Chili Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 There is something I find quite amusing about wrestling in general now where it's in essence a live theatre performance in the round, but if it's done really well it becomes 'cinema.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 7 minutes ago, Supremo said: The criticism is completely valid. Whilst I enjoyed the framing as a TV viewer, I do think that's why it didn't get the big reaction or the huge heat people expected. To everyone in that crowd, it's just CM Punk running out in a stripey T-shirt. The drama of the reveal isn't there. I can't imagine there was a single person in that arena who didn't already recognise it as Punk as he ran down the aisle. Especially when everyone was already expecting him to get involved somehow. Remember in Friends, when Joey had to, "step into the map," to navigate around London? This is an example of when the WWE commentators have to, "step into the TV," for the internal logic of the show to work. It completely falls apart if they act as if they're actually there in the moment, as living human beings. The whole thing makes your head fall off the more you think about it. What was Punk's plan if the ref bump doesn't happen? Fly to Glasgow and just hope the opportunity to cosplay presents itself? I actually don't think this is fair at all, and is clearly something they'd worked around with that video of him backstage looking at the monitor, conflicted, pensive, wondering what to do. If THATS not enough to cover the logic gap, nothing ever will be and unless someone's booked for a match, you could argue that no one ever need to turn up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Chili said: There is something I find quite amusing about wrestling in general now where it's in essence a live theatre performance in the round, but if it's done really well it becomes 'cinema.' Without wanting to go back to the start, it's because they're quite consciously filming a TV show that people can attend live, rather than putting on a live event that people can watch on television. There's no hiding that now. If you go to the shows it's to enjoy the experience of seeing your favourite TV stars in the flesh, not to be presented something that in the first instance is for you in the room. If it appears more 'cinematic' its because that content first approach is the filter through which they make decisions and book the shows. Edited June 17 by d-d-d-dAz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted June 17 Paid Members Share Posted June 17 If Punk wanted to be a referee so bad then he should have just been the guest ref from the start. And the stipulation should have been that he had to call down the middle, or else not be allowed to wrestle in WWE anymore. And then during the match Punk should have asked Drew why there was a chair in the ring. Then Drew should have shouted, “fuck you!” and spat in Punk’s face. Then Punk should have swung a chair at him, only to accidentally hit Priest when Drew ducked. Then Punk should have shouted, “shit!” as he realised he had to count the three count, glaring at Drew as he does, before storming off. The best finish there is. Best finish there was. Best finish there ever will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 25 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said: Without wanting to go back to the start, it's because they're quite consciously filming a TV show that people can attend live, rather than putting on a live event that people can watch on television. There's no hiding that now. If you go to the shows it's to enjoy the experience of seeing your favourite TV stars in the flesh, not to be presented something that in the first instance is for you in the room. If it appears more 'cinematic' its because that content first approach is the filter through which they make decisions and book the shows. Honestly I'm taking the piss a bit. I think it's just very stupid fans online screaming THIS IS CINEMA when in reality it's good promos, and semi decent non-wrestler 'acting' structuring a long term storyline. Long term storylines have gone from arcs, which I don't mind to CINEMA. I blame which ever Uso did that hilarious 'MY INTERNAL STRUGGLE CAN YOU SEE IT' acting for this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 It worked perfectly for TV. And I was watching it on TV, so I thought it was great. Sure, once you start thinking about everything else, I'm sure there's stuff you can criticise but it didn't impact on my viewing. If they hadn't done the Punk backstage bit, I was quite happy to pick it apart and wonder what the fuck happened and why he was dressed like a ref. But they covered it pretty well. As to what his plan was otherwise? There's a bazillion other options for potential interference. He could've stolen a hoodie from one of the Bloodline gang easily. I guess we all have our own levels of what's acceptable and what isn't, and that's fair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 On 10/9/2023 at 1:30 PM, SuperBacon said: Some of the ways you lot watch or view wrestling sound exhausting to be honest. Calling wrestling "cinema" is just a modern language thing isn't it? It's like when people say about a goal "Hang it in the Louvre" Well you can't can you? It's a goal. Anyway we're just all old, get over it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald J Trump Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 Calling it pure cinema is obviously over the top, but I'm not sure that something not being completely within the bounds of logic and believability should always be a barrier to different approaches for old ideas. I can see why people would feel it's not for them, and it's a perfectly sensible position, but if large sections of the audience are happy to declare it a masterpiece then it's a sign that it's an idea that's worked. Even under the new regime, I think people are still inclined to interrogate the logic of ideas they feel are bad and poorly executed whereas something like this gets a bit of slack. I'm generally a bit relaxed about this kind of thing, because once I start tugging at this thread there's no end to it. The fucker was wandering around the St Enoch Centre on Saturday, so even though I only saw the back of his head when he made his way down to the ring it was clearly him. Even at that, once the screen in the arena cut to his face there was still a reaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dart Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 The trouble is if you pick apart any of the CM Punk stuff for its logical flaws, then how can you enjoy wrestling at all? Because almost everything that happens on any wrestling show, whether it's WWE or an indy show with 20 people in the crowd, doesn't make sense. Even with the backstage bit with CM Punk covering why he was dressed as a ref - surely there's always a ref on standby in the gorilla area? That ref should have made it to the ring much quicker than CM Punk did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 4 minutes ago, The Dart said: The trouble is if you pick apart any of the CM Punk stuff for its logical flaws, then how can you enjoy wrestling at all? Because almost everything that happens on any wrestling show, whether it's WWE or an indy show with 20 people in the crowd, doesn't make sense. Even with the backstage bit with CM Punk covering why he was dressed as a ref - surely there's always a ref on standby in the gorilla area? That ref should have made it to the ring much quicker than CM Punk did. Nah, he had his Jordans on. He'd beat them in a race, wearing their silly dress shoes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted June 17 Paid Members Share Posted June 17 it absolutely worked for what they were going for, which is the big TV production. It just served as a reminder for me of how much that way of presenting wrestling is at the heart of why I tend to find WWE shows a bit soulless. When Sting was in WWE, he did a great go-home promo for his match with Triple H - which they completely butchered the point of by turning it into WWF vs. WCW, but that's another argument entirely - and one of the things that really stood out was that Sting talked into the camera. You see a little bit more of it now, but for years that was one of the big WWF/E production edicts, you never saw anyone talk down the lens of the camera directly at the audience - presumably because it undermines the "invisible cameraman" stuff of treating it like a TV show, which means pretending the camera crew don't exist "in-universe". But when he did it, it made his promo feel so much more alive and vital after years of every WWE Superstar pacing around the ring, talking towards hard cam. It's kind of the opposite thing of Mercedes Moné feeling really artificial in AEW promos because her pacing and delivery and body language are all still so much of that WWE approach to promos, and it feels really out of place when nobody else is doing it. And that's my thing with wrestling these days - unless it's a consciously "cinematic" set-up like Lucha Underground or TNA's daft Hardy Compound stuff, I want the production choices to either feel like this is a live event being filmed and that everyone is aware they're being filmed and acts accordingly, or one that at least acknowledges the existence of cameras; another thing you hardly ever heard on WWE shows after around the mid-90s was the announce team praising the quality of the camerawork for "bringing you up close to the action" or something like that, while Tony Schiavone in WCW and in AEW will sometimes do that. Similarly, there's nothing goofier in wrestling than heels conspiring together backstage as if there isn't a camera pointed at them, or wrestlers being oblivious to something that happened "backstage" on the previous week's show, even though it aired on TV and everyone watching saw it. To me, there's really no distinction between that kind of lazy writing and the "Ultimate Warrior appears in the mirror but only Hulk Hogan and the audience can see him" stuff. Either it's a TV show and everyone in it is a TV character who acts as if they don't know they're on a TV show, or these are real people in a live setting that is being filmed. Wrestling (not just WWE) tends to be inconsistent on making that distinction, and I think it always suffers for it, because logic is the first casualty. I'm not saying the CM Punk reveal was a particularly egregious example of this, just a recent one that stood out to me and, seeing as it was almost universally praised by people who watch this stuff more than me, one that highlighted one of the big reasons why I find myself at odds with them about how I want to see wrestling produced and presented. To paraphrase David Lynch - I've got my thing and they've got their thing; the only difference is, their thing makes millions of dollars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB6937 Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 13 minutes ago, BomberPat said: Either it's a TV show and everyone in it is a TV character who acts as if they don't know they're on a TV show, or these are real people in a live setting that is being filmed. Wrestling (not just WWE) tends to be inconsistent on making that distinction, and I think it always suffers for it, because logic is the first casualty. I'm not saying the CM Punk reveal was a particularly egregious example of this, just a recent one that stood out to me and, seeing as it was almost universally praised by people who watch this stuff more than me, one that highlighted one of the big reasons why I find myself at odds with them about how I want to see wrestling produced and presented. It's definitely an interesting thing to think about and discuss, don't get me wrong. But also why I find myself thinking about it less and less. The TV character/real people distinction especially. Where we live in a social media world, that's something you often have to let go of or it just makes everything seem absolutely stupid. You could argue the same with the press conferences after. Are we talking to CM Punk the character or Phil Brooks? I don't think anyone knows. And it's so inconsistent from one company to the next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted June 17 Paid Members Share Posted June 17 I see stuff like press conferences and social media as supplementary - I'm talking purely about within the constraints of a TV show. And it really does come down to something as simple as answering questions like "do the wrestlers know the camera exists" and "are the wrestlers able to watch the TV show they're on?". Once you decide on the answers to those questions, it makes consistency and logic a lot easier, and for most of the history of TV wrestling, the answers to both questions have been "yes" - it's really a Russo-ism to just act like the camera backstage doesn't exist, and that bad guys can plot and conspire with the babyfaces never thinking to watch the show back, but it's so ingrained into modern TV formatting that nobody thinks anything of it any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted June 17 Paid Members Share Posted June 17 (edited) 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: And that's my thing with wrestling these days - unless it's a consciously "cinematic" set-up like Lucha Underground One thing I always liked about Lucha Underground is the cinematic stuff in between matches was never directly referenced or included in the "live" aspect of it. There was a very clear barrier. I know Tony Khan hates the "invisible camera" stuff which is why you never see any non-interview type stuff in AEW but I think there is a balancing act where you can do it and it still make sense quite easily. All you need to establish is that there are roaming cameras backstage ready to catch any action at any moment and ensure that it's clear that the wrestlers are aware the cameras are there and act accordingly. There were a few times I remember where WWE experimented with adding spooky or threatening background music to promos and segments though - thank God they didn't stick with that. Edited June 17 by LaGoosh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FUM Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 2 hours ago, Supremo said: This is an example of when the WWE commentators have to, "step into the TV," for the internal logic of the show to work. It completely falls apart if they act as if they're actually there in the moment, as living human beings. You can literally see them watching on the monitor in the background of the shot rather than looking at Punk in the ring so that totally defeats your point there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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