gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 28, 2015 19:50:08 GMT -5
Instead of scraping the bottom and pushing the face that gets mixed reactions, why not push faces that get uniformly cheered such as Ziggler, Bryan, or Ambrose? Then you don't have to hope they happen to be doing a live show from Rural South Dakota or Mississippi, or wherever else it is that pesky "vocal minority" of smarks haven't infiltrated. This is the issue everybody should have. You have babyfaces on the roster that every type of fan goes wild for; casual, smark and everything in between. Sure, there are people who don't care for Ambrose, Bryan and Ziggler, but they're way more of a minority than those who don't care for Reigns or rather don't think he's ready to be in the spot he's in. Why alienate a large section of your audience? Because a guy with Roman's look has more 'mass appeal' than a Bryan or an Ambrose? That provably isn't the case when those two are more universally popular.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 27, 2015 14:31:51 GMT -5
Would the booing have been as severe if Bryan was still out of action and no timetable for his return had been made public?
If the Rumble was in, say, Little Rock, would the crowd have cheered Reigns just as they have on countless Raws?
I honestly can't say. Obviously, as others have pointed out, the dissent goes beyond 'we wanted Bryan to win,' and is more 'we've got behind SO MANY guys more than we have Reigns and you're still going with him,' but I do wonder with how much Ambrose and Ziggler have cooled off since the Rollins feud and Survivor Series respectively (no doubt intentional on WWE's part), whether the dissenting voices would have been loud enough to completely ruin the moment.
In a place like Philly they certainly would have still ripped it to shreds, but in front of a more casual audience, I don't know. And I can't say for certain how widespread the backlash from audiences will be going forward. All these people who cheered Reigns before aren't gonna suddenly loathe him, surely? Is he just gonna be literally the new Cena? Maybe that was always something they were prepared for all along. They clearly don't care that half the audience hates Cena in spite of him being 'the guy,' so why should they Reigns?
Discuss.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 27, 2015 14:17:37 GMT -5
If there were other things to get excited about, I'm sure people would be a lot easier on Roman, and anyone thinking clearly about it can't honestly blame him personally for WWE wanting to push him so hard, or even for not being able to live up to his hype since he's been wrestling for at least five years less than every other current top guy. So I'd say True.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 27, 2015 14:11:54 GMT -5
Not sure whether I necessarily miss him, though I did enjoy the majority of his run, but his decision to leave has just looked wiser and wiser as the months have gone by. Bet he had a good chuckle to himself when he saw/heard about the Rumble.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 27, 2015 9:43:23 GMT -5
You just KNOW Orton is going over Rollins, Cena is going over Rusev, Reigns will probably be shat on thus gaining nothing from beating Lesnar... the only 'new star' who may be created is Wyatt if he beats Taker, and he only needs that treatment cos Cena buried him starting from last year's Mania. Sting is 55, he had his first match before Seth Rollins was born, and he's what's selling the show to most people. How did we get here?
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 27, 2015 9:39:01 GMT -5
This was really good, but it doesn't change the fact that NO WAY should Reigns be the one getting this opportunity, and by endorsing this I feel like I'm giving Vince carte blanche to continue booking his guys ahead of who the audience really wants. Even if this programme is saved through a complete change of emphasis in the storyline and Heyman's talents as a performer and storyteller, Vince will still interpret it as 'See! I knew it all along, the audience DID want Roman Reigns, I just had to sell it to 'em right. I'm a genius, haha!'
Just as the Rumble booking was a failed attempt at tricking the fans into endorsing Reigns' win via Rock's patronage and Bryan's early elimination, this is a slightly more intelligent attempt at doing the same thing. Vince will learn nothing if we get behind this.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 26, 2015 20:43:59 GMT -5
It all boils down to one thing really though; if you have to take preventative measures with your booking to lessen the likelihood of a babyface being booed when he wins the right to headline the biggest show of the year, including getting more popular potential winners out of the picture, you've gone with the wrong guy, you're clearly acting on your own personal whims rather than in the interests of your customers and are a terrible businessman.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 26, 2015 20:24:24 GMT -5
Yeah, definitely. I was more saying; is the reason that he thinks he can manipulate them into sharing his tastes is because he still thinks of them as complete marks?
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 26, 2015 19:12:08 GMT -5
Don't know what Vince himself thinks, but they're pretty consciously booking outside kayfabe recently. The Authority's whole deal is that they get to choose who gets pushed. But they do it by physically stopping the wrestlers they don't like from winning, so it still makes sense in kayfabe, it's just heels being dicks to bayfaces when it comes down to it, it's not WCW Russo-style 'hey! you were supposed to job in this match!' stuff. Also, I think a lot of the shoot-style Authority promos we get sometimes probably come more from Trips' end since he's the one saying them.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 26, 2015 19:03:18 GMT -5
Is that the problem? He thinks that if Bryan gets thrown out early, Ambrose and Ziggler are tossed aside like nothing, and Reigns overpowers two giants to win, that the fans will be like 'well, clearly he's just better than the other guys.' All of his out-of-touch handling of these situations comes back to him seemingly holding a belief that if he gives his anointed guys enough accolades people will say 'well, they must be the best cos they win all the time.' And don't forget, you pretty much COULD do that back when he was establishing himself in the business. Obviously, he doesn't LITERALLY think it's still real to us (dammit), but he seems to grossly underestimate his fanbase's knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes and their ability to spot when they're being manipulated and told what to think.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 26, 2015 18:43:07 GMT -5
Also HHH-Taker two years in a row, & they attempted to go with Bryan-Sheamus back to back till the crowd didn't let them. The thing is, even Vince doesn't believe his bullshit reasoning for ignoring his audience. He just can't say 'I like this other guy more so screw the fans' so he comes up with a politically correct reason to explain his thinking, like all good dictators.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 24, 2015 19:17:15 GMT -5
How do we even know Dolph came up with this line on his own? In fact, considering how only the very top performers seem exempt from scripted, micromanaged promos, he probably didn't. He might have felt uncomfortable saying it and not agreed for all we know. He sounded very magnanimous about the whole Punk issue when he was asked about it in an interview (admittedly that was pre-podcast), and they were pretty good friends around 2013, so it seemed. I'll never get all 'how dare he/she say that!' about a WWE promo cos I know the performer very, very rarely has any real choice over what comes out of their mouth on-screen.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 22, 2015 14:32:27 GMT -5
Which ever of their options they go with, it's going to be a major talking point, and a very interesting night for crowd reactions, both with the Rumble itself and the title match. How could you not be excited? Reigns' struggles with convincing people he's a main event player combined with Brock's contract issues have caused the outcome to be more open to possibilities and speculation than it has been in years. Sure, it'd be nice if there were actual storyline reasons to care, but still, either way we're gonna have plenty to debate. Compare that with Cena and Rock in 2013 where most people were kinda like 'eh, it's pretty lame, but really, were they ever gonna do anything else?'
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 22, 2015 11:33:56 GMT -5
Imagine today a man who started a calendar year as world champion ending it in developmental. Crazy stuff.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 21, 2015 14:37:52 GMT -5
In response to the hairline stuff. WWE had for 4 years, as their world champion a guy who wrestled in urine yellow trunks and had a skullet. Baron will do just fine. Then their next huge star was completely bald and kinda flabby round the middle. Then you've got Punk who's been going thin on top for years and was never exactly ripped, ditto for Bryan, Shawn Michaels, Dean Ambrose, the list goes on. It matters not.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 20, 2015 10:25:59 GMT -5
She's his 12-year-old friend, remember? He's already planning for her 30th birthday party in a couple of years.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 20, 2015 10:24:13 GMT -5
Bryan's a dumbass if he really buys that. I wouldn't even be shocked if his "firing" was to remove the title rematch clause. They probably didn't even think that deeply about it, they just didn't want to do a firing angle with a guy holding a belt so needed to get it off him somehow. As ever, the title was a secondary concern and an inconvenience to them doing something more important with somebody, so they passed it to someone they appear to have no plans for whatsoever. The idea anyone losing the IC belt could be construed as punishment/burial in this day and age, unless it's in ten seconds via roll-up after they soil themselves, is laughable.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 20, 2015 10:07:29 GMT -5
I usually complain about relying too much on past names to pop a crowd/rating but they were generally used well last night. Flair, Hogan and HBK were used to put over numerous guys in the Rumble. The Ascension are basically 3MB in facepaint and who knows, they may destroy the Outlaws at the Rumble, this could just be the set-up to them finally putting their money where their mouth is. The only segment that rubbed me the wrong way, even if it had some good lines, was the Kliq backstage stuff with Hunter.
He STILL can't pass up an opportunity to be the coolest and the baddest and passive-aggressively bury the current talent, even though he's starting and ending the night as the pompous corporate boss hatching a scheme and then getting his comeuppance. It would have helped set up the final segment if he'd been all distant and uptight with his old degenerate friends and basically said 'grow up, guys, I don't do that anymore, I'm a businessman' and come across as a complete corporate sellout, instead they literally called his Authority persona a 'gimmick' and took playful, chummy jibes at one another before full-on corpsing at the end.
But overall, when we've seen an unfit Rock end the longest title reign of modern times just to wrestle three average-at-best matches and disappear again having only put over the one person on the current roster who doesn't need a rub, Kevin Nash headline a pay-per-view as the culmination of a storyline that was supposed to take the company into a new era, and another bloated middle-aged past name in Batista positioned to main event Mania ahead of the hottest babyface in over a decade, stuff like last night is harmless to say the least.
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 20, 2015 6:19:16 GMT -5
This was what it made me think of, with the announce table doubling as the crushed car in space 22
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gr1990
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,485
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Post by gr1990 on Jan 20, 2015 5:58:06 GMT -5
Remember when Bryan Alvarez tried to tell us that Dolph losing his albatross belt the same night he was fired in a main event segment was punishment for him doing a comedy show without WWE's permission?
Bad News Barrett's January - Loses his first match as champion clean to a character who hasn't had a main roster storyline since he was played by a different wrestler - Isn't booked on Raw the week after he wins the belt - Loses to an injured guy who has jobbed to a hologram and a tablet in recent months, essentially showing him to be a worse wrestler than an iPad. - Will probably be thrown out of the Rumble by Reigns during a jobber purge and will be lucky to make the Mania pre-show as it stands
Dolph Ziggler's January - Kayfabe-fired in an angle that has formed the main narrative of Raw going into arguably the second-biggest show of the year - Always mentioned last of those fired as they know he'll get the biggest pop - Still an outside bet for headlining Wrestlemania. At least guaranteed a very strong run in the Rumble, possibly building to some sort of Mania programme
So yeah, punishment
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