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Post by Threadkiller [Classic] on Sept 6, 2011 23:46:37 GMT -5
Yeah, Punk needs to beat HHH clean. Otherwise, this will all have been for nothing. The epic MITB match, the shoot promo, his contract negotiations, HHH has to realise they need to make CM Punk one of the stars. Theyve gone this far, and they cant waste that. The needless stip they added last night (If HHH loses, he must resign as COO) kind of gives away the finish (Punk jobs, perhaps due to Nash interference. Hopefully, due to Nash interference. I would hope that he wouldn't job clean). However, I thought the "Cena is fired stip" at MITB assured that Punk would lose, so you never know. Either way, whether Punk jobs or not, I think it is absolutely VITAL to his character, if he is going to remain a babyface, for him to be right about HHH and Nash being in cahoots all along. Otherwise, he comes across as a douchebag heel who is unfairly maligning a man's wife and just generally being a dick and egging him on at every turn. You can already see how it cuts into his reaction from the general audience, in that they know HHH is telling the truth, but Punk just keeps insisting that Hunter is lying. So it's either that Hunter IS lying, or Punk turns out to be wrong and winds up turning heel. I just don't think there's any other way around it.
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Post by Vice honcho room temperature on Sept 6, 2011 23:52:35 GMT -5
Yeah, Punk needs to beat HHH clean. Otherwise, this will all have been for nothing. The epic MITB match, the shoot promo, his contract negotiations, HHH has to realise they need to make CM Punk one of the stars. Theyve gone this far, and they cant waste that. The needless stip they added last night (If HHH loses, he must resign as COO) kind of gives away the finish (Punk jobs, perhaps due to Nash interference. Hopefully, due to Nash interference. I would hope that he wouldn't job clean). However, I thought the "Cena is fired stip" at MITB assured that Punk would lose, so you never know. Either way, whether Punk jobs or not, I think it is absolutely VITAL to his character, if he is going to remain a babyface, for him to be right about HHH and Nash being in cahoots all along. Otherwise, he comes across as a douchebag heel who is unfairly maligning a man's wife and just generally being a dick and egging him on at every turn. You can already see how it cuts into his reaction from the general audience, in that they know HHH is telling the truth, but Punk just keeps insisting that Hunter is lying. So it's either that Hunter IS lying, or Punk turns out to be wrong and winds up turning heel. I just don't think there's any other way around it. HHH has to turn heel here. The wrestler vs. the Boss seems to be the way to the boom. Worked with Austin vs McMahon, The Rock vs. HHH and Steph, and even the NWO vs Sting/ Goldberg as Bischoff had the power. Its because it makes the wrestler seem important as the whole company is against him. Sure it gets over used to where it isn't big but just a plot device because it can only be used for the right wrestler.
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Post by Savage Gambino on Sept 6, 2011 23:55:45 GMT -5
I've been holding back on this and I don't mean this exact topic, but in general. Seriously, what happen to just enjoying storylines? It seems like everyone needs to find something in a storyline to bitch and complain about. If you seriously don't like it, turn the channel. As a wrestling fan, I'm just happy that we have something interesting going on. I know most on here are too, but some just find a way to crap on it because it's not what they personally want the storyline to go. No, we have to sit here and predict the worst possible ending for a storyline or complain in general because that's the status quo, apparently. To put it simply, stop trying to being smarks about everything and be happy that there's at least something keeping you interested in the product. Um... yeah. What she said. Whatever happened to just liking a damn storyline? As a childhood Christian fan, I probably should have been pissed with how that was handled. But that never occured to me, because all I cared about was that a guy I've liked since I first started watching wrestling was in the main event, and was a focal point for Friday Night Smackdown EVERY NIGHT, whether that be as champion or chaser, nailing Orton with the championship belt or trying to weasel his way out of losing the title. And the matches were good. Damn good, in fact! Why can't we just tune out all the backstage politics, the workrate, and all that crap and just sit back and watch them entertain us? Triple H and CM Punk are both great on the mic, and both fantastic in the ring. For all intents and purposes, this should be a dream match. And it's not like WWE gave Punk Living Color and "Best in the World" t-shirts to put him on Superstars. I'd rather be entertained as a fan for the time being and be wrong, than be miserly the whole time and be right.
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Post by jadison on Sept 7, 2011 0:05:03 GMT -5
Punk has been closing out house shows by beating up baddies with John Cena, singing country songs, being called a "dynamic new babyface", kissing babies singing autographs shaking hands. They're really going all out with the guy, and I don't think they're going to "ruin" him. WWE just might have a different journey in mind than we do, but the destination definitely seems to be CM Punk being solidified as a top main event face alongside Cena.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Sept 7, 2011 0:30:39 GMT -5
I've been holding back on this and I don't mean this exact topic, but in general. Seriously, what happen to just enjoying storylines? It seems like everyone needs to find something in a storyline to bitch and complain about. If you seriously don't like it, turn the channel. As a wrestling fan, I'm just happy that we have something interesting going on. I know most on here are too, but some just find a way to crap on it because it's not what they personally want the storyline to go. No, we have to sit here and predict the worst possible ending for a storyline or complain in general because that's the status quo, apparently. To put it simply, stop trying to being smarks about everything and be happy that there's at least something keeping you interested in the product. Um... yeah. What she said. Whatever happened to just liking a damn storyline? As a childhood Christian fan, I probably should have been pissed with how that was handled. But that never occured to me, because all I cared about was that a guy I've liked since I first started watching wrestling was in the main event, and was a focal point for Friday Night Smackdown EVERY NIGHT, whether that be as champion or chaser, nailing Orton with the championship belt or trying to weasel his way out of losing the title. And the matches were good. Damn good, in fact! Why can't we just tune out all the backstage politics, the workrate, and all that crap and just sit back and watch them entertain us? Triple H and CM Punk are both great on the mic, and both fantastic in the ring. For all intents and purposes, this should be a dream match. And it's not like WWE gave Punk Living Color and "Best in the World" t-shirts to put him on Superstars. I'd rather be entertained as a fan for the time being and be wrong, than be miserly the whole time and be right. Perhaps because just because you're not 100% behind everything on a program doesn't make you miserable? You're allowed to go " Nah, not really liking this storyline because of XYZ" and it not make you some self-hating smark. It's not hard to find a healthy balance between critiquing things you don't like while crediting those things you do. This place would be absolutely just as boring if it was a non-stop WWE lovefest where no one said one bad thing about any aspect of any storyline. The discussion of various viewpoints is sorta the role of a discussion board and is something that's lost with the whole " Just change the channel!" argument. I'd agree if one was hating each and everything presented on a show, their time could be better spent doing something else, but again, one can like say 70% of a show, not like the other 30 and perfectly rationally discuss both POVs. To the topic at hand, I"m a HHH fan from wayback, and I was cautiously optimistic regarding his interjection, as the face authority role was a new one for him.. but, I gotta say, for me personally, from the minute Nash entered the ring at Summerslam, my interest has waned more each week; which is disappointing given how into the Cena/Punk story I was. Not all of that can be laid at Hunter's doorstep, but he's at least a piece of the story that's brought the angle to a screeching halt for many of us. I'm certainly not a 'HHHater' or whatever, as the guy's in my top ten all time favorites, but his inclusion in this story has done it no favors. Really, he, Nash, Ace, Steph, every new inclusion just makes it that more tedious to many of us who were legit excited about the story up till Summerslam. That's the crux of the argument we're making I think.
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Post by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on Sept 7, 2011 0:44:27 GMT -5
This. Geek/Hipster-chic (Comic-con) does not equal mainstream. And I didn't mention anything geek related in my examples. ESPN GQ WorldStar All pretty big media outlets that wouldn't have touched anything WWE for a decade. ESPN blows up your argument. They have one guy who has written articles about WWE and he is a fan who has written many articles in the past. They hyped Big Show/Floyd Mayweather,They mentioned Ben Rothlesberger's guest host stint on Raw. Mike Tyson's guest host stint on Raw. Take them away and your argument has no merit.
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Post by joebob27 on Sept 7, 2011 0:50:18 GMT -5
Yep, the "shoot" got no mainstream attention at all.
AT ALL.
lol. Like I said, most of it was probably misguided thinking it was a legit shoot, but people noticed that and it's the first time someone has noticed something one of the WORKERS has done since Benoit.
Why we need to belittle this or try to bring it down a notch, I'm not quite sure.... guessing because for some people it's too smarky.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Sept 7, 2011 0:52:36 GMT -5
Or again, it's just because we're less interested.
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Post by joebob27 on Sept 7, 2011 0:57:34 GMT -5
Or again, it's just because we're less interested. Probably that too. If someone doesn't like the whole package but likes a couple of things inspite, then those things must be no good. It's an opportunity they've mostly frittered away. This is not to say they can't recover it at some point, even Austin took over a year from point A to point B. But to have something that generated buzz and take both parties and put them in different programs doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. In that sense it's more a business than a wrestling company, which I guess on some levels is a good thing because WCW was the opposite and look where they are now.
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Post by Hit Girl on Sept 7, 2011 1:43:29 GMT -5
Got no problem with HHH
It's Nash who's bogged things down
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Sept 7, 2011 3:28:28 GMT -5
And I didn't mention anything geek related in my examples. ESPN GQ WorldStar All pretty big media outlets that wouldn't have touched anything WWE for a decade. ESPN blows up your argument. They have one guy who has written articles about WWE and he is a fan who has written many articles in the past. They hyped Big Show/Floyd Mayweather,They mentioned Ben Rothlesberger's guest host stint on Raw. Mike Tyson's guest host stint on Raw. Take them away and your argument has no merit. I'm not talking Simmons, I'm talking the other personalities who, via Twitter or their radio shows have REACHED OUT to PUNK to get him to come on. This wasn't the result of the WWE publicity stunting, this was mainstream attention getting hooked organically and making the effort to be a part of it. Like Punk said, he made it "Relevant" and "cool" to talk about something wrestling related again. Look at Kimmel reaching out to Punk. This wasn't like the WWE went and booked him on his show like they would do for Trips on Fallon or Miz/Sheamus on Conan. Kimmel's people saw how hot, as a pop culture talking point this was, and tried to get involved. The initial "shoot" promo had a pretty good run on the front page of YouTube and got the WorldStar audience, most of which probably had never heard the name "CM Punk" before, spreading it like wildfire. This is how interest generates.
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Post by Brian Suntan on Sept 7, 2011 5:39:22 GMT -5
ESPN blows up your argument. They have one guy who has written articles about WWE and he is a fan who has written many articles in the past. They hyped Big Show/Floyd Mayweather,They mentioned Ben Rothlesberger's guest host stint on Raw. Mike Tyson's guest host stint on Raw. Take them away and your argument has no merit. I'm not talking Simmons, I'm talking the other personalities who, via Twitter or their radio shows have REACHED OUT to PUNK to get him to come on. This wasn't the result of the WWE publicity stunting, this was mainstream attention getting hooked organically and making the effort to be a part of it. Like Punk said, he made it "Relevant" and "cool" to talk about something wrestling related again.
Look at Kimmel reaching out to Punk. This wasn't like the WWE went and booked him on his show like they would do for Trips on Fallon or Miz/Sheamus on Conan. Kimmel's people saw how hot, as a pop culture talking point this was, and tried to get involved. The initial "shoot" promo had a pretty good run on the front page of YouTube and got the WorldStar audience, most of which probably had never heard the name "CM Punk" before, spreading it like wildfire. This is how interest generates. What are you basing that on? Punk's shoot generated a lot of interest, from people who were already wrestling fans. Bill Simmons is a wrestling fan, the guy who wrote the article for GQ online (I could be wrong, but I don't think it actually made it into the magazine) was clearly a wrestling fan. Ratings for Raw stayed around what they were (or lower) for the Nexus last year, and remain at about that level. I'm not saying that Punk's shoot successful, it was. But it was never going to be successful on the level people thought it was.
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Post by angryfan on Sept 7, 2011 6:35:02 GMT -5
Since it looks like we're going into the "mainstream press" argument agian, I'll throw one little tidbit out there. Jim Rome DID offer Punk a spot on his show to air his thoughts and that is unusual. Why? Simple, because Rome, and I've been an avid listener for years, takes a lot of shots at the industry and is most definitely not a fan.
Sure, maybe he falls into the "people misguidedly thoguth it was real" category, but you know what? That's special too, that's something that just doesn't happen anymore, and in this case it did. No, it didn't get the "Rock 'n Wrestling" legs under it, but it got what Kaufman/Lawler got in the early 1980's when kayfabe wasn't dead and buried. That's what made it unique, that's what made non-fans blink for a second and say "hey, wait a minute..." and at the end of the day, that's the underlying goal of any action within the industry.
I've said this to explain my fandom of the industry when people hit me with the "oh, but it's so fake, how can you like it?" If they can put that doubt in my head for one second, just a brief flash of "wait..." when I KNOW it's a work, then that's the magic. They had that feeling going in people who used to be fans but drifted away (Simmons with ESPN, by his own account used to be a loyal fan but just faded out and lost interest) and people who don't give a damn about the business (Rome) and that's how it starts.
You don't hook a marlin the same way you do a bluegill. It takes time,, patience, and far bigger bait. I'm a fan that was drifting, I'm the bluegill. They tossed out some good bait and I got reeled in. To get the non-fans, it takes more, and it takes patience. You want to know why the injection of Trips into this is a killer? Because it smacks of "right now" and that's a problem. This storyline could have gone for months, that little kernel of "wait, hold on, was THAT supposed to happen?" that gets the non-fans blinking a little, former fans to say "I need to check this out" and then get some of their friends to just take a second look.
You don't just lob the bait out there, then first time you feel a tug, yank it away. Not if you want the big fish. You have to be patient, let them hook themselves deep, then you reel them in nice and slow, to where they don't even fully realize you've got them for a bit.
The goal with an angle like this, sure it ws to get people looking, to make a new main eventer, and to grow the fanbase. The thing is, if they had hotshotted Austin from the day after KotR '96 to the title in a month, then had him feuding with McMahon for a month after that rather than going with a slow build to what we eventually saw, would it have been the same?
No, of course it wouldnt' have, and we all can agree on it. They were patient with the Austin push, they let it feel like a natural progression, then cemented it with a match taht achieved two goals. The Trips/Punk match CAN do that, maybe, but I don't trust them to let it be clean, not by a long shot.
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Post by primetime110 on Sept 7, 2011 9:06:53 GMT -5
Otra If I'm not wrong, ESPN always makes references to the WWE Some people lead their fandom believing than punk was the next coming of the attitude era, but I think that this has been oberblown from day one Excatly. ESPN does make WWE refrences. IMO, people thought punk was going to be the next Austin. A new era. Correctly me if i'm wrong but never saw punk on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classcic. Just astory on the web. Now HHH gets the blame because punk isn't Austin or Rock. And when doesn't get full crowd support, lts blamed on the city thier in. So when things don't go as you want, blame HHH.
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Sept 7, 2011 9:23:01 GMT -5
For everyone saying he absolutely MUST put away HHH clean, that ship has already sailed.
It's a no-DQ match. If he was going to mop Hunter up clean as a sheet, they wouldn't book that stipulation.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Sept 7, 2011 9:23:31 GMT -5
"when Poochie Triple H isn't around, everyone else should be asking 'Where's Poochie Triple H?'"
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Post by SAJ Forth on Sept 7, 2011 13:29:09 GMT -5
I guess Night of Champions will be the deciding point.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2011 11:49:00 GMT -5
For everyone saying he absolutely MUST put away HHH clean, that ship has already sailed. It's a no-DQ match. If he was going to mop Hunter up clean as a sheet, they wouldn't book that stipulation. Not literally, dude. "clean" in regards to a no-DQ match means "decisively". Like there's no questions asked as to who won. and kayfabe wise, even in a no-DQ match, outside interference is frowned upon.
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Post by paulbearer on Sept 8, 2011 21:22:48 GMT -5
Its all about the Game (and how you play it)
*chuckles*
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Post by Threadkiller [Classic] on Sept 8, 2011 22:20:35 GMT -5
I've been holding back on this and I don't mean this exact topic, but in general. Seriously, what happen to just enjoying storylines? It seems like everyone needs to find something in a storyline to bitch and complain about. If you seriously don't like it, turn the channel. As a wrestling fan, I'm just happy that we have something interesting going on. I know most on here are too, but some just find a way to crap on it because it's not what they personally want the storyline to go. No, we have to sit here and predict the worst possible ending for a storyline or complain in general because that's the status quo, apparently. To put it simply, stop trying to being smarks about everything and be happy that there's at least something keeping you interested in the product. Um... yeah. What she said. Whatever happened to just liking a damn storyline? As a childhood Christian fan, I probably should have been pissed with how that was handled. But that never occured to me, because all I cared about was that a guy I've liked since I first started watching wrestling was in the main event, and was a focal point for Friday Night Smackdown EVERY NIGHT, whether that be as champion or chaser, nailing Orton with the championship belt or trying to weasel his way out of losing the title. And the matches were good. Damn good, in fact! Not to ape everything I listen to on Observer Radio, but Bryan Alvarez made a great point that I've had myself for a long time - though he made it more succinctly than I could at any given time. He was explaining why he dumped on the Zack Ryder segment from Raw this past Monday, responding to those who said "But Ryder won! Isn't that enough? You should be happy!" His response was basically that we wrestling fans shouldn't HAVE to settle for storylines that don't reach their full potential. After that video package of Ryder on Raw, they really should have had him go out there and run wild at least for a minute, but instead they had him get kicked in the gut and dominated until Lawler saved him and basically won the match single-handedly. Yeah, Ryder got the pin, but he hardly looked like any kind of star. Yes, Christian (a wrestler who I too have loved since his debut) was finally made a world champion this year. But he jobbed the title two days later and spent the next four months getting his ass handed to him week-in and week-out, and generally being made to look like a complete scrub. They could have had him hold the title until at least his first PPV after winning it, then have him lose a rematch at Capitol Punishment and turn heel there, regain the title at NOC via DQ still, have Henry help him retain at Summerslam, go on to defend against Sheamus at NOC while Orton faces Henry for the #1 contendership, culminating in the final blow-off at HITC. Do they have to go with my scenario? No. But they could have done SO MUCH MORE with the angle than they did, instead of four months of Christian getting punked out and then having the gall to try to sell us that this was "one of the most even feuds in WWE history" (I seriously can't believe the nerve they had feeding Matthews that damn line). What I'm saying is, we don't have to settle and be happy with Christian winning the world title if he's going to job it two days later, get punked out the entire summer, regain the title on a fluke, and then get punked out again. Same way I don't have to be happy that Daniel Bryan won MITB if they're going to have him lose all the time (even if it is to top guys - get somebody else to be the designated jobber), or the same way I don't have to be happy that we got the Punk storyline at all if they were just going to squander the IMMENSE potential of the angle and have him come back a week after he said he would leave. I like a lot of what WWE is doing right now. But I'm not over-the-moon for it by any means, and I'm going to criticize what I don't like about it, ESPECIALLY if they're not doing anything to get the most out of the stories they tell. As a viewer, I demand they get the most out of their storylines and their talent. Because I've enjoyed the product the most when I feel like that's what they're doing. WWE doesn't get a pass just for doing something interesting/different, especially if they're not going to a) do it well or b) do it to its potential.
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