WWE TV 02/01 - 02/07 PALMEIRAS IS THE LIBERTADORES DA AMERICA CHAMPION

[KawadaSmile]

No worries bubba. I'm 26 and also had no idea who he was - and apparently he's over huge in Brazil too!

[Tim Evans]

Edge is going to be on NXT tomorrow. I guess that's the competition vs the Wedding. Edge/Balor would be an interesting match. But edge wrestling 3 matches in a week after the rumble seems like elder abuse.

[SirEdger]

I don't think Edge will wrestle on NXT tomorrow as much as it is to plant seeds of doubt about who he'll choose to wrestle at Wrestlemania. But yeah, hadn't it been for Beach Break tomorrow for AEW, not sure we would've seen Edge.

[KawadaSmile]

Man, Edge vs Balor is an actually interesting match-up and I would love to see it.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I think it's hilarious that everyone, myself included, had no idea who Bad Bunny was and he's fucking huge. We've been making fun of them being out of touch forever and when they get an actual relevant act it's all " Who's this clown?" We're the out of touch ones. 

[sek69]

A lot of wrestling fans who love to rail on WWE/Vince for being in a bubble not aware of the outside world kinda got exposed by not knowing who a current popular artist is. 

Even if you don't follow his music (I don't), he's been in several commercials. In fact I even saw it mentioned how WWE got Bad Bunny, AEW got Snoop, and Corona Beer managed to do a commercial with both of them. 

[Alucard]

9 hours ago, El-P said:

She was soooo good a few years back as the petite bitch heel rolling over the entire roster

Agreed, huge fan of that run. Her 2017 series with Sasha is excellent and she was a great chickenshit heel in her first match with Asuka in 2018 and the second match with Rousey. 

[Johnny Sorrow]

Alexa is great as this character, even though the whole thing is awful. She's good enough to survive this whenever it's done. And it'll be done when live crowds come back.

[Coffey]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

A lot of wrestling fans who love to rail on WWE/Vince for being in a bubble not aware of the outside world kinda got exposed by not knowing who a current popular artist is. 

To be fair, music has changed a lot over the last several years, ever since the internet really took off, honestly. The turn started with the Napster drama & now all music is pretty much streaming. No one really buys physical media anymore. Unless, like me, you're into vinyl but even that I end up ordering online because you can't find anything in person anymore. Especially in smaller cities like where I'm from.  I turn 40-years-old this year & I still listen to multiple hours of music daily but, although technologically speaking, it's easier than ever to find new music, it's also harder to branch out, so-to-speak. It's kind of a shot in the dark & hope you get lucky method for me.

According to the year in review for Spotify, I listened to over 40,000 minutes of music in 2020. Of my top 5 played artists of the year, 4 were bands/artists that I discovered in 2020.  I think all of them I found via the "similar artists" option in Spotify. Oh, I like Flogging Molly, who is similar to them? The Rumjacks... they're pretty cool. I love Tom Waits, who is like him? Hmm, never heard of Tindersticks before! My most listened to albums of 2020 were all albums that came out in the last three years. It's not like I'm listening to the shit from when I was a teenager still, or not actively trying to seek out new music constantly but if I'm looking for new genres - how is someone like me ever going to stumble on someone like Bad Bunny? Maybe it's if you're in the Pop genre tab, or if there's a discover new artists or something? I also never click on the trending tab on YouTube. I honestly have no idea how kids find new music nowadays outside of word of mouth from friends & classmates. For me, it's all about just going down a random wormhole, clicking on similar artists, listening to a track or two & seeing if from the first few tracks I randomly click on if I like them. Very much an imperfect system. I could click on a band that I would really like otherwise, choose poorly in the first couple of tracks & completely write them off due to those choices.

I don't watch TV, I watch streaming services. I don't get commercials, I use ad-blocks. I stream all of my music. I watch Twitch all the time too. So I don't feel like I'm out of touch, I just think it's hard to get targeted nowadays with new stuff if it's not in your specific, particular circle. I used to hear new stuff on Twitch when watching streamers but now that's gone with all of the copywrite shit making all of the streamers not be allowed to play music anymore. A friend just a few days ago did turn me onto the website music-map.com & I have been having some success with it thus far but it is genuinely a struggle to constantly & consistently continue to find new music. I don't care if AC/DC, U2 or Metallica come out with a new album, in example, I am actively seeking new artists - new to me, anyway. During the pandemic, I've had a lot of time to do so & it is not easy. When I was growing up, I had the radio & MTV & I could go into music stores & listen to the albums that were on the racks. I can't really do any of that anymore. Not where I'm at. 

I don't know who Bad Bunny is. After hearing his performance at the Royal Rumble, it was obvious his music isn't geared toward me or something that I would be into but I don't think that made me out of touch so much as it makes me prefer a different style of music. I can tell, usually when I'm getting passed by on shit. One time at a LAN center, I had to have an employee show me how to sync up a controller to a console to get a wireless controller to work. I had no idea how to do it. They showed me & then I asked for a controller with a cord instead. THAT was being out of touch. 

[sek69]

It's so weird to me that Lars not only got released, it happened last month and word just got out recently. He was such a perfect fit for what WWE likes, I'm shocked that they gave up on him so easily.  

[RingoPlaysDrums]

Did they give up on him easily though? I'd suggest the exact opposite. They were about to push him huge with a Mania feud vs. Cena but he no-showed TV after suffering an anxiety attack. I wouldn't imagine Vince McMahon is the kind of person to be too sympathetic about that kind of thing. Then his offensive posting history on bodybuilding.com came to light which was criticised by many fans and coworkers. If I recall correctly some of the comments were pretty fucked up. He apologised but many felt the damage had already been done. He got another go after Wrestlemania but sustained a serious knee injury that kept him out for months. During this time it came out that he'd done gay porn. They wouldn't have liked that either. He comes back once again for another push but he again no-shows a Smackdown. Even after that he's kept around for a few months before finally being released. 

So I'd actually speculate that he'd have been released a lot earlier if Vince hadn't wanted him to succeed so much.

[sek69]

Yeah it's just odd to me that after everything you list, they brought him back to push anyway, only for them to give up and totally forget about him. The mind boggles what could have happened for them to finally wash their hands of him after putting up with everything else.

[El-P]

2 hours ago, Coffey said:

I don't watch TV, I watch streaming services. I don't get commercials, I use ad-blocks. I stream all of my music. I watch Twitch all the time too. So I don't feel like I'm out of touch, I just think it's hard to get targeted nowadays with new stuff if it's not in your specific, particular circle. (...)

I don't know who Bad Bunny is. After hearing his performance at the Royal Rumble, it was obvious his music isn't geared toward me or something that I would be into but I don't think that made me out of touch so much as it makes me prefer a different style of music.

This. 

Interesting fact, being the most streamed artist "in the world" really doesn't mean he is well known *all over the world*. Some artist nowadays are hugely popular in their own linguistic community (to speak very, very broadly) and if it happens to be a huge one, they get huge numbers because of the streaming services. But apparently, Bad Bunny really isn't very well know in Europe at all yet. Granted, I'm not a mainstream person, like, at all. That being said, although I have *never heard* any of her songs and I wouldn't be able to identify her voice, I know who BIllie Eillish is.

 

[ButchReedMark]

He's only had two minor hits in the UK. It turns out I'm still cool and with it and down with the kids.

 

Now, where's my Billy Joel CD?

[rovert]

5 hours ago, sek69 said:

It's so weird to me that Lars not only got released, it happened last month and word just got out recently. He was such a perfect fit for what WWE likes, I'm shocked that they gave up on him so easily.  

They did not give up on him easily. He didn't/couldn't show up to work due to anxiety attacks. And they've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy for him.

[NintendoLogic]

Meltzer said on the F4W board that Vince still wanted to push Lars but he no-showed TV. I guess that was strike three for him after the first no-show and the knee injury. In fact, I'd be willing to bet they would have cut him loose after the first incident had the Mauro/JBL situation not still been fresh in everyone's minds.

[Robert S]

6 hours ago, ButchReedMark said:

He's only had two minor hits in the UK. It turns out I'm still cool and with it and down with the kids.

 

Now, where's my Billy Joel CD?

Same for me in Austria, but then looking at the current top 100 singles, I barely know any of the artists. But I don't think I even want to know them, to be perfectly honest.

[southofheavy]

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

But I don't think I even want to know them, to be perfectly honest.

This. 

I have zero desire to bother with mainstream music and it's been that way for a long time. Whenever I have the unfortunate circumstance of seeing it do its thing, I am reminded why. There is nothing there for me. 

Frankly, Bad Bunny was annoying as piss.

[sek69]

I've seen it mentioned that perhaps a lot of the feelings about Bad Bunny come from him being a primarily non English star and that causes a lot of English speakers to think he's no one special. Like, "he's not marketed to ME so he can't be a superstar". Kind of reminds me of the people who argue with Dave on Twitter over people like Santo being a bigger star culturally than Hulk Hogan. 

FWIW I'm officially an Old Man too and I've never heard any of his music other than what's been done on WWE TV, but the guy's a star and a big deal in a demo they've long tried to reach out to. WWE has been amazingly lucky that he also appears to be a big wrestling fan as well and wants to do more things with them.

[Blehschmidt]

I'll freely admit that I don't have a clue who Bad Bunny is, and that I am an old man who thinks that music pretty much died at some point in the mid 1990's.

That said, like him or not, at least Bad Bunny is relevant to someone in this day and age. We should probably just all be happy it wasn't Trapt or Limp Bizkit!

[Robert S]

I take Fred Durst raping Behind Blue Eyes before I listen to another Bad Bunny song, that is for sure (to be honest, I hit fast forward about half a minute in once I realized that this was no rib but meant to be serious, or is he supposed to be a comedy act?).

I realize that as a 40-year-old (Austrian) I am not the target audience of Bad Bunny, but for WWE viewers, I am well below the median age (which is something in the early 50ies, right?).

[sek69]

1 hour ago, Blehschmidt said:

I'll freely admit that I don't have a clue who Bad Bunny is, and that I am an old man who thinks that music pretty much died at some point in the mid 1990's.

That said, like him or not, at least Bad Bunny is relevant to someone in this day and age. We should probably just all be happy it wasn't Trapt or Limp Bizkit!

This. I'm still amazed we saw someone relevant on main roster WWE. 

[KawadaSmile]

Not sure what exactly is comedic about Bad Bunny's act, but hey here's to the industry trying to attract new fans instead of trying to shoo them away

 

btw I started listening to his songs after royal rumble

actually pretty dope, i wish i could go to a party with that kind of vibe

[NintendoLogic]

The only modern music I listen to is kpop. Charlotte referenced ITZY on IG a few weeks ago, which I thought was pretty cool.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJG05swsU_1/

Not gonna lie, I'd mark out if they showed up on Raw.

[DMJ]

Not a Bad Bunny fan or a hater, but I thought the audio mix at the Rumble was awful. Like, way, way, way subpar. I've seen and heard better performances on local access TV and I think it largely has to do with the production, not the performance.

You couldn't hear the background music so Bad Bunny's rapping really didn't seem like it was on any sort of beat - even if it felt that way "in the room."

If you're going to bring in this huge star, and I think by all indicators, Bad Bunny is a star (even if most of us have never heard of him), you should probably go doubly-hard on making him sound good. Ultimately, I didn't see Bad Bunny's performance on any sort of mainstream TV show or sports show or on Facebook or anywhere. 

Meanwhile, much lesser bands have gotten a bit of a "bump" from appearing on WWE broadcasts, but mostly because they've actually had notable, well-produced performances.