DraxSpago

Benoit at WM20? That was pretty good

While that's true, there surely aren't many people in the "ZOMG NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE STEEN VS JERICHO" camp who don't already have the WWE Network. Tailoring Raw to the people who are already likely to be subscribing to their network (and watching Raw every week) is incredibly counterproductive when it puts off anyone who isn't like them. It's got to be coincidence.

 

It can't just be laziness either because on whose part would it be lazy? There'll be some writers that are happy to put Ziggler vs Cesaro on and get 15 minutes out of the way without writing anything, but given the turnover and size of the staff, there'll be loads who are constantly trying to get ideas onscreen too. And if Jim Cornette and teenage morons are to be believed, Vince and Kevin Dunn passionately hate wrestling, so they'd jump at any chance to do more non-wrestling on the show. It doesn't make any sense that the show is the way it is unless they really do think the foreign networks would kick off if it wasn't. Maybe he does think that's all most of his current roster are good for is overlong filler.

Genuinely interested, what do you think the overall problem and/or solution is?

Bloody spot monkeys, didn't Teddy Hart talk about doing something similar during one of his many batshit interviews? Sure it may have been when he was talking about the cat wrestling bullshit too.

Yeah I'm pretty sure Bischoff mentioned it when he was setting up that MatRats promotion after WCW was sold, Teddy Hart was one of their names, they had a type of platform for them in each corner to perform the high flying moves, don't really see how it made it much more impressive than just doing them off the top rope, given the whole thing bombed it obviously wasn't impressive after all

Think it's 1 in the morning (Sunday morning)

How much of an arsehole is Earl Hebner? Just read an interview with him from a few years ago and he was going on about screwing Bret over for 'the boys' and how Bret never held it against him, obviously didn't read his book

Just glad he's got that TNA hall of fame status to fall back on, watching Rock tell him to fuck off at WM 19 is even funnier now

Sorry this should've been in random thoughts

I don't see a problem with Eva Marie, she's getting boos even if it is for being a relatively poor wrestler, for all the hype about Sasha Banks (and she is capable of some great matches) she's still a heel who gets cheered

Was there a Smackdown vs Raw game where they actually had the terms 'face' and 'heel' in it?

I seem to remember it being in one with the dreadful GM mode

I saw the crowd at Summerslam '92

 

 

 

 

Or they could book him as a brute who happens to be Bulgarian? Then you'd have no reason to do the foreigner vs America storyline.

They could, but would they ever? I just think his flag-waving ways glues him to the midcard, but if this is just him earning his stripes with a simple gimmick then he gets to evolve a bit then that's cool. The fact they turned him Russian at an opportune moment suggests probably not though

British Bulldog was covered in Union Jacks, but his storylines seldom involved that. And Rusev's far better than Davey ever was.

Except for the old drawing money bit yeah he is

 

These ratings will be Vince's excuse to say "see, I told you women doing proper wrestling was a mistake" and demote it back to 1 minute wee breaks.

Hopefully. It's fucking shit.

Seconded, at least shit backstage bits don't last 20 minutes and you can be arsed seeing where they go

Cesaro vs Barrett where they each go for their finisher for the last 4 minutes is fast forward material

A big problem for me is the staleness of the roster, there's only so much you can do with a character.

 

There's far too many people still there who have done all they can do with the audience really not giving a shit about them still. It's like any other TV show, you rarely see characters/shows last past the 6-8 season mark because they either the audience grow tired of it or the writers feel they can't take it any further - times those seasons by a shitload more episodes in WWE land and you've got seriously lethargic writing.

 

You've got the likes of Big Show and Kane there stinking the place up after a decade plus (largely without any leave) and even for example the likes of Ziggler and Sheamus have been there 7 and 6 years, respectively. Despite pretty much still being the two biggest draws after over a decade each, even Cena and Orton don't really get reactions they got a couple of years ago.

 

People stick around in one place for so much longer now compared to previous eras and in many cases it's a detriment to the product, it's (a small) part of the reason Lesnar still has that aura around him - imagine seeing him weekly (sometimes twice a week) for a decade, the appeal would wear off somewhat.

Great points, it seems barmy that mid carders get hours of TV time over years now and yet they don't change their gimmicks or turn them face or heel anywhere near like they did in the late '90's early 2000's.  I'm not saying everything should be 100mph having a run in and turn every other segment but look at someone like Billy Gunn from 95 - 00, how many changes of character did he have (I'm aware they weren't all good)? Then look at Kofi before he joined the New Day, same ring gear, no real promos, no segments backstage except for his Orton feud, wrestled the same people for about 7 years

I know it was slagged off at the time by a lot of people online but at least when they brought Sheamus back they freshened him up a bit, not saying this will fix how stale the whole promotion seems at the moment though as, say for example, they did an NXT invasion and brought a load up to wrestle on Raw every week, they'd end up the same as the wrestlers before them, loads of repetitive matches for the years on end

 

I think Charlotte is a much more natural heel

 

I think Paige is a much more natural heel — I saw Charlotte's disappointment at not winning the title, and I bought it. I can just imagine Paige's screaming and pouting in the same situation — they haven't really given much of a reason to like Paige over her tenure in the company.

 

Yeah fair enough, Charlotte's character is a lot more likeable, it's just she always has a bit of a sneer on her face, either way the longer Nikki has it the more heat she'll get, just hope they don't sacrifice pretty much everyone for the sake of her reign though, no way they're dragging it out until Wrestlemania, unless they really want to stick it to Punk's wife by having Nikki hold her (admittedly different and not as prestigious) title longer than he held the WWE title, which would be pretty funny to be fair

I think Charlotte is a much more natural heel so it makes for her to lose her program with Nikki, Nikki gets heat for beating Charlotte and keeping her long run going

From there you can have Paige or whoever win the title at, say, Survivor Series then have Charlotte attack Paige (or whoever) and team back up with Sasha Banks to feud with whoever the top 2 faces are

I also bought it. Mayhem was better though. It had the spaceship Saturday Night arena.

It also had the slight glitch that it took ages to grab hold of anyone, think I bought Mayhem just so I could tape the entrance themes off it, nothing like listening to the NWO porno theme for 25 seconds then rewinding it to listen again, fuck mp3's

WCW's videos were selling less in 2000 than FMW's releases. FMW mind you. The Best of Ric Flair and Kevin Nash was doing less than Onita's Sliciest Brawls or whatever the fuck they were flogging. That's WCW in a nutshell. Nobody wanted to buy their videos, nobody was buying their pay-per-views, Backstage Assault was probably purchased by 4 people, Watchdog were investigating them for fraud over how poorly recieved their UK tour was, their action figures were all over every cheap shop in the world even up to about 2004. That Chris Jericho dressed as a lion tamer was all over the place. Every avenue of the company was a massive failure. TV ratings were the least of their worries. They could have been watched by 8 million people, but if that 8 million people werent putting their hand in their pocket they were fucked.

 

WWF/WWE on the other hand is such a pop culture smash, that they'll always be making money. They are still releasing figures of Davey Boy Smith for example. In 2015 they have the ability to market people who died 13 years ago. They are quite the market men. WCW couldnt even sell shirts from people on their own roster during the wrestling boom period.

I paid 20 quid for that in Game! it was better than Mayhem at least