schma
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,896
|
Post by schma on Jul 24, 2018 23:32:26 GMT -5
Even the smaller women tend to still be a bit taller than her, 1-3 inches. However, it's not so much that she's small and wins. It's the fact that she dominates and wins in a dominant fashion. Sasha's not much bigger than Alexa but with Charlotte she had to put a lot into it to finish her off. Alexa kicked Charlotte and then spent the match manhandling her. That's the disconnect. Thats the thing. They aren't taller than her. Ember is much more muscular, but same exact height. Nikki Cross was dwarfed by Sasha standing next to her. Kairi Sane is the same size and rolled through much bigger opponents at the MYC with no complaint, and when Io shows up she'll be the same too. Its not a size argument but a sloppily worded "workrate" argument. Like I said, outside of Charlotte and Nia, people that actually beat her, the whole "Dominate and win and she's so tiny" talking point doesn't make sense. I mean her beating Sasha and Mickie last year isn't really a big deal. Okay, so some are the same heigh but as you said Ember Moon may be the same height but there is a significant difference in body type there and I could buy Ember Moon dominating several of the other women. Alexa's body type would be more suited to utilizing speed, agility or straight up heel shenanigans like cheating. An example of this is Big E and Kofi. They're billed heights have Big E one inch shorter but he's built like a brick house. If they met up and from the get go Kofi was just dominating Big E without really using his speed or agility, people would be wondering what the heck was up. It would be tough to believe. So yes, height isn't everything but I'm not even concerned with her workrate so much as the fact that her matches typically have her running roughshod over people that it doesn't make sense to have her run roughshod over. In the end Charlotte won their match but she spent 90% of it being manhandled by Alexa. That'd be like if Rey Mysterio spent 90% of a match physically manhandling say HHH and then barely lost in the end. Not outpacing him, outmanuevering him, just straight manhandling and over powering.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2018 23:44:23 GMT -5
She has a fair amount of skill as a character actress. Alexa should have a Sherri-like career where she retires from wrestling to be a manager.
|
|
|
Post by starscream76 on Jul 25, 2018 11:26:09 GMT -5
Can she be the slightest bit entertaining? She is just a channel changer to me...I'll never get the appeal to her. She's cute but that's about it. She just bores the brakes off me in every way possible as a character.
|
|
The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,320
|
Post by The Ichi on Jul 25, 2018 15:00:21 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy!
This is actually what some wrestlers believe.
Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2018 16:05:05 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. I don't think it's an unreasonable attitude to have. I agree that something like Ciampa/Gargano should be the pinnacle of what modern wrestling should be. Two really exciting wrestlers who fans can have fun cheering the good guy and booing the bad guy. But fans might not always cooperate, a lot of times in WWE the booking isn't really on your side to begin with, so it's not gonna be that easy for everyone to work how they wanna work and get the response they want out of it. The movie analogy falls apart if you consider fans as characters in the story. It would be like writing Joker to be as heinous as he is in the Dark Knight, and then writing the people of Gotham to be all for the destruction that Joker's bringing them. It would be a distracting part of the story, just as it can be distracting when fans cheer heels behaving badly. Like, Alexa Bliss was cheered like a conquering hero for cashing in the MITB contract to steal Ronda Rousey of all people's title opportunity for herself. In her case I could see why she might feel like she needs to take extra measures in making herself unlikeable. Everything in wrestling is case by case, I can't knock a heel trying to be a heel.
|
|
|
Post by Final Countdown Jones on Jul 25, 2018 16:24:35 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. It's an old method of ensuring heat that should have died out by now, and generally has in other places, but WWE holds onto it because they'd have to bother with telling stories good enough that any talented display is overcome through the narrative and a dislike of the heel for their actions rather than because they don't do as many flips. Minoru Suzuki can have 42,000 people singing a line in his theme song and then have them boo him mercilessly from the opening move of a match on. WWE is just lazy.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2018 19:42:22 GMT -5
In terms of killing her career, yes. She lost like 6 months of her career the first time, she's probably afraid of losing another 6, her spot at the top, and because Vince is a dickhole, probably getting kicked down to jobber status if the surgery doesn't heal right. Maybe this isn't the career for her, then. How many performers have broken their faces over the years yet kept wrestling properly? Cena, Trish, Cody, Undertaker, Cesaro, the list goes on. You can't start selling dropkicks from a foot back because you're nervous. Shes dangerous in that regard. More likely to botch or take a bump incorrectly. That whole "drunk people are more likely to sustain less damage from the accidents because they dont brace themselves" thing.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jul 25, 2018 20:02:46 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. Account-ist
So all accountants are evil, i'm offended
|
|
|
Post by Starshine on Jul 25, 2018 20:25:40 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. Dude, I'm sorry, but you're completely out to lunch on this one. We all know Batman was the accountant.
|
|
|
Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jul 25, 2018 23:06:59 GMT -5
It can work, like it did in Neville’s heel run in the cruiserweight division, but Bliss doesn’t have enough of a difference between her “best work” and her “worst work” for there to be anything to gain from withholding stuff.
Bliss is just a weird case in general. Great look and a solid enough promo, sure, but her match layouts are among the strangest in the whole company. Yeah, the heel usually controls the match at some point, but surely you’d make some tweaks to the format if the heel was only 5’1” 101 lbs.
|
|
Gus Richlen Was Wrong
Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
Fun while it lasted
Posts: 38,581
|
Post by Gus Richlen Was Wrong on Jul 25, 2018 23:10:45 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. Account-ist
So all accountants are evil, i'm offended I'm offended by the notion that stamp collectors are evil.
|
|
|
Post by benstudd on Jul 25, 2018 23:12:24 GMT -5
You do the heel stuff to bring heat to your character but when the big match happens, you bring all your set of tools. No Excuses.
|
|
|
Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jul 25, 2018 23:21:38 GMT -5
It can work, like it did in Neville’s heel run in the cruiserweight division, but Bliss doesn’t have enough of a difference between her “best work” and her “worst work” for there to be anything to gain from withholding stuff. Bliss is just a weird case in general. Great look and a solid enough promo, sure, but her match layouts are among the strangest in the whole company. Yeah, the heel usually controls the match at some point, but surely you’d make some tweaks to the format if the heel was only 5’1” 101 lbs. It's all time f***ing weird
She went into matches and dominated both Charlotte and Nia Jax for ages
|
|
|
Post by HMARK Center on Jul 26, 2018 0:58:08 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. It's an old method of ensuring heat that should have died out by now, and generally has in other places, but WWE holds onto it because they'd have to bother with telling stories good enough that any talented display is overcome through the narrative and a dislike of the heel for their actions rather than because they don't do as many flips. Minoru Suzuki can have 42,000 people singing a line in his theme song and then have them boo him mercilessly from the opening move of a match on. WWE is just lazy. Yep; being in San Francisco for the G1 Special, the level of heat that Jay White, a super-talented worker with workrate for days, was drawing as the villainous Switchblade was so strong my shoes nearly melted. The guy can have a near half-hour clinic against the top names in the world, but he's such a vile piece of shit as a character that everybody wants him (kayfabe) dead. That's not to say bad guys shouldn't make use of the "deny the fans what they want to see" trope; in fact, part of White's act is that when he knows an opponent is going to try and hit a flashy-yet-kind of-impractical move, he'll just kind of hobble out of the way (e.g. how he stopped Adam Page from hitting him with the Buckshot Lariat) in a way that feels anti-climactic, but completely serves his storytelling style and doesn't ruin the flow of the match. And yes, from WWE I think Neville is a great example of it, he knew the fans loved the Red Arrow and decided the fans didn't deserve to see it because they didn't respect Neville, the man, enough; that's good heeling, but his work outside of that was still top notch and when when he would break out the Arrow it was implied it was because he was desperate and had to pull an ace out of his sleeve. Nothing wrong with that, at all. There really seems to be a problem with way too many wrestlers, male and female alike, coming up from the Performance Center and development system and seemingly not knowing how to bump well, how to do some basic brawling when needed, or a number of other fundamentals. Not saying it's the majority of them, but nobody should be coming up from Orlando without a solid grasp of fundamentals; the barebone basics in wrestling are the things that help you keep from getting injured the most, and keep your opponents/partners safest, as well.
|
|
Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,133
|
Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Jul 26, 2018 4:46:04 GMT -5
It can work, like it did in Neville’s heel run in the cruiserweight division, but Bliss doesn’t have enough of a difference between her “best work” and her “worst work” for there to be anything to gain from withholding stuff. Bliss is just a weird case in general. Great look and a solid enough promo, sure, but her match layouts are among the strangest in the whole company. Yeah, the heel usually controls the match at some point, but surely you’d make some tweaks to the format if the heel was only 5’1” 101 lbs. Also Kevin Owens, when he'll run like he's going to do some high impact move, then slap on a headlock. It works when it has a point. The example I just did, setting up an expectation, then denying it. Character wise, Jericho being the flashy, charismatic guy and dropping all that. Neville being the high flier, becoming more grounded and brutal specifically to spite the fans. Just being generically boring, especially if you've always been the same, so there's no awesome crowd pleasing action to compare it to is just boring.
|
|
Toates Madhackrviper
King Koopa
Is owed an Admin life-debt.
This avatar is so far out of date I might as well stick with it forever now.
Posts: 10,724
|
Post by Toates Madhackrviper on Jul 26, 2018 21:35:04 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. This comparison brings up a question for me that I'd be interested in some replies to. The thing about Heath Ledger's Joker is... people f***ing loved The Joker. Like not in a "love to hate", "I acknowledge him as a good villain", "I'm invested in hating him" way. Many people just straight up loved him. People tend to have no qualms outright liking entertaining bad guys, no matter how despicable their actions, because its all fiction anyway. These days only a really special villain can really strike that balance where people genuinely "love to hate" them because they absolutely despise them but are invested enough in that hatred to keep watching to see their comeuppance. I'm talking characters like Joffrey Baratheon and Dolores Umbridge. Most other effective villains (who aren't sympathetic villains or anti-villains) fall into a "Magnificent Bastard" territory for a sizable portion of the audience. You know you're not meant to like them, but you kind of just do anyway. Then there's even Draco in Leather Pants-esque reaction to add another layer of people just straight up adoring bad guys. So how does that play out in wrestling? A medium where the audience's reactions are part of the product. A medium in which in today's post-kayfabe world a lot of the audience is invested in feeling like they are "smarter than" the product and want to show that they won't "fall for" being worked. A medium where people can judge the effectiveness of characters by observing the reactions of the live audience, something that film and other television shows don't have to deal with. In wrestling people will know when a villain is loved by a portion of the audience, the audience will cheer an chant in support of that villain character, and people judge the effectiveness of the characters based on those reactions. Many people do think that a heel has "failed" if they are cheered by the crowd. It seems to me like there's basically two options. Either double down on characters that are hateable because they are boring, or accept the reality that any truly great entertaining villain is going to be cheered by some portion of the audience. It seems like only the former is going to guarantee that your heels get purely negative reactions (even if some people just change the channel). Even Alexa is sometimes cheered because she is entertaining outside of the ring. A truly special heel that is both entertaining/engaging and despised by the vast majority of your audience may come along, but its rare enough in other media and I would argue harder in today's wrestling environment than most other mediums. So in the later of the two options we have to throw out the idea that "a heel that gets cheers is a failed heel" entirely. We have to accept the reality that a character that's meant to be a bad guy but is entertaining about it is going to draw a fanbase that just straight up loves them and will cheer them. Are we ready to accept that its okay if a heel gets cheers? Have we already accepted that and I just missed that particular evolution in the discourse? ( )
|
|
Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,133
|
Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Jul 27, 2018 1:24:24 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. This comparison brings up a question for me that I'd be interested in some replies to. The thing about Heath Ledger's Joker is... people f***ing loved The Joker. Like not in a "love to hate", "I acknowledge him as a good villain", "I'm invested in hating him" way. Many people just straight up loved him. People tend to have no qualms outright liking entertaining bad guys, no matter how despicable their actions, because its all fiction anyway. These days only a really special villain can really strike that balance where people genuinely "love to hate" them because they absolutely despise them but are invested enough in that hatred to keep watching to see their comeuppance. I'm talking characters like Joffrey Baratheon and Dolores Umbridge. Most other effective villains (who aren't sympathetic villains or anti-villains) fall into a "Magnificent Bastard" territory for a sizable portion of the audience. You know you're not meant to like them, but you kind of just do anyway. Then there's even Draco in Leather Pants-esque reaction to add another layer of people just straight up adoring bad guys. So how does that play out in wrestling? A medium where the audience's reactions are part of the product. A medium in which in today's post-kayfabe world a lot of the audience is invested in feeling like they are "smarter than" the product and want to show that they won't "fall for" being worked. A medium where people can judge the effectiveness of characters by observing the reactions of the live audience, something that film and other television shows don't have to deal with. In wrestling people will know when a villain is loved by a portion of the audience, the audience will cheer an chant in support of that villain character, and people judge the effectiveness of the characters based on those reactions. Many people do think that a heel has "failed" if they are cheered by the crowd. It seems to me like there's basically two options. Either double down on characters that are hateable because they are boring, or accept the reality that any truly great entertaining villain is going to be cheered by some portion of the audience. It seems like only the former is going to guarantee that your heels get purely negative reactions (even if some people just change the channel). Even Alexa is sometimes cheered because she is entertaining outside of the ring. A truly special heel that is both entertaining/engaging and despised by the vast majority of your audience may come along, but its rare enough in other media and I would argue harder in today's wrestling environment than most other mediums. So in the later of the two options we have to throw out the idea that "a heel that gets cheers is a failed heel" entirely. We have to accept the reality that a character that's meant to be a bad guy but is entertaining about it is going to draw a fanbase that just straight up loves them and will cheer them. Are we ready to accept that its okay if a heel gets cheers? Have we already accepted that and I just missed that particular evolution in the discourse? ( ) Well, heels have always had fanbases, so unless you wanna grab a time machine and do something about Ric Flair in the 80s, that ship sailed looooong ago.
|
|
Welfare Willis
Crow T. Robot
Pornomancer 555-BONE FDIC Bonsured
Game Center CX Kacho on!
Posts: 44,259
|
Post by Welfare Willis on Jul 27, 2018 4:27:47 GMT -5
Alexa tripped me and caused the spaghetti to fall out of my pocket and I cried in front of the whole class Charlie... is that you? Are we going to have a spaghetti day?
|
|
|
Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Jul 28, 2018 17:56:03 GMT -5
Can you imagine if, in The Dark Knight, instead of all the memorable lines and sheer carnage Heath Ledger's Joker caused, he was an accountant named Stanley with a stamp collection. He's not supposed to be interesting, he's the bad guy! This is actually what some wrestlers believe. Bad guys can be just as entertaining as good guys. The best ones in history were. I agree completely. It's an oversteer, though. Because the opposite end of that is Seth 'I get booed on the mic but people pop for my moves constantly' Rollins as your 'heel' champion outpopping the babyfaces he's wrestling against because he does more flips. And it's not like it's beyond possible to do in WWE, either. Look at Velveteen Dream, for example; people pop when he shows up because he's fun but boo the shit out of what he actually does because they love booing him. There is a middle ground and too few wrestlers find it.
|
|
kidkamikaze10
Dennis Stamp
Trying to think of a new avatar
Posts: 4,286
|
Post by kidkamikaze10 on Jul 28, 2018 18:11:04 GMT -5
The second a good talker and better wrestler comes up, like a Jinny or a Nicole Matthews, this excuse is not gonna work anymore. It really only works because Asuka doesn't have a manager, Ronda can't talk, and the Horsewomen aren't as good on the mic either.
I get what she's saying, but like early Miz, she doesn't know how to convert "reserving yourself" with being entertaining in the ring. And she better figure it out.
|
|