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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jul 29, 2014 2:42:54 GMT -5
We talk a lot here about guys and girls being misused and not being pushed to their maximum potential. From critical darlings like Cesaro and Ziggler to pariahs like Sheamus and Del Rio, pretty much everyone on the roster today has been part of the discussion at one time or another. In my opinion the current roster, from main event right down to developmental, is as stacked as I've ever seen it... but the thing is, not every one of them can be in the main event of WrestleMania (at least not unless you do a battle royal or something, and nobody will ever believe that to a WM-worthy main event). Only 32 people ever have been in the 30 years WrestleMania has been a thing. And there are only so many championships to go around and even then, winning one isn't a guarantee for consistent success.
So, what's the solution? More midcard storylines? More wins, keeping in mind that for them to win, someone else has to lose? How can WWE book someone with the potential of a WM main event spot when that spot just isn't available for everyone, and keep their fans satisfied with their careers in the process?
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FinalGwen
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by FinalGwen on Jul 29, 2014 2:49:51 GMT -5
I do think that additional focus on the midcard would be the perfect place to start. To pluck an example from the air, Scotty 2 Hotty wasn't in a Mania main event, but I don't think anyone could say he was used badly, because Too Cool were given enough focus and credibility despite being a midcard act to seem important and carve their own niche.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2014 2:50:00 GMT -5
-Bring back jobbers that are only there to lose and make guys look good.
-No more drawn out losing streak angles that lead nowhere.
-More midcard storylines and multi-man feuds for the midcard titles. I really don't understand why they got away from having more than one guy go after the IC or US title at one time. Hell, there should even be more than one team going after the tag titles too.
-Stop with the goddamn rematches. Please.
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Post by Ryback on a Pole! on Jul 29, 2014 2:51:19 GMT -5
New creative team. Who are actually creative and not the trained chimps they have at the moment.
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SEAN CARLESS
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Post by SEAN CARLESS on Jul 29, 2014 2:51:47 GMT -5
So, what's the solution? More midcard storylines? More wins Those things, plus if a guy (say like Ziggler) gets more over than Del Rio, which is fact, you swap the push. That's pretty much my main complaint about WWE. There's obviously been some really talented guys that never caught on, so I get why they were never pushed. But it infuriates me when WWE has certain pet projects who are not even remotely as over as guys who are not office preferences, and those latter guys are used to feed said pet projects, rather than the other way around . It's ass backwards. I despise it when the office decides who *should* be a star ahead of time, rather than who currently is. If a guy is talented AND the crowd loves him, that's who you push. The office shouldn't get to handpick who does because of size or aesthetics.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 2:58:52 GMT -5
More midcard storylines. Even if its something as trivial and as fighting over a parking spot or for the last piece of cake in catering.
Midcarders need to have more matches with each other rather than simply jobbing to the shiny new toy, or to the main eventers. There's nothing wrong with them being used as enchancement talents, but they shouldn't be used EXCLUSIVELY in this role. Guys like Zack Ryder and Heath Slater need to have actual competitive matches with each other and win so that when they actually DO job to someone higher up the ladder, it means more.
Also here's something. EVERYONE should be pushed. I don't mean everyone should get a storyline or that everyone should get a turn with the belt. But everyone should be advancing up the ranks as quickly or as slowly as possible until they hit their ceiling. What this means is that every wrestler that gets pushed should maintain a certain level of credibility (whether it be main eventer, upper midcard, midcard, or lower card) regardless of whether they're currently in a storyline or not, whether they're "relevant" or not, whether they're getting regular TV time a lot. If a guy gets pushed to upper midcard, but suddenly, management loses interest and stops putting them on TV, then that guy should still be "upper midcard" from a credibility perspective and shouldn't be losing matches to anyone below that level, even if they're never on RAW and only curtain jerking on Superstars.
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Post by sportatorium on Jul 29, 2014 14:35:09 GMT -5
I watched an old episode of Raw recently. Where Austin was taking out all the other entrants in the Royal Rumble throughout the show. That became the main storyline, but it was done as a bunch of interludes.
When matches were on, the announce team made them seem like the most important thing in the company. Jim Ross was talking up Tom Brandi- Marc Mero like it was Flair-Steamboat.
Everybody should have something to do. Forming Kofi, Big E & Woods into a faction just to have them stand ringside in dress shirts & talk doesn't do anything for them.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 14:41:50 GMT -5
As lame as Hornswoggle and El Torito's recent program was, it showed that WWE is willing to put creative effort in something other than the main event and make it look a big deal. Now imagine if WWE did Alex Riley vs. Brad Maddox: Once in a Lifetime, and had them doing pull apart brawls, contract signings and "epic" video packages while the commentators act like its Hogan vs. Austin or something.
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Post by Slammy Award-Winning Cannibal on Jul 29, 2014 14:42:58 GMT -5
You can't push everyone to their maximum potential because not everyone can be the #1 guy. Herein lies the challenge with juggling talents, egos, alpha males, etc backstage. Also another reason why politics will play a big part in any environment: LOTS of people can fill roles but who can be trusted? You trust the ones you like, know, etc. the rest gets pushed down the card or released.
It's not up to the writers to make everything "fair for everyone." HHH has compared WWE to Saturday Night Live and that's totally accurate. Do the writers write for everyone? Nope. They write for the people they trust to sell the material. Not everyone can do that.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 14:47:40 GMT -5
You can't push everyone to their maximum potential because not everyone can be the #1 guy. Herein lies the challenge with juggling talents, egos, alpha males, etc backstage. Also another reason why politics will play a big part in any environment: LOTS of people can fill roles but who can be trusted? You trust the ones you like, know, etc. the rest gets pushed down the card or released. It's not up to the writers to make everything "fair for everyone." HHH has compared WWE to Saturday Night Live and that's totally accurate. Do the writers write for everyone? Nope. They write for the people they trust to sell the material. Not everyone can do that. No one wants everyone to be the #1 guy, but everyone should be made to matter to varying degrees. Look at the Attitude Era. Even the bottom of the card guys had stuff to do and got reactions. Even bottom of the card guys had credibility and won matches here and there. Nowadays if you're not a top guy or being groomed to be a top guy, you don't matter at all and you're either constantly jobbing or wasting your life getting paid to do nothing while everyone makes jokes and memes about how you have pictures of Vince McMahon rubbing horse feces all over himself or something to stay employed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2014 14:51:13 GMT -5
I believe that everyone should be pushed and given a fair shot, but if they don't catch on then they SHOULD be jobbed out until their contract is up, that's how wrestling works. You can't have someone winning matches "just because he used to be on that level" it holds back the guys he is beating from being given a fair shot themselves.
Also, I agree the midcard needs to be more important, but storylines about the last piece of cake or a parking spot is exactly the sort of stuff wrestling needs to NOT be doing right now.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 14:54:27 GMT -5
I believe that everyone should be pushed and given a fair shot, but if they don't catch on then they SHOULD be jobbed out until their contract is up, that's how wrestling works. You can't have someone winning matches "just because he used to be on that level" it holds back the guys he is beating from being given a fair shot themselves. Then you don't have him winning matches. You CAN job him out. You just don't job him out to bottom of the card guys or NXT guys. He just doesn't lose cleanly to anyone lower than say, Dolph Ziggler. He doesn't beat the new guys coming up. He just stays away from them until those guys actually reach the level he's being kept at. THEN they beat him and surpass him.
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Post by Slammy Award-Winning Cannibal on Jul 29, 2014 15:01:15 GMT -5
No one wants everyone to be the #1 guy, but everyone should be made to matter to varying degrees. That doesn't change the fact that most of the people in the WWE locker room WANT to be the #1 guy. So yeah, it's so easy to be an armchair booker and pretend we know PRECISELY how to write mainstream television 52 weeks a year straight. But you still have to manage the egos and personalities and they need to be able to handle the material they're given. And no matter what WWE does, we think certain talent aren't getting a fair shake, meanwhile we have no idea what happens behind the scenes. I understand what you mean about talent being jobbed where they seem meaningless but that's less of a problem than the titles being meaningless because they don't build strong feuds around them. That's a bigger problem for sure. But talent-wise, the IWC talks themselves in circles non-stop about WWE abusing/misusing talent when at the end of the day, the cream always rises to the top anyhow.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 15:17:03 GMT -5
No one wants everyone to be the #1 guy, but everyone should be made to matter to varying degrees. That doesn't change the fact that most of the people in the WWE locker room WANT to be the #1 guy. So yeah, it's so easy to be an armchair booker and pretend we know PRECISELY how to write mainstream television 52 weeks a year straight. But you still have to manage the egos and personalities and they need to be able to handle the material they're given. And no matter what WWE does, we think certain talent aren't getting a fair shake, meanwhile we have no idea what happens behind the scenes. I understand what you mean about talent being jobbed where they seem meaningless but that's less of a problem than the titles being meaningless because they don't build strong feuds around them. That's a bigger problem for sure. But talent-wise, the IWC talks themselves in circles non-stop about WWE abusing/misusing talent when at the end of the day, the cream always rises to the top anyhow. They want to of course. But they all can't. That doesn't mean they don't deserve SOMETHING. Something they CAN parlay into a bigger role once a spot becomes available due to injury or hiatus, even on just a temporary basis. Better than wasting money paying people to sit on the sidelines. The midcard titles are meaningless because they lack strong contenders. Everyone is either jobbed to hell or seemingly bigger than the titles. And yes, the cream always rises to the top. But even if they do, they end up not accomplishing as much as they could have if WWE simply acknowledged their talents from the start. Look at Daniel Bryan. He spent more time proving himself when he should've already been The Guy than actually getting to be on top. If he never comes back, then that's yet another career WWE wasted.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jul 29, 2014 15:18:11 GMT -5
Maybe this is just true for me, but when a fan claims that a wrestler is being "mishandled", or "hasn't had their potential realized yet", you know I think what they're really saying? "I'm a fan of this wrestler, and I wanna see him win some gold."
Now I'm not trying to restart the whole "WWE is being subversive with their pushing and depushing" thing. Maybe they are and maybe they're not- but in the modern era of wrestling where we know it's fake, the writers are essentially our top heels. And it's not as simple as "just give us what we want", because different fans want different things. And the divisions among fans only grow over time.
So no, I don't think they can use everyone's potential correctly. In every wrestling promotion, there will always be a handful of guys the front office latches onto for various reasons. Sometimes at the expense of fans of other wrestlers, but it's always gonna happen.
The best thing any creative team can do to stay out of trouble is to try to make everybody on the roster look like a big deal- not as far as wins and losses, but in how the announcers talk them up. (I think that's why there's such an anti-Lawler movement, he's responsible 90% of the time for the other two getting sidetracked.) I guess you also could try the "more jobber wins for midcarders" thing, but those are an acquired taste and not everyone has the patience to sit through them.
But as far as a utopia where fans of every wrestler that catches on with the diehard fans gets a world title run? Not gonna happen, because at the end of the day, we're all essentially marks for the guys we latch onto.
And maybe you don't want your favorite guy to start a new golden age, maybe you just want Zack Ryder to get some more screentime. Ok, that's cool. But I've seen folks on other boards argue that Cesaro should go back to ROH because WWE hasn't pulled the trigger on him yet. I'm sorry, but that's just straight up markdom.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jul 29, 2014 15:21:26 GMT -5
Treat it like every other goddamn TV show: as a holistic, serial show, rather than as a series of individuals competing over spots. The whole stupid "push" concept is ass-backwards.
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Post by Slammy Award-Winning Cannibal on Jul 29, 2014 15:21:27 GMT -5
That doesn't change the fact that most of the people in the WWE locker room WANT to be the #1 guy. So yeah, it's so easy to be an armchair booker and pretend we know PRECISELY how to write mainstream television 52 weeks a year straight. But you still have to manage the egos and personalities and they need to be able to handle the material they're given. And no matter what WWE does, we think certain talent aren't getting a fair shake, meanwhile we have no idea what happens behind the scenes. I understand what you mean about talent being jobbed where they seem meaningless but that's less of a problem than the titles being meaningless because they don't build strong feuds around them. That's a bigger problem for sure. But talent-wise, the IWC talks themselves in circles non-stop about WWE abusing/misusing talent when at the end of the day, the cream always rises to the top anyhow. They want to of course. But they all can't. That doesn't mean they don't deserve SOMETHING. Something they CAN parlay into a bigger role once a spot becomes available due to injury or hiatus, even on just a temporary basis. Better than wasting money paying people to sit on the sidelines. The midcard titles are meaningless because they lack strong contenders. Everyone is either jobbed to hell or seemingly bigger than the titles. And yes, the cream always rises to the top. But even if they do, they end up not accomplishing as much as they could have if WWE simply acknowledged their talents from the start. Look at Daniel Bryan. He spent more time proving himself when he should've already been The Guy than actually getting to be on top. If he never comes back, then that's yet another career WWE wasted. What you call "spent more time proving himself when he didn't need to," WWE calls "paying his dues." That's the difference.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Jul 29, 2014 15:24:29 GMT -5
As lame as Hornswoggle and El Torito's recent program was, It wasn't the rest of your argument is invalid -_-
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 29, 2014 15:28:17 GMT -5
Treat it like every other goddamn TV show: as a holistic, serial show, rather than as a series of individuals competing over spots. The whole stupid "push" concept is ass-backwards. TV shows ARE a series of individuals competing over spots. They're called casting calls/auditions.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2014 15:31:18 GMT -5
Treat it like every other goddamn TV show: as a holistic, serial show, rather than as a series of individuals competing over spots. The whole stupid "push" concept is ass-backwards. TV shows ARE a series of individuals competing over spots. They're called casting calls/auditions. Not when the auditions are done and the show is actually filming. WWE's environment would be like the cast of Game of Thrones constantly trying to upstage/backstab one another in hopes that George Martin is pressured to write their respective characters into getting the Iron Throne.
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