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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 19, 2021 7:55:46 GMT -5
WWE has become the NFT of televised entertainment: An openly naked pyramid scheme masquerading as art that’s designed to make the rich richer and, despite being reviled by large, continues to succeed in bewildering fashion.
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Nov 19, 2021 8:05:57 GMT -5
IDK they gave him a pretty big debut with him taking Angle to the limit and Undertaker giving him the rub afterwards. Him, Rey, and Edge were presented as the three big babyfaces of the future on Smackdown that Summer. He did flounder a bit in the late summer/early fall but you can say that for a lot of guys on Smackdown in 2002 as I remember there not being a lot of fluidity in their booking mainly in regards to the midcard that year. Like they would have Batista get wins in consecutive weeks over Orton and Mark Henry only to then randomly lose to Rikishi who then in turn would would lose to D-Von, D-Von would then lose to Faarooq but then come back and beat Cena the week after only for Cena then to beat Rikish the week after. It was just kind of a muddled mess with a bunch of dudes just alternating between winning and losing while not gaining any momentum. Also at the end of the day Cena had what like maybe 1 month where he was on the backburner? He beat Jericho at Vengeance in July and then I think he turned heel on Kidman after they lost in the tag tournament which was in September I think and then the rapper gimmick started in October after he dressed like Vanilla Ice for that Halloween Party segment. I mean there was probably a brief period where maybe they were down on him a bit when he losing to guys like D-Von or whataver but I don't think he was in danger of being released or anything like that. They didn't have a ton of patience for guys back then but they didn't just release them with a drop of hat like they do either. They probably would've still kept him around and at least a tried with him for a few more years and gave him different chances with different gimmicks to see if anything stuck. I don't know, like, going from having matches with Angle and Jericho to being a side piece in a tag title tournament and feuding with Kidman seems like a extreme plummit, no disrespect to Kidman and the like. And my overall point is, really, they did have patience for people. Cena maybe not but Batista was still big and Orton was still Bob Orton's son so they were going to get chance after chance but people would stick around and they'd try stuff with them. If, say, La Resistance split up during the draft, you couldn't guarantee me in 2021 WWE that either Sylvan Granier or Rene Dupree would have lasted in the company any longer than the day after under today's WWE because nobody would know what to do with them or be allowed to do so. It was a fall off for sure but the team and feud with Kidman was still designed to set up a heel turn for him and give him something to do. Might have just simply been more of a case of them probably thinking he wasn't quite ready and deciding to take it slower with him instead. I don't think it was any inclination of them giving up on him or anything. If anything Batista despite his size who was the one who likely was the closest to being released but was saved by both Flair and Triple H being high on him. He lost his spot in Evolution due to injury and then somehow while he was rehabbing injured himself even more when he was jogging with his wife. Batista himself said that he thought for sure they were going to fire him. After Orton came back (him and Batista both got hurt in the same match right after they started Evolution) they were ready to move on from with Batista with Jindrak in his spot but Flair and Hunter went to bat for him and he still had his spot when he finally returned in fall of 03.
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Nov 19, 2021 8:08:02 GMT -5
I don't know, like, going from having matches with Angle and Jericho to being a side piece in a tag title tournament and feuding with Kidman seems like a extreme plummit, no disrespect to Kidman and the like. And my overall point is, really, they did have patience for people. Cena maybe not but Batista was still big and Orton was still Bob Orton's son so they were going to get chance after chance but people would stick around and they'd try stuff with them. If, say, La Resistance split up during the draft, you couldn't guarantee me in 2021 WWE that either Sylvan Granier or Rene Dupree would have lasted in the company any longer than the day after under today's WWE because nobody would know what to do with them or be allowed to do so. It was a fall off for sure but the team and feud with Kidman was still designed to set up a heel turn for him and give him something to do. Might have just simply been more of a case of them probably thinking he wasn't quite ready and deciding to take it slower with him instead. I don't think it was any inclination of them giving up on him or anything. If anything Batista despite his size who was the one who likely was the closest to being released but was saved by both Flair and Triple H being high on him. He lost his spot in Evolution due to injury and then somehow while he was rehabbing injured himself even more when he was jogging with his wife. Batista himself said that he thought for sure they were going to fire him. After Orton came back (him and Batista both got hurt in the same match right after they started Evolution) they were ready to move on from with Batista with Jindrak in his spot but Flair and Hunter went to bat for him and he still had his spot when he finally returned in fall of 03. Fair enough, it had been, like, 20 years since I last watched Smackdown at that time period so I could be wildly wrong about everything.
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Bo Rida
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Post by Bo Rida on Nov 19, 2021 8:13:31 GMT -5
I have no idea who WWE are going to turn to in a few years time to be their new main players. Big E seems like the only dude presently that is going to make that step up to 'one of the faces of the company'-type level. Bianca too for the womens division. NXT 2.0 is going to have so many wash outs; they're basically throwing all their shit at the wall and praying two or three stick and make it big like Cena/Orton/Batista in 2002-2005 or the Shield in 2012-2014. Cause those two big hits for them have carried them through the last 15 years. EDIT: I forgot to say the Horsewomen too; their other big hit in terms of discovering and raising new talent to massive superstars. Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. The Horsewomen can't go on forever. It'll be interesting to see what kind of focus the division will get as they start to leave. I think they'd be happy with two big stars heading up the division and the rest essentially making up the reduced numbers.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Nov 19, 2021 8:24:29 GMT -5
It was a fall off for sure but the team and feud with Kidman was still designed to set up a heel turn for him and give him something to do. Might have just simply been more of a case of them probably thinking he wasn't quite ready and deciding to take it slower with him instead. I don't think it was any inclination of them giving up on him or anything. If anything Batista despite his size who was the one who likely was the closest to being released but was saved by both Flair and Triple H being high on him. He lost his spot in Evolution due to injury and then somehow while he was rehabbing injured himself even more when he was jogging with his wife. Batista himself said that he thought for sure they were going to fire him. After Orton came back (him and Batista both got hurt in the same match right after they started Evolution) they were ready to move on from with Batista with Jindrak in his spot but Flair and Hunter went to bat for him and he still had his spot when he finally returned in fall of 03. Fair enough, it had been, like, 20 years since I last watched Smackdown at that time period so I could be wildly wrong about everything. I'm looking at Cagematch records (my rankings don't go back to 2002... yet)... After the Jericho PPV match, Cena does go on a decent winning run over assorted lower to mid-level heels of the day like Test, Rico, Reverend D-Von and Chavo Guerrero, as well as some scattered tag matches where he's a partner in the match but doesn't get the fall (probably... he ain't pinning Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit OR Eddie Guerrero in 2002, folks). If there was any significant tumble down the card by the time of his heel turn, it was very, very brief. The only singles matches he loses after the Jericho match were to D-Von (a rematch from the earlier win) and to world champion Brock Lesnar. There's a month or two where he's heel but not rapping yet, and even then he only drops like three matches to Billy Kidman once and Rikishi twice, and a tag match on a UK PPV.
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Post by Dave the Dave on Nov 19, 2021 8:39:11 GMT -5
Dana Brooke is trending on Twitter. I thought maybe she got axed. Apparently it's people asking WHY she isn't released. I like Tegan Nox too guys, but must we be dicks?
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Post by dablueboy on Nov 19, 2021 8:49:48 GMT -5
Dana Brooke is trending on Twitter. I thought maybe she got axed. Apparently it's people asking WHY she isn't released. I like Tegan Nox too guys, but must we be dicks? Second nature to some people, same as people openly celebrating Nia’s release last month and the reactions to Natalya being named on the SD Survivor Series team despite doing next to nothing since dropping the Womens Tag belts
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2021 8:50:56 GMT -5
Dana Brooke is trending on Twitter. I thought maybe she got axed. Apparently it's people asking WHY she isn't released. I like Tegan Nox too guys, but must we be dicks? Doesn’t help matters that the last couple of times Dana has shown up on TV her gimmick has basically been “have Corey Graves openly wonder why she hasn’t been fired yet.”
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Post by Tenshigure on Nov 19, 2021 8:58:46 GMT -5
Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. I'm not going to point to specific names out of respect for the talent behind the names, but over 75% of those names do not have the safety you'd like to believe. Seriously, I can only agree with four of those names being "safe".
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Nov 19, 2021 9:00:38 GMT -5
Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. I'm not going to point to specific names out of respect for the talent behind the names, but over 75% of those names do not have the safety you'd like to believe. Seriously, I can only agree with four of those names being "safe". Yeah, like, if someone like Bray or Braun weren't safe, I can't see many of those people being safe. The precedence has been set now.
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clifford
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Post by clifford on Nov 19, 2021 9:31:16 GMT -5
I have no idea who WWE are going to turn to in a few years time to be their new main players. Big E seems like the only dude presently that is going to make that step up to 'one of the faces of the company'-type level. Bianca too for the womens division. NXT 2.0 is going to have so many wash outs; they're basically throwing all their shit at the wall and praying two or three stick and make it big like Cena/Orton/Batista in 2002-2005 or the Shield in 2012-2014. Cause those two big hits for them have carried them through the last 15 years. EDIT: I forgot to say the Horsewomen too; their other big hit in terms of discovering and raising new talent to massive superstars. Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. Yeah everyone listed here are top talents that still have a good decade before being past their peak, but outside of Breaker and Steveson, they are already established main players/pretty close to it. None of them are creating new fans for the WWE. I was talking about finding that pool of talent of 2-4 bonafide superstars to build the company around, ala Orton/Cena/Batista, The Shield, The Horsewomen. Breaker and Steveson could absolutely be those dudes, lets see. I guess my main point is this; how are WWE gonna find their next batch of main event players if their only strategy is to spam developmental green wrestlers from NXT 2.0 to the main roster, all the while releasing people whenever they want/without any good reason other than because they don't see any value in them, even though they aren't giving the same people any real opportunities.
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Post by King Devitt and the Woke Mob on Nov 19, 2021 9:36:24 GMT -5
Just saw this, and wow...
My heart goes out to Tegan and Drake. Tegan, they dropped the ball on even before she was injured again. At one point she was female KOR, for a small moment in time she was nothing but potential. And Spud's twitter video reminded me why years ago, for a time, he was the sexiest dude in wrestling. There's a lot to be said for confidence and swagger.
But they released the ENTIRETY of Hit Row...like this isn't budget cuts, this is sending a message. Like when Bray was the only one released, that was clearly a message being sent. So is this. And they call them up, just to fire them, so the 30 days goes to 90...that's some calculated bullshit right there.
At this rate AEW's going to HAVE to split into two roster's and have Dynamite and Rampage be their Raw and Smackdown roster equivalents. It's already over-crowded as it is. They're not going to, ofc, but it would help the situation, and if there's one company I can trust would do two separate roster's correctly, it's them.
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Post by The Creepo Man on Nov 19, 2021 9:37:52 GMT -5
Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. The Horsewomen can't go on forever. It'll be interesting to see what kind of focus the division will get as they start to leave. I think they'd be happy with two big stars heading up the division and the rest essentially making up the reduced numbers. King: “Bra and panties! Bra and panties!”
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Post by polarbearpete on Nov 19, 2021 9:38:25 GMT -5
Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. I'm not going to point to specific names out of respect for the talent behind the names, but over 75% of those names do not have the safety you'd like to believe. Seriously, I can only agree with four of those names being "safe". That wasn’t the question I was answering. It was who could be the next wave of main eventers
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Nov 19, 2021 9:41:03 GMT -5
WWE is a performance art exhibit about dementia.
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Post by polarbearpete on Nov 19, 2021 9:41:07 GMT -5
Breakerr. Big E. Woods. McIntyre. Montez. Riddle. Priest. Reigns. Rollins. Stevenson. Bianca. Becky. Bayley. Charlotte. Sasha. Ripley. Yeah everyone listed here are top talents that still have a good decade before being past their peak, but outside of Breaker and Steveson, they are already established main players/pretty close to it. None of them are creating new fans for the WWE. I was talking about finding that pool of talent of 2-4 bonafide superstars to build the company around, ala Orton/Cena/Batista, The Shield, The Horsewomen. Breaker and Steveson could absolutely be those dudes, lets see. I guess my main point is this; how are WWE gonna find their next batch of main event players if their only strategy is to spam developmental green wrestlers from NXT 2.0 to the main roster, all the while releasing people whenever they want/without any good reason other than because they don't see any value in them, even though they aren't giving the same people any real opportunities. If you say those talents have close to a decade left still, I don’t think the next wave needs to already be here. Seems like plenty of talent. There’s also going to be new main eventers potentially created by AEW over the next 10 years that may create bidding wars. They could also reverse course on who they want to hire and develop at any point.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2021 9:42:28 GMT -5
Taya just retweeting all Impact , AAA and LU and refering to her and Johnny as The Mundos warms my LU heart .
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Post by polarbearpete on Nov 19, 2021 9:43:39 GMT -5
What gets me from a viewer standpoint, how can you get invested in a show where they have people debut and have storylines and angles one week and then the next, they're just gone with no real explanation on television? Like, even if it happens on other shows, it at least can happen in advance enough for viewers to be informed and feel sentimental about it but are WWE going to address why Hit Row are suddenly not in the tag team battle royale on Sunday? Or even on Smackdown tonight? Because they haven't for anyone else so far. They’re definitely not going to address on air the firing of their talent. An aside, but are they doing that battle royal again this year? I haven’t seen that
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Nov 19, 2021 9:51:23 GMT -5
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Nov 19, 2021 9:53:30 GMT -5
What gets me from a viewer standpoint, how can you get invested in a show where they have people debut and have storylines and angles one week and then the next, they're just gone with no real explanation on television? Like, even if it happens on other shows, it at least can happen in advance enough for viewers to be informed and feel sentimental about it but are WWE going to address why Hit Row are suddenly not in the tag team battle royale on Sunday? Or even on Smackdown tonight? Because they haven't for anyone else so far. They’re definitely not going to address on air the firing of their talent. An aside, but are they doing that battle royal again this year? I haven’t seen that Clearly that's not what I meant, come on now. I mean more kayfabe reasoning like, "Oh no, ______ was taken out backstage and will be out for some time" sort of thing like they did with other people in the past. Someone was saying they did but I guess they might have been mistaken.
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