*Official* Pro-Wrestling Thread II

[Spikey]

I mean you know Triple H is playing a character right? And that the crowd reacting like that is something they dream of. You really think that backstage they were working out ways to sabotage him?

You know what have ruined the Yes Movement?

Supporting it with the machine.

yeah i know that. and I suspect the 20 minute promo for the Randy Orton-John Cena world title unification match, which Randy was booked to win and carry to WM against Batista, was not supposed to be hijacked like that, non was the Rumble. I certainly don't think WWE wanted to bury DB and what not, but things were planned in a totally different way. And then stuff like this happened and Punk quit and they were flexible enough to change things around. But at the time of that video, they can be no doubt that DB's future was planned very differently, and it's basically canon at this point.

 

[Athlai]

I think we're discussing different things. Reacting to the crowd is as much a part of the company booking well, as you know... Booking.

We also shouldn't ignore what they were doing for DB before he entered the title picture. They wanted him, like they want the majority of the stars, to get over.

They may be misguided at times but they aren't stupid. It's a juggling act and every win you give a player means someone has to lose. IWC takes it all waaaay too personally.

 

[GIMH]

Athlai in good form here this morning

 

[duffer]

I can't believe I missed the Punk era and Bryan's rise to the top and come back to the **** we've been seeing for the best part of a year.

*sighs*

Maybe someone new will come in and deliver but I don't have confidence in the way people are being booked. It would take a special talent to break the current mould.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Nah Athlai's lost me here.

 

[Manee]

Apollo Crews!

 

[duffer]

Nah Athlai's lost me here.

Yeah, for real. I don't know how you can defend WWE when the ratings are tanking and they can't sell out middling size arenas. Now even smarks aren't watching anymore and it's all on how the shows are booked.

 

[Jono]

Athlai in good form here this morning

Haha, oh man... I was reading Athlai's posts and thinking he's posting exactly like you did. Then this post from you.

 

[Jono]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsESZMBJhXw

classic wwe planning

everytime i see that I find it incredible.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I think we're discussing different things. Reacting to the crowd is as much a part of the company booking well, as you know... Booking.

We also shouldn't ignore what they were doing for DB before he entered the title picture. They wanted him, like they want the majority of the stars, to get over.

They may be misguided at times but they aren't stupid. It's a juggling act and every win you give a player means someone has to lose. IWC takes it all waaaay too personally.

You were just giving them way too much credit for something they did their best to somehow bungle up though.

If you want to talk about a star being pushed to the WM main event organically, look at Batista at WM 21. The plan all along had been to try and get Orton in that spot but the crowd wanted Batista. And they slotted him in in the perfect way after building his animosity with HHH slowly. It was beautiful. They listened to the reactions and turned him just in time.

It just wasn't done that way for Bryan though, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that WWE handled it well or that they deserve credit for some "organic push" that you keep talking about. They tried to ****ing turn him heel (or atleast group him in a heel faction) a couple of months before Wrestlemania ffs, and he was shunted out from the title picture unceremoniously. If Punk hadn't left, and if the fans hadn't **** all over Batista's rumble win, his Mania win would not have happened. They deserve credit for finally doing the right thing after all their other plans went down the toilet, butyou giving them credit for the entire thing is baffling to me.

 

[Athlai]

I honestly think you're missing the point about reacting to the audience. And as if the end game of the grouping with the Wyatts wasn't planned from the get go lol.

 

[OverratedSanity]

dwta

 

[Athlai]

To clarify, when I say DB joining the Wyatts was always going to end in him turning baby face, I don't necessarily mean at the moment he did. I don't doubt that when that story started they saw it as a storyline going past WM. When I say they reacted to the audience they just pulled the trigger sooner. It was a story to boost both the Wyatt family and Bryan but especially Bryan.

Road to redemption is one of the greatest babyface moves and story lines. Hell even Batista got over when he turned on Evolution.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Do you not see how rushed abd cobbled together the Wyatt stuff was though. My whole point is that they simply didn't need to do the Wyatt stuff at that point at all. It provided a great payoff sure but shunting him from the title picture was dumb and unnecessary. Him getting repeatedly screwed by orton and HHH was great because it felt it was going to payoff in a big way. But then they went nah, and put ****ing Big Show in the main event picture in Bryans place. How you don't see that they were completely ****ing things up at that point still escapes me.

Just because they put everything right long after everyone moaned about it doesn't make their handling of the whole thing right.

 

[Athlai]

The best way to build anticipation is to not give the audience what they want.m

The only reason they ended up cutting the Wyatt thing short was because they decided WM30 should be particularly special, so they used the underdog story earlier than they were likely developing.

Once you get to the top it's hard to get the audience to care that much again.

 

[OverratedSanity]

The best way to build anticipation is to not give the audience what they want.m

The only reason they ended up cutting the Wyatt thing short was because they decided WM30 should be particularly special, so they used the underdog story earlier than they were likely developing.

Once you get to the top it's hard to get the audience to care that much again.

Again, you're assuming they did that because they were planning on it paying off at WM 30 with him winning the belt. Which, as has been pointed out, is not true. The payoff for the whole Bryan vs Authority storyline was never going to happen.

Thank god everyone threw a hissy fit.

 

[Dan]

Would people have cared nearly as much about Bryan if they (and the IWC more generally) weren't sitting around complaining that he was being buried?

Seriously, in this era the best way to get a face over is to take someone that fans/the IWC at least kinda like, and make it look like they're being legitimately buried. Then all the waaaahhh-ing comes in, you keep 'em looking buried more. More waaaahhh-ing, more crowd reaction that the WWE 'doesn't want', and the guy's over as ****. Then you pull the trigger at WM 30 after offering the crowd Batista, and you get the hottest reaction in recent memory.

This isn't the 90s, and it damn sure isn't the 80s rock-and-wrestling era. Creating stars is harder these days, because you have the IWC and the internet and the leaks -- and the knowledge that this is all political.

Seriously, think of this as an irl storyline. You have Bryan, an awesome worker. He gets screwed a few times, he gets chucked into a pointless angle with the Wyatts, he looks like he's gonna be stuck in midcard when he should be so much higher. And then he gets there. It's the smark version of the classic 'road to redemption' storyline -- although instead of Batista getting the better of heel-faction evolution, Daniel Bryan has got the better of the entire political process that is the WWE backstage.

Whether the WWE did that intentionally, or whether it came about more organically, or whether it was WWE blundering from one error to the next and it just kinda worked somehow is up for debate. But I think we have to stop thinking and analysing in 1980s-2000s wrestling terms.

Most fans are kids or smarks, and the smarks are better connected than ever as the wrestlers themselves break the fourth wall now and exist away from RAW. I'd be worried if the WWE wasn't trying to play the IWC to get people over and get the reactions they want. Sure, they still **** up a lot, but Trips seems to know what he's doing with these things backstage and knows that purely on-screen, in-character pushes aren't nearly as powerful as they were 20 years ago.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Sure, agree with that. The fact that Bryan's win didnt happen due to legitimate stupidity by WWE only added to the satisfaction everyone felt when he won it. I was only annoyed because Athlai made it sound like WWE meant it all along and gave them way too much credit for the dumb things they did in the lead up to Wrestlemania.

 

[Dan]

I mean, if I were booking, I'd be leaking regularly that Vince hates Cesaro, that his accent is too funny for him to ever get over, that he's got backstage heat with someone, or whatever. Then you chuck him on Superstars and give him the occasional RAW segment, giving him enough time to look good in-ring but not letting him show what he's capable of.

Then, if the IWC/smark fans care about him enough and see him as being held back because backstage politics, you start getting more of a reaction from the crowd. Threads pop up on forums calling for a Cesaro push. The IWC get angry and yell at Vince being an egomaniacal dick ruining his company by holding Cesaro down. And they you start the slow burn...

 

[Dan]

Yeah I don't think WWE planned his WM30 win six months in advance, but I think they were damn well aware that if they left him rotting in midcard in a dead-end angle with the Wyatts, and constantly played on the "you're not a star" stuff, while also putting into play backstage processes talking about pushes for Batista and Bryan-Sheamus at WM30, that the crowd would push back and get Bryan over.

Probably not to the extent he did though. That was utterly ridiculous how over he got, and how quickly it happened (which then pushes them towards the WM30 main event.