WWE's Heat Problem Redux

[Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story]

Nov 15, 2021 23:28:17 GMT -5 EoE: Workin On My Night Cheese said:

Man, even the threads are getting stale.

I mean, that’s not to say we’re wrong here, we’re not, but what’s to say that hasn’t already been said? I’ll come in with something about “Taking the wrong lessons from the Cena/Reigns backlash”, cjb will come in all guns blazing before steering it back to how good AEW is, HMark and/or Mothman will come in with something really well-written and intelligent-sounding, polarbearpete will try and find silver linings bless his heart, pretty much everyone else will grouse and grumble and at the end of it we’re talking about food somehow while Vince McMahon keeps getting richer and changing nothing. This is what we do.

The reason why I think I even stuck around with WWE for so long was the fun interactions on the board here but it's at the point now where even that can't keep me watching. There's just too much other good stuff to give up my Monday or Friday nights. I'm still going to stick around the RAW and SD threads though, especially for those food recommendations.

[Fade]

Nov 15, 2021 23:49:00 GMT -5 Gawk Rivers said:

Nov 15, 2021 23:28:17 GMT -5 EoE: Workin On My Night Cheese said:

Man, even the threads are getting stale.

I mean, that’s not to say we’re wrong here, we’re not, but what’s to say that hasn’t already been said? I’ll come in with something about “Taking the wrong lessons from the Cena/Reigns backlash”, cjb will come in all guns blazing before steering it back to how good AEW is, HMark and/or Mothman will come in with something really well-written and intelligent-sounding, polarbearpete will try and find silver linings bless his heart, pretty much everyone else will grouse and grumble and at the end of it we’re talking about food somehow while Vince McMahon keeps getting richer and changing nothing. This is what we do.

In my head it's still 2016 and I'm like god why's this wisdomwizard f*** so OPTIMISTIC 

I miss wisdomwizard 😢.

[smokinvokoun86]

It feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Who is being built up to rise up to finally defeat Roman and become the next great star. Who is WWE’s Adam Page. To me it was Big E, but instead of building him up to win the big one. He won MITB and ran the the other show and cashed it in. While that was a big deal and he deserves to be champ, it’s not really the greatest babyface move.

And that still doesn’t solve the Roman problem, because he’s beaten everyone. I guess Drew could beat him, but that would still be anti-climatic. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else.

[Bang Bang Bart]

With all this talk about Hangman, I can't even begin to imagine how badly WWE would've booked his journey.

[WIENERS=$$$]

Nov 16, 2021 11:16:06 GMT -5 Bang Bang Bart said:

With all this talk about Hangman, I can't even begin to imagine how badly WWE would've booked his journey.

Instead of "Cowboy Shit" becoming a hot catchphrase, Vince would make it literal in that Page would piss and shit himself during every match.

Then he would be released after a year.

[Push R Truth]

Nov 16, 2021 11:16:06 GMT -5 Bang Bang Bart said:

With all this talk about Hangman, I can't even begin to imagine how badly WWE would've booked his journey.

Changed name to Perry Westman. Debut on NXT as a bad ass guy in trunks who wrestles good. Main roster debut 2 months later, now just called Westman. Now wears a fedora and a pirate shirt. He now does a fraction of his NXT moveset. Jobs out to the Dirty Dawgs over the course of 4 weeks. Isn't seen for 2 months. Returns, but is now called Eastman. His fedora is now a beanie and his pirate shirt is now a tshirt with a cartoon dog saying "Stand Up for WWE". Gets beaten down by Jey Uso four shows in a row. Released after 3-4 months of no additional TV time.

[polarbearpete]

Nov 16, 2021 10:20:19 GMT -5 smokinvokoun86 said:

It feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Who is being built up to rise up to finally defeat Roman and become the next great star. Who is WWE’s Adam Page. To me it was Big E, but instead of building him up to win the big one. He won MITB and ran the the other show and cashed it in. While that was a big deal and he deserves to be champ, it’s not really the greatest babyface move.

And that still doesn’t solve the Roman problem, because he’s beaten everyone. I guess Drew could beat him, but that would still be anti-climatic. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else.

Drew or Brock are the short-term answers (as in one of them will get a 2022 title reign). But Roman will get it back before the big LA showdown with Rock in 2023. Long-term, maybe Breakerr?

[Bang Bang Bart]

Nov 16, 2021 11:42:06 GMT -5 polarbearpete said:

Nov 16, 2021 10:20:19 GMT -5 smokinvokoun86 said:

It feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Who is being built up to rise up to finally defeat Roman and become the next great star. Who is WWE’s Adam Page. To me it was Big E, but instead of building him up to win the big one. He won MITB and ran the the other show and cashed it in. While that was a big deal and he deserves to be champ, it’s not really the greatest babyface move.

And that still doesn’t solve the Roman problem, because he’s beaten everyone. I guess Drew could beat him, but that would still be anti-climatic. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else.

Drew or Brock are the short-term answers (as in one of them will get a 2022 title reign). But Roman will get it back before the big LA showdown with Rock in 2023. Long-term, maybe Breakerr?

Given they had Bronn show up as part of the European tour loop with other main roster stars, there’s probably a lot of people high on him.

[kingoftheindies]

I think there are many reasons for this. For one the disconnect between developmental in the main roster. Who Triple H wanted to push didn't seem to mesh with guys and girls Vince would like.


But Lance Storm mentioned issues he saw with creative even back to when he was starting to age out as a performer. WWE would rather try the same thing with new faces then come up with new ideas. So WWE will just keeping using old ideas with new people until it sticks

[Final Countdown Jones]

People talk a lot about the damage that the Reign of Terror did, and all that's true. The Reign of Terror was absolutely destructive and set a lot of bad precedents WWE has been chasing ever since. But there's also no denying that they didn't also book the destruction of Triple H's kingdom in service of putting over both Orton and Batista, on top of the Benoit title win in there. The booking patterns of a classic NWA heel were there, and the broad strokes of them became way too self-indulgent and hamstrung by some really, really bad ideas like the Booker T feud, but the idea was there. That's more than you can say for most of WWE's HEAT today. It's directionless and lacking in any real plan for who it gets to pay off for, let alone when or if it gets to pay off. Things just happen and everyone moves on because WWE has object permanence issues with continuity, and it has a really bad net effect on watching the show overall because fans are able to remember more of the show than the senile old man writing it at random. Their default mode is just stockpiling all this heat and this audience resentment but failing to properly vent it or offer the moments of catharsis that the audience needs, so it just escalates and festers, and makes for dreary television viewing because all the proper flow the narrative should have has been destroyed.

It's kinda f***ed that you can take a moment in the company's history that is looked at as "the moment that drove me away for years" for so many people, and yet what they're doing now is just a less constructive version of that.

[sportatorium]

We think about it more deeply than they do. Their TV doesn't matter as long as they get wrestlers on that their network partners want to see. The major PPV events aren't connected to TV that much and the minor PPV's are glorified episodes of Raw or Smackdown. Reigns, Becky and Charlotte are the only ones that any real effort is put behind. Maybe Seth. Unless one is the type of fan that just wants to see as much wrestling as possible, the shows are completely skippable.

Is anyone sitting around saying, OMG I can't wait to see what that dastardly Adam Pearce does next and who will eventually make him pay for it? Probably not.

[Deleted]

The current experience of watching WWE is like if the first 23 films in the MCU led up to Infinity War, and they just ended every story on that huge downer, then went forward pretending like it none of it had even happened.

[Push R Truth]

Nov 16, 2021 14:10:46 GMT -5 @wvguitar said:

The current experience of watching WWE is like if the first 23 films in the MCU led up to Infinity War, and they just ended every story on that huge downer, then went forward pretending like it none of it had even happened.

I was going to say the WWE is like having the opening act of Empire Strikes Back on repeat. Just years on-top of years of Rebels (faces) getting beaten down and out classed with little positive spin and zero hope.



But your analogy is much more current.

["Sweet & Sour" ImSoFudginGreat]

But, at the end of the day, CAN THEY COEXIST?

We’ll be right back as FAN rolls on.

[fw91]

Smackdown caused WWE’s Heat problem. Once it began airing, Heat became a C Level Jobber show

[Urethra Franklin]

Nov 15, 2021 23:42:56 GMT -5 Starshine said:

It's basically been this way ever since they tripped into the Daniel Bryan push, and suddenly they had to try convincing themselves that their booking him into the ground was what actually caused him to become so popular. So they try to capture that same energy because they don't seem to know what to do otherwise, and we get Roman Reigns choking against Brock Lesnar multiple times, and all the other recent examples.

They don't know how to make genuine superstars anymore, and you can tell they don't understand what the problem is. That, or they just don't want to admit what the problem is, since that would require some actual critical introspection from the top level down. It's easier to just coast on sweetheart TV deals than actually work on producing good content. I mean, the salad days last forever, right?

This is the answer.

Not only did the WWE think that their booking was what got Daniel Bryan over, which it was not because he was already over when the push began, they also mistakenly think it's a blueprint to get other faces over when it was a one-time occurrence that caught lightning in a bottle.

I mean, I'm sure there are people there who know this, because it's obvious, but they're just too afraid to tell Vince.

[asuka007]

WWE has long since forgotten what the point of “getting heat” is supposed to be.

Now they’re even bringing back heel authority figures to mess with random babyfaces as well.

So bad.

[Rican]

Nov 15, 2021 23:28:17 GMT -5 EoE: Workin On My Night Cheese said:

Man, even the threads are getting stale.

I mean, that’s not to say we’re wrong here, we’re not, but what’s to say that hasn’t already been said? I’ll come in with something about “Taking the wrong lessons from the Cena/Reigns backlash”, cjb will come in all guns blazing before steering it back to how good AEW is, HMark and/or Mothman will come in with something really well-written and intelligent-sounding, polarbearpete will try and find silver linings bless his heart, pretty much everyone else will grouse and grumble and at the end of it we’re talking about food somehow while Vince McMahon keeps getting richer and changing nothing. This is what we do.

I've watched way less WWE probably than I ever have in my life. Hell I can't be bothered to check out any of Survivor Series. And on top of it like you said talking about it isn't even fun anymore. It's all rage or boredom and talking in circles.

[nisidhe]

I'm not sure how far they want to push fans with this misery booking heat. Clearly, though, they don't want their heels to be heat-seekers to the point of causing riots. But, I wonder, sometimes, what it would take for a heel to generate that kind of heat the way Ox Baker did in Cleveland in 1974.

[EoE: Workin On My Night Cheese]

Nov 16, 2021 16:33:04 GMT -5 nisidhe said:

I'm not sure how far they want to push fans with this misery booking heat. Clearly, though, they don't want their heels to be heat-seekers to the point of causing riots. But, I wonder, sometimes, what it would take for a heel to generate that kind of heat the way Ox Baker did in Cleveland in 1974.

I dunno. Seattle still salty about losing the Supersonics?