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Post by Starshine on Apr 18, 2024 18:54:26 GMT -5
Unless I missed it...ANYTHING with Roman from like 2015-2020? I’ve always wondered, would Roman backlash have been that terrible if Daniel Bryan stayed on the shelf in January 2015. I feel like it’s a bit revisionist to suggest that Roman wasn’t super over in 2013-2014z Him being over didn't necessarily mean those same fans wanted the entire shows built around him. I feel like the Daniel Bryan excuse was just that as a way to sidestep looking at the actual issues with Roman and his push at the time. For example, if they were using his reaction at the Rumble the prior year as a barometer that he was the guy to go with, that ignores the fact he was in there with Batista who was being vehemently rejected, and in all likelihood, almost anyone else in the same position would have been equally cheered over him.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 17, 2024 20:43:26 GMT -5
Out of the listed, I'd go with either Okada or Page.
I'm sick of Cole and White, Ospreay needs to be a babyface, and I don't see it with the others right now.
Out of those unlisted, I still like Joe as the top heel, and I'd prefer he keep the belt longer. He's the best thing going in AEW right now.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 17, 2024 20:25:20 GMT -5
f***ing hell that's dumb. But then isn't Oklahoma also like bottom ranked in education, so that kinda checks out considering.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 17, 2024 19:49:58 GMT -5
Oh god...I can only imagine what'd he'd call the company. Real Alpha Pugnacious Entertainment.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 17, 2024 2:06:39 GMT -5
The fact he worked in pro wrestling benefited him in that no one ever really took him seriously enough to look into him with any real zeal. See also: Ric Flair.
I think the main difference here is that by tying the company up into TKO, and becoming beholden to someone else with a lot more legitimacy, he couldn’t slink away and hide for a bit before returning like last time.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 15, 2024 15:41:00 GMT -5
Casual fan?!
*whips out a camera and takes a blurry photo of the elusive cryptid*
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Post by Starshine on Apr 14, 2024 18:04:55 GMT -5
Taven was a pretty poor choice at the time, but I think he's been vindicated by history since then. Choosing not to put the belt on Scurll doesn’t mean they had to put it on Taven.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 14, 2024 18:01:38 GMT -5
What is it with people who booked diabolical eras of ROH and bad podcasts criticising other people's booking? It’s an easy grift if you can get it.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 11, 2024 19:21:16 GMT -5
I'd say any variation of the Diamond Cutter/RKO/etc. It looks flashy, has good impact, and can be reversed and modified really easily. It's like a swiss army knife of finishers in terms of how versatile it is.
Wait, no, what am I talking about. It's gotta be the Overdrive. [/thread over]
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Post by Starshine on Apr 11, 2024 19:08:06 GMT -5
I don't know, I've seen Cancer's hands and the gloves don't look like they fit.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 10, 2024 22:52:46 GMT -5
If I miss something and I feel it's so important I don't want anything spoiled for me, I will make sure I don't look at anything that might risk exposing me to it. That includes websites, social media, and anything adjacent that might risk giving something away.
Honestly, it's not that hard and just requires a little self control. Though it's always funny whenever I see people come onto a wrestling forum, knowing they're behind on things, and then have the gall whine about something being "spoiled: as if everyone else should wait for them to catch up before openly discussing results/shows that have already happened. What do these people expect?
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Post by Starshine on Apr 10, 2024 22:43:20 GMT -5
A real genuine feel good thing. Also helped that I wasn't really aware of the whole Russo/Hogan thing besides what was shown on TV, and wouldn't learn of the full extent of it until years later.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 10, 2024 16:50:23 GMT -5
I feel like the most pertinent question over this development has been glossed over.
Is Trent still in Chaos??? Is this the day everything changed? Was what was once before now different? What the f*** is Chaos anyway?
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Post by Starshine on Apr 10, 2024 16:45:25 GMT -5
I’m gonna go with the last full WWE thing I watched as a low.
Wrestlemania 34, that was abysmal.
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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 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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Post by Starshine on Apr 6, 2024 1:35:40 GMT -5
Not sure why such a pushback on the use of business metrics the last few pages when that’s the logical discussion when figuring out whether a company made the right booking decision. And not just business metrics like how big the TV deal is, but actual engagement like TV ratings, and live show attendances. It wouldn’t be there if the point was being made with a guy who wasn’t missing roughly 9 out of 10 weeks throughout the year. The fact they added another world title shows they thought was important to have a visible champion, to whatever success that’s had. If you can bridge the connection, go for it. But it’s getting harder to buy Roman is so important when the company has been thriving while he’s been less visible than ever.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 5, 2024 15:59:45 GMT -5
Cody struggled last year cause he lost to Reigns and then… Lesnar? Cause looking at his record last year guy was booked as strong as if he already had the belt.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 3, 2024 17:56:09 GMT -5
Gentleman Drew Gulak: he’ll shake your hand, touch your pants, and never break eye contact. He respects you too much to do that.
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Post by Starshine on Apr 2, 2024 6:48:05 GMT -5
My issue again with this past year is that they didn’t really do much to have Cody want to chase Roman to get his title back. Have him mention that he got screwed and too many people have just gone “Ahh well, them’s the breaks” and want to fight him whenever except Brock/Judgment Day/Whoever say otherwise and you get feuds going from now until Rumble season where he wins it (and I know that seemed to happen for the tag match but it was only for that tag match before Brock killed him for reasons nobody knows outside of the booking team) He’d have some challenger’s back in their matches if it wasn’t for those. And for the love of God, stop hyping Roman up as the greatest thing for most of the year even though we can see he clearly cheats and has Solo or any Uso help him out and now just remember that he does that. And to the point about choice…A. Easily A. Look, I get the idea that his reign was solidified this past year but you’re a company looking to make money. This dude comes in and right away gives you a boatload in a way nobody else has for years with a dude who already doesn’t come in much or build matches much because of that. You had a pre-made story with the Usos losing the tag titles too and Roman acting like their loss was bigger. Go with that. If it doesn’t work out, you just give Roman the belt back and do what you were going to do anyway. Problem solved. I can't understand at all how you can be convinced that the no brainer option in terms of making money would be to do the exact opposite of the thing we know factually has made them a ton of money. Was it creatively a good decision? I personally think it's been justified but each to their own. Was it financially a good decision? Clearly and obviously. And if you think they'd have made more doing it another way then ok, but what could that possibly be based on? Ultimately I would be extremely confident that if you offered anyone involved (from the performers to the executives to the shareholders) the chance to go back and change the result of WM39, close to zero of them would actually do so. If anything it's worked out far better than they could've hoped. Here’s where I get lost on this Roman thing. Why is he so important to the success of the product when he’s almost never around? Also if he doesn’t have the belt last year, what really changes in his booking? He doesn’t wrestle L.A. Knight in Jeddah? Because for all his biggest stuff like the Jey Uso match, the title was secondary to their feud, and the hook of that was he was trying to usurp Roman. Even Jimmy’s heel turn had nothing to do with the belt and all about the groups leadership. If he was around and headlining constantly, I’d get it, but that’s not happening, Cody’s been the main headliner over the past year. So how did they make the right decision when these signs point to them not going with the guy who really was carrying most of the shows?
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