WWE TV 04/15 - 04/21: Superstar Shakeup but the real Shakeup is a country who arrests and beats up its teachers

[Alucard]

It's been said before but Peyton had some good singles matches in NXT and Billie Kay had some really great matches in Shimmer and the indys against Madison Eagles and Nicole Matthews among others. so I can't see them as being bad in the ring, I can see people not liking their characters but I personally find their mic work hilarious and one of the more entertaining things on the show.

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, SomethingSavage said:

Yeah, @C.S. pretty sure you're gonna fuck up a rotator cuff reaching that far with this new hot take of yours, brutha. 

Yeah, I'll cop to an awful take about Bryan and AJ. Their previous feud was so forgettable that I literally forgot about it.

I wasn't a fan of Bryan vs. Roman though. Both of them have had far better matches against others. Although, you're right, the booking didn't help matters anyway. That part, at least, won't be a concern this time around. Edit: I'm not saying it was a bad match or anything - it just didn't strike me as particularly memorable compared to the many better matches they've both had against other opponents.

1 hour ago, KawadaSmile said:

That's quite the take, bubba

Quoting this because I take peculiar pleasure in @KawadaSmile calling other posters bubba.  

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, Strummer said:

Liv Morgan, Chad Gable, Apollo Crews and Mickie James moved to SD in moves off TV

This may sound like "bubble" talk, but Gable is someone they could've popped the live crowd with.

I'm glad his team with geek Roode is over.

Even though WWE probably thinks Roode is the star, Gable has far, FAR, FAR more upside.

Update: Heavy Machinery too. https://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/article/superstar-shake-up-2019-results

[SirEdger]

Gable's got youth behind him. If he's booked as a heel, a series of matches with Finn Balor and Mustafa Ali for the Intercontinental Championship could really be fun. As for Roode, I hope he gets a solid run with his character more like what he did with NXT. But given that I'm a big fan of Bobby Roode, I might be biased.

[sek69]

There's not much left of the women's side on Raw, is there? Odd that they would send just Liv to Smackdown,  she doesn't seem to have much going for her as a solo act.

[SirEdger]

On my account, RAW's Women's Division consists of Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Natalya, Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, Lacey Evans, Dana Brooke, Tamina, Nia Jax. I'm assuming they could always move Becky to that division full-time once she drops her titles.

[sek69]

Of that, Nia is out a year with double knee surgery, Sasha will either be gone or be boo-boo facing the rest of her contract, so there's not too much left there. 

[SirEdger]

Exactly. So, RAW's pretty much in shambles but on the plus side, Ruby's gonna definitely get a hot run on RAW so that's good.

[sek69]

Woods slowly losing his grip on sanity because all his gaming friends keep getting sent to Raw is the best non-official storyline in WWE right now.

[CarpetCrawler]

16 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Woods slowly losing his grip on sanity because all his gaming friends keep getting sent to Raw is the best non-official storyline in WWE right now.

He was livetweeting/posting videos on Twitter during RAW whenever one of his buds got called to RAW on Monday and it was pretty great.  

[El-P]

7 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

Gable strikes me as someone they occasionally come up with small ideas for but then quickly either forget about or lose interest in. I like him a lot as a heel with a major Napoleon complex.

Yeah. Make him carry a French flag and call himself Manu Makron (the K for copyrights).

About the IIconics, for the longest time I had no idea how to write the fucking second letter. It was so confusing I would actually *hear* they name pronounced as ILconics (I know it would not have sound the same, I know, but I did hear somewhat of a L there). So, yeah, I feel your pain Charles.

[FMKK]

Quite concerning that they've come out of this shake-up, which is meant to be one of the biggest TV weeks of the year, with absolutely no hot programmes set up beyond continuing Miz vs Shane. Particularly concerning that there's very little for Becky or Roman when they both, in different ways, seem to me like acts where they needed to strike while the iron was hot after Mania and get them into big time feuds.

Lacey vs Becky is fine in terms of how the characters contrast but it screams B-show feud when Becky needs a strong new protagonist after she's put Ronda and Charlotte out of the picture for now. They have a load of women on the roster but there's a big gap between the top three and the rest imo.

[El-P]

11 minutes ago, FMKK said:

Lacey vs Becky is fine in terms of how the characters contrast but it screams B-show feud when Becky needs a strong new protagonist after she's put Ronda and Charlotte out of the picture for now. They have a load of women on the roster but there's a big gap between the top three and the rest imo.

Lacey has shown exactly zilch in the ring thus far. Her very short sequence at the Rumble was awful. As far as a character she comes from exactly nowhere, she just walked down the aisle for weeks, now she's gonna challenge the top woman. Reeks of shoving down someone who's not ready, yet again. If she catches fire, good for them. But to me it has failure written all over it. With the actual life story this girl has, they managed to just make her a non-character because she's just hot and tall and blonde and they figure it's gonna be enough. That's why they pay a hundred writers, I guess. As far as Ronda goes, well, she sure ain't gonna be on FOX for the big debut. Not kicking any ass anyway. So there... Totally agree with the gap issue, at this point you have Becky, Charlotte (who would be the third now ? Bliss ?), then a huge void, then the rest.

[FMKK]

4 minutes ago, El-P said:

Lacey has shown exactly zilch in the ring thus far. Her very short sequence at the Rumble was awful. As far as a character she comes from exactly nowhere, she just walked down the aisle for weeks, now she's gonna challenge the top woman. Reeks of shoving down someone who's not ready, yet again. If she catches fire, good for them. But to me it has failure written all over it. With the actual life story this girl has, they managed to just make her a non-character because she's just hot and tall and blonde and they figure it's gonna be enough. That's why they pay a hundred writers, I guess. As far as Ronda goes, well, she sure ain't gonna be on FOX for the big debut. Not kicking any ass anyway. So there... Totally agree with the gap issue, at this point you have Becky, Charlotte (who would be the third now ? Bliss ?), then a huge void, then the rest.

In theory the character difference between Becky as The Man and Lacey's old fashioned shit would be a nice contrast.

Really they should've been prepping to push Bliss strongly again as a first opponent for Becky and also making plans to turn Bayley heel on her. And then picking the best of the newer crop underneath them to work a long programme with Charlotte to elevate them up to that level as a future Becky opponent as well. There's an Asuka rematch on the table as well. By the time she gets through those programmes, they could be ready to bring up Shayna to be the new top heel. They knew Becky was going over at Mania so it really shouldn't have taken much planning to have Bliss looking strong and picking whoever out of Ember, Mandy, Sonya etc to work Charlotte.

[Stiva]

Lacey should just be a general fly in Becky’s ointment as she’s busy with a top feud. If they can get Sasha back, it should probably be her. If not, Naomi maybe? Really, the women’s division is small enough that they should all be interacting with each other anyway with Becky being the bonafide top dog who they orbit around.

 

[Jmare007]

1 hour ago, FMKK said:

Quite concerning that they've come out of this shake-up, which is meant to be one of the biggest TV weeks of the year, with absolutely no hot programmes set up beyond continuing Miz vs Shane. Particularly concerning that there's very little for Becky or Roman when they both, in different ways, seem to me like acts where they needed to strike while the iron was hot after Mania and get them into big time feuds.

Lacey vs Becky is fine in terms of how the characters contrast but it screams B-show feud when Becky needs a strong new protagonist after she's put Ronda and Charlotte out of the picture for now. They have a load of women on the roster but there's a big gap between the top three and the rest imo.

The wrestler that tapped The Man out in January could've been a strong challenger but WWE booking happened.

 

[El-P]

1 hour ago, FMKK said:

In theory the character difference between Becky as The Man and Lacey's old fashioned shit would be a nice contrast

Yeah but what is Lacey's character ? She dresses old-fashion ? So she's a female Vaudevillain ? I have no fucking idea. 

[Loss]

She's supposed to be an old-time Southern belle, which is incredibly short-sighted for someone who grew up homeless, whose father died of a drug overdose, and who served in specialized units in the US Marine Corps. I don't understand why those aren't the stories they tell on TV.

[Robert S]

14 hours ago, peachchaos said:

Never thought of that. They even ripped his song straight from the film series. Also, they love their force alliteration. 

"The P gets in the way" - yeah, I could totally see that

Didn't he use to be Psycho Sid with a "P" in 95 and only dropping the "P" when he returned as a face in 96 (I think they even gave some half-assed explanation)?

[SomethingSavage]

3 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

She's supposed to be an old-time Southern belle, which is incredibly short-sighted for someone who grew up homeless, whose father died of a drug overdose, and who served in specialized units in the US Marine Corps. I don't understand why those aren't the stories they tell on TV.

Exactly.

It's the same thing that irritates me so much about Lashley. He's got this incredible, inspirational true life story - and they do zilch to capitalize or publicize ANY of it, while they exploit the silliest fake stuff at every turn instead.

[peachchaos]

2 hours ago, Robert S said:

Didn't he use to be Psycho Sid with a "P" in 95 and only dropping the "P" when he returned as a face in 96 (I think they even gave some half-assed explanation)?

Seems like they mainly referred to him as Sid and sometimes "psycho" on commentary, but never on the chyron. He is listed as "The Psychotic" Sid on the VHS box for IYH1.

[sek69]

20 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

Exactly.

It's the same thing that irritates me so much about Lashley. He's got this incredible, inspirational true life story - and they do zilch to capitalize or publicize ANY of it, while they exploit the silliest fake stuff at every turn instead.

Remember when they had him do that obstacle course and everyone was wowed at how easily a big dude like that crushed it? I thought that would have been the spark for them to capitalize on him being a legit genetic freak (especially since that's entirely in Vince's wheelhouse) but all we ever got was him doing a posing gimmick where he would slap his own butt cheeks.

[SomethingSavage]

Yeah. Their track record when it comes to that stuff is the worst. See Mark Henry's AMAZING 2002 strongman comeback and how very little they did with that. Fast forward to this year and it's the brightest spot of his super engaging, heartwarming documentary. It totally babyfaces him like no silly, phony Raw segment could ever hope to do.

Regarding Lashley, even if it's a slight exaggeration, they should be all over the bank robbery deal that saw a supposed Olympian hopeful's dreams shattered, etc. You can't (well, their shitty writers can't) make up that sort of stuff.

It's literally gift-wrapped and given to them, yet they do nothing with it.

[sek69]

Vince has a long documented aversion to any real life story, everything has to be a WWE branded creation or he wants nothing to do with it unless he's forced to. 

[NintendoLogic]

I believe Kevin Nash once said that Vince would rather make a million dollars with his own idea than ten million with someone else's. His longstanding aversion to running with anything he can't claim complete credit for is one of the things that makes WWE booking simultaneously so fascinating and so frustrating. He may have made more money promoting wrestling than anyone in history, but he's also left more money on the table than any promoter ever.