FourtyTwo

Fair enough.  I was more wondering if the events at the weekend would force a change quicker than we otherwise might have seen it?

30 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Do we think UFC give a fuck about WWE's presentation of Brock?  EastEnders giving a shit how their character comes off on the annual panto run comes to mind.

UFC as a whole probably don't, but casual fans possibly will - and that will be a large part of the targeted audience.  And Brock himself probably will care as well.

Irrespective of that, they definitely need to move the belt on quickly, if Lesnar is going to be focussed elsewhere for a while - is there anything that could be gained by having him on Raw tonight and have Strowman cash in now?  Otherwise we are probably looking at Summerslam at the earliest I would imagine?

I do wonder what the direction of travel in UFC after Saturday is going to mean in terms of Raw, Lesnar etc.  Realistically, if it is going ahead, I suspect they'll need to get the belt off him ASAP to allow him to focus on that, but probably need to do it in a way that doesn't damage him in terms of an eventual return AND from a UFC perspective (he's far more marketable to both if they do it right).

Or just having the Champion there to give some focus? Without it, everything seems to just drift, until Lesnar turns up again. Not saying it would solve everything, but the’re missing (at a guess) 25% of what they should be putting out and having to replace it with stuff that just isn’t good enough.

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

they can give Matt a platform to produce semi-regular content on the Network, and just point people in that direction.

If this happens, King Maxel has to go 2-0 in his career!

42 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

I haven't seen it, not even the highlights but i read a review and it seems they had Reigns pretend Lashley left the first time to persue MMA and was a failure. Isn't his record actually decent? Why not use that as a selling point for the guy is he's won like 15(?) legit fights? Just find this company utterly baffling.

Better MMA record than Lesnar's 5 - 3 (1 NC), albeit that doesn't say anything for the differing quality of their various opponents.

5 hours ago, BomberPat said:

The thing with turning Reigns heel is that they're left with exactly the same problems as if they had turned Cena heel - who works against him? You don't turn your top babyface heel unless you have a hotter babyface ready to take their spot, otherwise you end up with the same problems they had with heel Austin having to work programmes with guys who weren't drawing money. It's been McMahonism 101 forever to build the product around one top babyface, and it's very rare they break from that model - the problems almost always present themselves in the transition period from one face to or another, or when one face takes a step back (through injury, other projects, or whatever) and someone needs to fill their boots. There's no Rock to Reigns' Austin, no Savage to Hogan, no one waiting in the wings to be the star that Reigns arguably has failed to be - the only possible options are Rollins and Strowman, and I don't know how much evidence there is for either one of them setting the box office on fire, nor do I see there being much, if any, appetite to see them feud with a heel Roman Reigns.

It's not as if Reigns is hot as a face though - he's barely lukewarm at the moment, and even a feud with Jinder Mahal didn't elicit any kind of positive reaction.

To me, there are probably ways to get Reigns over as a face, but they would all require a long term booking plan.  Possibly the easiest (and partially proven when they started to move in that direction earlier in the year), is that you could reunite the Shield as a full on group (heel or face), move him back to what made him popular in the first place, and then, when they split again, learn lessons from how they messed it up this time.

It's also probably a bit of a vicious circle.  Austin made it as a face in large part due to the fact he had a heel at the same level as him to play off in Vince, and without that top level heel being there (and being presented right), it's hard to build up a face that people want to see win.  Even Bryan had it back when he got his run at the top, playing off HHH etc "keeping him down".  What has Reigns actually been presented with?  A tug of war over a belt that made him and Lesnar look equally pathetic, and in Lesnar overall a part timer that has a promo man do the majority of the pre-match work for him.

8 hours ago, Your Fight Site said:

So long as they don’t paint a tribal penis on his face.

And then forget about him having the briefcase.

did we ever find out who kidnapped him / why?

22 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

It's going to sound like a broken record but Raw is just too long. They can have as good a roster as they want but it just doesn't need to be 3+ hours every week. It's too much.

I probably agree that it doesn't "need" to be three hours each week, but it would surely be easier to write a better quality show to fill the time that they have if they had the champ as a focal point - as I said earlier, without it, everything else shuffles up in terms of importance, and you have to fill the time that you are left with as a result with stuff that just wouldn't make TV otherwise.

Just throwing it out there, but does not having a champion around as the focal point of the show hurt Raw more than WWE thought it might - in terms of the actual TV product I mean.  I appreciate that the champion cannot dominate and carry the show from top to bottom, but without having it there, they are losing a major plot device that would (often) be the main focus, and so having to move everything "up" in terms of importance, which doesn't work at the lower end of the card?

12 hours ago, Supremo said:

Personally, I'd have much rather they just turned Nia heel and had her pair up with Stephanie against Ronda. That's far more Austin/Vince than this shit. Ronda breaks Steph's arm, so Steph enlists the toughest person she can find to destroy Ronda. Simple and straight forward story-telling. That's how they would've done it with Vince. He wouldn't have spent show after show ripping the piss out of both heels and babyfaces alike.

Plus, Nia is badly miscast as a babyface now. It worked for the storyline and Title win against Alexa, but now it's just stupid. The giant woman throwing around tiny girls shouldn't be the babyface. I understand they wanted to tell that, "Don't Let the Bullies Win! Be a Star!" storyline with her, but the negative reaction she got for that awful speech at Backlash should be all they need to know this isn't working at all.

Oh well, not to worry. Once Money in the Bank rolls around we won't have to worry about any of this anymore. By then, it'll just be a case of how long Ronda will take to recover from whatever injury she ends up getting when in there with Nia. Honestly, as bad the booking is, deciding to put such a hot commodity in the clumsy hands of Nia might be the worst decision of all. She's fucking terrible.

Have they booked themselves into a bit of a corner here, or could they run with a storyline that Nia is actually aligned with Steph, but they are hiding it in the build up and then have it play out at the PPV - potentially like when Austin turned and aligned with Vince, except protect Ronda's record with a DQ win, which also means you don't have to worry about her having hit the top with the title so early on.

22 hours ago, 300 said:

What a worker.

What's going on? His suit looks like it fits him!

2 hours ago, Rosler28 said:

Lashley sounds girlier than Lesnar on the mic thats why 

The thing is, TNA did quite a good job of building him as a destructive force, and managed to keep him a good distance from the mic whilst doing it.

Seems bizarre even typing it, but TNA did a better job with him than WWE have done.  Twice.

15 minutes ago, DootDootDoot said:

 

Santina Marella – Santino decides to dress as a women…oh, wait….

On that basis, I claim Brain Strowman!

The Ultimate Worrier - gets concerned about anything and everything that goes on, and constantly loses matches because he's busy looking over his shoulder

Could Lesnar - Reigns end up being similar to the Goldberg match - play on the fact Brock is barely around, lacking focus etc, and have Reigns have it won in under a minute?

Start of the brand split being slowly removed?

Isn't part of the big problem with Reigns the fact that there is no-one on the other side of the face/heel divide to truly draw out the reactions that you want for your top superstar.

2 hours ago, FUM said:

Another thing is every top dog had their well known enemy or someone who was recognisable as an opponent. Hogan had Andre. Austin and Rock had each other. When Austin wasn't around, Rock had Triple H. Cena had Punk and to an extent, Orton. Who does Roman have?

Brock is the closest thing for Roman but you can't have your big rival as a part timer. I felt like Braun was heading that way for Roman and Braun v Roman would have been a far more beneficial Mania match for both guys.

That to me is the crux of the matter - fans are never going to cheer a face just because you're told he's the face, they need a heel to hate on, so they cheer the face.  WWEs inability to get anyone over as a true heel in a long time has meant lukewarm reactions to faces across the board - the closest recently was probably Daniel Bryan with HHH, but HHH can't keep playing the evil corporate overlord.

I wonder how well cheered Reigns would have been if they'd capitalised on the Cena-hate a few years back and turned him into an all-conquering heel, and then have Roman as the one to take his top spot?

2 hours ago, garynysmon said:

To be honest, I've long given up giving any real consideration to Impact spoilers. They almost always sound like a clusterfuck when reading the fan reports, but inevitably make at least some sense by the time its on tv (that feels like years later).

The one thing they really need to sort out is these marathon tapings. I understand they're cost effective, but fuck me, there's a problem when you're taping tv three months in advance. You just lose any buzz that you've generated.

Austin Aries' return generated some talk this week, but there's a 9 day gap even until that's broadcast. You just lose any traction you may have created. Shame.

Primarily, that was why I stopped watching - I ended up finding out the next quarter's storylines, and couldn't be bothered watching to see them on TV.  If they shifted to even filming two weeks at a time, then I'd probably start watching again, but any real drama / suspense / interest is lost when you know how it's gonna turn out!

1 hour ago, The King of Old School said:

I'd be up for Cena/Joe at Mania, certainly a fresh matchup for both.

I could actually see them facing off at Elimination Chamber first, then again at Mania so Cena can get his win back.

Depends how much they are going to try and pretend Cena is a free agent I guess. 

I know EC has been used to determine a #1 contender, but I wonder if this year they will use it for the title itself.  A three-way at the Rumble easily gives them scope to have the unbeaten participant claim he never lost, the beaten person could claim it wasn't 1v1, Lesnar (if he were to lose) could claim his rematch, and then it wouldn't be hard to work the likes of Joe / Reigns / Balor in somehow - last Raw person in the Rumble or something.

Then maybe, if Joe has eliminated Cena at the Rumble, have Cena get involved somehow and set up the Mania match?

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

The YouTube point is an interesting one - wrestling is producing 2-3 hour TV shows at a time when people won't sit through a 30 second ad to watch a 3 minute Youtube video.

I think an hour is the perfect length for a wrestling TV show, but there's no reason it can't be done well in 30-45 minutes, with the right presentation and production.

I think you would actually get more engagement in the product if you did an hour show that was on 4 or 5 nights a week, than you would doing a three hour show and a two hour show.

Millions sit through Eastenders / Corrie multiple times a week, but if you chucked it out there as one programme, I doubt it would do the same numbers.

Wrestling, generally, needs more jobbers (minor, bit part characters who don't need a focus to seem relevant).

If you build everyone up that they matter, then someone loses when they lose.  If a jobber loses, it doesn't matter.

Completely irrelevant to TNA, but then TNA is now pretty irrelevant to wrestling!

15 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Seemed lile such a backwards gimmick before it debuted, was a bit ropey while they tweaked it and then took off.

Fatu had it down and showed grwat improvement from the 3MW days. What made it was his intensity, aggression and speed while the company's commitment to it really got it over and made it a credible main event gimmick.

They need to show this level of commitment and patience more often.

I fucking adore Umaga. What a loss. RIP.

The guy got a thumb over as a finisher - that in itself is worthy of high praise. 8 years? Where has the time gone

RIP

3 hours ago, ColinBollocks said:

It's the richness of how OOT and goofy it is - it's just good fun. I remember when WWE tried to rip off Final Deletion with that terrible New Day/Wyatt brawl thing - pretty much Final Deletion without the good fun.

I'd just love to hear the conversation of Matt explaining to Vince the "Lake of Reincarnation".

Vice would probably jump in, and hope that he came back in shape to have another in-ring run.

You won't be saying that when King Maxel pins Heath Slater