WWE has given us ...

[saintpat]

1) A one-year title reign by CM Punk, one of the most over guys with the 'smarks' in recent history

2) Daniel Bryan in a prominent position as the tag team champions with a lot of promo and ring time

3) A guy carrying the Money in the Bank briefcase for ages without rushing his cash-in, and without a ton of 'false starts' teasing a cash-in -- and without it seeming truly essential to his character or his position on the show

4) John Cena not holding the title for a long, long time -- and often (including currently) not really in the title picture

5) A soon-to-be Orton heel turn, apparently

6) Triple H hardly ever showing up and not burying anyone for quite some time

7) A fresh face (Ryback) put into the main event scene because he was over (yes, Cena was injured, but they could have easily pushed someone not as over into that slot)

8) A revival of sorts of the tag team division

9) A secondary belt-holder (Cesaro) getting a slow build with mic time to make the belt seem and the guy holding it seem more over, without it being shoved down our throats

10) Dean Ambrose


If you go back a year or so and look at this forum (or probably most any forum devoted to WWE), this is like a wish-list of what people have said they wanted. I remember post after post about hot-shotting belts and short title reigns, doing something with the tag division, getting Cena out of the title picture and Triple H off of our televisions, pretty much all of that -- well, Dean Ambrose is a more recent phenomenon, but ... he's Dean Ambrose, so there.

So why is everybody so unhappy?

[Deleted]

I hate all life forms even when they make me enjoy my life.

Beyond that I'm happy with the product on the whole match wise, and I think the roster is stacked full of talent, the big issue is how they deal with storylines outside of The Road to Wrestlemania[TM] and Summerslam. Badly written and handled far too regularly, and the length of Raw (despite it being a solid - good show consistently in my eyes) is far too much.

So there are a ton of positives, but time management and interesting writing are still major issues.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

I wouldn't say everybody is unhappy, because that just isn't true.

It's just that, in my opinion, there are people who think none of it matters because of the end game at WrestleMania being likely to feature none of those things. They're just waiting for it to fail, instead of trying to enjoy it while it's happening.

Admittedly, that's an attitude that WWE brought upon themselves, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

[DSR]

I think part of it is (and I'm not saying I agree with this sentiment, but it's there), but some people feel as though WWE doesn't truly value or care about the people they are currently pushing. Like WWE's waiting for Mania season so they can return to the HHH/Rock/Brock/Taker/Cena show, and they can finally shove the Dolph Zigglers and Daniel Bryans of the world back down to dark match territory.

Like, with Punk's title reign, I've seen a lot of people say they find it uneventful and boring, and think Punk's just keeping the belt warm for The Rock.

[saintpat]

Well if the point is that Punk is going to lose the belt sometime ... yeah, probably so.

Yet the idea that Ryback might defeat him at HiaC put a lot of people (notably ones who since then have made it clear that they think Punk's title reign is boring) in a tizzy.

I just don't get it.

[t3hmaniac]

WWE lost any good faith it had built up last year. People being pessimistic about things when the company drops the ball so often and so willingly is a logical outcome. Fool me twice etc.

[Straight Edge Scrotum]

Nov 30, 2012 1:44:37 GMT -5 saintpat said:

So why is everybody so unhappy?

[Ricky Nightshade]

Cause we are all just a bunch of malcontents deep down.

[Rave]

Nov 30, 2012 4:47:53 GMT -5 t3hmaniac said:

WWE lost any good faith it had built up last year. People being pessimistic about things when the company drops the ball so often and so willingly is a logical outcome. Fool me twice etc.

Bingo. I try to get excited about stuff, then I'm reminded just how many times I've been excited about stuff only to be disappointed later on.

[Paco]

Creative team needs a swift kick in the ass.

As stated, they got the talent and use them well.
Why is the show (for me at least) a chore to watch? Why is it so...mediocre?

I don't blame creative actually. In the end, they're job is practically being Vince's "yes men".
I'm sure if they had the chance, they could come up with some exciting stuff.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

WWE needs a real midcard. Right now, their "midcard" is just the main event level guys lost in the shuffle due to the crowded World Title scenes.

They're doing good work with Cesaro, but it feels like they're pushing him at the expense of everyone else. He's getting mic time, but no one seems to appear to be a real threat to him, even if they do put on solid matches.

There still isn't a real midcard. As soon as someone gets over, they're hotshotted to the top of the card, and get a World Title shot, or even a run with the belt. But then when it's someone else's turn in the spotlight, said main eventer ends up getting stuck. Because they can't fit in the World Title picture, but they're "too good" for the midcard belts now, they're stuck squashing jobbers for weeks or being randomly stuck in meaningless feuds just for the sake of getting them on the PPV card.

[Super Nintenjoe KBD]

I stopped watching this year for the first time since 2006, just got tired of no pay offs or interesting storylines and the over produced feel but I was thinking the other day about stuff like you mentioned and it's been long enough that Im willing to give it a chance again but then I remember Raw is 3 hours now and it really puts me off watching, so stupid.

[Bo Rida]

Nov 30, 2012 4:47:53 GMT -5 t3hmaniac said:

WWE lost any good faith it had built up last year. People being pessimistic about things when the company drops the ball so often and so willingly is a logical outcome. Fool me twice etc.

This.
We're all marks deep down, we want to put cynicism aside, suspend our disbelief and get lost in the moment.

But the way the shows have been written in recent years makes that impossible as there's always that nagging doubt in the back of our minds.
Why wouldn't there be after the pipebomb, Nexus/The bigger picture, embrace the hate, the anonymous gm, who sent the text?, the conspiracy and many more promising angles went absolutely nowhere.

To be fair I do enjoy WWE much of the time (with the help of a DVR) but in an almost detached way, they just make it so hard to get emotionally invested.

That's without other issues like poor pacing and lack of improvisation.
And again that lack of improvisation makes it harder to invest in characters as the way they rigidly stick to a script makes them seem less "real".

[mrjl]

Nov 30, 2012 5:17:25 GMT -5 Rave said:

Nov 30, 2012 4:47:53 GMT -5 t3hmaniac said:

WWE lost any good faith it had built up last year. People being pessimistic about things when the company drops the ball so often and so willingly is a logical outcome. Fool me twice etc.

Bingo. I try to get excited about stuff, then I'm reminded just how many times I've been excited about stuff only to be disappointed later on.

here's an idea. Stop thinking about the future and being excited and just enjoy what's on

[Super Nintenjoe KBD]

Nov 30, 2012 6:12:54 GMT -5 mrjl said:

Nov 30, 2012 5:17:25 GMT -5 Rave said:

Bingo. I try to get excited about stuff, then I'm reminded just how many times I've been excited about stuff only to be disappointed later on.

here's an idea. Stop thinking about the future and being excited and just enjoy what's on

Yeah, shut and take what they give you dammit!

[mrjl]

Nov 30, 2012 6:33:40 GMT -5 Super Nintenjoe KBD said:

Nov 30, 2012 6:12:54 GMT -5 mrjl said:

here's an idea. Stop thinking about the future and being excited and just enjoy what's on

Yeah, shut and take what they give you dammit!

if all you do is worry about what's coming eventually you can ruin anything

[________ has left the building]

Because to use the cliche: You cannot please everyone. Like a nympho, some people can never be satisfied. Even post MITB 2011, contrary to popular IWC belief; not everyone was in rapture.

[ozzyismetal]

This is all my opinion, but I am happy with the talent they have and the positions they have been established/ are being established in. The thing that's putting me off the product right now is that the storylines are just boring. What's the point of having all these high quality people in the upper/midcard if the stories you are having them portray are low quality? Up until this year performer quality was the main concern, now it's story quality's turn.

[Nikki Heyman]

Nov 30, 2012 5:14:17 GMT -5 Straight Edge Scrotum said:

Nov 30, 2012 1:44:37 GMT -5 saintpat said:

So why is everybody so unhappy?

This sums it up nicely. If you're watching and all you're doing is complaining, maybe you need to take a break from it.

I don't get the "take [the shit] they give you" mentality. I don't "take" what they "give", I "watch" what they came up with.

but the OP has a point - the IWC got a lot of what they asked for, and as I said in another thread, many are still unhappy because they "didn't get it the right way."

[Super Nintenjoe KBD]

Nov 30, 2012 6:43:28 GMT -5 mrjl said:

Nov 30, 2012 6:33:40 GMT -5 Super Nintenjoe KBD said:

Yeah, shut and take what they give you dammit!

if all you do is worry about what's coming eventually you can ruin anything

Well I think its not that people are worried, for me its that Im depressed that WWE's failure to deliver time after time amongst other things has driven me away when the roster has such great talent.