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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2017 13:42:05 GMT -5
So here's what I don't get. What everyone is saying is correct. They way they've booked Finn from the moment he was injured by Rollins until now has been mind boggling. The matches with Kane, the "feud" with Wyatt, eating pins in multi-man matches when there were clearly less meaningful options that could have done it. They have done everything in their power to turn Finn in to an afterthought. He should not be over enough for a feud with Lesnar. But he is.
That's what kills me. He IS over enough. On two separate occasions fans have interrupted Heyman promos in the last year with "WE WANT BALOR" chants. Paul Heyman himself has gone to bat for Finn because he knows how good he is. Until Braun went nuts on Hunter what drew the loudest crowd reaction in the SS main event? Finn and Nakamura. What drew the biggest reaction by far at that slapdash TLC show? Finn Balor and AJ Styles. When you go to any live show at any arena who is guaranteed to have one of the top 3 shirts at the event? Finn Balor.
Despite everything they've done to relegate Finn in to a bit player on their shows he has maintained his level of popularity. This is literally Vince having this conversation with his audience:
"That Balor kid just doesn't have it. He's not over enough for this."
To which the fans reply, "Um ... yeah, he is though?"To which Vince shakes his head and says, "No, you fans don't know who you like" and proceeds to probably feed Braun to Lesnar one more time at the Rumble. This is life as a fan in 2017. Isn't it just great?  |
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Post by Andy Martin on Nov 21, 2017 14:24:23 GMT -5
Big, if true No, not big Stupid. Stupid, if true And, since its from Meltzer, it really could go either way. |
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Rave
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Post by Rave on Nov 21, 2017 16:08:02 GMT -5
Vince, you're senile, go home.
Commentary keeps mentioning the "first-ever universal champ" thing, dude never got a rematch, it's a dangling plot thread, do the damn match and get it over with.
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nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
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Post by nisidhe on Nov 21, 2017 17:05:08 GMT -5
WWE may be banking on Balor's overness being resilient enough to get past all of this long-term. However, it's in a race against a number of forces over which it has no control. Most of the roster that came to prominence ten or more years ago is retiring or well past main-event status. Most of the legends, those that are left, are getting too old to be on Vince's beck and call anymore, and have largely moved on from their days with the company. New Japan is looking at making inroads at the North American market, while Vince is now pulling back from whatever plans he had for the company in India.
_If_ Vince has any intentions of keeping the company going after his death (which I'm not sure he does,) this should be a no-brainer - organically over talents regardless of the source of that overness, who are able to get over despite the shit that's being thrown at them by Creative - should be in the main event scene and should be wearing the titles. Finn Balor is one of those talents, and may well be the only one Vince hasn't completely ruined yet. There is a sense of urgency to whatever direction Vince wants to go with Balor, for two reasons. First, Balor is 36 and near the absolute pinnacle of his abilities, that intersection where physical prowess meets ring generalship, of workrate and charisma; WWE will not have ten years with him to kick around and thus needs to decide on their long-term plans for him _now_. Second, if New Japan is serious about expanding into North America, among their first steps will be in recruiting familiar stars to draw interest in their product stateside. WWE does _not_ want to lose the best and brightest talents to them, they're going to have to beat New Japan on salary and, quite possibly, give their talent more ownership and creative leeway. In short, Vince needs to be careful with how he books his indie darlings, including Finn.
That all assumes that Vince hasn't set out to burn down his wrestling operations to build up the film division, thus cutting the bottom out of the business entirely.
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Lancers
El Dandy
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Post by Lancers on Nov 21, 2017 17:18:37 GMT -5
I'll never forget the message boards back in 2001 when WWF purchased remnants of WCW.
Half the fans were going apeshit over the potential dream matches like Sting/Taker and Austin/Goldberg. The other half were saying that this is the worst case scenario because without competition, the product will become stale and suffer because Vince would be too stubborn to change because he had defeated his nemesis which makes him trust his instincts even when he's wrong.
The latter's been right since 2002.
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Nov 21, 2017 17:24:45 GMT -5
So here's what I don't get. What everyone is saying is correct. They way they've booked Finn from the moment he was injured by Rollins until now has been mind boggling. The matches with Kane, the "feud" with Wyatt, eating pins in multi-man matches when there were clearly less meaningful options that could have done it. They have done everything in their power to turn Finn in to an afterthought. He should not be over enough for a feud with Lesnar. But he is. That's what kills me. He IS over enough. On two separate occasions fans have interrupted Heyman promos in the last year with "WE WANT BALOR" chants. Paul Heyman himself has gone to bat for Finn because he knows how good he is. Until Braun went nuts on Hunter what drew the loudest crowd reaction in the SS main event? Finn and Nakamura. What drew the biggest reaction by far at that slapdash TLC show? Finn Balor and AJ Styles. When you go to any live show at any arena who is guaranteed to have one of the top 3 shirts at the event? Finn Balor. Despite everything they've done to relegate Finn in to a bit player on their shows he has maintained his level of popularity. This is literally Vince having this conversation with his audience: "That Balor kid just doesn't have it. He's not over enough for this." To which the fans reply, "Um ... yeah, he is though?" To which Vince shakes his head and says, "No, you fans don't know who you like" and proceeds to probably feed Braun to Lesnar one more time at the Rumble. This is life as a fan in 2017. Isn't it just great? Followed by Roman is booed out of every building he enters... "That man is still on his way to be our top face." |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2017 17:28:09 GMT -5
Gee, I wonder why.
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Post by Famous Rocking Chimes on Nov 21, 2017 17:39:35 GMT -5
It's almost as if having Balor getting punked out by Elias, Goldust, Bray Wyatt in an atrocious feud and a 50 year old Kane wasn't a good idea to build him up for BROCK LESNAR after all.
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H-Virus
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Post by H-Virus on Nov 21, 2017 18:04:17 GMT -5
I will agree with most of you that Vince is an idiot if he truly believes Finn isn't still over despite Vince's own shit booking, but at the same time I'm kind of glad this match isn't happening. Finn has absolutely no chance of winning the title back before Roman gets it at Mania, and knowing Vince, he'd probably have Finn lose as The Demon just to show how truly unstoppable Lesnar really is and make Roman's victory even more amazing by beating the guy who beat The Demon for the first time*.
*Vince: NXT? Who gives a shit about that!?!
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nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
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Post by nisidhe on Nov 21, 2017 23:21:06 GMT -5
I will agree with most of you that Vince is an idiot if he truly believes Finn isn't still over despite Vince's own shit booking, but at the same time I'm kind of glad this match isn't happening. Finn has absolutely no chance of winning the title back before Roman gets it at Mania, and knowing Vince, he'd probably have Finn lose as The Demon just to show how truly unstoppable Lesnar really is and make Roman's victory even more amazing by beating the guy who beat The Demon for the first time*. *Vince: NXT? Who gives a shit about that!?! I won't argue with you about the kayfabe ability of Finn Balor to take down and defeat Brock Lesnar: it's just a really stupid way to protect your hottest talents. If AJ Styles can have Lesnar's number (and was made to look like it on Sunday night), it would be logical to suggest that the man who beat Styles at TLC would have a similar shot, and possibly better, at toppling the Beast. That said, WWE would have done better to give Balor the I-C title shot and keep Roman on the hunt for the Universal title against Lesnar. Balor with the I-C title would have done much more to build it and make it important (by being active and also being, as it used to be, a defacto #1 contendership for the big belt) while keeping Finn in a positive holding pattern. But here's how narrow Vince's focus is on Roman going after Lesnar. There's no creative direction right now to justify Kane's presence apart from building up Strowman for...what, exactly? Strowman and Joe have already faced Lesnar, and lost: while one can claim that Strowman's grown in skill since then, it's still too soon for a rematch between them. Joe has nothing waiting in the offing for him. Who's Roman going to face in the run-up to the Rumble? The Raw roster feels incredibly thin near the top, with just about nobody for whom anyone can really cheer. The Universal title scene for probably the past year, until Sunday night, was akin to watching the real-time enactment of the f***ing Titanic sinking. You get to watch, but you tend to have no emotional connection to it until about two minutes before the end and the caption reads that there are still 1500 people on board and you realize that they're all going to die. Sorry - that might have been a little too dramatic, but you get the idea. And we have over four months of booking between now and Wrestlemania. Simply put, Lesnar needs to lose the title and go away - the sooner, the better, I think. It no longer matters who takes it off him, though we would probably love for Finn to do it because a) it will be a combination of No Way Out 2004 and Wrestlemania XX rolled into one for the fans, without the baggage that looking at both events now carries, and b) Finn Balor is, quite possibly, the strongest-booked whitemeat babyface on the Raw roster, if not in all of WWE. But Vince's plan is clearly to run the ship into the iceberg in the belief that nothing that happens in the ring will ever outsell the experience that is Wrestlemania weekend. In the meantime, Vince needs to fill the Raw well with both faces and heels, either by elevating those that have become little more than enhancement talent, by calling up more talent from NXT, or by recruiting more talent from outside, this last likely at a higher rate of pay than he would be comfortable with and at a time that he's just released other talent partly as a cost-cutting measure. |
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Post by Starshine on Nov 21, 2017 23:37:17 GMT -5
Outside of a couple of pet projects (see Roman Reigns) they have little to no ability to follow through with their what few long term story plans they may have. It leaves the product feeling schizophrenic and confused. Once you notice that pattern you realise nothing ever really matters, because anything important that you're seeing now can be rendered moot without so much as even an explanation. It becomes almost impossible to invest yourself into anything when you don't have any confidence of it going anywhere in the mid-to-long term.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Nov 21, 2017 23:40:32 GMT -5
Who knew that Sister Abigail bullshit would make people care less?
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nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
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Post by nisidhe on Nov 21, 2017 23:58:50 GMT -5
Who knew that Sister Abigail bullshit would make people care less? Compared to Balor's booking since the Rotundas and Roman got sick, the continuation of the feud with Wyatt and the introduction of Sister Abigail would have done far more to keep him over. At least you had a story to tell there, as silly as it may have seemed. |
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Post by El Cokehead del Knife Fight on Nov 22, 2017 0:10:21 GMT -5
Book a dude like a geek and then wonder why he isn't a credible threat to the top guy
gee I'm shocked that the WWE is so shortsighted
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Post by BatPunk on Nov 22, 2017 0:19:30 GMT -5
So, if not Balor, then who’s left that’s big enough star to take one F5 and look at the lights?
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Post by PsychoGoatee on Nov 22, 2017 0:41:41 GMT -5
Perhaps Rob Van Dam could make a surprise appearance on Raw, win a battle royale for the Royal Rumble title shot, and have a cool match against Brock?
If not Rob, how about a random push of Jeff Hardy? Woops, forgot he was out with an injury.
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Lancers
El Dandy
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Post by Lancers on Nov 22, 2017 0:46:41 GMT -5
So, if not Balor, then who’s left that’s big enough star to take one F5 and look at the lights? Probably Cena. He'll challenge him and they'll sell it as the last Cena/Brock match ever until the following PPV or something. |
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Post by madness50 on Nov 22, 2017 1:53:42 GMT -5
When things like this are reported, I used to take it with a grain of salt. Over the past couple of years, I now take these reports seriously due to the WWE’s booking. Vince needs to go now if he thinks someone like Finn Balor is not over. People buy his shirts and chant his name all the time at shows. Hell, watch his damn entrance to the ring lol. The problem with a man of Vince’s age, he will never admit he’s wrong and it is his way or the highway. He seems to be surrounded by people who kiss his ass constantly and don’t tell him when an idea is bad or makes no sense.
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Post by El Cokehead del Knife Fight on Nov 22, 2017 2:13:44 GMT -5
Perhaps Rob Van Dam could make a surprise appearance on Raw, win a battle royale for the Royal Rumble title shot, and have a cool match against Brock? If not Rob, how about a random push of Jeff Hardy? Woops, forgot he was out with an injury. Maybe Matt and use it as how he ends up broken. |
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Moppy
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Post by Moppy on Nov 22, 2017 3:28:35 GMT -5
Well first of all, if that's what Vince thinks, then I disagree with him. Finn is over enough for a programme with Lesnar. Just stop having him lose on TV for Christ's sake.
Secondly, in that case, then if I were them I'd go with Miz v Lesnar. They won't, but they should.
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