WWE TV 5/27-6/2 RAW IS WILL VINCE RESIST TAKING SHOTS AT AEW

[FMKK]

9 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

Their creative is this toxic, repellant poison at this point. Their booking and presentation is so bad, it honestly doesn't matter WHO they promote or push.

You guys are focusing on the wrong thing. It won't make a difference if it's a Ricochet, a Keith Lee, or a Baron Corbin. When they're all booked and presented like shit, it doesn't matter who's there in that spot.

It's not a case of them picking the wrong guy and running with him. It's reached a point where it doesn't even matter WHO they select - it's their awful, uninteresting approach to, well, EVERYTHING.

Their stories are nonexistent. Their ideas are such a black hole of creativity that they're beyond rebounding with simple character development or renewed focus. They practically need to strip away EVERYTHING and give everyone a total, wholesale overhaul.

Nobody means anything at this point. None of the belts mean a thing. They've done so much damage through years and years of this booking.

Funny, this is almost exactly what Ambrose/Moxley says in the interview with Jericho that just came out. How everyone can see it but them really is something. We know they're miopic but Jesus.

[sek69]

Pretty sure most people on the inside *do* see it, but the guy at the top is the one who decides what goes on. They have to be hoping the new XFL can get even a little bit of success so it can be something to distract Vince, like shaking keys at a baby,

[rovert]

10 hours ago, sek69 said:

Pretty sure most people on the inside *do* see it, but the guy at the top is the one who decides what goes on. They have to be hoping the new XFL can get even a little bit of success so it can be something to distract Vince, like shaking keys at a baby,

Vince has gotten more and more erratic. Creative meetings have gone on later and later - into the early morning. Also, the final scripts typically don't finalized until after show start time - Raw, Smackdown and now even Wrestlemania.

Once Vince was a he who moves in mysterious ways type crazy genius 5 or so years ago but even that isn't the case anymore.

I legitimately don't see a scenario where WWE doesn't play perfectly in AEW's hands between now and October. 

[sek69]

55 minutes ago, rovert said:

Vince has gotten more and more erratic. Creative meetings have gone on later and later - into the early morning. Also, the final scripts typically don't finalized until after show start time - Raw, Smackdown and now even Wrestlemania.

Once Vince was a he who moves in mysterious ways type crazy genius 5 or so years ago but even that isn't the case anymore.

I legitimately don't see a scenario where WWE doesn't play perfectly in AEW's hands between now and October. 

Remember back in the Monday Night Wars era when word that Nitro scripts were being written as the show was going on was seen as one of WCW's death knells? Pepperidge Farms remembers. 

It's not as so-bad-it-ends-up -perversely-entertaining like end stage WCW was, but damn if there similarities aren't starting to add up. Death slog 3 hour main shows, nonsensical booking, cratering TV audience, falling live attendance, growing sense of frustration from talent. It's all looking awfully familiar. 

 

 

[El-P]

8 hours ago, rovert said:

Once Vince was a he who moves in mysterious ways type crazy genius 5 or so years ago but even that isn't the case anymore.

The part of Mox's interview where he impersonates Vince throwing "That's really good shit ! It's really  well written !" was both hilarious and really enlightening about how out of touch Vince really is. Honestly, I do think Vince has always been very overrated on the creative side. He's the guy who forced Shane Douglas in 1995 into the god awful Dean Douglas gimmick, while Shane in ECW was doing something truly fresh and hot for its time. He put Ted DiBiase with Steve Austin because "Steve could not talk" and settled him with the Ringmaster gimmick, until Austin by himself changed his character and took over the mic (they basically lucked into Austin, much like they lucked into Cena later) . Things like this are not new. They are way worse and all over the board now (now meaning = in the last 15 years at least), but Vince always had a thing for stupid ideas like Mox talks about.

[Stiva]

I’d argue that Vince isn’t stuck in an Attitude Era mindset these days like people claim but he’s further back in the 90s. Everything they do now is the similarly, hokey shit, either played for laughs or given the bare bones of a story to absent-mindedly get from show to show. Even then, Jeff Jarrett showed more character motivation in one in-screen promo than Elias has in the past year.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Vince was a creative genius (perhaps him & Pat) from 1984-1991. It is terrific, simplistic, elegant pro wrestling storytelling. Everything is booked the gimmicks and angles in mind. The matches exist to get either gimmick or the angle over. That's the hook. Yes, the wrestling is not as good as the Southern territories, but is very entertaining and most importantly it is purposeful. The Savage/Warrior match is the highwater mark of Vince's creative genius and is probably the most emotional story pro wrestling could ever generate. After that, I agree with most people. Vince was tapped. Vince loves America and loves childish humor. He like both innocent childish humor and the more raunchy teenage childish humor. It comes through. His takes on humor tend to be bad, but I am not implicit against some levity in pro wrestling like some fans. Vince is indeed a business genius. This is a point Charles (Loss) made to me in one of our discussions. In the late 90s, Vince became a business management genius. He figured out how to take a company on the brink of bankruptcy and turn it into global powerhouse. Austin was necessary, but once Austin flamed out, he figured out how to manage the business in such a way that it continually grows without reliance on a single superstar even though Cena was very critical and I don't want to downplay Cena too much. At some point though, even when you are really good at the business of pro wrestling, it comes time that the product matters. The product has been on steady decline since 2014. It is only through Vince's expert business infrastructure that they have not completely collapsed as fast as they should have. I think it is time that product/creative/content is going to start to matter. They need to up their game. They squandered Rowdy Ronda and The Man Becky Lynch. They will continue to squander opportunities with the current infrastructure. 

[Loss]

15 hours ago, rovert said:

Vince has gotten more and more erratic. Creative meetings have gone on later and later - into the early morning. Also, the final scripts typically don't finalized until after show start time - Raw, Smackdown and now even Wrestlemania.

Once Vince was a he who moves in mysterious ways type crazy genius 5 or so years ago but even that isn't the case anymore.

I legitimately don't see a scenario where WWE doesn't play perfectly in AEW's hands between now and October. 

Is Vince still taking one day a week to sleep all day long?

[Steve T]

7 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

Is Vince still taking one day a week to sleep all day long?

I have no idea what you're talking about but that sounds fucking awesome!

[Ricky Jackson]

It's like Odin from Thor comics. The "Vince Sleep" 

[Loss]

24 minutes ago, Steve T said:

I have no idea what you're talking about but that sounds fucking awesome!

There was a story years back that Vince was sleeping all day long every Friday and not going to work.

[Strummer]

They are teasing a segment for Raw where Stephanie is going to punish Lesnar and Heyman for messing around on the cash in.  Great more McMahons

[Mad Dog]

5 minutes ago, Strummer said:

They are teasing a segment for Raw where Stephanie is going to punish Lesnar and Heyman for messing around on the cash in.  Great more McMahons

I mean what do you expect. Their answer to the bad ratings has been to spam Roman and Shane all over both shows.

[sek69]

You know, it seems like the #1 problem facing WWE is that Vince seems to be surrounded by a wall of yes men so he never gets challenged on anything. I always got the impression when Pat Patterson was his #2 guy, he would push Vince at least somewhat. Now, everyone knows the golden path to job security is to placate Vince's every whim. I don't know if that's something that can be fixed easily, or at all. Especially since the latest move was to bring back Bruce Pritchard. Even if AEW starts whooping their asses, I don't know if that would be enough for real change to happen. The status quo is so entrenched it would take a near-total upheaval in upper management of the creative team to make any impactful difference. 

I guess the real story is, will Hunter be willing to be the Prince Charles of WWE and wait forever for his turn on the throne? Vince's mom is still alive at 98, so he's got the genes to be around for a long time still (despite spending the last 35 years running on cocaine and Ico Pro).

[Mad Dog]

I feel like the "HHH is the savior" thing is just working the marks. I'm sure some things will improve but his programs have consistently bombed for 17 years now and I just don't see how he's going to be any better. 

[sek69]

NXT has been far superior to the main roster for a while now, and they seem to give the people there more freedom to explore their characters. I know he was an oppressive bore more often than not as a wrestler, but the dude seems to know how to book a company. At least one on the scale of NXT.  It's completely fair to question if he can do it on the scale of WWE, but one positive of him being a territory era mark is he seems to understand the importance of long term booking. 

[rovert]

33 minutes ago, sek69 said:

NXT has been far superior to the main roster for a while now, and they seem to give the people there more freedom to explore their characters. I know he was an oppressive bore more often than not as a wrestler, but the dude seems to know how to book a company. At least one on the scale of NXT.  It's completely fair to question if he can do it on the scale of WWE, but one positive of him being a territory era mark is he seems to understand the importance of long term booking. 

I agree but in the last 1-2 years, NXT signed too much talent that can be serviced or can be kept happy by a one hour TV show and WWE's rate of main roster call ups. And that's if the call ups were booked remotely to their potential on the main roster which they are not.

[sek69]

Right, but if WWE was being run similar to how NXT was, things would be in a much better place. There still might be acts that don't catch on with the larger audience, but at least it wouldn't be due to lack of trying like now.

[rovert]

47 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Right, but if WWE was being run similar to how NXT was, things would be in a much better place. There still might be acts that don't catch on with the larger audience, but at least it wouldn't be due to lack of trying like now.

I really get you. But there's a lot of burgeoning talents not being listened or properly attended to. Whether by larger class sizes or politics.

The Dusty Rhodes era really was glory period and NXT has never really recovered. Morale and path to success wise.

[sek69]

The hoarding of talent is probably WWE's #2 problem now. Not only do they have more people signed than they know what to do with, it impedes the growth of the newbies at the PC. It's going to be hard for them to get any meaningful ring time when they have so many guys with large (for NXT) deals that need to justify the expense.

Honestly, the answer would be to clear out a lot of the dead weight. There's a lot of folks on the main roster they are never going to have any serious plans for, and it would allow for them to break up the logjam in NXT. They won't, since they are afraid of anyone leaving to go to AEW, so now they're going to end up with a WCW-level roster full of folks being unused/under-used/not used at all. 

The funny part is there's probably a handful of folks at most AEW would be interested in signing anyway. They've given every indication they aren't looking to be another Impact and sign up every WWE castoff they can.

Plus there's always the argument that if these folks were so valuable, why aren't they going anywhere in WWE? It seems like Vince thinks it's still the 90s and he doesn't want to be like WCW and cut someone like Steve Austin who goes and ends up being a megastar for the other side. That would probably be less of a problem if they hadn't decided the company and the BRANDS were the stars rather than the talent. 

[Mad Dog]

The problem with the talent hoarding is they are just signing guys so no one else can have them. Do you really need Trevor Lee and ACH curtain jerking NXT house shows? Could anyone see those guys on the main roster doing anything meaningful? 

On HHH and NXT. His best choices there have been letting people like Regal run the show for him. I would question how many of the day to day booking choices he makes down there. Also I think the Specials are great almost always but I think the TV can be dry as hell at times. 

[KawadaSmile]

NXT is in even worse shape than the main roster, in terms of ideas.

Let's take the women's division, for instance. With the main roster we can say that they are trying to integrate Lacey Evans into the dance, and actually succeeded, plus they pushed Becky and Bayley is back on track again while Sasha is taking a break.

On NXT, the only noteworthy wrestler in Shayna, and much of her presence is in detriment to the other wrestlers. Belair got defeated and didn't do much else afterwards, and Kairi's reign was a very short one. Baszler rules the division and doesn't really share the spotlight with anyone.

The time they are waiting to give the Street Profits, one of the best acts around, a proper title reign is also pretty bad.

 

I get criticizing the shit out of RAW and SD, but NXT feels like more of a black hole. If HHH is the one true hope, the New York office is fucked.

[El-P]

NXT was easy business. Sign hot indy talent. Push them against each others in dream matches context. Reeks in the glory of the otherwise despised "Smart fans". What has NXT *produced* out of the blue, say like the NJ dojo ? In the last few years, NXT has been a recycling bin for already experienced good to great workers. HHH as this great booker and savior of WWE once Vince dies is a completely flawed narrative. If you consider the insane potential of the amount of talent they have signed, and what they actually do with them, it's not pretty. Hey, remember when Ricochet looked special in Lucha Underground...

[Ricky Jackson]

NXT definitely feels past it's peak since the last Takeover and is as uninteresting as it's been since I began watching it regularly about four years ago. That said, it's been an amazing run that pretty much single handedly revived my interest in modern wrestling after it being almost nonexistent from about 2009 to 2015. Main roster has had some great shows, matches and moments in the last four years, but the overall presentation constantly drives me away and I find it beyond mindboggling that people have watched Raw and Smackdown every week during that period and not been driven insane 

[Coffey]

I still really enjoy NXT but I only watch the TakeOver shows, I don't watch the weekly show. So maybe that's why? I think in particular, they're doing pretty good with Io right now & I think she'll be the one to finally unseat Shayna. Then Shayna probably gets called-up. Even though the women's roster on the main show already feels bloated since they have quite a few women that they're not even currently utilizing. Meanwhile the NXT women are quite thin.