WWE TV 07/29 - 08/04 Hey whatever this country is broken

[C.S.]

3 hours ago, El-P said:

So that's gonna be Daniel Bryan new gimmick ? The Forklift Driver ? Where is Duke Droese when you need him ?

 

[SirEdger]

Reddit users are quite the private eyes.

[Alucard]

On 7/29/2019 at 7:43 PM, C.S. said:

I officially no longer care about lazy Gauntlet matches. (Lazy in the booking, not the wrestlers.)

Amen, lot of potential to use it to do something, anything, different there but instead went the ridiculously predictable route and barely made Ricochet even have to work for it. Obviously none of the heels were gonna win to face heel AJ, but Rey winning would've made it come off way more unique at least.

On 7/30/2019 at 7:30 PM, KawadaSmile said:

I think he just isn't able to talk as a heel. Needs more of that 80s roided up energy, y'know?

Still, he's had KO's best match since who knows when

I thought Drew was absolutely fantastic on the mic in his first run back in 2010, really excellent heel work while he was IC Champ feuding with Kofi, Teddy Long, and Matt Hardy all at once.

On 8/2/2019 at 3:40 PM, KawadaSmile said:

I told you guys this Becky twitter bit was getting lame during the Ronda feud. It's gotten worse now. 

Agreed 100%. Haven't been able to stand her this year at all, on or off screen.

[Alucard]

On 8/2/2019 at 4:19 PM, C.S. said:

 

Brock also, Judgment Day 2003.

[RazorbladeKiss87]

On 7/29/2019 at 5:22 PM, El-P said:

Wow. I'm following from afar... They don't even try to book any personal issues anymore. When in doubt : gauntlet.

This seems to be the story of Summerslam this year. Matches without personal issues are made and then the issue is shoehorned in. I think the PPV will be technically good but without the hot angles to organically kickstart the matchmaking, who cares?

[RazorbladeKiss87]

1 hour ago, Alucard said:

Brock also, Judgment Day 2003.

And Terry Funk at 'Mania 14.

[Microstatistics]

This might already have been discussed but it's amazing how quickly fans on reddit and other places turned on Seth. Just last year, they wanted him as the face of the company and were touting him as WOTY for having amazing match after amazing match. But now suddenly, he hasn't been compelling since the heel run in 2015. 

I rarely outright dislike a wrestler, but I have to agree with the general PWO consensus here. Something about Seth Rollins' wrestling just feels off on every level. His usual formula might just be the worst possible way to construct a wrestling match. 

[sek69]

He's a completely unlikable babyface, and he set fire to any goodwill he had left with anyone with his social media antics. 

 

[Microstatistics]

He was a babyface in 2018 too though and a super popular one. All that underdog stuff with the gauntlets, people were all aboard that Rollins train. But yeah the recent social media stuff and the Becky Lynch connection has somehow negated all that. 

[DMJ]

Hate to be that guy, but I think last week's weekly WWE thread "devolved" into this exact same conversation.

There were some great, eloquently-worded takes on it in last week's thread (and I'm not just tooting my own horn), but I could see every weekly thread turning into this for the foreseeable future. Its just too fun to dunk on the guy. 

Maybe we should just make some sort of catch-all thread with a name like "The Seth Rollins UnAppreciation Thread"?

[Microstatistics]

Yeah, I remember people in one of these threads having this discussion but I couldn't remember which one. Apologizes for derailing. But I guess dislike for Rollins unites PWO like nothing else.

 

 

[SomethingSavage]

There was a time last year when almost everyone here kept fantasy booking him to beat Brock and be back on top, too. It wasn't always this way and it wasn't only Reddit.

[Migs]

35 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

There was a time last year when almost everyone here kept fantasy booking him to beat Brock and be back on top, too. It wasn't always this way and it wasn't only Reddit.

I really think you underestimate how bad the set of options were to beat Brock that a) were at least somewhat engaging and b) seemed like someone Vince could plausibly get behind. If not Roman, who a lot of people were pretty tired of... who? They killed off Strowman. Didn't seem like they'd give that slot to Bryan. Rollins was someone who was at least over in his role and kinda fun to watch.

He's obviously been a disaster on top for a lot of reasons, but I think the decision to have him win the Rumble and beat Brock was defensible. 

[FMKK]

38 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

There was a time last year when almost everyone here kept fantasy booking him to beat Brock and be back on top, too. It wasn't always this way and it wasn't only Reddit.

Everyone was so tired of Brock and we'd never had a proper top babyface run from Seth so I can see why lots of people were into it, or at least accepting of the inevitable. I don't remember ever being that enthusiastic for it but I'm sure there's some post from months ago where I was much more in favour of it than I am now.

I wonder if the turnaround of his reputation online ever translates into crowds not giving him a babyface reaction.

[Strummer]

It was that gauntlet match in Feb. 2018 where everyone here seemed to take notice of the crowd reactions Seth was getting.  Of course Roman was already set in stone that year but people were starting to wonder if Seth would eventually be on top.

and I guess he was doing the open challenge ic title stuff around late 17/early18 that got him more over as well

[Jmare007]

I was impressed by Seth's reactions early last year. I was watching very sporadically but dude was, at that time, more over than anyone else that I saw. I thought that maybe he was finally about to have a Jeff Hardy 2.0 type run as a babyface. Rollins first run on top as a heel in 2015 (?) was the thing that made me stop watching weekly for good - very few things since then have made go back to watching more than 2-3 weeks in a row -, never really thought dude was good enough to be a top guy but I thought hey, if the crowd loves the guy so much, then go for it and give him a green light push.

But then I saw his match at Summerslam against Dolph and realized that the crowd wasn't there for him at all, eventually turned on the match and dude handled it like a spoiled brat. And that was that I do agree that RAW didn't have many more options than him for Mania once Braun was cooled off to death. The argument then would be "why not try for real with other people in the 2nd half of 18'?" but my guess is that by that point everyone knew that WWE booking couldn't pull off something like that. You basically need a Daniel Bryan type forcing them to give new people shots and making them legit threats/stars to the point that they have no other shot, and RAW didn't have anyone that could do that.

 

[Matt D]

I think a lot of us want anything to work and anything to be hot and anything to feel meaningful. Wrestling's more exhilarating to watch when the crowds are hot and when they're pushing acts that are getting over.  Even if it's a guy we don't necessarily like, it could pump life into everything on the card. 

Obviously it didn't quite work out, not with Becky, not with him. 

[KawadaSmile]

Crowds still like Becky more than they don't. Sure her twitter act is wack, but usually her segments are well-received, regardless of their actual quality.

I do think she'll be received (and will wrestle) as a heel in Canada, as that usually happens, but other than that she's still over, despite that wave from the first semester dwindling.

[Strummer]

Yeah hot crowds make the product more fun even if it's someone you really don't like getting that push.

like in all honesty I was kinda bored of Austin's character by a certain point in 99 but his presence obviously made for some incredibly fun matches and segments

and there were periods where Cena's push wasn't always doing it for me but he made the show more fun to watch

[Dale Wolfe]

Let's be honest, is there anyone who has been benefitted by the idea of working their character on twitter? It's a medium of stupid jokes and offhand comments, which I like, but building your character? Fuck all that 

[El-P]

29 minutes ago, Dale Wolfe said:

Let's be honest, is there anyone who has been benefitted by the idea of working their character on twitter? 

Some time ago, I guess when it seemed new, people were talking about how great it was and how this was back to kayfabe and stuff... Yeah, it really worked out well. Like Twitter in general, actually.

[SirEdger]

3 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think a lot of us want anything to work and anything to be hot and anything to feel meaningful. Wrestling's more exhilarating to watch when the crowds are hot and when they're pushing acts that are getting over.  Even if it's a guy we don't necessarily like, it could pump life into everything on the card. 

Obviously it didn't quite work out, not with Becky, not with him. 

I wouldn't say that she'll be universally booed in Toronto but there'll definitely be some 50/50 chants for Becky and Nattie.

[FMKK]

4 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think a lot of us want anything to work and anything to be hot and anything to feel meaningful. Wrestling's more exhilarating to watch when the crowds are hot and when they're pushing acts that are getting over.  Even if it's a guy we don't necessarily like, it could pump life into everything on the card. 

Obviously it didn't quite work out, not with Becky, not with him. 

Becky last autumn was hotter than Seth has ever been. She's been a victim of them never being able to capitalise on momentum and seemingly not being able to do any story effectively besides an underdog title win. Really, the signs were there when they overbooked the fuck out of the Mania match.

Seth I think it's always going to be a matter of time before people sour on his latest big push.

[SomethingSavage]

5 hours ago, Matt D said:

I think a lot of us want anything to work and anything to be hot and anything to feel meaningful. Wrestling's more exhilarating to watch when the crowds are hot and when they're pushing acts that are getting over.  Even if it's a guy we don't necessarily like, it could pump life into everything on the card. 

Obviously it didn't quite work out, not with Becky, not with him. 

Agreed. And I addressed that in a post this past week. The dearth of over acts in WWE has led to people prematurely overrating acts like Becky and Seth, simply because they're thirsting to death for something - for ANYTHING - to be over.

In actuality, nothing is all that over at the moment. Nothing is resonating.

I've mentioned before that I felt like Seth found his groove for awhile there in 2018. The tag team with Dean was his absolute peak for me, but even the IC reign was damn decent. Because that was his spot. He owned it. He doesn't belong anywhere near a main event role though. He simply isn't suited or well-rounded enough for it.

The Jeff Hardy comparison is really REALLY reaching though. Jeff in 09 was second to only maybe Cena. Seth has never really felt close to that as a solo act. His merch definitely isn't anywhere near Jeff's level. Regarding Seth, I think some people are confusing the Pavlovian responses to any tangible type of over-ness.

They were smart enough to tweak his entrance music in a way that would incite a response from the crowd. Suddenly, people started shouting along to the "Burn it down!" line, and what do ya know? Folks are confusing that for him being actually over.

Fast forward five minutes into the weeds of his match though, and he's getting "Boring" chants while trading athletic dosey-do's with Dolph. Go figure.

[Migs]

57 minutes ago, FMKK said:

Becky last autumn was hotter than Seth has ever been. She's been a victim of them never being able to capitalise on momentum and seemingly not being able to do any story effectively besides an underdog title win. Really, the signs were there when they overbooked the fuck out of the Mania match.

Seth I think it's always going to be a matter of time before people sour on his latest big push.

Looking back, I think the big misstep with Becky might have been giving her both belts in the Mania match. Cool visual, but then it meant the functioning of the show required her to lose quickly to get one off her. So instead of being able to come out of Money in the Bank looking like a badass, she loses and her segment swung into being about Bayley. They compounded that by doing three and a half months of her and Lacey Evans; one might have been fine to give Lacey some rub, but Becky's literally been locked in that program from Mania until like two weeks ago.