to be Undertaker's opponent in a desperation move has got to be seen as a pretty big snub to his son-in-law. Instead of choosing a Triple H guy on the main roster or outside it (Owens, Sheamus, Balor, Joe, Nakamura, etc) for that spot, he went with his prodigal son, despite that having trainwreck written all over it. I'm sure Triple H will be worried that this will lead to Shane getting a foothold into the company again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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