WWE TV April 6th through...

[Slasher]

I am not sure Vince would do that to Bryan. He seems to have his total respect.

[NintendoLogic]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat disappointed in Bryan, but I'm also not too surprised. I don't think it's possible to achieve a position of prominence in WWE without being reprogrammed to a degree by Vince's reality distortion field. Also, Brie said in her podcast that they see a naturopathic doctor, so it's possible he subscribes to all sorts of kooky ideas.

[DMJ]

10 hours ago, sek69 said:

Finally got to watch Smackdown, and realizing at some point Dana Brooke ended up with permanent duck face. Also I know they are working for a limited roster now, but her and Carmella 1. suddenly being a tag team and 2. expecting a title match instantly was a head scratcher. 

At WrestleMania, the RAW Tag Team Champions defended the titles against a team that had never wrestled as a unit before that included one guy who had only had 1 main roster match under his belt and another guy who 90% of the audience couldn't pick out of a line-up.

So, yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I signed us up and it looks like me and you are now the number one contenders for the RAW Tag Team Titles. That's just the way it works now. 

Also - someone catch me up. They're doing a tournament to find an Interim Cruiserweight Champion? Why? Its like one of those "If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it still make a sound?" thing. It goes, "If the Cruiserweight Champion got injued tomorrow and they decided to hold a tournament, can you even name who that Cruiserweight Champion was?"

[Slasher]

Yeah, I mean if they are really worried about their UK talents not being available in time, then why aren't they more concerned about the tag titles? Or is Pete Dunne in Orlando/Tampa? 

[FMKK]

46 minutes ago, DMJ said:

At WrestleMania, the RAW Tag Team Champions defended the titles against a team that had never wrestled as a unit before that included one guy who had only had 1 main roster match under his belt and another guy who 90% of the audience couldn't pick out of a line-up.

So, yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I signed us up and it looks like me and you are now the number one contenders for the RAW Tag Team Titles. That's just the way it works now. 

Also - someone catch me up. They're doing a tournament to find an Interim Cruiserweight Champion? Why? Its like one of those "If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it still make a sound?" thing. It goes, "If the Cruiserweight Champion got injued tomorrow and they decided to hold a tournament, can you even name who that Cruiserweight Champion was?"

There's no logic for the cruiserweight thing beyond that it'll fill up a few hours of content. It could be fun though. But I wouldn't have bothered putting Maverick in it unless nobody else was available.

[SteveJRogers]

2 hours ago, DMJ said:

At WrestleMania, the RAW Tag Team Champions defended the titles against a team that had never wrestled as a unit before that included one guy who had only had 1 main roster match under his belt and another guy who 90% of the audience couldn't pick out of a line-up.

 

Never mind that, don’t forget a few years ago the Raw tag belts ended up around the waist of a baby face version of Bad News Brown (not only doesn’t play well with others, doesn’t want to even be bothered with others) and a K-6 grade student that was plucked from the crowd.  Kid then was “forced to vacate” due to his scholastic responsibilities!

Hell a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown tried to go at recapturing the vacated tag titles alone, only to have a guy he previously declined the request to be partners for to help him out in the guise of a completely new persona!

While this year’s was forced upon them due to circumstances, let’s not pretend goofier scenarios for tag teams have never happened!

[KawadaSmile]

2 hours ago, SteveJRogers said:

Hell a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown tried to go at recapturing the vacated tag titles alone, only to have a guy he previously declined the request to be partners for to help him out in the guise of a completely new persona!

wait what is this

[NintendoLogic]

I believe he's referring to Austin and Dude Love winning the tag titles in 1997. People have often called Bad News the proto-Stone Cold, so he was jokingly calling Austin a poor man's Bad News. At least, I hope he was joking.

[KawadaSmile]

I thought so, but describing Austin as "a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown" sounds like a dig despite being accurate.

[NintendoLogic]

4 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I thought so, but describing Austin as "a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown" sounds like a dig despite being accurate.

This is your worst take yet, bubba.

[SirEdger]

8 hours ago, sek69 said:

it makes no sense that Bryan is putting his and potentially his family's health at risk, for what? He's famously frugal with his money so it can't be that.  He's not going to be positioned as a top guy so it wouldn't be some misplaced desire to not let the company down. Is he that invested in the angle with Drew Gulak? He doesn't seem like a guy who's going to be brainwashed by some corporate BS, plus as stated he's told the company no before. 

I wonder if he somehow feels he "owes" this to them somehow? It just doesn't add up that a guy who's universally known as one of the smartest folks in the business would make a choice like this.

I don't know if it's a matter of being that invested in that angle as much as Bryan perhaps sees a chance to make Drew Gulak a bigger name on the Smackdown roster. Maybe he wants to make sure Gulak gets a proper program along with Bryan before he decides to call it quits full-time. Considering how Bryan has been key in bringing along a couple of names on Smackdown since he returned (see Mustafa Ali), that wouldn't surprise me the tiny least.

[SirEdger]

8 hours ago, sek69 said:

 

Edit: double post, sorry.

[KawadaSmile]

13 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

This is your worst take yet, bubba.

Worse than Corbin > Rusev? (Which still holds up btw)

But I get the comparison. BNB was always a loner who never got along with anyone else, and Austin had those markings early on, but became a way more fleshed out character, which is what I understood by "lesser" in this situation.

 

Also, could it be that, like @rovert mentioned on Twitter, that wrestlers just wanna wrestle, even in face of such a horrible worldwide pandemic? Which is what would lead Bryan and others to keep on hitting the road?

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, KawadaSmile said:

I thought so, but describing Austin as "a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown" sounds like a dig despite being accurate.

Yeah, no, Bubba - this is madness. I liked Bad News Brown as much as the next guy, but he didn't have a fraction of the talent, mic skills, and charisma that Austin possessed. That's okay though, because very few did or do.

[KawadaSmile]

Just now, C.S. said:

Yeah, no, Bubba - this is madness. I liked Bad News Brown as much as the next guy, but he didn't have a fraction of the talent, mic skills, and charisma that Austin possessed. That's okay though, because very few did or do.

C'mon bubba, I'm pretty sure that the original comparison was about the character itself and not everything else. It wouldn't make sense otherwise!

[MoS]

What does not make sense is still believing Corbin > Rusev. Maybe if Corbin had been buried in the midcard for years. Given he is front and centre in the main event all the time, he sucks horribly. 

[KawadaSmile]

1 minute ago, MoS said:

What does not make sense is still believing Corbin > Rusev. Maybe if Corbin had been buried in the midcard for years. Given he is front and centre in the main event all the time, he sucks horribly. 

I'll die on that hill. Rusev is great, love him to death, but I just find Corbin better all around. 'cept at being a face.

[SteveJRogers]

4 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

I thought so, but describing Austin as "a lesser version of a baby face Bad News Brown" sounds like a dig despite being accurate.

LOL!  Sorry, by lesser I meant Austin, at least as pre-Alliance “Stone Cold,” at least took on partners, begrudgingly.  As opposed to Braun who shares Bad News’ hatred of having to be being partnered up with anyone.

[DMJ]

One theory I heard floating around (and someone would have to do some investigating to figure out the timeline) is that Bryan and others were flown in to Florida to presumably tape a month's worth of shows leading up to Money in the Bank. Then, with wrestlers already en route, Vince dropped the bombshell that they would actually be going live and having weekly shows. Maybe Bryan or others will find a way to get themselves "written off" after a week or two, but who knows what carrots and what sticks Vince is using right now. 

There's also been some scuttlebutt about whether going live is being demanded by USA/Fox and, if they breach it, could be opening themselves up to some sort of re-negotiations that would be bad for the WWE. I can see Fox and USA and Vince all wanting to go live as it would be a major coup to be the only live entertainment broadcast going on. Of course, as Mania showed, the issue is that without a live audience and the fact that nobody believes wrestling to be legitimate, its doubtful any new fans will be entertained or drawn in by WWE programming over the myriad of options they have elsewhere. Being the "only game in town" just doesn't work if "your game" sucks. 

Ironically, if one looked at the most universally lauded aspects of WrestleMania, they'd find that going live is not only the unsafest, most short-sighted way of creating content, but also the exact opposite of what people want to see right now. The only complimentary things written about Goldberg and Lesnar's matches were back-handed; Every mainstream website - and quite a few covered WrestleMania this year - either ignored that these matches took place or forgave the WWE for them because "they just needed to get them over with." Meanwhile, the highly-produced Boneyard and Firefly Fun House matches generated more buzz than anything since Ronda Rousey's debut. While replicating those types of matches on a weekly basis may be going too far, one of the WWE's greatest weapons has always been their production department. Just about any documentary you could find on the WWE Network right now would make for better content than whatever the WWE is going to try to present live (which was arguably true before the pandemic). And they don't need to risk a single person's life to do it. 

[NintendoLogic]

I could see Fox trying to stick it to WWE, especially since they apparently thought they were getting a serious sports-oriented wrestling program built around Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. But I was under the impression that USA needs WWE just as much as WWE needs them, if not more. After all, WWE programming is basically the only thing they have these days that anyone watches. The days of them being the most watched cable network are long gone.

[NintendoLogic]

5 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, could it be that, like @rovert mentioned on Twitter, that wrestlers just wanna wrestle, even in face of such a horrible worldwide pandemic? Which is what would lead Bryan and others to keep on hitting the road?

If that's the case, then they're idiots at best and sociopaths at worst and nobody should evince even the slightest concern for their well-being.

[FMKK]

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1249810882961403904?s=20

[The Thread Killer]

On 4/10/2020 at 11:21 AM, C.S. said:

They'll (The Revival) end up being just as unhappy in AEW. They seem like malcontents to me.

You can certainly make a case for them not being used nearly as well as they should have been in WWE - but that applies to every tag team there, and really every wrestler there.

The reality is, they were used about as well as tag teams usually are in non-peak eras - not great but not horribly either. 

 

On 4/10/2020 at 3:26 PM, C.S. said:

...they were used far from terribly.

Were they used awesomely? No.

But the same can be said for 99% of the roster.

They were given multiple title reigns, used in storylines, etc. That's the best a tag team can realistically expect in WWE - unless the entire business is hot ('87 with the Bulldogs and Hart Foundation, '97 with the TLC crew).

Which is a fair point about WWE and tag wrestling, but decades of history told The Revival what they were in for. 

AEW does put more of an emphasis on tag wrestling, but I personally find their tag and women's divisions massively overrated - especially the women's. 

With that said, AEW can build and improve upon all of its divisions - and The Revival would definitely be a nice piece of that puzzle for the tag scene.

I know this is a late bump, but The Revival...sorry "The Revolt" were guests on Chris Jericho's podcast yesterday and talked about their reasons for asking for their release from WWE.  From the sound of it, they left for exactly the reasons @C.S. mentions above, because the Tag Team Division on the so-called "Main Roster" is treated as a joke and an afterthought.  They seemed to feel that they were never really used properly after they were called up from NXT.  They were also able to confirm that those ridiculous sketches of new gimmicks for them that leaked online a while back were actually legitimate.  They shared a really funny story about how Vince pitched the idea to them and their reaction.

I respect those guys a lot after listening to this interview.  They grew up loving old school, southern style, JCP era Tag Team Wrestling.  That's what they wanted to do, and in NXT they were allowed to do it.  It's absolutely a fair point that they were obviously being incredibly naive (or they just weren't paying attention) when they thought they'd be allowed to continue to be presented as a serious Tag Team on Raw or Smackdown.  But as soon as they decided that they were never going to be able to achieve what they wanted in WWE, they respectfully asked for their release, in private.  They claim (and based on the recent Brodie Lee interview, I believe them) that they were offered a ton of money to stay, but this isn't about the money for them...it's about being allowed to work the way they want to work.  I also respect how loyal they are to each other.

From the sounds of things, they're pretty clearly going to end up in AEW but I think they may try and get permission to work for other companies as well, be it the NWA, ROH, Impact or New Japan.  They sound really excited about the prospect of working with all sorts of different teams.  I look forward to this whole pandemic ending and seeing where they end up.