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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 17, 2012 5:01:16 GMT -6
I understand what WWE is doing. It's about revenue and making Universal happy. Still makes the show suck. Three Hour Raw. Main Event. Smackdown. I know I'm leaving something out. It's too goddamed much. There's too much programming. It kills creative and overexposes the product. The old philosophy is "leave the people wanting more."
Also, as for the people like Cena and Ryback, apparently the people that buy tickets and shit at the gimmick table like them. And that's obvious. Nobody goes to a gig for whatever band to shit on them. They will wear and possibly buy gimmicks from that band. This is what WWE does and they do it well. When I went to RAW in Milwaukee at the Bradley Center, 90% bought tickets and wanted to be there. It was mark central as it should be. Taking a leak a few urinals from Charles Robinson was cool.
There are very few guys that worked territories that are still in the business. Guys that would go around the horn and work every night.
Even the indy guys no matter how much they travel lose that in comparison to the territory days. You need to learn how to work. Sadly, many indy promotions don't have any leadership that's worth a shit. Just get your spots in and flippy-flop. Fuck any theory. Call your own match.
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Post by jimfromsaintpaul on Oct 18, 2012 6:40:28 GMT -6
They did this during the attitude era too.
Raw, then Smackdown, then Heat, then Shotgun Saturday night, then Jacked, then another one I think. It was on TV like 4 days a week. That was even when there wern't seperate brands to think about. Nowadays they are confused about whether there are 2 brands or not obviously, so that doesn't help either.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 19, 2012 5:34:37 GMT -6
Jesus Tap-Dancing-Christ am I drunk, but there was a bunch of the stuff in the Attitude Era that was total shit. Fuck. Shit on a stick. Hand baby? Katie Vick? The best part of that era was that new people were able to get pushed. They had nothing, saw ECW (and I am not an ECW mark) and yay lets have some color and plunder. The sad part is that Mark Henry learned how to work after ten years. The territories years ago, blah blah... IT'S ALL ABOUT TV GODDAMNIT.
Sorry, kids, I try to give wwe some time. I understand it's not the best "wrestling" but they have some of the best wrestlers under contract. I realize that the workers are following the deal that wwe puts out and that's their job. It's what they do. TNA does the same. The problem is, is that these fuckers think they can bring up professional wrestling or sports entertainment or whatever and make it better. It always fails. Especially these days. The horse always goes in front of the cart.
Do a goddamned wrestling show. Let the personalities of the workers shine. Remember the worked nature of the product. The whole thing was take a worker's personality and crank it up to 11. That was Bock, Flair, Micheals, Austin, HHH, etc. Develop it from there.
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Post by verbaltoxin on Oct 19, 2012 10:54:49 GMT -6
The last time the WWE was this bad creatively, they neared bankruptcy. Fuck, Vince just pissed through all his 80s money because of the WBF and other bullshit, and by 1993 he was on the ropes. He actually had Jerry Jarrett working up there for a while, just in case Vince went to prison.
He learned to do one thing in those 20 years since, and that was make WWE self-sustaining so it could go through droughts like this and survive. You'll notice he does no working agreements with any companies anymore. FCW doesn't even exist now. It's all corporate, in-house stuff, for better or worse.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 20, 2012 5:14:29 GMT -6
Smiths: Vince doesn't do this. he gives them characters. That's the problem. Especially when he had the drawer full of gimmicks to put on guys he plucked from the territories. Now he's got a herd of writers and agents. Let's give them stupid names. Who the fuck is named Dolph Ziggler? Is he the son of the guy who played He-Man or the motivational speaker? Smiths: CM Punk amped to 11 I wanna say was more Straight Edge Society Punk and the beginning of the "pipe bomb" Punk (before Nash was involved). Just an arrogant ass who is better than you and knows it. And god when he smirks or smiles you wanna kick his teeth in but at the same time you love watching him out there doing it. Perfect example. And, that is Punk. He's also a student of the game and "gets it." He's a helluva worker for a reason. Smiths: Orton amped to 11 is ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz he has never done anything for me. Handpicked HHH buddy. I have no idea why he's over as a babyface. He has zero charisma. He needs to be a heel. He can generate heat on the heel side of things. Smiths: Seamus amped to 11 fella is fella fella fella for fella on a fella. We don't really know what he can be because no one remembers his HHH feud at all when he was a pipe-bearing bad guy because they've shoved that down the shower drain.
So he beefed forearm sized logs in the shower and heeled them down the drain? Sorry. That meme cracks me up. POOP GODDAMNIT! Smiths: But to repeat: it's all characters today for WWE. Yep. Just too much. You can have several tiers on a show. You can have the young guys trying to get over, the title chase and personal issues. Also, the territories aren't around anymore. Workers aren't getting the experience before hitting the big time. They also are thrust into the grind of the WWE schedule when they're not ready. The indies for the most part aren't a good farm system. Let's do a shit ton of highspots. Developmental is fine, that should be to train people to work the style for TV. I still laugh that some can't do the duck-duck spot. BTW, Ryback is green. From whatever I've seen his heart is in the right place. I hope for Christ's sake that Punk can carry him to a good match. I hope nobody gets hurt. There will be a fuck finish at the next PPV. Verbaltoxin/Lingualvenom: The last time the WWE was this bad creatively, they neared bankruptcy. Fuck, Vince just pissed through all his 80s money because of the WBF and other bullshit, and by 1993 he was on the ropes. He actually had Jerry Jarrett working up there for a while, just in case Vince went to prison.
I agree totally with this. Holy Christ are you reading my brain. And that booking wasn't too terrible. And here comes my "filter" argument. Vince needs a Pat or a Prichard or something to filter stuff through. I've been a filter for the booker. You need to have to have people to smack you upside the head. Unfortunately if Vince shits somewhere, it becomes a holy terlit.
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Post by LucklessWonder on Oct 20, 2012 18:41:13 GMT -6
Yeah the reason the Attitude worked is that the two Vinces (Russo & McMahon) were able to work as each other's filter for the most part. Russo constantly nixing McMahon's incest angle comes to mind.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 21, 2012 5:08:44 GMT -6
Smiths: that he heels down the drain So he beefs several forearm sized logs in the shower... That meme cracks me up. In general, poop makes me laugh unless I have to clean it up at the bar. LucklessWonder: Yeah the reason the Attitude worked is that the two Vinces (Russo & McMahon) were able to work as each other's filter for the most part. Russo constantly nixing McMahon's incest angle comes to mind.
And lotsa shit comes to mind. Remember that at that time the territories has dried up. So now we have the advent of developmental later, WWE was in trouble, there were fans shitting on their product. Then ECW and the internet came into being. Also, Milwaukee has the best catering. And in other news, the mid '90's were almost 20 years ago. Get off my lawn... lol If you want me to rant about demolition derby, I can. Gimme a fucking beer.
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Post by sharktrager on Oct 21, 2012 7:45:01 GMT -6
One thing to consider in all of our hate for Steph's management of creative is that she got the job largely because she was willing to block Vince's more retarded story ideas. In a lot of cases it wasn't Russo saying no, it was Steph.
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Post by sharktrager on Oct 21, 2012 18:37:43 GMT -6
One thing to consider in all of our hate for Steph's management of creative is that she got the job largely because she was willing to block Vince's more retarded story ideas. In a lot of cases it wasn't Russo saying no, it was Steph. I never read steph blocking vince. All I know from fans eye view is the hottest angle at the time (hhh/angle/steph) seemed to vaporize once it appeared steph and hhh were legit getting married and it seemed steph liked her time on camera with hot hubby. Fuck her There are a lot of stories about her saying no to Vince and the writers. My favorite is when she was pregnant. Vince wanted an angle where he's be the baby's father. She said no. He then said he wanted it to be Shane, and she said no again. Stephanie also blocked an angle where Melina would be found out to actually be a man, |
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Post by sharktrager on Oct 22, 2012 6:12:17 GMT -6
Smiths: that was when i was not watching any rasslin' at all then. i guess getting knocked up gave her some individuality balls.The creative problems aren't her as much as they are institutional. They are trying to be something they aren't and that ruins it.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 24, 2012 1:41:38 GMT -6
sharktrager: The creative problems aren't her as much as they are institutional. They are trying to be something they aren't and that ruins it.Thank you. This allows me to restate my point that the gang at Titan Towers, especially Vince need to embrace their inner carny and focus on what they've been best at: Wrestling.
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Post by LucklessWonder on Oct 24, 2012 12:04:56 GMT -6
She's got a better ass than Aniston, but then I believe she's younger.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 25, 2012 5:01:29 GMT -6
Smiths: DID YOU NOT SEE AJ LEE'S ACTING IN THE RING ON MONDAY? SHE'S OUR OWN JENNIFER ANISTON Y'know, that brings up a good question: Do they have acting coaches in developmental? They might as well. They have Dusty down there to help with promos, but when they get the call up, it seems that so much is scripted. AJ or anyone else is just doing what they're told. Nobody's gonna shoot. I have to hold back my screaming at the monitor because I know that. Shit rolls down hill. Sad thing is, they have very few on the roster that can carry something in an situation where they can call stuff and ad lib. And get it in within time. Remember, this is all done on worldwide TV. There are no territories where young workers can learn how to get heat nor are there many workers that can carry a limited guy to a good 15 minute match. Yeah, WWE and TNA have their developmental companies. The indies can form more bad habits than me with an unlimited amount of booze and strippers and cocaine. You need the older workers to teach the young workers. Young workers need to be put with an older guy/girl to learn how to work a crowd. That's how you learn.
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Post by verbaltoxin on Oct 25, 2012 15:22:22 GMT -6
They need coaching for both acting and cutting promos; probably more the former than the latter because of how WWE works these days, but house shows aren't scripted, so if they're told by Arn or some other agent, "Hey, go out there and do a promo before the match," they need to know how to make it stick.
WWE's model is failing. They can point to the 3.5's they get in spring/summer all they want, but they used to do 6-8.0. They've lost literally 50% of their audience in the last 10 years - probably more, in fact. Their stock's been downgraded and has dropped in price, and the network ISN'T FUCKING GONNA HAPPEN, AND ON THE OFF-CHANCE IT DOES, IT WILL FAIL HARDER THAN XFL AND WBF COMBINED and they will be FUCKED. Most Attitude Era fans aren't coming back, but those fans have kids now and WWE isn't even grabbing them to replace the huge share they lost over the prior decade.
They base their whole model around ONE GUY. JUST ONE FUCKING GUY. John Cena has been elevated so fucking high and far above every other wrestler, if he goes down they have to do stupid shit like push RYBACK into a ppv main event against a veteran worker, when Ryback himself has hardly been prepared for a main event run.
Having a developmental program works, if you run it to actually draw some money on its own. That means it has to run house shows, have TV, and even do a ppv or ippv. WWE doesn't do that with NXT, nor did it do that with DSW, OVW, FCW, or the other promotions it used in the past. They're running NXT as a college class project - seriously, that's why it's at Full Sail University.
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Post by Ed Becker on Oct 26, 2012 4:55:39 GMT -6
Verbaltoxin/Lingualvenom: WWE's model is failing. They can point to the 3.5's they get in spring/summer all they want, but they used to do 6-8.0. They've lost literally 50% of their audience in the last 10 years - probably more, in fact.God fuck, I'm defacto defending WWE here. They won't ever get those numbers back. Remember, the final score is revenue from their partnership with Universal and what they invest. What they did in the past is a fart in the wind. It doesn't matter that they dropped the 50%, it doesn't matter. The numbers that matter to them and Universal is what they do in spots and by that I mean commercial time. The audience is splintered more than it ever has been. There wasn't Pawn Stars or whatever during the Monday night wars. Shit, up to a few years ago there wasn't widespread HD. Back then, it was the template of early television: Wrestling and bowling was cheap and easy to produce. WWE is there in part to provide programming to Universal. They will make money off of each other. Ad revenue. Go and sell.
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