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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Apr 18, 2024 4:23:31 GMT -5
There was the challenge there of Bayley already having had her entire character arc in NXT, but turning her from slightly naive to actual child was a bad call from the start. Even besides the more notorious ones, there were plenty of moments to show that they didn't have a handle on her character, from her randomly joining a group beatdown during the Survivor Series build, to her "HELL NO!!!!" at Stephanie trying to get her to virtuously give the title up after Sasha aided her win. That one got doubled down on at Fastlane for the sake of Sasha and Nia also being in the Mania match, which then wasn't that great anyways. Bayley was put in a no-win situation there. Either she doesn't give up the belt and goes against the established strong moral backbone of her character... Or she DOES, and it feeds into the whole "Stephanie Uber Alles" narrative that plagued the company during Stephanie's run as a TV character in the 2010s.
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 4:30:00 GMT -5
There was the challenge there of Bayley already having had her entire character arc in NXT, but turning her from slightly naive to actual child was a bad call from the start. Even besides the more notorious ones, there were plenty of moments to show that they didn't have a handle on her character, from her randomly joining a group beatdown during the Survivor Series build, to her "HELL NO!!!!" at Stephanie trying to get her to virtuously give the title up after Sasha aided her win. That one got doubled down on at Fastlane for the sake of Sasha and Nia also being in the Mania match, which then wasn't that great anyways. Bayley was put in a no-win situation there. Either she doesn't give up the belt and goes against the established strong moral backbone of her character... Or she DOES, and it feeds into the whole "Stephanie Uber Alles" narrative that plagued the company during Stephanie's run as a TV character in the 2010s. Another thing to add to my rant earlier; he kept putting his wrestlers in literal no win situations. So much so that it's shocking anyone actually became a star during that time, besides fluke circumstances.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 18, 2024 5:15:26 GMT -5
Vince seemed to be against common sense booking the last 20+ years. The Invasion alone should've had him realize, "maybe I'm not good at this." The InVasion, for as bad as it was, I could put down to him being petty and wanting to put his dick on the table and claim victory in the Monday Night Wars rather than him being bad at creative. It was a terrible decision but also more reflects on him as a person than a booker. The issue was more that he'd forget things or go in different directions that were ingrained into the product that he built. People weren't written off TV, they were just gone. Blood feuds would lead to matches with zero stipulations and the stuff that didn't need stips would just have stips. Characters would be wedged into spots that they weren't trained for, nor did he take advantage of the developmental centre he built to get those established to make main roster integration seamless. Just these constantly weird decisions where he looks at the tools he made for his company and doesn't use half of them except at the oddest of times and the worst thing about it is that it influenced every other ninny with an indie fed or school to think that's the way it worked. Two for one on both these... the Sting vs. HHH match. where the actual story being told... and the story Vince wanted to get over blatantly clashed... where Sting openly said he wasn't there as some WCW crusader because he was almost 20 years too late for that... (which made it into the pre match vignette) to the commentators calling him the WCW Crusader... and on top of that, he apparently didn't see any money in a Sting vs. Taker feud despite it being one of the most talked about feuds since the Monday Night Wars... and STING HIMSELF WANTING IT. It doesn't even really matter if the match was good...
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 5:20:03 GMT -5
Two for one on both these... the Sting vs. HHH match. where the actual story being told... and the story Vince wanted to get over blatantly clashed... where Sting openly said he wasn't there as some WCW crusader because he was almost 20 years too late for that... (which made it into the pre match vignette) to the commentators calling him the WCW Crusader... and on top of that, he apparently didn't see any money in a Sting vs. Taker feud despite it being one of the most talked about feuds since the Monday Night Wars... and STING HIMSELF WANTING IT. It doesn't even really matter if the match was good... And the weird thing is that he was likely scripted to come out and say he had no interest in being a WCW crusader and more as someone used to authority going too far so they intentionally wrote the story as him being a voice of reason and everyone, even the commentators, not listening to him because they weren't over the Monday Night Wars after almost 20 years thus making everyone look like petty tools. And then the nWo came out during the match, the thing that was referenced as him being something Sting fought against during the feud in relation to building up Sting which just makes my head hurt.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Apr 18, 2024 5:27:29 GMT -5
Two for one on both these... the Sting vs. HHH match. where the actual story being told... and the story Vince wanted to get over blatantly clashed... where Sting openly said he wasn't there as some WCW crusader because he was almost 20 years too late for that... (which made it into the pre match vignette) to the commentators calling him the WCW Crusader... and on top of that, he apparently didn't see any money in a Sting vs. Taker feud despite it being one of the most talked about feuds since the Monday Night Wars... and STING HIMSELF WANTING IT. It doesn't even really matter if the match was good... And the weird thing is that he was likely scripted to come out and say he had no interest in being a WCW crusader and more as someone used to authority going too far so they intentionally wrote the story as him being a voice of reason and everyone, even the commentators, not listening to him because they weren't over the Monday Night Wars after almost 20 years thus making everyone look like petty tools. And then the nWo came out during the match, the thing that was referenced as him being something Sting fought against during the feud in relation to building up Sting which just makes my head hurt. Don't forget the night before Hall and Nash posing with Triple H, Shawn Michaels and X-pac (the latter two who came out to help Triple H)
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 5:30:10 GMT -5
Don't forget the night before Hall and Nash posing with Triple H, Shawn Michaels and X-pac (the latter two who came out to help Triple H) Yeah, for the HOF induction which isn't exactly full on kayfabe but people would have watched that, right? Like, the more I think about Sting's run the more baffled I am by most of it. The fact we got the AEW run and the send off at all feels like a minor miracle. EDIT: Having his first promo, a guy who can cut a promo really well, happen after Raw on the Network is just...how? It's Sting.
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Apr 18, 2024 5:43:15 GMT -5
I at least understand why they didn't do Taker / Sting since, like, Taker's last appearance before that point was the disaster that was Mania 30 while Sting was kind of completely terrible for most of his last days in TNA. I can see why you'd want to put them both against other people. Sure, both of them turned up to Mania 31 doing perfectly fine, but I can get why you wouldn't want to lock in plans months and months in advance for them together given the circumstances.
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 5:46:12 GMT -5
I at least understand why they didn't do Taker / Sting since, like, Taker's last appearance before that point was the disaster that was Mania 30 while Sting was kind of completely terrible for most of his last days in TNA. I can see why you'd want to put them both against other people. Sure, both of them turned up to Mania 31 doing perfectly fine, but I can get why you wouldn't want to lock in plans months and months in advance for them together given the circumstances. I mean, I'd argue the worst case scenario was a Hogan/Rock scenario where things are smoke and mirror'd by crowd reactions and entrances.
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Ben Wyatt
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Apr 18, 2024 5:52:46 GMT -5
The InVasion, for as bad as it was, I could put down to him being petty and wanting to put his dick on the table and claim victory in the Monday Night Wars rather than him being bad at creative. It was a terrible decision but also more reflects on him as a person than a booker. The issue was more that he'd forget things or go in different directions that were ingrained into the product that he built. People weren't written off TV, they were just gone. Blood feuds would lead to matches with zero stipulations and the stuff that didn't need stips would just have stips. Characters would be wedged into spots that they weren't trained for, nor did he take advantage of the developmental centre he built to get those established to make main roster integration seamless. Just these constantly weird decisions where he looks at the tools he made for his company and doesn't use half of them except at the oddest of times and the worst thing about it is that it influenced every other ninny with an indie fed or school to think that's the way it worked. You really needed the bigger names that elected to stay home and collect money than sign with WWE immediately. That doesn’t excuse the nonsense that happened once it ended. (Kurt Angle being a heel? Austin back to being “the old” stone cold?”) it was like it never happened. But nevertheless, “WWF vs WCW” with only Booker T and DDP being the main event representation from the latter, was always going to be a letdown. And they didn't even need every big name, either. DDP/Booker and couple of people out of Hogan/Hall/Nash/Goldberg/Flair/Sting is a really strong main event threat.
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Post by government mule on Apr 18, 2024 6:10:48 GMT -5
Not sure if he was 100% responsible, but how we never ended up with a proper Hogan/Flair PPV match in the WWF is a baffling failure
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 6:17:30 GMT -5
Not sure if he was 100% responsible, but how we never ended up with a proper Hogan/Flair PPV match in the WWF is a baffling failure I always felt like the house show thing was an excuse for something else, especially considering one of the solutions they came up with was Hogan vs. Sid? For WrestleMania? Like, I like Sid but come on now.
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
Posts: 41,491
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Apr 18, 2024 6:22:50 GMT -5
Not sure if he was 100% responsible, but how we never ended up with a proper Hogan/Flair PPV match in the WWF is a baffling failure I always felt like the house show thing was an excuse for something else, especially considering one of the solutions they came up with was Hogan vs. Sid? For WrestleMania? Like, I like Sid but come on now. I think Occam's razor applies here: Neither guy wanted to lose to the other, especially with Hogan leaving
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 6:27:29 GMT -5
I always felt like the house show thing was an excuse for something else, especially considering one of the solutions they came up with was Hogan vs. Sid? For WrestleMania? Like, I like Sid but come on now. I think Occam's razor applies here: Neither guy wanted to lose to the other, especially with Hogan leaving That's fair, more than likely the reason especially since Flair could have easily renewed his contract instead of leaving when he did.
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Post by theironyuppie on Apr 18, 2024 6:50:05 GMT -5
There was the challenge there of Bayley already having had her entire character arc in NXT, but turning her from slightly naive to actual child was a bad call from the start. Even besides the more notorious ones, there were plenty of moments to show that they didn't have a handle on her character, from her randomly joining a group beatdown during the Survivor Series build, to her "HELL NO!!!!" at Stephanie trying to get her to virtuously give the title up after Sasha aided her win. That one got doubled down on at Fastlane for the sake of Sasha and Nia also being in the Mania match, which then wasn't that great anyways. Bayley was put in a no-win situation there. Either she doesn't give up the belt and goes against the established strong moral backbone of her character... Or she DOES, and it feeds into the whole "Stephanie Uber Alles" narrative that plagued the company during Stephanie's run as a TV character in the 2010s.
Her giving up the belt would have been fine so long as she won it back at Mania, ending Charlotte's 'PPV Streak' that they'd been building since 2015 rather than having to abruptly end it at Fastlane. Though I suspect by that point they were already planning for Alexa's title run as the WM 33 match doesn't pay off Bayley/Charlotte in a very satisfying way.
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Post by government mule on Apr 18, 2024 6:55:29 GMT -5
I think Occam's razor applies here: Neither guy wanted to lose to the other, especially with Hogan leaving That's fair, more than likely the reason especially since Flair could have easily renewed his contract instead of leaving when he did. If ever there felt like a right time to do a dusty finish in a way as to give the crowd something to hang into as well as satisfy both ego's, this surely would have been it
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 6:56:47 GMT -5
That's fair, more than likely the reason especially since Flair could have easily renewed his contract instead of leaving when he did. If ever there felt like a right time to do a dusty finish in a way as to give the crowd something to hang into as well as satisfy both ego's, this surely would have been it Like, the finish that happened for Sid/Hogan would have been more than adequate to be honest. Better timed and pulled off, obviously.
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ChitownKnight
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Post by ChitownKnight on Apr 18, 2024 9:04:36 GMT -5
I always felt like the house show thing was an excuse for something else, especially considering one of the solutions they came up with was Hogan vs. Sid? For WrestleMania? Like, I like Sid but come on now. I think Occam's razor applies here: Neither guy wanted to lose to the other, especially with Hogan leaving But Flair lost to Randy Savage…
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
Posts: 41,491
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Apr 18, 2024 9:15:30 GMT -5
I think Occam's razor applies here: Neither guy wanted to lose to the other, especially with Hogan leaving But Flair lost to Randy Savage… I think Flair's issue (at this time and point in '92) was losing specifically to Hogan
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Post by eJm on Apr 18, 2024 9:28:23 GMT -5
But Flair lost to Randy Savage… I think Flair's issue (at this time and point in '92) was losing specifically to Hogan Which, I mean, I can get in a way. If you're hyping a feud between the world champion and the "real" world's champion, there's going to be back and forth about the outcome of it, likely. Especially when the latter becomes the actual world champion.
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ChitownKnight
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Post by ChitownKnight on Apr 18, 2024 9:36:59 GMT -5
I think Flair's issue (at this time and point in '92) was losing specifically to Hogan Which, I mean, I can get in a way. If you're hyping a feud between the world champion and the "real" world's champion, there's going to be back and forth about the outcome of it, likely. Especially when the latter becomes the actual world champion. I think they can make it like Rock vs Cena, where Hogan wins one and Flair wins one
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