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Post by SirLucas on Jan 2, 2022 0:36:56 GMT -5
I know I may be walking in thin ice posting this in this forum, which tends be very pro Bianca, but just hear me out. She is a hell of an athlete, and she made quite an impressive transition to the top of WWE for someone who did not grow up a wrestling fan. But, there is just something the way in which she is being booked that mirrors Super Cena or babyface Roman.
Tonight, I predicted that Becky would defeat Liv, as Liv was used primarily as cannon fodder. Bianca will eventually overthrow Becky. Everything is too telegraphed a mile ahead with Bianca. I feel like WWE may be walking the fine line with Bianca, to where the obvious booking leads to the fans turning against her, just like they did with Roman when he just steamrolled over everyone as a babyface.
The best case scenario is that Bianca beats Becky at Royal Rumble. Becky moves on to face Charlotte for the Smackdown women's title at WM. Becky and Charlotte put on a hell of a match at Survivor Series and left the fans thirsty for more. Plus, the screwy finish hinted that Becky and Charlotte weren't finished with each other. With the right build, it the anticipated rematch that's worthy of the WM stage.
Bianca on the other hand, needs a nasty monster heel to work with, someone with heat and someone who poses a legit threat who is not one of the original horsewomen. Maybe they can rebuild Shayna to fill that role or maybe turn Rhea into a take no prisoner ass kicker.
Bianca needs be more than just the new flavor of the month who is plowing through the old guard of women wrestlers.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 2, 2022 1:04:14 GMT -5
I’d have to disagree here. I think WWE could probably use a babyface that is booked Cena-strong and it’s obvious they’re going to get the big push, because we need that kind of reassurance in WWE more than ever. Anything less than that is seen as a jumping-off point for today’s ultra-cynical, “cast final judgment on a storyline with each individual step” fan. Bonus points for it being a female African-American talent.
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asuka007
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Post by asuka007 on Jan 2, 2022 1:19:45 GMT -5
It was so stupid to have her just beat Piper three weeks in a row on TV. There’s your monster heel, but they’ve neutered her as a threat already.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Jan 2, 2022 1:29:31 GMT -5
Super Cena style booking is fine if you're pretty over and she tends to be. Even on RAWs where the crowd is dead, they usually come alive for her. I do think that the Becky feud hurt her momentum a bit and not even because she lost, I just think they tried to walk a fine line with the "I don't make excuses but you kind of did cheat but not really" narrative that fell flat. She'll be fine though. I do think she should face some more uphill battles and get a little more character depth ahead of her next title chase but I trust her to make it work more than most on the roster.
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theironyuppie
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Post by theironyuppie on Jan 2, 2022 1:42:09 GMT -5
I think most of the push has worked well, with the exception of the Survivor Series match, which was oddly booked in that it tried to give her an 'underdog' win without the other team ever feeling like a threat to her.
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Post by SirLucas on Jan 2, 2022 1:42:15 GMT -5
If they were going to turn Becky heel out of this, they could have at least had Becky blindside Bianca when Sasha didn't come out at SummerSlam. Then have Becky get on the microphone and demand a title shot on the spot as Bianca is laying on the ground selling the attack. It would have been a much better hellish win for Becky. Instead, Becky came out and challenged Bianca face to face. Although Becky challenged Bianca without prior notice, it wasn't like Becky sneak attacked her. Becky's SummerSlam victory made Bianca look like a chump who couldn't hang with Becky and couldn't successfully defend her title on the spur of the moment.
But, now it's so predictable and telegraphed, between Becky's win over Liv and Bianca squashing Doudrop that Becky is keeping the title warm for Bianca's big Super Cena like comeback.
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Post by ChitownKnight on Jan 2, 2022 1:47:13 GMT -5
If they were going to turn Becky heel out of this, they could have at least had Becky blindside Bianca when Sasha didn't come out at SummerSlam. Then have Becky get on the microphone and demand a title shot on the spot as Bianca is laying on the ground selling the attack. It would have been a much better hellish win for Becky. Instead, Becky came out and challenged Bianca face to face. Although Becky challenged Bianca without prior notice, it wasn't like Becky sneak attacked her. Becky's SummerSlam victory made Bianca look like a chump who couldn't hang with Becky and couldn't successfully defend her title on the spur of the moment. But, now it's so predictable and telegraphed, between Becky's win over Liv and Bianca squashing Doudrop that Becky is keeping the title warm for Bianca's big Super Cena like comeback. It’s possible Rhea gets the title as well. They never done Rhea vs Becky before have they?
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 2, 2022 1:49:21 GMT -5
If they were going to turn Becky heel out of this, they could have at least had Becky blindside Bianca when Sasha didn't come out at SummerSlam. Then have Becky get on the microphone and demand a title shot on the spot as Bianca is laying on the ground selling the attack. It would have been a much better hellish win for Becky. Instead, Becky came out and challenged Bianca face to face. Although Becky challenged Bianca without prior notice, it wasn't like Becky sneak attacked her. Becky's SummerSlam victory made Bianca look like a chump who couldn't hang with Becky and couldn't successfully defend her title on the spur of the moment. But, now it's so predictable and telegraphed, between Becky's win over Liv and Bianca squashing Doudrop that Becky is keeping the title warm for Bianca's big Super Cena like comeback. It’s possible Rhea gets the title as well. They never done Rhea vs Becky before have they? Did on NXT TV before the Survivor Series they were involved in.
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theironyuppie
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Post by theironyuppie on Jan 2, 2022 1:53:25 GMT -5
It’s possible Rhea gets the title as well. They never done Rhea vs Becky before have they? Did on NXT TV before the Survivor Series they were involved in.
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gl83
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Post by gl83 on Jan 2, 2022 1:54:44 GMT -5
It was so stupid to have her just beat Piper three weeks in a row on TV. There’s your monster heel, but they’ve neutered her as a threat already. Yep, they're basically repeating the same mistake that they made with Bianca's title reign last year. Where she is booked very strong, but she doesn't have much in the way of challengers. Last year, she only had Bayley, and once Bayley went down with injury and after steamrolling through Carmella several times over she was left with no threats until Sasha Banks returned. Right now once, Bianca gets past Becky Lynch, who does she have left: Queen Zelina? Carmella? There's very little in terms of credible threats. Same also applies to Smackdown.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2022 2:47:49 GMT -5
It was so stupid to have her just beat Piper three weeks in a row on TV. There’s your monster heel, but they’ve neutered her as a threat already. Yep, they're basically repeating the same mistake that they made with Bianca's title reign last year. Where she is booked very strong, but she doesn't have much in the way of challengers. Last year, she only had Bayley, and once Bayley went down with injury and after steamrolling through Carmella several times over she was left with no threats until Sasha Banks returned. Right now once, Bianca gets past Becky Lynch, who does she have left: Queen Zelina? Carmella? There's very little in terms of credible threats. Same also applies to Smackdown. They really need to do her vs. Asuka when Asuka returns. Bianca throwing Alexa around could be fun as well, but the problem with that is I prefer Alexa as a face and I don't think Bianca should be turning heel.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 2, 2022 6:52:29 GMT -5
It was so stupid to have her just beat Piper three weeks in a row on TV. There’s your monster heel, but they’ve neutered her as a threat already. Yep, they're basically repeating the same mistake that they made with Bianca's title reign last year. Where she is booked very strong, but she doesn't have much in the way of challengers. Last year, she only had Bayley, and once Bayley went down with injury and after steamrolling through Carmella several times over she was left with no threats until Sasha Banks returned. Right now once, Bianca gets past Becky Lynch, who does she have left: Queen Zelina? Carmella? There's very little in terms of credible threats. Same also applies to Smackdown. It's what happens when you basically don't have a division, but still want someone strong enough to essentially cut through the bulk of what few people on the roster you do have. "Mid-major" promotions like Impact and, before its hiatus, ROH would usually not book to have someone who's super head and shoulders above everyone else, because their relatively smaller rosters (at least compared to WWE and AEW) wouldn't really allow for it. Sure, they have tiers on their rosters (e.g. beginners who lose a lot, then some sliding scale up the midcard to the main event), but you can't really afford to make one person look hugely better than everyone else since, well, you could easily be in a position where that person's not around too long, and then who'll replace them? Or you need the rest of your roster strong to be able to put an entire show that people will care about. WWE and AEW's rosters can afford to have some people get destroyed as a new face or a strong babyface makes their way up the ladder, but at this stage WWE's main roster women's division is down to a very small handful of people, many of whom are already lacking in on-screen credibility with the fans. That's a dangerous combination for the long term health of their division, unless they start working soon on growing it again.
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Post by mistery on Jan 2, 2022 8:05:35 GMT -5
Yep, they're basically repeating the same mistake that they made with Bianca's title reign last year. Where she is booked very strong, but she doesn't have much in the way of challengers. Last year, she only had Bayley, and once Bayley went down with injury and after steamrolling through Carmella several times over she was left with no threats until Sasha Banks returned. Right now once, Bianca gets past Becky Lynch, who does she have left: Queen Zelina? Carmella? There's very little in terms of credible threats. Same also applies to Smackdown. They really need to do her vs. Asuka when Asuka returns. Bianca throwing Alexa around could be fun as well, but the problem with that is I prefer Alexa as a face and I don't think Bianca should be turning heel. If they do Asuka vs Bianca, then Asuka kinda sorta needs to win that feud. Asuka's credibility took an absolutely massive hit this past year. It will be nothing short of impossible to take her seriously if she keeps losing. I think in the statistics thread someone posted for 2021, Asuka was the biggest loser of 2021 among the women. So if she comes back, she needs to come back in a BIG way, and in a very strong fashion if they want to keep the idea that beating her is a big deal. Because for gods sake. She had an undefeated streak longer than Goldberg, but you wouldn't guess it based on how she was booked at the tail end of 2020 and half of 2021.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 2, 2022 8:34:56 GMT -5
WWE and AEW's rosters can afford to have some people get destroyed as a new face or a strong babyface makes their way up the ladder, but at this stage WWE's main roster women's division is down to a very small handful of people, many of whom are already lacking in on-screen credibility with the fans. That's a dangerous combination for the long term health of their division, unless they start working soon on growing it again. Exactly, the division is too small for someone to go on a run of win after win after win up the ladder to the title shot. One, the ladder is like three rungs once you divide by brand and alignment, and most of those rungs are the other underutilised talents that should be getting the same ladder run themselves. I promise to stop using the ladder analogy from here. You know who the heels are for RAW's women's division? The singles champion Lynch, the tag champions Zelina and Carmella, Doudrop and Tamina. THAT'S IT. Belair's already spent nearly two months just on Doudrop, and she's already beaten Zelina, Carmella and Tamina a whole bunch of times. Who's left? It's only Lynch left for her unless she starts feuding with other babyfaces like Morgan, Ripley, A.S.H. or Brooke. Of course, there's still absentees like Asuka, Bliss and Evans that could factor in, but we seemingly have people ready to storm Titan Towers if Asuka isn't starting a new Goldberg streak the second she returns, people are always iffy with Bliss and nobody really wants anything to do with Evans whatsoever. This shit used to be so much easier when you could get away with your stars fighting legitimate outside enhancement talents for your weekly TV and all you'd have to do was throw in one or two star v star matches as a main event. Can't do that now, they can barely hold a rating with just the stars. The only other solution would be to call up and/or hire 20 new women for each brand to create depth on par with the men's divisions.
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Post by mistery on Jan 2, 2022 9:17:09 GMT -5
WWE and AEW's rosters can afford to have some people get destroyed as a new face or a strong babyface makes their way up the ladder, but at this stage WWE's main roster women's division is down to a very small handful of people, many of whom are already lacking in on-screen credibility with the fans. That's a dangerous combination for the long term health of their division, unless they start working soon on growing it again. Exactly, the division is too small for someone to go on a run of win after win after win up the ladder to the title shot. One, the ladder is like three rungs once you divide by brand and alignment, and most of those rungs are the other underutilised talents that should be getting the same ladder run themselves. I promise to stop using the ladder analogy from here. You know who the heels are for RAW's women's division? The singles champion Lynch, the tag champions Zelina and Carmella, Doudrop and Tamina. THAT'S IT. Belair's already spent nearly two months just on Doudrop, and she's already beaten Zelina, Carmella and Tamina a whole bunch of times. Who's left? It's only Lynch left for her unless she starts feuding with other babyfaces like Morgan, Ripley, A.S.H. or Brooke. Of course, there's still absentees like Asuka, Bliss and Evans that could factor in, but we seemingly have people ready to storm Titan Towers if Asuka isn't starting a new Goldberg streak the second she returns, people are always iffy with Bliss and nobody really wants anything to do with Evans whatsoever. This shit used to be so much easier when you could get away with your stars fighting legitimate outside enhancement talents for your weekly TV and all you'd have to do was throw in one or two star v star matches as a main event. Can't do that now, they can barely hold a rating with just the stars. The only other solution would be to call up and/or hire 20 new women for each brand to create depth on par with the men's divisions. Yup. That's another good point in why Bianca shouldn't just be bulldozing everyone. The severe lack of depth. If she runs over everyone and then wins the title, she has no threats, and Bianca's reign is already dead in the water. But at the same time, if they call women up, they shouldn't be called up just to be fed to her either. It's why I'm wary of them calling up women like Raquel, Dakota, Io, etc. Because odds are they'll be fed to whoever is champion at the time and lose a ton of support in the process. At least Dakota and Io definitely would. There's also the problem where if they take women like Io and Dakota out of the NXT Women's Division, they lose two of their most reliable veterans to guide their greener talents through matches. Because Mandy sure as hell isn't going to be carrying anyone. And they've completely destroyed any credibility Sarray has. This is why I'm not a fan of Bianca's booking right now. She bulldozed over Doudrop like it was basically nothing, has already ran over Zelina and Carmella several times over in the last year alone, so it makes the inevitable rematch with Becky feel...not as special? Like if the women's title matches at Mania are Becky/Bianca and Sasha/Charlotte, I can't say in good faith that it would make for a must see show. In fact, I would go as far to say both those matches would be incredibly stale.
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Post by sunnytaker on Jan 2, 2022 9:21:58 GMT -5
yah right now the womens' divisions on both shows are so very thin it's not even funny. RAW you have becky and bianca, rhea a step below that, and the rest being pretty much interchangable as far as wins and losses goes. "hey you won twice in a row- ok you're the new #1 contender". asuka coming back would need a big win to reestablish her as being lana's sidekick in tag matches during the "lana gets tabled" run while asuka was the champ. but at least she has shown she can get in becky's head like few others can. alexa would be interesting but i feel the wwe is putting her in bubble wrap and not having her have that many matches since the rousey concussions. the whole time she was face she never had an actual singles feud. was her and nikki battling for the tag titles.
on smackdown there's charlotte and sasha and...um, aliyah, errand girl basler, naomi is stuck in the neverending sonya feud, and i honestly can;t think of anyone else. natayla?
i am expecting dakota kai to be demoted to the main roster in the near future, Io would be a big boost but i think she's not quite done with NXT and i don;t see anyone else getting called up in the near future to boost the ranks with credible women. is ember hurt again? i can;t recall but i think she actually asked to go back to nxt so don;t see her returning soon either.
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gl83
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Post by gl83 on Jan 2, 2022 9:26:26 GMT -5
WWE and AEW's rosters can afford to have some people get destroyed as a new face or a strong babyface makes their way up the ladder, but at this stage WWE's main roster women's division is down to a very small handful of people, many of whom are already lacking in on-screen credibility with the fans. That's a dangerous combination for the long term health of their division, unless they start working soon on growing it again. Exactly, the division is too small for someone to go on a run of win after win after win up the ladder to the title shot. One, the ladder is like three rungs once you divide by brand and alignment, and most of those rungs are the other underutilised talents that should be getting the same ladder run themselves. I promise to stop using the ladder analogy from here. You know who the heels are for RAW's women's division? The singles champion Lynch, the tag champions Zelina and Carmella, Doudrop and Tamina. THAT'S IT. Belair's already spent nearly two months just on Doudrop, and she's already beaten Zelina, Carmella and Tamina a whole bunch of times. Who's left? It's only Lynch left for her unless she starts feuding with other babyfaces like Morgan, Ripley, A.S.H. or Brooke. Of course, there's still absentees like Asuka, Bliss and Evans that could factor in, but we seemingly have people ready to storm Titan Towers if Asuka isn't starting a new Goldberg streak the second she returns, people are always iffy with Bliss and nobody really wants anything to do with Evans whatsoever. This shit used to be so much easier when you could get away with your stars fighting legitimate outside enhancement talents for your weekly TV and all you'd have to do was throw in one or two star v star matches as a main event. Can't do that now, they can barely hold a rating with just the stars. The only other solution would be to call up and/or hire 20 new women for each brand to create depth on par with the men's divisions. Smackdown’s women division isn’t any better because outside of Charlotte, who do they even have that is a credible threat for the title. Natalya’s purpose is to lose to all the new girls; Shayna is just a lackey now and has been losing constantly; and then there’s Shotzi, who was just turned Heel, but hasn’t won a single match since the turn and has lost every single match since. Both Raw and Smackdown are in dire straits so you can’t just bolster one show because both shows need help desperately.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Jan 2, 2022 9:27:19 GMT -5
I cant really agree. Super Cena and Super Roman were never booked the way Bianca was at Summerslam.
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gl83
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Post by gl83 on Jan 2, 2022 9:33:18 GMT -5
I cant really agree. Super Cena and Super Roman were never booked the way Bianca was at Summerslam. EAT SLEEP SUPLEX REPEAT
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 2, 2022 9:33:34 GMT -5
is ember hurt again? i can;t recall but i think she actually asked to go back to nxt so don;t see her returning soon either. I wouldn’t be expecting her to return either, given that she got outright cut a few months ago.
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