King Devitt
Grimlock
It gets better the longer you stare at it
Posts: 13,758
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Post by King Devitt on Dec 28, 2021 20:41:37 GMT -5
Some of the great moments/characters of the last 3 years: 1) Lashley’s rise to prominence/dominance: his pairing with MVP and the change in his presentation legitimized him as an absolute main eventer. 2) Edge’s Rumble return and comeback. The return itself was an all-time moment, and apart from the Orton Mania match being too long, his work has been better than ever. Still has a lot of dream matches on the table too. 3) Becky’s rise to the top. In the past 3 years, Becky went from rising underdog to the Man, main eventing Wrestlemania and becoming a legit pillar of the company. 4) Tribal Chief Reigns. Unbelievable character work, with Smackdown becoming must watch TV since Reigns’ turn. Whether it was the overall presentation with Heyman, the early Usos storyline, the feuds with Bryan and Edge, or the current interweaving storyline with Lesnar and Heyman, he’s been consistently hitting it out of the park. 5) KofiMania: An unbelievable run up to the title and then a strong reign to follow. Credit to WWE for completely switching course mid-Mania build. 6) Bianca Belair: she’s been built up to become a legitimate main event talent, culminating in a 5-star Mania main event with Sasha. 7) Daniel Bryan: Bryan returned to the ring in 2018, and went on fantastic heel and face runs, showing that he’s still the best in the world (and continues to do so in AEW today). 8) Bayley: she came into her own as a heel during this period and pretty much carried the company through the early part of the pandemic. 9) Rise of McIntyre: in this 3 year span, Drew went from Dolph henchman to a legitimate face of the company for the year 2020, including a great Rumble moment eliminating Lesnar and then a string of great defenses through 2020 against varied opponents. 10) The Cena Firefly Funhouse Match and the Undertaker Boneyard match were just awesome and creative masterpieces during a weird, dark time early in the pandemic that brought some much needed entertainment. WWE got similarly creative with the Stamford Money in the Bank match and the Edge-Orton greatest match ever. More recently, face Lesnar, Big E and RKBro have been consistent highlights. Absolutely agree with all of that, the problem is we could probably do a counter list twice as long with everything that has been bad in the last three years. Its like a football team scoring a great goal every so often but still losing every match 5-1. Hell we could counter list THAT list with how WWE f***ed a lot of those up.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 28, 2021 21:01:49 GMT -5
Absolutely agree with all of that, the problem is we could probably do a counter list twice as long with everything that has been bad in the last three years. Its like a football team scoring a great goal every so often but still losing every match 5-1. Hell we could counter list THAT list with how WWE f***ed a lot of those up. If I had to guess where a lot of that would come from, it'd be the persistent WWE issue going back literally decades: "What's the follow-up?" Kofimania was genuinely a great thing; it happened without plans for it to really happen given that he was filling in for an injury, but credit to them, they rode the hot hand and gave the crowd an all-timer Wrestlemania title win. Question was: where to next for Kofi? How would being a champion alter his and/or New Day's trajectory? How would his character evolve given the new level he had reached? The answer basically ended up being "a few title defenses and then kicked back down to the midcard by Brock." In other words: there was no plan. It was what we always talk about here: "moments" mattering more than stories or arcs. I get that there are some wrestlers whose best work is being the hunter rather than the hunted, the thrill of their rise to the top being more memorable than what happens once they've won; sometimes that leads to things like a popular champion only holding the belt for a short amount of time (e.g. Homicide's build to winning the ROH World Title off Bryan Danielson back in the day was huge and took a good while, but 'Cide dropped the belt to Morishima just a couple of months later). The issue is that WWE will sometimes make the right adjustment to get someone to the top, but then there's really no thought to what comes next for them or how their win should impact them moving forward: Bryan, Becky, Kofi, etc., too often the answer to "what's next?" for each of them was "dunno, doesn't matter."
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Post by polarbearpete on Dec 28, 2021 21:26:31 GMT -5
Hell we could counter list THAT list with how WWE f***ed a lot of those up. If I had to guess where a lot of that would come from, it'd be the persistent WWE issue going back literally decades: "What's the follow-up?" Kofimania was genuinely a great thing; it happened without plans for it to really happen given that he was filling in for an injury, but credit to them, they rode the hot hand and gave the crowd an all-timer Wrestlemania title win. Question was: where to next for Kofi? How would being a champion alter his and/or New Day's trajectory? How would his character evolve given the new level he had reached? The answer basically ended up being "a few title defenses and then kicked back down to the midcard by Brock." In other words: there was no plan. It was what we always talk about here: "moments" mattering more than stories or arcs. I get that there are some wrestlers whose best work is being the hunter rather than the hunted, the thrill of their rise to the top being more memorable than what happens once they've won; sometimes that leads to things like a popular champion only holding the belt for a short amount of time (e.g. Homicide's build to winning the ROH World Title off Bryan Danielson back in the day was huge and took a good while, but 'Cide dropped the belt to Morishima just a couple of months later). The issue is that WWE will sometimes make the right adjustment to get someone to the top, but then there's really no thought to what comes next for them or how their win should impact them moving forward: Bryan, Becky, Kofi, etc., too often the answer to "what's next?" for each of them was "dunno, doesn't matter." Kofi has a strong 6 month run as champ. They could have kept him in the main event scene but they chose to go the tag team route with him after that, giving him a couple of other small shots at the main event after. Don’t think that was necessarily bad follow up though, he had a strong run. Bryan had the big run and title win, and similarly was planned to hold the belt for 4-5 months before losing to Brock (who instead destroyed Cena) but they didn’t get to get past the Kane feud due to Bryan’s neck. And Becky pretty much became the ace of the company in the lead up to her Mania win and then remained in that role right up until her pregnancy pretty much.
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Post by häšhtå.gdālėÿ on Dec 28, 2021 23:04:22 GMT -5
… NXT has remained a largely solid show through the main roster downfall, and has even survived what I thought would be a disaster of a rebranding in terms of entertainment.
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Dec 28, 2021 23:12:50 GMT -5
If I had to guess where a lot of that would come from, it'd be the persistent WWE issue going back literally decades: "What's the follow-up?" Kofimania was genuinely a great thing; it happened without plans for it to really happen given that he was filling in for an injury, but credit to them, they rode the hot hand and gave the crowd an all-timer Wrestlemania title win. Question was: where to next for Kofi? How would being a champion alter his and/or New Day's trajectory? How would his character evolve given the new level he had reached? The answer basically ended up being "a few title defenses and then kicked back down to the midcard by Brock." In other words: there was no plan. It was what we always talk about here: "moments" mattering more than stories or arcs. I get that there are some wrestlers whose best work is being the hunter rather than the hunted, the thrill of their rise to the top being more memorable than what happens once they've won; sometimes that leads to things like a popular champion only holding the belt for a short amount of time (e.g. Homicide's build to winning the ROH World Title off Bryan Danielson back in the day was huge and took a good while, but 'Cide dropped the belt to Morishima just a couple of months later). The issue is that WWE will sometimes make the right adjustment to get someone to the top, but then there's really no thought to what comes next for them or how their win should impact them moving forward: Bryan, Becky, Kofi, etc., too often the answer to "what's next?" for each of them was "dunno, doesn't matter." Kofi has a strong 6 month run as champ. They could have kept him in the main event scene but they chose to go the tag team route with him after that, giving him a couple of other small shots at the main event after. Don’t think that was necessarily bad follow up though, he had a strong run. Bryan had the big run and title win, and similarly was planned to hold the belt for 4-5 months before losing to Brock (who instead destroyed Cena) but they didn’t get to get past the Kane feud due to Bryan’s neck. And Becky pretty much became the ace of the company in the lead up to her Mania win and then remained in that role right up until her pregnancy pretty much. Kofi had a few weak feuds with Owens, Ziggler and Samoa Joe. His only one of real substance was Orton. Even then, he never actually main evented a PPV and then was promptly murdered by Brock Lesnar. Don't know that it was a strong run, honestly. The Orton stuff was good, but everything else felt like an afterthought. Then he lost in one move to Brock Lesnar and didn't get a rematch for 2 years. I think they could have done way more with him than they did.
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Wieners=$$$
Hank Scorpio
Gif Master Extraordinaire
Smokin' Bones
Posts: 6,061
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Post by Wieners=$$$ on Dec 28, 2021 23:13:36 GMT -5
Laziness. Doing just enough to get by, produce content and let the money pour in.
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Post by Harry The Arrow was Wrong! on Dec 29, 2021 0:43:00 GMT -5
They pretty much killed my interest in this company over the last 3 years. From terrible booking that rarely leads anywhere, misusing most nxt call ups, missing can't miss talent, killing nxt, firing hundreds of people during a pandemic and I could go on.
I watched wwe for 23 years and I finally gave up this year as well as unsubscribing from the network. Sure I'll check out a clip here or there and maybe a match from a ppv but all in all I just don't care about this awful company anymore.
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MolotovMocktail
Grimlock
Home of the 5-time, 5-time, 5-time, 5-time 5-time Super Bowl Champion 49ers-and Wrestlemania 31
Posts: 13,969
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Post by MolotovMocktail on Dec 29, 2021 0:50:08 GMT -5
Ever since the Hell in a Cell mentioned in the OP, they had a solid 1-2 years of good to excellent PPV's. Problem is, TV has been consistently bad over that time, and for a long time before.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 29, 2021 6:44:56 GMT -5
If I had to guess where a lot of that would come from, it'd be the persistent WWE issue going back literally decades: "What's the follow-up?" Kofimania was genuinely a great thing; it happened without plans for it to really happen given that he was filling in for an injury, but credit to them, they rode the hot hand and gave the crowd an all-timer Wrestlemania title win. Question was: where to next for Kofi? How would being a champion alter his and/or New Day's trajectory? How would his character evolve given the new level he had reached? The answer basically ended up being "a few title defenses and then kicked back down to the midcard by Brock." In other words: there was no plan. It was what we always talk about here: "moments" mattering more than stories or arcs. I get that there are some wrestlers whose best work is being the hunter rather than the hunted, the thrill of their rise to the top being more memorable than what happens once they've won; sometimes that leads to things like a popular champion only holding the belt for a short amount of time (e.g. Homicide's build to winning the ROH World Title off Bryan Danielson back in the day was huge and took a good while, but 'Cide dropped the belt to Morishima just a couple of months later). The issue is that WWE will sometimes make the right adjustment to get someone to the top, but then there's really no thought to what comes next for them or how their win should impact them moving forward: Bryan, Becky, Kofi, etc., too often the answer to "what's next?" for each of them was "dunno, doesn't matter." Kofi has a strong 6 month run as champ. They could have kept him in the main event scene but they chose to go the tag team route with him after that, giving him a couple of other small shots at the main event after. Don’t think that was necessarily bad follow up though, he had a strong run. Bryan had the big run and title win, and similarly was planned to hold the belt for 4-5 months before losing to Brock (who instead destroyed Cena) but they didn’t get to get past the Kane feud due to Bryan’s neck. And Becky pretty much became the ace of the company in the lead up to her Mania win and then remained in that role right up until her pregnancy pretty much. What is a "strong run", though? What does it mean, and what does it entail? There can be different answers for different wrestlers depending on their characters or what stage of their career they're in, but for me the answer on Kofi is that winning the belt should've marked some kind of major turning point in his career where, even if he only held the strap for a little bit of time, he's now firmly established as "former WWE champion Kofi Kingston", with all the credibility that should imply, and that credibility can be put to use in various ways (e.g. making Kofi a more legitimate title threat when needed, using that to help build up new talent in some way, etc.). The fact the aftermath of his title run was "go back to what you were doing as if nothing happened" is not a ringing endorsement of the reign meaning anything. The same thing happened to Benoit back in the day; dude wins the belt at WM 20, does basically nothing, drops the belt at Summerslam and it's like it might as well never happened (putting aside the obvious "Benoit was not a good long term investment" hindsight, of course). The same thing happened to Bryan: he has one of the best single nights in the history of Wrestlemania, and then the plan was "shitty feud with Kane, get murdered by Lesnar by Summerslam". Friggin' Ziggler won the heavyweight title and the first words out of Vince's mouth were "We're not pushing him." Then why does he have the title?! You don't need to make him a full time main eventer, but title wins should mean something for the character winning the title, even if it's something simple and basic. Ultimately, when these "moments" happen but don't lead to anything, fans start to catch on that "Huh, being engaged with my favorites rising up to the title really doesn't have a payoff, does it?" Again, not every person who wins a title needs to become a permanent main eventer after winning, and some title reigns simply serve as "thank yous" or whatever, but when the consistent answer this "this big moment that happened on this show you watch ultimately meant nothing", you're playing a delicate game with your audience's interest levels.
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Post by polarbearpete on Dec 29, 2021 7:34:35 GMT -5
Kofi has a strong 6 month run as champ. They could have kept him in the main event scene but they chose to go the tag team route with him after that, giving him a couple of other small shots at the main event after. Don’t think that was necessarily bad follow up though, he had a strong run. Bryan had the big run and title win, and similarly was planned to hold the belt for 4-5 months before losing to Brock (who instead destroyed Cena) but they didn’t get to get past the Kane feud due to Bryan’s neck. And Becky pretty much became the ace of the company in the lead up to her Mania win and then remained in that role right up until her pregnancy pretty much. What is a "strong run", though? What does it mean, and what does it entail? There can be different answers for different wrestlers depending on their characters or what stage of their career they're in, but for me the answer on Kofi is that winning the belt should've marked some kind of major turning point in his career where, even if he only held the strap for a little bit of time, he's now firmly established as "former WWE champion Kofi Kingston", with all the credibility that should imply, and that credibility can be put to use in various ways (e.g. making Kofi a more legitimate title threat when needed, using that to help build up new talent in some way, etc.). The fact the aftermath of his title run was "go back to what you were doing as if nothing happened" is not a ringing endorsement of the reign meaning anything. The same thing happened to Benoit back in the day; dude wins the belt at WM 20, does basically nothing, drops the belt at Summerslam and it's like it might as well never happened (putting aside the obvious "Benoit was not a good long term investment" hindsight, of course). The same thing happened to Bryan: he has one of the best single nights in the history of Wrestlemania, and then the plan was "shitty feud with Kane, get murdered by Lesnar by Summerslam". Friggin' Ziggler won the heavyweight title and the first words out of Vince's mouth were "We're not pushing him." Then why does he have the title?! You don't need to make him a full time main eventer, but title wins should mean something for the character winning the title, even if it's something simple and basic. Ultimately, when these "moments" happen but don't lead to anything, fans start to catch on that "Huh, being engaged with my favorites rising up to the title really doesn't have a payoff, does it?" Again, not every person who wins a title needs to become a permanent main eventer after winning, and some title reigns simply serve as "thank yous" or whatever, but when the consistent answer this "this big moment that happened on this show you watch ultimately meant nothing", you're playing a delicate game with your audience's interest levels. For me, a strong run varies for the individual. But for a guy like Kofi who was a Midcard/tag team guy for years and years, winning the title at Wrestlemania and then being the main story on your weekly show for 6 months and defending the title successfully on PPV against top talent like Orton, Joe, Owens is a strong run in and of itself. Like you said, you don’t need to permanently become a main eventer and now he’s a tag team guy who can seemlessly go from that division to midcard to main event when needed - he’s had a PPV world title match as recently as earlier this year, and main events Raw at times (he had two killer matches with McIntyre earlier this year on Raw, another recently-made main eventer). For Becky, she did become a permanent main eventer and still is to this day. For Bryan, the Kane feud was not a marquee matchup unfortunately, though they did position it as the main event of the PPV that he actually was healthy to defend the title at. And there were multiple PPVs between that and the Lesnar match so not sure what he would’ve been doing on the road there. And Bryan too became a permanent main eventer after that run, right up until he left this year.
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Post by noobeast on Dec 29, 2021 7:48:16 GMT -5
I think you can tell by watching the show that they don't have any thoughts.
...oh you meant from me...
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Dec 29, 2021 9:39:51 GMT -5
Laziness. Doing just enough to get by, produce content and let the money pour in. This is an accusation that is thrown at them a lot, but I really don't feel it's an accurate one - and that isn't a compliment. Your show doesn't get rewritten while it is on air due to laziness, it's due to killing yourself trying to make it as good as it can possibly be and STILL generating the dead, airless, bankrupt product they have had for years.
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Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Dec 29, 2021 11:52:00 GMT -5
What is a "strong run", though? What does it mean, and what does it entail? There can be different answers for different wrestlers depending on their characters or what stage of their career they're in, but for me the answer on Kofi is that winning the belt should've marked some kind of major turning point in his career where, even if he only held the strap for a little bit of time, he's now firmly established as "former WWE champion Kofi Kingston", with all the credibility that should imply, and that credibility can be put to use in various ways (e.g. making Kofi a more legitimate title threat when needed, using that to help build up new talent in some way, etc.). The fact the aftermath of his title run was "go back to what you were doing as if nothing happened" is not a ringing endorsement of the reign meaning anything. The same thing happened to Benoit back in the day; dude wins the belt at WM 20, does basically nothing, drops the belt at Summerslam and it's like it might as well never happened (putting aside the obvious "Benoit was not a good long term investment" hindsight, of course). The same thing happened to Bryan: he has one of the best single nights in the history of Wrestlemania, and then the plan was "shitty feud with Kane, get murdered by Lesnar by Summerslam". Friggin' Ziggler won the heavyweight title and the first words out of Vince's mouth were "We're not pushing him." Then why does he have the title?! You don't need to make him a full time main eventer, but title wins should mean something for the character winning the title, even if it's something simple and basic. Ultimately, when these "moments" happen but don't lead to anything, fans start to catch on that "Huh, being engaged with my favorites rising up to the title really doesn't have a payoff, does it?" Again, not every person who wins a title needs to become a permanent main eventer after winning, and some title reigns simply serve as "thank yous" or whatever, but when the consistent answer this "this big moment that happened on this show you watch ultimately meant nothing", you're playing a delicate game with your audience's interest levels. For me, a strong run varies for the individual. But for a guy like Kofi who was a Midcard/tag team guy for years and years, winning the title at Wrestlemania and then being the main story on your weekly show for 6 months and defending the title successfully on PPV against top talent like Orton, Joe, Owens is a strong run in and of itself. Like you said, you don’t need to permanently become a main eventer and now he’s a tag team guy who can seemlessly go from that division to midcard to main event when needed - he’s had a PPV world title match as recently as earlier this year, and main events Raw at times (he had two killer matches with McIntyre earlier this year on Raw, another recently-made main eventer). For Becky, she did become a permanent main eventer and still is to this day. For Bryan, the Kane feud was not a marquee matchup unfortunately, though they did position it as the main event of the PPV that he actually was healthy to defend the title at. And there were multiple PPVs between that and the Lesnar match so not sure what he would’ve been doing on the road there. And Bryan too became a permanent main eventer after that run, right up until he left this year. I don't mean to be a negative Nancy on the Kofi front, but what you're doing is explaining what happened without the context behind it. He lost the title to Brock in 5 seconds and then just went back to throwing pancakes. Nothing changed, he got no angrier or more determined. He didn't do a thing different in response to what should have been career-changing loss. He just went back to smiling and tag team wrestling. If you're going to spend months building him up, then months with him as champion, f***ing do something after it that makes us want to care. I just don't think you can say something was a 'good run' when there was literally no follow-up for years.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 29, 2021 12:13:07 GMT -5
For me, a strong run varies for the individual. But for a guy like Kofi who was a Midcard/tag team guy for years and years, winning the title at Wrestlemania and then being the main story on your weekly show for 6 months and defending the title successfully on PPV against top talent like Orton, Joe, Owens is a strong run in and of itself. Like you said, you don’t need to permanently become a main eventer and now he’s a tag team guy who can seemlessly go from that division to midcard to main event when needed - he’s had a PPV world title match as recently as earlier this year, and main events Raw at times (he had two killer matches with McIntyre earlier this year on Raw, another recently-made main eventer). For Becky, she did become a permanent main eventer and still is to this day. For Bryan, the Kane feud was not a marquee matchup unfortunately, though they did position it as the main event of the PPV that he actually was healthy to defend the title at. And there were multiple PPVs between that and the Lesnar match so not sure what he would’ve been doing on the road there. And Bryan too became a permanent main eventer after that run, right up until he left this year. I don't mean to be a negative Nancy on the Kofi front, but what you're doing is explaining what happened without the context behind it. He lost the title to Brock in 5 seconds and then just went back to throwing pancakes. Nothing changed, he got no angrier or more determined. He didn't do a thing different in response to what should have been career-changing loss. He just went back to smiling and tag team wrestling. If you're going to spend months building him up, then months with him as champion, f***ing do something after it that makes us want to care. Right: I want to know that the thing I'm watching and the moment I popped for actually means something. If I followed Kofi's rise, cheered as the crowd willed him to a marquee title match, popped when he made it to the top of the mountain, then hoped he'd hold the title and prove himself as a full main eventer, then whatever the eventual outcome of that whole run is I just want to know it mattered. The ending being "the past six months might as well never happened with regards to Kofi's character and on-air personality" tells me it didn't. When the end result is "This person hasn't changed, they would be no different with the title/big match win or without it", then you're training me to even take positive moments (again, things like Bryan's/Becky's/Kofi's WM wins) and start internalizing that they're only fleeting moments of interest and not things to get attached to and want to continue following. Like, hell, even with Becky: where was she going after beating Rousey? She's a main eventer, sure, and that's great, but what stories were they actually telling with her? It doesn't need to be a complicated story, but "she's still 'The Man', but now with a shiny belt!" is only supposed to be step one in the next story told, not its entirety.
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Post by polarbearpete on Dec 29, 2021 12:45:39 GMT -5
For me, a strong run varies for the individual. But for a guy like Kofi who was a Midcard/tag team guy for years and years, winning the title at Wrestlemania and then being the main story on your weekly show for 6 months and defending the title successfully on PPV against top talent like Orton, Joe, Owens is a strong run in and of itself. Like you said, you don’t need to permanently become a main eventer and now he’s a tag team guy who can seemlessly go from that division to midcard to main event when needed - he’s had a PPV world title match as recently as earlier this year, and main events Raw at times (he had two killer matches with McIntyre earlier this year on Raw, another recently-made main eventer). For Becky, she did become a permanent main eventer and still is to this day. For Bryan, the Kane feud was not a marquee matchup unfortunately, though they did position it as the main event of the PPV that he actually was healthy to defend the title at. And there were multiple PPVs between that and the Lesnar match so not sure what he would’ve been doing on the road there. And Bryan too became a permanent main eventer after that run, right up until he left this year. I don't mean to be a negative Nancy on the Kofi front, but what you're doing is explaining what happened without the context behind it. He lost the title to Brock in 5 seconds and then just went back to throwing pancakes. Nothing changed, he got no angrier or more determined. He didn't do a thing different in response to what should have been career-changing loss. He just went back to smiling and tag team wrestling. If you're going to spend months building him up, then months with him as champion, f***ing do something after it that makes us want to care. I just don't think you can say something was a 'good run' when there was literally no follow-up for years. Sure that’s certainly a fair critique. For me as a viewer though, I don’t feel like the moment with Kofi and the months and months of his run on top are meaningless or any less exciting because of where he is now or what the followup was. I understand that might be different for others.
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Post by polarbearpete on Dec 29, 2021 12:53:30 GMT -5
I don't mean to be a negative Nancy on the Kofi front, but what you're doing is explaining what happened without the context behind it. He lost the title to Brock in 5 seconds and then just went back to throwing pancakes. Nothing changed, he got no angrier or more determined. He didn't do a thing different in response to what should have been career-changing loss. He just went back to smiling and tag team wrestling. If you're going to spend months building him up, then months with him as champion, f***ing do something after it that makes us want to care. Right: I want to know that the thing I'm watching and the moment I popped for actually means something. If I followed Kofi's rise, cheered as the crowd willed him to a marquee title match, popped when he made it to the top of the mountain, then hoped he'd hold the title and prove himself as a full main eventer, then whatever the eventual outcome of that whole run is I just want to know it mattered. The ending being "the past six months might as well never happened with regards to Kofi's character and on-air personality" tells me it didn't. When the end result is "This person hasn't changed, they would be no different with the title/big match win or without it", then you're training me to even take positive moments (again, things like Bryan's/Becky's/Kofi's WM wins) and start internalizing that they're only fleeting moments of interest and not things to get attached to and want to continue following. Like, hell, even with Becky: where was she going after beating Rousey? She's a main eventer, sure, and that's great, but what stories were they actually telling with her? It doesn't need to be a complicated story, but "she's still 'The Man', but now with a shiny belt!" is only supposed to be step one in the next story told, not its entirety. Becky had a story of being the underdog not getting any opportunities, to fighting against the machine and the chosen ones and becoming the Man and the ace of the company. Then once she was on top, she defended against all comers in various feuds through the following Wrestlemania, and then she was pregnant, had a baby and was off TV for a year and a half. She just came back and has now evolved again into a similar “The Man” character but now as a heel and more over the top and needing to cheat to win. And she’ll very likely main event Wrestlemania again this year. So that’s 3 distinct character evolutions within a few years time. Is the issue then that she didn’t evolve her character in her one year face run on top?
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Dec 29, 2021 15:37:23 GMT -5
Right: I want to know that the thing I'm watching and the moment I popped for actually means something. If I followed Kofi's rise, cheered as the crowd willed him to a marquee title match, popped when he made it to the top of the mountain, then hoped he'd hold the title and prove himself as a full main eventer, then whatever the eventual outcome of that whole run is I just want to know it mattered. The ending being "the past six months might as well never happened with regards to Kofi's character and on-air personality" tells me it didn't. When the end result is "This person hasn't changed, they would be no different with the title/big match win or without it", then you're training me to even take positive moments (again, things like Bryan's/Becky's/Kofi's WM wins) and start internalizing that they're only fleeting moments of interest and not things to get attached to and want to continue following. Like, hell, even with Becky: where was she going after beating Rousey? She's a main eventer, sure, and that's great, but what stories were they actually telling with her? It doesn't need to be a complicated story, but "she's still 'The Man', but now with a shiny belt!" is only supposed to be step one in the next story told, not its entirety. Becky had a story of being the underdog not getting any opportunities, to fighting against the machine and the chosen ones and becoming the Man and the ace of the company. Then once she was on top, she defended against all comers in various feuds through the following Wrestlemania, and then she was pregnant, had a baby and was off TV for a year and a half. She just came back and has now evolved again into a similar “The Man” character but now as a heel and more over the top and needing to cheat to win. And she’ll very likely main event Wrestlemania again this year. So that’s 3 distinct character evolutions within a few years time. Is the issue then that she didn’t evolve her character in her one year face run on top? I think the issue with Becky is while her character has evolved and they've changed things up with her from time which is commendable on their part as they aren't like that with most of their top women's stars (looking at you Charltote and Sasha), her evolution doesn't make sense. Like she went from being this super dominant babyface who beat every one including Ronda Rousey to now having to resort to cheating to beat Liv Morgan? It was kind of reminds me of when Hogan turned heel and he went from being this unbeatable super hero babyface to being a cowardly chicken s**t heel who for some reason wasn't powerful anymore and had to suddenly resort to cheating and was submitting to Lex Luger and getting sleepered out by Roddy Piper. I guess the kayfabe explanation could be she's lost it after being pregnant and gone for a year and a half and she realizes she's getting passed by a lot of the younger girls but they haven't told that at all in their narrative.
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Post by CeilingFan on Dec 29, 2021 16:09:05 GMT -5
They buried a great talent like Toni Storm and now they released her. WWE : Ending the year on a high note
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Post by TWERKIN' MAGGLE on Dec 29, 2021 16:31:02 GMT -5
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Post by kingoftheindies on Dec 29, 2021 17:26:40 GMT -5
There has been some good and some bad. I think when WWE really wants to they absolutely can get someone over... and they have done that multiple times... however unless you are one of Vince's boys they fall into the 4 week push. Where you are given 4 weeks to get over and if you don't you're treading water until your chance comes up again.
WWE also tends to fall too much into booking for a moment. What I mean by that is they do a great job of building a moment up, and it usually gets a great reaction, but then they have no plan after that moment happens. It's why you see so many people lose momentum
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