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Post by Big Daddy Bad Booking on Sept 20, 2012 5:30:24 GMT -5
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Post by KobashiChop on Sept 20, 2012 5:51:11 GMT -5
Im not bothered by PG> I always point to Sting vs the NWO as an example of great PG booking.
My issue is that a lot of the time, due to the bookers catering to what they assume are childrens interests, things can come off as patronising, one dimensional and bland. If I was a kid watching WWE, I could argue that theyre insulting my intelligence. Give kids some credit.
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hitch
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Post by hitch on Sept 20, 2012 6:22:46 GMT -5
This is a point I've made before, and I'm glad you made it, too. The whole "open the show with a 20 minute promo to set up a 'shocking!' tag team main event" thing has GOT to go, for example. You're not competing against Nitro anymore, stop presenting your product as if you are. Exactly. They should stop chasing the 'shock' element. If they want to market it towards families, which IMO is a great idea, let the families see their superstars wrestle. Another thing - put the damn show on earlier. You've got a 'family' show running in a family unfriendly time-slot. They want to have the best of both worlds. They want a product that aims, primarily, towards the younger generation yet they still want to say to the sponsors 'Look how popular we are with 18-34 year olds' PG won't work unless it's fully embraced. Same as the Attitude era wouldn't have worked if they'd have kept Doink the Clown around or brought out Santa every Christmas. Can't target an audience but still present a concept that's alien to them. I'd also stop with the 'shoot' promos too. The internet fans (myself included) might get a kick out of them - but they're MEANINGLESS to the people they're targeting. It'd be like interrupting a Disney feature cartoon and have a 10 minute piece on how pissed off one of the animators is at working conditions. Kids would just sit there and think 'WTF is this?'. The adults in the back might clap and say 'That's one for the little guy' - but who cares about them? You make a cartoon for children. You market PG wrestling to families. You can't do both.
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wildojinx
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Post by wildojinx on Sept 20, 2012 7:27:06 GMT -5
Another thing - put the damn show on earlier. You've got a 'family' show running in a family unfriendly time-slot. They want to have the best of both worlds. They want a product that aims, primarily, towards the younger generation yet they still want to say to the sponsors 'Look how popular we are with 18-34 year olds' . How early can they get? Theyre on at 8/7 central for both RAW and Smackdown.
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hitch
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Post by hitch on Sept 20, 2012 7:35:18 GMT -5
Another thing - put the damn show on earlier. You've got a 'family' show running in a family unfriendly time-slot. They want to have the best of both worlds. They want a product that aims, primarily, towards the younger generation yet they still want to say to the sponsors 'Look how popular we are with 18-34 year olds' . How early can they get? Theyre on at 8/7 central for both RAW and Smackdown. A show that finishes at 11pm, as Raw does, isn't 'PG audience', at least not on a week night. If they want to do this thing - go the whole hog. Bite the bullet and put shows on where they're more accessible to the designated target audience. Not market it towards kids but still desperately try to hold on to the Attitude era timeslot. 7pm-9pm is a more sensible time slot for a Mondays for the product for their current aimed demographic. No parent will let their kid stay up until gone 11pm on a school night watching a wrestling show. Their main product does not target their primary audience. It makes no sense. It's like a show that targets working working professionals and putting it on during the day when every professional is at work
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wildojinx
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Post by wildojinx on Sept 20, 2012 7:54:10 GMT -5
How early can they get? Theyre on at 8/7 central for both RAW and Smackdown. A show that finishes at 11pm, as Raw does, isn't 'PG audience', at least not on a week night. If they want to do this thing - go the whole hog. Bite the bullet and put shows on where they're more accessible to the designated target audience. Not market it towards kids but still desperately try to hold on to the Attitude era timeslot. 7pm-9pm is a more sensible time slot for a Mondays for the product for their current aimed demographic. No parent will let their kid stay up until gone 11pm on a school night watching a wrestling show. Their main product does not target their primary audience. It makes no sense. 7-9 may sound reasonable, but then you have to factor in other time zones. For example, in the south, RAW would air between 6-8 with this format, meaning many families are eating dinner at this time and miss the opening match/segment.
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Post by sonofblaine on Sept 20, 2012 8:36:08 GMT -5
I don't mind PG so much if the writing and wrestling is still good. Fact is around the time I quit watching about 7 - 9 years ago, I kinda hated all the sex in it. I'm not a prude by any means, but it seems that especially in the Women's Division, sex was the main draw, with Playboy shoots and lesbian angles. And it felt like they pushed the idea that female who was promiscuous and did playboy = face, but serious wrestler = heel. Definitely a factor in my losing interest for a time.
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Post by Alexander The So-so on Sept 20, 2012 10:57:57 GMT -5
I'm just as dissatisfied as most people with the WWE's presentation over the past couple years, but I agree with the opinions expressed before: the issue is not with PG writing. It's with dumb, lowest common denominator writing.
One of the greatest wrestling products in the history of the industry, was, in fact, PG. And it's a product that I simaltaneously watched religiously as a kid, and can look back at as an adult without embarassment: WCW during the nWo era.
It was cutting edge and edgy, but you know what? They did so without anything raunchy or anything that violated the strict standards and practices at Turner; they did it through unpredictable stories, and having cool, rebellious villains like The Outsiders and Hollywood Hogan, who could look cool and mature without resorting to crotch chops, middle fingers, or swearing. They had a cruiserweight title which was fought over by gifted mat technicians, Mexican luchadors, and visiting Japanese talent, not by leprechauns. The faces of the time, from Rey Mysterio in the cruiserweight division to Sting and Goldberg in the main event, were both toned down enough to be appropriate for kids, while still being understandable and real enough for adults to appreciate. The action could get hard-hitting, with the occasional chair shot, hardcore match, and blade-job, without approaching anything disturbing or life-threatening. The dialogue in the promos was mature and realistic, without being foul-mouthed, not going further than the occasional "ass" or "hell" in terms of harsh language.
Hell, someone just mentioned shoot angles being a problem in today's WWE, but WCW managed to use even shoots to their advantage; every now and then, Kevin Nash would come out on the mic and bury Ric Flair or even Hogan (his kayfabe friend) over their real-life spats. They didn't do any harm to me as a young mark kid, because they totally went over my head. So no harm, no foul. But for the adults who knew the inside of the business, it made the product even more impossible to predict and compelling. Used sparingly, shoots can be a good way to add to the "anything can happen" feel.
It doesn't matter if the wrestling product is PG, G, TV-14, or X-rated; I'll enjoy it if it's exciting, unpredictable, has great in-ring competition and compelling characters in the promos, and doesn't make me feel embarassed whenever anybody comes into the room and takes a look at what I'm watching. And incidently, I'm someone who had, and still has, a lot of problems with the Attitude Era for similar reasons: it was exciting and unpredictable, sure, but between the sloppy in-ring booking, convoluted storylines, and embarassing skits that popped up, there was sometimes just as much lowest common denominator ridiculousness then as in 2009.
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bigbadbull
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Post by bigbadbull on Sept 20, 2012 11:06:30 GMT -5
I don't care if it's PG or TV-MA. I just want to see an entertaining show. Exactly. My problem with the WWE is that they obviously went PG just because Linda wanted to run for Senator(that's all I'm saying for the politics side). It didn't feel natural to turn from TV-14 to TV-PG because the sudden change of it all. One show had a possible angle of incest, the next show had them dropping the angle completely. Sure,incest won't be of a program of TV-PG quality, but let's not make the WWE into this great bastion of family quality programming for dropping the bra and panties match, live sex celebration and constant cursing.
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Post by whitethunder on Sept 20, 2012 11:54:59 GMT -5
Like others have said, its how far the WWE went on the PG scale. It was almost G rated.
I'd like the rating/content to go back to around 2005-2007. Not that risque, but not as kiddy as it is now. You can cater to kids with some people, but the most important audience will always be the 18-30 male demographic.
Plus, the kids that started watching during 2009 are growing up, and could outgrow the product. I can see a shift coming in a few years if Linda doesn't win.
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Post by suntannedsuperman on Sept 23, 2012 19:24:31 GMT -5
thanks for the feedback!
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flip
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Post by flip on Sept 23, 2012 21:45:50 GMT -5
Raw was PG in 97/98 and nobody was complaining about it back then.
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metylerca
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Post by metylerca on Sept 23, 2012 22:04:30 GMT -5
What hitch is saying rings true to me. Even in 2012 we are STILL doing GM storylines, where the GM makes a match to either A) put the heel at odds or B) put the face at odds. Rinse. Repeat. Every week. 14 years.
The opening talking bit is almost a parody of itself these days. Even Punk last year would break the fourth wall when he was in one of these. They're outdated, the format needs to go. Look how shows in the late 80's and early 90's started. They had the opening rundown of the card and then went straight to a match to start it all off. Then, in-between matches, they would show promo videos and have backstage interviews. They usually had something to do with what the viewer was about to see, and then another match pertaining to that storyline began. It isn't a complicated concept and surely wouldn't need countless scripts and rewrites to accomplish this.
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thecrusherwi
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Post by thecrusherwi on Sept 23, 2012 22:21:04 GMT -5
What hitch is saying rings true to me. Even in 2012 we are STILL doing GM storylines, where the GM makes a match to either A) put the heel at odds or B) put the face at odds. Rinse. Repeat. Every week. 14 years. The opening talking bit is almost a parody of itself these days. Even Punk last year would break the fourth wall when he was in one of these. They're outdated, the format needs to go. Look how shows in the late 80's and early 90's started. They had the opening rundown of the card and then went straight to a match to start it all off. Then, in-between matches, they would show promo videos and have backstage interviews. They usually had something to do with what the viewer was about to see, and then another match pertaining to that storyline began. It isn't a complicated concept and surely wouldn't need countless scripts and rewrites to accomplish this. I think part of the problem are the writers. They think they're great theatre with overly complex, multi-layered chacters that need to explain every action like it was a speech from the movie Network. But they're not. The average WWE superstar is less nuanced than the characters in a movie like the Sandlot or Major League. If anything, they shouldn't be trying to copy TV dramas. They should be copying sports movies.
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wildojinx
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Post by wildojinx on Sept 23, 2012 22:25:23 GMT -5
Also, am i the only one who first read this as pig wrestling?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2012 22:42:32 GMT -5
It's never been the wrestling that has been the problem. It's just everything else surrounding it. I don't want to go on a multiple paragraph rant about it, but the people writing these shows seem to draw the conclusion that a young audience is the same as a dumb audience. Children understand things like motivation and complex personalities, and to think that "our audience is mainly kids" is a valid excuse for some of the crap we've gotten is laughable and insulting to those very same kids.
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Madagascar Fred
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Post by Madagascar Fred on Sept 24, 2012 2:59:35 GMT -5
You aren't. I like the actual wrestling recently. yup. the garbagy brawls in and outside the ring have been done to death by now. here & there (to end a feud in a streetfight/cage or cell match etc) it still works of course however, the lame poopy/peepee/stereotypical jokes I could do without
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