Charlotte Vs. Natalya At Takeover Appreciation Thread

[EyeofTyr]

It's matches like this one that make me scratch my head when people try to claim Nattie is overrated or an average worker. She very clearly made Charlotte, and it was equally clear that both did their part in making the match as great as it was. As others have said in this thread, if you're given two minutes every week, how are you supposed to come even remotely close to showing your skills? Every time she's given time with somebody, she knocks it out of the park, and that's really the only measuring scale you can use with a Diva or a lower card talent in modern WWE.

[Deleted]

WWE let AJ and Kaitlyn have over 10 minutes on PPV and outside guys who wanna bone Kaitlyn and people liking AJ's crazy stuff, it didn't get a great reaction.

The problem is not all WWE's booking, it is fans who don't care about women's wrestling on the main roster. We have to remember the NXT crowd is not normal and they let this go. Unless we can clone the NXT crowd, multiply it and and tour them forever, every crowd that goes to RAW, SmackDown or PPV will chant boring within 3 minutes of that match starting.

[wallabylikeyou]

May 31, 2014 15:08:30 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

WWE let AJ and Kaitlyn have over 10 minutes on PPV and outside guys who wanna bone Kaitlyn and people liking AJ's crazy stuff, it didn't get a great reaction.

The problem is not all WWE's booking, it is fans who don't care about women's wrestling on the main roster. We have to remember the NXT crowd is not normal and they let this go. Unless we can clone the NXT crowd, multiply it and and tour them forever, every crowd that goes to RAW, SmackDown or PPV will chant boring within 3 minutes of that match starting.

You make them care. If your in charge of WWE booking it is literally your entire job to make fans care. They made casuals care about Cesaro, made them stop caring about Zack Ryder, made them care a little more about AJ than other women. They know how to do it, it's a question of wanting to on the part of the people in charge.

Very good match, Natalya is very good when given time. The emotional ending with hugs all around was a bit odd if Charlotte's meant to be a heel though.

[Deleted]

May 31, 2014 15:22:23 GMT -5 wallabylikeyou said:

May 31, 2014 15:08:30 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

WWE let AJ and Kaitlyn have over 10 minutes on PPV and outside guys who wanna bone Kaitlyn and people liking AJ's crazy stuff, it didn't get a great reaction.

The problem is not all WWE's booking, it is fans who don't care about women's wrestling on the main roster. We have to remember the NXT crowd is not normal and they let this go. Unless we can clone the NXT crowd, multiply it and and tour them forever, every crowd that goes to RAW, SmackDown or PPV will chant boring within 3 minutes of that match starting.

You make them care. If your in charge of WWE booking it is literally your entire job to make fans care. They made casuals care about Cesaro, made them stop caring about Zack Ryder, made them care a little more about AJ than other women. They know how to do it, it's a question of wanting to on the part of the people in charge.

Very good match, Natalya is very good when given time. The emotional ending with hugs all around was a bit odd if Charlotte's meant to be a heel though.

Isn't 95% of this board's complaints about WWE that they try to "make them care"?  You can't force crowds to care about women wrestling at 5% of the speed of the men they've just seen.  I loved the match and think NXT's women's division is excellent but it won't work on the main audience.

I also argue that they made people care about Cesaro and stop about Ryder.  Cesaro got over on his ring work, not the variety of stupid characters he was given and Ryder is awful so the crowd gave up on him.  By that logic, do you associate WWE with the success of Daniel Bryan, did they make fans care about him too?

[wallabylikeyou]

Well yeah, Cesaro got over on his ring work because they started giving him longer matches for people to appreciate him. I think the first time they really gave him a chance to show what he could do was that match with Kofi Kingston on main event, which was a rematch for the US title. So he had a whole title reign of people not caring before WWE started investing in him. Bryan is a guy the WWE have almost always been giving something to do since the beginning and again, have allowed him to showcase what he can do on a regular basis. I'm not talking about shoving anything down anyone's throat, I'm talking about exactly what those guys got, consistent opportunities to show what they can do. If Natalya for example had the kinds of matches she's usually had on NXT and that character (not a huge 3 dimensional character or anything but still) of the experienced female competitor on a regular basis on the main WWE shows I think people would care a little more, yes.

[Deleted]

I see your point and agree to a degree but while you need to give the women a chance to catch on with crowds - if you give them that Natalya/Charlotte match, it will be destroyed on a RAW by the audience and it will set them back even more.

I am not sure how you rescue the main roster's division.

[King Bebe]

May 29, 2014 22:15:34 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Why can't Nattie be like this more? This match, the one she had with AJ, and hell, even the ones with Tamina, she was just much better than she usually is. I guess maybe it's an issue of motivation, which I can sympathize with.

Cause Nattie holds back when she's facing inferior opponents like The Bella's.

Her matches with Alicia are always great too.

[Mozenrath]

May 31, 2014 17:04:27 GMT -5 King Bebe said:

May 29, 2014 22:15:34 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Why can't Nattie be like this more? This match, the one she had with AJ, and hell, even the ones with Tamina, she was just much better than she usually is. I guess maybe it's an issue of motivation, which I can sympathize with.

Cause Nattie holds back when she's facing inferior opponents like The Bella's.

Her matches with Alicia are always great too.

Tamina isn't really much better than them, but I guess the difference there is that one, she was given the clear goal of putting Tamina over, and two, that Tamina's size and strength opens up opportunities for spots and storytelling that isn't necessarily doable with smaller divas.

[Viking Snad]

/search function

"Little Naitch"

No Results

WHAT!?

Nice nod, or even happy mistake having Little Naitch ref this match. I dig it.

[gr1990]

I was pretty miffed that this was the tournament final going in: It involved someone from the main roster and the whole point of vacating the title was Paige going to Raw, it was just an excuse to get more eyes on the show with the Ric and Bret involvement, and I felt someone like Sasha and Bayley could put on a better match than these two, whereas Nattie and Charlotte's previous match was very training session-like and really flagged up the experience differential between them. I felt Charlotte wasn't ready yet and would do the opportunity more justice if they waited 6 months or so.

However... wow. This totally surpassed my expectations and aside from botching each other's submissions somewhat (which happens half the time when anyone steal's their opponents finish anyway), it was tremendous. It proves the main issue with Nattie on TV is that her strengths are all in pacing and psychology, and that all goes to shit when you've only got two minutes, although I do still maintain that in order to be a true great you'd have to cope with time restrictions better than she does. If you get in the ring with Nikki Bella and come off looking just as bad as her, you're clearly not top tier. But in terms of making the most of a long match, Nattie is the queen as far as the current Divas go. She needed a match like this to remind everybody of that.

Charlotte's potential is incredible, and her look is totally unique in WWE, so here's hoping this is the start of big things for her.

[lockedontarget]

May 31, 2014 15:08:30 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

WWE let AJ and Kaitlyn have over 10 minutes on PPV and outside guys who wanna bone Kaitlyn and people liking AJ's crazy stuff, it didn't get a great reaction.

The problem is not all WWE's booking, it is fans who don't care about women's wrestling on the main roster. We have to remember the NXT crowd is not normal and they let this go. Unless we can clone the NXT crowd, multiply it and and tour them forever, every crowd that goes to RAW, SmackDown or PPV will chant boring within 3 minutes of that match starting.

Except AJ vs. Kaitlyn actually did have good crowd heat. Their match was over.

The fans don't care because they have been trained for years not to. But every so often, the company puts a little more effort into giving the fans a reason to care, and they do.

[benstudd]

I have never been more involved in a wrestling match in a long time.

Why? Because of the B U I L D U P. It was rooted in a long tradition of two legendary wrestlers. Two that don't like each other. This is just me but I really wanted Flair's girl to win, I was really invested in Charlotte not losing. And the finish was really well done.

[Tha Don]

Charlotte won the title the same night Ric wont the WCW World title 14 years ago lol

[67 more]

Say what you want about Flair, but you could tell that night he was the proudest dad in the world right there. Was legitimately touching.

The emotion that Charlotte and Ric showed has also done a lot for the NXT Women's title as well.

[Abdullah]

May 31, 2014 15:08:30 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

WWE let AJ and Kaitlyn have over 10 minutes on PPV and outside guys who wanna bone Kaitlyn and people liking AJ's crazy stuff, it didn't get a great reaction.

I don't like arguing about reactions, because amazingly people will hear what they want regardless but your post undersells it. They got a pretty decent reaction throughout, nothing thunderous, but they reacted to spots and even turned on Kaitlyn for her own stupidity during the match.

By the time they had their rematch at Money in the Bank, and I recall this vividly, the crowd was pumped for the match. This was coming off their contract signing segment and I guess they were expecting some cool spots. WWE booked a standard match instead, only six minutes, and I think that cooled the excitement a bit. But if you honestly heard the entrance pops and especially for their segments, the fans were absolutely invested.

Like here, for example.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-WQEO2Xvu4

(It's also worth watching just for how much the Bellas suck at commentary)

[Deleted]

I didn't say it got no reaction, just that it didn't get a GREAT reaction and that involved a strongly pushed, long term face champion in Kaitlyn and the mega pushed AJ Lee. If those two, in a relatively well booked and promoted feud could only get "decent" with that then I struggle to see hope for women's wrestling.

You could take that NXT crowd who went mad for the NXT match and plant them into Shimmer, ROH, PWG, any indy. They are indy/hardcore fans. The same type make up about 10% of the RAW/SmackDown crowds, the ironic ones cheering Bo Dallas at the moment. The rest do not and will not ever care.

It's a shame as we've seen what the women are capable of but quite frankly, the casual fans don't want women's stuff from what I see. I'd love to be proven wrong in the long term though.

[Abdullah]

Jun 1, 2014 16:01:41 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

I didn't say it got no reaction, just that it didn't get a GREAT reaction and that involved a strongly pushed, long term face champion in Kaitlyn and the mega pushed AJ Lee. If those two, in a relatively well booked and promoted feud could only get "decent" with that then I struggle to see hope for women's wrestling.

Kaitlyn was doing nothing before her feud with AJ. They were starting from zero, with the catfish storyline, six days before Payback. As I mentioned, by the time the feud got going the reactions got much better.

I could post the link to the RAW after Payback where the crowd is eating up everything that happened. This is what gets pretty tedious about discussing reactions: I post a link where there are big pops for the feud and you sidestep it to further parrot your talking point.

I will agree with you on one thing. The WWE holds the women back. What prevented the Chickbusters feud from being truly great was that they were limited in the ring. They never were permitted to take the risks that could have elevated the angle. But the feud was still over by the time it ended.

[Deleted]

Jun 1, 2014 16:01:41 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

I didn't say it got no reaction, just that it didn't get a GREAT reaction and that involved a strongly pushed, long term face champion in Kaitlyn and the mega pushed AJ Lee. If those two, in a relatively well booked and promoted feud could only get "decent" with that then I struggle to see hope for women's wrestling.

You could take that NXT crowd who went mad for the NXT match and plant them into Shimmer, ROH, PWG, any indy. They are indy/hardcore fans. The same type make up about 10% of the RAW/SmackDown crowds, the ironic ones cheering Bo Dallas at the moment. The rest do not and will not ever care.

It's a shame as we've seen what the women are capable of but quite frankly, the casual fans don't want women's stuff from what I see. I'd love to be proven wrong in the long term though.

The thing is, it's going to take long-term booking because for so long the WWE has booked their matches as dead filler.

So not only do you have to compete with the dudebro audience who are automatically going to consider any presenting woman as being an inferior wrestler no matter what she does, but you have to get the people who may want it but don't want to get invested because they figure it's only a passing fancy.

It's going to take more than a year of good NXT booking and brief flashes of effort from the writing team every 6 months for people to really get invested.

That's WWE's own damn fault though.

[Abdullah]

Jun 1, 2014 16:16:18 GMT -5 @keijikage said:

Jun 1, 2014 16:01:41 GMT -5 @ihateeverything said:

I didn't say it got no reaction, just that it didn't get a GREAT reaction and that involved a strongly pushed, long term face champion in Kaitlyn and the mega pushed AJ Lee. If those two, in a relatively well booked and promoted feud could only get "decent" with that then I struggle to see hope for women's wrestling.

You could take that NXT crowd who went mad for the NXT match and plant them into Shimmer, ROH, PWG, any indy. They are indy/hardcore fans. The same type make up about 10% of the RAW/SmackDown crowds, the ironic ones cheering Bo Dallas at the moment. The rest do not and will not ever care.

It's a shame as we've seen what the women are capable of but quite frankly, the casual fans don't want women's stuff from what I see. I'd love to be proven wrong in the long term though.

The thing is, it's going to take long-term booking because for so long the WWE has booked their matches as dead filler.

So not only do you have to compete with the dudebro audience who are automatically going to consider any presenting woman as being an inferior wrestler no matter what she does, but you have to get the people who may want it but don't want to get invested because they figure it's only a passing fancy.

It's going to take more than a year of good NXT booking and brief flashes of effort from the writing team every 6 months for people to really get invested.

That's WWE's own damn fault though.

Exactly. What did they do after two months of booking AJ and Kaitlyn well? They slowly but surely went back to nothing.

Even then though, AJ sustained her reactions more or less.

[Deleted]

I just wish they'd try, at least. I'd take failure after effort than not even trying.

You'd think Stephanie would like a strong women's division on her watch, wouldn't you?