Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 31, 2009 18:51:04 GMT -5
The two Hornswoggle shirts are on the top sellers section of WWESHOP.com Seriously? I guess that answers the question. That seriously makes me wonder if WWE resent his success. I seriously doubt they planned him to be this big. I wouldn't be surprised it if they were as sick of him being on the show so much as we are. You have to write him and promote him to keep the t-shirt sales going, and you can't just abandon a guy's success because you don't like it. How cruel would that be? "How are you liking those royalty checks?" "Oh, it's great! I will get a new place." "Yeahhhh, I'd hold off on that. We're going to take you off of TV and discontinue your shirt." Looking at it that way, they'd have to be serious assholes to drop the guy now when he's succeeding.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2009 18:51:21 GMT -5
He's over, he sells merchandise, and his segments while not exactly hilarious are much more inoffensive than people act like they are.
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Post by taylorandborland on Dec 31, 2009 18:57:25 GMT -5
That's the problem, though. You can't really tell when a heel is getting the proper response unless you give the crowd a reason to boo him. Interrupting a face talking, attacking someone when their back is turn, etc. Jaded as hell audiences don't boo much nowadays, no one is getting Ted DiBiase Sr. kind of crowd hate, except someone like Jericho on the right kind of night. You're looking at this the wrong way. When you wanna get somebody over as a heel you have them do things on a consistent basis until the fans hate them enough to boo them on a consistent basis. Yes Take Vickie Guerrero. She's annoying as hell, she's not pretty, she's old enough to be your mom (yeah, that's a factor, if she was young and pretty she wouldn't get booed as much ) and she constantly gets in people's business. They kept going with that until the fans just couldn't take it anymore. People are happy when she gets embarrassed or smacked around. You can use her in storylines and whatnot. Why? She was built to be a heel and is over. If she went up against a popular face, the average fan would wait to see her get her wide, jiggly ass kicked. I dunno where you're coming from with the heel's role as a mood-killer. Maybe for backstage skits and in-ring intermissions, but in the long run, the heel's job is to create conflict. You know, like all villains are supposed to. If the heel isn't over, where's the conflict? And Randy Orton isn't a good example of a big heel without that much heat. He gets pops more often than not. You also asked the wrong person if Orton's a main-eventer or not...because God knows I think he's been worthless since '07.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Dec 31, 2009 18:57:44 GMT -5
Maybe this isn't the place to ask this, but what do people base overness on? Crowd reaction? Then tits should win the world title, clearly they are the most over. Kidding aside, as a heel, you need to be credible, not over. No one will cheer you, and boos are hard to come by in general, especially with jaded fans. You're there to make the good guy shine. Credibility and being over go hand in hand. If the crowd doesn't think the bad guy is worth getting worked up about, would they care if the good guy finally manages to take him out? that's not a knock on Sheamus, he was hotshotted into the title after debuting barely a couple months before, and he's doing what he can. But to say that a heel's job is to be "credible, not over" is like saying a fireman's job is to "save people, not help them." There's also a case to be made that if Shemus got the amount of time that a Hornswoggle does per show, maybe he'd be more credible, and thus more over. But then you could say that with most of the performers really, those featured more by the very nature of being more 'known' will be more over. That causation seems pretty easy to spot. Granted the talent has the ability to maximize the time they're given, and some performers are going to have way more of the 'It' factor than others; but you give one guy say a ten minute slot on a two hour show, and the other guy multiple segments totaling say an hour, it's gonna be much more difficult for the guy with the less amount of screen time to connect with an audience. So to me that's kind of two way street. Sure for as much as I don't care about him 'Swoggle is more over than say Sheamus, but he's also in probably three times as much of the show of late. You can make the argument that it's exactly because he's more over that he's featured more; but it seems to me to really work both ways- if you feature a guy exponentially more, he's going to naturally be more 'known' by the crowd.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 31, 2009 19:08:53 GMT -5
That's the problem, though. You can't really tell when a heel is getting the proper response unless you give the crowd a reason to boo him. Interrupting a face talking, attacking someone when their back is turn, etc. Jaded as hell audiences don't boo much nowadays, no one is getting Ted DiBiase Sr. kind of crowd hate, except someone like Jericho on the right kind of night. You're looking at this the wrong way. When you wanna get somebody over as a heel you have them do things on a consistent basis until the fans hate them enough to boo them on a consistent basis. Yes Take Vickie Guerrero. She's annoying as hell, she's not pretty, she's old enough to be your mom (yeah, that's a factor, if she was young and pretty she wouldn't get booed as much ) and she constantly gets in people's business. They kept going with that until the fans just couldn't take it anymore. People are happy when she gets embarrassed or smacked around. You can use her in storylines and whatnot. Why? She was built to be a heel and is over. If she went up against a popular face, the average fan would wait to see her get her wide, jiggly ass kicked. I dunno where you're coming from with the heel's role as a mood-killer. Maybe for backstage skits and in-ring intermissions, but in the long run, the heel's job is to create conflict. You know, like all villains are supposed to. If the heel isn't over, where's the conflict? And Randy Orton isn't a good example of a big heel without that much heat. He gets pops more often than not. You also asked the wrong person if Orton's a main-eventer or not...because God knows I think he's been worthless since '07. What I mean with the mood killer is that you want to see them get put in their place. When they win, it's supposed to piss you off. It's supposed to make you want to see them lose. Vickie is sort of like the heel Hornswoggle in that she is not there as a wrestler, more as a foil. Whether or not you like Orton, though, you at least know what his role is and why Mr. McMahon doesn't fire him. He sells a f***load of t-shirts, Kofi wouldn't be a fraction as credible or relevant without the boost he's given him, and Legacy of course are up there because of him. He's admittedly been in a quagmire at times, but he's still capable in his role. My original point being that while Sheamus isn't getting the kind of crowd reactions Miz is, it doesn't mean he's not "over" in the broad sense that he's becoming someone the crowd wants to see Cena beat, and the fact is it hasn't been easy to find credible opponents for Cena, so they needed to make one. It's sort of like when they had Orton beat Benoit to give Triple H someone to work with, only this appears to be less of a disaster so far. We're kind of hijacking the thread though, so I'm sorry for getting off topic.
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Post by noleafclover1980 on Dec 31, 2009 20:18:56 GMT -5
You know, I've been saying this for awhile... but.. i admit, the skit with Triple H taping him to a skateboard made me laugh. Just the exchange with Shawn finally got a laugh out of me in the angle.
HHH:Don't do anything stupid *resumes taping Hornswaggle to a skateboard* HBK:Stupid huh? HHH:Don't judge me.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 31, 2009 20:20:16 GMT -5
You know, I've been saying this for awhile... but.. i admit, the skit with Triple H taping him to a skateboard made me laugh. Just the exchange with Shawn finally got a laugh out of me in the angle. HHH:Don't do anything stupid *resumes taping Hornswaggle to a skateboard* HBK:Stupid huh? HHH:Don't judge me. I do like their retorts to one another. Even with a tired gimmick and all, they are still both great with comedic timing when they are in their element.
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Post by chunkylover53 on Jan 1, 2010 19:17:38 GMT -5
Just remember, 6 years ago I was bashing other smarks for criticizing the product. Now that I've become one, I can see why. "one of us,one of us,one of us!" I was waiting FOREVER for somebody to use that referring to smarks.
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Chiral
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Post by Chiral on Jan 1, 2010 19:39:49 GMT -5
You know, I've been saying this for awhile... but.. i admit, the skit with Triple H taping him to a skateboard made me laugh. Just the exchange with Shawn finally got a laugh out of me in the angle. HHH:Don't do anything stupid *resumes taping Hornswaggle to a skateboard* HBK:Stupid huh? HHH:Don't judge me. HHH: I'm doing what anybody with a new midget would do. I'm taping him to a skateboard and seeing how for he'll go.
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Celgress
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Post by Celgress on Jan 1, 2010 19:47:54 GMT -5
People might hate to admite it. But this is a testament to the creative and marketing genius of one Vince McMahon, IMHO. Vince can make anyone into a mega star; even a dyslexic leprechaun. Where as other companies like the former WCW (at least through most of it's run) & TNA can/could hardly get any of their home grown talent over in a mainstream way (as much as anything in wrestling is "mainstream").
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2010 19:52:24 GMT -5
It's not that I mind that Hornswoggle is so over; more power to the guy and I'm glad that someone gets such a response from the audience but...
The novelty act should not get more of a response than the main eventers. Period. If that's the case, booking's failed.
It's great that he's so over. It would be even better if others were even more over.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 1, 2010 20:05:59 GMT -5
My theory is that Hornswoggle is as close WWE will get to having an actual child be involved in storylines without breaking about 50 different labour laws.
So I think that's why he's so prominent in WWE these days. Because he's being promoted to fans as an actual child (despite being an adult man, with a beard and tattoos), playing wacky pranks on the silly (heel) wrestlers, and hanging out with the cool (face) wrestlers.
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