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September Wrasslin |OT| The one night a year when every table will be on the line

C

Cagey

Banned
My wife literally fell asleep within 45 seconds of Seth Rollins coming out during the Kane/Ashley segment when I got to that spot on DVR around 10:45pm. Didn't even muster a complaint about me watching Raw. Just passed out for the night.

The Rollins Era.
 
C

Colocho

Banned
imbask said:
New Day! ++
Miz TV -
Divas Cringelution segment --
Big Show vs Mark Henry ------
Kane on the screen - closed it

how do you expect people to stay tuned with such a shitty lineup?
Click to expand...

Well to be fair, I think Jolly Kane has been pretty entertaining so far, but with his past record I'd understand perfectly why someone would tune him out completely.
 
A

avengers23

Banned
Sandalphon said:
Great, another guy to plug into NJPW's main event scene instead of my fave three.



Most would likely consider it to be Dragon Gate, they have a distinct enough style from NJPW to remain relevant, and have been continuing to pull in steady to sellout crowds for their shows at Kobe World Hall and Korakuen. I know they also run Sumo Hall occasionally (or at least in the past) but Boots would have to tell me how well they do there.

AJPW got a boost when the got purchased by Speed Partners, but when they booted Mutoh it caused the second exodus when he took half the roster to form Wrestle-1. AJPW has slight potential going forward with some decent talent, the problem is most are freelancers, and losing a main eventer in Shiozaki is a huge blow. As for Wrestle-1, it's a Mutoh vanity project, but man, I love me some Jun Kasai.

NOAH is essentially a subsidiary of NJPW at this point. Super Crazy confirmed in an interview that money is coming in from them and Jado has taken over the booking, not to mention Suzuki-gun is over there and Nagata and Nakanishi regularly compete over there, so while money is coming in indirectly from Bushiroad and they don't own it, they still, well, basically own it.

And back in the early 2000's, NOAH didn't just become #2, they became #1, but that's because Choshu took over the booking of NJPW and did some horrible things at Inoki's behest, like bringing in a bunch of MMA guys who were big in Japan but had no idea how to work a wrestling match like Josh Barnett and Bob Sapp, all because of STRONG STYLE SPIRIT or some shit. Much like it seems Vince McMahon would rather be a boxing promoter, Inoki would rather be an MMA promoter...and he is with IGF, which has the biggest identity crisis of any promotion I've ever seen. Also Inoki was apparently good friends with Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il before their deaths and recently did another show in North Korea for Kim Jong Un. Oh yeah, and during an IGF show, he once beat up a guy who had a poster of the NJPW/AJPW/NOAH "All Together" event held in 2011 with all proceeds going to charity for survivors of the recent earthquake in Japan. Yes, he got pissy over his company, which I remind you, is barely a wrestling company at this point, being left out of a show for CHARITY. Oh yeah, and he ran a competing show at the same time, for profit, at Sumo Hall. All Together was a huge success, and Inoki's event bombed. In short, Inoki is a piece of shit, is completely insane, and the world will be a better place when IGF folds and he finally retires.

Meanwhile, NOAH had all the good AJPW talent so they had guys who may have been past their prime but they could still draw (Himself, Kobashi, Taue, Takayama), guys just coming into their prime (Akiyama, Rikioh, I hate to say it but Ogawa), and guys who were ready to become stars (Morishima, Sugiura, KENTA, Marufuji). The problem again came to booking. Misawa couldn't trust anybody else other than the established stars to run things, so whenever attendance went down, he quickly got the belt off of them and put it on one of his guys, or worse, himself. He was arguably working so hard of a schedule that it led to his eventual death.
Click to expand...

It's hard to tell DG's attendance since the only reports we get are from the promotion's own reports. And if you believe those to be 100% accurate, well, Raven would like a word with you.

That said, DG reportedly gets high 4 digits at its shows consistently, which at least sounds healthier than companies like W-1, NOAH, and AJOW.
 
I

imBask

Banned
Colocho said:
Well to be fair, I think Jolly Kane has been pretty entertaining so far, but with his past record I'd understand perfectly why someone would tune him out completely.
Click to expand...

Jolly Kane would probably work for me if he was in a non-kayfabe heavy company. I have a hard time enjoying it because they actually want me to believe that this is real and it insults my lower-than-average-intelligence
 
K

klonere

Banned
I can't believe they've turned Becky, the girl who got over huge after losing a match in NXT, who had a central part in that Finn mini-doc into "the crazy one"! And they seemed to be fixated on exposing Charlotte's weaknesses every week as much as possible.

Like do the writers just have no idea how to write for women? Or anybody? Can they write? Is that a thing they can do? Is all they can deliver is this HR/Kane/Rollins shit that would have been embarrassingly terrible for a 1st year film student's sitcom project? That Orton/Roman thing?
 
F

Fox318

Member
klonere said:
I can't believe they've turned Becky, the girl who got over huge after losing a match in NXT, who had a central part in that Finn mini-doc into "the crazy one"! And they seemed to be fixated on exposing Charlotte's weaknesses every week as much as possible.

Like do the writers just have no idea how to write for women? Or anybody? Can they write? Is that a thing they can do? Is all they can deliver is this HR/Kane/Rollins shit that would have been embarrassingly terrible for a 1st year film student's sitcom project? That Orton/Roman thing?
Click to expand...
It's called sabotage
 
H

hamchan

Member
imbask said:
New Day! ++
Miz TV -
Divas Cringelution segment --
Big Show vs Mark Henry ------
Kane on the screen - closed it

how do you expect people to stay tuned with such a shitty lineup?
Click to expand...

WWE were so nice to put everything I wanted to see at the start of the show.
 
A

avengers23

Banned
klonere said:
I can't believe they've turned Becky, the girl who got over huge after losing a match in NXT, who had a central part in that Finn mini-doc into "the crazy one"! And they seemed to be fixated on exposing Charlotte's weaknesses every week as much as possible.

Like do the writers just have no idea how to write for women? Or anybody? Can they write? Is that a thing they can do? Is all they can deliver is this HR/Kane/Rollins shit that would have been embarrassingly terrible for a 1st year film student's sitcom project? That Orton/Roman thing?
Click to expand...

I've said it before: if I'm an investor, I'd be concerned about declining ratings. However, the company is sill profitable, so I don't give a fuck about the company's inability to make new stars or create compelling programming. Until it's no longer profitable (and that's going to be a while, since it's the only game in town, and they can cut costs to achieve profitability of they have to), the investors won't care, so Vince and company won't care. All you can do is pick through the shit to find the nuggets that are bearable or stop watching and hating hating yourself.

Data's got the right idea with this lucha excursion.
 
D

Dick Justice

Banned
4XqWSGg.gif
 
S

Striker

Member
They can keep making bank trotting guys like The Rock and Brock Lesnar out there, but those guys won't be around forever. What are they going to be looking at in, say, 5 years? Neither guy will be wrestling in that time and neither will The Undertaker (I'd say Batista too but he doesn't want to return anyhow; nor do I blame him). It shouldn't be the year 2015 for them to continue putting out past stars rather than attempting to create new ones on their own. They're their own worst enemy and have been since WCW have been out of the picture and Austin/Rock retired.
 
A

avengers23

Banned
Sibersk Esto said:
If you believe that this is maliciousness instead of incompetence, then you're a mark
Click to expand...

The simplest explanation is that they've lost their core competencies of creating new stars (that they can then merchandise the hell out of) or creating compelling programming (so people want to subscribe to the network or to watch so they can be exposed to the new stars that they should be creating). It fits better than the idea that they're sabotaging themselves. That said, it's not completely unreasonable to assume that politics are affecting the product, but we have no reliable data to support that assumption.
 
S

Sibersk Esto

Banned
Striker said:
They can keep making bank trotting guys like The Rock and Brock Lesnar out there, but those guys won't be around forever. What are they going to be looking at in, say, 5 years? Neither guy will be wrestling in that time and neither will The Undertaker (I'd say Batista too but he doesn't want to return anyhow; nor do I blame him). It shouldn't be the year 2015 for them to continue putting out past stars rather than attempting to create new ones on their own. They're their own worst enemy and have been since WCW have been out of the picture and Austin/Rock retired.
Click to expand...

AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!!!!!!
 
K

klonere

Banned
avengers23 said:
I've said it before: if I'm an investor, I'd be concerned about declining ratings. However, the company is sill profitable, so I don't give a fuck about the company's inability to make new stars or create compelling programming. Until it's no longer profitable (and that's going to be a while, since it's the only game in town, and they can cut costs to achieve profitability of they have to), the investors won't care, so Vince and company won't care. All you can do is pick through the shit to find the nuggets that are bearable or stop watching and hating hating yourself.

Data's got the right idea with this lucha excursion.
Click to expand...

Luckily enough I'm in the position to not watch Raw live and can instead cut it down to 1 hour or less viewing time. So the self hate doesn't come into it thankfully. I love the hour of NXT every week but the feeling of dread that "wow these guys/girls are giving it their all down here and clearly have something but once main roster comes its all over" just grows and grows.

According to Brian Mann (lol ex-writers, lol rumours, lol wrestling podcasts) creative is going to be bad up until Mania because they've got to work all the Attitude Era stuff out of their system or something? And then after Mania some real changes are going to go down.

I'll believe it when I see it.
 
F

FlammableD

Banned
klonere said:
According to Brian Mann (lol ex-writers, lol rumours, lol wrestling podcasts) creative is going to be bad up until Mania because they've got to work all the Attitude Era stuff out of their system or something? And then after Mania some real changes are going to go down.
Click to expand...
what attitude era stuff? this makes no sense
 
R

Recall

Member
Ive only enjoyed TV wrestling from 1998 to 2002 then i stopped caring and just stuck with the PPVs. Kudos to those who power through raw each and every week I guess.
 
A

avengers23

Banned
klonere said:
Luckily enough I'm in the position to not watch Raw live and can instead cut it down to 1 hour or less viewing time. So the self hate doesn't come into it thankfully. I love the hour of NXT every week but the feeling of dread that "wow these guys/girls are giving it their all down here and clearly have something but once main roster comes its all over" just grows and grows.

According to Brian Mann (lol ex-writers, lol rumours, lol wrestling podcasts) creative is going to be bad up until Mania because they've got to work all the Attitude Era stuff out of their system or something? And then after Mania some real changes are going to go down.

I'll believe it when I see it.
Click to expand...

tumblr_lm36uekbbf1qchox0o1_500.jpg


Replace "friends" with "New Day."
 
I

Ithil

Member
Striker said:
They can keep making bank trotting guys like The Rock and Brock Lesnar out there, but those guys won't be around forever. What are they going to be looking at in, say, 5 years? Neither guy will be wrestling in that time and neither will The Undertaker (I'd say Batista too but he doesn't want to return anyhow; nor do I blame him). It shouldn't be the year 2015 for them to continue putting out past stars rather than attempting to create new ones on their own. They're their own worst enemy and have been since WCW have been out of the picture and Austin/Rock retired.
Click to expand...

It's been said already, they have made a generation of midcarders. It isn't a talent problem either, they've almost never had a more talented roster between RAW and NXT.
 
K

klonere

Banned
FlammableD said:
what attitude era stuff? this makes no sense
Click to expand...

All the Attitude era guys on the Raw in Dallas, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, HHH/Steph, The Dudley's etc will all be prominent parts of the show up until then. Like Kane and Big Show being presented as legitimate threats to the younger guys this week. All that stuff.
 
A

avengers23

Banned
klonere said:
All the Attitude era guys on the Raw in Dallas, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, HHH/Steph, The Dudley's etc will all be prominent parts of the show up until then. Like Kane and Big Show being presented as legitimate threats to the younger guys this week. All that stuff.
Click to expand...

This isn't an attack, but were they working through this Attitude Era stuff when they had Show and Kane eliminate people left and right in last year's Royal Rumble? I know the goal was to make them look strong so Reigns could eliminate them to look stronger, but then they had Reigns lie around doing practically nothing during most of that match.
 
B

bjork

Member
The time is right for the new blood storyline. Starring Shane-o Mac and no one who was ever in any form of WCW, ECW, or WWF/E pre-2010.
 
F

FlammableD

Banned
klonere said:
All the Attitude era guys on the Raw in Dallas, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, HHH/Steph, The Dudley's etc will all be prominent parts of the show up until then. Like Kane and Big Show being presented as legitimate threats to the younger guys this week. All that stuff.
Click to expand...

Oh right. The AE guys are fine, provided they can still go and are written compellingly. The second part is not a problem specific to the AE guys.
 
I

Ithil

Member
Sibersk Esto said:
AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Cena will never be like Rock, or Austin, even part time. He's been so overexposed for so many years that there will always be a groan from a large part of the audience when he appears.

Rock was only really the top guy fulltime from about late-1999 to 2001. Austin from 1998-2001, while missing most of 2000. Also the roster was focused on up and down back then, and they had less time on TV. Cena has been there fulltime as the top guy for 10 years now, longer than even Hogan was, every week you get long Cena promos and matches with the same recycled angles and "FINE SPEECH"s.

They're overexposing Rollins the same way. He seemingly makes up 50% of the runtime of RAW sometimes. Even Rock or Austin would get tiresome if they were on so much every single week of the year. Not to say every WWE champ should go the Brock route, but there is a middle ground.
 
S

Striker

Member
Ithil said:
It's been said already, they have made a generation of midcarders. It isn't a talent problem either, they've almost never had a more talented roster between RAW and NXT.
Click to expand...
I can't agree to that. There's tons of super athletic guys, but only a few jump out as having some sense of character or any ability to sell. Too many guys lean on movez and rather come off as cool and getting a pop from the crowd, rather than playing a part.

I'd look at moves like the superkick or suicide dive and count up how many wrestlers, both male and female, perform the move on a daily basis.
 
K

klonere

Banned
avengers23 said:
This isn't an attack, but were they working through this Attitude Era stuff when they had Show and Kane eliminate people left and right in last year's Royal Rumble? I know the goal was to make them look strong so Reigns could eliminate them to look stronger, but then they had Reigns lie around doing practically nothing during most of that match.
Click to expand...

Yeah I mean who knows? It might be that they never "work through" that stuff until their are sweeping changes behind the scenes.

I wonder how terrible the ratings will be this week.
 
B

bjork

Member
ElectricBlanketFire said:
Was Big Show a compelling wrestler in his prime?
Click to expand...

The first few times they trotted him out on WCW, he was at least interesting to look at. But if you consider he got sent to OVW to lose weight and has left a couple of times when his contracts ended or whatever, I'm not sure when his prime was.

Maybe the best Show was ECW champ Show.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
they should make big show a super heel

he does whatever he wants because he's a giant

he could go to brock lesnar's father's funeral and steal the casket



it's like poetry, it rhymes
 
K

klonere

Banned
Ithil said:
Cena will never be like Rock, or Austin, even part time. He's been so overexposed for so many years that there will always be a groan from a large part of the audience when he appears.

Rock was only really the top guy fulltime from about late-1999 to 2001. Austin from 1998-2001, while missing most of 2000. Also the roster was focused on up and down back then, and they had less time on TV. Cena has been there fulltime as the top guy for 10 years now, longer than even Hogan was, every week you get long Cena promos and matches with the same recycled angles and "FINE SPEECH"s.

They're overexposing Rollins the same way. He seemingly makes up 50% of the runtime of RAW sometimes. Even Rock or Austin would get tiresome if they were on so much every single week of the year. Not to say every WWE champ should go the Brock route, but there is a middle ground.
Click to expand...

Nobody, not even Austin 98/99 was on Raw as much as Rollins has been since Mania. He's in up to 3 or 4 entire scripted segments per show. Its like they want people to hate him and not in the good way.

bjork said:
The time is right for the new blood storyline. Starring Shane-o Mac and no one who was ever in any form of WCW, ECW, or WWF/E pre-2010.
Click to expand...

So the Nexus then?

lovely ladies said:
He was okay, he had an awesome chokeslam.
Click to expand...


NWDtGiT.gif
 
I

Ithil

Member
Striker said:
I can't agree to that. There's tons of super athletic guys, but only a few jump out as having some sense of character or any ability to sell. Too many guys lean on movez and rather come off as cool and getting a pop from the crowd, rather than playing a part.

I'd look at moves like the superkick or suicide dive and count up how many wrestlers, both male and female, perform the move on a daily basis.
Click to expand...

Again, I don't buy for a second that it's on the talent. Look at the New Day. Xavier was never looked at as being anything notable, Kofi was always derided for being athletic but total vanilla face on the mic, and Big E was most remembered for saying five a lot. They debut as what WWE decided they should be and they're absolutely nothing, an empty gimmick, barely even an entrance. No wonder no one liked them.
Then they get really let loose with their act, and now all three are super entertaining, easily the best part of RAW. I've seen Cesaro and other "boring" guys be highly entertaining without going near a ring, while in an unscripted loose environment. Sasha Banks was once a bland, green face with absolutely appalling mic skills.

How many great characters are lurking in this generation of midcarders? No one gets any real character or story given to them. None of them are ever helped, in fact they're usually hindered. They made Ambrose, who was incredibly compelling as a character pre-WWE and in FCW, into Reigns' wacky little buddy.
They never write for the wrestlers, they write a "WWE segment" and slot the wrestlers into it.
 
R

Roland_Gunner

Member
klonere said:
All the Attitude era guys on the Raw in Dallas, Undertaker, Kane, Big Show, HHH/Steph, The Dudley's etc will all be prominent parts of the show up until then. Like Kane and Big Show being presented as legitimate threats to the younger guys this week. All that stuff.
Click to expand...

What podcast is this dude on? Worth a listen at least.
 
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