WWE TV 09/03 - 09/09 RIP Brazil's National Museum

[WingedEagle]

How do more wrestlers not clip the ropes and kill themselves on dives?!  This never ceases to amaze me and are why I found Samoa Joe's so impressive.

On another note, Bryan/Almas was one of Bryan's matches since returning, along with the AJ Smackdown outing after Mania and Miz at Summerslam.

[Loss]

I will say again that Daniel Bryan has cooled off a lot, and probably be told that I'm wrong again even though it's obvious that it's true. I don't think he'll ever be just a guy, but I wouldn't say he's far and away more over than the other top babyfaces anymore.

[Strummer]

Well .Loss I was thinking that same thing but was hesitant to post it.  He's still way over but he's not the same as March/April this year and way removed from 2013/2014.  I guess they should have struck while he was white hot 5/6 months ago.  I guess we could still get there but he's just coming off as a popular upper mid card guy right now. Which is probably the position they envisioned for him 4/5 years ago

[AstroBoy]

People defending the way Bryan has been marginalized post-comeback has been one of the things that shows how beaten down and apathetic the modern audience is.

[Loss]

Now one thing positive I'll say is that while it still seems like a bit of a waste, they have sort of made him Jimmy Valiant, which I don't think is a completely terrible role for him. Not in the main events, but having the matches people want to see, and his matches are still a big deal. That's a role WWE has never really embraced, so if they don't want to risk Bryan in main events because of the fear that he's one bad bump away from being done, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. It's just ... not quite what I think his fans had in mind at the beginning of his comeback. What I wish instead was that he was positioned as the living legend like Shawn Michaels was in the 2000s. 

[sek69]

1 minute ago, AstroBoy said:

People defending the way Bryan has been marginalized post-comeback has been one of the things that shows how beaten down and apathetic the modern audience is.

 

This. It's like the modern fan version of the "It's still real to me" guy.  I've enjoyed seeing Bryan back, and most of his matches have been good to great (basically all of them that didn't involve Cass), but it's clear that WWE is not going to put him at the level the fans want him to be at. 

[Strummer]

Like I mentioned above I think this is the role they had originally envisioned for Bryan in 2013/2014.  A popular upper mid carder who can move up and down the cards and have good matches and make people look good.  Like late 2000s Chris Jericho.  The fan's hijacking propelled him to main events but it was only scheduled to be temporary.  He's still in a good spot but he's probably seen as a super popular mechanic backstage more than a true top guy

[Strummer]

R truth is one of favorite acts in the company right now.  Hopefully he gets a small push out of this.  I like the pairing with Carmella as well.  I doubt Carmella is turning face but I wouldn't mind seeing that either

[KawadaSmile]

Carmella as a face could work. Her performance against Charlotte last week has shown that - she can have explosive and energetic offense, can garner sympathy, can talk. I'm betting on her to be a Top 10 talent by 2020, honestly.

She is money.

[Loss]

28 minutes ago, Strummer said:

R truth is one of favorite acts in the company right now.  Hopefully he gets a small push out of this.  I like the pairing with Carmella as well.  I doubt Carmella is turning face but I wouldn't mind seeing that either

I really love the idea of R-Truth as this beacon of WWE wisdom who has most of the answers to the problems superstars face ... if they'll only listen.

[Tim Evans]

I don't get this Daniel Bryan is cooled off talk. He's easily the most over guy on Smackdown. Would he have been better put on Raw? Probably so. I think after Mania 30, anything Bryan could do would be seen as a step down. That was as good as you are gonna get in WWE. What is the level people think he should be at? World champion?  And who are the true top guys in WWE besides Roman Reigns?  Seth? Ambrose? I would put Bryan over both of them.

[Loss]

He's not as over as he was when he was his most over. That's what "cooled off" means. I wouldn't put him ahead of Reigns if you compare the crowd in the main event of Summerslam to the crowd during his match with Miz, which I loved, but it's just true. Sure, anything after WM30 could be a step down, but I'm thinking the night he came back when KO and SZ laid him out. I do think it would have been possible to sustain that.

I'm not sure the crowd reaction for Styles is much different. They feel about roughly the same, which is still a good spot if you can get it, but not where he was at his height.

[SirEdger]

50 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Carmella as a face could work. Her performance against Charlotte last week has shown that - she can have explosive and energetic offense, can garner sympathy, can talk. I'm betting on her to be a Top 10 talent by 2020, honestly.

She is money.

That's the first time in months I've been interested in Carmella. I'll admit that I was surprised when I saw the news of the Mixed Match Challenge returning but all the Truth looking for Carmella skits in the past few weeks made sense when they announced Carmella & Truth teaming up this year. I definitely see potential in that pairing with Truth. And if she keeps giving us performances like she did last week against Charlotte, then yeah, the future is bright for her.

[KawadaSmile]

I'm optimistic about this because she also was the best performer at Summerslam. I think that it was like Bliss mentioned once, I believe: she doesn't *need* to wrestle like faces do, even when she *can* do so. Bumping and stooging and getting cheap shots in is the essential part. Maybe the title reign, which was good for her to show her personality and captivate people, could be seen as shackles of some sort.

And TBH she showed potential in her feud against Nikki. I'm a stan.

[Jmare007]

To be honest, I didn't think Bryan's comeback was as big of a deal as some people made it out to be. We were all super happy about it, but it was never a "YES movement" level of overness. His return speech was amazing, and of course the crowd ate it up, it was a special moment and WWE barely has those anymore. But even during Mania he didn't feel like this huge superstar coming back.

I've loved almost every TV match he's had since he came back - and even the ones with Cass were decent/good enough - but we gotta realize that not a lot of what made him super over is there right now. Hardcore fans see his return more as a blessing than "our champion is back!", the funny stuff with Kane that made him over with every audience is past him, AND he doesn't fly around, goes 100% speed and kills himself every match, which was also a big part of his momentum swing as a babyface in 2013. Even if he was treated as a respected icon, I don't think he would be that much over than right now.

His feud with Miz is dope, that's what matters to me tbh.

 

 

[Jimmy Redman]

They just announce like every PPV match on social media with no build because hey, but they sure find time to give R-Truth teaming with Carmella in the MMC the long term build. 

I love wrestling.

[FMKK]

I don't quite get the 'Bryan has been marginalised' talk. He's in the second from top feud on the show and him and Miz have probably had the most screen time of anyone since it began. I can understand their reticence to push him so strong right away after the layoff too, but I have a hunch that he'll be working AJ for the title at Mania so he'll get there eventually.

 

I would like him to be portrayed as a living legend a la Shawn as well, but they're basically never going to allow anyone to be as revered as that. I'm not sure it's possible to sustain the overness that he attained around Mania 30 because that whole situation was such a perfect storm of reality and kayfabe aligning and it can never be recreated.

[Loss]

He's still over. Just like I've said in every post. He doesn't get the type of reactions anymore that floor you, where he comes across as the most beloved wrestler of his generation, almost like a modern Bruno. He's hardly in a bad spot. It's still far, far less than it could be.

[rovert]

18 hours ago, Makai Club #1 said:

Watched bits and bobs of Raw last night, it was a train wreck. The Bella's match was all kinds of awful. Brie almost broke her neck twice. Drake Maverick, the face GM of 205 Live, is now managing the heel team of AOP? Haven't seen the ending but Kevin Owens is back ONE WEEK, just one week after quitting. Hilarious. 

Seemed like a show Vince had ordered to be completely rewritten on Monday afternoon.

11 hours ago, sek69 said:

I would be fine with everyone being banned from doing those,  it's been watered down to being a meaningless spot and it's one of those things that if it goes bad it can be REAL bad. 

How else will they throw to a commercial break without it?

[FMKK]

1 hour ago, Charles (Loss) said:

He's still over. Just like I've said in every post. He doesn't get the type of reactions anymore that floor you, where he comes across as the most beloved wrestler of his generation, almost like a modern Bruno. He's hardly in a bad spot. It's still far, far less than it could be.

I think we agree mostly, I'm just unsure as to how they could sustain that level of overness. On paper, a feud with The Miz should've been an ideal way to do it given their history and what each of them represents in the minds of the audience.

 

Maybe if he'd gone for the title straight away after Mania it would have made a difference.

[C.S.]

Bryan's return was botched from the jump.

No one wanted him in a heatless tag match with Shane McMahon against KO and SZ.

Then there was the Cass feud...

But it's possible, I guess, that they're trying to make lightning strike twice by presenting him as an underused underdog again. 

[Jmare007]

2 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

He's still over. Just like I've said in every post. He doesn't get the type of reactions anymore that floor you, where he comes across as the most beloved wrestler of his generation, almost like a modern Bruno. He's hardly in a bad spot. It's still far, far less than it could be.

Is anyone arguing against that though?

[SteveJRogers]

23 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Bryan's return was botched from the jump.

No one wanted him in a heatless tag match with Shane McMahon against KO and SZ.

 

To be fair, the way the storyline had been going since the previous summer, heatless or not, there were only two logical ways it was going to go (not counting dropping the angle and pretending nothing had happened in the many months prior). 

The way they did with Bryan coming out of retirement in the feud ending match.  Or Bryan turning on Shane and continuing on as either a heel GM or just as a second for KO & Sami, wrestling again or not.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

He's still probably the most popular guy in the company, but I would agree that it doesn't feel 'special' anymore. I was at Smackdown last night, and was surprised there were no yes chants before the show went on the air. Lots of Rusev Day chants though. If I were to extrapolate from the reactions in Detroit last night, where Rusev was at worst the second most over guy in the building, the crowd were getting genuinely angry by his lack of involvement in the tag match, and the fact that Rusev Day shirts were probably the most common I saw, I would say that Rusev should really be consistently presented as a main event level star. Which you all probably know anyway.

[El-P]

1 hour ago, C.S. said:

Bryan's return was botched from the jump.

No one wanted him in a heatless tag match with Shane McMahon against KO and SZ.

This. You could already see the difference at Mania itself. The second he was carried out and Shan-O Mac did that long heatless awful babyface in peril sequence, Bryan's comeback was fucked. They just have no idea how to do anything worthwhile anymore.