WWE TV 06/29 - 07/05 Florida is pretty much where the Doom guy goes to in his games

[SmoothS]

Every single bit of that is true. I have been watching pro wrestling since I was 5 in 1991. Right now in wrestling, every single time I see certain wrestlers, I see and feel the same way about them. I hold the same opinion on Drew Gulak & Roman Reigns. Seth Rollins is an elite worker, but he lacks the charisma to be the face of a wrestling company as well. The ratings are the way I view the match, from storytelling, psychology, all the way to the very end. 

Also, I never had a bad thing to say about John Cena, I thought he was great. Had the charisma, cut the promos, great storyteller in the ring (Top 100 Worker guy). They messed up the Doctor of Thuganomics character however, and that somewhat took away from his legacy.

[Burgundy LaRue]

You have the right to your opinion, just like the rest of us. But you come across as a gatekeeper who talks down to anyone who doesn't share your POV.

[MoS]

I would actually like someone who prefers Rollins to Reigns to talk about why they do so. I am not the biggest fan of Roman on this board, but to me, his offense is more snug and realistic than Rollins, he does not constantly take you out of matches with terrible expressions and spotty selling the way Rollins does, and while Seth has a bigger moveset, I don't get the sense that he knows how to time and structure it cogently into the match. He can literally do 3 top rope dives 10 seconds after selling his leg like it is broken. 

And while Roman has often been given terrible material on the mic to work with, as a promo he still blows away Seth. 

[KawadaSmile]

Yeah, I hated it when they were going the Cena route with Roman. Fuckin' tater tots (which on the other hand the crowd got behind somehow) and beanstalks. Suffering succotash, son!

From '16 on I just don't know how you can say he's boring or has no presence. The AJ feud should've been enough to silence those points, but then he went on to legitimize Braun as a star, and got Lashley a needed victory. Might be the most giving top star ever.

[DMJ]

Yeah, I think Reigns has too many high-end matches with too wide a variety of opponents to not consider him a very good performer/worker. Rollins, on the other hand, is actually a guy with very few true top end matches despite the reputation for being some "elite" worker. Now, I would listen to the argument that Rollins' reputation as the workhorse/technician of the Shield meant that his underwhelming matches are more based on him not meeting expectations (whereas Reigns has, in a sense, "overdelivered" because he had the knock of being just "the muscle"), but that's a different conversation.

I think there was really, for some time at least, a sense that Rollins was as good a worker, or at least could be mentioned in the same breath as guys like Kenny Omega or AJ Styles or even Bryan and, if he wasn't there yet, had the potential that he could be one day. I think the more we see of him, the more its clear that he's just not a top 10 guy in any department and, as a whole act, he lacks the intangibles to overcome being a B+ player. I mean, sure, in terms of consistency, Seth Rollins is way more reliable for a good match (and maintaining sobriety) than Jeff Hardy. He's a better athlete than CM Punk or The Miz. But I'd rather have unreliable Jeff Hardy or "skinny fat" Punk or the limited in-ring skill of The Miz on my roster over Rollins any day of the week. And there's a dozen other guys I'd take over Rollins too. He's not a top draft pick to me. 

[sek69]

Rollins is a guy that would probably have a great career as a tag guy in the 80s but never get a singles run. His push is like if JCP decided to make Robert Gibson a main eventer.  It's not that Seth is terrible, he's just someone playing out of position. 

Roman on the other hand is a guy who got his time at the top handcuffed by the company trying to push him like he was Cena instead of on his own merits. He unfairly (to him, fairly for the company) inherited the backlash Cena had and also wasn't helped by having like 3 straight Wrestlemanias built around his grand coronation to the point even his stans were like " Jesus, that's getting a bit much".

[KawadaSmile]

I believe that the issue wasn't having 4 WM main events in a row. If we dissect them it's clear that the worst part was how they came to be, as it got worse and worse for him each and every year. An unwinnable situation.

• 2015: after shooting themselves in the foot in that year's Rumble, eliminating Daniel Bryan halfway through the main event and getting Kane/Big Show to eliminate all the other darlings at the time, Roman gets booed to hell after eliminating Rusev. After a weak build, that involved insane great matches with and against DBryan, he has quite possibly one of the best WM main event matches ever. That was the moment for him to pull the upset victory, but they decided to give Rollins a shitty 8 month reign instead. Roman spent the rest of the year feuding with Big Show and Bray Wyatt, only getting some momentum after that Survivor Series fuck finish. That's right, bitches! He got two cash-ins in one year!!!
• 2016: as we mentioned, he had some things going for him after that Sheamo/VKM feud, and going into the Rumble things were fairly engaging! Maybe this is it!!! Oh wait he has to defend his title at the rumble? Why is he spending half the match getting stretchered out? Wait Triple H won? Fuck. Anyway, he got EMBARASSED by The Cerebral King of Kings Assassin Game in the build to WM, while Ambrose got time to shine. The match itself at Wrestlemania was the usual bullshit NWA style HHH demands to have, and it did Reigns no favors. The crowd reacted to the finish, and the title reign did lead to an awesome AJ feud, but Rollins again needed to have another title reign. Fuck that. Also, he got popped for adderall that year and had to put Finn Balor over in a way that I haven't seen since.
• 2017: fuck you Taker you botched that send-off match and Reigns took the brunt of the criticism because no one would dare to say 'yeah Taker has fucking sucked for a minute now'. Only reason that match went on last was because the crowd would be insufferable afterward.
• 2018: I don't know what to say about that shit. One day we will know why the dude got shoot elbows to the head and not even won the damn match. The final moments of that year's Mania was a defeated Roman consolating his family.

tl;dr: WWE always got cold feet regarding Roman's push and he suffered way more than necessary for it.

[sek69]

Yeah looking at all that makes it clear they tried to apply the "Well Bryan lost all the time and people rallied around him" logic to Roman. I can imagine historians looking at that period 30-40 years from now trying to wrap their heads around the only lesson WWE learned from Bryan's WM run was "that means we can job out all our babyfaces and people will rally around them". with zero grasp on WHY people rallied around him and just being baffled.  

[C.S.]

11 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

Really?

Between the star ratings you've been throwing around, calling Drew Gulak boring, defending Seth Rollins, and now this "amazing" take... I'm not sure this is the board for you.

Is this really necessary? I've had "hotter" hot takes than @SmoothS and no one has tried to run me off the board. They've argued passionately with me, probably thought "You're cray cray, Bubba," the whole nine yards, but they've never tried to run me off.

I thought Gulak was boring at first too, but he has won me over recently. Then again, that could just be the Bryan Effect, as even Big Cass seemed like a competent worker with untapped potential when paired against Bryan. I do recognize Gulak's skills, obviously, compared to Cass though.

I wasn't on PWO at the time, but I would've defended Shield-era Seth Rollins and even Authority Seth with the World Title. Somehow, somewhere along the way, it went downhill for Seth. I find him insufferable now. When he was in the I-C division, he was considered a "great worker" and having "workrate" and "movez" matches that did nothing for me and got volleyballs thrown around by the audience. When he returned to the World Title scene after that, it was only as Roman's replacement, and it didn't really work. If he was in more of a midcard or tag team role, I'd probably enjoy him again.

I think Roman is awesome, underrated, and gets piled on way too much (outside of PWO anyway). However, SmoothS has a point when he says Roman comes across as a bodyguard. He's not wrong. Not evolving Roman past the Shield gear was and continues to be a massive mistake IMO, and it's one of those "little things" WWE used to do so well but no longer does, and it limits him. 

[El-P]

5 hours ago, C.S. said:

Is this really necessary? I've had "hotter" hot takes than @SmoothS and no one has tried to run me off the board. They've argued passionately with me, probably thought "You're cray cray, Bubba," the whole nine yards, but they've never tried to run me off.

Damn, I tried my best when you were all down on Asuka. Then you got to your senses. Then you said Mauro Ranallo was the best announcer. I tapped out right there !

5 hours ago, C.S. said:

However, SmoothS has a point when he says Roman comes across as a bodyguard. He's not wrong. Not evolving Roman past the Shield gear was and continues to be a massive mistake IMO, and it's one of those "little things" WWE used to do so well but no longer does, and it limits him. 

For sure, I've always hated that look, no matter who wears it. A fucking bulletproof vest in a pro-wrestling ring, really ?

Roman is a clear case of being both underrated and overrated to me. 

[MoS]

I think there was a story going on a few years back that Roman was still wearing the vest because Vince/HHH/some higher-up thought he did not have a very impressive body. 

[NintendoLogic]

Yeah, I don't get the vitriol toward this @SmoothS fella at all. He may be out of step with the board consensus in some ways, but he hasn't tried to derail any threads or engaged in personal attacks. Let's not go back to the days of people being reluctant to express opinions out of fear of being piled on and shouted down.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Roman wears the vest partly to cover the hernia belt he needed after having his intestines spill out in 2014. The vest he wears isn't like the Shield ones. It's not tactical in any way. It's also partly a marketing tool, makes it easy to identify him to kids wanting to buy his action figures.

I'm not sure what else he would wear. He's not a trunks guy, and I don't think he'd want to wear long tights or a singlet. Every time I've asked someone what they'd have him change to, I haven't gotten an answer.

The issue I have with Smooth S is him stating his opinion as fact. "Every single bit of that is true" when giving his take reeks of a gatekeeping mentality that runs rampant in a lot of fandoms and especially wrestling. Speaking only for myself, I don't care if his opinion is different. But him being a long-time fan who follows in-ring psychology doesn't make him better than anyone else who watches this carny show.

[NintendoLogic]

He could always go for the singlet/pants combo like Sgt. Slaughter and the Bushwhackers.

[Dale Wolfe]

I now have an image of Roman returning as a modern day Mr Hughes and I am all for it

[Blehschmidt]

10 hours ago, C.S. said:

Is this really necessary? I've had "hotter" hot takes than @SmoothS and no one has tried to run me off the board. They've argued passionately with me, probably thought "You're cray cray, Bubba," the whole nine yards, but they've never tried to run me off.

 

53 minutes ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

The issue I have with Smooth S is him stating his opinion as fact. "Every single bit of that is true" when giving his take reeks of a gatekeeping mentality that runs rampant in a lot of fandoms and especially wrestling. Speaking only for myself, I don't care if his opinion is different. But him being a long-time fan who follows in-ring psychology doesn't make him better than anyone else who watches this carny show.

 

Burgundy just said it much better than I could have.

[NintendoLogic]

Oh, come on. This is a message board. There's no need to preface everything with "in my opinion." That should be a given.

[KawadaSmile]

4 hours ago, MoS said:

I think there was a story going on a few years back that Roman was still wearing the vest because Vince/HHH/some higher-up thought he did not have a very impressive body. 

Shit if ROMAN doesn't have an impressive body, there's no hope for a huge portion of the roster.

But I dunno. The vest, at of 2020, is basically his logo. He has an emblem like Spiderman or Superman. It's like a super hero, and it's part of his appeal to the younger audience. I really wouldn't change it, even if he does have new tats now.

[NintendoLogic]

The median age of WWE's viewers has been over 50 for the past several years, so it might be a good idea to rethink the vest-with-cool-logo strategy for bringing in the little Jimmies.

Even if Roman's current vest isn't as tactical as the one he wore in the Shield, it's still more protection than anyone else on the roster wears. It sets him apart in a bad way because it makes it seem like he has an unfair advantage. That was fine when he was a heel enforcer for the Authority, but it's a bad look for a top babyface.

[Coffey]

6 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Yeah, I don't get the vitriol toward this @SmoothS fella at all. He may be out of step with the board consensus in some ways, but he hasn't tried to derail any threads or engaged in personal attacks. Let's not go back to the days of people being reluctant to express opinions out of fear of being piled on and shouted down.

I actually like when someone has a differing opinion than the majority. It makes for more interesting discussion.

 

Unless it's defending Mauro.

[EricR]

I really liked the Great American Bash presentation. I didn't watch it on Wednesday but watched it on the 4th while eating a burger. Came off like a cool In Your House show. 

 

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/07/nxt-great-american-bash-7120.html

[C.S.]

12 hours ago, El-P said:

Damn, I tried my best when you were all down on Asuka. Then you got to your senses. Then you said Mauro Ranallo was the best announcer. I tapped out right there !

For sure, I've always hated that look, no matter who wears it. A fucking bulletproof vest in a pro-wrestling ring, really ?

Roman is a clear case of being both underrated and overrated to me. 

Well, to be fair, I think Mauro is the best current commentator - not of all time.  

As for Asuka, while it's not her fault, long winning streaks and "I'm the champion" were her entire character for a long time. But she's far from the only one WWE has booked in such a mind-numbingly boring way. They repeated the formula more or less, much less successfully, with Shayna Baszler later. They also did that with Seth Rollins and too many others to count, where the entire character is, "I have a title."

Asuka is far more entertaining now as a character and act, and she's even once again the champion and once again dominant, but it works so much better for me because she has become much more endearing IMO.

 

5 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

But I dunno. The vest, at of 2020, is basically his logo. He has an emblem like Spiderman or Superman. It's like a super hero, and it's part of his appeal to the younger audience. I really wouldn't change it, even if he does have new tats now.

This is a great point, but the vest is so boring and black. If it had splashes of color, like a Spider-Man costume, now we're talking! (I realize the logo is sometimes blood red or some other color, but it's still dull.)

[KawadaSmile]

20 minutes ago, C.S. said:

This is a great point, but the vest is so boring and black. If it had splashes of color, like a Spider-Man costume, now we're talking! (I realize the logo is sometimes blood red or some other color, but it's still dull.)

I think the orange was a GREAT color for him,. Now, with the BIG DOG being added to the logo, it might be more distinguishable.

The only other alternative I can see to the vest is what he wore in Hobbs and Shaw. Could keep the glove and wristband and add some details, but that look was great.

 

Also, in other news:

https://programminginsider.com/friday-ratings-abc-cbs-and-fox-share-modest-dominance/

Sasha and Bayley drew nearly half a million watchers on a holiday show. MOVING THE NEEDLE~!

[sek69]

Dave reporting on the Observer site that Rey's deal has expired and at the moment he's working without a contract. I'm sure it won't happen because he's trying to get his son started in the biz, but I would love him to pull a Rick Rude and just show up on Dynamite. 

[sek69]

On 7/4/2020 at 8:22 AM, NintendoLogic said:

Are they trying to set up a feud with Rob Liefeld? Awful.

Watching SD now, this didn't seem as bad as everyone made it out to be. 

Clearly Vince felt that fans would be confused at a white guy wrestling barefoot and wanted to have an explanation, and Matt did it in his usual doofy way.