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WWE TV 03/25 - 03/31: Angle vs. Joe! Angle vs. Styles! TNA! TNA! TNA!


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6 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

Mania season is no better than the rest of the calendar year for them, really. A lot of fans just seem to decide to pretend it is - that's all.

They clearly focus more on this time of year than any other, that being a good or bad thing is an exercise for the reader, but they are more invested in the Rumble to Mania stretch than they would be at any other time.

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17 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

Mania season is no better than the rest of the calendar year for them, really. A lot of fans just seem to decide to pretend it is - that's all.

This year's build to Mania has been pretty much awful on all accounts if you consider the good and fresh stuff they stumble upon (Becky vs Rousey, Kofi/Ali as the ultimate challengers). They just mess everything up and make everything worse than it should be. The same company in 1997 certainly wouldn't be able to make Steve Austin vs Bret Hart what it was.

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5 minutes ago, El-P said:

The same company in 1997 certainly wouldn't be able to make Steve Austin vs Bret Hart what it was.

Rest assured if they knew what they had at the time, they would have killed it dead. The plan was Austin-Davey until Shawn dropped out only a month before the event. 

The WWE season is very clearly focused on Rumble to WM Raw. It's a lot like baseball where most of the year is just complete filler until shit heats up. They've gone out of their way to book newsworthy angles every week. It's not prestige TV and it never will be with 5 hours to fill every week. But this is easily the best they've done since New Orleans. 

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The same company in 1997 would've booked the Bulldog to submit Austin CLEANLY on the same night he won the Rumble.

And then they would've added Rocky Maivia to round out the Bret/Austin triple threat match, since they see big things in Dwayne.

And then they would've had him win the IC belt a week before the show. For reasons.

By the time they got to Chicago, Austin would've been significantly colder as a character. His momentum would've been randomly disrupted for the sake of a meaningless, throwaway Davey Boy win. And Rocky would be taking up space as a third wheel, tacked on so they can say he's on the right side of history in a few years.

This is basically your "focused" Mania main event this year, people.

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4 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

The same company in 1997 would've booked the Bulldog to submit Austin CLEANLY on the same night he won the Rumble.

And then they would've added Rocky Maivia to round out the Bret/Austin triple threat match, since they see big things in Dwayne.

And then they would've had him win the IC belt a week before the show. For reasons.

I know you're reaching...but my point is that even one of their most fondly remembered years is full of questionable decisions. They did consider a 3-way main event. Rocky DID win the IC title only a month before the show instead of at the actual show. Somehow a show that was supposed to be Bret-Michaels II became Undertaker-SID. Even a straight-forward Bret-Austin match had Shamrock lumped in there. 

The view never changes.

 

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14 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

Rest assured if they knew what they had at the time, they would have killed it dead. The plan was Austin-Davey until Shawn dropped out only a month before the event. 

The WWE season is very clearly focused on Rumble to WM Raw. It's a lot like baseball where most of the year is just complete filler until shit heats up. They've gone out of their way to book newsworthy angles every week. It's not prestige TV and it never will be with 5 hours to fill every week. But this is easily the best they've done since New Orleans. 

... I guess?

I mean, NOLA was the last time their Mania build was any good, if that's your point.

This year's doesn't feel like total trash, thanks to a strong heel in D-Bry and the unexpected Kofi development. Becky felt like something until they applied that supposed "focus" to her. Once they started paying attention, she's seemingly grown colder & colder with every passing week. Their handling of everything is detrimental, basically. Things only seem to get over or gain traction when they're hands-off.

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2 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

I know you're reaching...but my point is that even one of their most fondly remembered years is full of questionable decisions. They did consider a 3-way main event. Rocky DID win the IC title only a month before the show instead of at the actual show. Somehow a show that was supposed to be Bret-Michaels II became Undertaker-SID. Even a straight-forward Bret-Austin match had Shamrock lumped in there. 

The view never changes.

 

That wasn't reaching. Pretty sure it was right there, which your post only reiterated.

The point being - the one year they had all those hurdles & obstacles and still produced something memorable and exciting.

They haven't done that this year. They reached the point of hurdles & obstacles and took a wrong turn. Followed by a dead end.

Their booking sucks.

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^ Brilliant! (EDIT - This was in response to Savage's post a few responses above)

Don't forget President Gorilla Monsoon's daughter also appearing on TV weekly because unless you have an Authority Figure spoon-feeding you how matches are booked, cancelled, changed, and also playing favorites with the competitors, the audience will be confused/won't care. 

 

EDIT  - Also, there's a discussion going on elsewhere about the best/worst build to a Mania ever. It seems too "fresh" to call this the worst built Mania ever...but looking back, I'm willing to put it as one of the worst ever. I mean, what build has been worse? XI? IX? I wasn't a fan of the build for WM23, personally, and I attended that one. I'd still put this year's as one of the worst ever in terms of the build. 

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16 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

The point being - the one year they had all those hurdles & obstacles and still produced something memorable and exciting.

Completely untrue, aside from the master class Bret put on with Austin, it's a total dud top-to-bottom. That's probably the worst build besides the main event of X-7 if we're being realistic. 

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7 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

Completely untrue, aside from the master class Bret put on with Austin, it's a total dud top-to-bottom. That's probably the worst build besides the main event of X-7 if we're being realistic. 

Bret/Austin was clearly the only thing I mentioned & absolutely the only thing I was referring to there.

My point was that they managed to sidestep landmines and still cobble together something amazing. It wasn't only one match either. It was a match so awesome, it practically salvaged an entire show.

I never compared this year's build to any others. But when you start getting shit tossed out like mentions of 9 and 11 as comparisons, then that's not exactly a glowing endorsement.

Their booking sucks.

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9 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

Except I haven't seen anything since the women's Chamber match? And before that the Rumble?

I watched two WWE shows last year. The Rumble and Evolution.

But yes. I'm a regular die-hard fanatic. Absolute edge of my seat, I tell ya what.

Wow. So why are you even going this hard about it if you don't even watch? I certainly won't be debating this with any peripheral viewers, that's for sure! 

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4 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

Wow. So why are you even going this hard about it if you don't even watch? I certainly won't be debating this with any peripheral viewers, that's for sure! 

What? Why *would* I watch?

I go "this hard" because it does, in fact, suck. Me going so hard and THEN tuning in to watch anyway would be hypocritical and stupid. It's shitty. Their booking sucks. I don't have to torture myself with their awful television to know that.

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8 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

I certainly won't be debating this with any peripheral viewers, that's for sure! 

Anyway, I thought both Raw and Smackdown delivered this week. More goodness from the Angle retirement tour and some hot angles to boot. Excited for NXT tonight, even if it looks to be complete filler. NXT UK is a good example straight-forward booking making a product completely dry and dull. I'll keep watching (because WALTER) but this is the show most in need of some wacky WWE shake-up. 

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13 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

NXT UK is a good example straight-forward booking making a product completely dry and dull. I'll keep watching (because WALTER) but this is the show most in need of some wacky WWE shake-up. 

I was wondering why there was no hype whatsoever for this show. Even the Takeover didn't get much reaction around here. Well...

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7 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, doesn't NXT UK suffer from production issues as well?

It's always on a weird taping schedule and half the roster is seemingly working the states at the same time. Also doesn't help that OTT is doing the exact same thing (with the same talent even) with more focus and drive in every aspect of the product. 

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4 hours ago, El-P said:

Uh... proven how ? She wasn't given anything to do after winning the belt, now she's taken off the show so Charlotte can parade with a title in a main event she shouldn't be involved with in the first place.

Asuka is off the show, yet you'll get people no one really wants to see like Baron Corbin, the Ilconics, Nia Jaxx & Tamina and so on...  It's just stupid booking. Asuka is being totally wasted, like many others, that's pretty much the only thing this last minute decision "proves".

As far as her being off the show not changing anything, it's pretty much the case for everyone not named Ronda Rousey (and Becky Lynch to some extent).

Asuka beat Becky clean as a sheet, via tapout, at the Royal Rumble. Didn't matter. Didn't raise her stock in the eyes of the fans. She's never going to be that "top guy" you all want her to be, and not all of that is down to crappy booking (of which there is in spades). I still think she could be a valuable underneath player and gatekeeper though. 

If they had to shoehorn anyone else into the WM main event, Charlotte is the best possible person to put in that position. As much as I wanted the match to be Becky vs. Ronda 1 on 1, you can't say Charlotte hasn't added her own flair (no pun intended, or maybe the pun is intended?) to the proceedings. You have to give the Queen that, if nothing else.

I certainly agree with the rest of what you said.  

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Charlotte was great as the full on heel poking at Becky, but then Ronda went complete batshit crazy shooty shoot heel and it kind of rendered Charlotte obsolete in the feud. It's hard to see Vince deciding to hotshot a belt on her hours before Smackdown as anything other than him trying to make Charlotte relevant again.

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7 hours ago, C.S. said:

If they had to shoehorn anyone else into the WM main event, Charlotte is the best possible person to put in that position. As much as I wanted the match to be Becky vs. Ronda 1 on 1, you can't say Charlotte hasn't added her own flair (no pun intended, or maybe the pun is intended?) to the proceedings. You have to give the Queen that, if nothing else.

Oh, of course. I love Charlotte, especially as a heel, she's terrific. But the feud was Becky vs Ronda, it simply didn't need anything else.

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10 hours ago, sek69 said:

NXT UK still comes across as something that was rushed just so WWE could beat the WoS reboot to the punch, despite the wheels coming off that project a long time ago. 

It’s sad that they knee-capped the really great European scene and it was all just for... this.

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