The Official UKFF RAW Thread...

[tiger_rick]

Business has often been spiked by one red hot angle down the years throughout numerous territories. They've done every bit of wacky shit though involving cars, buses, etc.

I know this is a bit 2006 but what about something like a John Cena heel turn? I don't know who John Cena could turn on and not get cheered but a run with John Cena on TV every week in a Hollywood Rock type role could have some steam. Give him a little entourage who fight his enemies every week. Fuck it, I'm thinking Hogan and the nWo levels of douchebaggery. In an era where it feels like they've done EVERYTHING - They haven't done that.

[DavidB6937]

Overexposure is often half the problem too. Any time they get a glimpse of something organic that is becoming hot, they ram it down everyones throats and suddenly it has that 'WWE' feel to it and people lose interest.

[JNLister]

One year they should have the two teams of writers who are exclusive to Raw or Smackdown do a legit draft, then present that as the results as the storyline draft. That way you'd guarantee both shows had a bunch of people that the writers had some specific ideas for/desire to push.

[The Gaffer]

11 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Business has often been spiked by one red hot angle down the years throughout numerous territories. They've done every bit of wacky shit though involving cars, buses, etc.

I know this is a bit 2006 but what about something like a John Cena heel turn? I don't know who John Cena could turn on and not get cheered but a run with John Cena on TV every week in a Hollywood Rock type role could have some steam. Give him a little entourage who fight his enemies every week. Fuck it, I'm thinking Hogan and the nWo levels of douchebaggery. In an era where it feels like they've done EVERYTHING - They haven't done that.

It'd be brilliant. They'd have to go all in or bust in order to push it pass the sort of wink-wink, self aware novelty act that Cena's now become, though. Forget about the fact that dem lot will invariably cheer everything, and just go mad with it for the craic and see where it goes. Ideally get the belt on him for one more decent run if he feels like sticking about for even two months. You'll have a brilliant angle there at a SummerSlam to put a new guy over. Get a celebrity who doesn't suck in on it. I don't know anything about MMA but McGregor's probably a bit more open to the 'E now, right? Imagine the two of them bullying people about when Cena talks loudly about his friend Vin and smiles at everyone like he doesn't know he's turned. Weeks of television that just writes itself. Two huge self parodies terrorising the TV production and producing about 50 memes per show. To hell with the tradition or logic of it. You're doing a streak not cleaning the bowl. 

 

[David]

Speaking as someone who's rarely watched a full episode of Raw in God-knows how long, it's primarily down to a lack of real characters as to why I don't give a fuck anymore.

The guys and girls today, as talented and decent as they are, seem like athletes who've had characters assigned to them. They walk into "developmental" and get handed their gimmick and set about "working" on their promos in a classroom type setting. For the most part they look like they could be fitness instructors working in California rather than pro wrestlers.

I always assumed that my loss of interest was due to the show "passing me by" to an extent, where I still believed in the outdated perception of wrestlers as being larger than life characters, both personality-wise and physically. I always thought that wrestlers were guys who would draw looks whenever they entered a room because they were loud, they were mental, and they looked like real-life action figures or like they belonged in an old carnival-type freakshow.

Stick some "street clothes" on Kofi, Dean Ambrose, Ricochet or whoever and push them into a room full of people. What kind of reaction are they getting? None probably, because they just look like dudes who maybe played college ball or something.

Try doing the same with Davey Boy Smith, Randy Savage, Haku, Sid or some other over the top star from the past. The people in the room may not know who they are, but they'll know that they're someone. They ain't just an average guy who's in shape.

Ain't nobody ever mistaking the Legion of Doom for a couple of gym instructors. Not with those hairstyles and voices.

As I said though, maybe it's all passed me by these days and what I think wrestling should be isn't what people want anymore, but I really do think that WWE are trying to make their product something that appeals to people who won't watch wrestling anyway. They'll get that kind of thing from some entertainment medium that doesn't have the reputation that wrestling does.

Wrestling has lost its characters, it's over the top craziness, it's absolute cheeseball storylines and humour, and has been filled with "by the numbers" crossfit types who look like they should be advertising Tapout gear while peddling Herbal Life on the side.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

USA have been part of the problem for the longest time, Raw should never have been made a PPV length show, didn’t work for Nitro in WCW’s dying years and it continues not to work for WWE, all it does is allow laziness and cheap comedy to be more prominent 

Going back to 2 hours and lessen the star v star matches would help a great deal, maybe have one big main event every couple of weeks but the rest of the time put more focus on the mid card, women and tag teams the rest of the time

[Supremo]

It’s all just so tragically predictable. They do a brand split with all the best intentions, but slowly but surely it goes the same way. The exclusive pay per views become dual branded, guys start appearing on rival shows without rhyme or reason, they try to add daft technicalities to explain it (“Raw Supershow!” - “Wild Card!”) and then eventually you know it’ll be abandoned in twelve to eighteen months.

There is no quick fix, which is the biggest problem. That’s all Vince knows how to deal in. A genuine overhaul or truly fresh approach is never going to happen with a crazed old man at the helm. 

Check out what the heir to the throne has been liking on Twitter though. LOL.

[Loki]

I couldn't make it through, that whole show was just brutal.  The worst thing for me is the forced and desperate tone of the announcers as they try to sell the tide of incomprehensible shit that passes for WWE writing at the moment.  Having to tout The Miz sitting in a chair in a corridor as something interesting... oh my!

Watching RAW has always been a window into the mind of Vince McMahon, but whereas it was a window into the world of a crazy genius, now it's a look at a sad, out of touch, mentally suspect old man.  That first segment was just BRUTAL, it made no sense why anyone was there and Vince's attempt to retro fit a reason was just bewildering.

There are no quick fixes to this.  They have all the talent they could possibly need in the locker room.  But as long as everything is filtered through Vince's mind, only a fraction of good ideas will ever get onto the screen.

I love Vince, he's genuinely one of the strangest and oddest people ever to have existed.  But it really feels like he's slowly dragging his cherished product into senility with him.  So the fix, as others have alluded to, is for him to go off into retirement, or off the road to concentrate on XFL, and clear out all his ageing yes-men and give someone like HHH the chance to actually book a decent show for 6 months.  NXT proves the company can still produce good tv so let them have at it.

[d-d-d-dAz]

That would be funny, if not for the fact that (by design or not) that you just know this is leading to a Vince/Triple H feud.

He probably liked it by accident, but now they’re high fiving because they think it’ll solve all their problems.

NXT INVASION ANGLE. WITH SHOOT PROMOS ABOUT HEALTHCARE AND PAID MATERNITY.

The biggest issue WWE have at the minute is that all their rabbits have chewed through the hat and fucked off. Every time they need to solve a problem they need to drag the lake of NXT or the mid-cars, which perpetuates a cycle of pandering to your hardcore and alienating the masses. It also diluted your main event scene, so it’s even harder to break a star.

The company will be fine, though long term they might just operate, profitably, outside of the mainstream. But I genuinely think they might have made their last star.

[Loki]

 

4 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

But I genuinely think they might have made their last star.

If you just step back and think about it, how is Braun Strowman not a household name in the US?  The guy is huge, athletic, charismatic.  He's the sort of talent that comes across once in a lifetime.  He should have been champ by now, headlined Wrestlemania, gone on talk shows and beat up the hosts, starred as a friendly giant in a kids movie.

It still staggers me that they failed to make him a star.  If you can't do that, you don't have a chance of making the Ricochets of this world into breakout stars.

[JNLister]

You can't make a three hour weekly wrestling TV show good. It's not even the literal three hours, it's the amount of different things you need to fill a three hour show. I've lost interest in even watching those 20-30 minute highlight videos because so much of it is inherently unimportant that nothing matters. 

Looking through a recap, between promos, angles and matches, you had 19 "segments" on the show last night. I haven't got the time or energy to waste watching the 19th most important thing on a wrestling TV show.

[DavidB6937]

Same reason Ryback and many others have failed unfortunately. Complete lack of commitment and willingness to go the extra mile with them. It's as if they're completely and utterly scared to try anymore.

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

NXT INVASION ANGLE. WITH SHOOT PROMOS ABOUT HEALTHCARE AND PAID MATERNITY.

That sounds way better than anything they're doing now. I'd take it.

[DavidB6937]

And then Cena will come back at Summerslam and beat them and we'll be back to where we started.

[King Pitcos]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

Same reason Ryback and many others have failed unfortunately. Complete lack of commitment and willingness to go the extra mile with them. It's as if they're completely and utterly scared to try anymore.

Except the problem is, if they do ever even go far enough with someone that it looks like they might go all the way with them, it’s like you alluded to in your previous post - they then get endless Twitter complaints that that wrestler is being shoved down our throats and they’re not cool online anymore.

Roman Reigns has fallen between a turd and a hard place because he’s the closest WWE has come to giving anyone the megastar push since Cena, but that upset dem, so Vince bottled it with him and had him lose loads of times to the point where he’s not as far ahead of the pack as he should be. And none of the losses made dem like him any more than dey would if he’d just won all of those matches in the first place.

Everyone has to fall either into the “buried” or “shoved down our throats” categories, there’s no middle ground because the loudest part of the fan base just has to be opposed to everything the company does. And there’s no skipping that hurdle anytime soon. As Supremo said, they catered to it at WrestleMania and it’s made no odds to TV ratings.

There’s no quick fix. “Make it like NXT, we like NXT” isn’t going to make it any more appealing to normals - and HHH has emphasised in interviews for years that Raw and NXT are very different beasts with very different aims. If he’s in charge of Raw, he’s going to try to write a better Raw, not a longer NXT. They could incorporate a million ideas from people who have been watching and complaining for years, and it’d neither stop us complaining nor draw in any new viewers.

Like Lister says, three hours just demands a lot of content - and we were moaning about it being shit for ten years before it even went to three hours, so it would’ve been a miracle if the extra hour had turned that around.

The big problem is that thing someone said about not caring about any of the characters. How you get from this point to the point of caring, I don’t know. As long as Raw is still keeping USA up near the top of the cable rankings, the ratings are probably only an issue for us and mad Vince anyway.