Who should lose?

[saintpat]

I often see complaints about how this or that midcarder has had his credibility destroyed by losing too many matches.

I also see groaning and moaning about how this or that uppercard guy should be booked stronger and win clean matches on a regular basis so that superstar can be seen as more of force to be reckoned with.

So who should lose? I don't see any way they can go back to the old-days forumula where the TV show matches were roster guys against nameless jobbers. Not a good idea and not going to happen.

So who should lose? I've seen the televised records thread on this site and can't figure out how it should be done much differently -- I guess half the roster could win 90 percent of the time and all in matches against the other half of the roster, which would lose 90 percent of the time, but I don't think that would be a good answer.

I recently scanned through a whole year's worth of Attitude Era results from Raw and it appears that as lauded as those days were, way more than 50 percent of all matches ended in either DQ or countout. Like every night, more than half the matches ended that way, week after week. I was a little shocked, because I didn't remember it that way, but that's the way it was.

Is that the answer? Would it be better if we had 3 hours of countouts and DQs every week?

If you're one who feels the midcarders are ruined by losing and the main eventers aren't booked strong enough, how would you accomplish it?

[molson5]

I feel your pain here. Very good post.

I think you hit on the three styles. You can have mostly jobber squashes, mostly matches with screwy finishes, or mostly clean finishes. Or you can try to mix and match. We've seen the WWE utilize all three styles, and they all have pros and cons. People say they want clean finishes but that involves, necessarily, a lot of guys losing clean. Which means some guys are "buried", or people are just trading wins and losses and "wins and losses don't matter". If that's a problem, they definitely need more of #1 and #2. And personally, I think they do. I'd love to see more jobber squashes, more DQ/Countouts, and for clean wins to be more rare and to have more significant meaning.

[saintpat]

Gee, I was hoping to get some response from people in both camps as to how they think the show should be booked.

Ideally, I think it would be best if the uppercard people who are being pushed win MOST of the time, and that by necessity they would be winning over midcarders mostly. But I think that the show should be booked so that anybody could beat anybody in any given match -- this, after all, is the major leagues so even the lower-card guys should be treated as if they have a 'puncher's chance' so to speak.

So every month or so I'd like to see an Alex Riley upset a Cena or a JTG beat Sheamus or a Kofi get a surprise win over Punk. They key would be to treat these correctly on commentary, pointing out that the upset winner may not be a major star at the moment but that he has the potential to beat anyone at any time.

I suggest we start with Otunga ending the streak by squashing Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and go from there.

[Allie Kitsune]

Nov 27, 2012 21:16:18 GMT -5 saintpat said:

Gee, I was hoping to get some response from people in both camps as to how they think the show should be booked.

Ideally, I think it would be best if the uppercard people who are being pushed win MOST of the time, and that by necessity they would be winning over midcarders mostly. But I think that the show should be booked so that anybody could beat anybody in any given match -- this, after all, is the major leagues so even the lower-card guys should be treated as if they have a 'puncher's chance' so to speak.

So every month or so I'd like to see an Alex Riley upset a Cena or a JTG beat Sheamus or a Kofi get a surprise win over Punk. They key would be to treat these correctly on commentary, pointing out that the upset winner may not be a major star at the moment but that he has the potential to beat anyone at any time.

I suggest we start with Otunga ending the streak by squashing Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and go from there.

Of course, when they do this (Justin Gabriel beating Cesaro), they just have the "main" guy get his win back in DECISIVE fashion the next week, kind of undoing what they did in the first place.

[molson5]

Nov 27, 2012 21:18:54 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Nov 27, 2012 21:16:18 GMT -5 saintpat said:

Gee, I was hoping to get some response from people in both camps as to how they think the show should be booked.

Ideally, I think it would be best if the uppercard people who are being pushed win MOST of the time, and that by necessity they would be winning over midcarders mostly. But I think that the show should be booked so that anybody could beat anybody in any given match -- this, after all, is the major leagues so even the lower-card guys should be treated as if they have a 'puncher's chance' so to speak.

So every month or so I'd like to see an Alex Riley upset a Cena or a JTG beat Sheamus or a Kofi get a surprise win over Punk. They key would be to treat these correctly on commentary, pointing out that the upset winner may not be a major star at the moment but that he has the potential to beat anyone at any time.

I suggest we start with Otunga ending the streak by squashing Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and go from there.

Of course, when they do this (Justin Gabriel beating Cesaro), they just have the "main" guy get his win back in DECISIVE fashion the next week, kind of undoing what they did in the first place.

Is it better than if Cesaro just beats Gabriel twice? Doesn't that just make Gabriel a jobber? Or should Cesaro have had to have cheated to beat Gabriel the second time? Wouldn't that make Cesaro - a new guy who they're trying to push, look weak? There's no perfect answer, any way they do it going to have flaws.

But if you book the occasional upset, it does make perfect sense for the favorite to win the next time decisively. If a UFC underdog gets a fluke win, he's probably going to lose the rematch, that's why he was the underdog in the first place.

[metylerca]

Nov 27, 2012 21:16:18 GMT -5 saintpat said:

I suggest we start with Otunga ending the streak by squashing Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and go from there.

I was on board with you partially until this part.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Obviously the more established guy should win.

Guys like Zack Ryder & Justin Gabriel losing all the time isn't the problem. The problem is that they aren't given competitive programs with the guys on their own level and are ONLY used to job to the higher guys or the new red hot thing (i.e. 3MB, Fandango when he debuts)

A guy like Ryder should be feuding with David Otunga, not being used as cannon fodder for Cesaro & Sandow.

While a guy like Alex Riley should lose to a guy like Wade Barrett, such matches should not be two minute squash matches. That's one of the good things about Dolph Ziggler. On two seperate occasions, he and Riley manage to put on a much more solid, back and forth contest in that same amount of time and it made Riley look a lot better.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2012 22:13:26 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Obviously the more established guy should win.

Guys like Zack Ryder & Justin Gabriel losing all the time isn't the problem. The problem is that they aren't given competitive programs with the guys on their own level and are ONLY used to job to the higher guys or the new red hot thing (i.e. 3MB, Fandango when he debuts)

A guy like Ryder should be feuding with David Otunga, not being used as cannon fodder for Cesaro & Sandow.

While a guy like Alex Riley should lose to a guy like Wade Barrett, such matches should not be two minute squash matches. That's one of the good things about Dolph Ziggler. On two seperate occasions, he and Riley manage to put on a much more solid, back and forth contest in that same amount of time and it made Riley look a lot better.

Nail on the head. Lower card guys should have programs with their lower card brethren. If there was more of that, their losses to uppercard wrestlers would mean more for the guy beating them, and the loser wouldn't look so bad because he's in a tit-for-tat feud with someone on his level. The tricky part is making fans care about these lower card feuds, so the ratings don't plummet when they get some focus. These days, that's going to take some creative scenarios/story arcs, and in turn those would help to develop the characters of lower card wrestlers.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Nov 28, 2012 2:01:34 GMT -5 @lovehater said:

Nov 27, 2012 22:13:26 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Obviously the more established guy should win.

Guys like Zack Ryder & Justin Gabriel losing all the time isn't the problem. The problem is that they aren't given competitive programs with the guys on their own level and are ONLY used to job to the higher guys or the new red hot thing (i.e. 3MB, Fandango when he debuts)

A guy like Ryder should be feuding with David Otunga, not being used as cannon fodder for Cesaro & Sandow.

While a guy like Alex Riley should lose to a guy like Wade Barrett, such matches should not be two minute squash matches. That's one of the good things about Dolph Ziggler. On two seperate occasions, he and Riley manage to put on a much more solid, back and forth contest in that same amount of time and it made Riley look a lot better.

Nail on the head. Lower card guys should have programs with their lower card brethren. If there was more of that, their losses to uppercard wrestlers would mean more for the guy beating them, and the loser wouldn't look so bad because he's in a tit-for-tat feud with someone on his level. The tricky part is making fans care about these lower card feuds, so the ratings don't plummet when they get some focus. These days, that's going to take some creative scenarios/story arcs, and in turn those would help to develop the characters of lower card wrestlers.

WWE is going to have to suck it up and deal with lower ratings for a few weeks while they rebuild their midcard.

But I doubt it would be that bad. The likes of Riley, Otunga, Ryder, Brodus Clay, Gabriel, Santino, 3MB, The Prime Time Players and even Ted DiBiase to some extent are over with casuals. Riley, and especially Ryder, in particular, are kind of cult figures in the WWE

I've said it before, but a good solution may be to dedicate the SmackDown brand as a whole to let these guys get over while letting RAW be strictly the big ticket show. Give the midcarders storylines similar to NXT Redemption's.

For the sake of ratings/ticket sales, have 1-2 top guys (usually the champions) make advertised "guest appearances" (similar to Main Event's concept). You can have the top carder vs. midcarder match every week on SmackDown, while RAW is strictly for the top guys (and certain high profile midcarders).

Another way would be to have Miz make random appearances on SD with his MizTV show. Instead of putting Miz's talk show towards things like the AJ Scandal, use it to give the low carders a rub from Miz's star power.

For example, Miz's guest is Alex Riley, but 3MB interrupts, leading to Miz/Riley vs. Slater/Jinder. To make sure Drew doesn't interfere, Booker/Teddy puts him in a match against Tyson Kidd, where he's banned from ringside if he loses.

[onestepplan]

What they need is a division of the card. Vince Russo was great at this. Unifying the titles and officially killing the brand split would be extremely helpful too for expanding the divisions. You have tiers: main eventers, upper midcarders, midcarders, lower midcarders, jobbers. Feuds are programmed within a tier. Those feuds are holy and the matches should not be given away on TV, in tag-team form or any other stale, convoluted manner. TV should feature storyline progression and guys crossing tiers to wrestle in the meantime. If the finish is clean, the higher level guy wins, if you want to give a low-level guy momentum, have the high level guy lose in a screwy fashion, and if the guys wrestling on tv are in the same tier but not feuding, have a non-finish. If you want to elevate a guy, program him in a feud with a higher-tier guy and have him pick up wins against guys on his level leading up to the PPV.

So let's say Dolph Ziggler is feuding with Daniel Bryan, both guys I would firmly consider upper-midcarders at the moment. One week you could have Ziggler move down to the midcard to wrestle Zack Ryder and pin him clean so he looks good going forward. The next you could have Daniel Bryan wrestling Damien Sandow and Ziggler interferes allowing Sandow to win. That puts more heat on the feud and gives Sandow momentum for whatever he's involved in at the time. Then Ziggler wrestles Ryback in a competitive match and loses and Bryan taps Cody Rhodes. Finally, the two wrestle ON PPV and the anticipation has built and we're excited to see a winner. This allows for variety week to week on Raw while making the PPV matches actually matter.

[Deleted]

It does make you wonder how main eventers, upper mid carders, mid carders, jobbers, etc. are to be decided if you establish a fixed pecking order. Would agents go up to Kane and say, "Ok, you're a main eventer from now on. Expect to have the Smackdown heavyweight title in a month."?

[Bo Rida]

I don't think there's anything wrong with losing cleanly but in many cases I think there needs to be more story to it, both from the booking of the match and the commentators explaining it.

There's loads of old staples; heel being too cocky, the missed high-risk move, the plucky underdog almost beating the established star, the rookie mistake, the slump in form, one wrestler being kryptonite to another regardless of card position (eg Rey and Eddie), the injury etc.

Somebody like Ziggler shouldn't simply be walking into a finisher it should ideally be as a result of his own mistakes.
And to be fair they are doing this, Ziggler lost after failed cheating on Raw and Bryan regularly loses due to distractions from Kane/the crowd, maybe the commentators just need to put it across better as many people just aren't getting it.

Or maybe the big-name wrestlers themselves aren't as good as putting others over when they win as they once were.

[thecrusherwi]

I think main eventers should go over most of the time, and to prevent destroying your midcard, main eventers should not wrestle as much. Once or twice a month tops. They always claim that they are this gradiose, ~ENTERTAINMENT~ company. Then prove it and find a way to use your ME guys without making them wrestle all the time in an endless series of pointless tag team matches.

[BigWill]

The superstar that I like less.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Nov 28, 2012 16:06:34 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

I think main eventers should go over most of the time, and to prevent destroying your midcard, main eventers should not wrestle as much. Once or twice a month tops. They always claim that they are this gradiose, ~ENTERTAINMENT~ company. Then prove it and find a way to use your ME guys without making them wrestle all the time in an endless series of pointless tag team matches.

I don't mind main eventers wrestling on TV every week. But I think midcarders need to look strong when booked against them. Sandow & Cesaro's matches against Sheamus are good uses of the main eventer vs. midcarder formal. Miz vs. Yoshi Tatsu, Ziggler vs. Santino, and Awesome Truth repeatedly squashing the tag team champions only to move on and not care about the titles, are bad ways to go about it.

Alberto del Rio's outings against Santino were okay because the story was based around Santino & Ricardo. It was a midcard feud with the heel hiding behind his main-eventer partner.

The Main Event guys, should wrestle semi-regularly. The problem is that Creative doesn't seem to know how to book anyone strongly without it coming at the expense of someone else.

[Deleted]

Nov 28, 2012 3:42:48 GMT -5 onestepplan said:

What they need is a division of the card. Vince Russo was great at this. Unifying the titles and officially killing the brand split would be extremely helpful too for expanding the divisions. You have tiers: main eventers, upper midcarders, midcarders, lower midcarders, jobbers. Feuds are programmed within a tier. Those feuds are holy and the matches should not be given away on TV, in tag-team form or any other stale, convoluted manner. TV should feature storyline progression and guys crossing tiers to wrestle in the meantime. If the finish is clean, the higher level guy wins, if you want to give a low-level guy momentum, have the high level guy lose in a screwy fashion, and if the guys wrestling on tv are in the same tier but not feuding, have a non-finish. If you want to elevate a guy, program him in a feud with a higher-tier guy and have him pick up wins against guys on his level leading up to the PPV.

So let's say Dolph Ziggler is feuding with Daniel Bryan, both guys I would firmly consider upper-midcarders at the moment. One week you could have Ziggler move down to the midcard to wrestle Zack Ryder and pin him clean so he looks good going forward. The next you could have Daniel Bryan wrestling Damien Sandow and Ziggler interferes allowing Sandow to win. That puts more heat on the feud and gives Sandow momentum for whatever he's involved in at the time. Then Ziggler wrestles Ryback in a competitive match and loses and Bryan taps Cody Rhodes. Finally, the two wrestle ON PPV and the anticipation has built and we're excited to see a winner. This allows for variety week to week on Raw while making the PPV matches actually matter.

Good post. Right now, it's main event, upper-midcard, BLEH. Dividing the card into tiers is the way to go. Here's how I'd do it:

Main Event (WWE Championship contenders)
Big Show
CM Punk
John Cena
Randy Orton
Ryback
Sheamus

Upper Midcard (Intercontinental Championship contenders)
Alberto Del Rio
Antonio Cesaro
Cody Rhodes
Damien Sandow
Daniel Bryan
Dolph Ziggler
Kane
Wade Barrett

Midcard (US/European Championship contenders)
Alex Riley
Christian
Drew McIntyre
Heath Slater
Justin Gabriel
Kofi Kingston
The Miz
R-Truth
Rey Mysterio
Sin Cara
Tensai
Tyson Kidd
Zack Ryder

Lower Midcard (Tag specialists, JTTS)
Brodus Clay
Curt Hawkins
Darren Young
David Otunga
Epico
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
Jinder Mahal
Johnny Curtis
JTG
Michael McGillicutty
Primo
Santino Marella
Ted DiBiase
Titus O'Neil
Trent Barreta
Yoshi Tatsu


Then the jobbers should be like the locals they brought into feed Ryback, and put over guys in the lower midcard and midcard. Oh, and get rid of the WHC, please.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

First of all, the hatred for screwy finishes makes no sense to me.

Not every heel has to be a cheater, but not every heel has to be a badass either. One way heels get heat because people hate them and want them to lose, and they cheat to win.

So yeah, you have Miz lose to Heath Slater because Miz was kicking the shit out of him and then Jinder interfered.

Make sure the interference doesn't make Miz look like a goof (i.e. he fights off Drew and is so caught out by Jinder) and Heath gets put over as a cheating prick.

Both guys get put over. No problem at all.

A monster heel who still needs to get heat? No problem, you just make it so that he fights a never-say-die babyface to a standstill, but the heel doesn't really win - he hits a devastating move on the outside, rolls back in the ring at the 9 count and wins by countout. He gets the 'victory' but the face doesn't really lose.

Failing that, have you tough babyface and monster heel fight to a double countout because neither man will stay down, that puts both guys over too.

Or have the heel lock in a submission, the face gets the ropes, the heel won't let it go, so the heel gets disqualified all while destroying the face, because the face plays by the rules and the heel doesn't.

It's really not that difficult to have guys lose, clean or dirty, and it put both of them over. That is what WWE seems to be failing at, but at the same time a lot of people on here and the internet in general seem to think any loss equals failure.

Everyone can't win all the time.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Gizzark hit the nail on the head. The heel shouldn't be concerned about "looking good", because that's the face's job- what he needs to be concerned with is pissing people off. Even if he's a monster.

IMO, Yokozuna was the ideally booked monster heel. He ate jobbers for lunch and brutalized the upper midcard, but when it came to main eventers like Luger, Savage, Bret, Hogan and Taker, he started throwing salt, hitting guys with the bucket, hiding behind Cornette's contract stipulations and having Fuji-sponsored thugs beat people down. He was both intimidating and irritating.

[________ has left the building]

Nov 28, 2012 16:10:07 GMT -5 BigWill said:

The superstar that I like less.

That's pretty much the reason behind people getting mad over someone losing a match. Anyone but my favorites.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Nov 28, 2012 16:37:30 GMT -5 @lovehater said:

Nov 28, 2012 3:42:48 GMT -5 onestepplan said:

What they need is a division of the card. Vince Russo was great at this. Unifying the titles and officially killing the brand split would be extremely helpful too for expanding the divisions. You have tiers: main eventers, upper midcarders, midcarders, lower midcarders, jobbers. Feuds are programmed within a tier. Those feuds are holy and the matches should not be given away on TV, in tag-team form or any other stale, convoluted manner. TV should feature storyline progression and guys crossing tiers to wrestle in the meantime. If the finish is clean, the higher level guy wins, if you want to give a low-level guy momentum, have the high level guy lose in a screwy fashion, and if the guys wrestling on tv are in the same tier but not feuding, have a non-finish. If you want to elevate a guy, program him in a feud with a higher-tier guy and have him pick up wins against guys on his level leading up to the PPV.

So let's say Dolph Ziggler is feuding with Daniel Bryan, both guys I would firmly consider upper-midcarders at the moment. One week you could have Ziggler move down to the midcard to wrestle Zack Ryder and pin him clean so he looks good going forward. The next you could have Daniel Bryan wrestling Damien Sandow and Ziggler interferes allowing Sandow to win. That puts more heat on the feud and gives Sandow momentum for whatever he's involved in at the time. Then Ziggler wrestles Ryback in a competitive match and loses and Bryan taps Cody Rhodes. Finally, the two wrestle ON PPV and the anticipation has built and we're excited to see a winner. This allows for variety week to week on Raw while making the PPV matches actually matter.

Good post. Right now, it's main event, upper-midcard, BLEH. Dividing the card into tiers is the way to go. Here's how I'd do it:

Main Event (WWE Championship contenders)
Big Show
CM Punk
John Cena
Randy Orton
Ryback
Sheamus

Upper Midcard (Intercontinental Championship contenders)
Alberto Del Rio
Antonio Cesaro
Cody Rhodes
Damien Sandow
Daniel Bryan
Dolph Ziggler
Kane
Wade Barrett

Midcard (US/European Championship contenders)
Alex Riley
Christian
Drew McIntyre
Heath Slater
Justin Gabriel
Kofi Kingston
The Miz
R-Truth
Rey Mysterio
Sin Cara
Tensai
Tyson Kidd
Zack Ryder

Lower Midcard (Tag specialists, JTTS)
Brodus Clay
Curt Hawkins
Darren Young
David Otunga
Epico
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
Jinder Mahal
Johnny Curtis
JTG
Michael McGillicutty
Primo
Santino Marella
Ted DiBiase
Titus O'Neil
Trent Barreta
Yoshi Tatsu


Then the jobbers should be like the locals they brought into feed Ryback, and put over guys in the lower midcard and midcard. Oh, and get rid of the WHC, please.

I think that every once in a while, some of the "tag specialists", at least the ones with some semblance of individual identity (i.e. Titus O'Neil, Santino) should get occasional shots at the 3rd tier title in order to break up the monotony. Personally, if I were going to have a 3rd tier title I would replace the U.S. Title (putting the U.S. Title at this status just reeks of "WWE > WCW") with the European Title or a newly created "WWE Television Championship".

I think that instead of using local indy workers, the "jobbers" should be the NXT guys like Bo Dallas, Jake Carter, etc. so that the developmental talent have some means of getting weaned into working the big arena crowds.