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Shootmember 2 Wrasslin |OT| :Shoot from the Hip When in Heated Verbal Exchanges

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
This is the house that AJ Styles built!

Seriously though. SDL is crap. They really should've sent Balor there earlier in the year. They could've had a certified main event talent ready and made by giving him a short run at the top while feuding with Styles, Owens, Orton etc. Alternatively, Rollins would've been a good pick too. One of those two really should've gone though.

Maybe Balor would fit better since he's been doing nothing noteworthy since his return. At least Rollins is doing something at the moment with Ambrose and The Bar.

Balor's one of those guys that's not going to get shit until Lesnar leaves after WM because they're 100% focused on Roman building up to take him down at WM.
 
DKM23OKU8AAYP8D
 

gun_haver

Member
Who did Smackdown lose that moves the needle? Actually moved the needle?

i don't care about needles, i don't watch shows and give them props when they 'make sense' for a company growth perspective.

they had a roster that was working out last year, getting a lot of people, even weird people you wouldn't expect, pretty over and it was entertaining. they thought 'wow, great, let's get that on raw', and rripped out some of the basic elements like miz and dean ambrose who were working in their specific spots, threw some of the other shit like rhyno and heath slater in the background so nobody cares, put aj into the midcard like he's supposed to elevate it, and y'know from there it all just kind of fell apart. show doesn't really add up to anything, nothing going on worth watching. probably the writers changed, but i don't know about that.
 

THE GUY

Banned
i dunno i think it says something wwe had a good show in SDL for about 6 months last year and once they realised it, their first instinct was 'gut that shit'.

i don't watch either show now.
It wasn't good last year either. The show sucked aside from the main event storylines.

SDL's issue isn't that they were gutted. They could easily be better now than they were then; they've just got the wrong people in the wrong spots.

The biggest issue SDL has is it does a poor job of building up talent. Nakamura is boring and basically coasting off whatever popularity he had before the WWE. None of his feuds are interesting. Styles sucks as a face and has been boring since the Shane angle. And Jinder is the WWE Champion, who spent months feuding with one of the blandest top guys in Orton.

They have all of Owens, Styles, Orton, Nakamura, Sami, and Rusev at their disposal. That's enough people to run a combination of angles in the main event and midcard which could be interesting for a solid 6 months at least. But none of them, except for Owens, are doing anything interesting. And he's involved with the McMahons. Not an actual wrestler on the show.

Meanwhile Raw basically made stars of Strowman and Joe in a matter of months. That's two more guys in the upper card they can use for interesting angles. And they've still got Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, Balor, and part-timer Brock.

It's why one of them really needed to go to SDL because if Balor or Rollins were there, we probably wouldn't be stuck in this Jinder run. They could've done something fresh in the main event with one of the guys that means something in this new era.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
i don't care about needles, i don't watch shows and give them props when they 'make sense' for a company growth perspective.

they had a roster that was working out last year, getting a lot of people, even weird people you wouldn't expect, pretty over and it was entertaining. they thought 'wow, great, let's get that on raw', and rripped out some of the basic elements like miz and dean ambrose who were working in their specific spots, threw some of the other shit like rhyno and heath slater in the background so nobody cares, put aj into the midcard like he's supposed to elevate it, and y'know from there it all just kind of fell apart. show doesn't really add up to anything, nothing going on worth watching. probably the writers changed, but i don't know about that.

I will agree Rhyno and Slater were a great, organic team. The rest though, not a big deal to me. Owens and AJ dont have to chase the big title to be a big deal.
 

Foggy

Member
I don't think deciding if he draws or if it's been received poorly is a metric worth exploring, honestly. History has shown that championship Reigns offer very little change, if any, in the short term. Historically you can only judge year after year.

I still believe new people, even flawed, are good to have at the top.

So basically you have no actual reason, you just like the guy. Fair enough, but accusing people of lowkey racism is a pretty poor attempt at discourse.
 

Cagey

Banned
Happy to report that Kingsman 2 features a picture perfect German suplex and indy no sell, as well as one of these

rb0utyeg2viz.gif
This is my favorite dumbest wrestling spot I've ever seen that doesn't involve weapons or jumping off heights.

Like... holy shit. How badly did that guy need $100 and a TV appearance to volunteer for the flying spike faceplant.
 

gun_haver

Member
I will agree Rhyno and Slater were a great, organic team. The rest though, not a big deal to me. Owens and AJ dont have to chase the big title to be a big deal.

uh yeah, they kinda do for the show to make a lick of sense. this is wrestling, why try to play double checkers with which pieces go where when they can't manage play the basic game. they fucked up the show, they took out the supporting pillars - miz, ambrose (and i don't even like ambrose) and threw the head of the show (aj) to the middle, cena went to raw to do a roman program and we're left with not even orton, who is in a midcard feud, but jinder mahal the bad wrestler who can't act doing racist promos against shinsuke nakamura, apparently, is the latest.

they saw they had a good thing going, gutted it and tried to keep the old organism running by moving pieces around but it didn't work. so they just resorted to something random - which i think is a good instinct, but of all people they chose jinder mahal. it isn't the failure itself that i think says something, it's the instinct to take shit out of something that works in favour of something that doesn't, rather than building on something that does. it's backwards and it leads to boring, meandering nonsense like the current SDL situation.
 

Syder

Member
A simple fact is some people would've warmed to Jinder had he been given a US title or MITB run before getting the big strap.

His push was about as organic as his training regimen.
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
People who are incredibly over don't need titles, they can rely on the strength of their angles. See: KO and Shane.
 

gun_haver

Member
People who are incredibly over don't need titles, they can rely on the strength of their angles. See: KO and Shane.

nobody on this roster except for brock is incredibly over, so use the titles for what they're actually supposed to help do

and as far as KO goes, he's just come off a run which by all accounts was a stupid anti-american angle that nobody really liked. he isn't over because he's incredibly over, he's over because the mcmahons remind people of the attitude era. it's just the mcmahon factor at work here, people will pop for it.

all of these guys are over circumstantially and trying to get real clever and act like they are over on their very own is tripping up the work before it gets started. make the titles the focus, add drama on top. don't put them in the lower or mid card and hope they just get over because well hell stars just get over. it ain't working. evidence: nobody gives a shit about anybody unless they 'shoot'.
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
So basically you have no actual reason, you just like the guy. Fair enough, but accusing people of lowkey racism is a pretty poor attempt at discourse.
Why would I only like someone if they drew money? I love tons of wrasslers that aren't big deals and never will be. Does anyone else even like Quiet Storm?

Regarding racism, I'm happy that we got a "that's too far" chant, because not long ago, we had Zeb Coulter getting cheers for the wrong shit with Swagger. WWE audiences are routinely terrible. And yes, racist.
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
nobody on this roster except for brock is incredibly over, so use the titles for what they're actually supposed to help do

and as far as KO goes, he's just come off a run which by all accounts was a stupid anti-american angle, he isn't over because he's incredibly over, he's over because the mcmahons remind people of the attitude era.
Except for Brock?

Strowman is over
Roman is over
KO is over
AJ is over
Nakamura is over
Ambrose is over
Rollins is over

Bork transcends wrestling, barely. But he does. But to say he's the only one over? Nah.
 

THE GUY

Banned
People who are incredibly over don't need titles, they can rely on the strength of their angles. See: KO and Shane.
I feel the only people who can consistently do that right now are Brock, Reigns, and to a lesser extent, Cena (his shine has clearly worn off in recent times). You put them in with anyone, and it feels like a noteworthy thing.

Even Owens angle with Styles was a bore. They're just not those guys. They need that little bit extra, and a world title can help do that. They're over, but they don't feel like a big deal necessarily, unless they're in there with someone who is. It's about presentation more than anything. We know they're invested in these guys and since there aren't really any bigger stars on SDL, why not give them the spotlight feuds?

In that respect, Owens angle right now works so well because he's against the McMahons. And a feud with Shane is a pretty big deal because he brings that nostalgia with him for a lot of fans. It's basically the big angle right now on SDL.
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
I feel the only people who can consistently do that right now are Brock, Reigns, and to a lesser extent, Cena (his shine has clearly worn off in recent times). You put them in with anyone, and it feels like a noteworthy thing.

Even Owens angle with Styles was a bore. They're just not those guys. They need that little bit extra, and a world title can help do that. They're over, but they don't feel like a big deal necessarily, unless they're in there with someone who is. It's about presentation more than anything. We know they're invested in these guys and since there aren't really any bigger stars on SDL, why not give them the spotlight feuds?

In that respect, Owens angle right now works so well because he's against the McMahons. And a feud with Shane is a pretty big deal because he brings that nostalgia with him for a lot of fans. It's basically the big angle right now on SDL.
I was also surprised at how empty Styles/KO was. Chemistry just want there. Never did pinpoint why, either.

Surely we can agree Jinder as a character has hugely benefitted from being world champion. Keep in mind that before that, he was just "one of the 3mb guys who got huge"
 

THE GUY

Banned
I was also surprised at how empty Styles/KO was. Chemistry just want there. Never did pinpoint why, either.

Surely we can agree Jinder as a character has hugely benefitted from being world champion. Keep in mind that before that, he was just "one of the 3mb guys who got huge"
I can agree with that. I wouldn't mind seeing Jinder stick around the midcard now. I feel he's credible enough to be chasing the IC and US titles. In that sense, the world title run has benefitted him.

The thing is, could they have done that by just pushing him in the midcard, while elevating Balor to certified top guy status at the same time? I think so. It may not have been the shortcut Jinder got right now, but I think it would've been more beneficial long-term because it would've been a bigger deal for a more notable talent. More importantly, they'd not have wasted Balor like they have on Raw recently. Raw is way too stacked with top faces for Balor to have a place there. Someone needs to turn, or someone needs to go to SDL.
 

Foggy

Member
Why would I only like someone if they drew money? I love tons of wrasslers that aren't big deals and never will be. Does anyone else even like Quiet Storm?

Regarding racism, I'm happy that we got a "that's too far" chant, because not long ago, we had Zeb Coulter getting cheers for the wrong shit with Swagger. WWE audiences are routinely terrible. And yes, racist.

...you're not really following the conversation
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
...you're not really following the conversation
I must be missing something. If you want to break it down again for me just let me know! I get the feeling we are on the same side, in this case.
 

Stall19

Member
I get what they're doing with Jinder and those racists promos. They're making him look like a hypocrite for accusing the audience of not being tolerant of people from different nationalities while not being tolerant and making fun of Nakamura's nationality. It just feels wrong that Nakamura hasn't tried to kick his ass yet. The Nakamura interview after that mad him look horrible though. He should have came out and destroyed the Singh brothers while Jinder flees instead of laughing it off like he did. Nakamura better destroy him and take the title at HITC.
 

gun_haver

Member
Except for Brock?

Strowman is over
Roman is over
KO is over
AJ is over
Nakamura is over
Ambrose is over
Rollins is over

Bork transcends wrestling, barely. But he does. But to say he's the only one over? Nah.

You said incredibly over, none of these guys are incredibly over. They're over, to varying extents, and some them to much less of an extent to when they were in the WWE title picture. I'll go through them.

Strowman:

On the way up, has the double excitement of 'what would a strownman title run be like' and 'wow they haven't fucked him up yet' going for him and then the Brock bestowed attribute of 'man, brock's legit, that makes strowman a little bit legit for being good enough to waste his time'
Roman:
Come on. 3 straight WM main events will get you a reaction.
KO:
KO's a good promo and his matches routinely disappoint - his two most notable feuds this year have been Jericho and AJ Styles, both resulted in disappointing blow-offs. Maybe KO is capable of putting on a great match, but WWE doesn't let him show it. He is the rare and possibly only case on this roster of not fully getting over due to his lacklustre in-ring performance, despite good - and let's be honest, not GREAT - promos.
AJ:
AJ carries an aura of 'i'm the best wrestler in the world' around with him, which he had coming in. You are right, he doesn't need a title to be over - so is this good enough? He gets cheers and people talk about him online in a positive way, but he isn't exactly setting the world on fire with his current milquetoast midcard babyface run - this is an expenditure of interest and goodwill, rather than a generation of it. He bought an extension of this in his WWE title feud with John Cena.
Nakamura:
He is an entrance at this point who has 2 1/2 - 3 star matches, when he was supposed to be a potentially huge thing. They have recently, in his first major title feud, made it about race. His star will fade soon, the entrance will keep him breathing for a while but not forever. A complete disappointment through a mix of his own boring matches and a mix of meandering and right now, racially reductive booking.
Ambrose:
This one baffles me a little - he's a good promo, but he is so bad in the ring I don't know why people didn't give up on him a long time ago. I guess he's kind of hot, so women like him, and he can act a little - I guess in this extremely meagre linup of 'incredibly over' people he does make the cut. People went nuts for his title win, and his close call with Triple H - a WWE title match which is the best match in his WWE career.
Rollins:
Rollins got over because he had a long fucking title run where he had a series of great matches. He gets nothing compared to what he got then and there's a correlation there.
 
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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Gun_haver, really appreciate that breakdown of those I listed. I can't say I agree with all of them, especially KO. Nakamura, though; absolutely Ascension tier at the moment. Just an entrance. And it's a shame, because anyone could cruise on an entrance.
 

Syder

Member
Nakamura:
He is an entrance at this point who has 2 1/2 - 3 star matches, when he was supposed to be a potentially huge thing. They have recently, in his first major title feud, made it about race. His star will fade soon, the entrance will keep him breathing for a while but not forever. A complete disappointment through a mix of his own boring matches and a mix of meandering and right now, racially reductive booking.
Gun_haver, really appreciate that breakdown of those I listed. I can't say I agree with all of them, especially KO. Nakamura, though; absolutely Ascension tier at the moment. Just an entrance. And it's a shame, because anyone could cruise on an entrance.
So what you're saying is...

#DolphIsRight
 
Owens was putting on great matches last year combined with his character work

He went to Smackdown to have boring feuds and kicked it off with a monotone evil Canadian character

The product isn't completely worthless right now but even stuff that was worth caring about in the past year just isn't anymore
 

THE GUY

Banned
The weird thing about Nakamura and Styles to me is how I had the polar opposite reactions to them.

First time I saw Styles was at Royal Rumble, and he was alright. I had no expectations since I didn't know him. His feud with Jericho was a bit boring, but I saw why people really liked him with the Reigns matches. He did a great job there, and carried on being very consistent in the ring after that, and came into his own with the heel turn. Shot up quickly in my ranks of guys I like to see.

Nakamura is a similar case of being an unknown, except I had expectations because I thought this would be a similar case to Styles. Dude will come in, get his groove, and impress me. Except I've not had that moment with him. I'm genuinely wondering why anyone likes him at all.

His only good match was with Orton, and I only mean good by TV standards. He can't work a mic, and his "charisma" if you can call it that is cartoonish, and he looks like he gives a less of a shit than Orton when he's in the ring. Which is why I was partially surprised by their match together.
 

Anth0ny

Member
Except for Brock?

Strowman is over
Roman is over
KO is over
AJ is over
Nakamura is over
Ambrose is over
Rollins is over

Bork transcends wrestling, barely. But he does. But to say he's the only one over? Nah.

Enzo is clearly over, the crowd chants along with him every week!

The Hardys are over too.

And when Cesaro does his swing, the crowd pops every time.
 

gun_haver

Member
Gun_haver, really appreciate that breakdown of those I listed. I can't say I agree with all of them, especially KO. Nakamura, though; absolutely Ascension tier at the moment. Just an entrance. And it's a shame, because anyone could cruise on an entrance.

yeah, i mean what i'm saying is sure some of these guys are popular, but none of them so popular that they are entirely established without a major focus in the main title scene. i think they're squandering what talent they do have by trying to be clever/platform-build and assume these minor stars are way more established than they actually are. people gave a shit about seth rollins for a minute there in 2015, but no more. that's just one example, they're fucking a lot of them up with 'okay let's put the most over guy in the midcard and uh let's put this turd who might be a decent upper mid-card in 5 years as the guy right away'.
 

Heroman

Banned
The weird thing about Nakamura and Styles to me is how I had the polar opposite reactions to them.

First time I saw Styles was at Royal Rumble, and he was alright. I had no expectations since I didn't know him. His feud with Jericho was a bit boring, but I saw why people really liked him with the Reigns matches. He did a great job there, and carried on being very consistent in the ring after that, and came into his own with the heel turn. Shot up quickly in my ranks of guys I like to see.

Nakamura is a similar case of being an unknown, except I had expectations because I thought this would be a similar case to Styles. Dude will come in, get his groove, and impress me. Except I've not had that moment with him. I'm genuinely wondering why anyone likes him at all.

His only good match was with Orton, and I only mean good by TV standards. He can't work a mic, and his "charisma" if you can call it that is cartoonish, and he looks like he gives a less of a shit than Orton when he's in the ring. Which is why I was partially surprised by their match together.
Nakamura is legitimately a hall of fame teirwreslter and is a the phenomenal wrestler.
 

Anth0ny

Member
The weird thing about Nakamura and Styles to me is how I had the polar opposite reactions to them.

First time I saw Styles was at Royal Rumble, and he was alright. I had no expectations since I didn't know him. His feud with Jericho was a bit boring, but I saw why people really liked him with the Reigns matches. He did a great job there, and carried on being very consistent in the ring after that, and came into his own with the heel turn. Shot up quickly in my ranks of guys I like to see.

Nakamura is a similar case of being an unknown, except I had expectations because I thought this would be a similar case to Styles. Dude will come in, get his groove, and impress me. Except I've not had that moment with him. I'm genuinely wondering why anyone likes him at all.

His only good match was with Orton, and I only mean good by TV standards. He can't work a mic, and his "charisma" if you can call it that is cartoonish, and he looks like he gives a less of a shit than Orton when he's in the ring. Which is why I was partially surprised by their match together.

people watched styles and nakamura before they came to wwe, and they were great.

i agree that if you just learned who they were from watching their wwe runs alone, they don't come off as anything particularly special.
 

Nekofrog

Banned
Are we collectively forgetting Nakamuras match with Sami? Is this bizarro world? That match was easily one if the best matches broadcast under a wwe name in ages. The dude has it if given the tools to work with while also not being doused in gasoline and set on fire with vkms horrible writing.
 

gun_haver

Member
people watched styles and nakamura before they came to wwe, and they were great.

i agree that if you just learned who they were from watching their wwe runs alone, they don't come off as anything particularly special.

aj does, he's cooked up a few steaks in the past 2 years on wwe.

Are we collectively forgetting Nakamuras match with Sami? I'd this bizarro world? That match was easily one if the best matches broadcast under a wwe name in ages. The dude has it if given the tools to work with while also not being doused in failing and set in for bad vkms horrible writing.

his first match. it was indeed great. it was also his only match that even approached great, hell even was comfortably good, in wwe so far. one match, and for all we know judging by his performances since, that was mostly sami's doing. 'shiiiiinsssssukkkkkkeeeee!!!!!'.
 

THE GUY

Banned
people watched styles and nakamura before they came to wwe, and they were great.

i agree that if you just learned who they were from watching their wwe runs alone, they don't come off as anything particularly special.
Styles comes off pretty good in my eyes. He didn't in the first couple months, but he delivered consistently after WM32. No surprise his reactions started increasing around that time too. His matches with Reigns, Cena, and Ambrose were all entertaining. He had a good 8-9 month streak there. And it continued into Mania. He's just been boring since then, and I blame that on his face turn in part, as well as his terrible chemistry with Owens.

Nakamura just seems like he doesn't care. And unlike Styles for whom it took a few months, he's been getting big reactions since his debut on SDL. But it's hard to invest in a guy who clearly doesn't seem to give a crap himself. It'd be one thing if he showed up on PPV at least, but he seems to be on cruise control there too.

On the other hand, he hasn't been given the best of talent to work. So maybe my opinion would change if they started getting him in there with guys like Owens, Styles, Orton etc.
 
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