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Post by kingoftheindies on Dec 27, 2022 17:16:22 GMT -5
I personally believe that the best angles come from the face chasing the heel champion. That being said, you need to have a face that the fans want to see beat the heel. Which WWE currently lacks
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krozor
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,425
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Post by krozor on Dec 27, 2022 18:06:12 GMT -5
And they bungled the finish to that storyline, too :-P
I mean true, but the early seasons that people liked had heel dominance. WWE's Game of Thrones would basically just be an "Oops, All Ramsay!" cut, but with Battle of the Bastards ending with a run-in finish.
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chazraps
Wade Wilson
Better have my money when I come-a collect!
Posts: 28,273
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Post by chazraps on Dec 27, 2022 18:11:58 GMT -5
Yeah imagine if every episode of the A Team ended with the bad guys beating them up and kicking them out of town. Sure maybe the producers were going to let them win in the season finale but how many viewers would be watching by that point? WWE has just mostly hit the point where the majority of their audience is their base audience. The never going to stop watching audience. They may tune in and out depending on whats going on with sports and the like but it likely wont change much. So WWE can pretty much do what they want without caring how the viewers feel. Its noteworthy though how one of the most successful shows in recent memory, Game of Thrones, had the "heels" winning quiet often. Come to think of it, we got that with 'The Wire' and 'Breaking Bad' as well... ...however WWE being in front of a live studio audience every week I feel changes that dynamic a bit as you're selling tickets to a live performance with a downer ending week after week without that being the end of a story like you would paying for a ticket for a downer movie or drama.
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Post by Friday Night SmackOwn on Dec 27, 2022 18:18:51 GMT -5
Its noteworthy though how one of the most successful shows in recent memory, Game of Thrones, had the "heels" winning quiet often. Come to think of it, we got that with 'The Wire' and 'Breaking Bad' as well... ...however WWE being in front of a live studio audience every week I feel changes that dynamic a bit as you're selling tickets to a live performance with a downer ending week after week without that being the end of a story like you would paying for a ticket for a downer movie or drama. Nobody goes to see Marvel movies to see the villains defeat the Avengers or whatever. In fact, the fact that Infinity War broke tradition and had Thanos win made it all the more shocking in comparison to the past Avengers films where the good guys won. If WWE booked the MCU, we'd just have Thanos defeating the heroes because of a surprise run in or whatever with no end in sight.
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Toates Madhackrviper
King Koopa
Is owed an Admin life-debt.
This avatar is so far out of date I might as well stick with it forever now.
Posts: 10,737
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Post by Toates Madhackrviper on Dec 27, 2022 18:25:56 GMT -5
Come to think of it, we got that with 'The Wire' and 'Breaking Bad' as well... ...however WWE being in front of a live studio audience every week I feel changes that dynamic a bit as you're selling tickets to a live performance with a downer ending week after week without that being the end of a story like you would paying for a ticket for a downer movie or drama. Nobody goes to see Marvel movies to see the villains defeat the Avengers or whatever. In fact, the fact that Infinity War broke tradition and had Thanos win made it all the more shocking in comparison to the past Avengers films where the good guys won. If WWE booked the MCU, we'd just have Thanos defeating the heroes because of a surprise run in or whatever with no end in sight. I actually think Infinity War is a good example of my point though. Incredibly successful and well regarded film where the bad guy won. Yeah sure, we all know the Avengers would save the day in the sequel, but it was still a three hour movie where the bad guy won and we had to wait quiet awhile to see Thanos defeated.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Dec 27, 2022 18:54:38 GMT -5
Nobody goes to see Marvel movies to see the villains defeat the Avengers or whatever. In fact, the fact that Infinity War broke tradition and had Thanos win made it all the more shocking in comparison to the past Avengers films where the good guys won. If WWE booked the MCU, we'd just have Thanos defeating the heroes because of a surprise run in or whatever with no end in sight. I actually think Infinity War is a good example of my point though. Incredibly successful and well regarded film where the bad guy won. Yeah sure, we all know the Avengers would save the day in the sequel, but it was still a three hour movie where the bad guy won and we had to wait quiet awhile to see Thanos defeated. We had to wait one year. How long has Roman held the title? Two more points. One we did not have to spend every week of that year seeing Thanos win again and again. Making the heroes look like chumps and losers every time. Two. No one is saying the faces need to win every time. Heels have to win to set up.drama and heat. To give the faces obstacles to overcome. But winning over and over week in week out never showing any real vulnerability does not work. Thanos almost died and only won because the face showed poor judgement. When has Roman shown that much vulnerability?
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 27, 2022 19:21:42 GMT -5
I feel like at this point we need to start thinking less about top champs (and I mean the wrestlers who are clearly THE top champs in their respective promotions) as faces or heels and more that "the top champ" is its own unique role that should often transcend the heel/face dichotomy.
The top champ can still lean more towards one alignment or another, but the key to the top champ is that they're the final boss and biggest obstacle for others to topple, which means they can shift their alignment subtly as needed, e.g. superface Hiroshi Tanahashi playing up being arrogant and overconfident whenever his next challenger was an up and coming star, or Jon Moxley acting particularly brutal against big babyface challengers, or I guess current champ Roman leaning heel, but not having to be super over the top shitty and evil since his bigger feature is his status as "the biggest obstacle".
This doesn't mean you can't have pure faces and heels as champs, but for someone who's meant to be THE champion in your promotion? It's tough to keep them as one pure alignment, since they have to be that "final boss" figure but they also have a lot of screentime etc. etc. etc., so having flexibility is important.
I noticed this with Okada in the few years before the pandemic: during his title reign where he set the record for most successful defenses, *he* was the protagonist of NJPW, but his title reign after that one? He was the obstacle to Naito, who at that point was the protagonist of NJPW despite not being the champion. Maybe that's more what it's about: having the protagonist role move now and then between your top talent and having your champion be flexible enough to serve as either that front face of your promotion or your top obstacle without having to fully commit to being 100% face or heel.
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Mochi Lone Wolf
Fry's dog Seymour
Development through Destruction.
Posts: 24,153
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Post by Mochi Lone Wolf on Dec 28, 2022 14:09:20 GMT -5
It can be done very well but, WWE runs it into the ground just like they do everything else.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2022 14:26:55 GMT -5
It doesn't matter to me, I just like good booking.
I thought Hogan as champ was just as entertaining as Flair as champ.
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Post by Killah Ray on Dec 28, 2022 14:40:53 GMT -5
I grew up in prime NWA territory so I’m cool with it.
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Post by "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse on Dec 28, 2022 14:58:01 GMT -5
It's exhausting because the heel rarely gets comeuppance, or if they do, it rarely lasts.
I get why Triple H's reign of terror from 2002-2005 drove people away, but he finally lost on PPV three times in a row in 2005 to smash Batista over as the conquering hero.
John Cena got beat a few times, like by Edge at NYR 2006 or RVD at ONS 2, and even by Punk at MITB 2011, but it was the Brock Lesnar match at Summerslam 2014 that felt like years of his heeldom finally coming home to roost, and it was satisfying as f***.
Punk's heel run with the title in 2012-2013 sucked because it was easy to see months out that he was just a placeholder to transition the belt to the Rock at the Royal Rumble who was then going to drop it at Cena at Wrestlemania 29.
With what I've read about Reigns, it's like his streak is so long, and he's put down so many people, there really isn't anyone credible left, besides Cody Rhodes or maybe Sami Zayn, who could believably knock him down from his perch. It could have been Drew McIntyre at the Clash at the Castle, but WWE blew it. So...
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nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
O Superman....O judge....O Mom and Dad....
Posts: 5,768
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Post by nisidhe on Dec 29, 2022 13:18:09 GMT -5
At this stage, we're approaching the level of frustration akin to what was happening in the runup to WM XXX. Roman needs to fall then, if not sooner. If he is still champion after WM, ratings will start sliding again, likely not to recover.
The problem with the likely plan is that the Sami storyline is probably the least desirable arc for making that happen. I don't want to pity the heel ex-champion after he's been betrayed, and the idea of any "babyface" openly resorting to the long con to bring down a heel is utterly repugnant to me. They've either buried or turned heel any face who would have brought the payoff Daniel Bryan winning did.
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