Any other longterm fans starting to feel alienated by the current fanbase?

[Grimmas]

You're not discussing anything with me. You just keep telling me I'm wrong for thinking X about Y. In every thread. Not great for a discussion, especially from a mod.

I'm sorry you feel that way. However, when you make statements like you don't see the difference between Foley/Steph and Bryan/Shane you are either trolling, don't watch, aren't paying attention, or I don't know really dumb.

 

Steph and Foley are involved all over. Foley is there for the final segment promoting Sasha/Charlotte. Steph is all over the show, feuding with Bayley. etc... Plus, you know, Steph is a heel

 

Bryan and Shane aren't even on every week. Shane comes out form time to time, and Bryan does administrative work. Sure he's the host on Talking Smack, but how is that the same.

 

One show has an evil boss and a boss trying to play good cop, but stay goods with the boss. The other has two good people who let the workers do the work.

 

How do you not see this difference?

[stro]

Because they serve the same purpose, Bryan has been involved in all the Becky/Alexa contract signings, etc etc. If you want to think I'm just really dumb for thinking differently about a wrestling show than you, feel free. Maybe call me names in PMs instead so everyone else can enjoy the board.

[Grimmas]

Because they serve the same purpose, Bryan has been involved in all the Becky/Alexa contract signings, etc etc. If you want to think I'm just really dumb for thinking differently about a wrestling show than you, feel free. Maybe call me names in PMs instead so everyone else can enjoy the board.

So, you don't see the difference?

 

Foley in contract signings does this big promo and it's all about him getting over HIAC. Bryan is just there to pop the crowd, and the focus is on Alexa-Becky.

 

I didn't call you dumb, I gave out other options for why you could be stating that opinion that is just plain wrong. If you think you are dumb, then so be it, that's not up for me to decide.

[stro]

You're being an asshole and taking me saying SD has the same booking problems that Raw has to mean 1:1 exactly the same 100% on everything. Take this to PMs or please leave me alone.

[Loss]

Yeah, I would like this dropped now, please.

[BigBadMick]

If we're discussing current day Smackdown, doesn't WWF tv from approximately Feb-Sep 2000 deserve a mention?

 

The product was red hot, with great main eventers in Rock, HHH and Foley, and great strides being taken up the card by Benoit, Jericho and Angle. As well as a tag team revival (granted, a lot of that was stunt ladder matches etc, but it was hot as hell at the time), and solid to exceptional work up and down the card. Wasn't the head writer at the time praised for his sense of continuity and storyboarding each character's interactions to maintain order?

 

The only possible drawback in all this was match length - weren't they still operating a no-matches-thru-commercial-breaks system on Raw and Smackdown?

Anyone interested in discussing this?

[Sean Liska]

I'm obsessed with the great TV runs of all-time more than I enjoy looking at individual great matches or wrestlers. Is SD as good as 80s Memphis, 90-93 AJPW, 1997 and 2000 RAW, 95-96 ECW, your best stuff ever? No, but I'd put it at the next level right beneath. This Ryan Ward kid really has a distinctive voice in his writing and Vince seems to be giving him a lot of rope. It feels very much like the NXT that Ward wrote in how episodic it is and how much character development there is. I'm not someone who usually pays attention to the writers under Vince since it's all Vince in the end, but the similarities with peak 2014-2015 NXT are too striking and the differences with Raw are too striking.

 

It's just such a well-written show. They got people heavily invested in a Miz-Ziggler feud in 2016. I was at the point where I figured there was nothing left to do with those guys, and this is the negative of no territories because there's nowhere for them to go, but they've been given new life. How about the idea of Rhyno and Heath Slater getting over and having a genuine feel-good moment when they won the titles? You've got to be smart to make that work. They took two boring stale entities in Orton and Wyatt and have given them some juice as a team. This current version of chippy veteran John Cena is great. They had months of TV to kill between No Mercy and TLC and somehow got through it in a creative way using James Ellsworth. There's a sense of purpose and story progression to each show, which has been missing from wrestling, it's been too easy to just watch PPVs and the show the night after and then the rest is filler until the next PPV. I can't say enough about it and I know nothing like this lasts forever in WWE, something always happens to screw it up, so I'm just enjoying every week. Cena-Corbin next week, give me the good Cena working as a traditional babyface and not PWG Cena and I'll love it.

[Loss]

 

If we're discussing current day Smackdown, doesn't WWF tv from approximately Feb-Sep 2000 deserve a mention?

 

The product was red hot, with great main eventers in Rock, HHH and Foley, and great strides being taken up the card by Benoit, Jericho and Angle. As well as a tag team revival (granted, a lot of that was stunt ladder matches etc, but it was hot as hell at the time), and solid to exceptional work up and down the card. Wasn't the head writer at the time praised for his sense of continuity and storyboarding each character's interactions to maintain order?

 

The only possible drawback in all this was match length - weren't they still operating a no-matches-thru-commercial-breaks system on Raw and Smackdown?

Anyone interested in discussing this?

 

 

In terms of hot crowds and wrestlers being over up and down the cards, yes. Even guys like The Godfather who weren't much in the ring served a hugely valuable role in the opening match during this time. The matches on TV weren't often great, but they were almost always fun. There were a lot more crowd participation spots then than there are now.

[shoe]

The Continental comparison with Smackdown is interesting . Ryan Ward has been key and who Johnny Sorrow told me should be the MVP of Smackdown . Brian James has a lot of influence too. Heck he's an Armstrong thus part of the Continental vibe.

[goc]

The Continental comparison with Smackdown is interesting . Ryan Ward has been key and who Johnny Sorrow told me should be the MVP of Smackdown . Brian James has a lot of influence too. Heck he's an Armstrong thus part of the Continental vibe.

When you look at the way they present feuds as personal rivalries and intertwine kayfabe and reality the Alabama/Tennessee influence is pretty clear:

 

AJ/Cena being about Cena wanting to prove he's still the top dog & shut up everyone who says he's already pretty much gone from WWE.

 

Nikki & Natalya's feud having Natalya cutting nasty promos about how Nikki's push is only due to Cena and Nikki saying Natalya has done nothing but coast off her family name & legacy even bringing up her entrance music.

 

Miz bringing up Renee Young's real life relationship with Dean Ambrose and that turning into a personal issue about way more than "Dean Ambrose wants the IC Title" - This one is especially impressive to me as it cleans up the issues with "Why would Dean immediately go from chasing the WWE Title to dropping into IC Title contention?"

 

This is big contrast to the way WWE usually presents feuds which over the past few years have pretty much devolved into just being an endless series of matches while title feuds have been vague title chases without much else as a hook.

[Loss]

So the storylines are Russo-style extensions of Internet gossip, all based on pushes and card positioning? I mean, yes, that is an improvement and a change, but it's not transformative. It's a good show. I haven't seen anyone arguing that. When I've tuned into Smackdown, I've enjoyed it. The best wrestling television ever part was the only part that gave anyone pause. That seems extreme. A show can be good without being the best ever and that's ok. The best ever is a bit more trailblazing.

[WingedEagle]

Its been a very good show for a number of months now. I think it stands in stark contrast to Raw which has felt like an incredibly long show since growing to 3 hours and especially since losing Bryan & perhaps Punk. For a while, Smackdown felt like hours 4 & 5 after a lengthy intermission. The split this summer has definitely given each show their own distinct vibe and feeling, and they've maximized the 2 hour window and the roster rather than coming off as a an extension of Raw. But any best ever talk seems a bit premature and dismissive of the comparative environment its occurring in.

[Grimmas]

So the storylines are Russo-style extensions of Internet gossip, all based on pushes and card positioning? I mean, yes, that is an improvement and a change, but it's not transformative. It's a good show. I haven't seen anyone arguing that. When I've tuned into Smackdown, I've enjoyed it. The best wrestling television ever part was the only part that gave anyone pause. That seems extreme. A show can be good without being the best ever and that's ok. The best ever is a bit more trailblazing.

I should had clarified.

 

I think a lot of the great wrestling shows of the past had great stuff, but also lots of bad stuff. Example WWF in 97 had this amazing top storyline, but you also had very shitty undercards. You had other eras with great storyliing, but filled with nothing matches or great wrestling, but bad storytelling.

 

SD right now has good to great wrestling, with all good storytelling and everyone having a purpose. There is nothing awful or boring, it's all just good to great. It averages out to be better (I think) than other periods, but it's really not the best at anything. There is no SD is the best at this than any other period, but it averages out.

[goc]

So the storylines are Russo-style extensions of Internet gossip, all based on pushes and card positioning? I mean, yes, that is an improvement and a change, but it's not transformative. It's a good show. I haven't seen anyone arguing that. When I've tuned into Smackdown, I've enjoyed it. The best wrestling television ever part was the only part that gave anyone pause. That seems extreme. A show can be good without being the best ever and that's ok. The best ever is a bit more trailblazing.

Was Jerry Jarrett running an angle where Robert Fuller said that Jarrett stole the company from his family "Russo-style"? Or Jerry Lawler on Memphis TV talking about how Eddie Gilbert's wife Missy Hyatt told Lawler a story about how she wanted Eddie to come to bed but he said he had to finish watching The King first? Feuds can be personal without being "Russo style" shooty shoot bullshit.

 

Miz isn't calling Renee "Renee Paquette" or Ambrose "Jonathan Good" so it's really not Russo-style.

[Dylan Waco]

So the storylines are Russo-style extensions of Internet gossip, all based on pushes and card positioning?

 

I get why you are taking this jab, but you could say the exact same thing about the Lawler v. Snowman feud. There is a way to do these sort of angles that meshes reality and the world of fictional wrestling without fully submitting to the "this is a shoot!" style stuff that made Russoism so destructive.

[DMJ]

 

 

If we're discussing current day Smackdown, doesn't WWF tv from approximately Feb-Sep 2000 deserve a mention?

 

The product was red hot, with great main eventers in Rock, HHH and Foley, and great strides being taken up the card by Benoit, Jericho and Angle. As well as a tag team revival (granted, a lot of that was stunt ladder matches etc, but it was hot as hell at the time), and solid to exceptional work up and down the card. Wasn't the head writer at the time praised for his sense of continuity and storyboarding each character's interactions to maintain order?

 

The only possible drawback in all this was match length - weren't they still operating a no-matches-thru-commercial-breaks system on Raw and Smackdown?

Anyone interested in discussing this?

 

 

In terms of hot crowds and wrestlers being over up and down the cards, yes. Even guys like The Godfather who weren't much in the ring served a hugely valuable role in the opening match during this time. The matches on TV weren't often great, but they were almost always fun. There were a lot more crowd participation spots then than there are now.

 

 

 

In some ways, I feel like WWE in 2000-2001 was like when you "master" Extreme Warfare Revenge after however many "years" in the game. You have a roster of guys that can be paired together ad nauseam for 95+% scores and your company is the top global promotion and you have guys coming out of your development with 100 Speed or 100 Technical or 100 Brawl and, basically, you've "won" the game because, short of your top 20 guys (all are over at 100%) getting injured at the same time, you're just inserting different guaranteed awesome pair-ups to infinity. As fun as it is to succeed in the game, you're also left with no challenge. It gets boring.

 

This is why I think the post-2001 WWE drop began.

 

The WWE's roster was stacked with mega-talented guys who were 100 Over in EWR terms during that 00'-02'. They could run Austin/Angle in the main event. They could run Rock/Angle in the main event. They could run HHH/Austin. HHH/Foley. Foley/Rock. HHH/Rock. HHH/Angle. Taker/Austin. Rock/Taker. Jericho/Austin. Jericho/Rock. HHH/Jericho. All were essentially guaranteed to be over and to score a good butyrate and there was no risk of failure.

 

The same was true everywhere on the card - from the IC Title program (how many times did we see a mix of Angle/Benoit/Jericho/Guerrero/Edge/Christian in the early 00s) to the Tag Division (Hardys/Dudleys/E&C, but also Los Guerreros and WGTT). Eventually Mysterio, Lesnar, Booker T, RVD, and HBK would be around too. In that span of 00'-02', you had a roster featuring 20+ Hall of Famers at any given moment. (Not to mention "names" like Show and Kane that may not have been my cup of tea from a work perspective, but always had a program going on of some sort).

 

But reshuffling the same deck of cards, no matter how many aces they had, didn't translate to fresh, engaging stories. They brought in Hogan, Goldberg, and Scott Steiner and the numbers didn't improve. In a financial sense, the company reached all-time heights of profits and ratings during these years (I think), but from a creative perspective, they were actually already on the decline by 2000 (or, at the very best, had plateaued) in my opinion. In 1999, the WWE conquered WCW and from that point on, the incentive was to stay on top and they succeeded. But in 97'/98', they were still throwing stuff against the wall and it made for a run that, in my opinion, is much more interesting to rematch and, as a young teenager, made me much more passionate as a fan.

[shoe]

Loss part of the talk of putting it in the greatest tv talking pile is that you don't want to miss a segment for the most part . The territorial days you had a lot of squashes, some important , a lot meaningless. So I think it's a top to bottom thing.

[Loss]

 

So the storylines are Russo-style extensions of Internet gossip, all based on pushes and card positioning?

 

I get why you are taking this jab, but you could say the exact same thing about the Lawler v. Snowman feud. There is a way to do these sort of angles that meshes reality and the world of fictional wrestling without fully submitting to the "this is a shoot!" style stuff that made Russoism so destructive.

 

 

I agree there's a right way to do it, but the whole "The only reason you were successful is because ..." stuff citing real life issues is not it. And I should clarify -- it's less pure Russoism and more of a mix of Russoism and heel HHH-style promos where you harp on people's real perceived weaknesses and put as much focus on them as possible instead of attempting to downplay them by putting your opponent over strong and then putting yourself over even more. There was a reason heels didn't call Dusty and JYD fat, or call Hogan bald. WWE even knows this -- you'll recall that they edited out the line from Rock in his promo on Cena about being a fake suburban guy going into Wrestlemania a few years back. It's cool that people are enjoying Smackdown. I'm not trying to say that shouldn't be the case. When people have said Smackdown is good in previous threads, I haven't said "No, it's not" -- it was only the best ever talk that got my attention. In my opinion, there are systemic issues like the way heels cut promos that are so intrinsic now to how wrestling is put together that would prevent any TV show from being in the conversation for best ever until they are admitted as bad and wrong by the people in charge and changed for the better. That is just one of many examples of that, of course.

 

I think it's great when wrestling leverages reality, especially when the story writes itself. To that extent, Dean-Renee-Miz is good as long as it doesn't assume that everyone watching already knows the score and takes the time to fill in the blanks for the casual viewer. Nattie trashing Nikki Bella over her relationship with John Cena doesn't even make the attempt to respect her as a talent though, which kinda makes the match seem less important.

[stro]

I don't think there is any way to read storylines that tie in with Total Divas as anything but Russoesque. One show is explicitly out of kayfabe. Bringing storylines from that into the kayfabe show and having storylines intersect with the show that follows wrestlers outside of wrestling and show them working on putting matches together and being friends with people they're feuding with on the other show seems like Russo's wet dream.

[WingedEagle]

Loss part of the talk of putting it in the greatest tv talking pile is that you don't want to miss a segment for the most part . The territorial days you had a lot of squashes, some important , a lot meaningless. So I think it's a top to bottom thing.

 

I think squashes would reintroduce a valuable element to the shows and may even allow them to work around some of the 50/50 booking issues people often complain about. There's a lot to be said for the value of them both as matches and as a booking device.

[shoe]

 

 

Loss part of the talk of putting it in the greatest tv talking pile is that you don't want to miss a segment for the most part . The territorial days you had a lot of squashes, some important , a lot meaningless. So I think it's a top to bottom thing.

I think squashes would reintroduce a valuable element to the shows and may even allow them to work around some of the 50/50 booking issues people often complain about. There's a lot to be said for the value of them both as matches and as a booking device.

I agree in my statement. I said some squashes were important. They also used them to fill time.

[stro]

 

Loss part of the talk of putting it in the greatest tv talking pile is that you don't want to miss a segment for the most part . The territorial days you had a lot of squashes, some important , a lot meaningless. So I think it's a top to bottom thing.

 

I think squashes would reintroduce a valuable element to the shows and may even allow them to work around some of the 50/50 booking issues people often complain about. There's a lot to be said for the value of them both as matches and as a booking device.

 

This is pretty much how NXT got so hot online even before it became a super indie. Squash matches, only the main event had matches between two "stars", every few months would get a big card with big matches to blow off or start new angles. The most basic of 80s booking.

[Sean Liska]

"Russo" has become such a negative term, but there's a way to do Russo stuff productively. Vince McMahon turning heel, playing off of real life insider stuff in the Montreal Screwjob, was "Russo" booking and it was the biggest thing ever.

[stro]

It's a negative term for obvious reasons. The handful of storylines that worked are overshadowed by another decade of some of the worst shit wrestling has ever seen. There is a 10 year running TNA thread that should clear up why it is a negative term.

[Sean Liska]

Yeah but I don't think SD is anything like TNA. They're playing off some reality-based stuff but nothing that a casual fan can't keep up with.