nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,725
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Post by nisidhe on Apr 8, 2014 8:42:09 GMT -5
I think that the battle royal at WM reminded us of why the tradition battle royal(e) isn't often a thing anymore. Unlike the Royal Rumble, which staggers the entrants and so cuts down on the number of eliminations at any given time, the traditional battle royal is too difficult for most fans and commentators to keep track of during the initial few minutes of the match. While it can be used to establish or further an angle, it's not as good for this as has been the Rumble precisely because of the lack of focus from the outset. In more recent times, it's been poorly used by the Divas division to establish a new contender for the title.
Would you want to see the battle royal included at WM in future? Why or why not?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2014 9:25:54 GMT -5
I used to have (and may still, somewhere) a huge collection of battle royals (mainly WWF/E) from the early '80s to 2008 or so. They are, historically, my favorite kind of wrestling match. They've always embodied the "anything can happen" mindset of wrestling. But as times have changed, that mindset has changed, and thus the matches themselves change in various ways. Not all good.
Several things have helped ruin battle royals:
1) A desire for quick eliminations. Back in the day, battle royals often took a bit to get around to elimination. That gave the audience time to scan the ring, see who was there, and watch random fights evolve. If there was an elimination that early in the match, though, it was rare and meant something. Nowadays, people want an elimination right off the bat, and often, and the bookers don't want the attention span of the crowd to be bored. Thus you have to throw away things that can make a battle royal work better - characterization and chance, primarily. You moreorless have to get it done quickly so as to get to the next match, or it serves some greater purpose than it should. These days, all that seems to matter is the end, rather than the entirety of it. So get there quicker. That leads to...
2) Lack of interest in giving the entire match time to roll out, rather than the last 2 guys getting a long featured spot. Many battle royals used to be done moments after the final 2 entrants were established. You never got a battle royal that basically turned into a long over-the-top-rope-challenge match with the last 2. I recall a Smacskdown battle royal where Angle and Mysterio got like 10 minutes to themselves at the end. THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF A BATTLE ROYAL. It's a spotlight for lots of people, and everyone was treated moreorless equally. That leads to...
3) Anyone could win a battle royal. Back then, all sorts of people - main eventers and mid-lowcarders - had a chance to win. The big names did well, but so did the other guys. Booking reflected the fact that anyone could eliminate anyone. Nowadays, battle royals are full of a couple likelys and a lot of filler. And the filler doesn't do much of note to make their presence seem exciting - they're mainly there as fodder for the guys most likely to win. Finally...
4) Battle royals were a spotlight match in a time when you didn't get all of them fighting each other all the time. And nothing more than that. In the days of Wrestling Challenge and Superstars and WCW Saturday Night and Worldwide, the big names and even the any names didn't face off regularly at all. Tons of jobbers who you knew had no chance got the task of putting over people of any name value. You were lucky to get 1 match per show that was a name vs. a name. But a battle royal was a semi-often chance to see all those name guys get in the same ring and fight each other. So that almost alone made it a huge feature for any TV show. Heck, there was a time when house shows used to sell out because of battle royals. Now, since the mid-late '90s, we're on the total other end of the spectrum. We get name vs. name on every single show in every single match. Jobbers of the old sort are rare, and now mid-lowcarders are relegated to jobber status. And most annoyingly, a battle royal usually has to serve a purpose, like defining a #1 contender or pushing a main event program with 1 or 2 people, rather than just a spotlight match.
So a battle royal is a great idea, and a fun concept, but when you're booking it with jobbers (who aren't by traditional standards supposed to be jobbers) or not giving it enough time to become a fun spotlight of various stars who don't always get screen time together or creating the mindset for the audience that this match serves a specific purpose and not to enjoy it beyond that.........why care?
And so, if the crowd doesn't care, why book battle royals the right way, much less at all?
EDIT: Oh, one more thing:
5)They have to be spotfests, for some reason. And spotfests have an annoying side effect. See, when you feature 1 or 2 guys heavily in a match like this - either an athletic guy who suddenly comes to life and kicks everyone's ass for a moment, or the classic "2 giant men stare down and do things dramatically" - it narrows the focus on the whole match a bit too much. And everyone else..........has to get out of the way. And as the years have gone on and these spotfests have become a regular feature, the idea of getting out of the way has literally become lazy. Instead of guys fighting on the outskirts, they just.......take a breather. Battle royals become places where guys can just sit around a bunch of the time. And apparently, we're all supposed to be ok with that? No. We're not.
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