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Post by alred1982 on Sept 29, 2016 14:10:01 GMT -5
Someone fans can live through we could live through hogan as everyman he stood up for us all Austin who hasn't wanted to smack boss around they need to find that person for today.
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Post by Hit Girl on Sept 29, 2016 14:21:28 GMT -5
Nothing is cool if it's oversaturated.
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riseofsetian1981
King Koopa
"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left."
Posts: 10,323
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Post by riseofsetian1981 on Sept 29, 2016 14:59:25 GMT -5
One of the things that bothers me is when I see Stephanie, Miz, and other supposed heels propping up charities and doing out of character interviews. Character wise why would Stephanie, Miz, Rusev, or even Bray care about a charity? Be consistent. Show the faces doing the interviews and charity work that remains consistent with their character.
Consistency is the key here in my opinion.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2016 15:12:31 GMT -5
They shouldn't try to do anything to be cool. They should put on awesome shows that make wrestling fans rave about it to their families and friends. Eventually word of mouth would make it cooler again.
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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 Sept 29, 2016 15:21:08 GMT -5
Well, there was that one guy millennials liked a lot.
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The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,320
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Post by The Ichi on Sept 29, 2016 15:31:51 GMT -5
Everyone wears leather jackets to the ring.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,136
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Sept 29, 2016 15:33:26 GMT -5
Well, there was that one guy millennials liked a lot. The bearded, everyman underdog with a hipsterish edge? They'd never be able to find another one of those.
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Sept 29, 2016 15:35:58 GMT -5
They shouldn't try to do anything to be cool. They should put on awesome shows that make wrestling fans rave about it to their families and friends. Eventually word of mouth would make it cooler again. On the same token to this, this would be the REAL way to make WWE work like NXT did: NXT worked and was a transcendent experience for so long because they took the people who the fans already liked, and put them in storylines to make the already converted fans like them THAT MUCH MORE, while introducing them to the more casual fans and make THOSE fans like them just as much as the older fans did. This is not just a way to make awesome shows wrestling fans rave about to their families and friends- but follows the only two things that WWE has control of to the fans: 1- A lot of fans are smarks/IWC members. Those fans already love this person. Give this person the world and they'll be happy. 2- However, most fans are more casual fans. They don't know this person. Make THEM see why the smarks love this person so much and you'll have a superstar. Those two things are what NXT was built on and made the show so amazing...and the two times in the 2010s when WWE flirted with mainstream COOL- CM Punk post-Pipebomb and the YES! Movement- were each the same thing.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Sept 29, 2016 15:54:04 GMT -5
There's nothing for WWE to tap into, though. Hogan had the '80s hyperpatriotism thing to tap into, basically a real life action movie hero who was the unambiguous good guy in all situations always and was all about his nation and being a role model for everyone else. Well, nowadays that can still work, and Captain America is the highest grossing movie this year, but his role in his own movies involves lots of real world issues and intrigue (Winter Soldier was a straight-up political thriller with superheroes, and Civil War dealth with international politics) which WWE just doesn't have, and when he's in the Avengers, it's his idealism pitched up as a contrast to everyone else. So the Hogan era is out.
The Attitude Era tapped into something that at the time was very popular, but now, it's really fallen out of favour. It's not shocking anymore, it's not scandalous. The moral guardians of the late '80s/early '90s that culture had decided to rail against are gone and there's much more mature content out there now than there ever was before. Racier things than WWE are all over the place, and the Attitude Era's sensibilities aged horribly, and if they tried to do it again they would immediately land in so much hot water that it'd be abandoned immediately, the following week's Raw would be three hours of a technical difficulties screen, and the week after tha, they would be back to the previous way. But even if it wasn't so problematic, WWE isn't turning away from being PG any time soon. They need reputable sponsors.
And then there's today, where there really isn't anything specific to the culture to tap into. Disney can flip nerd properties into multi-billion dollar franchises, and wreslting has a huge nerd following anyway, but considering Steph and HHH both crapped on Guardians before it came out according to Batista, it seems like there isn't really any chance the future management is going to really go in that. There's no big ticket answer to "coolness", but I don't think "cool" is the issue.
WWE just needs to stop driving its fans away. Stop ending major PPV shows on crap non-endings. Stop letting Vince McMahon write comedy. Stop insulting your audience. Be less stale. I don't think it needs to be anything specific, but take the things that are currently making Smackdown a more refreshing show than Raw and bring them over to Monday nights. Freshen shit up and bring back a show that people might enjoy more. Smackdown may not be a perfect show every week, but the things it does have me and my friends much more willing to watch the whole show, and if someone enjoys something, they're less likely to drift the f*** away. Push people by crowd reaction. Maybe don't make things more "real", but make things more logical. Hell, maybe even go into the unreal a little bit more, but put in the internal consistency that Raw's storytelling often lacks. But it's really no coincidence that WWE has been in a creatively stagnant holding pattern for years and been steadily losing viewers. Don't worry about mainstream acceptance or being "cool", just worry about keeping the viewers you have and making new ones stay longer.
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Post by DrBackflipsHoffman on Sept 29, 2016 15:58:57 GMT -5
chopped & screwed trap remixes of Raw episodes w/ a Talking Smack style after show feat DJ Paul
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2016 16:13:38 GMT -5
Eh, WWE seems to be like crack in that it sells itself and customers are mad loyal. I think things would have to be catastrophic before any kind of real change happened.
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Post by abjordans on Sept 29, 2016 16:17:45 GMT -5
Well, there was that one guy millennials liked a lot. The bearded, everyman underdog with a hipsterish edge? They'd never be able to find another one of those. Are you referring to someone specific?
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,136
Member is Online
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Sept 29, 2016 16:19:38 GMT -5
The bearded, everyman underdog with a hipsterish edge? They'd never be able to find another one of those. Are you referring to someone specific? Nahhh
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Post by DSR on Sept 29, 2016 16:56:59 GMT -5
A 19 year old I work with was gonna get into wrestling, but decided to watch Stranger Things instead.
So, uh...be more like that?
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Lt. Palumbo
Hank Scorpio
On again off again watcher of a wrestling TV show
Posts: 6,067
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Post by Lt. Palumbo on Sept 29, 2016 17:28:35 GMT -5
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Allie Kitsune
Crow T. Robot
Always Feelin' Foxy.
HaHa U FaLL 4 LaVa TriK
Posts: 46,205
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Sept 29, 2016 17:38:58 GMT -5
The Cultural Zeitgeist?
Put screamy "Lets Play" people like Markiplier on commentary.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Sept 29, 2016 17:57:43 GMT -5
1) Stop fighting the fanbase on everything, when something works, look at it and try and work out why, rather than intentionally driving it into the ground. 2) Look at comparable popular culture and have people ho understand it on the booking team explain how to translate some of the concepts to a wrestling setting. 3) Remember that the best wrestling heroes are wish fulfilment for the audience, not management. Nobody wanted to see the authority be beaten by a guy who looks like a model and is related to the Rock, they wanted the guy who looked like an idealised everyman to do it, a Bryan, an Ambrose. 4) Stop having 50 year old men make crappy pop culture references and cackle about it, have them call the action or don't have them there at all. It doesn't make the product more relateable, they come off as middle aged family members making bad jokes at dinner, just flat out embarrassing. 5) No more McMahons. The McMahons vs the roster storyline is nearly 20 years old, it needs to end because it makes the copany seem creatively bankrupt when it always returns to that well. 6) Listen to talent when they have ideas for their characters. The best characters are those the person playing them is invested in, that are either spawned from the imagination of the talent or their real life personality turned up to 11. If the talent are invested, the fans will be too. 7) Everyone needs a storyline, being in televised matches is meaningless if there is nothing at stake.
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Tony Schiavontay
Dennis Stamp
This is the greatest post in the history of this board!
Posts: 4,083
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Post by Tony Schiavontay on Sept 29, 2016 18:11:59 GMT -5
Make a point to constantly say "WRESTLING IS COOL AGAIN!" 100 times a show a la Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan in 94 and 95 WCW.
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ssdrivin
ALF
Claims to be squishy, has yet to be proven.
Posts: 1,042
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Post by ssdrivin on Sept 29, 2016 19:08:06 GMT -5
Be more real. No, not the in ring stuff, but the characters. Look at the most genuinely over babyfaces they've had over the last 7 or 8 years. Off the top of my head; Jeff Hardy, CM Punk, and Daniel Bryan. They all had one thing in common, and that was being real. Jeff is a weirdly charismatic, laid back guy in real life. That's what we saw on TV. It was authentic. He wasn't trying to make jokes. He was basically Jeff. Punk is a douchebag who is great on the mic. Same deal. If you push more authentic characters, then live crowds will react better, and maybe if you get lucky one of them hits mainstream levels of acceptance. With their current model, forget it. Here's what I think can help it. When the CM Punk Pipebomb happened and when he returned they should've ran with him. He brought the WWE a lot of mainstream attention with his promo, showing up at promotions with the belt, and when he returned he had a lot of people talking about the product. Even non-fans were interested too. ... Stop trying to present the WWE like a cinematic event. It's professional wrestling, it will always be professional wrestling. Deal with it and stop being afraid of what you really are. I agree with this, "fake" characters (ie: 100% acted, nothing alike the wrestler who plays them) often come across as inconsistent, boring, and almost alien. They don't resemble people, they're vessels for whoever's writing them this week, who can identify with somebody without a clear personality or personal ethic? What do they stand for? How can I tell whether I like them if they're practically a different person every two weeks? See also: Any big "match of a lifetime" Cena scenario. "This means everything to me, if I lose then I am nothing, I can't continue to do my job, I'm worthles--oh, I lost, never mind. Anybody fancy takeout?" These guys have to be consistent, logical, well-developed characters, people you want to be, people who's teams you want to be on, people who you can cheer for and get vicariously involved through. Why would I identify with Reigns? He's a cardboard cutout who, almost by WWE's own narrative, is basically there because he's The Rock's cousin. Joy of joys, sign me up. Who is he? Why should I care? What are his values, his motivations? Other than "he's an Anoaʻi, he's basically a supermodel who punches people, and you should like him right now", what is there? He's in a different sphere of existence to me. Meanwhile, Austin, Ambrose, Foley, Bryan, guys people actually like, they're... well, they're just guys, really. I mean, sure Ambrose could use some fleshing out, and Foley was (sometimes) a nutjob more than a person, but they're all guys who weren't really pretending to be something. They're just... dudes who wrestle, they're normals, they're underdogs, they're people you could imagine hanging out at the bar with. Not cardboard cutouts with "cheer me" written in crayon across their chests. On a slightly different note, maybe the progression of eras has caused a bit of a problem in itself. Let's say you grew up with wrestling in the 80s, or in the 90s. Wholesome kid-friendly fun (for the most part) full of cartoonish superheroes, a crazy world of over the top action and excitement, it was basically a live-action comic book. Then you grew up, you got a bit older, you wanted more guts, more aggression, something more raw and rebellious, the Attitude Era comes along, WWF has grown up with you, and it's awesome. Then the mid-2000s hit, and it's all sort of run out of steam a bit, you started to drift away, and... nothing much of importance has happened since then. Whatever's left seems to be tailored towards kids (or people with the intelligence of a beachball), and it's just not exciting any more. So what of kids in the 2000s, or 2010s? There's Cena, I guess? But he's fading a bit now, and those kids are getting older too, like we did in the late 90s, and what is there for them? Brock? Reigns? Is that it? Surely there has to be an equivalent for the current generation of teenagers to step up to? Otherwise they're going to get bored and leave too, just like some of use older viewers. We've sat through 15 years of "ok, we've hit the wall trying to keep the adults hooked, let's bring the kids back in", what's next, and why isn't it here yet? Oh, and bring back kayfabe. Properly. I know everybody knows wrestling is scripted and choreographed, but can we please stop acknowledging it on TV? I just don't think it works both ways. You can't have them pretending to be characters but also blatantly acknowledging it, it just feels wrong. This is a work of fiction, present it like one. I mean, look, I like the idea of Augmented Reality Games and stuff, where the story weaves itself into the real world, making you question what's real and what's not. I liked Punk's "pipe bomb" phase, and there is a part of me that likes "worked shoot" stuff, but I just don't think it's working the way they're presenting it. It's just so jarring, one minute you're watching a fictional piece of drama, and the next you're being reminded how it's fake. It's basically WWE 2K15/2K16/etc, but on TV. On one hand you're having matches like any other wrestling game, performing all the great moves you love, kicking ass as your favourite character, and then the next minute the game's telling you "Ok, you have to lose this match, but make it a good one, ok?" - it's like having one of those "you know wrestling is fake, right?" type guys sitting next to you the whole time. Yeah, I get it, they're acknowledging that we know it's "fake", because "fans are sick of having their intelligence insulted", but there's a time and a place for dealing with that, and as it is right now it feels like they put soy sauce in the trifle and they can't work out why we're pulling faces and retching.
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Post by abjordans on Sept 29, 2016 21:31:28 GMT -5
Are you referring to someone specific? Nahhh Oh duh.
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