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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 8, 2024 18:19:37 GMT -5
And I still can't get over that they never actually booked a reason for why Brock attacked Cody a year ago. Brock attacking Cody because Cody is champ now makes perfect sense. Brock attacking Cody instead of helping him when Brock can't actually get another title match until Roman loses makes no sense. And again, if we take HHH at his word, Brock himself went into business to do the respect/handshake stuff with Cody at the end of the feud - they somehow booked a half a year of matches with no reason why it started and no real finish in mind and got lucky that somehow Brock Lesnar of all people had a better understanding of what was needed to keep Cody on track at the end? What kind of sucks about that is how good a story that is if it's hinted at more throughout: Brock knows he can't challenge Roman anymore, also knows he's the guy who's capable of beating Roman, needs the new guy to prove he's got what it takes, decides to put Cody through hell to force him to step up to the plate and assure Brock that he can get the job done. Not saying I'd want Brock coming out and cutting a promo laying all of that out explicitly, but with three matches between them that's something that could've easily been communicated through body language, match psychology, etc. and would've really given another layer to the proceedings. If it was indeed "Brock shook his hand without us saying he should", that's smart on Brock's part, but it shouldn't have come out of nowhere, and it should've been the goal of the story all along. Now, granted, the way things worked out with Brock, wellllll...but that's a different story, I suppose. Nah, given that there were absolutely no in-story consequences for the match outcome last year (a whole lot of Cody spinning his wheels and Roman not being around), and what direction the two main players did go in would've made a lot more sense if the result in '23 had been flipped. WWE got away with this, big time; credit to them, they spent the last year at least assuring the audience that this isn't the Vince-led WWE anymore, that Cody wasn't going to be "buried" or shuffled into the midcard just because he lost last year, but from a storytelling/creative point of view, the extra year was meaningless beyond getting people to go "finally!" I mean that’s just blatantly not true. Sure it is.
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Post by polarbearpete on Apr 8, 2024 18:48:20 GMT -5
And I still can't get over that they never actually booked a reason for why Brock attacked Cody a year ago. Brock attacking Cody because Cody is champ now makes perfect sense. Brock attacking Cody instead of helping him when Brock can't actually get another title match until Roman loses makes no sense. And again, if we take HHH at his word, Brock himself went into business to do the respect/handshake stuff with Cody at the end of the feud - they somehow booked a half a year of matches with no reason why it started and no real finish in mind and got lucky that somehow Brock Lesnar of all people had a better understanding of what was needed to keep Cody on track at the end? What kind of sucks about that is how good a story that is if it's hinted at more throughout: Brock knows he can't challenge Roman anymore, also knows he's the guy who's capable of beating Roman, needs the new guy to prove he's got what it takes, decides to put Cody through hell to force him to step up to the plate and assure Brock that he can get the job done. Not saying I'd want Brock coming out and cutting a promo laying all of that out explicitly, but with three matches between them that's something that could've easily been communicated through body language, match psychology, etc. and would've really given another layer to the proceedings. If it was indeed "Brock shook his hand without us saying he should", that's smart on Brock's part, but it shouldn't have come out of nowhere, and it should've been the goal of the story all along. Now, granted, the way things worked out with Brock, wellllll...but that's a different story, I suppose. I mean that’s just blatantly not true. Sure it is. Not at all. As someone that watched the product week in and week out, in the rest of my post that you clipped I explained just some of the story beats that were added in the interim and how the extra year wasn’t meaningless to the story (and caveated it that it could have been done quicker than a full year of course).
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Arrow
Hank Scorpio
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Post by Arrow on Apr 8, 2024 18:51:33 GMT -5
For me it was, because I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to see or appreciate Cody if he had gotten it last year. It was this story with the Rock turning heel that got me paying attention to WWE again and I got a chance to see and really grow to like Cody (as well as Seth, who I also liked a lot) as a performer in the weeks leading up to WM. Before all this, I just remembered Cody Rhodes as just some midcard guy, and I never knew he built the following that he did.
I didn’t see the build to WM39, I didn’t see the storylines that resulted from Cody losing, so I can’t really judge things from that end. But it was because Cody lost and we got this very fun storyline with him, a rejuvenated Rock, Seth, and Roman that I got an opportunity to watch a WrestleMania that I enjoyed a lot.
Also, I love the story of a guy who suffers a tremendous loss and has to build himself back up. It’s much more satisfying than if he just does it the first time.
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deezy
Don Corleone
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Post by deezy on Apr 8, 2024 18:57:18 GMT -5
In the moment no. In hindsight yes. This right here 💯. And for me seeing him win last night made the wait worth it.
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King Devitt
Grimlock
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Post by King Devitt on Apr 8, 2024 19:06:18 GMT -5
No, not at all.
Cody could have finished the story, and Roman could have told a much more interesting story in watching The Bloodline fall apart around him.
As has been said, nothing Roman did in the last year necessitated him having the title. Cody could have had the same matches and feuds with the title involved.
They got REALLY lucky that Cody's momentum just continued to grow to the point they had to pivot (and thankfully Vince is gone because it still would have been Rock vs. Roman because goddamit pal).
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Post by schizo on Apr 8, 2024 19:06:22 GMT -5
Would Avengers Infinity War been alot better if they had just defeated Thanos then? No. The good guys failing and loosing made the story all the more engaging when the hero’s finally faced Thanos in a epic showdown with a much more satisfying conclusion then if they would of just defeated him the first time
That’s how I feel about Cody’s story. him loosing at WM39 made his victory at WM40 all the more better with a more satisfying conclusion then if it would of happened at WM39. Imo that’s great storytelling
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Ozman
Samurai Cop
Chi-Town!!!
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Post by Ozman on Apr 8, 2024 19:19:28 GMT -5
With the benefit of hindsight, absolutely. Winning this year was so much better than if he won last year.
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Post by chronocross on Apr 8, 2024 19:31:51 GMT -5
They're going to milk this first hour with Rock's BS.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 8, 2024 19:53:14 GMT -5
Would Avengers Infinity War been alot better if they had just defeated Thanos then? No. The good guys failing and loosing made the story all the more engaging when the hero’s finally faced Thanos in a epic showdown with a much more satisfying conclusion then if they would of just defeated him the first time That’s how I feel about Cody’s story. him loosing at WM39 made his victory at WM40 all the more better with a more satisfying conclusion then if it would of happened at WM39. Imo that’s great storytelling So I've been writing and rewriting something for this for a little bit now, because I don't want to come off like an asshole, but this is a bad comparison. The only thing that compares between the two is that the villain won a decisive victory at a point before losing. Everything else is different though, and I don't mean that in comparing settings of superhero flick and wrestling show, like none of the important tropes in Infinity War are in the WWE story. Infinity war has a clear story arc of a villain taking a subversion of the heroes journey to achieve nigh omnipotence for a misguided goal he is fanatic about. The heroes gather to try and stop him but fail, and as a result a disaster takes place that affects the universe as a whole. The remaining heroes scramble from the rubble to try and make right, leading to their collective powers taking on the equivalent of a god. They succeed, but with the cost of losing some of their numbers in the process. The Roman Reigns/Cody story deals with a guy who has had a stranglehold on the top prize of his sport, he's achieved this by constant repetitive cheating and/or fluky dumb luck. The defeated heroes in this story tend to just shrug and move on. Cody arrives having not been in the company during this time and appears as a brand new and untested challenger. A hurdle of an injury slows his progress, but he retaliates and positions himself in line for a shot at Roman at their biggest show. He loses through the same cheating that's been happening throughout, despite some aid from a few allies who had prior beef with the Roman. Nothing really happens for a while after this between the two and they both go through various time consuming busywork. Eventually Cody positions himself again for a second shot, but gives it up to Rock for reasons that are ultimately unimportant. That's quickly retconned, Rock joins up with Reigns, Cody aligns himself with a few allies who had previous beef with Roman, and beats him this time. One story involves stakes that drastically raise as the story moves, consequences that feel real, and legitimate losses that . Meanwhile the other has a couple of months of intensity, a whole lot of nothing, then a few more months of increased intensity, along with hitting a lot of similar story beats. The main benefit WWE had with the feud this year was the involvement of The Rock who really carried a big chuck of the load on his back. But even with Rock involved, the stakes weren't all that bigger that they were when Cody challenged a year ago.
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BRV
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by BRV on Apr 8, 2024 20:39:55 GMT -5
As perfect as the ending was on Sunday night, I still cannot retroactively say the ending of WrestleMania 39 was the right call.
Nearly every single thing that happened after Roman Reigns pinned Cody Rhodes in Hollywood still could have happened, and probably would have made more sense, were Cody champion:
- Brock Lesnar turns on Cody Rhodes, kicking off a trilogy of matches that span spring and summer of 2023. - Roman Reigns criticizes The Usos for letting him down and takes it upon himself to challenge Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for the tag titles. - Jimmy Uso turns on Roman Reigns, then Jey joins him, setting up Bloodline Civil War. - Roman and Jey engaged in Tribal Combat to settle their beef. - Cody forms an alliance with Jey, further driving Roman Reigns mad. - The Rock returns to challenge Roman Reigns' status as Head of the Table.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 8, 2024 21:16:46 GMT -5
No, not at all. Cody could have finished the story, and Roman could have told a much more interesting story in watching The Bloodline fall apart around him. As has been said, nothing Roman did in the last year necessitated him having the title. Cody could have had the same matches and feuds with the title involved. They got REALLY lucky that Cody's momentum just continued to grow to the point they had to pivot (and thankfully Vince is gone because it still would have been Rock vs. Roman because goddamit pal). One of the key points in all of this is how fortunate they are that Rock agreed that a pivot was necessary; the guy's a board member, it was entirely within his power to say "nah, @#$% it, Paul, I'm the Rock, the fans will come around", at which point none of this works out. Instead, to his credit, Rock did what he's best at in wrestling: play an irredeemable scumbag, and he absolutely added a ton of juice to the proceedings...but it was never a given that was going to happen, which means this thing was way too close to not happening at all. Was it worth risking that, too? Great if the final result was there, but that wasn't a bullet dodged, it was a neutron bomb avoided.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 8, 2024 22:37:49 GMT -5
No, not at all. Cody could have finished the story, and Roman could have told a much more interesting story in watching The Bloodline fall apart around him. As has been said, nothing Roman did in the last year necessitated him having the title. Cody could have had the same matches and feuds with the title involved. They got REALLY lucky that Cody's momentum just continued to grow to the point they had to pivot (and thankfully Vince is gone because it still would have been Rock vs. Roman because goddamit pal). One of the key points in all of this is how fortunate they are that Rock agreed that a pivot was necessary; the guy's a board member, it was entirely within his power to say "nah, @#$% it, Paul, I'm the Rock, the fans will come around", at which point none of this works out. Instead, to his credit, Rock did what he's best at in wrestling: play an irredeemable scumbag, and he absolutely added a ton of juice to the proceedings...but it was never a given that was going to happen, which means this thing was way too close to not happening at all. Was it worth risking that, too? Great if the final result was there, but that wasn't a bullet dodged, it was a neutron bomb avoided. Yeah, Rock could have demanded his time to be the main eventer and there is very little anyone could do to stop him because he is one of Hunter and Nick's bosses.
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Post by eJm on Apr 9, 2024 1:21:02 GMT -5
As perfect as the ending was on Sunday night, I still cannot retroactively say the ending of WrestleMania 39 was the right call. Nearly every single thing that happened after Roman Reigns pinned Cody Rhodes in Hollywood still could have happened, and probably would have made more sense, were Cody champion: - Brock Lesnar turns on Cody Rhodes, kicking off a trilogy of matches that span spring and summer of 2023. - Roman Reigns criticizes The Usos for letting him down and takes it upon himself to challenge Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for the tag titles. - Jimmy Uso turns on Roman Reigns, then Jey joins him, setting up Bloodline Civil War. - Roman and Jey engaged in Tribal Combat to settle their beef. - Cody forms an alliance with Jey, further driving Roman Reigns mad. - The Rock returns to challenge Roman Reigns' status as Head of the Table. Also, the Judgment Day become focused on getting the world title off of Cody with each member getting seperate title matches (the Cody/Dominick match at MITB could have easily been a world title match with Cody winning the same way) to build them towards future stuff they’re doing now. As they were, they might as well had been Saturday Morning cartoon villains shaking their fists in the air when Cody Man defeats their plans again.
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Post by stoptheclocks on Apr 9, 2024 3:54:08 GMT -5
Losing at WM39 and The Rock stealing his main event made Cody far more popular than he was beforehand. People forget how people were already cooling on Cody prior to WM39, because it was kind of boring seeing him turn up and inevitably win. People wanted Sami.
To be a babyface with any kind of longevity these days, you have to at least have the sense that you're not just the handpicked guy 'they' want you to cheer.
Whether that's how they drew it up, no. But as I've always said, ask anyone involved whether they'd go back and change the WM39 result and nobody would. What they got out of it was another year of growing ratings and interest, an all-time heel run from The Rock (which is seemingly going to continue) and the biggest WrestleMania ever. And they still have an entire Cody Rhodes world title reign ahead of them to book.
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Post by HMARK Center on Apr 9, 2024 4:40:12 GMT -5
Losing at WM39 and The Rock stealing his main event made Cody far more popular than he was beforehand. People forget how people were already cooling on Cody prior to WM39, because it was kind of boring seeing him turn up and inevitably win. People wanted Sami. To be a babyface with any kind of longevity these days, you have to at least have the sense that you're not just the handpicked guy 'they' want you to cheer. Whether that's how they drew it up, no. But as I've always said, ask anyone involved whether they'd go back and change the WM39 result and nobody would. What they got out of it was another year of growing ratings and interest, an all-time heel run from The Rock (which is seemingly going to continue) and the biggest WrestleMania ever. And they still have an entire Cody Rhodes world title reign ahead of them to book. I can't really go for that last part - I just don't think it works when it all relies on 'well, in retrospect, it worked out', given how much could have easily gone wrong between Cody kind of doing 'busywork' for just about all of 2023 after WM and Rock nearly derailing everything. However, I do think you've got a very interesting argument there at the top, for sure - given how tough it's been particularly for WWE to get a strong top babyface push going without a negative fan reaction, it's possible that having Cody lose last year was another intentional cue to the audience saying "Vince isn't booking, anymore." I'd still say the way they went about it didn't make the most sense/had too much potential to backfire on them if things hadn't gone just right, but it's an interesting line of logic for all of this that might have some more to it when looking back over the year.
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Post by eJm on Apr 9, 2024 4:57:16 GMT -5
I will say, I'll counter that argument by saying; the crowd clearly hungered for Cody, more so than any modern WWE babyface since Cena. He was drawing for house shows at a time when the company was confident house shows were going to be scrapped, his merch was flying off the shelves in a way nobody else had for years, his TV segments were drawing high numbers. For all the talk of him not having a story or not having the same investment, the audience didn't care. It's really hard to see the case of people turning on him when, even watching segments before that time, people weren't turning on him. Heck, the only place I saw people complaining about him over Sami was here.
Again, they got lucky in one part and actually kept Cody at a good level on another but the re-writing of some of the history of last year is really strange because in any other point in history, someone ticking all the boxes would have the rocket strapped to them.
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Post by stoptheclocks on Apr 9, 2024 6:25:43 GMT -5
Losing at WM39 and The Rock stealing his main event made Cody far more popular than he was beforehand. People forget how people were already cooling on Cody prior to WM39, because it was kind of boring seeing him turn up and inevitably win. People wanted Sami. To be a babyface with any kind of longevity these days, you have to at least have the sense that you're not just the handpicked guy 'they' want you to cheer. Whether that's how they drew it up, no. But as I've always said, ask anyone involved whether they'd go back and change the WM39 result and nobody would. What they got out of it was another year of growing ratings and interest, an all-time heel run from The Rock (which is seemingly going to continue) and the biggest WrestleMania ever. And they still have an entire Cody Rhodes world title reign ahead of them to book. I can't really go for that last part - I just don't think it works when it all relies on 'well, in retrospect, it worked out', given how much could have easily gone wrong between Cody kind of doing 'busywork' for just about all of 2023 after WM and Rock nearly derailing everything. However, I do think you've got a very interesting argument there at the top, for sure - given how tough it's been particularly for WWE to get a strong top babyface push going without a negative fan reaction, it's possible that having Cody lose last year was another intentional cue to the audience saying "Vince isn't booking, anymore." I'd still say the way they went about it didn't make the most sense/had too much potential to backfire on them if things hadn't gone just right, but it's an interesting line of logic for all of this that might have some more to it when looking back over the year. But I think that makes the idea of Roman winning last year to be a far crazier and indefensible decision than it actually ever was. It was a judgement call that you can argue either way. Tribal Chief Roman and The Bloodline were/are one of the most over and financially successful acts the company has ever had. They chose to carry on milking that and keep Cody strong and over leading Raw for another year. And that's what happened. It wasn't like it was all failing and then they got bailed out by something unforseen. I totally take on board anyone's opinion that doing things another way would've been less riskier or better creatively. But what they set out to get, they got. Business remained good, ratings increased YoY, The Bloodline melodrama continued to draw, the audience at shows were into what Cody was doing, busywork or not. And then The Rock coming back as a near full time act for months and turning heel was a massive bonus. I also always feel like when this topic comes up, people tend to talk as though Cody wins at WM39 and is made forever. There's still plenty that could've gone wrong in any scenario.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 9, 2024 7:03:43 GMT -5
Losing at WM39 and The Rock stealing his main event made Cody far more popular than he was beforehand. People forget how people were already cooling on Cody prior to WM39, because it was kind of boring seeing him turn up and inevitably win. People wanted Sami. To be a babyface with any kind of longevity these days, you have to at least have the sense that you're not just the handpicked guy 'they' want you to cheer. Whether that's how they drew it up, no. But as I've always said, ask anyone involved whether they'd go back and change the WM39 result and nobody would. What they got out of it was another year of growing ratings and interest, an all-time heel run from The Rock (which is seemingly going to continue) and the biggest WrestleMania ever. And they still have an entire Cody Rhodes world title reign ahead of them to book. Cody was the top selling merch mover up to his Mania match last year, that wasn’t a one off occurrence either. What is this based on?
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Post by eJm on Apr 9, 2024 7:32:19 GMT -5
Cody was the top selling merch mover up to his Mania match last year, that wasn’t a one off occurrence either. What is this based on? Along with that, Cody house shows were breaking records set by Roman house shows and outdrawing them right up to WrestleMania weekend. He was rapidly becoming the guy. We're not forgetting that people were cooling off on Cody because there's no evidence people were cooling off on Cody.
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mrbananagrabber
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Post by mrbananagrabber on Apr 9, 2024 8:03:59 GMT -5
Absolutely the right call. At first it was a baffling decision but it made the eventual win that much sweeter.
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