Random Wrasslin' thoughts.....

gerrybbadd

Lana is pretty spectacular, but I fear she's been typecast as this Russian chick, and when Rusev fades to obscurity (which he will), she will likely disappear too.

Hopefully she gets repackaged

Reebrock

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Lana is pretty spectacular, but I fear she's been typecast as this Russian chick, and when Rusev fades to obscurity (which he will), she will likely disappear too.

Hopefully she gets repackaged

The women have a history of jumping the sinking ship they are put with and being repackaged to be fair.

montyrebel

pack her up now and send her to me, I wont say no to that russian bride

krudler

gimmick wrote: »

There was always the feeling with Cena that he was being forced on us. Like his big title win at WM21 against JBL was met by silence. No one cared that he beat an almost year long champion heel.

The WWE had Kurt Angle go all anti USA in a fued with Cena and people still didn't get behind him. His push over the years was contrived in the extreme. Bryans recent push, as mentioned, certainly seemed almost completely organic. The fans just got with him. So the fans will give him a lot more rope than what Cena ever was.

That's it, people wanted Bryan to get to the top, Cena was well over during his rapper gimmick, then that was dropped and he became the all American hero that was relentlessly pushed on the audience. Wrestling fans decide who will be a star not the WWE, you can push someone to the moon but if they're met with crickets or complete boredom by crowds then who cares.

Look at The Rock, when he came in initially he was the big smiles, clean cut young guy and people utterly despised him, so they turned that into a positive and he became a brilliant heel. If Cena was just left do his own thing a bit more and had some sort of an edge to him they'd win the crowd back in regards the older audience. He's been a face for what, 10 years now give or take? No doubt he's an absolute workhorse and has been for years but his promos suck most of the time and his character is beyond stale.

Rjd2

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Lana is pretty spectacular, but I fear she's been typecast as this Russian chick, and when Rusev fades to obscurity (which he will), she will likely disappear too.

Hopefully she gets repackaged

I think she will be ok, stunning lady with loads of charisma, is young and is probably been paid peanuts, definitely think the WWE will repackage her if/when she leaves Rusev.:)

Reebrock

She has a lot of acting experience also from television, she'll be fine in a number of roles.

leggo

krudler wrote: »

That's it, people wanted Bryan to get to the top, Cena was well over during his rapper gimmick, then that was dropped and he became the all American hero that was relentlessly pushed on the audience. Wrestling fans decide who will be a star not the WWE, you can push someone to the moon but if they're met with crickets or complete boredom by crowds then who cares.

Look at The Rock, when he came in initially he was the big smiles, clean cut young guy and people utterly despised him, so they turned that into a positive and he became a brilliant heel. If Cena was just left do his own thing a bit more and had some sort of an edge to him they'd win the crowd back in regards the older audience. He's been a face for what, 10 years now give or take? No doubt he's an absolute workhorse and has been for years but his promos suck most of the time and his character is beyond stale.

I've argued for years that Cena should be a heel, but over the past year I've revised that and now feel he should never turn. Why bother? He gets booed when people want to boo him anyway. He's been the biggest heel in the company while fighting Rock, Punk, RVD, Bryan etc. And that works brilliantly. When you can make the merch sales that they make and still get that affect, why risk it by going another way? Besides, if Cena began getting edgy and heelish, not only would it affect merch with kids but smart fans would likely cheer him. He's fine where he is now, I love the gatekeeper role he's adopted recently in particular.

Plus Cena as he is has been absolutely pivotal in establishing the 'Reality Era' of WWE winking and nodding to backstage issues and so on that people love. He's made it so that faces and heels are more blurred in favour of just letting the crowd go with what they want and getting a maximum reaction. Without "Let's go Cena/Cena sucks", none of this happens.

brianregan09

I wouldn't like him to go full heel and insulting crowds and such that'd be too forced I'd just like to see more of the stuff that made him popular in the 1st making fun of his opponents he doesn't even need to rap and throw in some of that aggression we saw at WM against Bray Wyatt, Instead of having his opponent kick seven shades of **** out of him before coming back and winning easily with out breaking a sweat thats why people don't like him

Omackeral

I'd like to see him embrace the personality he had when he verbally sparred with , and owned , The Rock at their initial feud. When he brought back the Dr of Thuganomics , it was so very refreshing. Not heel but not a smiley little bitch either. Can be edgy without being profane. Innuendo can be cool when done cleverly. I'm sick not a mad fan of his act but he had me pulling for him in that battle.

brianregan09

^^^^^^^^^^This ^^^^^^^ You explained it a lot better than I did

Blue_Dabadee

Remember when R-Truth lit up a cigarette and became one of most entertaining heels of all-time.

beakerjoe

mxph3 wrote: »

Remember when R-Truth lit up a cigarette and became one of most entertaining heels of all-time.

All time???

mrkiscool2

beakerjoe wrote: »

All time???

Ah to be fair to him he got massive heat while still being an absolutely ludicrous character Very entertaining as a heel.

beakerjoe

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Ah to be fair to him he got massive heat while still being an absolutely ludicrous character Very entertaining as a heel.

Hardly of all time though, after Cena squashed him he was done until he and The Miz went rogue. In both cases his pushes were handled badly and his charcater suffered as a result.

Omackeral

Miz and Truth as invaders was kinda bad ass....for all of a week

Blue_Dabadee

beakerjoe wrote: »

All time???

Fair enough.

One of the best heels in the last 4 years.

beakerjoe

mxph3 wrote: »

Fair enough.

One of the best heels in the last 4 years.

I get what your saying, but he had more potential to be a great heel than ever being a great heel. His heel run was so short lived and never really given loads of chances to excel. Could have been a great heel IMO but sadly was quickly squashed by Cena.

Its a pity his heel character never developed much since his defeat to Cena and his pairing with The Miz came to a quick end at the hands of Rock/Cena as both

Great potential but overall never given the chance

Reebrock

mxph3 wrote: »

Remember when R-Truth lit up a cigarette and became one of most entertaining heels of all-time.

No I don't.

robvondoom

Foreshadowing the return of the Kings? Trolling and apophenia have not been ruled out.

Ape Lincoln

Been hearing that there might be another boom period of wrestling on the horizon. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Excitement around the WWE network, iPPVs and the indies doing well seem to be flagged as signalers. It's possible I suppose and if popular interest in wrestling increases then I'm sure that'd be great and all but it's hard to see another hot era like the 80s and late 90s were.

gnfnrhead

Ape Lincoln wrote: »

Been hearing that there might be another boom period of wrestling on the horizon. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Excitement around the WWE network, iPPVs and the indies doing well seem to be flagged as signalers. It's possible I suppose and if popular interest in wrestling increases then I'm sure that'd be great and all but it's hard to see another hot era like the 80s and late 90s were.

If anything, it's worse off now.

The second biggest company in the states is in real trouble of going under. The Indy companies are doing enough to survive but nobody is making any moves up. The only company (in the states) that is in a good position is the one that has been in that position for about 15 years now. Everybody else is staying still or trying to survive. WWE hoovering up so much talent in recent years really did a number on a lot of companies.

Blue_Dabadee

I remember when Smackdown became exclusive show on Sky Sports in 2005. I didn't have Sky Sports and Smackdown on Sky 1 on Saturday mornings was my main source for WWE at the time.

I missed a lot of WWE during 2005-2006 as a result. In 2007 was able to watch WWE again on Youtube.

jaykhunter

I hate to be negative, but there's no way we can get another boom period, for a few fundamental reasons:
• WWE is a public company with shareholders to answer to - they don't take risks.
• There's far too much WWE programming - anything good will be beaten to death and replayed, recapped on Smackdown and shilled on the app.
• WWE programming now, unlike the Hulkamania and Attitude Era, is aimed at the widest possible audience. It's the Star Wars Episode 1: aim it at old fans, lapsed fans, non-fans, children. There's no way you could like all of the show - only a portion is aimed at you. That's why Jake's beautiful HOF speech was followed by a F*(£E^G GOD-D*(£$^ Hornswoggle/El Torito run-around.
• WWE don't have competition. No chase, no incentive, no risks. Basically the only game in town doesn't wanna rock the boat.

Bounty Hunter

Was on a really long bus journey yesterday and re-read the first 150pages of Foleys first book. Randomly hit me that I live around the corner from and saw a WWE show where Mick Foley lost his ear vs Vader, no idea how I didn't realize that before now

irs

Any boom period is inevitably going to be followed by a bust and in wrestling the boom periods were created by doing things which in the long run were going to harm the business. Like with the Monday Night Wars was always going to end with one major company dead and the whole product becoming so over the top and overexposed. You could say the same about the death of the territories in the 80's. These changes were probably always going to happen and couldn't have been avoided but in both cases a wrestling boom killed off the thing that helped create it in the first place.

upstairs for coffee

jaykhunter wrote: »

I hate to be negative, but there's no way we can get another boom period, for a few fundamental reasons:
• WWE is a public company with shareholders to answer to - they don't take risks.
• There's far too much WWE programming - anything good will be beaten to death and replayed, recapped on Smackdown and shilled on the app.
• WWE programming now, unlike the Hulkamania and Attitude Era, is aimed at the widest possible audience. It's the Star Wars Episode 1: aim it at old fans, lapsed fans, non-fans, children. There's no way you could like all of the show - only a portion is aimed at you. That's why Jake's beautiful HOF speech was followed by a F*(£E^G GOD-D*(£$^ Hornswoggle/El Torito run-around.
• WWE don't have competition. No chase, no incentive, no risks. Basically the only game in town doesn't wanna rock the boat.

Out of interest, why watch it then? It sounds like you are bored with the product?

Ape Lincoln

upstairs for coffee wrote: »

Out of interest, why watch it then? It sounds like you are bored with the product?

Don't want to speak for Jay but I read his post describing WWE's monopoly over wrestling as reasons why there won't be another boom not a list about WWE being bad.

I pretty much agree with him, the previous two booms were characterised by competition and I can't see another wrestling company being able to compete with WWE nationally (North America).

jaykhunter

upstairs for coffee wrote: »

Out of interest, why watch it then? It sounds like you are bored with the product?

I absolutely love wrestling, but I don't love current WWE. I am however very interested in keeping up (I keep abreast with podcasts and Boards) so I don't miss anything great, because I want to love it. I've also come to terms with WWE's scattershot approach and view it accordingly - I catch parts of RAWs and PPVs. I generally spend my time watching old school PPVs/TV, which is still phenomenal. Also, wrestling is a unique medium that's more engaging off-screen. Often-times why something happened, and why something else didn't happen is more interesting. It's the most fascinating industry in the world.

leggo

jaykhunter wrote: »

I hate to be negative, but there's no way we can get another boom period, for a few fundamental reasons:
• WWE is a public company with shareholders to answer to - they don't take risks.
• There's far too much WWE programming - anything good will be beaten to death and replayed, recapped on Smackdown and shilled on the app.
• WWE programming now, unlike the Hulkamania and Attitude Era, is aimed at the widest possible audience. It's the Star Wars Episode 1: aim it at old fans, lapsed fans, non-fans, children. There's no way you could like all of the show - only a portion is aimed at you. That's why Jake's beautiful HOF speech was followed by a F*(£E^G GOD-D*(£$^ Hornswoggle/El Torito run-around.
• WWE don't have competition. No chase, no incentive, no risks. Basically the only game in town doesn't wanna rock the boat.

This is a great post, but just to add to this: WWE are in a constant 'boom period', so to speak, these days. They're now in the NFL, NBA, MLB, UFC stratosphere of being the only show in town so their only competition is themselves. Interest will fluctuate depending on what's going on at that exact moment in time with the product, but now everyone is familiar with WWE and has their stance on it one way or another. Casual fans will drift in and out, regulars will keep watching providing a solid base and they'll continue to get new fans each generation to accommodate those who grow weary of wrestling.

That's not a contradiction of the above, it's just that the above lays out why things won't go back to how they were in the late 90's, but how WWE are actually more stable today than they were back then. They may get hot, pop culture wise, for a while again but the big difference now is that the bottom can't drop out anymore.

rovert

jaykhunter wrote: »

I hate to be negative, but there's no way we can get another boom period, for a few fundamental reasons:
• WWE is a public company with shareholders to answer to - they don't take risks.
• There's far too much WWE programming - anything good will be beaten to death and replayed, recapped on Smackdown and shilled on the app.
• WWE programming now, unlike the Hulkamania and Attitude Era, is aimed at the widest possible audience. It's the Star Wars Episode 1: aim it at old fans, lapsed fans, non-fans, children. There's no way you could like all of the show - only a portion is aimed at you. That's why Jake's beautiful HOF speech was followed by a F*(£E^G GOD-D*(£$^ Hornswoggle/El Torito run-around.
• WWE don't have competition. No chase, no incentive, no risks. Basically the only game in town doesn't wanna rock the boat.

I agreed with all this. Especially the over exposure thing. You don't create demand or scarcity (value/anticipation) by flooding the market.

Adding WCW Thunder fastened the rot for WCW. As it over exposed stars.