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How can wrestling evolve?


Michael_3165

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Last year showed some phenomenal strides forward with some big angles (1997)

What big angles?

 

 

this year's Wrestlemania marks the culmination of some tremendously built new stars

What tremendously built new stars?

 

 

Storyline wise, 2010 had (amongst a slew of decent undercard stuff)

 

- The return of Bret Hart

- Michaels/Taker

- The Nexus

 

and in terms of this years Mania, I'd say it's a banner year for:

 

- The Miz as a bonefide main eventer

- Alberto Del Rio

- Dashing Cody Rhodes as more than a hanger on

- Dolph Ziggler (some people will be cynical, but he's in a celebrity match which also features one of the company's best loved characters of recent times (Trish), and as it's all off the back of a good World Title feud, he's doing okay)

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- The return of Bret Hart

- Michaels/Taker

 

Those guys are old legends, one of which is a story built on stuff from 12 years ago, and the other a repeat of the year before.

 

What are the chances their will be a HHH/Taker II or for older fans Part3, that might explain why WWE have ignored the WM17 match, TripleH losing 3 times to Taker would look bad, so just incase WM28 is looking crappy they can do a rematch to help save it again.

 

- The Nexus

 

I'll give you that one, but they fucked it up by summer slam.

 

The Miz as a bonefide main eventer

 

Im neither yay or nay on The Miz, but unless he puts bums in seats he's not a bonefide main eventer, and right now nobody is paying to go see Miz or watch Miz on a PPV, (EC PPV's numbers were down again from last year) I think his push will end up Like Jericho years ago, and I love Jericho but it just didnt work out for him.

 

Alberto Del Rio

 

He seems alright, not someone I'm a fan of, but I dont mind watching him.

 

Never liked Rhodes or Ted I think they're both shit tbh, Orton was just wasting his time trying to build those two up, Ted could set himself on fire and he still wouldnt draw a crowd, I feel for the guy, its not like his in ring stuff sucks, but theirs just something missing big time.

 

I was thinking the other day, how would you book WM if you couldnt use any legends or Cena, now I know internet fans would book a show they would like, but the mass casual viewers, you'd struggle to draw anything good.

 

I dont know if wrestling can evolve, if you look at 1991-2001 that is evolving, but when you look at 2001-2011 theirs not much there at all, I think things will just carry on as there are now.

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Last year showed some phenomenal strides forward with some big angles (1997)

What big angles?

 

 

this year's Wrestlemania marks the culmination of some tremendously built new stars

What tremendously built new stars?

 

 

Storyline wise, 2010 had (amongst a slew of decent undercard stuff)

 

- The return of Bret Hart

- Michaels/Taker

- The Nexus

 

and in terms of this years Mania, I'd say it's a banner year for:

 

- The Miz as a bonefide main eventer

- Alberto Del Rio

- Dashing Cody Rhodes as more than a hanger on

- Dolph Ziggler (some people will be cynical, but he's in a celebrity match which also features one of the company's best loved characters of recent times (Trish), and as it's all off the back of a good World Title feud, he's doing okay)

 

The problem with those angles you mentioned is that they didn't lead to better business or characters being more over at the end of it.

 

The Bret return was a massive wet-fart, except for that first week where he went toe to toe with Michaels. That was great, but everything else including (and especially) the Vince Mania match was rubbish. They didn't use him well enough to help the younger Harts, or even endorse anyone on the roster at the new "best there is...etc".

 

Michaels/Taker was great, no doubt. But it was only in the mania build-up, and resulted in the best wrestler in the company leaving. Great match, shitty outcome (for us fans, going forward).

 

The Nexus started great, but like the Bret situation, it turned to shit. they hugely elevated Barrett, then dropped him off a cliff. he went from being the most hated/heated Heel in all of WWE, to running a shit faction in Smackdown's mid-card. John Cena came through the trauma of Nexus just fine, and is back to getting boo'd a lot.

 

 

Compare that to the stuff from 1997 that launched people upwards. the Bret/Austin double turn, the forming of DX and the Hart Foundation. Austin V McMahon etc...

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Storyline wise, 2010 had (amongst a slew of decent undercard stuff)

 

- The return of Bret Hart

- Michaels/Taker

- The Nexus

How did any of those angles show, "phenomenal strides," and/or suggest we're heading into a new boom period?!

 

The Bret return was a complete and utter fuck up, the likes of which we hadn't seen since the Invasion angle, taking what could and should have been one of the biggest angles of all time and systematically ballsing it all up until it meant nothing whatsoever. The Mania buyrate bombed, nobody really gave a flying fuck by the time the match itself occurred, and in retrospect it didn't elevate anyone or achieve much of anything. In concept, yeah, this angle sounded, "big," and would've likely made, "phenomenal strides," but in execution it was a disaster.

 

Same with the Nexus angle. It started brilliantly, but after about a month or two it quickly fizzled into nothing and hasn't really gone anywhere productive or achieved anything since. Every single one of those guys looked like a star on that first night, but where are they now? Half of them are back in Florida and the other half are rotting away on Smackdown, not particularly over, on a show hardly anyone watches. Done correctly, the Nexus angle should've made a huge difference to the landscape, creating new stars to freshen up the main events, but in reality it just gave John Cena something to do for a couple of months before everyone got demoted. Six months removed from the original angle, it's like it never happened in the first place. Other than CM Punk having a yellow and black arm-band on, anyway.

 

And the HBK vs. Taker angle, whilst obviously brilliant, still didn't really achieve much of anything, creating nothing you could call a, "phenomenal stride." Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic stand-alone storyline, but once Mania ended, what did it achieve? What strides were taken? Where did it lead? Again, much like with the Nexus angle, looking at where we currently are, it may as well have never happened.

 

and in terms of this years Mania, I'd say it's a banner year for:

 

- The Miz as a bonefide main eventer

The Miz is absolutely bombing as champion. He's drawing terrible TV ratings, and buyrates since he got the belt have gone even lower than last year. They've done a ridiculously bad job of pushing him since he got the belt and he's not clicking at all, hence why they've spent the last couple of weeks doing everything they can to try and give him some credibility. Calling him a tremendously built new star is laughable. If anything, he was better built before he got the title and has been portrayed worse with each passing week ever since.

 

Alberto Del Rio

An entertaining guy who they've definitely tried with, but nowhere near as over as he should be considering his push.

 

Dashing Cody Rhodes as more than a hanger on

Cute mid-card heel at best.

 

Dolph Ziggler

Complete chump. Probably less over than when he was in The Spirit Squad.

 

I'm sorry, but comparing what's going on now with what was going on in 1997 and 1998 is completely ridiculous. I mean seriously, were you even watching then?

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Someone brought up the SummerSlam main event earlier, and I must admit, we were all in the UKFF Chat watching it and when Cena won at the end, everyone just went "you have to be fucking joking?" The Nexus angle died for me there and then. That angle had so much potential, and it wasnt like Barrett wasnt carrying the position he'd been thrust into. I understand to a degree when they dont have confidence in newer wrestlers being able to carry angles, but Barrett looked like the next big star. The fans hated him. The rest could have been used as fodder fair enough, but Wade should have been protected. They blew that one, I my opinion.

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The most annoying thing about the Nexus angle was that, regardless of the Summerslam finish, it could've still been salvaged when Cena was forced to join them. It was as if they realised what a mess they'd made of the story and came up with the perfect way of bringing it back to life, but then they fucked that up just as bad with the Survivor Series main event finish.

 

In retrospect, it's even more baffling as to why it was so important to keep the title on Randy Orton that night. By doing so, they killed both the Nexus angle and Barrett's main event potential dead, and for what? So we could have that dog shit Orton vs. Miz feud? And Cena being fired, yet still showing up every week?

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Dolph Ziggler

Complete chump. Probably less over than when he was in The Spirit Squad.

I agree with nearly everything. This is bollocks though.

 

The most annoying thing about the Nexus angle was that, regardless of the Summerslam finish, it could've still been salvaged when Cena was forced to join them.

It didn't need salvaging. When Cena joined them, it was more over than anything else in ages and had a ridiculous amount of potential. Even when Cena was "fired", it had bags of potential. Ruined.

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Surely for the WWE to get back to 'Attitude' era levels of popularity the key is persuading the casual fans to become interested again? I dip into WWE now & again but there's very little that peaks my interest (The Rock's return being the last). A lot people on here will watch Raw & Smackdown regardless of the quality purely because you've been doing it for so long. From the angles/wrestlers

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I have no real arguement for any of your counterpoints Supremo, as you've gone about them all with a lot more thought than I've put into it. Though I will say you're presenting how over you deem a wrestler to be as a bullet-proof marker for whether or not they should be considered a success, rather than something you have just decided for yourself. (With the exception of your mention of ratings and buyrates re: The Miz, which I'll be honest, I don't follow, but I certainly wasn't aware they'd sunk or anything in the last few months, I was under the impression everything was just ticking over nicely as usual).

 

Every storyline and wrestler I listed above has entertained me loads in the last year and a half, ergo my own opinions that the company is turning a corner in a way just as they did through 1997 and 1998 and into the boom, which was the last time I absolutely couldn't wait for next week's Raw to roll round.

 

Also, I've had more than a few friends of mine want to engage in wrestling chat with me over the past few months because they know me as the wrestling nerd, and due to The Rock and what they've deemed to be a good Mania build, have started to lean over and take a look at what's going on again. This is most telling for me, as I remember last time how suddenly people popped out of nowehere to want to talk wrestling. These same people will almost certainly buy Wrestlemania, and possibly judge if wrestling is worth giving another go again on the merits of the show. I'm not suggesting this is a pattern all over the world or anything, but it's why I consider there to be these similarities between now and then, as I remember this all happening around Wrestlemania 14 and 15 too.

 

In hindsight, I've probably inadvertantly derailed this topic early doors - I fucking love wrestling right now, and Raw has been a highlight of my week for the better part of a year and a bit. From the outside looking in, WWE appears to be doing just fine financially, and what I see on the screen is a highly satisfying product. As result, I couldn't see any need for the worry of things not "evolving". I do genuinely think it's more down to taste than anything else at the moment - yours, mine, Cornette's, everybody's. The WWE "in difficulty" of 2011 is a fucking billion years away from the same company with fiancial bother in the mid-90s, so like I said in an earlier post, the "boom" won't really seem like a boom, just a bloody excellent time where the show is really good. I think we're there now, but obviously plenty don't.

 

All that said, I'm not defending the last 6 or 7 minutes of Summerslam. That was scandalous.

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UFC has shown that simple "who's better" storylines are as compelling now as ever.

I don't think that's true, in the sense of applying to fake fights. In UFC, it matters because the winner really does beat the loser in a fight. If you look at examples of huge wrestling matches in the last twenty years or so that were built on "who's better" then it's only because people really, really cared about the characters involved. Stuff like Rock vs Austin, Hogan vs Warrior. And near enough everything those characters did to get to the point where people cared that much about them was pure wrestling panto.

 

Those matches you mention were dream matches between massive stars, thats not a wrestling thing if Mayweather and Pacquiao fought it would create a similar buzz in boxing as wrestling had when Hogan and Warrior met.

 

I love UFC and i think wrestling should learn from it as most people do but thats not to say wrestling has to lose the panto aspect that we all love. UFC does build those characters by the way, it builds fueds too all with the massive disadvantage of not knowing who will win.

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Surely for the WWE to get back to 'Attitude' era levels of popularity the key is persuading the casual fans to become interested again? I dip into WWE now & again but there's very little that peaks my interest (The Rock's return being the last). A lot people on here will watch Raw & Smackdown regardless of the quality purely because you've been doing it for so long. From the angles/wrestlers…sorry 'superstars' mentioned only HBK/Taker got my attention & that was because I'd seen people waxing lyrical about their Mania on here. When I actually watched it, as good as it was there was never any doubt that Taker was winning. Surely for an angle to be a true success you shouldn't know the outcome in advance?

Do you think anyone thought Rock was going to beat Austin at WrestleMania 15? Or that Michaels was going to beat Austin the year before? Both of those events were successful.

 

Those matches you mention were dream matches between massive stars, thats not a wrestling thing if Mayweather and Pacquiao fought it would create a similar buzz in boxing as wrestling had when Hogan and Warrior met.

It would create a much bigger buzz. For reasons I'll explain below.

 

I love UFC and i think wrestling should learn from it as most people do but thats not to say wrestling has to lose the panto aspect that we all love. UFC does build those characters by the way, it builds fueds too all with the massive disadvantage of not knowing who will win.

Not knowing who will win isn't a disadvantage at all when it comes to promoting a fight and capturing the average punter's attention. It's a huge advantage. It's a lot easier to get people interested in a real fight than a fake one. That is why wrestling, 99% of the time, needs more than "who is the better man?" as the storyline. "Who is the better man?" is only intriguing in wrestling if the characters fighting have already done shitloads of wrestling silliness to make people love/hate them.

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On the topic of "Dream Matches", none of those really exist now with the possible of exception of Sting vs (insert 90's WWF main eventer here). During the attitude era there was always a chance that some WCW star could jump ship to spice up interest or ratings. WCW was perceived by the average fan to be "the competition", where is that competition now? - Competition from WCW was, in many ways, the catalyst that caused WWE to 'evolve' for lack of a better term. Unless there's serious competition from another wrestling company, then wretling will never 'evolve' because there is no real reason to do so.

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Surely for the WWE to get back to 'Attitude' era levels of popularity the key is persuading the casual fans to become interested again? I dip into WWE now & again but there's very little that peaks my interest (The Rock's return being the last). A lot people on here will watch Raw & Smackdown regardless of the quality purely because you've been doing it for so long. From the angles/wrestlers
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What wrestling sillyness did Hogan /Warrior do?

On the off-chance it's a genuine question and you're just not familiar with Hogan and Warrior (which I doubt), this is what the Ultimate Warrior looked like:

ultimate-warrior.jpg

He's one of the very last choices for an "our sport is serious business" poster boy.

 

What wrestling sillyness have Triple H and Taker done?

I know this one's a joke, but I'll indulge it anyway. One of them is a demon/zombie/biker with magical powers, who has been buried alive half a dozen times -- including one where he floated out of the grave and turned into a laser or something. He's been in a frequent war with his own brother, who he thought he'd killed by setting the house on fire as a child. He wore a Shawn Michaels mask while walking around a cabin.

 

The other got thrown into a pen of shit by a pig farmer. He also orchestrated a hit and run on one of his rivals, and survived a revenge vehicular homicide attack from the same bloke and walked away without a scratch. He's fucked a mannequin symbolising a dead girl. He's dropped vats of green slop and brown shite on his opponents. He routinely hits people with sledgehammers. And he's bummed Chyna.

 

It's the same principle whether it be UFC or wrestling. Build stars and create intriguing fights. Wrestling should in theory be able to do that far easier because they control who is winning the fights and the charcters.

Eastenders showrunners control who wins every fight on their show, as well. Doesn't mean they can do "Phil Mitchell vs Other Eastenders Character" every week with no storyline and expect people to not lose interest. Fake fights don't interest normal people unless there's a storyline hook to them. Real fights interest loads of normal people.

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What wrestling sillyness did Hogan /Warrior do?

On the off-chance it's a genuine question and you're just not familiar with Hogan and Warrior (which I doubt), this is what the Ultimate Warrior looked like:

ultimate-warrior.jpg

He's one of the very last choices for an "our sport is serious business" poster boy.

 

What wrestling sillyness have Triple H and Taker done?

I know this one's a joke, but I'll indulge it anyway. One of them is a demon/zombie/biker with magical powers, who has been buried alive half a dozen times -- including one where he floated out of the grave and turned into a laser or something. He's been in a frequent war with his own brother, who he thought he'd killed by setting the house on fire as a child. He wore a Shawn Michaels mask while walking around a cabin.

 

The other got thrown into a pen of shit by a pig farmer. He also orchestrated a hit and run on one of his rivals, and survived a revenge vehicular homicide attack from the same bloke and walked away without a scratch. He's fucked a mannequin symbolising a dead girl. He's dropped vats of green slop and brown shite on his opponents. He routinely hits people with sledgehammers. And he's bummed Chyna.

 

It's the same principle whether it be UFC or wrestling. Build stars and create intriguing fights. Wrestling should in theory be able to do that far easier because they control who is winning the fights and the charcters.

Eastenders showrunners control who wins every fight on their show, as well. Doesn't mean they can do "Phil Mitchell vs Other Eastenders Character" every week with no storyline and expect people to not lose interest. Fake fights don't interest normal people unless there's a storyline hook to them. Real fights interest loads of normal people.

 

I'm talking about the builds. The Warrior/Hogan match was between the companies 2 champions, biggest stars and a fight between the top dog and young pretender. The triple H/Taker match is built on a story of a guy defending his winning streak against a guy who has done everything else in the business and wants to achieve something his best mate couldn't.

 

The persona's maybe silly but the story isn't.

 

Fake fights don't interest normal people is an absurd comment. That's what wrestling is, fake fights, thats why it's survived for over a 100 years. Normal people will care about fake fights if they care about the people involved in them. How do you get them to care? You make them stars, the point about UFC is that the stars are the ones who not only win matches but have the personality to go with it, surely even you would concede that is how 99% of the time you make stars in wrestling.

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