WWE has looked exactly the same for 10+ years

[DoubleDare]

The production is very stale.

Even from 1997 to 2000 you felt like it changed and was looking even better




To be honest I thought the 2002 set was a downgrade, the cool side vertical screens got replaced by weird jagged plastic looking pieces!? It got better looking when they replaced those with the little screens in like 2005.

[Tea & Crumpets]

Jan 7, 2019 23:32:52 GMT -5 1 Free Moon-Down with Burger said:

Jan 7, 2019 23:25:04 GMT -5 Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] said:

Cena left, came back, and the first thing he says to McIntyre is "Everyone always cuts the same tired promos on me"

So yeah it's such an endearaing way to sell your product is stale as dogshit. I really hope AEW gets a TV Deal.

It's true though. It's more fake and phony if they just put the fingers in the ears and say "Everything is perfectly fine." it atleast shows that one person in the company realizes everything is stuck in a rut.

But part of why it's stuck in a rut is because of him. Every time WWE had a chance to pass the torch to someone else they ended up deciding to instead keep the focus on Cena. Until Roman,who they managed to do so in a manner that made him severely damaged goods.
It's 2 years since Cena last held the world title, 4 since he was properly a main eventer, but honestly it feels like no time at all, because his actual run on top as the inarguable main guy was from 2005-2014. 9 years. Go back 9 years before Cena was on top, it's 1996, the Attitude Era hadn't even started, Bret and Shawn were the top guys.
Hell it blows my mind that Daniel Bryan has been in WWE for a month shy of 9 years now, again you go back 9 years before his debut and we're looking at the buildup to WM17. The only real difference between now and Bryan's debut is that there's now more ex-indy wrestlers on the roster- but what difference is there in any real presentation?

Nothing substantial has changed about WWE for so long now. The same people receieve the same pushes and same feuds. The Shield guys fight forever. Sami & KO will fight forever. Cena & Orton endlessly tried to get over their Dream Match(tm). Sheamus & Del Rio had enough rematches to fill a 3-disc set. Brock only ever faces the same couple of guys. We see the same matches over and over and over, the 'dream matches' they could build to invariably happen on a filler show, and even when someone gets the world title now, it just sort of feels like "...so what?". When Bret first ascended to the main event it coincided with a stylistic change to show the New Generation was here, Raw was just beginning, things had changed. When HBK beat Bret and started to take over as the new guy from 96-97, again the product began to shift its style & tone, when the Austin Era began so did the Attitude Era, when Austin turned heel on Rock in 2001 things changed in presentation again, in 2002 HHH and Lesnar became the top guys to coincide with a brand split and complete reimaging as WWE, you had new sets and Ruthless Aggression and the dying throes of Attitude Era-style crassness. But nobody winning the belt heralds a new era any more, because nothing is new. Nothing changes, and apart from Braun, everybody who is likely to win the title, has won it before. We've already seen them win it, and nothing changed.

[Cvslfc123]

HBK is right though, even in 2002 its crazy how much the company changed between the start and end of that year.

Also I can't get over the fact that 2014 was half a decade ago, it still feels very recent in terms of real life and WWE.

[Pushed to the Moon]

Everything blurs into one now. TV shows and PPVs all look the same. I can't differentiate one event from the next outside of WM (and even then it's hard to pinpoint exact things there for the last few years).

[Nr1Humanoid]

Having a top notch, professional staff with an idiot for a boss, doesn't help.

[David-Arquette was in WCW 2000]

I've hated the look of the shows since I got back in to WWE in 2010. Far too big, bright and clean.

It doesn't need to be as gritty as 1997 or as small as 1994 but there's got to be some way to freshen it up.

[The Blue Nova]

I think alot of people hit the nail on the head for example if you look at 87 then 90 then 93 then 96 then 99 its almost like different eras. But today the product in 2014 is not much different then today. WWE needs to change things

[The Ichi]

Jan 7, 2019 23:40:15 GMT -5 DoubleDare said:

The production is very stale.

Even from 1997 to 2000 you felt like it changed and was looking even better




To be honest I thought the 2002 set was a downgrade, the cool side vertical screens got replaced by weird jagged plastic looking pieces!? It got better looking when they replaced those with the little screens in like 2005.

98 - 2000 was a golden age for PPV set designs. Each one looked unique.

[Deleted]

A simple thing like changing the hard camera, so that the entrance appears on the right of the screen instead of the left, would certainly be something, but there's something also to be said about appearance and our expectations of the presentation. The more advanced they get with set design, the more impossible it seems to go back to what was before....because when they do, it looks cheap and lazy.

The points made about technological advancement not being so evident in the last few years versus over the course of the New Generation/Attitude Era are also very solid. The new tech that changes how they put a show together is already out there, it's little things that advance now.......which probably help them on their end and are things we don't see on this end; but at the same time if it's the same ol guys overseeing it, they probably can't or don't take advantage of everything they could to change the presentation in vast enough ways..

[HMARK Center]

Jan 7, 2019 23:20:27 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

Jan 7, 2019 23:10:15 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

No, but I really think they could do more with their ringside cameras to create a more cinematic presentation. Having a hard cam is pretty natural, but there are so many other things that could be done to make the talent and matches feel more important and impactful.

Like with Lucha Underground, I suppose? There's clearly a different filming technique done there compared to the standard WWE show.

Could the lack of change in the last decade be also down how the technology in broadcasting and production hasn't evolved as rapidly as it did back then? I watch a lot of old school IndyCar racing on YouTube, and the differences between a 1985 broadcast of a race and a 2000 broadcast of a race are staggering, but the differences between 2000 and 2015 are minimal at best.

Definitely a good point on video quality; I own a lot of old baseball games on DVD, and the change in look from the 80s games to the 90s and then the early 00s are marked, but now that we're in HD it's tougher for things to look different.

That said, I don't know if they need a Lucha Underground style, and maybe "cinematic" wasn't the right choice of word; they mostly just need to decide what they're trying to emphasize when they're doing their camera work, whether it's to create a more cinematic style or a more sports-like one, or even just a presentation style that emphasizes the importance of their stars, which is something I feel gets lost a lot these days.

Though whatever they do, shaky zoom in/zoom out cam needs to die.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

They have like 12 different TV shows. They ought to experiment with some of them to see what they can do differently.

[realist]

Jan 7, 2019 18:56:25 GMT -5 1 Free Moon-Down with Burger said:

I know there’s a lot of hullabaloo about WWE’s writing but maybe the problem with the show is that it’s look is old and boring.

I kinda thought about this when I was watching a random Raw from 2002 and HBK mentioned that he had been gone for 5 years. 5 years and WWE had changed drastically almost twice since Shawn left at the very beginning of the Attitude era.

How crazy is that? In 5 years the show looked and felt like decades had passed.

What happened 5 years before 2018? It’s like 75% the same guys in the same gimmicks!

I agree with your point here, but you have to understand that things are about to change and rapidly.  Why?  Because the McMahons are in charge of Raw and Smackdown now!!  I don't know what that old regime of people like Baron Corbin, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, Daniel Bryan, and Page were doing, but no more!!  Let's see what new ideas and production that that young whippersnapper Vince McMahon brings to the table!

[Bub (BLM)]

I agree. I think the aesthetic needs a complete overhaul. Visually speaking, the show looks bad. I mean, here's just a handful of issues:

There's too much light in the arena, which takes away from the atmosphere. Ever watched a concert where the house lights stayed on? No, because it looks bad. The only lights should be over the performers. I don't need to see the audience illuminated, and given recent attendance, leaving them dark would benefit presentation.

There are too many screens everywhere. I understand the entrance area, but now we've got animated crap all over the ring. It looks less like a combat area and more like a toy these days. On top of looking dumb, I've seen it hinder performers more than once.

Holy moly, the camera work and editing. This gets complained about all the time, but it's still a huge issue. I'm so tired of them using the cameras to try and "enhance" the action. The rapid back and forth cuts, the zoom in/zoom out crap, expecting wrestlers to awkwardly adjust for the hard camera, that's all got to stop. These guys and girls are busting ass to put on an incredible show, and it's being made to look like a complete mess by Dunn and his crew. Just pull back and film the action, don't interfere with it.

[A Platypus Rave]

Jan 7, 2019 23:35:52 GMT -5 @kn said:

I've never seen a time period in the WWE where it's become so hard to pinpoint when certain things happen and that's mostly due to the presentation, format, style, it's just weird. It's times like these that make me enjoy watching older WWE eras. Every once in a while I watch some New Generation stuff and love it because it's got a certain feel to it. Yeah some of the stuff isn't great but it's embedded in a certain time period that you can watch and go "ok, I know when THAT happened."

Today's different. This past decade's looked so similar it's hard to tell and I hate that. It's like a long running anime where there's no timeskip.

To be a little fair to the WWE the 2000s and the 2010s from a zeitgeist perspective have pretty much been the same.

The 80s and 90s for the most part couldn't be confused for the other (hell early and late 90s for that matter) but 2000-today there are some minor changes but not nearly as sweeping

[Hit Girl]

It can only change when Vince dies. That's the only time a new "era" will begin. Until that day we are still in the era that began in 2002.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Re:shakey cam

Someone on r/squaredcircle stabilized RAW footage.

Stabilized on the left (obviously)

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

Jan 8, 2019 15:51:22 GMT -5 YAKMAN is ICHIBAN said:

Re:shakey cam

Someone on r/squaredcircle stabilized RAW footage.

Stabilized on the left (obviously)

If this makes sense, the use of shaky cam makes the action feel less spontaneous and much more contrived. The action in the .gif on the left looks much more 'anything can happen!' because of how matter-of-fact the camera work is, that the camera crew is simply trying to capture this brawl as it happens. In an attempt to put me, as the viewer, 'right in the action!', the use of shaky cam actually does the opposite, and makes me feel distanced because the shaky cam itself is distracting me from the events transpiring onscreen.

[CeilingFan]

Very little has changed since 2015.

[Alice Syndrome]

the only difference is more screens all over the place and different stages. Otherwise it's been the same hideous overly bright BS since 2008

[Clutchhausen]

I'm in favor of bringing back the big RAW entrance ala 1996.