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Post by A Platypus Rave on Feb 10, 2022 14:47:29 GMT -5
I don’t think they ever stopped caring about the product. Vince cares almost too much, which is why he works insane hours and is constantly writing and rewriting shows to the last minute. That process might be what is stifling the creativity of the product to a large extent. I don’t think saying they don’t do big surprises and moments is on the mark, though. That’s what they’re still the best at , delivering “moments” rather than long-form compelling storylines. Honestly, yeah... the sad thing is I think that Vince... still DOES care... but he's an almost 80 year old man that was insane even when he was younger... but has only gotten more stubborn with what he wants and no one is going to tell him his ideas are wrong. The latest TV Deals and everything else meaning that the quality of the show no longer officially matters just gives Vince something to point to as "see what I'm doing is clearly working!" whenever the lack of quality of the shows gets brought up.
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Burst
El Dandy
*inarticulate squawking*
Posts: 8,590
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Post by Burst on Feb 10, 2022 15:04:30 GMT -5
I'd say at least for me personally it feels like it was around 2014-2015; take your pick, but some combination of Punk leaving, the Streak ending, Sting coming in to big fanfare and then pretty much being wasted, and while it sounds superficial at first, when the Wrestlemanias stopped being officially numbered... Things just kind of stopped feeling like much of anything actually related to wrestling mattered, and everything subsequent in the WWE specifically really, really started to blend together.
You could also make the argument for about when they finally moved away from the scratch logo to the overly streamlined logo they have now, it just kind of coincided with literally everything that wasn't Triple H's NXT being overstreamlined to the point of corporate blandness.
I'd be willing to bet if you went back and looked at other elements such as t-shirt designs and entrance videos/titantrons or themes, they'd all kind of start falling off around the 2015-2016 period. Again, main roster only, as it's only becoming more obvious by the day how much NXT was in their own protective bubble for so long.
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Perd
Patti Mayonnaise
Leslie needs to butt out for fear of receiving The Bunghole Buster
Posts: 31,990
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Post by Perd on Feb 10, 2022 15:40:26 GMT -5
I go back and forth on this. Sometimes I do think it’s a matter of them just not caring. But, more and more, I think it’s that Vince can simply afford to do whatever he wants. Because the money keeps rolling in. He can afford to keep doing the same things, because to him, it’s all “good shit”. There is just no impetus for him to stop doing exactly what he wants.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Feb 10, 2022 15:43:20 GMT -5
For as madly down as I am on the show, I don't think anyone stopped caring about the show, I think that's the end product of them stopping caring bit by bit about what was important. Over time, they stopped caring about individual elements. They stopped producing vignettes to establish characters, stopped caring about the midcard, stopped caring about telling stories with any degree of planning to the point where even stuff like Roman vs. Rock is a bunch of garbled 'stuff happens' written in the middle and nothing is really worked out for week to week narrative. They stopped caring about audience reaction or what got over, got given an extra hour of weekly TV time and stopped caring about trying to fill it meaningfully. Huge TV and brand deals mean they got to stop caring about having a widespread audience. Rock left him for Hollywood and Brock walked out on Vince, so now there's no caring about having real top stars, just the glorification of the brand.
There's no question Vince cares still. But I don't think what he cares about is really what could make the show good. He's past that point. His priorities aren't about that kind of thing anymore. He's spent years locked in losing games of suppressing specific words, fighting the audience on who is worth a push, rewriting shows too short-term for anything to happen, and streamlining the process to be as soulless and empty as possible. The only winning fight I think WWE has actually put on in all this has been the transition of the company into being one that doesn't need fans.
I think buying WCW was the start of it, but I don't think it's a single moment. It's a long term collapse. The Cena years were a case of behind the scenes entropy where you could see in real time the endless cycle of OVW rejects coming up through WWECW and perishing, or the transition into part-timer obsession that started leaving the full time roster behind. You saw the desperate cramming of accolades in lieu of pushes with guys like Sheamus and Del Rio just getting volume instead of meaning, There's no simple moment, there's just a shifting of priorities and a deterioration of Vince's state and ability to put the show together across years.
They still care. They just don't care in ways that work anymore. They stumble ass-backwards sometimes into a few weeks of a story being really good but then it completely falls apart. They put on good matches that often mean very little. The cracks have gotten so deep and there's no effort into trying to fill them in, they just keep plugging away and get surprised when something is met with cold reception, but don't really do anything about that reception to try and change it up.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Feb 10, 2022 15:56:14 GMT -5
For as madly down as I am on the show, I don't think anyone stopped caring about the show, I think that's the end product of them stopping caring bit by bit about what was important. Over time, they stopped caring about individual elements. They stopped producing vignettes to establish characters, stopped caring about the midcard, stopped caring about telling stories with any degree of planning to the point where even stuff like Roman vs. Rock is a bunch of garbled 'stuff happens' written in the middle and nothing is really worked out for week to week narrative. They stopped caring about audience reaction or what got over, got given an extra hour of weekly TV time and stopped caring about trying to fill it meaningfully. Huge TV and brand deals mean they got to stop caring about having a widespread audience. Rock left him for Hollywood and Brock walked out on Vince, so now there's no caring about having real top stars, just the glorification of the brand. There's no question Vince cares still. But I don't think what he cares about is really what could make the show good. He's past that point. His priorities aren't about that kind of thing anymore. He's spent years locked in losing games of suppressing specific words, fighting the audience on who is worth a push, rewriting shows too short-term for anything to happen, and streamlining the process to be as soulless and empty as possible. The only winning fight I think WWE has actually put on in all this has been the transition of the company into being one that doesn't need fans. I think buying WCW was the start of it, but I don't think it's a single moment. It's a long term collapse. The Cena years were a case of behind the scenes entropy where you could see in real time the endless cycle of OVW rejects coming up through WWECW and perishing, or the transition into part-timer obsession that started leaving the full time roster behind. You saw the desperate cramming of accolades in lieu of pushes with guys like Sheamus and Del Rio just getting volume instead of meaning, There's no simple moment, there's just a shifting of priorities and a deterioration of Vince's state and ability to put the show together across years. They still care. They just don't care in ways that work anymore. They stumble ass-backwards sometimes into a few weeks of a story being really good but then it completely falls apart. They put on good matches that often mean very little. The cracks have gotten so deep and there's no effort into trying to fill them in, they just keep plugging away and get surprised when something is met with cold reception, but don't really do anything about that reception to try and change it up. the worst part is other people there clearly know what the issues are. But Vince is the final say and he doesn't see those issues as problems.
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Legion
Fry's dog Seymour
Amy Pond's #1 fan
Hail Hydra!
Posts: 22,787
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Post by Legion on Feb 10, 2022 16:07:05 GMT -5
Interestingly enough, I think if you like at NXT 2.0, you get all the things Mothman just highlighted as things they've stopped caring about.
You get vignettes. You have a super active midcard. You have value to the titles. You have interwoven stories and continuity.
But no one is watching - and many that do still hate it because it isnt the right people or because the stories are too 'highschool.'
For me, NXT 2.0 proves Vince and co. can still make fun, interesting and conhesive TV, while equally highlighting the point that they are only willing to risk that when it isnt a mainline show, because the mainline stuff is doing well as is.
If you are WWE, in some ways when you look at criticism it must be hard to understand it. Because as much as people accuse the main shows of stagnation and boringness, it makes money, it gets viewers. NXT, which does what people say they want (though granted in a very frenetic way), cannot buy viewers.
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Feb 10, 2022 16:18:35 GMT -5
I think they care. I think they're all just so f***ing burnt out and fried from trying to please Vince, who is losing touch with what the general public wants. Whether or not he was in touch to begin with, that's another story.
Even if you don't like writers in wrestling, they're probably all doing the very best they can within the parameters they are given.
I think the straw that broke the camel's back was making RAW a three-hour show. For whatever reason, two hours of content was OK for them but trying to do a good three-hour show every week on top of the two hours for Smackdown is damn near impossible. Yes, they have different teams, but it seems like the creative team is a singular entity the further up the food chain you get.
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Post by Magic knows Black Lives Matter on Feb 10, 2022 19:24:56 GMT -5
About the time they realized that the brand itself can generate millions in profit through brand & tv deals despite both the industry and their tv product cratering in terms of popularity I would assume.
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chazraps
Wade Wilson
Better have my money when I come-a collect!
Posts: 27,980
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Post by chazraps on Feb 10, 2022 19:36:42 GMT -5
Yeah. I don't know if I'd phrase it "stopped caring about their product," but for all the lows that there have been compared to the high points that keep us, 2018 feels like the first year that was more misses than hits.
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Post by sportatorium on Feb 10, 2022 20:00:34 GMT -5
As soon as they got the Fox & Saudi deals & doubled down when the Peacock deal happened. They quickly realized that they make more money by putting on casual shows that don't rely on people watching every week. I used to get annoyed when non-fans would refer to wrestling as simply "WWF" because it always seemed lazy. Somehow WWE became a self-fulfilling prophecy and turned into that "WWF" that doesn't need loyal fans. If they could trot Hogan out and he could physically go, he'd be booked against Reigns immediately. That's the level of non-caring that I think they've achieved.
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Chiral
Salacious Crumb
Posts: 73,657
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Post by Chiral on Feb 10, 2022 20:05:17 GMT -5
Around 2012 they started booking TV like house shows, and gradually more and more each year from there it became more and more like house shows (a set card repeated for months and months, changing slightly over time) but without the fun parts of house shows like fan interaction and wrestlers goofing off. Then add in the big deals and you get them just wanting to pump out an easy "product" that's "new" each week.
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Post by Citizen Snips Has Left on Feb 10, 2022 20:28:56 GMT -5
It’s a small thing, really…but for me it was when they stopped making TitanTrons and just put the wrestler’s name/logo up on the screens. They couldn’t even be bothered to make a 45 second video loop any more.
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Post by The Rick Jericho on Feb 10, 2022 20:50:15 GMT -5
When the Iconnics and that first batch of cuts came.
WWE 2020 I barely remember and for good reason.
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Post by Mayonnaise on Feb 10, 2022 21:08:21 GMT -5
They haven't stopped caring about the product, they stopped caring about the fans. They care about putting out a product that draws sponsors, TV contracts, streaming rights, and PR. As long as they can put out a product that can pull in a corporate crowd, they're fine with what they're selling.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Feb 10, 2022 21:17:08 GMT -5
It’s a small thing, really…but for me it was when they stopped making TitanTrons and just put the wrestler’s name/logo up on the screens. They couldn’t even be bothered to make a 45 second video loop any more. I still remember they would do shoots with the entire roster that they'd use forever... like the Spotlight set, or the staircase set... and it really added a lot of interestitial character works to promos and titantrons and stuff.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Feb 10, 2022 22:00:15 GMT -5
It’s a small thing, really…but for me it was when they stopped making TitanTrons and just put the wrestler’s name/logo up on the screens. They couldn’t even be bothered to make a 45 second video loop any more. I still remember they would do shoots with the entire roster that they'd use forever... like the Spotlight set, or the staircase set... and it really added a lot of interestitial character works to promos and titantrons and stuff. They still do those (the current one looks like a Broadway stage with their name behind them in lights, but that might just be all digital), but they don’t use them for the trons obviously.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Feb 10, 2022 22:08:16 GMT -5
I disagree. They still care about the product. The problem is they don't care what you(the fan) cares about the product. It's been a slow process, but the Saudi deal was the final nail in the coffin.
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Post by El Cokehead del Knife Fight on Feb 10, 2022 23:12:42 GMT -5
They truly stopped caring when they got those massive contracts from NBC and Fox. They figured out that they didn't have to give a shit about providing a good show, when they went to the thunderdome that was the nail in the coffin. Even the live shows have shitloads of fake crowd audio so they can put on the dullest, most sterile shit and just pretend they're getting the reaction that they wanted.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2022 3:17:11 GMT -5
2009.
2009 was when I first started noticing the shows becoming filler and boring every week. The Guest Hosts, same main events all the time, basically nothing feeling like it mattered. It was also around this time where guys started getting a crazy amount of title reigns too.. Like Austin only had the title around 5 times. But Cena, Edge and Orton were winning it and losing it every few months which devalued the prestige of the titles.
2009 to 2019 was a drop off from the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression eras. But what we've had since the Pandemic to now has been the worst I've EVER seen. The Saudi money and TV deals have given them so much financial security, they don't even need to care about ratings or putting on a good show anymore.
On top of that, they have booked Roman, Brock, Charlotte and Becky to Godlike status to the point where nobody on the roster looks like a credible threat. So they have to keep bringing back part timers like Goldberg, Ronda and Cena to create "big matches"
It's a mess.
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clifford
King Koopa
Shingo Takagi stan
Posts: 10,683
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Post by clifford on Feb 11, 2022 9:46:47 GMT -5
I think the last concerted effort to put genuine thought and care into their weekly product came with the second brand split of 2016. I would say that effort fizzled out for Raw after a few weeks, and for Smackdown after a few months.
Since then its been non-existent, save for some moments here and there, and few and far between.
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