Cronant
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 17,556
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Post by Cronant on Jul 24, 2012 14:02:50 GMT -5
Read every post-RAW or PPV thread back to yourself and try thinking this isn't true. Because you, sir, just hit the nail straight on the head. It would help if maybe WWE could learn to operate without the principle that there has to be a clear 'untouchable' #1. But Cena's been anything but untouchable this year. He flat out lost clean at the biggest show of the year. Punk has won every PPV match this year.
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kidglov3s
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by kidglov3s on Jul 24, 2012 14:08:29 GMT -5
It would help if maybe WWE could learn to operate without the principle that there has to be a clear 'untouchable' #1. But Cena's been anything but untouchable this year. He flat out lost clean at the biggest show of the year. Punk has won every PPV match this year. Cena hasn't played second fiddle to anyone. The Wrestlemania match was all about "can Cena beat that no good The Rock who needs notes to cut a promo because he's just not as good as John Cena". Punk has taken back stage at all points to Cena, and then to AJ for two PPV builds.
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Cronant
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 17,556
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Post by Cronant on Jul 24, 2012 14:11:33 GMT -5
But Cena's been anything but untouchable this year. He flat out lost clean at the biggest show of the year. Punk has won every PPV match this year. Cena hasn't played second fiddle to anyone. The Wrestlemania match was all about "can Cena beat that no good The Rock who needs notes to cut a promo because he's just not as good as John Cena". Punk has taken back stage at all points to Cena, and then to AJ for two PPV builds. And this is what I'm talking about. Its not about how good the storyline is, or how good the characters are, but when the match takes place on the card. And how that placement doesn't fit my perceived pecking order. Thats just ridiculous to me. Cena's segments almost always get higher ratings then Punk. Thats it. Thats not debatable at this point, its just the way it is. So yeah, he's going to close shows. Its just amazing that fans place precedence on that over whether or not the match/character/angle is good.
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kidglov3s
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Wants her Shot
Who is Tiger Maskooo?
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Post by kidglov3s on Jul 24, 2012 14:14:28 GMT -5
Cena hasn't played second fiddle to anyone. The Wrestlemania match was all about "can Cena beat that no good The Rock who needs notes to cut a promo because he's just not as good as John Cena". Punk has taken back stage at all points to Cena, and then to AJ for two PPV builds. And this is what I'm talking about. Its not about how good the storyline is, or how good the characters are, but when the match takes place on the card. And how that placement doesn't fit my perceived pecking order. Thats just ridiculous to me. Cena's segments almost always get higher ratings then Punk. Thats it. Thats not debatable at this point, its just the way it is. So yeah, he's going to close shows. Its just amazing that fans place precedence on that over whether or not the match/character/angle is good. It's not a matter of quality as much as narrative. Cena has been the protagonist of WWE.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2012 14:14:47 GMT -5
Cena hasn't played second fiddle to anyone. The Wrestlemania match was all about "can Cena beat that no good The Rock who needs notes to cut a promo because he's just not as good as John Cena". Punk has taken back stage at all points to Cena, and then to AJ for two PPV builds. And this is what I'm talking about. Its not about how good the storyline is, or how good the characters are, but when the match takes place on the card. And how that placement doesn't fit my perceived pecking order. Thats just ridiculous to me. Cena's segments almost always get higher ratings then Punk. Thats it. Thats not debatable at this point, its just the way it is. So yeah, he's going to close shows. Its just amazing that fans place precedence on that over whether or not the match/character/angle is good. Just...all of this. I love when a good point is made in a thread like this.
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Cronant
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 17,556
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Post by Cronant on Jul 24, 2012 14:16:50 GMT -5
And this is what I'm talking about. Its not about how good the storyline is, or how good the characters are, but when the match takes place on the card. And how that placement doesn't fit my perceived pecking order. Thats just ridiculous to me. Cena's segments almost always get higher ratings then Punk. Thats it. Thats not debatable at this point, its just the way it is. So yeah, he's going to close shows. Its just amazing that fans place precedence on that over whether or not the match/character/angle is good. It's not a matter of quality as much as narrative. Cena has been the protagonist of WWE. Thats just crap. You can follow who you want. If you like Punk, then why can't you follow his story the last year and enjoy it? You have to check over at the next guy and see if he's important too? Cena's not getting demoted. They'll be people on his level, but he's not dropping. He's a 12 time World Champion who's over and works full time and is best ratings draw of any of the other full time guys, and he's great for promoting the company. Guys like that are focal points.
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kidglov3s
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Wants her Shot
Who is Tiger Maskooo?
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Post by kidglov3s on Jul 24, 2012 14:19:52 GMT -5
The story they're telling is that John Cena has bigger fish to fry than the WWE title. When that puts a one on one match against Johnny Ace, or a title shot itself, above the WWE title, it's pretty weird.
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jul 24, 2012 14:26:02 GMT -5
It would help if maybe WWE could learn to operate without the principle that there has to be a clear 'untouchable' #1. But Cena's been anything but untouchable this year. He flat out lost clean at the biggest show of the year. Punk has won every PPV match this year. It's not a matter of that Cena is literally 'untouchable', it's about perception. And the perception is that John Cena, a man who has consistently received 50/50 reactions for years from the audience, a man who has really not changed his character at all in 7 years, and a man who, despite not being WWE champion, has closed out the majority of television and pay-per-view shows this year alone, is the most important person in the company. Well, yes, of course, when you've been booking him that way. Imagine if Dolph Ziggler had that kind of booking favour. Punk, as a certified main-eventer, only has been in that echelon as a tweener/babyface character for a year. Before that, he had about a two-year stretch as a heel cult leader, first the Straight Edge Society and then Nexus 2.0. And even before that, Punk was a smiling, yet still capable wrestling workhorse, upper midcard babyface who won the world heavyweight title but didn't transcend to the next level because of it. From 2006 say, when Punk debuted, he's been face (debut), heel (the brief time when he joined the new breed of ECW), face (until the MITB cash-in in 2009), heel (SES), heel (Nexus), tweener (shoot promo), face (effectively as of when he won the WWE title at Survivor Series). Since 2006, John Cena has been face/heel. That's it. He's a face to those who love him, he's a heel to those who don't. Basically though, they pulled the Cena heel turn, which is how I would see it happening, with Punk INSTEAD of Cena. Yeah, Punk works better as a heel, granted. And while his main-eventer face persona wasn't setting the world on fire, it was catching on enough with fans to justify keeping it going. Keeping him fresh as a face is the booker's fault, not Punk's, because Punk hasn't had really any great feuds since becoming champion. Great matches, sure, but not great feuds. The reason why people tune in to TV to see what happens and pay out for a pay-per-view, to see a feud culminate in a match. But if there's anyone in dire need of being fresh again, it's John Cena. John Cena turning heel against CM Punk (and maybe even winning the title through heelish means) at the 1,000th episode of Raw is a bigger deal (again, perception here) than CM Punk turning heel and retaining his title. I said this in another thread: maybe if Punk were treated like a bigger deal, since he's the actual champion of the company, holding the world title that means more than any other title in the company, treated as being on equal footing with John Cena instead of playing second fiddle to him, maybe more people might say "you know, I like that Punk guy. I'm gonna buy his shirt. I'm going to watch when he's on my TV. I'm going to buy a ticket to see him when he's in town." Perception is reality, and the perception in WWE is that John Cena is the top dog in down. Which is fine, but you don't have him be top dog to the exclusion of everyone else, especially guys you're trying to build up to run with the ball when Cena inevitably retires. Hell, Hogan was top dog for years, and when the Undertaker beat Hogan for the title in 1991 it was met with cheers. Cena's reaction from fans has been stronger than anti-Hogan sentiment in 1991-1992, and yet WWE has been insistent on doing nothing about it.
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Arrow
Hank Scorpio
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Post by Arrow on Jul 24, 2012 14:32:28 GMT -5
It's not a matter of that Cena is literally 'untouchable', it's about perception. And the perception is that John Cena, a man who has consistently received 50/50 reactions for years from the audience, a man who has really not changed his character at all in 7 years, and a man who, despite not being WWE champion, has closed out the majority of television and pay-per-view shows this year alone, is the most important person in the company. Well, yes, of course, when you've been booking him that way. That's not perception, it's the reality. Out of every full-time guys they have on the roster, John Cena is the biggest draw. That's why he closes out the show. No different from any other top face before him. And Cena isn't the most important guy just because he's booked that way. He got booked that way in the first place because fans bought into him (and still do) as a star. If that had never happened, Cena wouldn't be where he is now. I don't understand where the idea comes from that WWE can magically make anyone important. How many failed pushes have there been to show us how that's just not true?
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kidglov3s
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Wants her Shot
Who is Tiger Maskooo?
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Post by kidglov3s on Jul 24, 2012 14:38:11 GMT -5
And this is what I'm talking about. Its not about how good the storyline is, or how good the characters are, but when the match takes place on the card. And how that placement doesn't fit my perceived pecking order. Thats just ridiculous to me. Cena's segments almost always get higher ratings then Punk. Thats it. Thats not debatable at this point, its just the way it is. So yeah, he's going to close shows. Its just amazing that fans place precedence on that over whether or not the match/character/angle is good. Seriously. Last week Punk opened the show with a long segment and closed the show with a match while Cena had a 2 minute cameo. This week Cena had his match and a 30 second backstage segment while Punk had his match and another in-ring promo segment earlier in the show. The last PPV Punk had a 27 minute match with a 5 minute video promo for it while Cena had a 20 minute match with no promo. Next week I'd bet the show opens with another long diatribe by Punk explaining his actions while Cena gets less than 10 minutes of screen time. I'd wager that Punk has had more TV time than anyone in WWE this year. From mid-May to last week those weren't really Punk segments, those were AJ segments. She was the protagonist of the story, Punk had a supporting role in the saga of "What's AJ Gonna Do?". Cena would never be in a position like that.
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Post by "Cane Dewey" Johnson on Jul 24, 2012 14:52:12 GMT -5
I don't understand where the idea comes from that WWE can magically make anyone important. How many failed pushes have there been to show us how that's just not true? And how many times have we seen pushes sputter and bomb out because a) they aren't being pushed as fully as they could be? and b) pushes are cut short because of WWE's yo-yo booking? Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, John Morrison, MVP, the Miz, R-Truth, Kofi Kingston, Mr. Kennedy, and so on and so on... No one in recent memory has had the Cena in 2004 push except maybe Sheamus. Before Sheamus, probably Bobby Lashley. But Lashley didn't work out. Rocket pushes, like rockets themselves, tend to fizzle out. The same can be said for Lesnar back in 2004. Slow-boil pushes are also a thing of the past. Imagine Steve Austin's meteoric rise to the title in 1998, when he was over enough with the fans for it, but done in 1997. He wouldn't have been able to sustain himself as a main-eventer. 'Strike when the iron is hot' or 'this porridge is just right' should be the mindset for making new stars. John Cena has been a star for 7 years guaranteed. How much more over can Cena ever be? Why not book more TV time to someone who hasn't yet achieved that kind of success yet? 'If you book it, they will come'. But, you actually have to book it first, instead of running to the well again and again. What happens when the Cena well runs dry?
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Pushed to the Moon
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Tony Schiavone in Disguise
Working myself into a shoot
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Post by Pushed to the Moon on Jul 24, 2012 15:09:04 GMT -5
I liked the ending. Looking forward to seeing heel Punk again.
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