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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Aug 21, 2014 17:40:12 GMT -5
A win over Bray for Cena doesn't matter at all; a clean win over Cena (not even at Mania, just even once in the feud) would've made Bray a real threat to anyone.
As it stands, the feud did no good for either guy.
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Ben Wyatt
Crow T. Robot
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
I don't get it. At all. It's kind of a small horse, I mean what am I missing? Am I crazy?
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Post by Ben Wyatt on Aug 21, 2014 17:59:25 GMT -5
A win over Bray for Cena doesn't matter at all; a clean win over Cena (not even at Mania, just even once in the feud) would've made Bray a real threat to anyone. As it stands, the feud did no good for either guy. The frustrating part is just how easy a feud between the two should have been. Granted it had moments, but they really bungled it overall.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2014 18:16:32 GMT -5
Eh?
Cena won the first match cleanly, second match Bray won with the help of a kid, third match Cena won ending their feud. Now with all of that in mind, why couldn't Bray win the first match clean, second match we see Cena get better but Bray barely ends up winning again with the help of the kid and then in the third match Bray finally lose to Cena ending their feud? It would have been a far more complete story, made Cena's rise to beat Bray more realistic and the natural progression makes sense. All of it starting at WM would have been great for Bray as well, biggest stage of them all and then beating Cena? Cena rising up to defeat Bray logically is just natural storytelling.
It's makes more sense.
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Post by benstudd on Aug 21, 2014 18:20:40 GMT -5
Yea nevermind a win or a loss but WWE placed the bar high on what Bray Wyatt was selling which was the complete corruption of Cena. Once that did not happen, you might as well call it a career for Bray. He may as well retire cause he is proven a sham and ineffective. That is why his thing with Jericho fails to connect for me cause what's the worst that could happen to Jericho? Lose a match? So what. He has lost matches before. Wyatt is not supernatural, facing him won't affect you in any way. At least if he was a freakin killer and would maim people a la Abdulla the Butcher there would be THAT scare.
That is why I didn't like the idea of Wyatt vs Cena cause in my opinion this should have happen later on in Bray's career where all this could have lead to something cool and change Cena for real. That's like Samoa Joe vs Kurt Angle, people wanted to see it but to me it was too soon and once it ended there was nowhere else to go for Samoa Joe. His whole aura was dead.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Aug 21, 2014 18:59:14 GMT -5
It's also important to understand what the Bray build was going in. He was treated as a seriously big-time heel. He was running roughshod through the roster, messing with faces left and right, and before getting to Cena feuded with Bryan for a while. Everyone said it was to elevate Bray, because Bryan was super over. And it did elevate him. Gave him a serious, high-on-the-card face the crowd very clearly cared about, hot off an angle that gave him all sorts of sympathy. Despite the amazing yes moment on top of the cage, Bray won the feud at Royal Rumble.
I'd like to reiterate that. At the Royal Rumble, the night where Daniel Bryan went from "pretty over guy" to "arguably one of the biggest things in Wrestling", with all the media attention it got, they fed him in the opening match to Bray Wyatt.
Next stepping stone? Cena. THE guy, removed from the title, working a match that was like fourth most important at best if you count the Bryan vs. Triple H and the world title match as different things. In a Wrestlemania that had Bryan go over everyone, Cesaro win the battle royal, the Shield stand tall over a bunch of veterans, and even have a "younger" guy kill the streak, it would have fit the overall theme of the night to have Cena do the job to a guy and make him a genuine top heel in a situation with no title. Bray went over Bryan at a time when Bryan needed to look strong, so you'd think they were really behind the guy and wanted to make him a star.
Whether Cena won the feud in the end or not--and I feel like he should have lost it and gone through the fallen hero redemption arc that his character has been screaming for for YEARS--he should have lost at Wrestlemania. That's the most important match, the one with the most eyes on it, the one that's going to matter in the long run. Bray Wyatt, one of only three people to beat John Cena in a singles match at Wrestlemania. A task that is shared with The Rock. That would mean something. Not getting a cage match win over Cena at Extreme Rules. Nobody gives a shit about Extreme Rules, and escaping a cage is not the same as pinning someone, clean or not.
The entire feud was structured around John Cena teetering between maybe kinda scared and laughing it all off, with Jimmy Buffet jokes and no-sells of mindgames that were meticulously structured to hit Cena where it hurts. For literally any other character, it would have built up Bray as a wicked, brilliant man who is not only charismatic in spite of his insanity to the point he has followers, but can home in on exactly which buttons to press. Cena cares about kids. Cena is the champion of the kids. So incorporate kids into the mind game. Bray is not a typical monster heel in terms of physicality, especially when flanked by his much more imposing flunkies, but as a dangerous and unpredictable man who, for all he's off his goddamn rocker, can play mind games at Undertaker levels. That's how they should have built him, and Cena being Cena made it all for nothing.
I brought up the matter of Bryan because it's very important to understanding the biggest problem with all of this. Bryan, as someone who fell victim to the mind games (before being hotshotted back due to the mainstream presence of the "yes" chants) and ultimately lost against Bray, was what Cena should have been as well. A stepping stone in the building of a heel who can be put down by a rising hero. That's the point of a monster heel. But instead of letting him be conquered by someone new, Bray became the newest link in the WWE food chain, wherein everyone feeds upward into Cena, save for special attractions. Bryan had to be fed to Bray so that Bray had enough legitimacy to kill three months of John Cena time until he eventually won and moved on to be champion again. Between Elimination Chamber and Money in the Bank, he had Bray as a way to keep him busy while he took a three month break from the title picture.
The realization that ten years after his first title win, a heel can spent ten months being built up as a major threat just to be neutered entirely by a feud with John Cena, is really disheartening, and definitely does my willingness to actively follow the product over a long period of time no favours.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2014 19:04:26 GMT -5
Because contrary to the way WWE writes, "The hero beats the villain in the first act and then the villain regroups and has to struggle to take the advantage for awhile in the second before losing again in the third," isn't a very compelling story.
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FAR5222
El Dandy
Counted 237 Bros. SWERVE Got no cookie for it.
Posts: 7,889
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Post by FAR5222 on Aug 21, 2014 19:18:34 GMT -5
It boils down to the hype that surrounded Bray during that time from January to April. People bought into the character and people dug it. But now I don't feel the same for Bray as I did in the beginning of the year. He needs some tweaking here and there and maybe some new members but I don't think WWE can convey cult leader in their writing at this time.
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Post by Neo: "The One" who CLAPS on Aug 21, 2014 19:20:13 GMT -5
Man, reading this thread breaks my heart. I'm positive that Bray will be fine, but imagining what he COULD have been had they not just fed him to Cena...
Ever since the InVasion ended, there's a startling amount of names who COULD have been huge stars that ended up being JTTS. That's very indicative of the WWE's booking, and quality troubles.
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Aug 21, 2014 23:47:09 GMT -5
It boils down to the hype that surrounded Bray during that time from January to April. People bought into the character and people dug it. But now I don't feel the same for Bray as I did in the beginning of the year. He needs some tweaking here and there and maybe some new members but I don't think WWE can convey cult leader in their writing at this time. Then there's the current cult members who are about as effective as a Zack Ryder and Kofi Kingston tag team.
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Shazam
Mephisto
And then there's this ***hole...
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Post by Shazam on Aug 22, 2014 17:46:15 GMT -5
So my interpretation is this.
The guys who are built up as monsters go one of two directions.
A)They win the big one. B)They don't win the big one.
Once you hit that turning point, there's no turning back. Look at Undertaker, look at Kane. They came out of the gates blazing. Once they arrived, they skyrocketed quickly into the main event scene and stayed there indefinately. Guys like Sid Vicious, Vader (wcw at least), and what not. If they can win the big one, they punch their ticket as an established star and stay there a long time.
Then you have the guys who were built as monsters that get slain by the top guy. Heidenrich (sp?), Snitsky, Ludvig Borga, The Boogeyman, Meng, Kozlov. All of these guys were heralded as the "Who can stop this guy?" guy, only to be stopped by the top guy, and never to be seen again, or sent to comedy doldrums to subsist until eventually released.
When Bray showed up, his character had immediate main event potential. He was given a win over Kane to start out, all be it by interference. Not a great start but good enough.
Then, he lost. A lot. Even though lots of people interfered on his behalf. Hc oudln't beat Daniel Bryan. His attack on Kane turned out to be irrelevant. Cena dominated him in the end. When he did beat Cena the 1/3 times, it was because of insane amounts of interference and a devil child.
He's just another "Who can beat this guy?" guy that can be beaten by anybody. We've seen those, they don't last. THey fade away very quickly. WWE had a chance to make a new main event tier guy for years to come, and instead just gave another hot shot to Cena, who did not need the rub in any way shape or form. It's short sighted and disappointing, and you can re-live it all for $9.99 a month, which right now, is about $11 too much.
;(
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Aug 22, 2014 17:59:12 GMT -5
So my interpretation is this. The guys who are built up as monsters go one of two directions. A)They win the big one. B)They don't win the big one. Once you hit that turning point, there's no turning back. Look at Undertaker, look at Kane. They came out of the gates blazing. Once they arrived, they skyrocketed quickly into the main event scene and stayed there indefinately. Guys like Sid Vicious, Vader (wcw at least), and what not. If they can win the big one, they punch their ticket as an established star and stay there a long time. Then you have the guys who were built as monsters that get slain by the top guy. Heidenrich (sp?), Snitsky, Ludvig Borga, The Boogeyman, Meng, Kozlov. All of these guys were heralded as the "Who can stop this guy?" guy, only to be stopped by the top guy, and never to be seen again, or sent to comedy doldrums to subsist until eventually released. When Bray showed up, his character had immediate main event potential. He was given a win over Kane to start out, all be it by interference. Not a great start but good enough. Then, he lost. A lot. Even though lots of people interfered on his behalf. Hc oudln't beat Daniel Bryan. His attack on Kane turned out to be irrelevant. Cena dominated him in the end. When he did beat Cena the 1/3 times, it was because of insane amounts of interference and a devil child. He's just another "Who can beat this guy?" guy that can be beaten by anybody. We've seen those, they don't last. THey fade away very quickly. WWE had a chance to make a new main event tier guy for years to come, and instead just gave another hot shot to Cena, who did not need the rub in any way shape or form. It's short sighted and disappointing, and you can re-live it all for $9.99 a month, which right now, is about $11 too much. ;( I'm pretty sure Bray did beat Bryan at the Royal Rumble. (However, you could say that Bryan may have won that war, especially with his laying out the entire Family on that magical January Raw.)
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Post by slaughterama on Aug 22, 2014 18:27:18 GMT -5
A no win situation for Bray anyway. He loses and he joins a long line of guys where feuding with Cena did very little for them and had them looking worse at the end. He wins? Cena opens the next show, smiling, joking, and completely no sells the loss and puts himself over and what's next for him.
It's not difficult to imagine Cena coming out the night after Mania, if he lost to Wyatt, and cut a promo where his only mention of Wyatt was that he had a rough night against a fat guy who made too many trips to the buffet table at the Don Ho Memorial Luau with a couple bearded lady rejects. But now that it's over, it's time for John Cena to get his championship back.
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Post by Vice honcho room temperature on Aug 22, 2014 18:37:09 GMT -5
I would have went with the pass out in the STF victory for Cena. Cena wins yet Bray could have spun that wrongly like a good heel would
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Derk!
Hank Scorpio
Yeah, "looks like."
Posts: 5,072
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Post by Derk! on Aug 22, 2014 18:39:02 GMT -5
I would have went with the pass out in the STF victory for Cena. Cena wins yet Bray could have spun that wrongly like a good heel would That's the only way a Cena victory would have been acceptable, to be honest.
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SEAN CARLESS
Hank Scorpio
More of a B+ player, actually
I'm Necessary Evil.
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Post by SEAN CARLESS on Aug 22, 2014 20:21:37 GMT -5
If you come out positioned worse after a feud than you did going in, it's a fail. Bottom line.
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Post by benstudd on Aug 22, 2014 23:54:44 GMT -5
So my interpretation is this. The guys who are built up as monsters go one of two directions. A)They win the big one. B)They don't win the big one. Once you hit that turning point, there's no turning back. Look at Undertaker, look at Kane. They came out of the gates blazing. Once they arrived, they skyrocketed quickly into the main event scene and stayed there indefinately. Guys like Sid Vicious, Vader (wcw at least), and what not. If they can win the big one, they punch their ticket as an established star and stay there a long time. Then you have the guys who were built as monsters that get slain by the top guy. Heidenrich (sp?), Snitsky, Ludvig Borga, The Boogeyman, Meng, Kozlov. All of these guys were heralded as the "Who can stop this guy?" guy, only to be stopped by the top guy, and never to be seen again, or sent to comedy doldrums to subsist until eventually released. When Bray showed up, his character had immediate main event potential. He was given a win over Kane to start out, all be it by interference. Not a great start but good enough. Then, he lost. A lot. Even though lots of people interfered on his behalf. Hc oudln't beat Daniel Bryan. His attack on Kane turned out to be irrelevant. Cena dominated him in the end. When he did beat Cena the 1/3 times, it was because of insane amounts of interference and a devil child. He's just another "Who can beat this guy?" guy that can be beaten by anybody. We've seen those, they don't last. THey fade away very quickly. WWE had a chance to make a new main event tier guy for years to come, and instead just gave another hot shot to Cena, who did not need the rub in any way shape or form. It's short sighted and disappointing, and you can re-live it all for $9.99 a month, which right now, is about $11 too much. ;( Vince or the WWE seems to be having a trouble to book these monsters-type. Same thing happened with Umaga. Great talent but lost all the big ones. Compare this to say Meng in WCW, he was never "the" guy in their company but he was seen as the scariest guy there. He was kind of protected cause they placed him in a tag team for a while. I remember a match he's had against Benoit that was called a "Death Match"(not making this up) and it was an awesome brawl and he pulverized Benoit clean for the win. Kane got lucky. He's had a great career but I remember him losing a title match against Stone Cold in 1998 and I was disgusted by the whole thing. I could not believe someone his size could not defeat Austin. He was seen as a monster after that but he never was "the guy". But he could have been if they wanted to in 1998. Cause he was a fresh intimidating presence for a new wrestler.
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Post by Starshine on Aug 23, 2014 0:17:19 GMT -5
I thought he should have won because he should have been Bryan's first big title defense.
But then, we know how that went, right? f***ing Kane.
So to that end, it didn't really matter.
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