Wrestling Entertainment - we know, you don't have to tell us!

[DE.]

2 hours ago, Mike E said:

That's what happens when you turn SD into Raw Recaps.

They need to commit to the brand split and have both shows run at 2 hours.

No chance of either happening unfortunately.

They've done such a horrific job of creating new stars that they don't have anywhere near enough to sustain interest in two separate brands. In the past they might just let Smackdown wither on the vine, but with FOX looking over their shoulders in preparation for October they have had no choice but to effectively end the brand split with the stupid wild card rule to try and pull viewers across to both Raw and Smackdown. The funny thing is that even with all the top stars across both brands, it still isn't working, and both shows are continuing to tank at a scary rate. The long and short of it is that they have no real stars - Reigns is the best they have and he's no John Cena. The can't rely on Attitude Era stars to come back to pop a rating because they're either too old to go or just don't have the same appeal with WWE's core audience as they did 10-15 years ago. 

Factor in the disgustingly bad creative direction of the company and it's little wonder they're circling the drain from a viewership perspective. 

Cutting the third hour is a no go as they would need to boost the Raw rating to at least a 3.0 to offset the money lost from advertising revenue - and there's no chance of Raw hitting a 3.0 again any time in the near future.

Edited June 21, 2019 by DE.

[Bigdoggsteel]

20 minutes ago, DE. said:

No chance of either happening unfortunately.

They've done such a horrific job of creating new stars that they don't have anywhere near enough to sustain interest in two separate brands. In the past they might just let Smackdown wither on the vine, but with FOX looking over their shoulders in preparation for October they have had no choice but to effectively end the brand split with the stupid wild card rule to try and pull viewers across to both Raw and Smackdown. The funny thing is that even with all the top stars across both brands, it still isn't working, and both shows are continuing to tank at a scary rate. The long and short of it is that they have no real stars - Reigns is the best they have and he's no John Cena. The can't rely on Attitude Era stars to come back to pop a rating because they're either too old to go or just don't have the same appeal with WWE's core audience as they did 10-15 years ago. 

Factor in the disgustingly bad creative direction of the company and it's little wonder they're circling the drain from a viewership perspective. 

Cutting the third hour is a no go as they would need to boost the Raw rating to at least a 3.0 to offset the money lost from advertising revenue - and there's no chance of Raw hitting a 3.0 again any time in the near future.

Ya, they are shite at creating stars. I could give many examples, but the worst I think is their inability to build a good heel. Case in point, they are after putting more into Shane McMahon being the top heel in 2019 than anyone else in the previous what, 5 years plus?

[DE.]

1 minute ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Ya, they are shite at creating stars. I could give many examples, but the worst I think is their inability to build a good heel. Case in point, they are after putting more into Shane McMahon being the top heel in 2019 than anyone else in the previous what, 5 years plus?

The only other heel they're putting any effort into is Baron Corbin of all people. Their obsession with Corbin is bizarre. Sure, he gets heat, but it's definitely "go away" heat as opposed to genuine heel heat. He's really boring and nobody wants to see him main eventing. I actually like Corbin as a character, he's very very good at being a sleazy heel, but I just have no interest in him as an in-ring performer. It's the same way with Elias. Great character, but boring in the ring. Back in the Attitude Era they knew how to protect these kinds of wrestlers so that they weren't exposed in the ring and still got over as characters, but they have no idea how to do that now. The booking is just so insanely bad.

Look at Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Two of the best in ring performers AND characters in all of wrestling, and yet WWE has utterly ruined both of them and somehow made the pair of them boring. It's incredible. You just know they would both shine in AEW, as would Balor, Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan, and various other wrestlers that WWE has neutered over the years. What's galling is that NXT proves there are some people in WWE who know what they're doing, but as Dean Ambrose said, that's because it's missing one major problem - Vince McMahon. 

I dread the day Bray Wyatt returns to Raw and/or Smackdown. You know that as soon as the Firefly Funhouse vignettes end and Wyatt is back on TV they will destroy all the momentum he's built up. He might even end up being the special referee on Sunday. Speaking of bad booking decisions - how does a HEEL appointing a special ref to screw the babyface make people want to buy a PPV? Especially when it's somebody like Corbin who people don't want to see in the main event anyway, let alone as champion. It makes no sense. Who gave Corbin the authority to appoint the ref anyway? Vince? Stephanie? Linda? Triple H? None of them have been on TV regularly as of late and none of them have shown anything to suggest they even like Corbin. They stripped him of his general manager position and blamed him for ratings tanking, ffs. Now suddenly he's being allowed to appoint special referees and has title matches? I appreciate asking for continuity in WWE is a bit much, but even so, this is just so senseless.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Just now, DE. said:

The only other heel they're putting any effort into is Baron Corbin of all people. Their obsession with Corbin is bizarre. Sure, he gets heat, but it's definitely "go away" heat as opposed to genuine heel heat. He's really boring and nobody wants to see him main eventing. I actually like Corbin as a character, he's very very good at being a sleazy heel, but I just have no interest in him as an in-ring performer. It's the same way with Elias. Great character, but boring in the ring. Back in the Attitude Era they knew how to protect these kinds of wrestlers so that they weren't exposed in the ring and still got over as characters, but they have no idea how to do that now. The booking is just so insanely bad.

Look at Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Two of the best in ring performers AND characters in all of wrestling, and yet WWE has utterly ruined both of them and somehow made the pair of them boring. It's incredible. You just know they would both shine in AEW, as would Balor, Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan, and various other wrestlers that WWE has neutered over the years. What's galling is that NXT proves there are some people in WWE who know what they're doing, but as Dean Ambrose said, that's because it's missing one major problem - Vince McMahon. 

I dread the day Bray Wyatt returns to Raw and/or Smackdown. You know that as soon as the Firefly Funhouse vignettes end and Wyatt is back on TV they will destroy all the momentum he's built up. He might even end up being the special referee on Sunday. Speaking of bad booking decisions - how does a HEEL appointing a special ref to screw the babyface make people want to buy a PPV? Especially when it's somebody like Corbin who people don't want to see in the main event anyway, let alone as champion. It makes no sense. Who gave Corbin the authority to appoint the ref anyway? Vince? Stephanie? Linda? Triple H? None of them have been on TV regularly as of late and none of them have shown anything to suggest they even like Corbin. They stripped him of his general manager position and blamed him for ratings tanking, ffs. Now suddenly he's being allowed to appoint special referees and has title matches? I appreciate asking for continuity in WWE is a bit much, but even so, this is just so senseless.

Ya, no doubt they will mess Wyatt up. That muscle man dance was the best thing in wwe for years. Funny, satirical and he looked in great shape. Slow build him like wcw did with sting against the nwo and you could even turn him into a face the momentum is so strong. I'm afraid to think what they will do with him 

Imagine him being the one to start coming at Shane McMahon. Psychological stuff. 

Yes, I should be a booker ?

Edited June 21, 2019 by Bigdoggsteel

[DE.]

There are so many awesome and interesting directions they could go in, but you know they won't pick any of those. He'll come out and Michael Cole will start hollering about Wyatt being "evil" or "creepy" or whatever, whilst attaching whatever nickname they give him, assuming they don't stick with the "eater of worlds" moniker. He'll probably end up getting fed to Roman Reigns after being Shane McMahon's lackey for a couple of months, then start literally chasing whoever is holding the 24/7 title by then. Maybe Ramblin' Rabbit will win it and Bray will start feuding with the puppet.

Edited June 22, 2019 by DE.

[Miller11]

I’ll be heading to Preston for this on Friday. WWE have allowed their wrestlers to appear, so I expect a number of NXT UK faces to be there... fair play to them for that.

[DE.]

Hopefully it's a good show!

Loving this...

Obviously no chance of AEW using anything like this as WWE would sue them into oblivion, but this intro was so simple yet so great.

[Vinjay]

Yes it was a very good intro but the "Raw Is War" intro blew it away...no pun intended. There should be explosions in whatever intro they use it is on TNT after all.

[DE.]

If they're calling it "Wednesday Night Dynamite" and it's airing on TNT then yeah, explosions are a must. Also some good music please. Raw and Smackdown have completely removed their intros nowadays so it would be another way to differenciate from the competition if they had an awesome intro package.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Samoa Joe, Kofi and Dolph should be a cracker. 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Bigdoggsteel

[Mike E]

8 hours ago, DE. said:

If they're calling it "Wednesday Night Dynamite" and it's airing on TNT then yeah, explosions are a must. Also some good music please. Raw and Smackdown have completely removed their intros nowadays so it would be another way to differenciate from the competition if they had an awesome intro package.

My favourite 'pairing' of intros (back when it was Raw on a Fri night, Smackdown on Sat morning) was Across the Nation for Raw, and Beautiful People for Smackdown. Really got you fired up for the show!

Thorn in your Eye was good, but it was on its way out as I started watching WWE a week after WMX7 (yes, what bad timing).

There are 3 unpopular opinions that stem from the timing of my fandom. Firstly, I completely bought Stone Cold as the suck-up bad guy. Secondly, Biker Taker was better than it's given credit for. Third, the Invasion angle was legit AWESOME at the time (though clearly it could've been booked better in hindsight).

*Dons tin hat*

Edited June 27, 2019 by Mike E

[Mike E]

Reports coming via Whatculture and PWInsider that Vince has handed over creative control of Raw and Smackdown to two 'Executive Directors'. Respectively Paul Heyman (Raw) and Eric Bischoff (Smackdown).

They will reportedly have 'the same power over their respective brands as Paul Levesque (HHH) over NXT'.

That is potentially a long-awaited game-changer for the creative processes on Raw and SD!

I guess the Alliance finally won!

Edited June 27, 2019 by Mike E

[DE.]

3 hours ago, Mike E said:

My favourite 'pairing' of intros (back when it was Raw on a Fri night, Smackdown on Sat morning) was Across the Nation for Raw, and Beautiful People for Smackdown. Really got you fired up for the show!

Thorn in your Eye was good, but it was on its way out as I started watching WWE a week after WMX7 (yes, what bad timing).

There are 3 unpopular opinions that stem from the timing of my fandom. Firstly, I completely bought Stone Cold as the suck-up bad guy. Secondly, Biker Taker was better than it's given credit for. Third, the Invasion angle was legit AWESOME at the time (though clearly it could've been booked better in hindsight).

*Dons tin hat*

Stone Cold actually did an excellent job during his heel turn, but the fans at the time simply didn't want it. Buyrates and ratings tanked straight after WM17 and never really recovered.

Biker Taker character was good, but he was booked far too strong, to the point where people got sick of him. He should have come back as Biker Taker for his match against Cena at WM, it would have been much better than the tired deadman gimmick.

Invasion failed because there were no legitimate WCW stars in it, save for Booker T and DDP. both of whom were buried the moment they got to WWE. Booker recovered, DDP did not. Interesting fact: Vince was planning to transform WWF Raw to WCW Raw. with Smackdown being the WWF show. However he cancelled all of these plans after Booker T Vs Buff Bagwell on Raw totally flopped. 

44 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Reports coming via Whatculture and PWInsider that Vince has handed over creative control of Raw and Smackdown to two 'Executive Directors'. Respectively Paul Heyman (Raw) and Eric Bischoff (Smackdown).

They will reportedly have 'the same power over their respective brands as Paul Levesque (HHH) over NXT'.

That is potentially a long-awaited game-changer for the creative processes on Raw and SD!

I guess the Alliance finally won!

Heyman being in charge of Raw should be awesome. Not sure about Bischoff. I think he's got some serious flaws as a creative mind, but I guess we'll see. My main concern is reading that they both report to Vince, who has the final say. If so then it's possible very little will change at all.

You can tell Vince is getting desperate, and so he should be. Attendence for Raw this week barely above 3000 people, Smackdown less than that. Absolutely horrific numbers, and ratings are still at record low levels. Once the NFL returns in September we could see by far the worst Raw and Smackdown ratings in history. Add the new and exciting AEW into the mix in October and it's shaping up to be a very interesting few months.

[Miller11]

Well, this could be the change WWE desperately needs. However, there’s a very good chance Vince will veto anything remotely radical they try to do.

With their past track records I’d expect Raw to become the home of the young workhorses and Smackdown to be the more character driven show. ECW can’t be replicated in the modern WWE environment, but Heymans success on Smackdown in the 2000s was built around Benoit, Guerrero, Angle... replace those names with Cesaro, Balor and Bryan and we could see similar. Bischoff I expect will be building a show far less around the in ring product... I imagine guys like Miz and Elias will find a home there... along with the elder statesmen while NXT callups will be Hayman bound.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Watched the buy in last night. The opening tag match was very good. Even if Private party looked a bit out of place. I suppose the "got their shit in". I turned it off during the next segment with the librarians. What was that about? Looking forward to catching the full show. 

[Mike E]

It was good, but some really gross spots in the later matches. Plus Cody takes a NASTY unprotected chair shot. They claim it was a gimmicked chair that didn't work, but didn't look that way to me.

[Bigdoggsteel]

41 minutes ago, Mike E said:

It was good, but some really gross spots in the later matches. Plus Cody takes a NASTY unprotected chair shot. They claim it was a gimmicked chair that didn't work, but didn't look that way to me.

Ya, I have seen worse. Jesus some matches years ago could have had 20 shots like that. Personally I find some of slams onto the apron or outside the ring to be far more cringe inducing. Oh ya and piledrivers. 

 

[DE.]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

It was good, but some really gross spots in the later matches. Plus Cody takes a NASTY unprotected chair shot. They claim it was a gimmicked chair that didn't work, but didn't look that way to me.

Absolutely no need to do chairshots to the head in this day and age, gimmicked or not. I can remember TNA doing it a few years ago and getting major flak for it - I hope AEW are held to the same standard. 

[Miller11]

Haven’t watched yet, but had a read of the reports and I’m not sure I’ll bother.

It seems 50% indie show, 25% PPV standard show and 25% back yard show.

[DE.]

Just watched through Fyter Fest - overall really enjoyable. Didn't watch the Buy In, just went straight to the main show.

Daniels Vs Cima - decent enough opening match.

Sakazaki Vs Riho Vs Rose - another good women's match, the women's division is shaping up to be really solid in AEW.

Page Vs Jungle Boy Vs Havok Vs MJF - another solid match. MJF is a really good heel - not playing for cheers, just a straight up heel. 

Cody Rhodes Vs Darby Allin - I had no idea who Allin was before this match, but I really enjoyed this one... until the match ended. The post-match chairshot to the head was total bullshit. I don't believe for a second that the chair was gimmicked. They did this on purpose to create buzz and put eyes on the product. I guess it worked in the sense that everybody was talking about it afterwards, but this left a really sour taste in my mouth. I won't support a company that does shit like this, and it had better be a one off. 

Omega & The Jacksons Vs Fenix/Pentagon/Kid - a great match, as expected. Everybody got time to shine and the finish made sense.

Moxley Vs Janela - OK, first thing's first, the whole idea of "unsanctioned" matches is really dumb to me. So it's "unsanctioned", but you're showing it on your PPV, letting the wrestlers use your referees and having your announcers call the match. Exactly what part of that is "unsanctioned" ? That nonsense aside, this was just a brutal, ECW style death match. Both of these guys took some severe punishment. Moxley's back was a mess after being slammed into the barbed wire chair/tables and Janela walking on the thumb tacks in bare feet made me cringe. Insane stuff. The Omega attack at the end set up the match between him and Moxley at All Out nicely.

So overall it was a solid event and a good watch, but I really do take issue with that chairshot to the head. Really disgusting stuff and if they continue on that path I'm definitely "all out". Other than that the match quality across the show was very good and the crowd was totally into it. Production looks good, commentary was spot on (good call on removing Marvez) and there wasn't any part of the show that dragged. A good effort tainted by the unnecessary chairshot.

Edited July 2, 2019 by DE.

[Mike E]

Agree with your assessment there. Chairshots need to be protected with hands up. Also looks even better as you get the slap of the chair on the hands, while the wrestler can snap their head back to sell the impact.

With a straight chair shot the receiver can't do that, so it can actually look and sound much weaker while doing God knows what kind of damage.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Do any of you watch Impact? There is a video on youtube of the endings to all  their Slammaversarys. They really had some great talent and matches over the years, but you could see the quality gradually drop off. One match had Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett whereas a more recent one has Austion Aries against Moose. The card for this one looks pretty good in fairness. i think the Johnny Impact and his corrupt ref is a pretty funny and well done angle. I don't think he should have went with Impact in his name though, he played a really good heel in Lucha underground going by Johnny Mundo, he should have kept that name. Brian Cage against Elgin has the potential to be a modern Mike Awesome v Masato Tanaka. Big athletic lads in a proper physical match. I love these kind of matches. 

Caught a bit of Raw, I think it's great that AJ has properly turned heel. A lot of potential here for a proper stable. I wonder will Balor turn? it's hard to know because I would say he is one of their biggest baby faces now. 

[DE.]

I haven't watched Impact in years. I watched TNA fairly regularly from about 2006 - 2012ish, but once Bischoff and Hogan got there it started going downhill pretty fast. Then when AJ, Joe, etc started leaving that was the end for me. I've followed TNA/Impact insofar as reading about what's going on with the company as a whole, but that's about it. I think they will always struggle to overcome the stigma they created for themselves, especially between 2010-2014. Best period of TNA was the early days (2005-2007), although I did enjoy the Main Event Mafia stuff too. I still remember the excitement of the "new monday night wars" and that first night, Jan 4 2010, when TNA got a 1.5 rating. A shame it all went to shit very quickly afterwards. 

Raw and Smackdown are definitely better quality-wise in the last few weeks. A stable with AJ, Finn, Anderson and Gallows would be awesome. They could have Finn come back and feud with AJ over being the "real leader" of the club (as both were at different times leaders of the Bullet Club) then have Finn turn on whoever was helping him out and turn heel. He's a solid babyface for sure, but he's so bland and boring, just like pretty much all of WWE's babyfaces. Whilst turning Balor heel and having the club as a proper stable would be awesome, they'd run into the same problem they always have of the heels being far cooler than the faces and therefore getting cheered as a result. WWE can't create a cool babyface to save their life. It's almost always a cool heel who turns face and then loses all his momentum as he becomes a bland character with no real motivation beyond "I'm a good guy and I do good guy things". It's something that Heyman and Bischoff desperately need to change, if they can.

[Vinjay]

On 03/07/2019 at 22:28, Mike E said:

Agree with your assessment there. Chairshots need to be protected with hands up. Also looks even better as you get the slap of the chair on the hands, while the wrestler can snap their head back to sell the impact.

With a straight chair shot the receiver can't do that, so it can actually look and sound much weaker while doing God knows what kind of damage.

Does nobody want any edge or do people want it as bland/boring and watered down like most football is? Not saying chairshots to head have to be done all the time but the effects are so exaggerated. Especially by people looking to make excuses for Chris Benoit. What about that bump Allin took on the apron or all the flippy floppy high impact stuff that goes on? Plus it wasn't like Cody's just a regular member of the roster so considering his slightly more elevated position nobody forced it on him did they? Gimmicked chair shot which went wrong on this occasion. Most of the time it won't and even less would fake blood if they used that instead of blading. Hardway blood won't ever go away entirely and by "hardway" in this case I mean accidental.

Anyway hopefully this proves to be true...

https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2019/7/3/20681500/wwe-ditching-pg-rating-win-back-teen-viewers-report

Also this past week...not an entirely new story but the Wrestlemania part is...

https://nypost.com/2019/06/27/hardcore-legend-tommy-dreamer-contemplated-murder-suicide-at-wrestlemania/

Not that I dislike Heyman but people have overlooked his poor business sense and he did screw over some people. I know that depression and anger can lead you to some pretty dark thoughts so not gonna judge Dreamer. Neither should anybody else as he didn't go through with it. 

Edited July 5, 2019 by Vinjay17

[Norbert Rassragr]

My cousin got a fractured eye socket off a corner post that required a steel plate in a move that went wrong. Add to that research on the effects of concussion in later life and maybe chair hits should be done with more care.