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Post by Error on Sept 13, 2016 18:28:37 GMT -5
I don't think what Owens is saying is that bad, it is the failure to let the face retort that is the issue. Owens talks about how Seth has done nothing but fail, but Owens lost the feud to Cena, lost the feud to Dean, lost the feud to Sami and needed Hunter to win the title, Seth, other than to Dean, beat Cena, beat Sami, won MITB and won the title on his own. Take what on the surface seems true and point out the flaw. "Roman shouldn't be in the ring with me" Roman could have won if not for Rusev. It goes back to Owens in NXT and talking about how if it wasn't personal between him and Sami then why did he need to injure and nearly cripple Sami instead of just pinning him or tapping him out. They need to point out the flaws in what Owens is saying or not let him say it.
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canal
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Post by canal on Sept 13, 2016 18:59:54 GMT -5
I think he has a tendency to do this. I also think it's been heavily reigned in by WWE, and the stuff he says now is not on the level of hurting anyone's credibility. Pointing out Rollins' losses without mentioning his clean title win is just a heel being disingenuous and insulting. Those are 2 of Owens' major traits. All heels aren't the same. All heels aren't the ones that build up their opponent, or be the one who thinks he's right, or be the most evil SOB ever. In the end, it's about entertaining the crowd. Kevin Owens does that while being a morally repugnant scumbag. Unless he has some kind of free reign that others don't have, maybe others need to work on being on his level from a verbal/character standpoint in order to entertain the crowd even more, rather than dumb down what Owens does. I don't think that's fair to the baby face character. Yes, every performer should try to elevate their persona and mic skill, but in the meantime I think the heel SHOULD dumb themselves down if their opponent isn't connecting as well with the crowd. They're not there to be liked, even if they have a significant fan base. Owens making his arguments more foolish wouldn't be that big a disservice to him. Besides, isn't wrestling supposed to be broad and forgo nuance? But when has Kevin Owens actually made someone who wasn't connecting look bad? He just does what he does, he's got a well-defined character that he absolutely nails every time he's on screen or in the arena. I don't think that's something to sacrifice for someone else. The people he's working with need to step up if they don't have that going for them yet. Part of the reason Owens is so over is because he interacts with the crowd more than anyone on the roster and he has an innate charisma to do it. Even if it does make some people like him, I don't think he should ever stop doing that. Instead, more people should interact more with the crowd.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Sept 13, 2016 20:07:25 GMT -5
I don't think that's fair to the baby face character. Yes, every performer should try to elevate their persona and mic skill, but in the meantime I think the heel SHOULD dumb themselves down if their opponent isn't connecting as well with the crowd. They're not there to be liked, even if they have a significant fan base. Owens making his arguments more foolish wouldn't be that big a disservice to him. Besides, isn't wrestling supposed to be broad and forgo nuance? But when has Kevin Owens actually made someone who wasn't connecting look bad? He just does what he does, he's got a well-defined character that he absolutely nails every time he's on screen or in the arena. I don't think that's something to sacrifice for someone else. The people he's working with need to step up if they don't have that going for them yet. Part of the reason Owens is so over is because he interacts with the crowd more than anyone on the roster and he has an innate charisma to do it. Even if it does make some people like him, I don't think he should ever stop doing that. Instead, more people should interact more with the crowd. I never said I wanted him to stop interacting with crowds, I just don't see the issue with him dumbing down his arguments. But it might just be personal taste with me, I like it a lot more when the baby face is able to completely tee off on the heel. "Tee off" doesn't necessarily mean "burial" or discrediting the heel, I mean more in the sense their argument can be refuted by anyone in the audience.
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canal
Samurai Cop
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Post by canal on Sept 13, 2016 20:09:08 GMT -5
But when has Kevin Owens actually made someone who wasn't connecting look bad? He just does what he does, he's got a well-defined character that he absolutely nails every time he's on screen or in the arena. I don't think that's something to sacrifice for someone else. The people he's working with need to step up if they don't have that going for them yet. Part of the reason Owens is so over is because he interacts with the crowd more than anyone on the roster and he has an innate charisma to do it. Even if it does make some people like him, I don't think he should ever stop doing that. Instead, more people should interact more with the crowd. I never said I wanted him to stop interacting with crowds, I just don't see the issue with him dumbing down his arguments. But it might just be personal taste with me, I like it a lot more when the baby face is able to completely tee off on the heel. "Tee off" doesn't necessarily mean "burial" or discrediting the heel, I mean more in the sense their argument can be refuted by anyone in the audience. Like Ric said, I think they should..un-dumb down the face's arguments instead. It's weird because a lot of it is writing, and it's hard to tell how much people improvise or come up with their own stuff.
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Post by angryfan on Sept 13, 2016 20:12:42 GMT -5
I'd rather see a heel cut down a babyface then get his than I would see a heel run their mouth and never get theirs, or a babyface do the same for that matter. Point blank, if you're going to talk smack and never get payback for doing so, the point, storyline, and fan interest is moot. It means NOTHING.
With Owens, he's running his mouth, and yet more often then not he either gets his commuppene or runs away disproving his argument. All the while, he maintains his argument that he is the better man. That's straight up old school Horsmen heel booking. Run your mouth, back it up sometimes, but always, even when unnecessary, take a short cut, and if you need to prolong a feud, duck and run thereby cementing yourself as a heel.
Give me that over what Stephanie has done, or the WWE's babyface booking for the majority of their top talent for the last 16 years any day of the week.
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Post by celtics543 on Sept 14, 2016 5:59:33 GMT -5
I guess my issue with this is that because no one has a character anymore they all have to go for insults that are true about each other. Telling someone that they can't put on an entertaining match isn't an insult that should be used. No tv show has a "heel" character that tells one of the "face" characters that they can't act. You have to attack the character that the person portrays in the ring.
For instance: No heel ever went after Hogan for having a skullett or mentioned when he dramatically reduced his size in the early 90's. If that happened today we'd get a *wink wink* steroid joke and people would be going after his hairline all the time. We'd probably also get a feud based on the fact that Hogan "couldn't" wrestle and wasn't doing high spots every two minutes. Those would have killed Hulkamania. Conversely in the Attitude Era, no heel knocked Steve Austin about his real life issues, it was always about the character.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not just Kevin Owens who does it but because of the lack of defined characters, promos are now just real people ripping on each other and trying to make each other look bad. The problem is that not everyone reads the internet and knows what workrate is. The ratings are going down because storylines don't exist, it's just week after week of guys coming out and saying "I'm better than you" "No you aren't", and the casual fans who want a storyline driven show are being left in the cold.
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Allie Kitsune
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Sept 14, 2016 6:58:25 GMT -5
I guess my issue with this is that because no one has a character anymore they all have to go for insults that are true about each other. Telling someone that they can't put on an entertaining match isn't an insult that should be used. No tv show has a "heel" character that tells one of the "face" characters that they can't act. You have to attack the character that the person portrays in the ring. For instance: No heel ever went after Hogan for having a skullett or mentioned when he dramatically reduced his size in the early 90's. If that happened today we'd get a *wink wink* steroid joke and people would be going after his hairline all the time. We'd probably also get a feud based on the fact that Hogan "couldn't" wrestle and wasn't doing high spots every two minutes. Those would have killed Hulkamania. Conversely in the Attitude Era, no heel knocked Steve Austin about his real life issues, it was always about the character. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not just Kevin Owens who does it but because of the lack of defined characters, promos are now just real people ripping on each other and trying to make each other look bad. The problem is that not everyone reads the internet and knows what workrate is. The ratings are going down because storylines don't exist, it's just week after week of guys coming out and saying "I'm better than you" "No you aren't", and the casual fans who want a storyline driven show are being left in the cold. Strangely enough, in an era where tearing down a person's real life is fair game, Rollins has actually got off pretty light. I don't know if any WWE guys took shots at him on social media about it or not, but nobody ever cut an on-TV promo on him about Zahra when she was an issue, nor about the Dick Pics, either.
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thecrusherwi
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Post by thecrusherwi on Sept 14, 2016 7:30:04 GMT -5
I guess my issue with this is that because no one has a character anymore they all have to go for insults that are true about each other. Telling someone that they can't put on an entertaining match isn't an insult that should be used. No tv show has a "heel" character that tells one of the "face" characters that they can't act. You have to attack the character that the person portrays in the ring. For instance: No heel ever went after Hogan for having a skullett or mentioned when he dramatically reduced his size in the early 90's. If that happened today we'd get a *wink wink* steroid joke and people would be going after his hairline all the time. We'd probably also get a feud based on the fact that Hogan "couldn't" wrestle and wasn't doing high spots every two minutes. Those would have killed Hulkamania. Conversely in the Attitude Era, no heel knocked Steve Austin about his real life issues, it was always about the character. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not just Kevin Owens who does it but because of the lack of defined characters, promos are now just real people ripping on each other and trying to make each other look bad. The problem is that not everyone reads the internet and knows what workrate is. The ratings are going down because storylines don't exist, it's just week after week of guys coming out and saying "I'm better than you" "No you aren't", and the casual fans who want a storyline driven show are being left in the cold. I very much agree with you, but to Hogan's credit, they did go after the hair thing quite a bit when he was Hollywood Hogan. That of course led to the famous match at Halloween Havoc 1996 where he wore a piece that he had for the 3 Ninja's move and made this face when Macho tore it off.... ![](https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/hulk-hogan-scalped.jpg?quality=90&w=650&h=493)
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Post by Hit Girl on Sept 14, 2016 8:04:33 GMT -5
Promos which draw attention to real weaknesses should never make it to air.
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Post by celtics543 on Sept 14, 2016 9:44:11 GMT -5
I guess my issue with this is that because no one has a character anymore they all have to go for insults that are true about each other. Telling someone that they can't put on an entertaining match isn't an insult that should be used. No tv show has a "heel" character that tells one of the "face" characters that they can't act. You have to attack the character that the person portrays in the ring. For instance: No heel ever went after Hogan for having a skullett or mentioned when he dramatically reduced his size in the early 90's. If that happened today we'd get a *wink wink* steroid joke and people would be going after his hairline all the time. We'd probably also get a feud based on the fact that Hogan "couldn't" wrestle and wasn't doing high spots every two minutes. Those would have killed Hulkamania. Conversely in the Attitude Era, no heel knocked Steve Austin about his real life issues, it was always about the character. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not just Kevin Owens who does it but because of the lack of defined characters, promos are now just real people ripping on each other and trying to make each other look bad. The problem is that not everyone reads the internet and knows what workrate is. The ratings are going down because storylines don't exist, it's just week after week of guys coming out and saying "I'm better than you" "No you aren't", and the casual fans who want a storyline driven show are being left in the cold. I very much agree with you, but to Hogan's credit, they did go after the hair thing quite a bit when he was Hollywood Hogan. That of course led to the famous match at Halloween Havoc 1996 where he wore a piece that he had for the 3 Ninja's move and made this face when Macho tore it off.... ![](https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/hulk-hogan-scalped.jpg?quality=90&w=650&h=493) True but Hogan was a heel. You can look bad as a heel and make it work with your character. Faces need to look like the cool guy in the room most of the time. Goes back to what Scott Hall used to say, the most over guys on the roster are the ones the men want to be like and the women want to be with. No one wants to be like the guy getting torn to shreds in the middle of the ring.
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Post by sportatorium on Sept 14, 2016 10:19:45 GMT -5
He's a heel champ who won the title in cheap fashion through interference from another heel. The guy they screwed was the top heel on the roster. Then, he got a huge face reaction both winning the title and during his entrance the following week.
He has to be an unrepentant jerk if they want him to get heel heat. He won't get a spark of it against Reigns & they aren't doing a great job presenting Rollins as a babyface.
The character will evolve and when he drops the belt to Finn or Sami, the reaction will be hopefully satisfying to the crowd at large.
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thecrusherwi
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Post by thecrusherwi on Sept 14, 2016 11:28:20 GMT -5
I very much agree with you, but to Hogan's credit, they did go after the hair thing quite a bit when he was Hollywood Hogan. That of course led to the famous match at Halloween Havoc 1996 where he wore a piece that he had for the 3 Ninja's move and made this face when Macho tore it off.... ![](https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/hulk-hogan-scalped.jpg?quality=90&w=650&h=493) True but Hogan was a heel. You can look bad as a heel and make it work with your character. Faces need to look like the cool guy in the room most of the time. Goes back to what Scott Hall used to say, the most over guys on the roster are the ones the men want to be like and the women want to be with. No one wants to be like the guy getting torn to shreds in the middle of the ring. You're very much correct. That's one of the things that sucks about the way wresting is presented now. Everyone knows it's fake. Even the characters themselves act like it's fake. The Babyfaces used to be able to get shit talked, like the way the Horsemen would run down their opponents, and then could get all their heat back by kicking the shit out of the heel. Now that everyone knows it's fake, there can be no in ring rebuttal that can make a babyface look good after getting run down.
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Post by celtics543 on Sept 14, 2016 11:43:59 GMT -5
True but Hogan was a heel. You can look bad as a heel and make it work with your character. Faces need to look like the cool guy in the room most of the time. Goes back to what Scott Hall used to say, the most over guys on the roster are the ones the men want to be like and the women want to be with. No one wants to be like the guy getting torn to shreds in the middle of the ring. You're very much correct. That's one of the things that sucks about the way wresting is presented now. Everyone knows it's fake. Even the characters themselves act like it's fake. The Babyfaces used to be able to get shit talked, like the way the Horsemen would run down their opponents, and then could get all their heat back by kicking the shit out of the heel. Now that everyone knows it's fake, there can be no in ring rebuttal that can make a babyface look good after getting run down. Ya, it's too bad that kayfabe is so dead. I think a lot of it is the tone downed violence as well. I understand the health reasons but if you could have a babyface retaliate by turning the heel into a bloody stump I think that would be over. Understandably you can't do that anymore but a little bit of blood went a long way in some of those matches.
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Bub (BLM)
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Post by Bub (BLM) on Sept 14, 2016 13:36:21 GMT -5
Pointing out Rollins' losses wasn't like he was pointing out flaws of the performer. The bad guy pointed out the good guy's pre-determined match outcomes. It's not like he said "You're a sloppy worker and injure everyone". I really don't see the harm in it. It's nowhere close to the same as Triple H making fun of Chris Masters for shrinking, or Cena and Punk outright cutting promos about Miz being a mediocre wrestler.
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bog
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Post by bog on Sept 14, 2016 14:59:14 GMT -5
I see where you're coming from, but I always see Owens' character as delusional anyway. He always starts out with a semi-valid point (I need to climb the ranks fast to support my family) and it devolves into a bunch of evil shit (I'm going to cripple my friend after the biggest moment of his life!).
So when he says stuff like "doesn't belong in the same ring as me," to me it's just him really thinking he is the best human being in the world who can do no wrong and wrestles better than everyone else and even HHH agrees. I do dislike "I wrestle better than this guy" promos though, so I get why that would turn people off.
Most importantly, he's not afraid to look like a chickenshit in the ring, so that helps.
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TGM
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Post by TGM on Sept 14, 2016 15:32:37 GMT -5
Wrestlers are supposed to trash talk their opponents right?
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Post by eJm on Sept 14, 2016 16:02:19 GMT -5
I've said it a longer way but I'll say it a shorter way now, not nessesarily discussing the topic just some of the points raised in the thread;
It's not the fault of kayfabe dying for the change in how wrestling builds are, it's the fault of WWE and other companies to not try and build a new version of kayfabe from the ashes and instead resorting to "HEY, YOU READ THIS ON MELTZER?! HERE IT IS IN TV FORM BECAUSE F*** SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF!"
We know it's a TV show. Instead of repeatedly telling us that, build a fictional universe that you can control instead of sometimes acting like we have to listen to The Bryan and Vinny Show to get more context.
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Post by The Beast Disincarnate on Sept 14, 2016 16:22:29 GMT -5
Cena made a career of burying his opponents with promos like that, while the other dude was too professional/not powerful enough to counter attack with the same pettiness.
Its like a boxing match where only one of the fighter could target the balls 3 times a round without having point deducted.
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Post by Tea & Crumpets on Sept 14, 2016 18:05:07 GMT -5
Promos which draw attention to real weaknesses should never make it to air. Without jumping too much on the "EXTREEEEEEME BRING BACK ECW" wagon, this is what Paul Heyman excelled at and the Rise & Fall of ECW documentary pointed out well. "Accentuate the positives, hide the negatives." He made guys like Sandman, 911, New Jack, the other Dudley Boyz, Balls Mahoney & Axl Rotten, into major company stars. INCREDIBLY limited performers. Heck even guys like Sabu- a spot monkey who couldn't talk, or Taz- an angry Oompa Loompa- two of their biggest ever names. Shane Douglas was a thoroughly mediocre-all-round talent and came off like a grade A star in ECW. He'd never do it but they could do worse than hire Heyman as head writer.
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The Ichi
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Post by The Ichi on Sept 14, 2016 18:18:17 GMT -5
I kind of prefer Walter White Kevin Owens. Aka being an asshole under the pretence of doing it for his family.
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