Big Angles are NOT the problem.

[wisdomwizard]

The real problem is there is still a lack of them. Everyone in WWE should have some form of an angle going on. Yes, the Russo thread partly inspired this. I don't agree that everyone would be better off with angles under THAT nutbar, but I do think the current writing team could come with something for them. To me, all of the angles involving Bryan and AJ the last two years are an example of this. Another is how well they've been doing with Cody and Goldust. They've been amazing together since Cody's fired angle started. And then there is of course The Shield.


But there isn't any reason Kofi, Ziggler, Miz, Yoshi Tatsu, JTG, 3MB and others should have an actual rivalry. All the goofy fights wrestlers would get into before in both the Attitude Era and the Federation Era were how characters were fleshed out and got crowds on the side of who WWE wanted them to.


I don't want anyone to come in here saying "Never going to happen!". This thread is not about if they're likely to do more angles for everyone, what I want is to see everyone discuss or explain how WWE should go about doing these angles. Who gets what first? How do you keep them going? Not an all-out fantasy booking thread where HHH fights Kane for control of Undertaker's funeral parlor; I mean angles that could very well happen.

[Deleted]

Sad thing is it'd be super easy to run the midcard stuff with the extra hour of RAW, the stuff that ends up on non RAW shows.

But there's no time for that because it's time for more feud recaps and susan g komen.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

I keep saying it, but I feel like they should do a restructured brand split. Let RAW be the big time drama show featuring all the major stars and let SmackDown be the midcard shenanigans show (Think of a 2 hour NXT Redemption occasionally headlined by a midcard champion) where Zack Ryder and Tyson Kidd can have an epic 2 out of 3 falls match just because Ryder ate the last Crescent roll in catering or something.

[Captain2]

They're not a problem because Todd took care of it.

[Rolent Tex]

They looked like they were getting more guys involved thanks to the Authority angle...but only the Usos are doing anything. RVD? At home. Ziggler and Truth? Shilling Shopzone. Gabriel and Ryder? At home washing their tights.

[wisdomwizard]

Oct 31, 2013 21:08:08 GMT -5 Rolent Tex said:

They looked like they were getting more guys involved thanks to the Authority angle...but only the Usos are doing anything. RVD? At home. Ziggler and Truth? Shilling Shopzone. Gabriel and Ryder? At home washing their tights.

I'm still hoping with Survivor series that they'll get involved with Bryan and Punk against the Wyatts. Miz has already had to deal with them, maybe they'll attack Kofi or Ziggler later?

[xCompackx]

I agree that big angles aren't the problem, it's just WWE doesn't know how to progress them organically during non-Mania periods. We've had Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton 4 times now and none of them have had conclusive endings. It's like when Cena and Rock had the year build to WrestleMania 28. They just didn't do much of anything until the last few weeks when it got serious. It's great that they're trying to do something big, but they still have no idea how to make September-November feel important.

[misconduct was wrong]

The big angle takes up an hour of raw every week. That's overexposure. Also, I highly doubt that they have the specifics of a long term angle written out before they run it, and too many details get changed with last minute script rewrites.

I'd rather see consistent characters, and just let the feuds write themselves.

[sportatorium]

Oct 31, 2013 23:21:24 GMT -5 misconduct was wrong said:

The big angle takes up an hour of raw every week. That's overexposure. Also, I highly doubt that they have the specifics of a long term angle written out before they run it, and too many details get changed with last minute script rewrites.

I'd rather see consistent characters, and just let the feuds write themselves.

Agree + 1000. Wrestling 101 right there.

[Todd Pettengill]

Oct 31, 2013 23:55:02 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

Oct 31, 2013 23:21:24 GMT -5 misconduct was wrong said:

The big angle takes up an hour of raw every week. That's overexposure. Also, I highly doubt that they have the specifics of a long term angle written out before they run it, and too many details get changed with last minute script rewrites.

I'd rather see consistent characters, and just let the feuds write themselves.

Agree + 1000. Wrestling 101 right there.

Sometimes it's fine if the big angle eats up about an hour of TV time. There's still two other hours that they could book some zany midcard storylines.
WWE is terrible at developing the midcarders's character. The easiest answer would be give them feuds w/ a reason behind it. When characters develop, people become invested as viewers. When people are interested as viewers in a midcarder, it makes it a lot easier to pull him up to the main event level (even for a short run in the main event scene).

[Hit Girl]

WWE had no idea how to book anymore. When on the rare occasions they do find something that catches on, they'll either run it into the ground, or it will be sabotaged.

[Deleted]

I wish they took a more anthological approach to their shows.

Run with a story for a month then cycle those characters to the background (to do longer, less story-driven matches) and let new characters/stories come to the forefront where they do shorter matches, but more emphasis on a dramatic angle.

I think that would really help keep things fresh rather than seeing the same 4-6 guys in the main story.

["Trickster Dogg" James Jesse]

I agree, big angles are not the problem. Logically telling a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, with rising action, climax, and denouement, with consequences for people's actions... that is the problem.

[wisdomwizard]

Nov 1, 2013 18:44:39 GMT -5 "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse said:

I agree, big angles are not the problem. Logically telling a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, with rising action, climax, and denouement, with consequences for people's actions... that is the problem.

Not with the current angle, it HAS had all that.



At any rate, please don't drive this into yet another "WWE'S MAIN ANGLE SUCKS!" thread. I want to hear from people the whats and hows of getting the wrestlers they like to work on the card with the proper angle.

["Trickster Dogg" James Jesse]

Nov 1, 2013 20:14:08 GMT -5 wisdomwizard said:

Nov 1, 2013 18:44:39 GMT -5 "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse said:

I agree, big angles are not the problem. Logically telling a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, with rising action, climax, and denouement, with consequences for people's actions... that is the problem.

Not with the current angle, it HAS had all that.



At any rate, please don't drive this into yet another "WWE'S MAIN ANGLE SUCKS!" thread. I want to hear from people the whats and hows of getting the wrestlers they like to work on the card with the proper angle.

Doing a "Civil War" angle between babyface rebels and heel Authority members should be easy enough for it to involve the entire talent pool. Have a group of wrestlers form the core of the angle. Have another group of wrestlers who are supporting characters, but who can team up or be swapped in for the core group. Have an ancillary group who float around the angle and who come into play with the supporting characters. Booking a company-wide angle should be like Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer or the NWO angle (up to Starrcade 1997): you have a whole bunch of people involved, some every week, some once and awhile, some who exist outside of the angle but are still affected by it, so that everyone could potentially face everyone else at some point in time.

But like I said, angles are only as good as their construction. Why something like the NWO angle fell apart was that after Hogan lost the WCW title, the writing should have been on the wall should for the NWO's dominance. Cracks start to form. Some people break off. Some people vie for power. Some people switch allegiances. Other allegiances simply dissipate. But all that can only occur after a literal and symbolic victory occurs for the other side. Hogan losing to Piper in 1996, losing to Luger and Sting in 1997, or losing to Goldberg in 1998, any of these points SHOULD have been the death-knell of the NWO and the closing down of the angle (I'd rank them Sting, Goldberg, Luger, Piper in terms of maximizing effect). But the angle kept going and going off and on for another two years.

What's the endgame for the Authority? Bryan's already one the title WWE title twice now. Will Triple H do the job to put over Bryan, or Rhodes, or Punk, or Cena? Will Stephanie get her comeuppance from the Big Show? Will a Diva step up to take Stephanie on? Does someone step up to take out the Shield once and for all? Or do the Shield simply break up without any sort of outside stimulus or reason to do so? Why hasn't the Authority turned to Paul Heyman's guys yet for backup? Etc. From what I've read about this angle, I honestly don't know what the endgame is, other than 'Bryan wins the title', but they've already done that moment. Twice. Sure, he's still over like rover right now, but sometimes when you strike when the iron is hot, you have to keep striking to craft something meaningful. Two momentary taps on the hot iron when you're trying to make something that will last 5-10 years (Bryan as a main-event talent) isn't going to cut it.

[saintpat]

I guess I just see some things differently.

I see Ziggler's name dropped several times on this thread like he hasn't had anything to do -- he's been off TV for like one week and he's "berried"?

In the last 18 months or so he had the thing with Vickie, the thing with AJ, the U.S. title run, won MitB -- and put that up against Jericho's contract in a mini-feud -- and he and Swagger trying to win the tag titles, a feud with Del Rio, a feud with Ambrose for the U.S. title (wasn't that just a few weeks ago?). How is he a midcard guy that hasn't been in feuds and angles?

I can point to Cesaro -- his character developed from his arrival on a weekly basis, with promo time at first and really good matches on a regular basis, feuds with R-Truth and Miz and then evolving into the Real Americans gimmick.

Speaking of which, the Real Americans is a midcard storyline and they have had feuds.

Same with the Wyatts, although they have worked their way into the main event picture ... sort of.

The Rhodes Brothers are a great midcard storyline that kind of bumped up against The Authority main event storyline but has gone on without it. It got a rub from the "win or you're fired for good" thing but they are still over for sure and doing TV main events on Smackdown and Main Event.

I don't think a feud necessarily has to have promos to develop character. The Usos are over and are regular parts of the midcard pretty much every week. They have developed by being long-running contenders for the tag titles who haven't yet won the belts, and I hope and believe at some point they will get the tag championship -- but they have been building toward that with their weekly near-misses that get closer all the time. And the crowd is recognizing them and they are getting big pops because of this, so I take that as character development. I don't see the need for Jey or Jimmy to grab a mic and say, "We're going to win those titles no matter how many times it takes, we're just going to keep coming back and getting better." They are telling that story in the ring and were involved in an ongoing feud with the Shield.

The Shield, while also employed somewhat in the Authority storyline, are a midcard act that has also been getting feuds and angles from the start.

I could go on and on, because basically I think WWE has been doing a lot of what people on this thread say it has not been doing.

Now is everyone on the roster involved? No. That doesn't bother me -- some people (3MB, etc.) are basically enhancement talent, and that's OK. These guys get regular work in house shows and Superstars and Main Event and job to the stars on the two main shows for the most part. The double-edged sword of, say, having a Heath Slater-Yoshi Tatsu feud is that the roster is thin, and the same guy who is involved with that feud is also probably going to have to job to Miz or Seth Rollins or whoever ... and then the cries will be "why are they squashing these midcard guys and taking all the air out of their feud?" So that comes with it's own problems.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Nov 1, 2013 20:14:08 GMT -5 wisdomwizard said:

Nov 1, 2013 18:44:39 GMT -5 "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse said:

I agree, big angles are not the problem. Logically telling a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, with rising action, climax, and denouement, with consequences for people's actions... that is the problem.

Not with the current angle, it HAS had all that.

They botched the middle. Austin vs. Corporation was how it should have been similarly built. Bryan should have ran with the belt with the Authority chasing him, before eventually being screwed over, and having to fight uphill to get it back by WrestleMania. But WWE blew their load on way too many dusty finishes, and then flat-out ousted Bryan as being the focal point so they could do a Big Show angle people cared less about. It wasn't structured properly. They burned it out way too fast and kind of left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. I have no idea why anyone would pay for another Orton/Bryan match again, to be honest. We've seen it all, including a Cell match. We've seen like 3 or 4 screwjobs in a row. Now Bryan has to tread water until they figure out what the f*** they want to even do with WrestleMania. The whole thing's been a blunderf***.

[molson5]

When your TV shows revolve around the main eventers, the midcarders will always seem like small potatoes. I've never really seen an exception to that. People talk about the attitude era, and yes, the midcard acts were over, but they were not often involved in memorable, compelling storylines. If you watch a random RAW from 1998 there was random stuff going on in the midcard that changed week-to-week and made no sense that you probably don't even remember.

The only way to increase the depth, if that is a desirable goal, is to cut back on the main event time and save more of it for PPV, and have the RAWs actually main evented by and centered around the midcard angles. They've never really been willing to do that because the ratings tend to tank when the main eventers are not on screen.