Smackdown Discussion Thread

[BomberPat]

13 hours ago, air_raid said:

His booking of NXT indicates strongly that he doesn't believe that. If he's said it, it's because it's what he thinks Dad wants to hear him say

It's something he said about Roman Reigns a lot - that if some people are booing him, then he's a heel to them, so there's no need to turn him heel. Which ignores that heels and faces are booked fundamentally differently, wrestle differently, and so on, it's not just a case of who any given crowd tends to boo. The only time in recent years that logic has sort of rung true is with Cena when he knows he's not the favourite - he'll slow down on moves like the Five Knuckle Shuffle to give the crowd more time to react to them, allow his opponent comeback spots, and generally work a subtly more heelish style than usual, without doing anything that would turn his core audience on him.

 

NXT has a different problem with faces and heels, though, in that sometimes I think pandering to the audience isn't the right way to go. While there are success stories like Ciampa, for the most part, the NXT crowd are going to cheer anyone they think is a cool indie guy. Undisputed Era always get cheered - and on the Royal Albert Hall shows, Adam Cole actually followed up on the crowd's "one more time" chant and did his catchphrase again, which is terrible heel work - Bobby Roode was the same with the "Glorious" stuff, EC3 is overtly a heel gimmick that's ended up as a babyface because the crowd cheered him, and you could even argue that Velveteen Dream is in the same spot, despite not having that "indie" background. 

The role of the promotion should be to tell the audience who to cheer and who to boo. Sometimes the audience force their hand, but that should be the exception to the rule. In both WWE and NXT, I think WWE haven't quite grasped how to do that for a modern, "informed" audience.

[Factotum]

Is Miz the only genuine heel out there? He really knows how to do the cowardly shtick without wanting to be cheered, plus he knows how the get heat.

[HarmonicGenerator]

16 minutes ago, Factotum said:

Is Miz the only genuine heel out there? He really knows how to do the cowardly shtick without wanting to be cheered, plus he knows how the get heat.

I don't think I've seen Miz be a genuine heel this year. If he wasn't trying to play up to the crowd by doing the It Kicks for them to shout along to I'd maybe agree, but if he was a pure heel he'd have cut those things out the way Neville stopped doing all his flips when he turned last year. The crowds for the Miz-Bryan matches were doing duelling chants, which should never have been the case.

[mim731]

34 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 Undisputed Era always get cheered - and on the Royal Albert Hall shows, Adam Cole actually followed up on the crowd's "one more time" chant and did his catchphrase again, which is terrible heel work

It is terrible heel work, but given Adam Cole's gimmick is cocky and self assured it does work for him. UE are a bunch of entitled brats, and they should be milking the attention, it makes sense. Don;t get me wrong, they are the exception rather than the rule, but I can see how it fits their characters to be playing into the audience's attention.

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I don't think I've seen Miz be a genuine heel this year. If he wasn't trying to play up to the crowd by doing the It Kicks for them to shout along to I'd maybe agree, but if he was a pure heel he'd have cut those things out the way Neville stopped doing all his flips when he turned last year. The crowds for the Miz-Bryan matches were doing duelling chants, which should never have been the case.

Miz ripping off then-super babyface Daniel Bryan and the crowd cheering is the crowd being twats, not Miz failing to be a good heel.

The problem with heel turns and being a heel with modern TV-going and smark/reddit fans, neckbearded or otherwise, is that often the crowd wants the character to turn because either a) stale as a babyface or b) knowing they work better as a heel, but then after the initial perhaps understandable pop, what comes next is the issue. The reaction has become "I love this person's work, they're such a great heel, YAYYYYY" instead of understanding - no, dickhead, they want you to boo. There is an exception of course - they (we) cheer Becky because actually, she's justified, we support her, we do not accept the positioning of her as "the bad guy." She's the hero.

If more of these gimps were exposed to the presence of, say, Zack Gibson, maybe they'd appreciate that the joy of collectively generating nuclear heat for the bad guy you all love to hate is one of the most fun times you can have as a wrestling fan.

[The King of Old School]

Miz will be babyface by the new year I reckon, there is some footage of him after Smackdown went off the air really playing up to he fans telling them how awesome they are, funnily enough just after a dark match with a heel Daniel Bryan.

Wrestlemania title match there with the roles reversed?

[Devon Malcolm]

It should be that way round. During their original feud, Miz was always the one in the right and Bryan in the wrong. Bryan storming off Talking Smack because Miz was telling the truth is something they should reference if they do this.

[Accident Prone]

1 hour ago, The King of Old School said:

Miz will be babyface by the new year I reckon, there is some footage of him after Smackdown went off the air really playing up to he fans telling them how awesome they are, funnily enough just after a dark match with a heel Daniel Bryan.

Wrestlemania title match there with the roles reversed?

Yep, that dark match had Miz as 100% babyface. Even included Bryan trying to walk out only to be stopped by Lana, and a spot where the heroic Miz was reigning down punches on a cowardly DB on the announce table. Weird stuff.

[air_raid]

Bryan could do well with the "I'm just fighting fire with fire" and "why do people boo me, I'm the good guy" stuff. Like Bret before they went hardcore with Canada vs the US.

[Statto]

4 hours ago, BomberPat said:

EC3 is overtly a heel gimmick that's ended up as a babyface because the crowd cheered him.

Until he went up against Undisputed Era, when they cheered & chanted "thank you Bobby (Fish)" as the heels smashed his knee in with a chair.

[Supremo]

I thought Daniel Bryan’s promo was great on this show. Between the clever way he incorporated the loss to Brock into the storyline, the good delivery and looking like a smelly tramp, he reminded me of Mick Foley in his prime. This turn could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Bryan.

Anyone else find it physically impossible to sit through an Iconics promo? It’s as if they’re almost too good at being irritating  and obnoxious. I end up fast-forwarding every time.

I feel like Becky might benefit from being stripped of the Title at this point. Run a tournament and crown Charlotte as the new champion. Hype Becky’s return in the Royal Rumble Match. Have Nia run roughshod for the first half of the match, she’s all alone waiting for number twenty...out comes Stone Cold Becky who fucks her up, chucks Nia out, wins the Rumble and challenges Ronda at Mania. 

[tiger_rick]

A show that was focused, had an opening that set up the main event which set up the PPV, had a star in almost every segment and midcard acts who are over in the others, set up new matches for the US Title and for Jeff Hardy and never dragged once. How is this the same company?

[simonworden]

On 11/24/2018 at 2:55 PM, Supremo said:

I thought Daniel Bryan’s promo was great on this show. Between the clever way he incorporated the loss to Brock into the storyline, the good delivery and looking like a smelly tramp, he reminded me of Mick Foley in his prime. This turn could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Bryan.

Anyone else find it physically impossible to sit through an Iconics promo? It’s as if they’re almost too good at being irritating  and obnoxious. I end up fast-forwarding every time.

I feel like Becky might benefit from being stripped of the Title at this point. Run a tournament and crown Charlotte as the new champion. Hype Becky’s return in the Royal Rumble Match. Have Nia run roughshod for the first half of the match, she’s all alone waiting for number twenty...out comes Stone Cold Becky who fucks her up, chucks Nia out, wins the Rumble and challenges Ronda at Mania. 

I wouldn't be surprised if TLC is used to move the Smackdown Womens' belt onto new people and then leave Charlotte to take on Rousey at the Rumble and Becky free for Mania perhaps with Charlotte as the challenger on Smackdown for Wrestlemania 

[d-d-d-dAz]

That Jeff Hardy video package made him look like the biggest fucking superstar on the planet.

It would be interesting to see where he’d be if he wasn’t a legitimate wild man. But, then, I suspect the part of his personality that thinks nothing of dropping a couple of tabs and riding a motorbike into a tree, is the same part that wants to paint his face and jump off ladders.

That whole segment was great, actually. Joe is such a good promo these days.

[Factotum]

God that Jeff package. Slag WWE all you want, that production team is utterly flawless when it comes to stuff like that. He looked like an absolute superstar.

Smackdown was very good. Focused and told some good little stories. Bryan is 100 times more interesting in 3 weeks than he has been in his entire run.