Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Strummer]

In all honesty Roman seemed checked out well before the pandemic began. Probably during the never ending Corbin feud that lasted months. Morale on SD seemed to be poor in general before this all began honestly

[Loss]

Wait, is Reigns leaving or quitting or something confirmed? I feel like I missed something.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Roman hasn't left the company and there's no indication he will. Many think he won't be back until a vaccine is available. But no one knows, because Roman hasn't said. It's all up in the air. We're guessing at this point.

[Strummer]

Wwe being vague about Roman (and outright not mentioning him) is only adding to mystery here

[KawadaSmile]

2 hours ago, Strummer said:

In all honesty Roman seemed checked out well before the pandemic began. Probably during the never ending Corbin feud that lasted months. Morale on SD seemed to be poor in general before this all began honestly

Even before that, tbh. He had a long-ass feud against Drew a couple of years ago which worked pretty much the same as the Corbin feud. Frankly it's a miracle he got a program that had engaging moments like that one against Bryan/Rowan.

[Badlittlekitten]

The crowds were in all in on Roman and it still amazes me how they made their top star babyface, a cancer survivor, feel like any other guy after his return. And they had learned nothing. After years of lazy, asinine, tone-deaf booking that portrayed him as an entitled choke artist,  his "I'm next" line to 'earn' his Wrestlemania shot against Goldberg just reopened the floodgates of resentment all over again. 

[Burgundy LaRue]

1 hour ago, Badlittlekitten said:

The crowds were in all in on Roman and it still amazes me how they made their top star babyface, a cancer survivor, feel like any other guy after his return. And they had learned nothing. After years of lazy, asinine, tone-deaf booking that portrayed him as an entitled choke artist,  his "I'm next" line to 'earn' his Wrestlemania shot against Goldberg just reopened the floodgates of resentment all over again. 

Goldberg issued a challenge. Roman answered it. Who else was it going to be on SD? And since we knew he was winning the Elimination Chamber and didn't need it to build himself, cutting to the chase made sense.

Not to mention that both men had thrown teasers in HOF speeches and on social media for a while. That match wasn't out of the blue.

Anyone who complained about that was looking for any excuse to hate Roman again. Some fans refuse to be happy with anything.

[Badlittlekitten]

It's exactly the kind of myopic booking that drives resentment towards Roman Reigns (and Charlotte Flair). Especially after being tossed out of the Rumble by Drew McIntyre (a guy that valiantly fought his way to his Mania spot), answering the challenge with no momentum behind him, saying "I'm next," was just dumb. Obviously the options are limited with Goldberg, but come on. Just set up the feud in a less creatively bankrupt way. How about something heated and memorable. Something worthy of the Main Event of Wrestlemania. Something better than, "I'm next", and the shitty contract signing between two whiny jackasses.

[Burgundy LaRue]

If the opinion of some random fan drives another random fan to hate a wrestler, the second fan has problems far beyond how a wrestling show is booked.

[Badlittlekitten]

The shows booked badly if the unanimously cheered babyface is put in a segment where he gets booed.

[Strummer]

Yeah the "I'm next" segment got absolutely booed out of the building that night

[C.S.]

14 hours ago, Badlittlekitten said:

 Pushing someone is about more than wins and losses. You can hold a championship belt for ten years but it doesn't mean much when the promotion isn't building compelling or credible challengers,  or telling stories for the character to sink their teeth into. You're just treading water.  

Sure, but that's a problem hardly exclusive to Becky Lynch - the entire company is in the same boat. Relative to others, she's still in a great position. 

[C.S.]

14 hours ago, cm funk said:

Anyway, in the aisle with cereal which I almost never go down I saw Becky prominently featured on a Wheeties or Cheerios box or something.....that seems kind of big to me.  

Becky and Big Show were on boxes of Golden Crisp and Honey Comb because there was a WWE Network promo attached to the cereal.

On 1/14/2020 at 7:13 PM, C.S. said:

Post's Golden Crisp and and Honey Comb cereals have an offer to get WWE Network free for 3 months if you aren't a current subscriber. Look for Becky Lynch or Big Show on the boxes. My grocery store had these BOGO, so I bought four for the price of two, uploaded the receipt to https://wwexpost.com/, and got the offer after a few days. Worked like a charm! I now have the Network free through WrestleMania. (Well, really $7 or $8 for three months, but the cereal is good!)

Since this is some weird cereal site you'll never use again, I recommend getting the cereals on a separate receipt and paying cash, as well using a secondary e-mail address and fake name/info for the cereal site. Won't affect your WWE site login/info. 

BTW, if anyone cares, I think Golden Crisp is much better than Honey Comb, but both are good.

 

 

[KawadaSmile]

Look Roman never lost that damn title so he'd better be saying "I'm next" than say stuff like "I need to prove my worth".

 

People were booing also because it was "Roman getting pushed down their throats again"

[sek69]

Inserting Roman into a WM main even for reasons is the kind of thing that turned people against him in the first place, so I would suspect a lot of people saw that as opening old wounds. 

I'm at the stage where Roman's a sympathetic character to me for how the company has so badly bungled making him a top guy when it should have been a slam dunk. He's one of the most charismatic people you'll see when he's away from WWE TV, and it seems his biggest flaw as a performer is not having that ability to spin the shit he's given by creative into gold. 

[DMJ]

And I'd just add too that the reason it felt like Roman Reigns was getting "forced down our throats" was because, as others have alluded to, the WWE did an awful job with his return. Him coming out and getting a title shot against Goldberg just by saying "I'm next" did feel undeserved.

I know its a different era and blah blah but when Warrior challenged Hogan at WrestleMania VI, but that didn't feel undeserved because Warrior was coming off a monster year and was built up as the most logical challenger.

Roman Reigns, upon coming back in February 2019, was in a largely forgotten feud with Drew McIntyre, got paired with and essentially overshadowed by the Undertaker in a tag match, did not even appear at SummerSlam, was kept out of the title scene for months, feuded with Baron Corbin for much of the fall and was part of a 10-man match at Survivor Series (where one could argue the real spotlight ended up being on NXT and Keith Lee), all leading to a Royal Rumble appearance where he was overshadowed by an all-time great Lesnar performance and the return of Edge. You could say, "Well, he was the Rumble runner-up!" and all, but so was British Bulldog once. 2nd place is the first loser. 

So, when it was time for Reigns to challenge Goldberg, of course the audience shat on it. The company had spent the previous 10 months keeping Reigns in upper midcard purgatory but not really giving him any credibility or truly pushing him. A guy on a hamster wheel is not engaging or captivating and pushing him right into the title picture just slaps the audience in the face by admitting, "Yeah, basically, nothing matters and we can insert Wrestler A into Slot B whenever we choose because there's no such thing as momentum." To be honest, for similar reasons I'm not a fan of the Drew McIntyre push, but at least they gave him the Rumble win and I will admit that, by comparison, he is "fresher" than Reigns. 

 

 

EDIT - And, once again, someone else (this time sek69) has basically said what I wished I could've wrote in a more concise and better way.

 

 

[FMKK]

Roman Reigns three feuds since coming back from cancer were vs Shane McMahon, the 'who attacked Roman' angle that made no sense and ended up as Reigns vs Rowan and then Vs Corbin. In a year where The Fiend didn't exist, those could all be in the running for worst feud of the year. We've kind of just forgotten how horrendous that whole mystery angle over the summer was because WWE is always bombarding us with the next awful thing. Guy went from having people in the crowd crying for him to having his heat utterly extinguished before the year was out.

[Rocco]

I know its already taped but showing a Velveteen Dream match on Wednesday seems like a bad idea.  

[cm funk]

5 hours ago, C.S. said:

Becky and Big Show were on boxes of Golden Crisp and Honey Comb because there was a WWE Network promo attached to the cereal.

 

Hahahaa, thanks for that!  I knew Wheaties or Cheerios wasn't right, but I'm not really a cereal person

This was weeks ago I noticed that, earlyish April, figured it was a WM tie in.   Surely still good if out since January, I should check the next time I go to that store.  I'd eat a box of cereal for a free month of the network

[C.S.]

26 minutes ago, cm funk said:

Hahahaa, thanks for that!  I knew Wheaties or Cheerios wasn't right, but I'm not really a cereal person

This was weeks ago I noticed that, earlyish April, figured it was a WM tie in.   Surely still good if out since January, I should check the next time I go to that store.  I'd eat a box of cereal for a free month of the network

According to https://wwexpost.com/ (the cereal promotion site), you have to buy three boxes of cereal - you can mix and match - and you have until May 31, 2020 to upload your receipt. 

[Coffey]

On 5/4/2020 at 6:35 PM, C.S. said:

Becky and Big Show were on boxes of Golden Crisp and Honey Comb because there was a WWE Network promo attached to the cereal.

Man, I miss breakfast cereals. So ridiculously unhealthy, but I grew up on those bowls of sugar. Honeycomb was always one of my favorites, up there with Lucky Charms. Which reminds me, remember when it was a big deal to be on the cover of Wheaties? There was even a WWF Superstars cereal. I bet those are hard to find nowadays! That would be a pretty cool shelf souvenir. 

[MoS]

It seems fitting to ask this here: can somebody explain what's happening between Mark Henry and Lio Rush? Apparently Henry threatened to sue Rush for "questioning his blackness"?! 

 

[BigBadMick]

When lio left for a while (last year, I think), he talked about racism in the company. Mark Henry was among those denying racism.

[Rocco]

I dont know why Mark even bothers with a moron like Lio Rush.  

[MoS]

3 minutes ago, BigBadMick said:

When lio left for a while (last year, I think), he talked about racism in the company. Mark Henry was among those denying racism.

How does that progress to Henry threatening to sue Rush for defamation and questioning his blackness though? And the stuff about plugging his music and calling out Henry cuz he is famous? Sorry, but I am very very confused.