kevin
El Dandy
Posts: 7,503
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Post by kevin on Jan 4, 2012 23:42:33 GMT -5
Well It would help if he had actually had not asked for his release. I am shocked anyone believed him when he claimed in an interview months after the fact that he was fired. Frankly I think it is a real shame he quit like that. The gimmick they had for him of a warrior who is always ready to fight no matter the odds or the situation was really working. Using a proven fan favorite for that gimmick was very smart because when it came time for him to start winning the fans would have eaten it up. I know I would have. It is a real shame it did not work. How do you know he was lying about being fired? I do not anymore than anyone else does. All I know is he was being used on Smackdown every single week and had a gimmick. Him asking for his release as he claims he did makes a lot more sense than the he was fired story he came up with months after the fact.
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BigWill
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 16,619
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Post by BigWill on Jan 4, 2012 23:44:16 GMT -5
Well It would help if he had actually had not asked for his release. I am shocked anyone believed him when he claimed in an interview months after the fact that he was fired. Frankly I think it is a real shame he quit like that. The gimmick they had for him of a warrior who is always ready to fight no matter the odds or the situation was really working. Using a proven fan favorite for that gimmick was very smart because when it came time for him to start winning the fans would have eaten it up. I know I would have. It is a real shame it did not work. How do you know he was lying about being fired? Because the WWE can do no wrong. They would never fire a person that showed talent, without first giving them a real chance. /sarcasm
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Post by moneyman20 on Jan 4, 2012 23:46:34 GMT -5
That godawful NXT season 2 finale probably did him in I think. I don't see how anyone could take anybody seriously for a longer period of time after that cluster****.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2012 23:49:43 GMT -5
How do you know he was lying about being fired? I do not anymore than anyone else does. All I know is he was being used on Smackdown every single week and had a gimmick. Him asking for his release as he claims he did makes a lot more sense than the he was fired story he came up with months after the fact. Hmm. I didn't know that he had ever claimed that he asked for his release. I only remember him saying he was fired and that WWE asked him to claim that he quit so that they wouldn't look bad for firing him.
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,359
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 5, 2012 0:30:48 GMT -5
WWE just does not like anyone that got made in a different promotion...look at how they treated the majority of stars from the Invasion or ECW, or the women for that matter. Kharma got lucky--the majority of women who had indie experience, aside from Mickie--were not very well known until they got into WWE. They like the idea of building their very own stars. They will always push an internal talent over an external one--I firmly believe this is why they always will try to push a Riley over a Kaval or a model like Candice over Mickie/Ashley over Mickie. Aside from the cosmetic concerns, they want someone they trained that is homegrown and belongs to them completely. They looooved this about Edge, Trish Stratus, Batista, and the Rock. The few guys that started elsewhere and got over are an exception (like Austin, Y2J) most come over and get midcard for life. Bulls***. Hogan came from AWA, Rick Flair came from NWA. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose came from ROH. Eddie Guerreo, Stone Cold, Jericho, Benoit and Booker T all came from WCW. Hogan was not brought in because of his AWA work (or his New Japan or his run under Vince Sr. in the WWWF). He was world famous because of his turn as Thunderlips on Rocky III (in which he demonstrated that he actually could work a match at some point in time). Flair was immensely famous when he showed up. Comparing him to Kaval, Punk, or anyone is ridiculous. Not pushing him was out of the question. Booker T and Benoit were not given anything resembling a comparable push to their previous stations in WCW when they came in. Hell, in the decade since they both arrived they had a collective two new world title wins during a time that there were two such titles and plenty of title changes going around. Sure, they were not purely buried (or even set up as poorly as Dusty Rhodes, a three time NWA Champ, or Harley Race, a 7 time NWA champ, were), but they did not get booked as one might expect they would be. I would not use anyone who had success in ROH as an example as ROH is not that well known. A sizable minority of the WWE audience might not be aware of TNA, but I bet that the majority have never heard of ROH. To be honest, I would not bunch Kaval in with any of them. I bet that more of the WWE audience that heard of Kaval prior to his NXT run knew of him from his earlier run with the company than from his runs with TNA or ROH. If the WWE was stumped on why he was over with the crowd, it was because he was unique. Yes, he was tiny when compared to anyone other than Hornswaggle, but he still came across as dangerous because of his style of wrestling. He used an exciting style. He cut a unconventional but effective promo. His facial reactions, however, were just about as good as anyone not named Regal. He was fun, but in a different way. He stood out. The good ones do. It is a good idea to push those guys, especially if the fans buy into them like they did with Kaval. Instead, they felt the need to squash him in order to ruin him in the eyes of the fans that supported him so that they can release him (and apparently hold his guaranteed pay over his head to force him to tow a line saying that he asked for his release immediately before Christmas). Is the WWE the most evil company ever? No, but there are times that they are easily the most petty company that I have ever heard of. This is why people sometimes bitch about the way they do business. If the WWE doesn't like it, maybe they should grow up and make their business decisions based on what is good for business only.
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mrjl
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 20,319
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Post by mrjl on Jan 5, 2012 6:08:33 GMT -5
People just don't read more than the first post. How many times to we have to say same thing over and over? HE DIDN'T ASK FOR HIS RELEASE!!! why should I believe his word over WWE's? Or maybe he said something like "If you're not going to use me I wish you'd cut me." which the WWE took him up on.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2012 10:15:08 GMT -5
They wanted to have Kaval work, but the problem though was that Kaval... well, he gets injured easily the way he wrestles. He's not brittle and ignorant like Mr. Anderson, but more of a commodity than anything else.
The fact that he won NXT when they wanted to push someone like McGuillicutty or Husky Harris was an even bigger issue, because now this guy was required to be involved in a title match. If that was bad enough, they had to do it when they had Kaval do things like having to survive Big Show for five minutes to qualify for the SmackDown team for the 2010 Bragging Rights event... only to be willing to give that spot up to one of the biggest wastes of space in the wrestling world; Tyler Reks.
I really don't think Kaval could've worked out in the WWE, but at least they could've had him, you know, win matches or at least look competent. Towards the end, I was referring to him as "Jobbal" and imagining his TitanTron video to consist of him eating finishers and lying around the arena.
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BigWill
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 16,619
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Post by BigWill on Jan 5, 2012 10:38:41 GMT -5
How many times to we have to say same thing over and over? HE DIDN'T ASK FOR HIS RELEASE!!! why should I believe his word over WWE's? Or maybe he said something like "If you're not going to use me I wish you'd cut me." which the WWE took him up on. The WWE never made a statement about his release. Kaval was the one who initially said he asked for his release. So you're pretty much just deciding to believe his first statement over his updated one. Which makes it seem like you just want to paint Kaval as the one in the wrong.
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Post by Slingshot Suplay on Jan 5, 2012 13:30:45 GMT -5
At the time, the WWE was in a weird phase of pushing whoever they wanted despite not being over, properly built or with no rhyme or reason, while others were downplayed. Guys like MVP and Christian couldn't get near a mic, yet we were subject to McIntyre, Miz, Riley, McGuilicutty & Dibiase every week.
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Post by gonzo16 on Jan 5, 2012 13:36:01 GMT -5
He said himself he asked for his release. The guy has always been known to be a prick and have a napolean complex.
I heard he wanted WWE to book him as this unbeaten beast. Give me a break
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Post by Djm Doesn't Find You Funny on Jan 5, 2012 13:38:35 GMT -5
The fans voted who they wanted to win NXT, and WWE said "No" without making NXT look like a fraud.
And now, we have NXT Redemption, and Low Ki is barely on anyone's radar anymore.
Because WWE does no wrong, it's just the fans that were stupid.
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BigWill
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 16,619
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Post by BigWill on Jan 5, 2012 13:53:53 GMT -5
He said himself he asked for his release. The guy has always been known to be a prick and have a napolean complex. I heard he wanted WWE to book him as this unbeaten beast. Give me a break That sounds like the kind of crap some random youtube commenter would spout out.
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Post by Joe Galt on Jan 5, 2012 14:01:31 GMT -5
He was TOO GOOD in the ring. I have a feeling that his tough style was complained about from lazy wrestlers. Speculation on my part of course.
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CMWaters
Ozymandius
Rolled a Seven, Beat the Ads.
Bald and busy
Posts: 63,071
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Post by CMWaters on Jan 5, 2012 14:10:47 GMT -5
At the very least, he had a great theme.
Even if it was Barrett's FCW theme first.
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Dr. T is an alien
Patti Mayonnaise
Knows when to hold them, knows when to fold them
I've been found out!
Posts: 31,359
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Jan 5, 2012 14:18:15 GMT -5
Booker T and Benoit were not given anything resembling a comparable push to their previous stations in WCW when they came in. Hell, in the decade since they both arrived they had a collective two new world title wins during a time that there were two such titles and plenty of title changes going around. Sure, they were not purely buried (or even set up as poorly as Dusty Rhodes, a three time NWA Champ, or Harley Race, a 7 time NWA champ, were), but they did not get booked as one might expect they would be. Benoit's first year in the WWF saw him become a bigger star than he ever was in WCW. He had a great feud with Chris Jericho over the IC title then was main eventing PPV's with The Rock for the WWF title. In an era with far more charismatic and marketable stars like Rock, Austin, HHH, Angle and Jericho around I honestly think Benoit had no place being pushed any more than he was. The upper card/part time main event spot was perfect for him. My point is that he was the WCW champ on his last day with the company. They parlayed that into booking him into the IC title picture. The point is that is a downgrade for downgrading sake. When he got downgraded to the US title after his WHC run they had at least tried pushing him at the same level he was before. They did not even try at first.
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keezy
Dennis Stamp
full time slacker
Posts: 4,621
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Post by keezy on Jan 5, 2012 14:43:32 GMT -5
If they really wanted Alex Riley to win NXT then why keep him as a heel? nobody votes for bad guys especially ones endorsed by bigger bad guys (The Miz), the only other faces they had were Percy Watson and then you had Titus, McGillicutty and Cottonwood varying from heel to face every week.
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Post by Savage Gambino on Jan 5, 2012 15:25:37 GMT -5
If they really wanted Alex Riley to win NXT then why keep him as a heel? nobody votes for bad guys especially ones endorsed by bigger bad guys (The Miz), the only other faces they had were Percy Watson and then you had Titus, McGillicutty and Cottonwood varying from heel to face every week. Well, technically Titus wasn't heel until the finale clustersmurf, but that aside, you're right. Kaval was the face and main character of NXT2, and I think you're hard-pressed to find someone that thinks otherwise. Now, whatever you think of Kaval post-NXT in regards to being wasted, I agree wholeheartedly, but there was no way WWE didn't want him to win NXT2; he was, again, as close as someone can come to top face on a show like NXT, his pairing with Layla was pretty much the B-plot to the program (after the NXT competition itself, of course), and his W-L record was better than Daniel Bryan's. In fact, for someone who was generally billed as the underdog of NXT2, he had one of the better Win-Loss records (I think only A-Ri's was better).
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Psychoblue
Don Corleone
WrestleCrap #1 Kona Crush mark (probably)
Posts: 1,664
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Post by Psychoblue on Jan 5, 2012 15:31:47 GMT -5
It's no secret to this forum how I feel about Ki, and going from "I asked from my release" to "They told me to say I asked for my release" doesn't speak well for him in my eyes. He was talented, but so are a bunch of other guys who don't work needlessly stiff: something Kaval did on occasion with his match against Ziggler at Survivor Series being the biggest culprit. I don't believe he was "too good for WWE" or he wouldn't have been a bit player in almost every fed he's been in a part of prior to the E.
My guess what happened: Kaval pissed someone off for a number of possible reasons (history of being a jerk backstage, working stiff) and WWE jobbed him out until they felt like he learned his lesson. He didn't, so he either left of WWE told him to get lost.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jan 5, 2012 19:10:32 GMT -5
You guys are forgetting how Kaval was booked in NXT. HE was a jobber until halfway through, when they realized that people still liked him no matter what and that he was likely to win.
You guys are also giving the WWE too much credit for thinking things out in advance. They wanted Riley to win NXT and they made Riley a heel and they didn't rig the voting and Riley's career went nowhere in the end anyway, and all of those things are true because they didn't think about it.
As for Kaval, he had the same problem lots of people had. He was known for his in-ring work in the indies and Japan, and someone high up just thinks that people like that "aren't stars" and "aren't charismatic" and "don't have 'it.'" They also thought that he was too small to make it, as if 99% of fans gave a crap about that. Of course, the idea that Kaval isn't charismatic is insane... he's more fun to watch just standing there in his fighting stance there than most wrestlers are working a match. Then he proved it by getting over with the Laycool thing, and so the left hand of management worked on getting him over while the right hand had no idea and assumed he was still just some indie loser.
This whole saga is frustrating not because he got cut off unfairly. It's also because they were so damn disorganized when they went about it.
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Sc
Don Corleone
Must think of something witty to put here...
Posts: 1,417
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Post by Sc on Jan 5, 2012 19:38:08 GMT -5
It sure looked like they wanted McGillicutty to win NXT, not Riley.
As for Kaval, he was mid-card at best.
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