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Post by Feargus McReddit on Mar 27, 2019 1:20:37 GMT -5
Wrestling has changed. Back in the day, where you were on the card determined your payouts, and things like that. Nowadays you could be a job guy/gal and have guaranteed money flowing in. There will always be people who mark for titles and fame but you’ll probably see a lot more people just happy to be making good money and being on TV. On the flip side that kind of what it was like back in the day too. Like, even guys like Koko B Ware or Tito Santana were able to make good money for a long time after a good career in the territories and it was why the matches didn’t need to be that stellar. Ted Dibiase didn’t need to do as many ladder matches or Junkyard Dog didn’t need to do as many street fights for examples when you’re in the WWF making that “On the same tour as Hogan” cash. The mindset was that you put your body through hell in the lower leagues and your reward was to “coast” in the WWF. Nakamura had big matches on big stages on a consistent basis and his reward was to not do that as much in the WWE. Sure, it’s harder to do in a WWE with better work rate but at the same time...he earned the ability to coast with the career he had even if it should have been booked better.
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BigAl
Unicron
Hands of the Wicked Banana
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Post by BigAl on Mar 27, 2019 2:50:02 GMT -5
As a fan, im as mad as anyone with their booking. Asuka especially because I feel she deserves better. However, she..... Had done it all in Japan. Nothing left to prove there. Be some a big star right off the bat in NXT. Had an amazing run as probably the longest ever champ we’ll see in NXT. Opened the door for other amazing Joshi talents like Kairi and Io to make their mark. Won the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble. Performed at WrestleMania in a Championship match. Became Women’s Champion in the biggest, most popular wrestling company in the world. This is not a resume that you could not be proud of. With all of the bad bookings, the above is still mad impressive. Asuka will be legend in WWE for years to come. Hmmm I think vonce would induct alexa and carmella to HOF before them lol
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 3:31:05 GMT -5
Everyone is probably happy making money. It doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to their shit booking.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Mar 27, 2019 4:04:29 GMT -5
Everyone is probably happy making money. It doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to their shit booking. This kind of thing lies somewhere in the middle. The talents should probably be aware of the effects of their booking, as the better that is, the more money they can make. But, they gotta be careful and not go from simply being aware of things to being such a mark for oneself that they're constantly playing the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card and not getting anything done anywhere. And for us as fans, I know the salacious theories are usually the most popular ones, because we all have our belief of what Vince McMahon is "really" like and that creates the more interesting and passionate discussions, but often it's the simple explanations that are closest to the truth. Asuka didn't lose the belt because Vince hates Asian people, she lost because Vince got a WrestleMania ending visual in his head with the NXT Horsewomen that he wants to see acted out and shown to the world.
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Abdullah
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Post by Abdullah on Mar 27, 2019 4:51:20 GMT -5
Everyone is probably happy making money. It doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to their shit booking. This kind of thing lies somewhere in the middle. The talents should probably be aware of the effects of their booking, as the better that is, the more money they can make. But, they gotta be careful and not go from simply being aware of things to being such a mark for oneself that they're constantly playing the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card and not getting anything done anywhere. And for us as fans, I know the salacious theories are usually the most popular ones, because we all have our belief of what Vince McMahon is "really" like and that creates the more interesting and passionate discussions, but often it's the simple explanations that are closest to the truth. Asuka didn't lose the belt because Vince hates Asian people, she lost because Vince got a WrestleMania ending visual in his head with the NXT Horsewomen that he wants to see acted out and shown to the world. Would you agree at least that the main roster has never prioritized Asuka, keeping her off TV for consecutive weeks and only offering one feud, Mandy, for a reign that began in December? Maybe it’s not intentionally malicious racism. Vince is amusing so I hope, and like to think, that it isn’t. Maybe it’s just that her English isn’t the best and WWE struggle with that. But, like, WWE make decisions about how to book and those decisions reflect what they prioritize. Asuka ain’t it, as the fellow kids say. This isn’t an isolated incident.
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Post by Brian Suntan on Mar 27, 2019 4:54:19 GMT -5
I think it suits everyone in the business for fans to believe that the wrestlers care more about wins and losses or how they're being booked, than they probably really do.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Mar 27, 2019 5:08:12 GMT -5
Would you agree at least that the main roster has never prioritized Asuka, keeping her off TV for consecutive weeks and only offering one feud, Mandy, for a reign that began in December? Maybe it’s not intentionally malicious racism. Vince is amusing so I hope, and like to think, that it isn’t. Maybe it’s just that her English isn’t the best and WWE struggle with that. But, like, WWE make decisions about how to book and those decisions reflect what they prioritize. Asuka ain’t it, as the fellow kids say. This isn’t an isolated incident? I can't specifically say that they've NEVER prioritised her on the main roster, because they have given her featured moments on major shows, like winning the first women's Royal Rumble and a singles championship match at WrestleMania. In the year following that, though, once they'd cleared off the undefeated streak, they got more careless about her booking, which led to the matches with Carmella and then just being a body in a tag team with Naomi for a bit. They built her back up a little bit and gave her the title in the TLC match which, the fact that she won it is something they can never take away from her, and then got the clean tapout on Lynch at the Rumble and it's like... OK, now we're off to the races here. And that was when they stopped prioritising her and didn't put her on TV for the run through to Elimination Chamber, had that weird mini-feud with Rose for Fastlane and... here we are, I guess, hot favourite for the battle royal. Ideally, once Lynch made her intentions clear that she was challenging for the RAW belt, that's where she should have stayed to build that match up, and same with Charlotte once they added her to that mix. That would have given them enough time to build up someone, ANYONE, for Asuka to defend against at WrestleMania. But they've been really wishy-washy about the brand split the last couple of months anyway (probably just getting it out of their system before it becomes a hard split when SmackDown goes to FOX), and with them doing that build on RAW and SmackDown, plus the other SmackDown WM angles they were building with the men (because she wasn't just competing for time with the other women, but the male roster too, many of whom became legit missing people at points)... that's where I'd start agreeing with you.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Mar 27, 2019 5:16:35 GMT -5
Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Nakamura the first guy to win the Royal Rumble in like the last two decades who. Is not a former World Champ or a future world champion? Just counting WWE then he's the first since Lex Luger, the first undisputed winner without a world title since Big John Studd.
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Post by abjordans on Mar 27, 2019 5:28:32 GMT -5
I think they could be using Nakamura better, but I don’t think Asuka has been booked bad at all.
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BigAl
Unicron
Hands of the Wicked Banana
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Post by BigAl on Mar 27, 2019 5:32:41 GMT -5
Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Nakamura the first guy to win the Royal Rumble in like the last two decades who. Is not a former World Champ or a future world champion? Just counting WWE then he's the first since Lex Luger, the first undisputed winner without a world title since Big John Studd. Well at least he can go down in the history books for that I guess
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Post by Prince Petty on Mar 27, 2019 5:50:39 GMT -5
Hopefully they're making a load of money with the WWE, because if they left Japan to explore creative opportunities in the WWE they must be disappointed.
I don't really care about Nakamura, and I can understand why the WWE aren't that interested in pushing him hard. But Asuka has genuine star power that has transcended the language barrier. She has amazing presence and physical charisma, and the fans love her.
If she doesn't get a big win back over Charlotte, then I think we can conclude that she's never going to be taken seriously on the main roster.
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Abdullah
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Post by Abdullah on Mar 27, 2019 5:51:26 GMT -5
That's a fair summary, EoE: Well There's Your Problem. But there's a way in which you could argue that her every accomplishment has either been out of necessity (winning the TLC) or in order to ultimately lift up someone else (her Rumble win going to Charlotte in the end, her big feud with Carmella being more about Ellsworth). They obviously recognize she's a versatile talent; they're not using Maria as a placeholder. But that doesn't mean they value Asuka for her own sake either. More broadly, I'd like to caution against some of the definitive statements showing up in this thread. In the past, these are all things that have been argued on FAN and presumably elsewhere online. What? No, no. Cody loves being Stardust! And what, you think if he didn't that they would deny such a simple request from Dusty's son? In fact, they did deny such a simple request. Then Cody went off and started AEW. We all laugh about it now. What? You think Neville is unhappy being the king of 205 Live? No, no. He gets to wrestle long matches and who knows? He might be called up to Smackdown!
Reportedly, Neville hated joining the purple brand from day one which led him to quit in the end. Yes, CM Punk left on bad terms. But it wasn't that bad! He talked it over with Vince. I'm guilty of believing this one too. CM Punk cleared that one up for us himself. There's a whole space between 'swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck and being gradually more discontent but toughing it out for reasons that are complex and varied.' It's not binary. Just because these professional wrestlers are being professional and doing their jobs doesn't mean we know how they feel. And even if they were happy, that doesn't stand the change that their booking is faulty. I'm sure your average CBS star is ecstatic about the steady paycheck that comes from their long-running show. It doesn't mean those shows are any good.
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Woo
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Post by Woo on Mar 27, 2019 5:57:45 GMT -5
When did Asuka have kids? I thought I've been following her career closely and had no idea she ever took time off long enough to have children.
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lucas_lee
Hank Scorpio
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Post by lucas_lee on Mar 27, 2019 6:06:35 GMT -5
When did Asuka have kids? I thought I've been following her career closely and had no idea she ever took time off long enough to have children. She keeps that and her husband out of the limelight
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Crappler El 0 M
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Mar 27, 2019 9:42:02 GMT -5
Asuka was the first Japanese woman to have a successful, sustained run in a major U.S. company with TV/PPV. I'm not discounting what Bull Nakano did in WWF where she won the old version of the Women's Championship, but Asuka has been a big part of WWE/NXT for four years now. She had a featured match at last year's WrestleMania, a long undefeated streak (never losing the NXT Women's Championship), and is the only person to pin/submit Becky since her huge push. She's not the same level or priority to the company as Charlotte or Ronda, but that's fine. I think her success in WWE may have led WWE to be more open to signing more Japanese women. Charlotte was already a big star in WWE, but Asuka has helped give Charlotte even more credibility.
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Lupin the Third
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Post by Lupin the Third on Mar 27, 2019 9:42:51 GMT -5
When did Asuka have kids? I thought I've been following her career closely and had no idea she ever took time off long enough to have children. She keeps that and her husband out of the limelight And if anyone blabs, she sends her Royal Guards to murder them. She is the Empress of Tomorrow, afterall.
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Crappler El 0 M
Dalek
Never Forgets an Octagon
I'm a good R-Truth.
Posts: 58,479
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Mar 27, 2019 9:44:10 GMT -5
She keeps that and her husband out of the limelight And if anyone blabs, she sends her Royal Guards to murder them. She is the Empress of Tomorrow, afterall. Charlotte let it slip last year in an interview around Mania time.
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Dub H
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Post by Dub H on Mar 27, 2019 10:42:54 GMT -5
Everyone is probably happy making money. It doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to their shit booking. This kind of thing lies somewhere in the middle. The talents should probably be aware of the effects of their booking, as the better that is, the more money they can make. But, they gotta be careful and not go from simply being aware of things to being such a mark for oneself that they're constantly playing the "That doesn't work for me, brother" card and not getting anything done anywhere. And for us as fans, I know the salacious theories are usually the most popular ones, because we all have our belief of what Vince McMahon is "really" like and that creates the more interesting and passionate discussions, but often it's the simple explanations that are closest to the truth. Asuka didn't lose the belt because Vince hates Asian people, she lost because Vince got a WrestleMania ending visual in his head with the NXT Horsewomen that he wants to see acted out and shown to the world. I wont say that Vince hates Asian. But everything comes down that Vince doesn't think an Asian person can be a top star in America. I would say that is 80% of the reason Charlotte went over Asuka the first time.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2019 14:45:30 GMT -5
Here's what Meltzer said about Nakamura on WOR. Yep. Exactly what most of us have been saying. He's cruising.
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Bo Rida
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Post by Bo Rida on Mar 27, 2019 14:49:59 GMT -5
I am not a wrestler but I imagine as you grow up in the business you become less of a mark about your booking until it starts affecting your paychecks. I am sure Asuka is not happy about losing the belt but at the end of the day it's a job like anything else. A job you retire from early though so a wrestlers legacy affects their paychecks for the rest of their life, good booking can be the difference between a constant stream of royalties or having to set up your own wrestling superstar booth. I assume these two are set for life though. I think Asuka is probably cool with her run despite the flaws. Nakamura slightly less so but probably still pretty happy.
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