The Smackers Thread

[RedRooster]

I don’t understand why they won’t just go all in with the guy. I hope it’s something as simple as WWE wanting to delay his big win until crowds are back.

You could do Reigns/Bryan, for example, at Wrestlemania, have Reigns go over and then go with Reigns/Big E later in the year in front of an audience. It doesn’t really matter where that happens - that first show with a capacity crowd will feel like a Wrestlemania, it’ll be that significant. Capping it off with a Big E Universal title win? The emotion in that arena would be off the chart.

[Lenin]

I think he would need to be built up quite considerably before pulling the trigger on him. For me (as mentioned previously) I don't think he's got the "presence" yet whereby he looks as if he could legitimately take anybody without coming across as a temporary/holding champion. 

[DavidB6937]

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

Only watching intermittently for a good few years now, Big E always strikes me as a potential star every time I check in. He’s goofy, sure, but he has real, room owning charisma.

That big push never seems to come though. Feels like he’s either been a tag champion or an IC champion for a decade.

I just wonder whether they’ll ever move him on. Watching last weeks highlights, they referred to it as his ‘breakout singles performance’ but... was it? Felt like it was a match at his existing level that he’s been having and winning forever.

He's never had a decent run on the main roster as a singles star. Anything he did before New Day is completely irrelevant. This IC title win is the first true thing he has done on the main roster as a singles star with people behind him.

[HarmonicGenerator]

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

Only watching intermittently for a good few years now, Big E always strikes me as a potential star every time I check in. He’s goofy, sure, but he has real, room owning charisma.

That big push never seems to come though. Feels like he’s either been a tag champion or an IC champion for a decade.

I just wonder whether they’ll ever move him on. Watching last weeks highlights, they referred to it as his ‘breakout singles performance’ but... was it? Felt like it was a match at his existing level that he’s been having and winning forever.

I thought a few months ago they might finally be going with it, after - as you say - a decade of tag/IC level stuff. Then it completely cooled off again. Might it build up again from here? Maybe, but I don’t care enough to tune in and find out. If he wins the Rumble, I might start to hope for him again but it’ll take something sustained, on that level, to do it.

[Tsurutagun]

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

I don’t understand why they won’t just go all in with the guy. I hope it’s something as simple as WWE wanting to delay his big win until crowds are back.

You could do Reigns/Bryan, for example, at Wrestlemania, have Reigns go over and then go with Reigns/Big E later in the year in front of an audience. It doesn’t really matter where that happens - that first show with a capacity crowd will feel like a Wrestlemania, it’ll be that significant. Capping it off with a Big E Universal title win? The emotion in that arena would be off the chart.

I don't see why we should rush Big E for the Universal title at the moment. Roman is tearing it up right now. Having him as the guy at this time makes all the sense. Personally I'd love Big E to break Honky Tonk Man's record and you can push him as the guy who holds the longest reign for the IC and tag title so when he has the shot against either the WWE/Universal champ it'll be a big match. 

[poetofthedeed]

If they've learned anything from drew, you need a crowd to crown him. Summerslam with people would be perfect, dethrone roman after a year, New day come out to fight off the usos, confetti, babies thrown in the air, the works..... 

 

Of course they'll probably do elimination chamber--Roman costs him the IC title - thunder dome mania match with some lad in a benoit shirt giving the thumbs down...... 

[Chili]

I like Big E loads, the guy was always top bollocks to watch in the ring and out of the clutches of the pyramid of how WWE produce their humour he is so damn brilliant and naturally hilarious.

Which is why I have no faith in watching him because he's never gonna be a big thing. They're incapable of it. They fucked it up with their BEST option from the New Day, why would I have any faith in them doing anything with Big E.

[tiger_rick]

Saw a Big E promo recently, I think it was for accepting a Slammy and he's just so brilliantly enthusiastic and engaging. 

I've no real interest in watching their stuff unless someone tells me something is really terrible, like murdering someone on PPV or something, then I'll have a look. The elevation of someone I've liked for a long, long time would be something I'd check out. But for all the stories that they want to push him, they've done nothing so far.

They remind me more of WCW by the year. It's such a WCW thing to constantly want to push someone to the next level but have no idea how so they end up getting a run with the US Title and a year on they're no further on. It feels like WWE see beating Sami as a promotion for the guy who was IC Champions seven years ago. They also book midcard Champions horribly. Who was the last person a run with the US or IC belt elevated? With the mind-numbing nature of their rematch heavy midcard title programmes and constant reliance on non-title losses for "drama", it's not something they excel at.

I agree with point made above that there's no rush because Reigns is killing it but that's worrying because having time to kill is a death knell with WWE booking. You can see that in the booking of E since the New Day split. Half the time he's not on TV, and astonishingly, that's a good thing and he's had zero memorable moments or feuds and not even a memorable little run of wins. It's just a wasteland. 

I'd love to see their plan, if they bother with one, for how they're going to elevate him. It's clearly not going to be at Mania because it'll be a Goldberg or something, so when? I'd like to see the end point, whether that's SummerSlam 2021, Mania 2022 or any point in between, and the plot points in the meantime. If you want him to be a big deal, he needs a great showing at/in the Rumble and a big programme for Mania. Not seven matches with Jey Uso or something equally shit but a genuine star making moment. Like beating Brock Lesnar.

It has to be that big. You can put him over Reigns without it and people will be in to it. We know that. We saw how over KofiMania got with the existing fanbase despite being horrible storytelling but that just results in another person to hold a belt for a bit. They can do that, we've seen it. Everyone has had a go at some point.

E could be bigger than that though. He's got everything. Imagine if they don't see a real star in him?

[DavidB6937]

1 hour ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I thought a few months ago they might finally be going with it, after - as you say - a decade of tag/IC level stuff. Then it completely cooled off again. Might it build up again from here? Maybe, but I don’t care enough to tune in and find out. If he wins the Rumble, I might start to hope for him again but it’ll take something sustained, on that level, to do it.

Has he been at IC level though? Tag specialist fair enough but what's he actually done as a singles star that makes winning the IC title a retread or anything?

Don't get me wrong. I'm all behind a Big E singles push and I'm not against him being in the main title picture. Just wondering what I'm not remembering from his career. For me this is his first legit singles IC run and something that should solidify him as a singles star. They never did that before. I know it's been a while since he got called up from NXT so I doubt they want to rely on fans from that time or anyone that remembers his first reign. Not that any of that really matters now.

Considering some of the talent that has held the IC title recently it doesn't feel like a bad choice for me right now. Allows him some decent momentum on his own without having to feed him to Roman quite yet. We often criticise them for rushing through stuff and not having the patience so why not allow him a decent build up?

He hasn't been away from New Day long enough to be a case of them not pulling the trigger soon enough. If he can't maintain momentum for a while without people losing interest then he probably doesn't deserve the spot.

[Chili]

He had an IC Title run absolutely YEARS ago because I was watching it. Didn't he have some deal with the weightlifting powder in his entrance. Think this is when they dropped the surname too.

That's all I remember of it, who he won or lost it to or actually when it's a mist to me.

[DavidB6937]

I do get it. It's WWE. Many people don't have the faith that they can make anything work anymore. But Smackdown has been a consistently good to great show for the majority of the year. It's usually an enjoyable two hour show and a much better watch than Raw.

The more I think about it the more I don't really have a problem with Reigns carrying on with the title at the moment. He's at the top of his game. Why rush things? Have a couple of solid contenders at Rumble and Mania but I don't feel like he has to lose right now. They've struck gold there. I know it's a fine line and they need to continue to adapt that story but guys like Kevin Owens stepping up look much better in defeat from having been there.

Big E isn't a guy I'd want to put up there to lose. I think he needs to establish dominance on his own to the point where he seems a really viable threat to the Universal champion. Does he really have that at the moment? As much as I love the guy he hasn't been presented at that level yet. It takes time and I know people think it won't happen and Vince will fuck things up because that's what he does. But I care a lot more about Drew McIntyre now than I even did so let's not pretend good things don't happen in WWE anymore.

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, Chili said:

They fucked it up with their BEST option from the New Day

[Lenin]

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Who was the last person a run with the US or IC belt elevated?

I raised this very point a few months ago and I still maintain it was Randy Orton in 2003. I know he was right at the very start of his upward trajectory but not only did he have the longest reign in almost ten years (at the time), every title defence he had felt like a big deal. His matches against RVD, Foley, Benjamin, Edge etc. were all events in their own right. I know I certainly watched the PPVs of the time to see Orton defend as well as to see the World Heavyweight Championship matches. 

There could be a (weaker) argument made for The Miz during the 2012/13 period but since then it's been booked horrendously and no-one has been elevated as a result. Even John Cena's Open Challenge for the US Championship didn't really make the belt feel important. It should've done in theory but in practice the few people got anything out of it as he was always retaining.

It's so easy to book properly though which is the most frustrating thing about the secondary titles. The TNT Title in AEW has been booked well as there's a clear pool of people/demarcation of who is/could be involved in the title scene. The stories are all geared around this fact and there's no reading wins just for the sake of it.

 

[The Cutting Edge]

I must be hard for wwe at the moment to gauge how someone's push is going without live reactions, they could dip into the social cesspools to get an idea but those change there favourites daily so not the kind you'd build a multi million company on.

But Big E has been booked pretty well since the summer with solid matches with Sheamus, not being in survivors so he wouldn't lose, now IC champ, it's a slow classic style build for him.

Remember that fans turn on anyone if they're "forced"  to cheer them so it has to be "there" idea so they've won or something

[Supremo]

Whilst I don't think it's something they've done intentionally, a genuine benefit to them having never given Big E a proper push is that he hasn't been snapped up by movies or TV yet. I'm convinced that if he was given a proper shake at being a main event star it'd only be a matter of time before it happened. He's tailor made.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Supremo