"Magic" Mark Hurr
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Here, have some chili dogs
Not related to Phantasmo
Posts: 15,768
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Post by "Magic" Mark Hurr on Jul 25, 2020 14:05:38 GMT -5
My main issues1. The fighting half of the illusion that is pro wrestling is missing. If you take the storylines and some of the better gimmicks we currently have and place them in 1998 or 1987 they would probably get a great reaction from the crowds. I find the problem is I don't believe in the wrestling animosity. In the 80s if we followed Sean Mooney backstage to see The Earthquake and Tito Santana crossing paths there would be beef. In wwe I feel if the New Day and Seth Rollins walked past each other nothing would happen, they might even say hi. This illusion I get still in NJPW, AEW or Impact but not in WWE anymore. Maybe it's too polished / over produced in lovely HD along with all these fancy camera angles. Something has destroyed that grit that gives it a sense of realism. 2. Brand Split Honestly ever since the brand split began back in the early 2000s it's been a terrible idea and is still a terrible idea. I don't buy that these two tv shows are separate entities, especially when one of the big four ppvs rolls around and they all get together anyway. It's dumb and contrived. 3. Too many title belts - seriously what is going on here why do they have so many?! Merge these things. To your first point. This is especially the case when what wrestlers who are faces and heels do thing that are more entertaining outside of the company during their personal time than on Raw/Smackdown. It's a foregone conclusion that they can wrestle and do great thing in the ring so it isn't a big of a deal as it should be. The inner workings of the company has taking over as the more interesting part of being a fan. They've squandered away the good will they had when they pushed people who we either didn't want to see pushed so heavily, or the person we want to see pushed be done so poorly. Once it became a mutated version of company first, then maybe sorta what you enjoy second, it killed the illusion. It should feel like the only time we see someone is when they are in the verge of kicking someone's ass. And that include management's ass too. Take for instance them about push Big E as a singles guy. It shouldn't have taken Woods being out or Kofi taking a break. If we sat here and listed all of ridiculous stuff they went out their way to make time for instead of giving him a competent singles run while all three were active in top,of the momentum Kofi was having, things could be a lot different. I will say that Big E getting a push in this environment will probably allow him to shine like Drew has, but you don't necessarily hope for circumstances like these to be the reason why. Basically to the point of the lack of illusion. Pro wrestling is like love making in a dream, at some point you realise it's just a dream and hopefully there isn't a mess to clean up when you wake up.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2020 14:10:39 GMT -5
Simple answer is: You don't.
If you're throwing out kayfabe and going with the "It's entertainment only" line that Vince seems to live and die on these days, then you just don't. In TV shows and movies, you have your main characters, side characters, and your background characters. Wrestling is no different.
Applying 50/50 booking to other forms of entertainment would net you weird crap like Happy Hogan beating Captain America in a fist fight.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Jul 25, 2020 14:46:26 GMT -5
Vince Russo got it right. In 1998, everyone had a storyline and a purpose, regardless of card position- you could be Kai En Tai or you could be Stone Cold. This. You can still be a tomato can and be successful. Being successful and being seen as a "winner" are two different things. Hierarchy and success don't equate, and aren't the same thing. There will always be main event, midcard, curtain jerkers. But all of those talents can be successful at their level. Not everyone can be booked as a winner/god tier/main event. Everyone can be booked as successful in some way. And success doesn't mean everyone is Stone Cold. Stone Cold were successful, but so was Kaientai. In different ways. Stone Cold is a winner, I wouldn't say Kaientai were thought of in the same vein, but both were successes in their own right. One of the few things Russo did well in the late 90's. Success is not conducive to equality of where you're booked on the card, or how strong, but just how you're booked in general. No Way Jose could have been a success, just in a different way than Drew is. Wrestling at it's best is a variety show. Like you said, not everyone should be top of the card, but that doesn't mean less successful. WCW is a prime example of this as well. At one point the show's structure consisted of the cruiserweight feud between Jericho and Malenko on the lower end of the card, Goldberg rising through the midcard , capped off with Sting vs nWo at the top of the card, involving the World championship. In dispersed between all this were a collection of wrestling legends like Flair, Piper and Savage, amazing new talent like Guerrero, Benoit, Mysterio and cult talent like Raven and DDP. If everyone played a meaningful role, everyone would come out looking better and the show would be great.
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Post by eJm on Jul 25, 2020 14:54:50 GMT -5
Like, look, The Bushwhackers didn’t win many matches, weren’t in any major storylines and their matches were pretty much opening bell to cool down filler. But they were EXTREMELY over because, despite all that, they were seen as attractions for their particular section and the crowd reacted to them.
They had a more HOF worthy career without winning a single title than many people in the “Lost Generation” that had several belts on their records.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jul 25, 2020 16:14:02 GMT -5
Simple answer is: You don't. If you're throwing out kayfabe and going with the "It's entertainment only" line that Vince seems to live and die on these days, then you just don't. In TV shows and movies, you have your main characters, side characters, and your background characters. Wrestling is no different. Applying 50/50 booking to other forms of entertainment would net you weird crap like Happy Hogan beating Captain America in a fist fight. Bingo. Even the most narrative based wrestling shows, something like Lucha Underground still had a sense of who were meant to be the big threats. If Jeff Cobb somehow got to play Matanza on WWE television, he’d probably get upset by Ricochet or something just because they’d think it was more unpredictable.
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Post by eJm on Jul 25, 2020 16:27:19 GMT -5
Another example, you know why nobody gave a crap about No Way Jose? Because his character was “Dude who dances and gets squashed”. Who wants to get interested in a character who is just there to take moves and lose all the time? What’s the benefit to the viewer in buying the guy’s merchandise because he still has damn merchandise for some reason?
I’m not saying everyone should be in a prominent spot but if you’re trying to convince people to part with money for someone, don’t make it seem like a waste of income.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jul 25, 2020 16:32:57 GMT -5
It’s a TV show about a fictional combat sport, so everything I said still counts. And hierarchies are a natural aspect to traditional pro wrestling booking, it’s not just some weird Vince personality quirk. So that why I say some of this excess TV time can be filled up with tune-up matches for people like New Day, who instead of losing on live TV to NakCesaro for a match stip, could be looking stronger by cutting down a couple of ham-and-eggers. Were I in charge, I’d have just had the heels offer a stip, and instead of jobbing the champs again, New Day can just agree because they feel they’re badass enough to overcome it. Ideally, if you're doing a fictional version of something, you cut out all the unnecessary, boring stuff that runs counter to narrative, drama, and stakes. Wrestling shouldn't have hierarchies for the same reason every other episode of FBI Most Wanted shouldn't be the characters sitting around doing paperwork. And your logic doesn't make sense: New Day doesn't look stronger for beating losers. What, the losers were gonna win? It was some big challenge for New Day to overcome? There are two advantages to squash matches: filling time with stuff that doesn't matter, and letting the audience get used to specific wrestlers' offensive repertoires. The latter isn't really needed except for new people, and the former is just more boring TV. Your specific example makes the New Day look more stupid than bad-ass to me, but I agree there's ways to get to the PPV match without throwing the two teams into a match with one another, and instead just have a promo or scene. A better solution to filling all that TV time is letting some of the other kabillion members of the roster have it. But the problem is, if you communicate (completely unnecessarily!!) to your audience that these dudes are scrubs, no one's gonna want to watch that. Part of the reason why New Day has to fight the Artist Collective a kabillion times is BECAUSE there's a hierarchy: when only a few people are important, you gotta keep putting them on TV over and over and over again.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2020 17:31:32 GMT -5
Never underestimate the power of a jobber squash.
Seeing dudes get wrecked in any action sequence works from a narrative perspective to remind you that you're dealing with capable and dangerous people. It lends them credibility as faces because you think "This man's bad enough that he might be able to defeat *insert nasty heel here*" or vice-versa for faces.
50/50 booking just makes all involved look bad. It works in some cases, but it has diminishing returns the more you do it.
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Post by MrElijah on Jul 25, 2020 18:42:26 GMT -5
Another example, you know why nobody gave a crap about No Way Jose? Because his character was “Dude who dances and gets squashed”. Who wants to get interested in a character who is just there to take moves and lose all the time? What’s the benefit to the viewer in buying the guy’s merchandise because he still has damn merchandise for some reason? I’m not saying everyone should be in a prominent spot but if you’re trying to convince people to part with money for someone, don’t make it seem like a waste of income. See, they showed the right No Way Jose in NXT. Fun guy, piss him off? Well, even a Multiple Time World Champion in Austin Aries had to be leery. Another example, Disco Inferno. Sure, a lower card guy but he started to get a little more serious, which commentary pointed out, and beat Perry Saturn for the World TV Title. Disco wasn't a World beater but felt important.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jul 25, 2020 19:41:04 GMT -5
It’s a TV show about a fictional combat sport, so everything I said still counts. And hierarchies are a natural aspect to traditional pro wrestling booking, it’s not just some weird Vince personality quirk. So that why I say some of this excess TV time can be filled up with tune-up matches for people like New Day, who instead of losing on live TV to NakCesaro for a match stip, could be looking stronger by cutting down a couple of ham-and-eggers. Were I in charge, I’d have just had the heels offer a stip, and instead of jobbing the champs again, New Day can just agree because they feel they’re badass enough to overcome it. Ideally, if you're doing a fictional version of something, you cut out all the unnecessary, boring stuff that runs counter to narrative, drama, and stakes. Wrestling shouldn't have hierarchies for the same reason every other episode of FBI Most Wanted shouldn't be the characters sitting around doing paperwork. And your logic doesn't make sense: New Day doesn't look stronger for beating losers. What, the losers were gonna win? It was some big challenge for New Day to overcome? There are two advantages to squash matches: filling time with stuff that doesn't matter, and letting the audience get used to specific wrestlers' offensive repertoires. The latter isn't really needed except for new people, and the former is just more boring TV. Your specific example makes the New Day look more stupid than bad-ass to me, but I agree there's ways to get to the PPV match without throwing the two teams into a match with one another, and instead just have a promo or scene. A better solution to filling all that TV time is letting some of the other kabillion members of the roster have it. But the problem is, if you communicate (completely unnecessarily!!) to your audience that these dudes are scrubs, no one's gonna want to watch that. Part of the reason why New Day has to fight the Artist Collective a kabillion times is BECAUSE there's a hierarchy: when only a few people are important, you gotta keep putting them on TV over and over and over again. The reason New Day looks stronger beating a ham-and-egger team, instead of taking a non-PPV loss to their future challengers, is because the jobber traditionally symbolizes an average fighter with an ordinary power level (I apologize for sounding so DBZ, but that’s the best way I can describe it). Like early 90s WWF, Pete Dorhety in canon isn’t *awful* and could probably whip an ordinary person’s ass. He’s just not good enough to beat Koko B. Ware. And if someone as lethal as Koko has trouble hanging with the even bigger stars, what does that say about the top of the card? They must be absolute killers, right? Local talent depicted as usually being unable to hang with the merchandise-sellers is an easy way to tell the audience “our wrestlers are super strong and are the best of the best“ in their stories. They can make the entire roster look ten times cooler. Not that I’m asking for a return to 1980s all-squash shows, because I do love getting a classic match on cable TV now and then. But I do feel WWE should consider it as an option as opposed to undercutting some of their stars when they want to advance stories. A system similar to how AEW Dark operates or how NJPW utilizes their Young Lions could pay off well if implemented right.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jul 25, 2020 20:15:07 GMT -5
Also, keep in mind I’m using the term “hierarchy” to only mean “a clear indication of strongest wrestlers to weakest wrestlers”. It’s got nothing to do with any onscreen authority figures, which I am not arguing for. That’s not part of a hierarchy in wrestling, those are just evil GM characters.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2020 20:20:34 GMT -5
IMO there is no need for indy showcase jobber matches if you actually give everyone on the roster a purpose give them stories and give them characters.
When they are not wrestling...develop the stories and the characters....THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE EVERYONE ON YOUR ROSTER SUCCESFUL.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Jul 25, 2020 20:26:42 GMT -5
Another example, you know why nobody gave a crap about No Way Jose? Because his character was “Dude who dances and gets squashed”. Who wants to get interested in a character who is just there to take moves and lose all the time? What’s the benefit to the viewer in buying the guy’s merchandise because he still has damn merchandise for some reason? I’m not saying everyone should be in a prominent spot but if you’re trying to convince people to part with money for someone, don’t make it seem like a waste of income. and in NXT people DID care about him... because he wasn't just the guy that danced and got his ass kicked. he could work and even dropped th dancing during the feud against Aries.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jul 25, 2020 22:00:23 GMT -5
The reason New Day looks stronger beating a ham-and-egger team, instead of taking a non-PPV loss to their future challengers, is because the jobber traditionally symbolizes an average fighter with an ordinary power level (I apologize for sounding so DBZ, but that’s the best way I can describe it). Like early 90s WWF, Pete Dorhety in canon isn’t *awful* and could probably whip an ordinary person’s ass. He’s just not good enough to beat Koko B. Ware. And if someone as lethal as Koko has trouble hanging with the even bigger stars, what does that say about the top of the card? They must be absolute killers, right? Local talent depicted as usually being unable to hang with the merchandise-sellers is an easy way to tell the audience “our wrestlers are super strong and are the best of the best“ in their stories. They can make the entire roster look ten times cooler. Not that I’m asking for a return to 1980s all-squash shows, because I do love getting a classic match on cable TV now and then. But I do feel WWE should consider it as an option as opposed to undercutting some of their stars when they want to advance stories. A system similar to how AEW Dark operates or how NJPW utilizes their Young Lions could pay off well if implemented right. Even as a tiny kid, I knew guys like Pete Dorhety were there to lose, and that's it. It never once occurred to me that Koko B Ware would lose to him, or that, when they fought, it was for any purpose but to showcase Ware. I can't be unusual there, right? No one looks strong for beating a jobber, because anyone can beat a jobber. There was no point in my childhood markdom where it ever seemed different to me. I mean, I did LIKE squashes sometimes, but that's just because I got to see people's moves. They're really useful for teaching the audience what a person's big offense is like. I'm also not saying everyone should trade wins all the time. Absolutely, if there's a story about a guy being unbeatable, then that guy should be unbeatable (until the story reaches the point where someone beats him). If a particular person doesn't have a story going on at the moment, then sure, they can lose (though it'd be best for as many people to be involved in a story at any given time as possible). But the way the WWE works, they CAN'T put a lot of people in a story, because they're "low in the hierarchy" which means who gives a shit? Why am I watching losers fight? I remember going to a WCW show yeaaaaaaars ago, and it was a match between two guys I liked... I can't remember who. Let's say La Parka and Sgt. Craig "Pitbull" Pittman. Sid came out and choke-slammed them, because Sid was doing a stupid thing where he came out and chokeslammed people. But this interruption was the entire reason why the match existed. We weren't SUPPOSED to care about La Parka and Pittman. The message they were sending was "don't care about these guys." (the message they MEANT to be sending was "do care about Sid," but the storyline sucked, and why should I care about someone who can chokeslam losers who were only there in the first place to be chokeslammed?) And there's still the other thing I mentioned: how the WWE very strangely connects real-world success to kayfabe success, such that the actual roster turns into a hierarchy, structured such that people the bookers like are on top and people the bookers don't like are on the bottom. It's not quite as bad as it used to be back in the days of spring cleaning, but still, job security and income are very much tied to kayfabe stuff like card placement, and it's all framed as some kind of meritocracy. That is idiocy. Something that should be valued... like being a solid hand who gets people over... isn't rewarded.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 26, 2020 5:51:46 GMT -5
It’s a TV show about a fictional combat sport, so everything I said still counts. And hierarchies are a natural aspect to traditional pro wrestling booking, it’s not just some weird Vince personality quirk. So that why I say some of this excess TV time can be filled up with tune-up matches for people like New Day, who instead of losing on live TV to NakCesaro for a match stip, could be looking stronger by cutting down a couple of ham-and-eggers. Were I in charge, I’d have just had the heels offer a stip, and instead of jobbing the champs again, New Day can just agree because they feel they’re badass enough to overcome it. Ideally, if you're doing a fictional version of something, you cut out all the unnecessary, boring stuff that runs counter to narrative, drama, and stakes. Wrestling shouldn't have hierarchies for the same reason every other episode of FBI Most Wanted shouldn't be the characters sitting around doing paperwork. And your logic doesn't make sense: New Day doesn't look stronger for beating losers. What, the losers were gonna win? It was some big challenge for New Day to overcome? There are two advantages to squash matches: filling time with stuff that doesn't matter, and letting the audience get used to specific wrestlers' offensive repertoires. The latter isn't really needed except for new people, and the former is just more boring TV. Your specific example makes the New Day look more stupid than bad-ass to me, but I agree there's ways to get to the PPV match without throwing the two teams into a match with one another, and instead just have a promo or scene. A better solution to filling all that TV time is letting some of the other kabillion members of the roster have it. But the problem is, if you communicate (completely unnecessarily!!) to your audience that these dudes are scrubs, no one's gonna want to watch that. Part of the reason why New Day has to fight the Artist Collective a kabillion times is BECAUSE there's a hierarchy: when only a few people are important, you gotta keep putting them on TV over and over and over again. I think this discounts too greatly the nature of pro wrestling involving a lot of build up and payoff. You have the more predictable matches precisely because it adds weight and significance to the less predictable ones; you have New Day or whomever squash jobbers using their signature spots, because now those spots are firmly established in the audience's mind as effective, thus making them bigger deals in major matches, or making it a bigger deal if someone avoids/reverses them in said major match. Just about every major successful wrestling promotion has had a pecking order; hell, to this day we still refer to 90s puro with the Four Pillars in AJPW and the Three Musketeers in NJPW. That didn't mean those guys constantly squashed their opponents, but it did mean that many opponents, even just in tag matches, got to look stronger in the eyes of the audience just for being able to step up to those guys and give them a challenge. Of course, in those promotions this was done with an eye on the future: you have your current top stars, but you use them as storytelling mechanisms to build up the guys who may eventually usurp them, either by building the new guys' credibility by showing them pushing the top guys to the limit, or by eventually having them win. Kazuchika Okada was a made man in NJPW by his second month back from excursion because he beat Hiroshi Tanahashi clean in the middle of the ring for the IWGP title; no, it didn't firmly establish Okada as the new ace immediately, but now he was a force to be reckoned with, and would eventually surpass Tanahashi by Wrestle Kingdom 10. You don't then suddenly have Okada tear through a bunch of lower card guys and make them look bad, but if one of those guys beneath him in the hierarchy does face him, then Okada should be the favorite going into the match, which again sets up more stories than "either of these guys have an equal chance of winning!"...ok, if they have an equal chance of winning, why should I care who wins? There's an expression in football called "any given Sunday", where it's possible for the lowliest team to knock off a top team under the right circumstances, so you watch even if the outcome doesn't feel that in doubt. But for that upset to actually qualify as an upset, you need to have established expectations in the audience's collective mind: like, in the NFL, the Browns shouldn't be able to beat the Patriots. But what if they do? What then? What if they at least give the Pats a major score in a game and show that maybe they're not the pushover team people thought the Browns were? That's a story in and of itself; obviously it's a real sport so nobody can control the narrative quite so carefully as you can in wrestling, but that's how real competitive sports work, and where many natural narratives can flow from. Still, I suspect that aversion to hierarchy in WWE is based on WWE's track record with such things, ala "Super Cena" where it felt less like Cena was the ultimate champion of the company and more like "lol Cena wins", where WWE tried to simultaneously make him look like the underdog with their booking while never having him wrestle like one, all as the guys below him fight over the scraps. Plus, WWE is a weekly TV company that runs shows on major networks in prime time and have an aversion to squash matches or clear "this guy SHOULD beat the other guy he's facing this week given where they both are on the card" matches. That, to me, is more an indictment of WWE's booking than of the concept itself.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jul 26, 2020 6:49:36 GMT -5
Still, I suspect that aversion to hierarchy in WWE is based on WWE's track record with such things, ala "Super Cena" where it felt less like Cena was the ultimate champion of the company and more like "lol Cena wins", where WWE tried to simultaneously make him look like the underdog with their booking while never having him wrestle like one, all as the guys below him fight over the scraps. Plus, WWE is a weekly TV company that runs shows on major networks in prime time and have an aversion to squash matches or clear "this guy SHOULD beat the other guy he's facing this week given where they both are on the card" matches. That, to me, is more an indictment of WWE's booking than of the concept itself. Well, the worst of this has come especially apparent over the last six years. Most of the things WWE struggles with that I've been complaining about are factors that would have prevented Cena from becoming a big star if he had debuted in 2012 as opposed to Ruthless Aggression. John probably would have taken losses to upper-midcarders he didn't need if they were trying to build him up now. Remember that time he was barely advertised for a Survivor Series match and then he got eliminated super-early? It'd be like that but worse, and he might never have had a Hollywood career at all. A big star being on top wasn't the issue, it was how their challengers were built up. The fact that they had Cena as a clear-cut, ultimate champion was great, because outside of kayfabe, that's the company's star quarterback. I think the fact they're so gunshy to strap that big a rocket to someone again has hurt them, sometimes in wrestling you have to go all-in on someone. The problem there was Vince neglecting his bench, ergo his younger talent/reserves on the bench, and not giving them enough tools and leeway. And the fact that they're weekly shouldn't be a default aversion to adding more tune-up matches to make the stars look credible, because Attitude and Crash TV are dead and I think today's wrestling audience watches the show a bit differently.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2020 7:13:58 GMT -5
Ideally, if you're doing a fictional version of something, you cut out all the unnecessary, boring stuff that runs counter to narrative, drama, and stakes. Wrestling shouldn't have hierarchies for the same reason every other episode of FBI Most Wanted shouldn't be the characters sitting around doing paperwork. And your logic doesn't make sense: New Day doesn't look stronger for beating losers. What, the losers were gonna win? It was some big challenge for New Day to overcome? There are two advantages to squash matches: filling time with stuff that doesn't matter, and letting the audience get used to specific wrestlers' offensive repertoires. The latter isn't really needed except for new people, and the former is just more boring TV. Your specific example makes the New Day look more stupid than bad-ass to me, but I agree there's ways to get to the PPV match without throwing the two teams into a match with one another, and instead just have a promo or scene. A better solution to filling all that TV time is letting some of the other kabillion members of the roster have it. But the problem is, if you communicate (completely unnecessarily!!) to your audience that these dudes are scrubs, no one's gonna want to watch that. Part of the reason why New Day has to fight the Artist Collective a kabillion times is BECAUSE there's a hierarchy: when only a few people are important, you gotta keep putting them on TV over and over and over again. That's the issue; if you present people as losers, why should I care if wrestlers beat them? That's one reason why I am not interested in Drew McIntyre's reign, as every opponent he has had since winning was a goober before facing him, and came out looking like a mega goober (hell, Dolph Ziggler only won one match all of 2020, was absolutely decimated in his previous feud, and yet he was given a title shot) after losing to him. Naturally, the ideal scenario is to build up your talent by having them win meaningful feuds adjacent to your title storyline, though this requires time, patience, and a willingness to accept risk. WWE rarely accepts risk.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 26, 2020 8:26:39 GMT -5
Still, I suspect that aversion to hierarchy in WWE is based on WWE's track record with such things, ala "Super Cena" where it felt less like Cena was the ultimate champion of the company and more like "lol Cena wins", where WWE tried to simultaneously make him look like the underdog with their booking while never having him wrestle like one, all as the guys below him fight over the scraps. Plus, WWE is a weekly TV company that runs shows on major networks in prime time and have an aversion to squash matches or clear "this guy SHOULD beat the other guy he's facing this week given where they both are on the card" matches. That, to me, is more an indictment of WWE's booking than of the concept itself. Well, the worst of this has come especially apparent over the last six years. Most of the things WWE struggles with that I've been complaining about are factors that would have prevented Cena from becoming a big star if he had debuted in 2012 as opposed to Ruthless Aggression. John probably would have taken losses to upper-midcarders he didn't need if they were trying to build him up now. Remember that time he was barely advertised for a Survivor Series match and then he got eliminated super-early? It'd be like that but worse, and he might never have had a Hollywood career at all. A big star being on top wasn't the issue, it was how their challengers were built up. The fact that they had Cena as a clear-cut, ultimate champion was great, because outside of kayfabe, that's the company's star quarterback. I think the fact they're so gunshy to strap that big a rocket to someone again has hurt them, sometimes in wrestling you have to go all-in on someone. The problem there was Vince neglecting his bench, ergo his younger talent/reserves on the bench, and not giving them enough tools and leeway. And the fact that they're weekly shouldn't be a default aversion to adding more tune-up matches to make the stars look credible, because Attitude and Crash TV are dead and I think today's wrestling audience watches the show a bit differently. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, having Cena or whomever as the top guy was never the problem in and of itself; the problem was more WWE’s unwillingness to have anyone below him seem too important, all while telling fans that Cena’s actually the underdog in most of his feuds when anyone watching could tell what the actual booking was. People are cool with one or a few guys being on top, but they don’t want it to feel forced or phony, and WWE isn’t good at being authentic or organic in their booking.
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msc
Dennis Stamp
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Post by msc on Jul 26, 2020 8:37:01 GMT -5
I hark back to Kurt Vonnegut here: every character should want something, even if its only a glass of water. We know what Bray wants. Peoples souls. We know what AJ and Daniel Bryan want. Titles and respect. We know what Angel Garza wants. Charley. We know what Seth Rollins and Randy Orton and R-Truth and Tozawa and Shorty G and Lashley and Ruby Riott and Bayley and Alexa Bliss all want, no matter their place high or low on the card. They have a reason for being.
What does Ricochet want? Or Cesaro? Or Lacey? Or the Luchas? This matters more than their position on their card.
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Post by eJm on Jul 26, 2020 15:09:17 GMT -5
A big star being on top wasn't the issue, it was how their challengers were built up. The fact that they had Cena as a clear-cut, ultimate champion was great, because outside of kayfabe, that's the company's star quarterback. I think the fact they're so gunshy to strap that big a rocket to someone again has hurt them, sometimes in wrestling you have to go all-in on someone. The problem there was Vince neglecting his bench, ergo his younger talent/reserves on the bench, and not giving them enough tools and leeway. Blampied's Top 10 of Cena misbookings actually brought up a fair point about his move from Raw to Smackdown in that the big issues wasn't that Cena was moving to a different brand but it didn't benefit him to move to a brand with so many people the fans would have prefered as champion like Angle, Jericho, Michaels and Christian. It would have actually benefited him to stay on Smackdown, built that brand up and feuded with some of the people he was more familiar with ala The Ultimate Warrior and Batista faced some of them having been a big part of Raw for a long time. When some of those people are built up, THEN you can switch the champions around and not, allegedly, annoyed everyone on Smackdown with the company basically saying "Nice job at building up your brand but you're the B show and always will be". As an aside, I'd just like to say again in an age of them bringing back older stars to try and get ratings how messed up it is they basically wrecked Cena's credibility in the space of 4 months from that Survivor Series until WrestleMania? Like, they couldn't have any indication the pandemic would even remotely happen but in hindsight, Cena was one of your biggest stars but now every time he comes on he's just...a dude.
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