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Post by ________ has left the building on Apr 2, 2015 18:37:19 GMT -5
Again, you are assuming that Cena's humor is up their wheelhouse. I like Cena. Not at Clash levels but enough to recognize his unheralded greatness without him having to retire first. I don't like his jokes but will watch the hell out of a Cena match because it delivers more often than not. I'm not assuming anything, but rather positing a possible explanation for their fandom. I like Cena too, and I disagree with those who say he can't wrestle, but I'd like him even more if they toned down those elements of his character which at the least make him a hypocritical face. Unless you're asking them personally why they like Cena, you are assuming.
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Post by Hit Girl on Apr 2, 2015 18:39:36 GMT -5
I'm not assuming anything, but rather positing a possible explanation for their fandom. I like Cena too, and I disagree with those who say he can't wrestle, but I'd like him even more if they toned down those elements of his character which at the least make him a hypocritical face. Unless you're asking them personally why they like Cena, you are assuming. Speculating, not assuming.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2015 18:42:53 GMT -5
You do to some degree have to write with a hero and a villain in mind most of the time (certainly not always, but in a genre like wrestling it's typically needed). What WWE needs to cut out is deliberately making heels less interesting because the fans enjoy them and having commentators scream about how one guy is an utter bastard while another is talked up like he's the coolest, most badass and handsome man in the room, or saying fans are wrong for finding the bad guy more entertaining.
And there's nothing wrong with cool heels either. If I have to choose I'd rather have a fun, entertaining villain that one who gets booed but bores the f*** out of me.
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Post by ________ has left the building on Apr 2, 2015 18:43:01 GMT -5
Unless you're asking them personally why they like Cena, you are assuming. Speculating, not assuming. Like that is better.
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Post by Hit Girl on Apr 2, 2015 18:44:16 GMT -5
Speculating, not assuming. Like that is better. I think it is. Speculation is more open ended. Assumption isn't.
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Jeff Mangum PI
Hank Scorpio
11 herbs and spices for the rest of eternity; Is Number Two. Number Two!
The 2nd Coming
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Post by Jeff Mangum PI on Apr 2, 2015 18:54:24 GMT -5
It gets weird when people take guys like Cena to task for being a douche but say that Stone Cold was a fantastic babyface. I'm not saying Cena isn't a douche in kayfabe, but it's still weird.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2015 19:06:57 GMT -5
It gets weird when people take guys like Cena to task for being a douche but say that Stone Cold was a fantastic babyface. I'm not saying Cena isn't a douche in kayfabe, but it's still weird. The big gap in it is that Austin never really hid what he was. You didn't have him talking about what a patriot he was or have the commentary fellating themselves over what a wonderful human being he is, they pretty much just said, "Well, he's a prick, but he's OUR prick!" An honest bad guy's always going to have more charm than one that tries to hide it.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Apr 2, 2015 19:49:50 GMT -5
The screwed up dynamic of the faces and heels with crowds is the main reason why I hate WWE television now.
I don't think WWE's writing is great or anything, and Cena along with many other characters is frequently written like an idiot, but I can't get invested in a show where its fanbase- who usually are a major part of live shows- apparently thinks I'm juvenile or stupid for enjoying his work, or similar wrestlers/characters.
It's hard for me to lose myself in a product when it feels like no one's having a good time but you.
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Jeff Mangum PI
Hank Scorpio
11 herbs and spices for the rest of eternity; Is Number Two. Number Two!
The 2nd Coming
Posts: 6,957
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Post by Jeff Mangum PI on Apr 2, 2015 19:57:31 GMT -5
The screwed up dynamic of the faces and heels with crowds is the main reason why I hate WWE television now. I don't think WWE's writing is great or anything, and Cena along with many other characters is frequently written like an idiot, but I can't get invested in a show where its fanbase- who usually are a major part of live shows- apparently thinks I'm juvenile or stupid for enjoying his work, or similar wrestlers/characters. It's hard for me to get invested in a product when it feels like no one's having a good time but you. If I can handle being one of the five Bray Wyatt fans on this site, you can handle some knuckleheads giving you crap for liking one of the best wrestlers on the planet. Rise above hate, my friend.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Apr 2, 2015 20:07:40 GMT -5
The screwed up dynamic of the faces and heels with crowds is the main reason why I hate WWE television now. I don't think WWE's writing is great or anything, and Cena along with many other characters is frequently written like an idiot, but I can't get invested in a show where its fanbase- who usually are a major part of live shows- apparently thinks I'm juvenile or stupid for enjoying his work, or similar wrestlers/characters. It's hard for me to get invested in a product when it feels like no one's having a good time but you. If I can handle being one of the five Bray Wyatt fans on this site, you can handle some knuckleheads giving you crap for liking one of the best wrestlers on the planet. Rise above hate, my friend. No, at this point I'm done with the current product. It's not much fun currently. Besides, Cena could retire tomorrow and I'd probably be like "good for him". I've already seen a full career's worth of great matches and segments from him.
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Jeff Mangum PI
Hank Scorpio
11 herbs and spices for the rest of eternity; Is Number Two. Number Two!
The 2nd Coming
Posts: 6,957
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Post by Jeff Mangum PI on Apr 2, 2015 20:23:42 GMT -5
If I can handle being one of the five Bray Wyatt fans on this site, you can handle some knuckleheads giving you crap for liking one of the best wrestlers on the planet. Rise above hate, my friend. No, at this point I'm done with the current product. It's not much fun currently. Besides, Cena could retire tomorrow and I'd probably be like "good for him". I've already seen a full career's worth of great matches and segments from him. Maybe you could see if New Japan appeals to you. They even got their own Cena!
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Allie Kitsune
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Apr 2, 2015 20:32:12 GMT -5
The screwed up dynamic of the faces and heels with crowds is the main reason why I hate WWE television now. I don't think WWE's writing is great or anything, and Cena along with many other characters is frequently written like an idiot, but I can't get invested in a show where its fanbase- who usually are a major part of live shows- apparently thinks I'm juvenile or stupid for enjoying his work, or similar wrestlers/characters. It's hard for me to lose myself in a product when it feels like no one's having a good time but you. I pretty much stopped enjoying the product when it became "If you like someone the majority of the internet doesn't, then you're either just a contrarian anti-smark looking for attention, or a brain-dead rube who likes to eat Vince's shit." I still kind of watch as background viewing, and I do genuinely enjoy NXT, but even then, I feel kind of bad, because I pretty much like everyone in NXT (except Carmella), even the lumbering stiffs like Baron Corbin who aren't very good.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Apr 2, 2015 20:56:38 GMT -5
The screwed up dynamic of the faces and heels with crowds is the main reason why I hate WWE television now. I don't think WWE's writing is great or anything, and Cena along with many other characters is frequently written like an idiot, but I can't get invested in a show where its fanbase- who usually are a major part of live shows- apparently thinks I'm juvenile or stupid for enjoying his work, or similar wrestlers/characters. It's hard for me to lose myself in a product when it feels like no one's having a good time but you. I pretty much stopped enjoying the product when it became "If you like someone the majority of the internet doesn't, then you're either just a contrarian anti-smark looking for attention, or a brain-dead rube who likes to eat Vince's shit." I still kind of watch as background viewing, and I do genuinely enjoy NXT, but even then, I feel kind of bad, because I pretty much like everyone in NXT (except Carmella), even the lumbering stiffs like Baron Corbin who aren't very good. Yeah, it's like I could have an easier time getting into the shows if it didn't feel like I was offending other fans because I liked something WWE endorsed. At that point it's just not worth it.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Apr 3, 2015 18:57:24 GMT -5
In a weird sort of way, WWE's TV product has become WCW's product. However, with a difference. With WCW, the booking was basically young lower card and midcard guys versus the older main event guys perceived to be holding them down. The funny thing is, the older guys should have been the heels, but they weren't, or weren't booked as heels as much as they should have been. Today's WWE is kind of similar. You still kind of have the lower card and midcard guys versus the older main event guys perceived to be holding them down. But more explicitly is you have the 'company guys' perceived to be liked/pushed/overpushed by Vince, Hunter, and Stephanie versus the 'non-company guys' who are perceived to not fit the corporate model or image of WWE looking for the 'face' of the company. Just the same, the company guys tend to be the one-dimensional or boring characters, and moreover are babyfaces who act like heels, whereas the non-company guys tend to have some kind of entertaining characteristics, and moreover are heels who act like babyfaces. This is such an easy problem to remedy: if your babyface is getting heel reactions, turn him heel; if your heel is getting babyface reactions, turn him face. But WWE insistently refuses to do this. In a jingoistic nationalistic pro-American angle like Cena vs. Rusev, WWE still failed to get Cena babyface reactions. Heroes are almost always protagonists, but protagonists don't have to be heroes. Breaking Bad is one of the most critically and popularly acclaimed TV shows of all time. Yet Walter White is basically the villain of the story despite also being the protagonist of the story. If WWE could figure out ways to tell those kinds of stories, which with I say above, isn't really that hard, the TV product would be so much better for it. I think demographics play a large role in it. To me, it looks like the (mostly older male) audience has evolved to one that tends to see the majority of non-villainous characters as one-dimensional or boring, since those tend to be the proactive ones. Look at the followings Lesnar and Owens are getting just based on how they uncompromisingly destroy people. Sadly, the Walter White template is probably the primary kind of babyface that's the most acceptable at this stage in WWE. To be honest, both the piss poor writing as well as the live audience's general negativity and attitude make the show a crappy experience for me. I'm not too sure Cena would get cheered even if he was written better in this feud. I guess what I'm saying is that WWE's audience now is eerily close to Attitude in what they want out of characters, but more sophisticated- they don't necessarily want the unnecessary garbagy violence or sexist elements of it.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Apr 3, 2015 21:53:48 GMT -5
I think demographics play a large role in it. To me, it looks like the (mostly older male) audience has evolved to one that tends to see the majority of non-villainous characters as one-dimensional or boring, since those tend to be the proactive ones. Look at the followings Lesnar and Owens are getting just based on how they uncompromisingly destroy people. Sadly, the Walter White template is probably the primary kind of babyface that's the most acceptable at this stage in WWE. To be honest, both the piss poor writing as well as the live audience's general negativity and attitude make the show a crappy experience for me. I'm not too sure Cena would get cheered even if he was written better in this feud. I guess what I'm saying is that WWE's audience now is eerily close to Attitude in what they want out of characters, but more sophisticated- they don't necessarily want the unnecessary garbagy violence or sexist elements of it. People like ass-kickers like Lesnar and Owens because ass-kickers are active characters. Ass-kickers often achieve their goals. Ass-kickers look strong and capable, and as a result people vicariously live through them because of these things. This is exactly why Ryback failed. He couldn't get the job done against Punk. He couldn't get the job done against the Shield. And he couldn't even get the job done against Mark Henry. Ironically enough, then he was turned heel and whatever remaining overness he had was fed to Cena. Had Ryback been the guy dethrone Punk, been the guy to hand the Shield their first loss, or actually pinned Mark Henry at Wrestlemania, maybe he wouldn't have had his two year goober run. But all problems lead back to the way WWE books faces. Why didn't Ryback beat Punk? Because WWE needed a strong heel to face the Rock and drop the WWE title to him. So they turned Punk heel when he was doing more than alright as a face. They gave the WWE title to the Rock, a guy who wrestled 2 matches in 9 years. And then the Rock dropped the title and passed the torch to Cena, the guy who has been The Guy of WWE since 2005. John Cena was the last person to be passed the torch. John Cena can't be any more over. But that's what happened. The funny thing is, by Ryback completely blowing it, his face heat was transferred to the Shield as top heels. Why? Because like Lesnar and Owens, they kicked ass. They got the job done. They won matches. They didn't look like complete goobers. Nevertheless, because of the way WWE books faces, once the Shield broke up Reigns got the Cena 2.0 push when Ambrose, as the other face that emerged out of the Shield break-up, had a great blood-feud with Rollins last fall that could have carried him into Wrestlemania. Yet because the way WWE books faces, Ambrose never got the one W over Rollins. He couldn't get it done against Rollins, and then WWE spun him into a feud with Bray Wyatt, a heel who looked just as ineffective, because of the way WWE books its heels, because whatever heel heat he had was devoured by John Cena (there's a pattern emerging...). Wyatt as a heel had his jets cooled, and Ambrose as a face had his jets cooled, and then WWE put the two together and neither looked better for their feud. Their feud was drawn up literally to fill TV time. And Reigns, because of the Cena 2.0 push, got shit from fans. WWE had 3 other guys, Bryan, Ziggler, and Ambrose, who could have won the Royal Rumble and who wouldn't have got shit from the fans. Bryan made the most sense since a) he never was pinned for the title but instead had to forfeit it and b) Bryan should have won the Royal Rumble like Austin, Triple H, Benoit, Cena, and Edge before him after they returned from lengthy injuries (and, sadly enough, only 3 of those 5 guys actually won the title at Wrestlemania after winning the Royal Rumble after coming back from lengthy injuries). Ziggler also made sense since he was the guy who ousted the Authority from WWE. If there was anyone else other than Bryan deserving of the chance to finish the Authority off, by sticking it to the Authority by winning the WWE title at Wrestlemania, it was Ziggler. And Ambrose because he was probably the 3rd top babyface (in terms of unanimous fan reactions) at the time. All three guys got dumped from the Royal Rumble like they were pieces of garbage, because WWE doesn't know how to book faces. The top heel of that match, Bray Wyatt (ha!), also got tossed like he was nothing, because WWE doesn't know how to book heels. Nobody looked good. Why? Because nobody looked capable. Even Roman Reigns, the guy WWE pegged as the new thing, needed the Rock's help because of the shenanigans of the Local Men. Reigns was also hamstrung by WWE's inability to book faces. The funny thing is, your point about faces being closer to the alignment of the Attitude Era is patently untrue. Bryan and Ziggler certainly don't fit that mold. Ambrose is a darker gimmick than Cena, but he's certainly not the same thing as an Attitude Era babyface. Reigns doesn't fit that mold either. Ryback didn't a couple of years ago. Mizdow doesn't either, and he's in the midcard. Your complaint comes more from the fact that your guy still doesn't get the fan reactions you think he deserves. But what does make guys-not-named-Cena more like the Attitude Era faces you lament? When they're made to be unlikeable. And we already saw that pan out when WWE squashed a lot of fan interest in Bryan and Reigns by making talk and behave in a diametrically opposed way from what we've seen of them previously. The irony in all this? They're simply following the Cena play from the WWE playbook. Cena, in a strange twist of fate, is probably closer to the very Attitude Era babyface you hate. He has a dubious moral character. Remember when he 'slut-shamed' Eve, when he willingly embraced her when they kissed? But because Eve is a woman I guess from his point of view she deserved it. He says one thing but does another. Rememeber when he threatened Lana, a woman, with the fact that he wouldn't let go of the STF he had locked in on Rusev? Totally okay, but when Rollins threatened Cena's new best-buddy, Edge, with physical violence that could bring on death, that was totally wrong. As a good guy, Cena stands up to bullies. Except when he doesn't give a shit about his friends, Ziggler, Ryback, and Eric Rowan, get beat up or fired. And they're simply the most recent example. But when Cena bullies Paul Heyman, a non-wrestler, and threatens him with physical violence? Do as I say and not as I do. Didn't Randy Orton beat up Cena's dad (again) more than a couple of years ago? Cena gets the lulz. Roughly around the same time period, Alberto Del Rio cashes in MITB on Punk, and yet Cena gets indignant to the point of madness over it. He cares more about what's right (for him) over his own flesh and blood. And yet a couple of years later when the Authority grants him a WHC match without making him work for the opportunity, mum's the word. As babyfaces, the actions of Ryback, Bryan, Ziggler, Ambrose, Reigns, and Mizdow are far more consistent and heroic than Cena. And the 'Cena problem' when it comes to booking babyfaces is easy to solve, for Cena included. Either you book your faces as faces. Meaning, you don't make them act like dicks. You don't make them less sympathetic than your heels. You have them fight and achieve their goals. If Cena himself hadn't been booked like this, he'd probably get more positive responses, even when he has great matches but the stalest character ever. Or, if your faces are getting heel reactions, you turn them heel. Imagine if you book the same segment with Lana and Rusev with Cena choking Cena out, but instead Cena is yelling at Brie and has Bryan choked out. It'd get major heat. I mention Walter White as an example of a complex, but likeable, but villainous character on TV who critics and audiences alike have loved. But even then, Walter White was often a hypocrite, a coward, a two-timer, and delusional in his ego to the point that other people were hurt because of his hubris. That is John Cena today to a T(-shirt). John Cena IS Walter White. He just wishes he had a different Vince, Gilligan instead of McMahon, writing his show. I'm afraid I don't see it. I think the mere fact that Ambrose (and in fact, all of the prior babyfaces mentioned) is, as you mentioned, a darker gimmick than Cena with his brightly colored shirts and Make-A-Wish segments, and that's a major factor as to why he's been so embraced. I don't believe fans want faces to necessarily be jerks, but the audience has aged over time. As such, wrestlers are probably at a disadvantage coming if they're coming in with a more child friendly persona or a fairly straight laced one when compared to someone like a Lesnar or Owens. If Cena truly is Walter White, I don't think it even matters. To me it looks as if fans have a problem with the idea of a John Cena, or rather I don't think the Superman archetype works today's WWE anymore. I'm pretty sure guys like Batman or Wolverine would easily be more embraced. Mind you, I don't hate anti heroes, I can appreciate and enjoy all kinds of characters and storylines. I just don't like how increasingly seriously WWE or its fanbase is taking itself, I prefer it as a silly and stupid childhood holdover.
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