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

[Herodes]

19 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Something disturbing about a fake white knight pulling a catchy sounding "issue" out of his ass so he sounds "woke" or whatever.

Especially since no one in this thread actually said or implied any of the things you're suggesting. 

Your post is the first "hot take" ridiculous enough that I actively considered looking for a "block" button on this site. And lord knows I've certainly populated this board with enough strange (to others) "hot takes" of my own.  (Even the guy who screamed about everyone "fat shaming" Kassius Ohno because a couple of people mentioned that wearing weird basketball gear to the ring wasn't the best look for him didn't sound nearly as outrageous as your post does.)

I’m not white and the only knights I acknowledge are Sir Reggie B Fine and Sir Mo.

And yes despite your shitty use of quotation marks I stand by my statement about the disproportionate amount of impotent rage directed at a sister who decided to speak up.

[SomethingSavage]

14 minutes ago, Herodes said:

I’m not white and the only knights I acknowledge are Sir Reggie B Fine and Sir Mo.

And yes despite your shitty use of quotation marks I stand by my statement about the disproportionate amount of impotent rage directed at a sister who decided to speak up.

So you got that list compiled yet, or ya still just assuming who's white here & who isn't.

Being the self-appointed Jesse Jackson or whateverthefuck, please do tell who among us here is non-white enough to call out another non-white on their bullshit.

Fucking hell.

[SirEdger]

Taking your ball and go home when you're not happy isn't "speaking up".

[sek69]

Again, I think it's all a matter of how the person approaches it. Someone like Dean or Harper just quietly told the company they're done and/or nor resigning and goes off to do their thing. Folks have been trained by generations of pro-corporation, anti-worker propaganda that businesses all give people jobs out of the kindness of their hearts and if any worker bee has an issue, then they are the ingrate. This has been a thing both in wrestling and IRL,  the level of fealty one is expected to show to your employer has always been a weird thing to witness.

Also I wouldn't dismiss there being some other motivation behind people looking differently at Sasha either. I can't imagine WWE being a company that a woman could speak out about feeling slighted without people dog-piling. It happened to Gail Kim not to long ago and she was just confirming what other people were saying about the toxic work environment.

There's an intersect between weird, possessive wrestling fans who stan  WWE 4 Life, folks who don't like it when the wimminz start speaking up, and folks who think POC who complain too much are uppity *fill in the word you know goes here*. Yes there are white knights and woke warriors out there, but that doesn't mean the internet is pretty much a sewer for women on a good day let along for one who's not happy with her job.

[C.S.]

21 minutes ago, Herodes said:

 I’m not white and the only knights I acknowledge are Sir Reggie B Fine and Sir Mo.

And yes despite your shitty use of quotation marks I stand by my statement about the disproportionate amount of impotent rage directed at a sister who decided to speak up.

Indeed two of the finest knights who ever lived...

But I have no idea why you're bringing race into this. If Charlotte acted this way, the posts would be the same. 

4 minutes ago, sek69 said:

There's an intersect between weird, possessive wrestling fans who stan  WWE 4 Life, folks who don't like it when the wimminz start speaking up, and folks who think POC who complain too much are uppity *fill in the word you know goes here*.  

Okay, but I don't think any of that is happening in this thread.

Plus, Sasha is about as well-liked as Harper and Ambrose around these parts, and certainly by me.

I actually considered Sasha the best of the "women's evolution" wrestlers when they were all first called up, and she's still one of the best today (even if the Boss 'n Hug team oddly lacked chemistry).

[sek69]

12 minutes ago, C.S. said:

Okay, but I don't think any of that is happening in this thread.

Plus, Sasha is about as well-liked as Harper and Ambrose around these parts, and certainly by me.

I actually considered Sasha the best of the "women's evolution" wrestlers when they were all first called up, and she's still one of the best today (even if the Boss 'n Hug team oddly lacked chemistry).

I think that is where the disconnect is. I'm thinking (and I could be wrong here) that Herodes was referring to the response on the general Internet Wrestling Universe rather than this specific board. I think we've shown that this place has a higher level of discourse than angry neckbeards yelling at people on Twitter. 

[Herodes]

No there is a clearly disproportionate level of anger directed towards a woman of color which boil down to the worst kind of accusations of uppityism. 

[C.S.]

2 minutes ago, Herodes said:

No there is a clearly disproportionate level of anger directed towards a woman of color which boil down to the worst kind of accusations of uppityism. 

You're absurd.

If this were Charlotte, the reactions would be exactly the same.  

Edit: On this board. I can't speak for redneck neckbeard Twitter. 

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

19 hours ago, C.S. said:

Even though I think Sasha is probably the best overall wrestler of the women, I would push Alexa Bliss over her every single time.

1. Alexa can cut a promo. Sasha still struggles with this. Can you imagine Sasha with her own talk segment like Bliss has? I can't.

2. Alexa can play face or heel. Sasha has been a mediocre-at-best face, and that's being kind.

3. Alexa seems like she gets the media stuff, ambassador stuff, etc. far more than Sasha. She also doesn't continually embarrass herself or the company on social media. 

 

A couple of really odd points here. When has Alexa ever shown that she can play a face? When she was a pixie in NXT? When she cut that pandering babyface promo after winning the elimination chamber before quickly changing tack and heeling on the crowd? Meanwhile, Sasha had the high quality series with Charlotte as a babyface, and actually some of her biggest in-ring attributes (specifically her bumping and selling) are strong babyface characteristics. Sasha is actually probably the most adept female they have at playing both heel and babyface. 

Also, one of the reasons people think Sasha should be pushed better is precisely because she's so good at the media/ambassadorial stuff, and she's someone they always send out to do that sort of stuff. I've seen or heard of Alexa doing very little of that stuff.

[Mad Dog]

13 hours ago, sek69 said:

Again, I think it's all a matter of how the person approaches it. Someone like Dean or Harper just quietly told the company they're done and/or nor resigning and goes off to do their thing. Folks have been trained by generations of pro-corporation, anti-worker propaganda that businesses all give people jobs out of the kindness of their hearts and if any worker bee has an issue, then they are the ingrate. This has been a thing both in wrestling and IRL,  the level of fealty one is expected to show to your employer has always been a weird thing to witness.

Also I wouldn't dismiss there being some other motivation behind people looking differently at Sasha either. I can't imagine WWE being a company that a woman could speak out about feeling slighted without people dog-piling. It happened to Gail Kim not to long ago and she was just confirming what other people were saying about the toxic work environment.

There's an intersect between weird, possessive wrestling fans who stan  WWE 4 Life, folks who don't like it when the wimminz start speaking up, and folks who think POC who complain too much are uppity *fill in the word you know goes here*. Yes there are white knights and woke warriors out there, but that doesn't mean the internet is pretty much a sewer for women on a good day let along for one who's not happy with her job.

The well got poisoned early with the Sasha news. People changed their tunes a lot when Meltzer explained the situation. There's a difference when it's presented like a temper tantrum and once you get the details and realize they got fucked over in a really shitty way. There's also this weird apologist movement for the Iconics where you say anything remotely negative about them and defenders come out of the woodwork. 

[sek69]

So Sam Roberts went weirdly heel on Dana Brooke during Main Event, so I guess his gimmick now is heel announcer who randomly goes off on women wrestlers?

[Alucard]

On 4/18/2019 at 4:44 PM, sek69 said:

I've long felt there's a really good story to tell in Carmella being a second generation star, but with the twist that her father was a jobber rather than a legend. Like I could see her having a real good feud with Charlotte, cutting promos on how she grew up in the business too but didn't have things handed to her as the heir to a great legacy. 

Would dig that. Their match last August that headlined SDL was really great and their match this past week with the roles reversed was a pretty good little match as well.

[C.S.]

29 minutes ago, sek69 said:

So Sam Roberts went weirdly heel on Dana Brooke during Main Event, so I guess his gimmick now is heel announcer who randomly goes off on women wrestlers?

I don't quite understand the gimmick either, but if the purpose is to shine a spotlight on Biana Belair, Dana Brooke, etc. and generate sympathy for them, it's kind of working. Belair at least has proven Sam wrong so far - her match and performance at that very TakeOver was pretty decent.

[sek69]

I wonder at what point did WWE forget what made a good heelish commentator? Jesse and Bobby rooted for the heels and pointed out the double standard when Vince (or Gorilla) would condone a face cheating, but they would never flat out shit on someone while on commentary. Now it seems like the only direction anyone gets on the main roster when they want a heel announcer is "be the biggest asshole possible".

[CarpetCrawler]

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

So Sam Roberts went weirdly heel on Dana Brooke during Main Event, so I guess his gimmick now is heel announcer who randomly goes off on women wrestlers?

They've been slowly making that his schtick it seems from all of the pre-show PPV panels I've seen him in; just going off with bad hot takes on wrestlers.  I guess they were testing it out and now want to run with it.

1 hour ago, sek69 said:

I wonder at what point did WWE forget what made a good heelish commentator? Jesse and Bobby rooted for the heels and pointed out the double standard when Vince (or Gorilla) would condone a face cheating, but they would never flat out shit on someone while on commentary. Now it seems like the only direction anyone gets on the main roster when they want a heel announcer is "be the biggest asshole possible".

Agreed on your point on what makes a good heel commentator with one caveat, I feel like the Jesse-Vince tandem has aged terribly sometimes because Vince is so bad that he'll let Jesse go off, and off, and off, for what feels like ages, sometimes to the point of taking themselves out of the match in the very bad way the current announce teams do it.  Gorilla-Jesse is so much better in that Gorilla will at least try to stand up for himself with something other than what translates to "he's a good guy so I like him", and it shows in that Jesse is far more lively and interested while doing commentary with Gorilla.  Sometimes it feels like Jesse is trying to get himself over more than what's going on in the ring when he's with Vince, especially during the Saturday Night's Main Event shows.  But I blame that entirely on Vince.

[C.S.]

Speaking of which, what happened to Pete Rosenberg? He was the only one of these amateur "fan" types I actually liked.

[Migs]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

So Sam Roberts went weirdly heel on Dana Brooke during Main Event, so I guess his gimmick now is heel announcer who randomly goes off on women wrestlers?

They let Sam Roberts call matches now? 

[brocklock]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

So Sam Roberts went weirdly heel on Dana Brooke during Main Event, so I guess his gimmick now is heel announcer who randomly goes off on women wrestlers?

He's been heeling for the last few months on the preshow as well as the watch along and it's terrible. Usually it's against the women or weirdly minorities. Like he's ranted against Kofi, Ali, and Andrade in recent shows for like no reason. I don't know if they are trying to make it an underlying thing to his character or what.

[SirEdger]

3 hours ago, C.S. said:

Speaking of which, what happened to Pete Rosenberg? He was the only one of these amateur "fan" types I actually liked.

Good question. I actually liked Pete Rosenberg. Much better than Sam Roberts. I honestly don't know why they keep that guy around.

[fakeplastictrees]

Is Sam Roberts running an Alt-Right gimmick? The constant berating of women and POC under the guise of "just giving my opinion" is sailing very uncomfortably into territory I rather not explored on WWE programming. Even Roberts comebacks to the the criticism is out of Twitter Jerk playbook. You know the move! Say something stupid, alienation people, and then claim it was all a joke, people are marks, and you are a good heel just getting over. The commentary does nothing to get these people over in any capacity and I am (not) surprised Vince and company continue to give this the green light.

[TheDuke]

Was there a regular tv show that Gorilla and Jesse called matches on together for a while? I was young at the time so don't remember too well what the teams were, but watching the Network now it seems Jesse is usually with Vince and Gorilla is usually with Heenan or Lord Alfred.

Are they showing exclusive matches on Main Event? I feel like the last couple times I saw it, it was all just recaps of Raw and Smackdown which is pointless to watch if I am watching Raw and Smackdown anyway, so I stopped.

[Migs]

16 minutes ago, TheDuke said:

Was there a regular tv show that Gorilla and Jesse called matches on together for a while? I was young at the time so don't remember too well what the teams were, but watching the Network now it seems Jesse is usually with Vince and Gorilla is usually with Heenan or Lord Alfred.

Are they showing exclusive matches on Main Event? I feel like the last couple times I saw it, it was all just recaps of Raw and Smackdown which is pointless to watch if I am watching Raw and Smackdown anyway, so I stopped.

They did PPVs and house shows together, but none of the TV shows - Vince and Jesse did Superstars/SNME and Gorilla and Brain did Challenge. 

[SirEdger]

2 hours ago, TheDuke said:

Was there a regular tv show that Gorilla and Jesse called matches on together for a while? I was young at the time so don't remember too well what the teams were, but watching the Network now it seems Jesse is usually with Vince and Gorilla is usually with Heenan or Lord Alfred.

Are they showing exclusive matches on Main Event? I feel like the last couple times I saw it, it was all just recaps of Raw and Smackdown which is pointless to watch if I am watching Raw and Smackdown anyway, so I stopped.

There usually are 2 matches on Main Event every week.

[Mad Dog]

12 hours ago, SirEdger said:

Good question. I actually liked Pete Rosenberg. Much better than Sam Roberts. I honestly don't know why they keep that guy around.

That's kind of the theme to his career. Mediocre as shit but hangs around until he's the only option for a better gig.

[CarpetCrawler]

18 hours ago, C.S. said:

Speaking of which, what happened to Pete Rosenberg? He was the only one of these amateur "fan" types I actually liked.

I've honestly been wondering about that myself.  He was there at WrestleMania but working as a reporter for ESPN.  I haven't heard anything about WWE cutting him loose.

 

7 hours ago, TheDuke said:

Was there a regular tv show that Gorilla and Jesse called matches on together for a while? I was young at the time so don't remember too well what the teams were, but watching the Network now it seems Jesse is usually with Vince and Gorilla is usually with Heenan or Lord Alfred.

Besides PPVs the only things Gorilla and Jesse did together on the regular was co-hosting the studio portions of Prime Time Wrestling from 1985-86.  It's a shame the Network skips to Bobby's first episode because I'd love to see those early episodes again.