WWE TV 7/9-7/15 Superstar SLEEZE In Da House

[Superstar Sleeze]

I attended RAW live tonight. I Will attend Smackdown tomorrow.

 

RAW at 3 hours is fucking interminable. How do people watch it live? I watch it in an hour with DVR.

Roman/Lashley ruled! Great pull apart brawl! Dive was sick.

Womens Tag was good. Nia Jax's hot Tag BANGED! That was good.

Then it was two hours of Suck.

Drew vs Dolph was a solid mid tempo match with a strong heat segment that built to a hot finish.

Roman/Lashley, Nia Jax hot Tag, Dolph promo and Drew/Seth. You have a great show!

but two hours of snooze fest is unacceptable.

Asuka/Ellsworth is gonna bang so hard tomorrow! So excited!

[TheDuke]

yeah I thought Raw seemed like a bit of a snoozer this week.

 

[Jmare007]

 

Tha hell? I guess they are gonna change it to a tag match after the first segment or something?

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Ugh.  Just... why?

Anyhow, I love the Roman/Lashley feud.  Crowd was into it.  Could be a great match.

Dolph promo went off the rails for me when he flubbed the line and lost the crowd halfway through.  Loved Seth/Drew, though.

[KawadaSmile]

The Big Dog elevating another talent per usual and once again has the hottest feud going on right now. Some things never change.

 

Although I am expecting him to lose to Bob in order to set up Lashley/Lesnar or something.

[sek69]

Dave made mention of how odd it was they went out of their way not to mention Brock last night despite him getting mainstream attention for his UFC antics (and how said antics played perfectly into the "Brock doesn't care about wrestling" story they've been building up). 

It would be pure undistilled WWE if after all the years of keeping Brock strong to elevate whoever ends up beating him, it all ends up for naught because Vince had a hissy over something. 

[SomethingSavage]

The whole "Brock doesn't care about wrestling" story is stupid and uninteresting anyway. UFC Brock would show up via satellite and point out how Seth Rollins can keep his second place title and stay butthurt, but all he's really doing is whining because he has to work 300 days a year to earn a tiny fraction of the kind of money Brock earns working 5 times a year.

Brock is money. He demands a big salary, because he's a big fucking deal. When a Seth Rollins can command the same contract, then he can come sit at the grown-ups table with Brock.

Instead? We get this semi-shooty, passive aggressive conspiracy nonsense from Roman or whateverthefuck. It's super weak sauce.

I thought it was equally stupid back when they pulled the same shit with Rock. Dude's the hottest actor in Hollywood, but yeah. Let's shame him 'cause he won't come play fight with us 52 weeks a year anymore like he said he would that one time. So silly.

I mean, I can get why they went that route with Rock/Cena. At least it played into the narrative there, and it drove the back & forth promos.

Here? There are no back & forth promos. It's just this one-sided whining that Brock isn't there all the time.

The actual counterpoint to that is the fact that everyone on the roster would gladly stop showing up to every live event, take more money for less work, and end up with a Brock Lesnar deal. It's the American dream realized. Guys like Jericho and Punk have openly stated as such. The part-timer deal is the new brass ring.

The goal posts aren't set at being WWE Champion anymore. The chance to call your spots, work when you want to work, and chill at your own leisure is the new championship run.

[sek69]

There's also the aspect that Lashley and Roman are feuding over who gets to be Vince's favorite (being "the guy") instead of a shot at the championship. 

[SomethingSavage]

Ugh. WWE storylines are so bad and so devoid of creativity that I'm almost inclined to agree with Vince fucking Russo at this point.

It's like they keep giving us these epic matches without any of the context. Watching WWE is basically watching the last 15 minutes of Rocky over & over on a loop, without ever getting to see the first hour and a half.

So it might be fun or exciting for a bit, but it's almost instantly forgettable and never really means shit. At the end of the day, there's no investment. It's just guys hitting each other.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Smackdown is so much better than RAW it is not even funny.

 

The first 70 minutes were Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles and Asuka! It was nonstop action and nonstop great wrestling. Even the Almas vs Sin Cara had a lot of fun spots.

Glad im doing a two hour round trip for this. Way more worth it than RAW!

[Superstar Sleeze]

Three Smackdowns this year and three Daniel Bryan matches! Smackdown Bangs!

[WingedEagle]

What happened to Cesaro & Sheamus?

[KawadaSmile]

Team Hell No is absolutely great and everyone who says otherwise is wrong.

As for Cesaro and Sheamus, I think Sheamus is having some time off to heal from ongoing neck problems, and both have to figure out visa issues, too. Basically: they're on vacation at the moment.

[Strummer]

Smackdown has slowly, ever since the draft, become the clearly better show.  Raw hasn't been terrible mind you just kind of listless and boring.  SD is just easy TV viewing pretty much every week

[sek69]

10 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Team Hell No is absolutely great and everyone who says otherwise is wrong.

As for Cesaro and Sheamus, I think Sheamus is having some time off to heal from ongoing neck problems, and both have to figure out visa issues, too. Basically: they're on vacation at the moment.

 

Cesaro and Sheamus have been doing house shows, so it might also be a little of Creative Has Nothing For You as well, which...yeah.

 

Also Daniel Bryan is the only person besides the Rock with the consistent ability to make the normally stupid WWE comedy skits work nearly all the time. 

[Superstar Sleeze]

This Smackdown show was awesome & breezy and they didn't utilize three of my favorites: Samoa Joe, Sheamus or Cesaro, And my favorite women's wrestler, Becky was just a lumberjack. Smackdown is actually too stacked. It's insane 

[Alucard]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

Cesaro and Sheamus have been doing house shows, so it might also be a little of Creative Has Nothing For You as well, which...yeah.

Yeah, I think that was in the Observer as well, "creative has nothing for them" and that's awful. In addition to working New Day at all the house shows last month, they worked a couple dark matches before SDLs losing to Gallows and Anderson as well. Haven't been on TV since the end of May. I hope Kane and Bryan win the tag titles.

[SomethingSavage]

"Creative has nothing for you" has always been a copout, but it really feels like it's more irrelevant than ever in 2018.

Other than scripting dialogue, do the writers really contribute anything at this point? I mean, all the major angles & stories seem to stem from guys who can handle their own direction to some extent - Hunter, Jericho, etc. - or pet projects overseen directly by Vince - Roman, Brock, Ronda, etc.

Even when creative "has something" for guys, what does that really entail? Booking them in endless 50/50 rematches every week? How much effort or creativity is really involved there?

[Coffey]

18 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

Ugh. WWE storylines are so bad and so devoid of creativity that I'm almost inclined to agree with Vince fucking Russo at this point.

It's like they keep giving us these epic matches without any of the context. Watching WWE is basically watching the last 15 minutes of Rocky over & over on a loop, without ever getting to see the first hour and a half.

So it might be fun or exciting for a bit, but it's almost instantly forgettable and never really means shit. At the end of the day, there's no investment. It's just guys hitting each other.

It's been like this for years. It's why the TV shows suck. What did people think was going to happen when the roster became a bunch of Indy/ROH "workrate" guys? None of them can promo or carry a story & the matches are nothing but everyone getting their shit in until the crowd chants "this is awesome." Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, AJ Styles, etc.

It's the same reason why Chris Benoit sucked when he was on top. Yeah, you can have a good wrestling match on the PPV for twenty minutes... but what do you do for the other multiple weeks of screen time that you have to do? Sufferin' Succotash or fuckin' sheep promos? It's why I wasn't interested when people were talking about how much they wanted Cesaro to be a main eventer. 

Wins and losses don't matter, titles don't matter, FEUDS don't matter. It's just running shit into the ground, nonstop rematches & matches with no heat or fans even caring who wins. In all honesty, in WWE, the matches are what matter the least. The actual in-ring bell-to-bell part isn't what sells tickets or shows. 

Elias playing a guitar or Strowman telling someone backstage that they're gonna "get these hands" is more compelling than a Dolph Ziggler or Nakamura working a TV match. It fleshes out the characters & gimmicks to start giving fans a reason to invest emotionally into a character.

Everyone remembers The Million Dollar Man or Mr. Perfect & it's not because of the matches they were having. Same reason they remember The Ultimate Warrior. The memorable characters are gone in WWE. It's just a bunch of dudes.

[Jmare007]

 

6 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

 

Even when creative "has something" for guys, what does that really entail? Booking them in endless 50/50 rematches every week? How much effort or creativity is really involved there?

From what people that have worked on creative say, they come up with ideas for a specific wrestler, or an angle or a feud. But after that it all comes down to Vince and if he's willing to follow a certain direction or just fuck everything up because he changes his mind all the time.

They probably had a plan for Almas that was going to take X number of weeks but by the third one, plans changed and they had to go back to the drawing board. With other people still having programs on TV, he just got shoved to a side and spent like a month or more without any TV appearance.

I'm not defending creative by the way, I'm just saying that their job is very limited and more often than not is scrapped eventually or significantly changed.

[sek69]

Yeah, for as much as "creative has nothing for you" has become a meme nearly every former member of the creative team has done interviews saying they had tons of ideas for X, Y, or Z but they all got turfed for one reason or another. 

There's also numerous tales of guys going to management with an idea for their character and get shot down, only to see that idea get used verbaitm for someone else.

[Badlittlekitten]

Quote

There's also numerous tales of guys going to management with an idea for their character and get shot down, only to see that idea get used verbaitm for someone else.

What are examples of this? Be interesting to hear.

[KawadaSmile]

I wouldn't make a big deal out of this particular case, to be honest. They are workhorses and are around for quite a while. Them being the ones to end New Day's title reign was a huge deal, and considering how Sheamus has some physical problems, it's for the best to put them on the shelf for a while.

It's not like they don't have programs vs The Usos or Bludgeon Brothers down the line...

[Strummer]

Heyman helped write Raw Monday including the opening segment.

 

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/exclusive-paul-heyman-was-working-wwe-behind-scenes-raw-monday

[SirEdger]

4 hours ago, Badlittlekitten said:

What are examples of this? Be interesting to hear.

I read  - I think it was last year - that Lucha Underground's Catrina (then Maxine in FCW/NXT) had pitched the idea of debuting on the main roster as the girlfriend of Cesaro but her idea was turned down. About a week or 2 later, Aksana debuted with that exact storyline. I think this is what drove her to quit WWE.