*Official* Pro-Wrestling Thread II

[sledger]

Yeah, exactly. They'll persist with this new gimmick for a few weeks, give him exposure on shows like Superstars, it'll inevitably go nowhere, and he'll be released.

Feel sorry for the guy. Seems a top bloke from that EPSN doco. But as a performer, he's just really...ergh, underwhelming. Might have done better with a gimmick that wasn't utter crap, I guess, but even then I couldn't see him really going anywhere.

 

[Athlai]

Yeah definitely think he lacks the "it" factor. Might be able to get over in a tag team but I can't really see it.

That said, why isn't Slater on TV more?

The undercard having legitimately no story is just the worst. It's like they think the Twitter and YouTube videos are enough. FFS give us 2-3 minute long clips of your wider roster every week.

Show us Slater getting snubbed in gorilla trying to accept the open challenge. Doesn't matter if it's the week after or smackdown. Remind us the guy is alive. Give us a hearty chuckle at the poor buggers expense. It's charismatic shunts like him that can help you develop the personalities of your midcard. Have Neville be nice to the guy. Have R-Truth laugh at him. Have Mark Henry roll his eyes,

You have 3 hours to fill and every week you have promos that go on ten minutes too long. Ads might seem less jarring if we didn't get two in a match. Short segments can help break up the show. And you can cut **** on the fly if you ran or want to run with something longer.

I honestly think NXT does so much more with its undercard than WWE proper. Hell they even give Tye Dillenger and his perfect 10 gimmick some time to build in a match before jobbing him. It's an hour long show and I feel like they're showing me more.

Where's the Bull Fit on Raw? Why can't we get vignettes of Fandango trying to revitalise his character by trying different dance styles or Jack Swagger trying to figure out he will vote for.

Also more Bo. Give us a lot more Bo.

 

[sledger]

Yeah, agree.

 

[Athlai]

Cool things right now:
New Day's everything
KO's ring talk
Dad Jokes Kane / Demon Kane
Wyatt Ambro's feud
WWE hinting at Sasha's overness
Open Challenge matches
The NXT woman's division
The NXT tag team division
Corbin Rhyno Joe Breeze Crews Balor, the NXT six.
A NZer making a wild appearance. Evie was hot as hell. Hopefully it was a try out for her.

 

[Spikey]

their storylines are so ****ing slow. they've got like 5000 wrestlers and feuds between two guys have to be sorted out over 3 PPVs and 12 Raws. jesus christ end it and start something new

 

[sledger]

Putting more stuff on the undercard that isn't just throw away crap would also help with the problem brought up in here a while back RE: front-loading the shows with the big names, overexposure, and viewers turning off in their droves for hours two and three.

I guess what they have at the moment is a product that is geared almost entirely towards the main event feuds/angles. Everything else is basically just filler or crap. This kind of model might work ok if your main event program is a massive draw, involves a huge star, or is massively over or whatever. But when your main event program is just pretty lamentable (i.e. right now), suddenly the dire aspects of the entire product are massively evident.

 

[Athlai]

**** it'd be awesome if they made the 'Balor' club and moved up as a faction for Survivor series. Crews probably the one you could leave out. A team of Joe, Rhyno, ***y jacket Balor, Corbin and Breeze in a invasion/shake things up angle would be awesome. Balor is the focal point. Joe the secret credibility and workhorse of the big fights. Rhyno the power man that is already seen as both a familiar face and outsider from his ECW days. Breeze the hidden gold and Corbin the bet on the future,

 

[Athlai]

their storylines are so ****ing slow. they've got like 5000 wrestlers and feuds between two guys have to be sorted out over 3 PPVs and 12 Raws. jesus christ end it and start something new

Times when appropriate, Reigns vs, Wyatts. Lots of players. Good chemistry.
Times when inappropriate, Ziggler vs. Rusev.

But that said it'd still be nice to see the guys do more outside their feud. Why can't Harper and Strowman start making waves in the tag team division? Why not show tension between Reigns and the authority?

 

[sledger]

Probably holding off on Reigns v Authority type stuff until Wrestlemania season tbf. Or Reigns v Cena (kind of want to see that, because the live crowds would **** all over it).

 

[Athlai]

Putting more stuff on the undercard that isn't just throw away crap would also help with the problem brought up in here a while back RE: front-loading the shows with the big names, overexposure, and viewers turning off in their droves for hours two and three.

I guess what they have at the moment is a product that is geared almost entirely towards the main event feuds/angles. Everything else is basically just filler or crap. This kind of model might work ok if your main event program is a massive draw, involves a huge star, or is massively over or whatever. But when your main event program is just pretty lamentable (i.e. right now), suddenly the dire aspects of the entire product are massively evident.

Yeah I mean as much as people are enjoying this sort of Kane back again. Everyone knows it's a one month title feud. It's a placeholder. Ambro's Wyatts is interesting but it's all slow burn, would need to become a lot more bloody to really make it a Great feud. Even New Day Dudleys has cooled off.

 

[sledger]

Yeah I mean as much as people are enjoying this sort of Kane back again. Everyone knows it's a one month title feud. It's a placeholder.

Are people actually enjoying it though? I mean I guess some people are, but on the whole it seems that it's being absolutely panned from pretty much all angles. Either way though, like you say, hard to care when it's clear that Kane is an obvious fodder challenger.

Ambro's Wyatts is interesting but it's all slow burn, would need to become a lot more bloody to really make it a Great feud. Even New Day Dudleys has cooled off.

Yeah, I was thinking this the other day actually. Though it's not impossible to do, it's really hard to do to convincing serious blood/hatred type feuds when the programming is largely PG imo. These guys are meant to hate each other, but I just don't really buy it. They've done a good job, but I've not exactly been bowled over by the whole thing. Not sure if that's down to Roman being totally lame as a face and having terrible promo material, or because they're just not able to get really nasty with stuff these days. The way they tried to make things personal between them by bringing all that crap about Reigns daughter was nonsense and totally implausible - which is pretty funny, given that this is the self-professed "reality era".

 

[Athlai]

There's a lot of positive responses about Kane/Rollins promo work so far and they have decent in-ring chemistry. I'd say it's been more entertaining than the second half of his Cena feud, the entire Sting feud and most of the Lesnar feud.

Thinking back all of Rollins feuds have been pretty good aside from the Sting one. His work with Ambrose was great. It's really the authority dragging out things at times that has hurt him.

Hopefully we get a fresh angle after HIAC for Rollins but I don't know if there will be a free top babyface to really make it interesting.

 

[duffer]

Probably holding off on Reigns v Authority type stuff until Wrestlemania season tbf. Or Reigns v Cena (kind of want to see that, because the live crowds would **** all over it).

Haha, the sadist in me would find it spectacular.

 

[sledger]

There's a lot of positive responses about Kane/Rollins promo work so far and they have decent in-ring chemistry. I'd say it's been more entertaining than the second half of his Cena feud, the entire Sting feud and most of the Lesnar feud.

Thinking back all of Rollins feuds have been pretty good aside from the Sting one. His work with Ambrose was great. It's really the authority dragging out things at times that has hurt him.

Hopefully we get a fresh angle after HIAC for Rollins but I don't know if there will be a free top babyface to really make it interesting.

I agree, in part. Rollins and Kane would be a reasonable feud, if it wasn't for the fact that it was the centerpiece of their programming, and for the WWE title. Quite simply, it's a feud that has no business whatsoever taking up a main event spot. It's not good enough to take that position on the card, and that's been reflected by the lousy reception it's received. I'm not a Kane hater, that's my only beef.

I thought the Sting feud was actually fine for what it was tbh. Despite how his bad handling, it was actually still cool to see Sting wrestling for the WWE title, I thought. Agree about the second half of the Cena feud. Gun as the open challenge is, it seems a bit dumb that they put the US title back on him seeing as he's going to be disappearing to take time off soon. Lesnar feud was alright as well I guess, served its purpose. What mainly differentiates all these from the Kane feud, however, is that all of these guys are big names/big draws. Kane just isn't.

 

[sledger]

Haha, the sadist in me would find it spectacular.

On a related note, I'm really curious to see how the E will handle Bryan's return/the Royal Rumble this year. If he's ever going to come back, which still seems doubtful, they'd do well to keep him off TV until well after the event. Possibly even after WM.

Like you, whilst the last two Rumbles have been disasters, the sadist in me absolutely loved the crowd hijacking both events.

 

[Athlai]

Well ideally the big draw right now would be Undertaker vs, Lesnar.

.... But they cbf showing up.

 

[OverratedSanity]

**** it'd be awesome if they made the 'Balor' club and moved up as a faction for Survivor series. Crews probably the one you could leave out. A team of Joe, Rhyno, ***y jacket Balor, Corbin and Breeze in a invasion/shake things up angle would be awesome. Balor is the focal point. Joe the secret credibility and workhorse of the big fights. Rhyno the power man that is already seen as both a familiar face and outsider from his ECW days. Breeze the hidden gold and Corbin the bet on the future,

It'll just end with Cena beating the nexus Balor Club all on his own at Summerslam Survivor Series after kicking out of a ddt double footstomp on the concrete.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Honestly never been this uninterested in watching Raw since around 2010

 

[Athlai]

On a related note, I'm really curious to see how the E will handle Bryan's return/the Royal Rumble this year. If he's ever going to come back, which still seems doubtful, they'd do well to keep him off TV until well after the event. Possibly even after WM.

Like you, whilst the last two Rumbles have been disasters, the sadist in me absolutely loved the crowd hijacking both events.

God that last Rumble was so good for the first half too. Imagine if the final four had been Bray, DB, Rusev and Reigns.
Sure they'd still ended up having booing when DB got eliminated but it wouldn't have felt like a total train wreck.

Bray actually looked like absolute fire for a good quarter of the rumble.

 

[sledger]

Well ideally the big draw right now would be Undertaker vs, Lesnar.

.... But they cbf showing up.

Well yeah, and this is another major problem with the product right now. Can't help but feel a better way for WWE to use their Lesnar allowance would be to have a period, maybe 3-4 months a year, where he basically on every show, but gets the rest of the year off, rather than spreading his appearances really thinly across 12 months, during which he shows up every now and again, Heyman says stuff, Brock F5s some poor bastard, and leaves for several weeks.

Edit: How they used Rock when he was last WWE champ, basically. Granted, he wasn't around every week, but throughout that period he was present more often than he was absent.