WWE: The Content Years. Good, bad, eh?

[LaGoosh]

The Emma stuff was so bad. Especially as she was actually good in NXT. She had a fun quirky character and her little dance started and evolved organically so the crowd were in on the joke. It was a silly part of her wider character. 

Unfortunately when they brought her up to main television they stripped away everything else and dumbed her down to one singular characteristic - the dance. They showed vignettes of her doing nothing but the dance. On her debut she comes out on Raw doing the dance, Michael Cole is screaming "Everyone loves doing The Emma!". They even named it! The audience just stared at her utterly confused. She looked completely mortified the whole time. It was tragic.

[TheBurningRed]

1 hour ago, Joe Blog said:

Yeti guy was called Josh wasn’t he? 

Yes. But he wrestled as Bronson Matthews breifly in NXT. 

[The Gaffer]

7 hours ago, Chili said:

The Authority angle(s) that I swear culminated after years that felt like fucking decades at some Wrestlemania with Triple H riding down on his nazi tricycle to lose to Seth Rollins.

They are very lucky to have this recent boom period, they almost don't deserve it.

EDIT: Just remembered Heath Slater getting himself absurdly over in 2016 with his 'Free Agent' gimmick. Absolute champion work to take a joke of being undrafted, getting over through sheer fun likeability and somehow getting Rhyno popular again too. Heath really deserved that.

Oh his entrance the year prior definitely belongs in here:

Peak Scuzz/Kerrang nu metal era video CGI, flanked to the ring by the space nazis from the Killzone games, and this:

"Hope. Hope for a saviour. Hope that someone or something will take away the pain that is your pathetic lives. Well hope gets pulverised at the hands of reality." 

Actual line. I mean I get in a way how it's badass and played in with the Authority storyline but it was so on the nose at the time with how rubbish everything was. It's also set against the backdrop of old man Triple H insisting that he'll be able to get Roman Reigns over by having a twelve hour match with him. 

You just can't do "We'll crush your hopes and dreams!" when the audience have already disowned those hopes and dreams. It's like a pro wrestling chemical equation that produces apathy. And it did. 

[Callum1993]

11 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

The Emma stuff was so bad. Especially as she was actually good in NXT. She had a fun quirky character and her little dance started and evolved organically so the crowd were in on the joke. It was a silly part of her wider character. 

Unfortunately when they brought her up to main television they stripped away everything else and dumbed her down to one singular characteristic - the dance. They showed vignettes of her doing nothing but the dance. On her debut she comes out on Raw doing the dance, Michael Cole is screaming "Everyone loves doing The Emma!". They even named it! The audience just stared at her utterly confused. She looked completely mortified the whole time. It was tragic.

They did the whole single characteristic a lot in that era. See Fandango, Adam Rose, No Way Jose etc. Just shite. 

[DavidB6937]

NO WAY! JOSE! NO WAY! JOSE! NO WAY JOSE!

I enjoyed shaking my hips.

And Adam Rose's original theme and entrance was great too.

Obviously they were one dimensional and never getting anywhere but I enjoyed the few seconds they were doing something.

 

[Chili]

I always remember there was some scuttlebutt that Vince, Dunn and whoever at TV were deliberately sabotaging or making it difficult for any of the NXT lot to really succeed beyond.

Yeah, Adam Rose you actually could have done a bit more with as even though his character was one-note, you could have at least thought of something. I still think he should have had his old Saf Afrikaan hunter gimmick as a split personality. It's something more than just 'likes to party'

[Callum1993]

Just remembered when they debuted Kairi Sane in the Royal Rumble fresh off her long run as NXT Women’s Champion and during her entrance Michael Cole said she had a ‘Yacht Persona’ because ya know…Pirate. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

I liked No Way Jose, he actually developed a bit of depth to his character towards the end of his NXT run and did a few decent promos, but once he got to the main roster he was just a dance.

Elias is probably one of the few gimmicky characters from that era of NXT to manage to be more than one note in WWE proper. Tyler Breeze, Tye Dillinger, Sanity, so many others never quite achieved that.

[air_raid]

If we’re slagging off that timeframe for the dross that it was, can we pause for a moment of silent mourning for those few weeks were Strowman was portrayed as stronger than the entire tag team division then won the titles with a schoolchild?

[LaGoosh]

29 minutes ago, air_raid said:

If we’re slagging off that timeframe for the dross that it was, can we pause for a moment of silent mourning for those few weeks were Strowman was portrayed as stronger than the entire tag team division then won the titles with a schoolchild?

Strowman was on a pretty incredible run up to that point too. They booked him better than they had anyone in years and he was getting huge reactions. Then they fucked it and had him doing goofy comedy shtick like this and back down the card he went.

[Callum1993]

Then they started making Train sounds when he ran around the ring. 

[TheScarlettChad]

He then won the universal title in front of nobody. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Braun tipping stuff over was the best of Braun. Everything else was dog dirt. The tipping stuff over was also dog dirt, but it was funny dog dirt. Dog dirt that you have seen Jamie Oliver step in and fall over. 

[Chris B]

On 12/6/2024 at 5:28 PM, Supremo said:

Say whatever you want about Alex Riley, but he had an absolute banger of an entrance theme. They should give it to someone new. Too good to leave in the vault. Say it to his faaaace!

Alex Riley was, at least, part of one of my favourite NXT feuds.

Part of why Kevin Owens was so exciting there was because of his ability to start a grudge and argument with anyone over the slightest possible thing. He then bullies Alex Riley relentlessly, leading to Riley coming out of retirement to stand up to him - at which point, Owens mocks him further, kicks the shit out of him, and he's basically never seen again.

Absolutely hilarious stuff, and really cemented Owens as a guy with a big future. He looked in another league altogether.

[BomberPat]

On 12/7/2024 at 7:09 PM, Callum1993 said:

Just remembered when they debuted Kairi Sane in the Royal Rumble fresh off her long run as NXT Women’s Champion and during her entrance Michael Cole said she had a ‘Yacht Persona’ because ya know…Pirate. 

The best explanation I heard of that was that Kairi Sane has legitimately won sailing competitions, so Cole likely had in his notes that she was a "yachtsperson", and just misread it and ended up saying something utterly meaningless that no human being would ever say.