Paid Members Dead Mike Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 I don't know what people want from wrestling The babyface champion to be even remotely likeable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 I don't know what people want from wrestling The babyface champion to be even remotely likeable? Have you read the thread? Plenty of us like him. You don't. That's just how it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonworden Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Was an decent PPV overall I thought, forgettable but good for one watch. As said 4 way was great and Miz won in the perfect way as well as reacted correctly. Keep this sort of stuff going it's exactly what a midcard should be. I enjoyed the end of the Asylum match but it certainly lingered in the middle, too much silly crap around which the guys should have ignored and just focused on the straight jacket, barbed wire board etc. Ending was great though and I really didnt think Jericho would take the bump. Great that Jericho came out in Jeans to add to the street fight feel but just a shame they didnt keep to one idea of what the match was meant to be. Also I wasnt sure if Ambrose was taking the piss at the end when he had a single tack in his elbow, he looked like he was purposely faking pain however I havent ever had a thumbtack in my elbow to know how it feels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinc Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Roman Reigns is extremely likeable and the people who boo him are utter bell ends. If he'd spent two months in ROH ten years ago they would love him. That said, the boos he has received at the last two PPVs have felt like Cena-boos, rather than the Hitler-boos he got at Mania, and have actually made his matches more compelling rather than less. I'd still much rather he was getting Austin cheers, or at least the Batista '05 pops he deserves, but it's an improvement on where he was two months ago. We're now definitely at the point where the boos are never going away. If they don't want another ten years of their top face being booed out of the building they need to book someone with some indy cred as the top guy soon. It's either very lucky or very, very clever that they've turned NXT into their own in-house super indy, as it means their next generation of marquee performers will all have the indy creditz by virtue of having come through there. I imagine we'll see fewer top faces being booed when the likes of Owens and Nakamura are their top guys, though we'll probably see a rise in heels being cheered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dead Mike Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 Have you read the thread? Plenty of us like him. You don't. That's just how it is now I appreciate there's a few on here who like him. It's not indicative of his actual appeal though is it? As proven by the consistently awful reactions he gets and the way WWE have been forced to react. I've just read the Raw report & it seems like they're sticking with pushing him as a face against Rollins' heel. This is going to be painful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 Have you read the thread? Plenty of us like him. You don't. That's just how it is now I appreciate there's a few on here who like him. It's not indicative of his actual appeal though is it? As proven by the consistently awful reactions he gets and the way WWE have been forced to react. I've just read the Raw report & it seems like they're sticking with pushing him as a face against Rollins' heel. This is going to be painful. Yeah, it's absolutely indicative because plenty of people like him. note the two guys in white t-shirts cheering and hugging each other when he won at the PPV. It's clear there are some places where he's very disliked, some he's well liked and some it's half and half. Just like that Cena fella who's achieved fuck all this last 12 years. Agree on your spoiler but probably not for the same reason. See the Raw thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 The heels get cheered because they have no reason not to be cheered. The can either be cool bad guys who sell more merch or dickhead heels who sell less merch but make more from being positioned at the top of the card against the faces. I think most guys recognise they won't be put at the top of the card for being a great heel, so they just don't bother. Jericho and Miz are the only ones who seem to really want to be booed at the moment, no one else seems to thinks the benefits are there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The King Of Swing Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 I really like Reigns the wrestler but honestly couldn't give less of a fuck about Reigns the character. The wans chanting "you can't wrestle" are the absolute worst though. The fallout when Rollins eats a spear in the middle of the ring will be glorious. The commentators trying to spin the booing is proper cringe worthy. Lawler's "it's fun to boo Roman Reigns" shite on Smackdown in particular is hideous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrasslin Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 The heels get cheered because they have no reason not to be cheered. The can either be cool bad guys who sell more merch or dickhead heels who sell less merch but make more from being positioned at the top of the card against the faces. I think most guys recognise they won't be put at the top of the card for being a great heel, so they just don't bother. Jericho and Miz are the only ones who seem to really want to be booed at the moment, no one else seems to thinks the benefits are there. I'd throw Owens in there too. He whines when he doesn't get his own way, he's boastful about everything he does, trash talks his opponent. He's even taken out the flashier stuff from his arsenal to a degree. Not seen him bust out a moonsault, flip over the ropes or swanton bomb since his feud with Cena (which was fine in a way as the story was WWE wrestler vs Indy guy kinda) Problem is, the Smarks will always want to cheer Owens because he was Kevin Steen. I don't think you can shake that in the modern world. Samoa Joe couldn't be full heel on NXT for te same reason. In other news: I enjoyed the opener far more than I thought I would. The Tornado style rules definitely suit the Bullet Club and hopefully they'll keep incorporating this into their matches. What more can I say about the 4-way? Amazing match. Sami Zayn's big match performances this year have been absolutely amazing and the crowd are going to push him all the way I think. The Miz is just an absolute star isn't he? The night he took the title from Ryder I was pissed off but his reign has been absolutely spot on so far. Tag match - New Day shenanigans, Entertaining as usual. I guess the Vaudevillains will get a rematch after the interference from Kofi? Nice to see Xavier getting a chance, though Woman's match. Dana Brooke? Why? What's the point? Is Nattie going to challenge again? Asylum match - Two big spots in a match which felt like an hour. I hope they never attempt this concept again. The crowd were noticeably bored for a lot fo this. But I've seen a few people post about the thumbtacks on Facebook so I guess it had the desired effect. Dean needs to do something big quickly or he's going to get trapped down in the mid card. I didn't mind this Jericho feud but he needs a step up again and I don't see who's there? I could watch Reigns wrestle Styles forever. It's amazing how well they've clicked in the ring. AJ styles can really do it al in the ring. Any style of match. Any opponent. But what now? He needs a big win. Overall a good show punctuated with two stand-out matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapnuts Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 The commentators trying to spin the booing is proper cringe worthy. Lawler's "it's fun to boo Roman Reigns" shite on Smackdown in particular is hideous. I think they've seen how loud a crowd is, how much fun crowds seen to have and most importantly how much money can be made if half the crowd hate and half the crowd love a person (See John Cena). Genuinely think they're trying to recreate a Cena type 50/50 crowd split for Roman on purpose at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Have you read the thread? Plenty of us like him. You don't. That's just how it is now I appreciate there's a few on here who like him. It's not indicative of his actual appeal though is it? As proven by the consistently awful reactions he gets and the way WWE have been forced to react. I've just read the Raw report & it seems like they're sticking with pushing him as a face against Rollins' heel. This is going to be painful. Yeah, it's absolutely indicative because plenty of people like him. note the two guys in white t-shirts cheering and hugging each other when he won at the PPV. It's clear there are some places where he's very disliked, some he's well liked and some it's half and half. Just like that Cena fella who's achieved fuck all this last 12 years. Agree on your spoiler but probably not for the same reason. See the Raw thread. I can see his point. Yeah plenty like him but in theory is it really too much to ask that the guy who is meant to be the new top face of the company actually... comes off as the new top face of the company? Let's not pretend here that the "I'm not a good guy" stuff was always in the works to neatly play along with this being the era where fans rock some wanky subversion-by-design attitude in the major markets. Roman Reigns was always intended to be the hot property guy kids and chicks would rally behind whilst the rest would find cool as well because of his demeanour and Shield background. It all blew to shit and now I like him, you like him people do like him but we're fundamentally facing a potentially long number of years where again the top dog in the company gets the kind of reactions on TV that would make someone who doesn't watch wrestling wonder "is he not working out?". Cena overcame it by being uniformly brilliant at every aspect of the WWE as a business. We can comfortably assume Reigns will never quite be that good. He reminds me of where Cena was in the fall of 2005 to the One Night Stand match with Van Dam now where people still thought the experiment was going to bottle and magazines were printing pieces saying he'd be wondering where it all went wrong in five years when fucking Carlito is headlining WrestleMania. I still think he's got maybe another full year before someone else is pushed up there in a similar spot to help a brother out and share the load. He'll never be as singular a headliner as Cena. As I said in theory it's not too much to ask that your good guy is liked by most of everyone. You can say it's a new world and the audience is more diverse but WWE are meant to be the leaders at this kind of thing, right? I understand that in practice it's much, much harder to do though. Still I can absolutely understand why somebody would find it slightly disheartening that WWE couldn't quite get him there. The people booing them are still marks, right? Everyone is there for the taking. I don't buy that the audience won't fully buy a WWE made star anymore. Cheap way out, I reckon. If they get their arse in gear they can more than do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 As I said in theory it's not too much to ask that your good guy is liked by most of everyone. In theory, right. But in reality, Cena has proven otherwise. I don't want it to be the case. I'd rather see Reigns turn heel and then turn babyface somewhere down the line and try again. But for whatever reason, they are comfortable with it - as they have been with Cena for the last decade. It's not just a babyface problem. Guys like Rollins and Owens get cheers all over despite trying hard to be unlikable (outside the ring). No-one cries about them being terrible heels. WWE still plod on though. They just accept that some people like them. If they're happy to work with it and to play with the dynamic then good for them. It doesn't always work but Cena's proven it can. Despite about 9 years of people crying that Cena was shit and couldn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 That's why I mention Cena perfecting the business of WWE. I always saw the Cena thing as paying dividends because the guy is insanely likeable and charismatic in every facet away from the ring, too. Now there's a bit of fortune telling work at play here, none of us can really tell if Reigns will grow to be as good as him at it, but I'm going to assume he won't. So yeah Cena has the same venom spit at him but he's also a laugh on local news, the people organising kids choice awards know who he is and he's got about a million more catchphrases, character idioms and merch ideas on his back than Reigns that you can market. Yeah it's early days but Reigns will never be nearly as marketable. Cena's a money sponge. The guy is a human cartoon. I don't think his reactions should be any sort of acceptable benchmark for the next guy at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dead Mike Posted May 24, 2016 Paid Members Share Posted May 24, 2016 The timing is completely different. Cena was hated as he represented the face of a new PG-Era of WWE which was unwelcomed by fans of the previous 'Attitude' era. They were marketing directly at kids, Cena was popular with kids. Simple. The current model isn't aimed at kids. It's back pushing the product to 16-35 year olds, people who'll subscribe to the network & be interested in watching 20 year old RAW, Nitro's, round table shoots and all the other network content. Reigns is failing with the current target demographic. Cena succeeded with his. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffer Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Cena was all blood and guts for his first year on top. It was only later he started gradually getting more PG, and it was his saving grace. Hindsight and all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.