Regarding the whole "Fake Razor Ramon/Diesel" angle from the mid-90s: why go through the pains to find look-alikes of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and pass them off as the real thing? Yeah, Glen Jacobs ("Kane") is a tall dude, but there's no way anyone would be able to make him a convincing Diesel with all the makeup in Hollywood.
Because they did not do that, they never tried to pass them off as the real thing and people that didn't do the research just assumed they did. For more information about it see what I wrote at Ask411 which was recently reposted in their FAQs column.
In that case, why reuse the Razor Ramon and Diesel gimmicks if the wrestlers themselves weren't there anymore?
Because they had to prove that they were going to use the copyrighted gimmicks after they sued WCW for using them illegally.
The above and Vince's obsession with proving that he can make anyone a star.
The storyline was that Jim Ross was pissed at the state of the company.
Because this was one of Vince Russo's first angles. I think that just about says it all.
Vince McMahon, apparently. I think (read: hope) he was alone in that.
Kevin Dunn, the head television producer, loved it too.
And that's why Dunn just got himself onto the WWE Board.
I'm amazed Journey Into Darkness managed to work her in. Nevertheless, Trips managed to apologize when they were on the same team and Kane brought it up.
Something else that baffles me is that nobody managed to prevent Vince from booking that angle. I mean, if they always managed to stop him from doing that incest angle he apparently wants to do (according to Stephanie McMahon herself), you'd think they'd also manage to cancel a freaking necrophilia angle!
I took that segment as just Triple H trying to smear Kane in a juvenile way. He's meant to be a tough guy, far removed from Degeneration X, but acting all tough and alpha-male-y won't intimidate Kane - so make up some appalling, rubbish comedy to send him into a rage - that way the Cerebral Assassin has an advantage. The Kane backstory mentioned is all rubbish there. But I might be thinking too clever.
Vince, according to some reports, is not the kind of guy who responds well to criticism. So it very well might have been that everybody was scared to tell him it was a bad idea for fear of the consequences. One example I read about: in 2004 fans were losing interest in WWE, and none of Vince's yes-men would tell him what was wrong with the product. So he brought Pat Patterson out of semi-retirement, since Patterson had always been straight with him. (No pun intended.) Patterson examined the problem, and finally told Vince that it might be a good idea for Triple H not to destroy everybody he went up against and for them to focus less on Hunter and more on building new stars. This was not received well, and Patterson was let go.
Kevin Dunn came up with the idea. Vince loved it and went with it, Triple H laughed himself sick (though this WAS in-character, but he revealed that he hated it from the start, as revealed in an online interview with Opie and Anthony in 2008), Glen Jacobs hated it but, being the ultimate company man, just did as he was told. As for why no-one talked Vince out of it, Vince habitually surrounds himself with yes-men. At that point, Steph hadn't reached a level where she could countermand him and, for some reason, Linda (who's the person who usually talks Vince out of his incest fixation) didn't step in. As for Shane, well, Vince has never cared what Shane thinks anyway.
What scratches my head about the Katie Vick thing the most is that no matter where I look, or how hard I search, I can't find a single explanation as to what it was! Seriously! I've never heard of it, and thus, dont know what was so bad! So I'm asking in all seriousness, anyone who knows/remembers: Who or what in the name of God Almighty is Katie Vick?!?!?
Thanks. Guess I wont be getting any sleep this week either.
Google "Seth Mates" and "Katie Vick". Mates said that the "Katie Vick" character was originally related to Scott Vick (aka WCW's "Sick Boy").
With the recent Randy Orton storyline. Okay they can't fire him because he threatens to stop Wrestlemania with legal action if they do. But why not fire or threaten to fire his two cronies? They don't have a contract to appear at Wrestlemania.
Hell, better question might be why Orton wasn't fired in the six days between Raw and the Royal Rumble.
If Vince doesn't say it, it doesn't count. It's in their contracts.
Why didn't they fire him after he lost after Wrestlemania? He didn't get the WWE title, he admitted he lied about his disorder and could they really care if he stopped Backlash?
There's money to be made in a big rematch. Hence they'll keep him around and lead things towards it, so that they can make money from PPV buys.
Stephanie McMahon actually lampshaded this. "Firing you would be too easy," she told Orton. "We have bigger plans for you." The McMahon family is (kayfabe) a vindictive bunch, willing to engage in actions that skirt or even seriously teeter on the edge of legality. It's perfectly reasonable that they'd keep Orton around just so they can have someone in their goon squad "finish him off" one day. Think of it as Cruel Mercy.
Plus, look at all the things Stone Cold Steve Austin did to Vince during their feud. I think the "logic" behind this is that Vince gets the last laugh since he's profiting off of Randy's actions. Of course I think it's times like these where the Mystery Science Theater 3000 mantra comes in.
It really bugs me that the ECW title gets no respect during PPV. The guys working the Tuesday show do a good job making a storyline work in an hour. Yet come the PPV they have eight seconds to work.
Christian lampshaded this and will have a ladder match against Shelton Benjamin at the TLC-themed PPV. Beyond that, if we're to believe Rob Van Dam, Vince genuinely has zero respect for the old ECW and would rather use the name as a recycling bin for older/less popular wrestlers (ex. William Regal) and on-air farming for FCW rookies (ex. Yoshi Tatsu.)
Vince has a long time habit of bringing in guys and gimmicks that were successful elsewhere and then running them into the ground. Sometimes he does that intentionally to "prove" that they were worthless in the first place (Dusty Rhodes, Booker T up until the "King Booker" gimmick), sometimes it's because he doesn't understand what made them special in the first place (the nWo, Goldberg). ECW is one of the latter. Vince genuinely believes that ECW was worthless and no-one remembers it. When Rob Van Dam asked why WWE fans chanted "E-C-Dub!" then, Vince responded that he had taught his fans to chant that. At which point, RVD walked away because really, what can you say to that?
Dusty already said himself that he feels that Vince never tried to bury him when he came to WWE. Also Vince had nothing to do with the NWO being killed off in WWE it's not his fault Nash got injured and Hall had a history of drug and alcohol problems that eventually led to him getting fired after infamous plane ride from hell. As for Goldberg he never ruined him Goldberg was damaged goods before he came to WWE and his decision to leave the company in the lead up to his match with Brock Lesnar didn't exactly help his cause on top of him apparently trying to get Vince to fork over a bunch of money to re-sign him to the company a few months ago you know like what some of WWE/WCW/ECW rejects do with TNA.
Watching to The Rise and Fall of ECW, one can see Vince at best thinks ECW was an interesting promotion with a small section of die-hard fans that nonetheless is completely unmarketable in today's mainstream due to its content scaring ad investors and TV execs away. Given the massive problems the original promotion in getting TV and PPV time due to their style, he's not entirely wrong though Heyman probably could have given a good product sans sex and violence had he been given more autonomy.
Vince also has major problems not completely controlling his products himself so it was a pipe dream to expect Heyman to truly have any real power over the WWE version of ECW.
Context is everything. ECW followed up on the old school bloodbath-style wrestling (both WWWF, to the north, and Mid-Atlantic, to the south of Philly were juice-heavy territories) when that style had almost totally been phased out in the major leagues. Trying to do the same thing when the major player in the game has been doing everything ECW did, and often better, for the last half-decade or so really just turns the whole thing into a Fan Wank. Heyman's a smart guy, and if he were in wrestling today, his product would probably look nothing like 1995 ECW.
Who THE FUCK thought The Gobbledy Gooker would be a good idea?!?!
Vince. It's always Vince.
Not always a lot of the crap you saw back in those days came from bookers like Paterson and Garvin but this one was Vince’s fault
Hector Guerrero thought that the character would be popular with children.
The Undertaker is rumored to have been scheduled to debut from that egg as an egg man, but some people in the back realized that this guy had a lot of potential and shouldn't be wasted on such a ridiculous character. The Gooker was said to be a last minute change since they hyped up the egg too much to just ignore it come Survivor Series.
A recent, rather minor issue compared to the major boners pulled by WWE over the years: Michelle McCool and Layla El attack Mickie James, and throw her into the ring... WHEN THE STAIRS ARE RIGHT THERE! Sure, they beat her up enough for Maria Kanelis to make her return and "save the day", but THE STEPS WERE RIGHT THERE!! RIGHT THERE!!
Maybe they had some other evil plan in mind and were trying to get it done with before some wrestler could run out to make the save?
Matt Hardy does a number of terrible things to his brother Jeff, including: knocking him unconscious in a hotel, targeting him in a hit-and-run, sabotaging his pyrotechnics to explode in his face, betraying him at the Royal Rumble to help Matt's previous arch-nemesis Edge and costing Jeff the world title, and burning down Jeff's freaking house, resulting in the death of Jeff's dog. And yet, only a couple of months removed from a blood feud, Matt is sorry and they're tagging together. There are some things the Three Month Rule just doesn't cover.
Jeff was probably high.
Admittedly, Matt and Jeff are both a little...different...so it's not hard to argue that this one was potentially justified. But yes, it was still rather jarring.
Matt never admitted to burning his house down, if I'm not mistaken. He did admit to getting sick of protecting his little brother Jeff, and Matt was the first one called when it happened. The rest of it is pretty standard fare for wrestling.
Matt killed Jeff's dog? What the hell? Where was I when this was said?! Unless it was a joke, I don't think even a wrestler would get away with illegally killing an animal (or arson for that matter with the house), unless laws in America allow ruthelessly killing defenceless animals perfectly legal.
He never out and out said it, but (Kayfabe of course) he strongly implied that he burned down Jeff's house, which caused the dog's death, and Matt brought Jeff's dog's charred collar to the ring to taunt him. Do something like that, and it's pretty clear what he supposedly did. The idea that Jeff "forgave" Matt for something like that in only a couple of months is absolutely insane.
I just thought it was all apart of the storyline to make their "sibling rival" more heated. No matter how close the two of them may be outside of the ring, no person in their right mind would forgive someone for burning down their house and also killing their dog in said fire.
OP here: obviously, I know that Matt didn't actually burn down his house in real life. In terms of storyline, I got the same impression as the above poster, that he was bluffing to goad Jeff into facing him at Wrestlemania. Still, since he never outright said one way or the other, the question of whether he actually did it lingered for a while.
I still want to know why Matt helped Edge of all people. EDGE. The man that tore Lita from you.
Well, this troper heard that the original plan was for Christian to make his re-debut by being the guy behind the attacks on Jeff, and the bookers dropped a few hints here and there. However, IWC fans and the like figured the clues out and immediately voiced their observations that Christian was the guy. Stephanie McMahon, however, got wind of this and pulled the entire storyline because she was assuming that the fans would be too stupid to figure the whole thing out. She also pulled this with the "Save.us.222" campaign in late '07 that hyped up the return of Chris Jericho, which dropped many hints that pointed to Jericho. So instead of re-debuting around the time of Cyber Sunday, as was originally planned, Jericho's return was pushed back into December, at which point the entire hype behind the Save Us campaign was lost and people didn't give a shit.
The above poster is entirely correct. Both Vince and Steph feel that their viewers are complete morons (even more so than other TV writers).
I'm probably one of the few people who didn't know the Save Us campaign was hyping the return of Jericho though that's more to blame on me not having a computer as all this was going on.
Not using Kaientai (specifically Taka and Funaki). They only got used as jobbers, despite being excellent wrestlers. Mick Foley once had a quote: "If the WWF was all about who was the most talented, then Taka Michinoku would be the WWF Champion."
It was pretty brutal how badly they got misused. They had a good gimmick, the fans liked them, and they never got past buttmonkey status.
Kaientai would've went far if they weren't Asian. Of all the various ethnic talent WWE has had over the years (Whites, Blacks, Latinos etc) asians tend to get the least mileage look at the all the guys who have ever held gotten a major push or won a major title and count how many of them have been asian. Strangely enough blacks are sort of starting to get this treatment as well at least when it comes to the second example.
It should be noted that the Mick Foley quote is slightly out of context. What Mick Foley was trying to say is that you need more than in-ring talent. Another thing that came out Mick Foley's books about Taka is that The Undertaker gets more of a reaction diving over the top rope once a year than Taka does on any night of the week.
Actually Foley did not say that taka would be champion he said that Papí Chulo would, he was a 19 year old luchadar known for his acrobatic move set that was treated worse than Taka.
Taka was pushed hard for about a year after he arrived and so was Kaientai for a few months but by the time you are talking about they had pretty much fizzled out because of the language barrier it was hard for them to promote themselves to fans. The dubbed voices that had them become the only Face Card Carrying Villains in history helped but by then it was already too late.
I'm with Spoony: CM Punk is setting a hugely bad example and seeming message. I mean, lookee kiddies, what being straight edge makes you into!
It's not so much the message it's the holier than thou way he goes about spreading it that makes him a heel. A Well Intentioned Extremist if you will.
Personally, I think he does a lot better as a Heel than he did as a Face. Heel Punk is a lot more interesting doing his Charlie Manson-Lite routine than he was with his previous characters, and to be honest, I don't really give a damn whether or not he 'makes straight edge look bad.'
Does nobody remember Kurt Angle when he first joined and had the Three I's and talked about drinking milk to keep your bones strong?
Am I the only one who doesn't mind the PG era? Look, I grew up during the Attitude era too, but it wasn't some Golden Age of wrestling; it made wrestling mainstream, sure, but about half the angles during that era were either needlessly disgusting or just plain bad, and the years of "Attitude Lite" that followed were the worst years in WWE history. IMO, it's only gotten better since they quit trying to be edgy.
This troper thought WWE was still pretty good long after people had started complaining about how it was going downhill. It didn't become So Bad Its Horrible to me until around the time Chris Benoit died. I still watch every now and then to see The Undertaker or Shawn Michaels but other than that, eh. I still think 1997-99 was pretty much the best time for the WWF though, even though admittedly it wasn't without its bad angles, you have to try to look at it without the Nostalgia Filter on.
TV-PG is bad for WWE. It leads to things like Rey Mysterio, Jr. being booked to squash everybody from The Big Show to Andre the Giant and back again just 'cause the kiddies like him and then the WWE can shoehorn in some half-assed Aesop about following your dreams, not to mention the presence of leprechauns. I'm not saying it needs to be like Spartacus:Blood and Sand but I think we can hit a happy medium between Katie Vick and Hornswoggle coming out to throw Lucky Charms at the audience. TV-PG is part of the reason TNA even thought they could challenge WWE (that, unlike the 'E they have a viable Tag Team division, and a women's division that has actual wrestlers in it instead of models being other parts).
Actually TNA thought they could challenge WWE because they brought in Hogan to give them more exposure and Bischoff because he's familar with TV production or something other not because of WWE being PG.
I wouldn't mind it going back to TV-14 . . . as long as we don't get retreads of Katie Vick or Mae Young giving birth to a hand.
On a side note, Rey Mysterio never came close to beating The Big Show without getting disqualified or without tag team help. In fact, there is a 300 pound line for Mysterio. The biggest guy that he has pinned cleanly was Mark Henry which was in a Tribute To the Troops event so that could be excused. The only other 300 pound+ guys that he has consistantly defeated are Mike Knox and Kane. Even then, it is excused since he was being utterly dominated by those guys and it was nowhere near a "squash."
This Troper has no real problem with WWE being TV-PG. What infuriates me is when someone starts bleeding hardway and they stop the damn match to patch it up. It breaks suspension of disbelief, ruins the flow of the match and, given it takes at least three or four minutes each time, Lord alone knows what it does to their time management. Doubly infuriating since it's usually for something no worse than a papercut.
This Troper didn't have much of a problem with the PG rating until Bryan Danielson got fired for choking Justin Roberts with his tie during the NXT riot. There's wanting to limit the violence on the show and then there's sacrificing your best angle in years before it has a chance to take off.
The problem is, the angles are still needlessly disgusting (more so, if anything; I found the "Piggy James" angle to be repulsive on so many levels) or just plain bad. At least then you had some sex and violence to go with it. Not to mention awesome wrestling; This Troper doesn't so much dislike TV-PG as the decision to make everybody work "WWE Style".
This Troper has no problems with TV-PG; however, I do have a problem with the writers thinking TV-PG is the same as TV-Y. PG can lead to some wonderful moments (Ted DiBiase kicking the basketball away from the little kid, for example) and the writers have grasped this concept as of late. The blood stoppage is still annoying though.
This Troper doesn't mind the free shows being PG (in fact it makes a lot of sense when you think about it), but the PPV's? That's what bugs me. People buy the PPV's because they're usually more brutal than a normal match, why pay a shitload of money when you're really just getting 30 minute versions of stuff you see for free every Monday/Friday? Not to mention that certain Gimmick Matches, such as Hell in a Cell, are really just boring in a TV-PG setting. No blood? At Hell in a Cell? Really?
Not if you remember the fact that not all HIAC Matches had guys blading one another, Undertaker's infamous Cell match against Mankind at KOTR 98 featured no blood outside of Foley's bleeding mouth once again you gotta take off the nostalgia shades when bringing up the subject of how current WWE differs from Attitude era WWE.
Whoop de do. Too bad the FIRST EVER HIAC, which established the match's brutality, had a lot of blood in it. The point of the Hell in a Cell is a brutal, downright disgusting, match in which two men who hate each other's guts are supposed to have every opportunity to pound the crap out of each other. When this is supposed to be so brutal and physical between two wrestlers, bleeding helps a lot in order to convey that message. Remove the blood, and HIAC loses all of its meaning because at that point there is blatant evidence that the wrestlers pull their punches in the ring, which tosses Kayfabe out the window. Take the Undertaker/Edge HIAC from Summerslam 2009: A great match, but there's blatant evidence they're pulling their punches. During the match, Edge and The Undertaker assaulted each other with chairs, tables, parts of the Cell itself, and even a goddamn VIDEO CAMERA at one point. And not once, during the entire match, did either of them blade, though there was a bit of hardway bleeding from Edge at one point. These two men are supposed to hate each other, and yet they're obviously pulling punches in what's supposed to be THE match of their feud.
Wrestlers pulling their punches; they're not supposed to do that. Sarcasm aside though if you want to convey the message that the HIAC is brutal, disgusting match have someone take a bump off the Cell I mean that's always been the highlight of these matches and the main thing the fans look forward to seeing.
You just missed the point of Kayfabe. The wrestlers are supposed to make the match look convincing. When The Undertaker's bashing Edge upside the head with a camera and there's NO BLOOD, then it's obvious that he's not actually hitting Edge as hard as he can, despite the fact that this match was supposed to be between two men who DESPISE each other.
You can only make a wrestling match so convincing before it potentially endangers the health and well-being of one of the wrestlers particularly in this post-Chris Benoit era. Also most wrestling fans are fully aware they're watching fake matches, with fake wrestlers, & fake outcomes so putting on a convincing performance is next to impossible to pull off in front of anyone who visits wrestling related sites/forums or is over the age of 15.
Yeah because Mick Foley walked away from his HIAC bump with absolutely zero after effects. And having two wrestlers PUNCH EACH OTHER IN THE FACE is going to be great for locker room morale. Just drop the HIAC match, we don't need wrestlers taking hellish bumps and shortening their careers to get over.
Since when has every brutal Hell In a Cell involved brutal bumps on the level of Mankind/Undertaker!?
This troper also has no issue with the PG era. It doesn't effect the wrestling (the FOCAL POINT OF THE SHOW, might I add) to an obstructive degree, and besides, if you need to have gratuitous amounts of carnage and sleaziness for anything to be entertaining to you, you have far bigger problems. Oh, and for the people that like to say that WWE was never meant to be PG and was always about the Attitude era? I would like to remind you that when WWF was in its prime in the 80s and early 90s, being family friendly is EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR.
Are you telling me that when a match stops for 2 minutes because somebody got a boo-boo and they can't show blood on TV, that doesn't affect the wrestling?
Considering how much of the actual wrestling is improvised on the outset I'm going to say not much.
*facepalm* You're honestly saying that stopping a match and all of its momentum dead to patch up a hardway cut doesn't affect the wrestling at all...
It might kill crowd but the match & the actual wrestling? No.
WWF was not in its prime in the early 90s, business started to wane almost immediately after the Ultimate Warrior became WWF Champion. I also like the Straw Man you put up about how anybody who has a problem with the PG Era obviously MUST want gratuitous amounts of carnage and sleaziness. The fact that Kayfabe low-blows and even accidental blood is forbidden is a sick joke. And remember when Bryan Danielson got fired for choking an announcer with a tie? That alone epitomises just how sanitised this "Era" is.
PG is not the main of WWE problem (Vince McMahon believing he knows what the fans want better than they do is) but it doesn't help, specially bad is how they try to push Cena as an Attitude era Anti-Hero but replacing the F Bombs with elementary school playground slang such as "pooty" which is really pathethic.
Wrestling fans don't always know what they want, same one's who complain about how guys like John Cena & Randy Orton bury other guys on the roster but then when Cena or Orton put over some of the newer talent they'll bitch about how much the talent in question sucks and shouldn't even be main eventing like Sheamus or Miz for example.
Oh they know what they want (at least the Smarks). They'll bitch about new talent not being pushed, but then when new talent is pushed, they'll complain that it's not one of their favorites.
Surely with the WWE split into separate brands for most of the last decade now that one of them could be PG oriented and the other could be geared towards the more mature fan who would have grown up watching the Attitude Era.
Kinda ironic you said that; Smackdown has been TV-PG for pretty much since its inception. The rating thing is a red herring; they're aiming the TV shows at kids because they're pretty much the only paying audience left in the US.
Digest this: You've got a company that is trying to appeal to several age groups at once, how does one do this? Older people pretty much just want believable consistency and good stories, the children just want bright colored superheros. Rolling these things into one is not very hard to figure out how to do but sometimes takes some decision making. Take the Hell In A Cell matches for instance. When you're Tv-14 you can have them as bloody as you want and attract an audience full of hardcore fans who came to see a good fight. But you also have controversy with parents whose kids want to watch it but it's not suitable for them. Then you've got PG where there's no blood in a match making it less believable, but that becomes a drop in the bucket when you think about the fact that all us older fans know it's fake anyway and the lack of blood doesn't mean jack squat to a little kid yet it opens a whole new range of audience to watch the product. If you are being completely honest about not being a bloodthirsty Spartan, then you should be able to understand this concept and see that a decision like is one of the few "fan ignoring" things Vince has done that was for the sake of the company and not because he "thinks he knows what we want"(On a side note, despite all I've said, I still fully agree with anyone who says it's stupid to stop a match to clean up accidental bloody cuts. Little accidental blood spills here and there are probably less then a kid sees on a regular basis just getting cuts at home. No need for that.)
But switching to PG was never about appealing to a wider audience (kids watch during the Attitude Era), but rather because Linda McMahon wanted to run for senate, and they tried to portray themselves as family friendly company. When that bid failed, they obviously wanted to test the waters back to the pre PG era. At least, thankfully, they're now returning to the Attitude Era, will hopefully switch back to TV-14 very soon, and hopefully they can find a happy medium between Katie Vick and great, adult-oriented wrestling. They would've had to switch back to more adult-oriented programming sooner or later anyway (repetitive storylines, boring characters, and other things that ruined WCW would have made them take notice), but upping the levels of violence and profanity, as well as putting the championship on Punk, the rebellious anti-hero, just exacberated things and if anything, it lets everyone know they're committed to doing away with this PG nonsense.
You do realize that wrestling hasn't been catered towards adults since like the early 1900's right? and that violence+sex+profanity where wrestling is concerned doesn't necessarily = $$$. I mean you might see some PG-13/TV-14 esque dialog fly but don't expect to see things like chairshots to the head or someone taking a fall off the Hell In The Cell etc.
The problem with that is nothing Punk said during his promo that kicked off the "Summer Of Punk" was non-PG. Putting the title on him isn't a sign that they're switching to a more adult-oriented product at all. Nor is PG-era WWE a byword for "repetitive storylines" and "boring characters". People look at the Attitude era through rose-tinted glasses because it certainly had its fair share of repetitive storylines and boring characters (the "Higher Power" angle, Shawn Stasiak and Beaver Cleavage/Chaz spring immediately to mind).
But since now, the only way to go is up, it wouldn't make any sense for them to just forget about the recent trending against this so-called "PG"-ness. They did that once already and it didn't work out so good (besides, as said they wouldn't have had it not been for the McMahons going on an ego trip and trying to win election to the Senate). People were predicting this would kill WWE. If it continues on any longer, it probably will. Not to mention Stone Cold himself said the Attitude Era will return. When exactly is unknown, but likely soon. At any rate, the company needs an overhaul. Pro wrestling isn't exactly something to market to a broad audience anyway. It's a completely violent profession, in the most basic terms. It's better to embrace the kitsch part of the product rather than try to please everyone. It's a Love It or Hate It thing, it's meant to be adult-oriented. The Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars were the last boom period for pro wrestling. Another AE boom period would not only win over the primary demographic who watches wrestling (that being in the 18-40 range), but make a lot of money, and at this rate without TNA's primary selling point, they could experience something similar to WCW and have to be bought out again.
The Corporate Ministry always bugged me. The Ministry of Darkness was beyond awesome in my opinion, probably my favorite Undertaker persona, but once he joined Shane McMahon it Jumped the Shark, turning the once powerful evil overlord The Undertaker into nothing but a minion. Then having Vince be the higher power pretty much trashed and Ret Conned four months worth of an epic storyline about the Ministry of Darkness trying to take over the WWF. About the only thing I like about the Corporate Ministry is the theme song.
Indeed. All that suspense about The Higher Power...and we were so hoping for the return of Jake The Snake...You know, The Undertaker himself said once that was the low point of his career, since he was relegated to Mook status, which was way out of character for him.
Jake Roberts was well into his drug habits during this time and couldn't have been relied upon to give a good feud with Austin. Mick Foley was an option they were considering but Mick turned it down (and it would have killed all his push doing into the Rock 'n' Sock Connection and his feud with Triple H). In reality, anybody (Ted DiBiase, Shawn Michaels, The Rock) would have been either a huge disappointment or a big mistake. They really should have just not had a Higher Power and just led Undertaker and Shane co-lead their stable. And call it something else.. because "the Corporate Ministry" is a stupid name.
With no disrespect meant to the above poster, you were about the only person who liked the Ministry storyline. That's not a big deal, there's a bunch of angles I liked that no-one else did but the fact is that the Ministry didn't draw and the usual Moral Guardians had big problems with it.
Actually, some of Raw's highest numbers were right in the middle of the Ministry feud. In fact, one of their highest rated shows ever was the night HBK made the Corporate Ministry fight various members of the Union, including The Big Show / Paul Bearer matchup.
However, there were many other problems involved with The Ministry concept as a whole. For example, the segment in which the Ministry sacrifices Dennis Knight is a 10 minute trainwreck with Taker slicing Mideon's chest with a sword and then drinks the blood, and then Taker does some creepy chanting, all the while the crowd starts chanting "Boring". This sort of thing happened every week, and it also stretched The Undertaker character as far as it could go creatively, to the point where the gimmick itself was given a four year rest, and Taker became a bad ass biker in the mean time.
To think of the possibilities of Mick Foley as the Higher Power, though! Sigh. I mean, that would have been just as surprising as Vince but in a pleasant way, because it would have been WICKED AWESOME. Leadership by his zany persona would have been the only thing that could have redeemed something so stale and unweildy as the Corporate Ministry. Just think of it, man! I don't even need to posit any arguments: your imagination should suffice. Mick Foley has always underestimated himself. It goes beyond false modesty and is only three or four steps short of delusion. I'm sure that a man who can wrestle two days after getting thrown off a sixteen-foot cage through a wooden table onto concrete, dropped almost the same height a second time, splintered with chunks of wood bigger than his eyes, and chokeslammed onto hundreds of tacks could have handled a feud with Austin under his then current conditions just fine. And who says they were required to have the Higher Power feud with Austin anyway? They shouldn't have even gone with that angle. Leave Austin to someone else, I say. Whether you would have considered HBK or Jake the Snake etc. disappointing, I'm sure you would agree that anyone would have made more sense and been less disappointing than Vince. I mean, damn. (EDIT: Let me add to what I said: it should have been Foley unless by some miracle they could have got Bret Hart. I very much doubt he would have gone near them with a ten-foot pole, but if by some chance they could have got him to, wouldn't that have just been the shit? Hart being the Higher Power would have made more sense and been more shocking than any other human being imaginable.)
You know what bugs me? Shawn Michaels losing to The Undertaker at Wrestlemania XXVI. I wanted to see HBK break The Streak, damnit. Also seeing John Cena beat Batista bugs me. You can't let Dave hold it for a month, before giving it to Cena yet again? Really?
I have no problem with this. Given how many times they had Cena win a title over the previous year, only to take it away from him at the very next PPV, I don't have a problem with giving him another title run. Given the number of tickets (to say nothing of merchandise) he sells, he deserves the title.
Unfortunately this was necessary as Batista is on his way out of the door (HHH got a movie role he wanted. Seriously) and it's industry courtesy for a departing talent to do the job on their way out.
It had to be that way. Michaels wanted to retire (for the time being anyway) and considering how huge a deal ending the Streak would be, there would be no way to quickly retire after winning without it being a huge fan turn-off. With Batista, he wasn't quite set upon leaving at that point but his contract was coming to an end and he was making noises about leaving. Cena is under contract for years yet so keeping the title on him was the only sensible choice.
Why couldn't they have had the WrestleMania rematch end in a draw? That way 'Taker's streak is (technically if not symbolically) preserved, HBK avoids looking like a chump again, and the event could have ended with a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming as the two shook hands or even hugged. (Sure, 'Taker hugging someone. It could happen....)
Having 'Taker & Michaels' match end in a draw would've been a bad cop-out ending, that ultimately would've made the entire premise of the match look pointless.
It really bugged me that time that Randy Orton was champ, and dropped the title to a newly-returned Batista at the next PPV even though it was known that Batista had just re-injured himself and would be stripped on the following episode of Raw, when Orton and Legacy injured (Kayfabe) Batista to get him stripped of the title. Why not have Orton win the PPV match cleanly? Hell, this leads to a bigger picture JBM: why do they RARELY have heels win cleanly?
Because it makes the faces look like pussies, I guess.
Because they're heels. Cheating is the whole point for them.
Because Triple H is the only heel (when he's a heel) allowed to win clean. It hurts his "Cerebral Assassin" push if he's not allowed to look like the smartest and most dominant man on the roster by a large magnitude.
All of the above, plus Randy Orton's well-documented attitude problems.
The biggest thing was, though, that Batista was complaining about not getting to hold the gold in a long while, so he used his backstage stroke to get himself booked to win. Also, there was rumors that his injury was faked and that he ACTUALLY failed a Wellness test and his "injury" was to cover for his suspension.
What about the down right insane treatment of their young talent especially on Raw, until Triple H, John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton, Sheamus and now Edge (Wrestlers who do deserve the popularity they have) retire, the young talent will never hold a title with prestige, and since half of those guys are in their forties, there is going to be a massive talent, and thus money drain when they all retire or get to injured to continue. They should be cycling in new talent, not recycling the old ones, especially when they have talented and charismatic wrestlers who would do great with a title run. Smackdown is better, giving Big Show and Swagger a shot, but it isn't really enough.
Did you just use Sheamus, a young guy who only debuted on Raw last year, as a reason why new, young talent will never got pushed? While complimenting Smackdown for giving the Big Show, a guy who's been with the company for ten years "a shot"? Also, only two of those guys are in their forties (Trips and Batista, only 40 and 41 respectively) and neither of them are even appearing on Raw right now. Plus, the last two Raws have been main evented by Evan Bourne and CM Punk, and Jack Swagger is the World Champion. Youth movement ahoy.
True, but Punk and Bourne were brought in to wrestle with, or along side Cena, the aren't truly main-eventing cause it's still about Cena. The main events have always been about Cena, Trips, Orton, or Sheamus, they're not boring to watch, but, mix it up now and then. Give them the night off, let new talent flourish. Big Show...yeah, he may be old, but at least they're doing something with him, its nice to see somebody new for once.
This has been a problem with wrestling since forever and it's not just the WWE. The problem is that promoters are loathe to mess with a formula while it's making money so, rather than use a still-over star to make another star, they'll just ride the gimmick into the ground. Witness the nWo in WCW. It was the hottest thing in wrestling for a couple of years but, rather than take a chance and push someone new, the bookers just kept pushing the nWo until eventually, the fans just didn't care. Exception there for Goldberg since WCW didn't mean to push him initially, he just connected with the fans and got over so huge that the bookers had no choice but to feature him.
While we're on the subject, who the hell thought Sheamus and Jack Thwagger were World Championship material in the first place?
Are you SERIOUSLY asking what makes Jack Swagger, a high-talent wrestler with decent mic abilities and technical wrestling on par with that of Daniel Bryan himself, Championship material!?
Apparently, the writers at WWE wanted some fresh faces in the Heavyweight title pictures and they wanted big guys, i.e. Sheamus and Jack Swagger. A silver lining in this all is that Cena went to WWE Management and said they're underutilizing Bourne and they need to push him to avoid dropping the ball on him. In that case, why didn't anyone go to Vince and say "You're fucking up the cruiserweight division. We've got some great talent in there. It shouldn't go to waste" I'm gonna start ranting if I don't stop it right here.
What great talent did they have in the division aside from Jimmy Wang Yang (who constantly got screwed), Gregory Helms (who was shelved) and Chavo (whose faults are pretty self-explanatory).
The abundance of Flat Characters in wrestling, especially amongst faces-- is it that hard to write a character with personality? Would it really confuse their fan base to make John Cena more then "God, Mom and apple pie"-- it may be an old standard, but can't you give him some depth? Or how about destroying the character of wrestlers with one? John Morrison had his eccentric and arrogant rock star thing. Do all their writers really suck that much?
Yes, they do.
Yeah, they do. The problem is that writers who disagree with Vince and/or Steph tend to get fired or bullied out very quickly. So the only writers who last are spineless yes-men who spend their entire work day telling the McMahon's how wonderful their ideas are and playing the office politics game. WWE also treats its writers very badly (80+ hour weeks, often 16-20 hour days, booking meetings that go 20 hours with no food or drink provided or allowed, mediocre pay for the hours) so the ones that have other options will usually take them pretty quickly. Vince and Steph are both incredibly myopic as well. If you know wrestling outside WWE, you'll actually be told off for "acting like a mark", and cruiserweights aren't allowed to go full out for fear they'll upstage the big guys. As far as the McMahon's are concerned, they still make a profit so they don't need to change a thing.
A significant reason cruiserweights don't go all out is the same reason hardcore matches almost never get as violent as ECW: fear of injuries and the schedule. WWE would rather have a guy go half speed for all of their shows in a month than all out for one or two. The Shooting Star Press wasn't banned until Billy Kidman crushed Chavo Guerrero's head, after all. And Evan Bourne had to really prove he could do it perfectly to get it unbanned.
Remember when Morrison was cutting great promos during his ECW On Sci-Fi run and on The Dirt Sheet? The writers had nothing to do with any of those.
Did Chris Jericho piss in Vince's coffee or something? Why the hell is one of the best and versatile wrestlers, not to mention one of the most charismatic and entertaining personalities, feuding with Evan Bourne? I like Bourne, and I'm glad they're pushing him, but couldn't they do it in a little less humiliating way for Chris, like, y'know, Jericho beating Evan like a bag of puppies but Evan being the traditional face Determinator? Instead of Jericho being beaten down by Evan on a regular basis. And what happened to Team Ex? I liked Miz and Jericho together, and they were cut short before they had a chance to really kick ass and be the charismatic douchebags they are. And on that note, why is Miz teaming with Zach Ryder?
Jericho is short and made a name for himself outside of McMahonLand.
If that were truly the case, he would have never been the first Undisputed Champion or gotten that 2008 push against HBK or the IC champ with the most reigns or any of the world title reigns he's had. In reality, Jericho is most likely jobbing right now because A.) his contract is coming up and WWE wants to use him to make their future main eventers look like they could beat main eventers in case he leaves and B.) Jericho is a loyal company man to a fault (like Kane and Attitude-Era Mick Foley) who is secure enough in his own status to do the job for the up-and-comers.
Do you remember how Jericho was treated during his reign as Undisputed Champion? He played second-fiddle to HHH's dog!
Mostly because they had to build Triple H as the face and, after three years of being a Complete Monster, they needed a bigger heel to play him off against. Smug Snake Jericho wasn't going to cut it. The best way was to pit him against Stephanie McMahon, who had much bigger heat than either of them. Before then, he beat Rock and Stone Cold in the same night and then beat Rock again at the Rumble and Austin at No Way Out so he did get his moments as Undisputed Champ.
Yeah, before he was completely and unceremoniously CRUSHED by Triple H at Wrestlemania...
Elementary wrestling logic, as described by Jericho himself in his book: If you can make your opponent look good, you'll always have a job, but you'll always do the job.
Plus he really likes playing the heel, and said on his DVD that if he had his way his last appearance on Raw would be him being dragged out by security with people thinking "Man, what a jerk that guy was." Even so, he has been pretty successful in his time with the company: he was the First Undisputed Champion as mentioned above, beating the Rock and Austin in the same night while both of them were extremely over. He's also won the WWE title a few more times since his return a few years back, so clearly they do see him as a main event player.
I wouldn't be surprised if Jericho volunteered to put Evan Bourne over. His book gave the impression that he knows his jobbing should at least help elevate someone.
What happened to promos, or at least, promos involving people with charisma or don't already have a world title or are a number one contender? Don't they realize that you can build character and get heat with promos?
Not every wrestler can be Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Austin, Rock, Triple H, or John Cena (pre- and post-Basic Thuganomics), so that's one reason.
Even Cena started as a boring-as-dirt babyface. You need to give people promo time to get another Ric Flair, Austin or Rock.
Even The Rock started as a boring-as-dirt babyface. Remember Rocky Maivia, the Blue Chipper? What finally got The Rock over? They gave him more leeway, and let him start cutting his now famouspromos. So yeah, they should give more of their current guys a chance to shine like that.
Watch an old Royal Rumble (like from the late 80s/early 90s). No matter how often the commentator talk about how it's "Every man for himself", it almost always ends up as Heels vs Faces... With, in some cases, competitors of the same alignment saving each other from disqualification.
Because that is how faces and heels used to operate, and obviously, it was to the detriment of the atmosphere the bookers were going for sometimes.
In one Royal Rumble, Bret Hart and Lex Luger, the last two in the ring, were adjudged to have hit the ground at the same time, and as a result both qualified for the prize of challenging for the WWF championship belt. But the way they worked it out was that one would fight Yokozuna and then the other would take on the winner. Surely this was highly unfair (on Yokozuna who would have to defend his belt twice in one night), and the correct way to do it would be the two of them to fight each other, and the winner would get to take on Yokozuna for the belt.
They evened it out by having Bret face Owen in the opening fight so Bret wouldn't be fresh for the final fight either. (The stipulation was if Luger won the right via coin toss to face Yokozuna second, he'd have to face Crush in the opener.) Both fighters of the main event (Bret and the winner of Yokozuna/Luger) would have already been in a match that night. It was about as fair to all three contenders as it could have been.
Why was he called the 1-2-3 Kid? Possibly the worst name a wrestler's had. I know he defeated Razor Ramon with a 1-2-3 count, but it's hardly a method unique to him... "The Kid", was a lot better, reminiscent of "Billy the Kid" or other such historical "kids".
There was a whole thing where he was a jobber, and he kept going through different "kid" names (Cannonball Kid, Kamikaze Kid, Good Luck Kid, etc.) After he started actually pulling off big upset victories against Razor Ramon and IRS, Bret Hart said in a promo for a match where he was teaming with the kid that "they oughta call you the 1-2-3 kid". And so, it stuck. Yeah, still a silly name.
WWE? Come on! Organisation. Association. Anything (not beginning with F) but "Entertainment"... How can anyone take it seriously as a (albeit Kayfabe) sport with "Entertainment" in the name?
World Wrestling Association is actually a lucha libre federation in Mexico. World Wrestling Organization is similarly taken. It wasn't easy to come up with a name that includes "World Wrestling" that isn't already used by someone else.
This troper is surprised they didn't just go back to being the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). All you have to do is add an extra "W" to the logo.
Lance Storm got asked this question once, and apparently it's really hard to get an organisation's name changed, legally, financially and socially. As it was, they were always (business wise) World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, so they just dropped the F and started mentioning the E. All they had to change on their documents and business records was removing the "federation" from their company name and changing the abbreviation. WWWF doesn't roll of the tongue as much, and there'd be too much of a risk of wrestlers and announcers "accidentally" forgetting the extra W, getting them another lawsuit from the Pandas.
I always figured it was because the stock's name was already World Wrestling Federation Entertainment (WWFE), so they just decided to drop the "F". What bugs me about it is all the editing that has to be done to old footage making a lot of moments on the DVD releases seem awkward.
Well, as far as editing, that has to be done for legal reasons (see the panda above).
Bryan Danielson getting fired over the tie incident. Yes, it's already mentioned, but this was so bad that it deserves another mention.
Yeah...the sad part, I don't get Ring of Honor where I live - hell, I don't even know where I can get ROH - I don't have the money to buy DVDs, didn't watch NXT because it frankly looked like shit, and the only matches I say with Danielson were squashes, I thought he was a useless Butt Monkey, and than, after watching that badass match against the Miz and learning what an incredible wrestler he is, I realized that if his firing is a shoot then I and millions of other people will probably never get an opportunity to see the greatest wrestler of our current generation get a match worthy of him. Hell, worse than the fans getting ripped off is Bryan himself: working for the E' is probably a childhood dream for him, he works his entire life to become the most badass wrestler on Earth, he gets hired for the largest wrestling company in the world and attached to an awesome angle, his career is opening up, and the fame, fortune and respect he's worked all his life for is right in front of him, then he gets fired for the most retarded reason ever. Poor guy...if this isn't a Worked Shoot, I, I don't know what I could do.
Ring of Honor has an hour-long show Mondays at 8PM on HD Net... rest assured, if Danielson doesn't get picked back up by WWE before his no-compete clause is up, he will pop up there.
And as of Summer Slam 2010, he's back in the WWE.
Going back to the tie incident. Why is it that Danielson got fired for something that small-scale, and yet the very next week on RAW, The Nexus throws Bret Hart into the back of a limo, tries to outright kill the man, and they get away with it?!?
It's fairly easy to for a kid to grab a tie out of Daddy's closet and choke his brother out. Fling his brother into the backseat of a car and run it into things? Not so much. Well, unless you're Latarian Milton.
Cartoon violence versus realistic violence. Blame the moral guardians for being picky about the distinction.
Am I the only one who thinks that Cena is not acting really Face like? The guy declared a blood feud with the Nexus for gods knows what reason, beats them unconscious and has recruited an army to beat them down.
"Gods knows what reason"? Are you serious? They destroyed him and everyone at ringside (and the ring itself!) during their first attack. They cost him his the title two months in a row and completely decimated him and anyone who was on his side repeatedly, week in and week out. They've attacked referees, officials, timekeepers, announcers, legends, and pretty much anyone they could get their hands on. I mean come on.
Honestly I think this is a good thing. It kind of undermines the whole, "John Cena is a bland face all american apple pie" character. I'm not saying there's a huge amount of depth here, but really he's more tweener than face. Goes out of his way to brutalize his enemies, makes frequent Enemy Mine pacts with his arch enemies Edge and Orton, so on and so forth. Really, its strange that first people complain they keep Cena as a face, and then when he does things unface like they complain. I think people just want him to start rapping again, because they love gimmicks.
You can't see why people complain about someone who is meant to be a face acting heelish? Really? Really?!
I think it's more along the lines of people complaining about someone being basically Incorruptible Pure Pureness-incarnate and then when they do something that contradicts that, they still complain.
Except Cena got called out on it. It's not an out of character moment; it's giving depth to a flat character. It's not a face acting non-face-like, it's a fan-loving tweener acting like a tweener. Cena isn't a straight face right now and hasn't been for a while, and these events are largely part of that. In character he thinks he's a face, if a Beware the Nice Ones face, but in character he also thinks he's the constant underdog rebel, when in fact he's the face of the company. We're going back to Grey and Grey Morality here, people, and it is a sign of good things to come.
And how about Nexus suffering major Motive Decay? What happened to just wanting job security? They're kinda acting needlessly evil, I for one would've loved to see Cena agree to the truce and the hatchet be buried, y'know, a feud that wasn't resolved with violence, now that's a Shocking Swerve.
Wade has said several times that a "Plan" was in place. Apparently one part of it was getting Cena on their side. Unfortunately for them it backfired spectacularly. The rest of their plan will be revealed later no doubt.
Right. Just as soon as the writers figure out what it was supposed to be.
Well, Cena's in Nexus now, so they better figure it out soon.
It appears the "plan" is Barret getting the championship belt. Of course, I personally would love to see it go to Gabriel instead...
How about the severe Badass Decay Nexus has been going through as well? In particular, Wade Barrett and Justin Gabriel (theoretically their two best guys) not only fail to beat Cena in a 2 on 1 scenario but they can't even beat him after DDT'ing the man on concrete (yes, the show was running late which is why the spot should have shelved for another match) and get utterly owned in the span of five minutes. Then they're put in singles matches with Team WWE to salvage their credibility... except only Wade and Skip (and his partner Otunga by extension) manage to win cleanly. Young gets squashed by Cena. Tarver only wins through distraction and the rest win by countout. Slater's countout victory could have been sold as him outsmarting Edge... had the commentators not immediately noted he wasn't aware of the ref counting and won on pure dumb luck. It's like the WWE doesn't even care at this point if their top heels are complete jokes.
Maybe Corre will be different since on Smackdown, Wade and Gabriel don't have attempt to fight the spotlight with Cena and the like.
Am I the only one bugged that Women's Wrestling in the WWE has moved away from actually skilled grapplers like Trish Stratus, Jazz, and Lita to no-talent skanks who can't do anything but catfight? For that matter, WHY did Vince let the Women's Division be gutted like it did, anyway?
Because according to Vince McMahon, no one wants to see women being violent - women should be sex objects first and foremost. It took years before we even had women like Sable and Sunny, who had a moveset beyond catfighting - this troper can remember being a twelve-year-old girl and being astonished that Sable could powerbomb. When Chyna was first brought into WWE, HHH and Shawn Michaels and Shane McMahon spent months trying to convince Vince that people would buy her beating up men. And she really paved the way for women like Trish Stratus and Lita and Victoria and Ivory and Jazz. Unfortunately, there's never been much support for women's wrestling in WWE. Women's matches are seen as filler by everyone; there will never be a women's match main-eventing a show. The main-events are the matches that draw your crowd and up your PPV buys. And that translates into "not profitable" to Vince's almighty-dollar mindset, thus, we're never going to get the quality of women's wrestling in WWE that Japan and TNA has.
Actually WWE did have divas main eventing an episode RAW. In a match between Trish & Lita though it happened so long ago I would understand if no one remembers it.
TNAhad, sadly; it would seem that Messrs. Hogan and Bischoff share Mr. McMahon's opinion of women's wrestling.
The really sad thing is that both WWE and TNA are owned by women (although in the case of the WWE is more of a technicality) and they stand and let their companies denigrate women.
It's doesn't help the fact that TNA management in general doesn't seem to have a high amount of respect or legitimate regard for the knockouts as they apparently make way less money than their counterparts, which is part of the reason why the division is so damn shallow.The bad booking as of late doesn't make anything better.
What makes their line of thinking even more inane is that the most popular women lately have always been the athletic, quirky ones who stand out from the crowd to begin with. Note how insanely over Mickie James and Victoria were when they were both CloudcuckoolanderPsycho Lesbians, Lita as the consumate ShorttankAction Girl, or Chyna, then Beth Phoenix as Sexy Amazons (YMMV). What they're trying to do right now is trying to find Stacy Keibler-knockoffs....though the similarly proportioned Michelle McCool and Maryse can both actually wrestle and have effective, over, heel personas.
It's not actually Vince. It's Johnny Ace who is head of talent negotiations that has this attitude. He was the one who made a comment at a tryout that if the women weren't good looking enough to be in Playboy then they shouldn't be in wrestling.
It would help tremendously if your regular female talent could hold a quality match. Sure you can cherry pick that there are a few women you can get in the ring and get it done but the vast majority on their very best night would be sent home if they were male. What's more is so many of them are good or even great on the mike. Melina, Lay Cool, Stacy Keibler and when you see the abundance of male talent who can't talk to save their lives John Morrison, Daniel Bryan, Sheamus we'd be worlds better off abandoning women's wrestling. I agree with Vince. Gimme back my once a year Bra and Panties match and get rid of this red hot garbage. And yes Trish and Jackie and Lita and Molly could wrestle but even back in the day it was basically just them. Stacy Keibler sucked and if she wasn't eight feet of legs nobody would have cared.
The above comments are incorrect. Sunny didn't wrestle, Sable was popular but she refused to bump so she was ultimately bad for the company. It was getting veteran wrestlers like Ivory and Jacqueline to carry matches as well as using Luna that brought back the Women's division and it was a falling out with Alundra Blaze/Madusa combined with a drop in fan interest that lead to the end of the women's division before them. Before that it was firing Rockin Robin that killed the division before Alundra/Madusa brought it back with Luna (again) and Bull Nakano.
The division almost died again when Chyna left. They still had some good talent but it was lucky Trish stepped it up when they chose her over seasoned talent that could have taken the belt. Johnny Ace wasn't challenged because the first couple Diva searches got good ratings. Maybe it was better to just have models? The division started building back up again when fans got sick of the divasearch and started booing non-wrestlers louder. Most of the bad talent left or improved by 2010, but they still aren't getting used because women were never WWE's main priority. The women's division is always endanger of dieing, fans who don't acknowledge good talent and just declare all to suck or gush about non wrestlers don't help. But it could be worse, it could be the tag team division.
Why are they reusing the Vickie Guerrero is a deluded idiot seduced by the hot young stud gimmick, and as much as Dolph Ziggler is a talented guy, he does not have the charisma that Edge has...not to mention that people hated that gimmick and it's considered So Bad Its Horrible, so why would a less charismatic guy save a gimmick people already hate, and worse, are tired of? I can understand reusing a populargimmick, but an unpopular one?
Seems less a Vickie as a deluded idiot gimmick and more a played straight Ziggler is her kept boy gimmick. The man walks to the ring wearing a dog collar, after all. As for why, honestly at this point I'm wondering why they're using Vickie at all. "Excuse ME!" got old a long time ago.
Vickie needs the job to put food on the table for her kids since Eddie passed. Plus it helped her get through her depression-related weight gain, so there's that. She's praticially apart of the WWE family and can draw heat, so that's why she's being used.
So give her a desk job and pay her well for it. Don't put that talentless waste of airtime on the air and take up time for other wrestlers...
Removing Vickie from TV doesn't really create more time for other wrestlers much less the divas. You want to fix that problem start booking like you give two shits about the talent and stop bringing in or calling up new talent from FCW,NXT,or Tough Enough to fill up rosters already crammed up with wrestlers.
Get on a wrestling forum. Vickie and Michael Cole are considered by many to be the best heels in the business at the moment. She's the woman who's so over a heel that men over the age of 12 cheer when John Cena shows up.
The only reason Cole and Guerrero getting heat are because they're incredibly annoying and hog airtime, not because they're entertaining heels...
One thing that's bugged me for years: why is it that except on rare occasions, a face cannot tap out to a heel's submission finisher, while as soon as a face slaps the heel in their submission finisher, the heel taps out almost instantly? I mean, the theory behind a submission finisher is that if the person in the hold DOESN'T tap out, they'll be gravely injured or have a limb snapped or something. Does Vince really feel that a submission would damage a face's credibility? And after a face turns heel, he'll be tapping out left and right to submission finishers even though only a month earlier he could be in such a hold for two minutes and not come CLOSE to tapping out. Even worse: a heel will do everything they can to weaken a body part targeted by a submission, only for it not to work, while the face can just slap their submission on without ANY previous work and the heel will submit.
They've remedied this, mid-carders and lower tap to heels all the time. Hell, Rey Mysterio, Jr. and Christian tapped to Alberto Del Rio, and TNA had Tommy Dreamer lose an I Quit match...completely legitimately too.
Also, Shawn Michaels would often tap out if locked in a heel's submission.
A lot of the psychology regarding submissions comes from the days before UFC, where their effectiveness was shown. Especially considering that WWE is the successor to the old WWWF, which ran on Popularity Power even more than most wrestling promotions. Plus, pinfalls are thought to lead to a bigger pop if the babyface goes over.
Benoit vs Angle at Rumble 2003 ended in a submission win for Angle who I'm pretty sure was a heel leading into the match.
The gay bashing prevalent in this company, especially since wrestling is very, very gay. D-X is one of the weirdest example of this, they've called pretty much everybody gay, ever, but they themselves have engaged in gay jokes so many times that the dichotomy is hilariously crazy. Are they hypocrites, severely closeted, or is it just a pack of jokes that nobody should take seriously?
The latter and they're pretty aware of it. Really, whenever Shawn or Trips put any D-X merch on, it's an indicator to the audience "this is the comedy portion of the show, take none of it seriously." Be it kicking little girls or hanging with a leprechaun.
Actually that was more N-Word Privilege for a long time during the late 80s and early 90s the WWF had not one but 2 gay bookers Terry Garven and Pat Patterson, while people would often make jokes about jobbers getting on TV because they gave then sexual favors (that was what Al Snow was originally ment by giving head). Both were respected tough guys backstage and most of the stuff you saw on tv that seemed homophobic was either written by them or as a rib on them.
You know what bugs me? The idea that it's some horrible atrocity to make fun of Mickie James for an alleged weight problem, but it's okay to make fun of Michelle McCool for the exact same thing. Why? Because she had a really long title reign, and plays a heel on a scripted wrestling show. And feminism marches on.
Well, keep in mind that Mickie James doesn't have weight problems, while Michelle McCool is super skinny, and less popular, never mind that Michelle is a talented athlete in her own right, and I wouldn't say that she's unhealthily skinny. This all ties into the belief that skinny women are unnatural.
It's a non-gender case of a Double Standard. McCool's popularity aside, it's perfectly fine to make cheap shots towards someone if they're not a Smark-Favorite (See jokes about HHH's weight). Otherwise, it's unforgivable.
It's more likely backlash against the people in the company pushing this angle than against Michelle herself. They're the ones who write stories calling Mickie "fat" and holding up the alarmingly skinny Michelle as the "perfect figured woman", and they're the ones most fans have the issue with.
Alarmingly skinny is debatable but the above just proves the point. If the writers were trying to show Michelle as an ideal woman in any sense of the word she wouldn't be playing Heel. The Rudo's job is to get booed, notice everyone on screen who wasn't Matt Striker thought Laycool was a disgrace? Even then, Striker only said he didn't have a problem with their cruelty, he didn't believe their slander was true. They clearly said Michelle and Layla are bad, feel bad for Mickie.
WWE has a history of using situations like this, regardless of storyline, to needle their talent, or "rib them on the square" (and of course, the easiest way to slip it under the radar is to have a heel do it, because if a heel does it, it's okay, they're supposed to be booed). Even if this was a legitimate attempt at a money-drawing storyline, it's not like fans have no cause to be suspicious.
Wanna know the kicker? Michelle has had problems with anorexia in the past. Anyone who's ever called her "Skeletor" or something like that should be ashamed of themselves.
Mickie James defends angle. She probably shouldn't because it was weak but that should put rest to the worries of it being a personal attack on her or a glorification of skinny people.
And one final note on the angle - that infamous going away party segment got 15 minutes allotted on Smackdown and a video package promoting it at the Rumble. Considering these days the divas are lucky to even get proper feuds or even two minutes for a match...
Probably not the best person to complain, as I haven't watched WWE regularly since 2001, but it just bugs me that all the Pay-Per-Views are all named after matches that were used as mid-card matches in older Pay-Per-Views (TLC, Hell in a Cell), and sometimes used on their TV shows (Extreme Rules, Fatal-4-Way). Also, this is more minor, and it's probably impractical anyway, but seeing as they had bought WCW years ago, it would have been nice to use some more of their Pay-Per-Views than just Great American Bash. Starrcade would have been awesome, as it's just about as old as Wrestlemania, or even some of their gimmicky ones like Fall Brawl or World War 3.
I have never understood the logic behind having heel commentators. I get heel wrestlers; you need people the audience will pay money to see get beat up. I get heel authority figures; they add a degree of dramatic conflict for the underdog face to overcome. I even get heel refs for much of the same reason. But heel commentators hardly ever get beat up and they don't add any sense of tension for the face to overcome. They just annoy the viewer with their idiot comments and ass-backwards the-heel-is-always-right logic train. Is there anything of significance that's added to the program when Jerry Lawler would call Mick Foley an idiot every two minutes or Michael Cole whining about Daniel Bryan being from "the minor leagues?"
I never liked the idea that much either, but I'll try to explain the appeal. For one thing, it presents the audience another perspective as it makes things less black and white. Also, and I think it's the biggest reason: They're the only ones, if anyone, to call out a face's Moral Dissonance as opposed to handwaving, ignoring, or even justifying it. Especially in the Jerk Sue-populated Attitude Era.
Wouldn't a neutral commentator work just as well without the blissfully ignorant heel making annoying comments all throughout the show?
Because heel comentators are usually Affably Evil and most people love them, Bobby Heenan, CM Punk and Taz are hilarious, and they play the heelish comentator role. And Heel!Cole is awesome, and complaining stupidly about the faces makes one like the faces more.
I think the main use of a heel commentator is to explain the motivations of heel wrestlers to the viewers. Matt Striker does an excellent job of this whenever CM Punk is around, for example.
Actually the purpose of a heel commentator is to have someone on the commentating team who likes the heel on top of excusing any heel like actions the heel may commit in the match this essentially allows the heel commentator to not only come off as villian but also allows them to garner large amount of heat from viewers watching on TV, so basically if you hate heel commentators they have successfully done the job they're supposed be doing.
So, if Cole annoys me to the point that I either muted the TV or just changed the channel, he did his job?
No, Cole is an example of a bad heel, a guy who buries faces cheers for his favourite without logic, thus being irritating and getting nobody over. For examples of GOOD heel commentators, see Paul Heyman and Bradshaw, they put over how good the babyfaces were (with Bradshaw he mostly did this, save one or two people he genuinely disliked) yet still supporting the heel, cheering when the heel won via dastardly means and professing his superiority to the face they spent 10 minutes putting over. Thus the face gets genuine credibility via the words of both commentators, the heel gets heat via cheating, and the commentator gets heat for supporting the heel and glossing over or ignoring his dastardly actions.
Getting heat on the commentator really doesn't do a whole lot of good in and of itself. The really, really good ones at the role (Ventura, Heenan, Lawler before he went puppy-crazy) justify the heel's actions, but justify them in such a way that it makes the viewers hate the heel even more. It also lets the play-by-play man defend the face without looking like a shameless kiss-ass (Jim Ross was a MASTER at this during the Attitude Era; for the other side, look at David Crockett from the JCP days), by simply pointing out the gaps in the heel commentator's logic.
Because anything Bobby Heenan had to say was infinitely more entertaining than what was happening in the ring. Seriously, put Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon in the same room with a camera, you didn't need wrestling.
Being a commentator can actually help a wrestler if they are still semi active in 94-95 WWF top heel was also doing color on Raw, I miss HBK in that roll he was great.
I love to hate Cole. Particularly right now with him and King and Austin interacting. That said it's not supposed to be a Face Commentator and a Heel, it's supposed to be color and play by play. Look at King/JR commentary from the 98-01 era. King rooted the bad guys because they did what it took to win, JR rooted the good guys because they had better sportsmanship. When someone did actual heel things both of them agreed on things.
Because Lawler and Cole aren't good examples of heel commentators. Everyone loves CM Punk on commentary and Bobby Heenan was one of the best commentators ever.
Bryan Danielson apparently can only be badass at a PPV. If he's on Raw, he must be squashed even he's US Champion, further cheapening the title.
No, he got squashed, IMO to show how insane Sheamus is, plus, Bryan won. So there you go.
Helps that, in the Bryan vs Sheamus rematch, Bryan is shown pushing Sheamus to the limit in a beautiful match between the two. Bryan may have lost that one, but Sheamus came out of it looking shocked that the guy he squashed the previous week almost managed to beat him.
WWE was really good at promoting Bryan Danielson as a star who made it in the Indy's, sure they don't call him "The Best in the World", but his two main rivals who mock him as an inexperienced loser or The Miz and Michael Cole, two Heels widely considered to be morons. Kaval has been much less lucky that, according to The Big Show (A major face in the company), he's an inexperienced guy that isn't star material, even though he's only been wrestling for three fewer years than The Big Show, hell, he's been wrestling for longer than John Cena and Randy Orton. Why can't you promote two indy stars? Is that too much for WWE?
In a word, yes. They couldn't even get a good set up for John Cena turning heel, destroying the Nexus from within, OR taking the third option and dethroning Barret, lets face it, WWE writers are great at PPV, but write worse than the whole of the writing/booking staff during the last few years of WCW when it comes to Raw or Smackdown.
They can't help it considering how hard it is to come up with a great storyline under immense pressure on top of the occasional accident that might ruin a storyline already in motion.
Considering that almost EVERYONE regardless of their position on the card had an angle during The Federation Years & The Attitude Era, this is obviously a case of the present WWE "Creative" Team being inept more than anything else. Also, I can sum up the ideal push for Kaval in 1 word: Taz.
Taz's stint in WWE didn't go too far due to a neck injury he suffered in ECW that shortened the latter half of his career samething with Austin, karma's to blame here not creative.
John Cena cheated at Survivor Series, after all that crap about calling it down the middle, he pushed Wade Barrett into Randy Orton's RKO, how is that calling it down the middle? Because Wade was treating him like crap? You're supposed to cancel the match, not set up the other guy? And he gets cheered as a face for doing it, John Cena is not Stone Cold Steve Austin, they can't do the same stuff and get away with it.
Look at the match again. Wade was A. Provoking Cena throughout the ENTIRE match, and B. PUSHED Cena, who was the ref, which SHOULD be a automatic disqualification (yes, I realize that wrestlers get away with all the time, but that doesn't matter right now.) So not only was Cena VERY justified in attacking Barret, but Barret for all intents and purposes already lost, RKO or no RKO. Besides, it means Cena's fired anyway, so what are you whining about?
That and Referees have been known to push back in the past so it was nothing new. If anything the match was Wade being Hoist by His Own Petard.
Also, it was a no disqualification, no holds barred match. Those can only be won by pinfall or submission.
The total mishandle of Booker T. To this still, it still bugs the hell out of me how the WWE handled Booker T. He literally went from being one of the top guys near the end of WCW to being jobbed to the stars of the Attitude Era. He was over during his feud with Triple H so that's not the reason.
I think that might've been due to the fact that Booker wasn't yet over with the fans when he first came to WWE, case and point his match with Buff Bagwell for the WCW Championship on the July 21 2001 episode of RAW. Also I wouldn't go far to call Booker one of the top guys in WCW. Prior to it's collapse WCW had gotten so bad at with it's booking that guys who wouldn't even be headlining or main eventing Pay-Per-Views were doing it Tank Abbott being a good example.
He broke Steve Austin's hand in his first appearance, and thus got a bad rep as an unsafe worker. Not to mention, his "top guy" status during the drain-circling phase of WCW had a lot to do with a racial discrimination lawsuit going on at the time.
Piggy James. Seriously Vince, fuck you. She was not fat at all. She was healthy, robust, and voluptous. Those two pez dispensers looked like walking skeletons with their ribcages protruding and thin legs. This got me so mad, at least Mickey James was smart enough to leave the WWE instead of becoming anorexic.
YMMV on Mickie's decision to leave the company since she immediately signed to TNA once her 90 days were up.
She was released, and it had more to do with her behavior on a European tour (and a relationship with a male star; she apparently didn't handle the breakup well).
A LARGE NUMBER OF FANS WERE CALLING HER FAT before the angle. It is at least possible that WWE decided to run with it in an attempt to make Mickie's character look sympathetic and Michelle the ultimate heel Diva. The fact that the storyline ended with Mickie beating Michelle for the title in 15 seconds and the other Divas then smashing Michelle's face in a cake could lend credence to this. It appears that Mickie's real life diva behavior kicked into gear shortly thereafter, leading to her downfall with the company.
Wait, what? Michelle McCool, I agree. But Layla doesn't come close to looking like a skeleton!
I do not understand why people claim that the WWE was calling her fat, the only people that referred to her as that were a pair of Alpha Bitchesque heels and the commentators even pointed this out. It was just 2 bitches getting heat by acting like stuck up high school girls.
Indeed, the entire angle seemed to me to be a massive Take That at the above mentioned fans that were insulting her. But when the smarks have to choose between their fellow Internet fans or Vince McMahon, who are they most likely to blame without considering the circumstances?
Something that's bugged for awhile and continues to bug me is why when Divas have a battle royal type match the rules state that in order to be eliminated youcan not only be eliminated by being thrown over the ropes (I think) but can also be eliminated by being pushed through the ropes how does that make sense?
Yeah, this bugs me too. It's like they're saying that the women are simply not strong enough to throw or knock each other over the top rope... which is not only sexist, it's disproven several times in each and every diva battle royal!
It might be a case of the Divas not actually wanting to take that bump, considering it's seen as dangerous by most of the male wrestlers
I don't think it's an issue of not wanting to take bumps (something that's on the hands of the company).
The company can't unreasonably force somebody to take a bump that they don't want to.
True but this becomes Fridge Logic when you remember that they had no problem asking divas like Lita, Trish, & Molly to take bumps back in the day.
Well, remember who you're talking about. Lita, Trish, and Molly were athletically built and well trained. Part of what goes into taking a bump is simply having the body mass to absorb the impact and spread the force around. In addition, Divas beyond those like McCool (fan of the industry), Phoenix (legit wrestler), and the like are mostly just models, gymnasts, or females that exercise (without being athletes); they're likely not willing to take bumps that might severely hurt them once they get out of wrestling and/or they're simply not being trained (or want to be trained) beyond the basics. And beyond the basics, that actually takes some muscle. It seems like it's almost like the WWE is trying to do two things at once. They know Divas like the Bellas get cheap pops and they know Divas like Phoenix can actually wrestle and draw a crowd, but seem unwilling/unable to combine the two aspects in one person. Becomes a vicious cycle since Phoenix trying to wrestle, say, Kelly Kelly would by all rights be a squash yet somehow Kelly Kelly needs to be able to put up a fair fight... so it ends up looking like Phoenix's badassness is more informed ability.
Why would it bug you that this allows the female wrestlers to lose the match without getting severely injured with a top-rope drop to the (thin) padding on the concrete floor? WWE might be sexist in this regard, but if it helps promote safety, I'm all for it.
I don't know how having an elimination battle royal that's won by throwing your opponent through the ropes rather than traditionally throwing them over promotes safety especially when you remember that you're more likely to be injured inside a wrestling ring then being thrown out of one. Also it bugs me because of how lazily and stupid it looks.
Or maybe its just because women are shorter than men (SPECIALLY in the WWE) and can't go over the top rope with the same ease that male wrestlers can.
I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with height and that they can be clotheslined or flipped over the top ropes with no trouble.
Actually, the divas used to have to go over the top rope as well. The battle royals from 2003 and 2004 had that rule and it wasn't until the Taboo Tuesday battle royal that it changed to just leaving the ring. It should be noted that even today there will be some divas who go over the top rope. There was an impressive seven divas that were eliminated that way in the battle royal at the end of 2010.
On Gail Kim's debut Victoria accidentally kicked Jazz unconscious and then she got tossed over the ropes anyway. Maybe that's the incident that lead to divas not having to go over the top, as Jazz might have justifiably complained about it. There's no record on any backstage disputes over that but come on, that had to check some worker safety boxes.
Here's the match. Jazz was already injured going into the match and that was a way of taking the title off her. She doesn't even go over the top rope and at the time fans were expecting she would use that in a return angle on why she should still be the champion since she wasn't technically eliminated from the match.
That it doesn't seem very common knowledge that it was Bossman who raised the briefcase during the McMahons/Stone Cold ladder match: though it was not outright stated, it was implied throughout the angles of the time with Bossman being "thrown out" of The Corporation after the "No Corporation Members Can Interfere" rule, only to go right back to The Corporation after the match was finished.
The ministry was widely hated and the corporation is associated with the ministry, so people tend to skip it when looking at old wrestling matches
This might not be worth complaining about now that WWE programming is TV-PG, but it never should have happened in the first place: several of the lesser Divas being pushed through the roof as semi-legitimate wrestlers just because they appeared in Playboy. It's not their appearing in Playboy so much that bothered me as it was the idea that appearing in Playboy suddenly gave Ashley Massaro, Maria Kanellis, and others massive Popularity Power as wrestlers. And as if that weren't atrocious enough, WWE had to portray Beth Phoenix and Melina Perez as arrogant for not wanting to appear in Playboy, because how dare they be so uppity to deny everyone a look at their bare breasts and pubic hair! In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason for not allowing Stacy Keibler (who wasn't a great wrestler, but deserved at least as much of a push as the other Faux Action Girls, especially after all the demeaning shit WWE put her through) to do anything during her time in WWE was because she repeatedly refused to appear in Playboy, and WWE must not have liked that and punished Stacy by relegating her to second-class third-class status. (Trish Stratus refused to pose for Playboy too, but there was no marginalizing someone with that much talent.) Fact is, for quite a few years there WWE was being downright hypocritical, on the one hand trying to build up "ordinary girls" as heroines, but then introducing Playboy as a completely irrelevant factor.
To be fair they had a GREAT working relationship with Playboy at the time, lets not pretend we didn't want to see these ladies in the nude. Stacy's reason for not wanting to do Playboy I respected. It pretty much came down to I don't want to. Fine. I'll be petty and say be that way but at the end of the day I respect you. Trish (and being honest this takes my respect for her from one hundred down to a mere ninty seven point five) reportedly said that once you pose in Playboy that's the only thing you'll ever be known for. Really Chyna and Sable are BEST known for Playboy? Maybe if you're a no talent hottie who should have been a model anyway that's true but Lita and Trish could easily have posed without anybody losing any respect for them. Oh and it was always the best selling issue of the year so yeah.
What burned them about Keibler (similar to the recent departure of Mickie James) is that they felt she was only in WWE for fame and the possibility of outside projects. Regardless of TV programming rating, WWE has always had a cult-like mentality among the wrestlers and management that stars need to be WWE first.
Actually Stacy said she didn't want to pose for Playboy because she wanted to "leave things to the imagination". They also actually wanted to put the belt on her in 2002 but she refused, saying that she wasn't a wrestler and that it would be disrespectful to the other divas if she was Women's Champion.
Shawn Michaels's entire booking after he returned in 2002. Seriously, whoever it was who decided that HBK would have the World Heavyweight Championship for one month and then never have a world title again deserves a hard kick in the balls right now. We are talking here about a wrestler who even in his forties could hold his own with anyone on the roster (including The Undertaker, for goodness's sake!) and was loved by fans from all walks of life, and he has to spend the better part of 2002-2010 either jobbing to just about everyone or playing out some of the most sordid, humiliating, or just plain ridiculous gimmicks imaginable. I realize that it was all to build Shawn up as an Iron Woobie character, but at some point it started to seem less like the man bravely overcoming adversity and more like the whole world taking a giant shit on him for no good reason. I won't go into Vince and Shane's mocking of his newfound religious faith. I won't go into his being temporarily blinded by Chris Jericho, nearly retiring, and then having to watch his wife, Rebecca (AKA "Whisper"), get punched in the mouth by Jericho. I won't go into his (Kayfabe) temporarily becoming a chef in an office cafeteria and having to be talked into returning by Triple H. Hell, I don't even care so much that his last two WrestleMania matches were against Undertaker, who always wins at that event. No, what gets my blood boiling hotter than anything else is his God-awful angle of briefly becoming John "Bradshaw" Layfield's employee slave after his family's life savings were destroyed in the 2008 stock market crash. Seeing him get down on his knees and allow JBL to pin him was degrading enough. But then when Michaels decided he'd finally had enough, and stood up to JBL for once in an "All or Nothing" match at 2009's No Way Out, what happens? He spends most of the match getting his ass handed to him by the visibly out-of-shape Layfield! He doesn't even mount a comeback until JBL says something disparaging to Rebecca at ringside and she slaps him, allowing her husband to regain the advantage and win the match. To me, that seemed like the ultimate degradation: that this man seemingly can't even defend himself unless his wife - who isn't even a wrestler - can come to his aid. The HeartBreak Kid deserved much, much better.
You can partially place the blame on Shawn himself. He never got another world title after 2002 because he didn't want one. He preferred to have the title on somebody younger and felt he didn't need a belt at this point to be over with the fans. He focused more on story elements and liked the idea of doing morality plays with his character. He seemed to like the idea of playing a righteous but imperfect man who sometimes wins and sometimes loses. It might also have to do with paying a penance of sorts for being such a diva in the 90's and spent most of his second career putting the other guys over. Shawn had reached a level of respect where everybody knew how good he was without him even winning matches. Only Ric Flair really ever reached that level before.
Since The Miz became champion, how many times has the belt been defended in the main event? I can understand it not being so at a PPV when you have another world title at play, but even so, the WWE Champion takes a backseat to The Nexus and Cena angle all the bloody time. Even his Champion vs. Champion match against Edge (a match of Wrestlemania caliber was TWICE pushed off the main event so it could be reserved for Nexus and Cena.
Because without Jeff Hardy and DX, no one sells as much merchandise as John Cena, so writers want him booked high on the card, all the time. Nexus was supposed to be a new big thing. Put the two together.
So many people go on and on about how Vince McMahon officially became the Devil incarnate when he backed out of Bret Hart's contract and then perpetrated the Montreal Screwjob when Bret refused to drop the belt. This attitude toward Vince "betraying" one of his longtime employees wouldn't bug me so much except that all the wrestlers who similarly betrayed Vince beforehand don't get called to task. Lex Luger, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash all decided to leave for WCW just days after telling Vince they were staying. Luger went so far as to conspire against Vince while still employed by him by still telling Vince he was staying put AFTER agreeing to sign with WCW just so he could pull the big shock of appearing on Nitro's premiere with no one suspecting. So employers are to give unwavering loyalty to their employees and not expect any in return?
Many fans don't know Luger, Hall, and Nash deceived Vince like that unless they watched the Monday Night Wars DVD or read up a lot on the backstage stuff. If you ask most smarks who demonize Vince what they think of Hall, Nash, and Luger, chances are they think they're motherfuckers, too. All three have a rep of being money-grubbing scumbags who take the paycheck for the least amount of work possible.
What's bad for the goose is bad for the gander. In any event the screwjob was at least a bad egg that was particularly deceptively set up, repeatedly lied about (including sometime after), and emotionally upsetting to the screwed party, certainly among instances well known to the public consciousness.
Hall and Nash both left at the end of their contract, with ample notice (necessary to prevent it from rolling over). None of the three were obligated in any way to sign a new contract or even negotiate a new one with McMahon. On the other hand, McMahon had Bret under a twenty-year contract (that he willingly signed) that he intentionally breached, and also violated a creative control "sunset" process in the contract language with the screwjob. Bret wasn't leaving for another month, had house show dates booked, and had approval from Eric Bischoff to continue working for WWE after his contractual start date in order to finish up with his storylines (Epileptic Tree conspiracy theories about Hart throwing the WWF title in a garbage can on Nitro break down due to a.) the lawsuit still going on, which the similar Madusa incident was a part of, and b.) Bischoff, Hogan, and Nash didn't want Hart to get over in WCW.)
To be fair, it's also been said that Vince was weary of what would happen if Bischoff announced on Nitro that WCW had just signed the WWF Champion. It probably wouldn't be such a good idea to have your top guy look as if he was easily taken away by the competition.
This, of course, was after breaching his WWF champion's contract, and telling him to get the best deal he could from the competition. In Wrestling With Shadows, when Bret offers to ask Bischoff to keep the deal quiet, Vince in fact turns him down and says not to worry about it.
Am I the only one left puzzled as to why [nowadays] when WWE shows replay footage from PPV's why initially in the days/weeks after the PPV the footage consists of nothing but still images of whatever they want to show viewers or fans what happened at the PPV whereas in the earlier days they almost always showed video footage.
They've been doing that since at least 1999. This troper distinctly remembers the still image montage they used the Raw after the Royal Rumble in '99. The logic is rather simple: they want you to buy the rerun of the PPV to see what actually happened. In the days of Youtube, it's less effective, but nonetheless...
Actually the logic gets kind of fuzzy when you remember that even in those days they still showed video footage of what happened at the PPV's whereas today practically all the PPV replay footage consists of still images unless it's Wrestlemania I think.
Unless it was being shown to reference a specific plot point (i.e. the moment Mankind supposedly yelled "I quit" or the Rock/Big Show tumble at the 2000 Rumble) usually in a wrestler's promo, they used still images at least until the reruns of the PPV had aired. They still do that; Cena famously showed the cascade of chairs at TLC 2010 from four different angles the night after.
This notion that Vince outright hates acknowledging that he manages a wrestling company. Yes, all the wrestlers are only referred to as "Superstars" or "Divas", and he does call his shows "sports entertainment", but the Joey Styles rant from when he "quit" Raw was not the first time someone made a Take That against "sports entertainment". There was also Paul Heyman during the Invasion, and Chris Jericho's debut in 1999 featured a jab at sports entertainers, and Jim Cornette ranted against it before any of them.
He really does hate calling it a wrestling company, because the mainstream American media looks down on Professional Wrestling and would never give it even the smallest degree of respect.
After the recent rebranding from World Wrestling Entertainment to "WWE, Inc.", I stand corrected. Still, one should note that several people have trashed "sports entertainment" on WWE programming.
Ware do people get that he hates the word Wrestling from. I have seen him use the word on TV in and out of character numerous times. Wrestling is what goes on inside the ring, Sports-Entertainment is the whole show, the WWE douse other stuff besides the shows so they are an entertainment company. The people that claim Vince hates wrestling are the same type that claim Walt Disney was a racist anti-Semite that supported the Nazis.
Why is The Miz still around as the prime Heel? He's hubritic and pathetic as a heel when so many have done the role better. I admit he does the mic well, and I like his motivation of taking negativity as his power instead of say, The Rock and his cheers from the people. However, he isn't that great of a technical wrestler and he's not even that interesting because other Heels have done it better, especially the Attitude-era heels like Triple H and The Corporation.
Well, there may have been better heels in the past, but he's one of the top heels in the company right now, which is what matters. Second, he's in the top five of current WWE mic workers, gets lots of attention because he is very media friendly, doesn't cause any trouble for WWE, and he's not a technical wrestler, he's a vicious brawler, similar to Triple H, and he's a very good vicious brawler, he gets tons of heat and can sell and deliver a pretty decent beating. Look at his matches with John Morrison which didn't have any grappling yet where very entertaining due to the actions of both participants. Much like The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Dusty Rhodes and John Cena, he's gets people into the match with his charisma, not through how many counter holds he knows (which to WWE management, is way more important). You don't need to be strong or technically gifted to be a successful wrestler, you just have to make people care.
Wrestling Psychology. WWE's always placed bigger emphasis on the storytelling aspect of wrestling rather than the technical. It's why a guy like John Cena can be the top dog in the company despite not having a very large moveset, he manages to draw people in to his matches. And since Miz happens to be one of the best in the company when it comes to story telling, it makes sense. I know people aren't going to like hearing this, but Austin was far from being a technical wrestler, but his sheer charisma managed to get pretty much an entire generation of wrestling fans behind him.
Cena supposedly employed a more diverse set of moves when he was in FCW as the "Prototype" but sometime after he got called up to the active roster and started getting pushed as babyface WWE had him scale back his moveset for some puzzling reason.
Why do people think that "More moves=Better wrestler"? It isn't true, Justin Credible had a larger move set than Ric Flair, is he a better wrestler? God no. The Rock had like seven moves, is he a worse wrestler than Tommy Dreamer? God no. Moves don't matter, psychology does.
More moves doesn't necessarily mean better, but there's definitely a lower bound on it. Too few moves, and you're essentially wrestling the same match week in and week out (see also: Hart, Bret, though that was more due to how limited his mid-90's opponents were).
This is more to do with fan reaction than the actual product. It's how much people tend to read into what's said onscreen and how they are desperate to find subtext in it where it clearly isn't there. For example, Lay Cool's promo before the Royal Rumble where they say Natalya will lose some weight (dropping her title). Countless internet fans were bitching about WWE calling Nattie fat and saying that they were trying to send a message. Cheap heat is cheat heat people.
It bugs me with what some fans take offense to. Eve Torres can call Miz a frog-faced loser, Cole can make a crack about Jerry Lawler's dead parents, CM Punk can scare the crap out of Rey's daughter, Randy Orton can punt the entire McMahon family yet Michelle and Layla make a throwaway fat joke towards Mickie James and people take offense.
Agreed. It's ridiculous how much White Knighting exists towards the female gender, but that's just life in general. Considering the real life issue of body image women and girls go through (at least in the US), it's not surprising that the fat jokes towards women would be a hot button issue. Still, fans do tend to take things a bit far and blow things out of proportion.
I'm pretty sure almost nobody was okay with Cole crapping on Lawler via his mom's passing.
If Lawler wasn't okay with it, then it would not have happened. It's pretty much a universal rule in the WWE that the family stays out of it unless the wrestler is question is okay with it.
So seriously? One YEAR to wait for the Cena/Rock match? This strikes me as a massive tease we're all gonna forget about. Why does The Rock even need this much time away? He's well-built and rather athletic, and he did say he wouldn't leave the WWE. That match could happen at Extreme Rules.
Join the Riot. This match SHOULD have happened at Summer Slam, it's too good to waste at Extreme Rulez but one year?! One year?!
Bah, back in the old days long build ups were common place and for the most part were great. New fans have been spoiled by the quick pay-off styles of today, they don't have the patience to really enjoy good old fashioned storytelling instead of this "I want it now!" stuff that passes today.
Considering all the lackluster buildup that permeated WM27 it's not that bad that they bumped the match back by a year
Maybe they really want to build up their feud? Going for something of Undertaker/Kane or Austin/ McMahon proportions?
Whatever the reason, seems rather risky. Cena is fairly injury prone; he takes bad bumps and misses months at a time, and it's happened several times over the last few years. He usually manages to get back fairly early, but say he takes the bump that sends him home at the Rumble? Then you have nine months of build up for something that won't happen.
And now, according to a recent edition of the Observer, he appears to be more beaten up than he let on as he's said to have neck and hip, as well as elbow problems.
The reason is because Rock vs Cena is by far the biggest match WWE has made in years, and the main event of Wrestlemania is the only way it should happen. Giving Rock vs Cena away at a lesser PPV would have been a complete waste of a HUGE match like this, and really what else would they have left for Wrestlemania? Milking off The Undertaker's streak again when people are getting tired of it? A poorly thrown together title match featuring Triple H or one of the IWC favorites? Not to mention that Rock vs Cena not main eventing Wrestlemania after a crappy match like Cena vs Miz (a career midcarder) did would have just been one of the stupidest moves WWE had ever done. Thankfully Vince McMahon decided to make Rock vs Cena the main event of Wrestlemania 28.
It just bugs the hell outta me that they have several different names for Hardcore Match. They could call them all hardcore matches and that would be good or they could diferentiate them. Like no hold's barred could be with all those MMA style chokes that we don't see cus they aren't allowed but your friends still can't get involved and getting to the bottom rope still counts. Fall Count Anywhere is just that, falls count anywhere, no where in there does it say you can hit him with a chair, it just means he can't get out of the ring to save himself from you. Just eliminate Street Fight since it's just Hardcore and eliminate that because it's just No DQ.
Um, Streetfights are specifically "no DQs, pins only in the ring" deals, hardcore matches are "No DQ, Falls count anywhere," falls count anywhere are "pins everywhere but DQs allowed". There are difference between all the names, which makes it easier to announce rather than going through all the rules individualy. The reason they have several different names is because they are all have different rules.
That no wrestler possibly in history has won and certainly not made a gimmick out of winning by the knock out rule. The Last Man Standing mechanic is there but nobody ever uses it and you could get a monster WAY over if their gimmick was they knock you out. Like them actually going for a pin is a sign of frustration.
And since when has winning by knock-out exclusively meant "concuss victim to unconsciousness?"
Why is R-Truth in the Main Event for Extreme Rules? The guy was barely a factor at Elimination Chamber and hadn't been seen anywhere near the title scene anywhere other time, and suddenly we're supposed to believe he's a legitimate threat to the WWE Championship? I realize John Morrison's going through backstage heat right now, but that doesn't doesn't change the fact that he was the obvious first choice before this match up. Have him lose at Extreme Rules, and then bum him back down to mid card.
Obvious first choice over Cena or Orton? Plus having him headline Extreme Rules only to lose while he's in the doghouse currently for something stupid isn't really rationale thinking. Why waste the #1 contender spot on someone if you're just going to [predictably] have him job as punishment for disrespecting one of your former talents which is kind of ironic within itself admittedly.
Well, it looks like Morrison will be taking R-Truth's spot since he lost a match with said spot on the line, so the above is all moot now.
People who insist that WWE actively tries to ruin talent that got their start in some other organization before landing in WWE because wrestlers who got big elsewhere are bad. To this end WWE does this by way of saddling them with some inane gimmick or just (intentionally) mishandling them creatively. I mean their have been some legitimate cases made not a whole lot really sticks. It's one thing when you argue how Vince tried to ruin Dusty Rhodes by having him dress up in polka-dot inspired ensembles. But when you actually start insisting that they ruined the likes of Bill Goldberg, Scott Steiner, & Booker T just to name a few of the names I've seen get thrown around by the IWC there's something that's just not adding up in my eyes. It crosses over into wallbanger territory when you do research and discover many of the biggest current & former names in the company like Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Austin, & Triple H debuted or had stints in other promotions like NWA, AWA, WCW, ECW, WCCW, etc., before coming to WWE. One thing I can give to the IWC is that WWE for the most part tends to act rather snobbish or uptight around guys or girls who made their bones in the Indies.
Re: Goldberg, I'm of the school that his page ultimately leans towards. It was exciting to see the promo, his brief title run and everything else at first, but it's got to be said again that WWE and WCW were just organised differently in this regard (similar reasoning might go with Bret Hart and his WCW run). By 2003, everyone knew that his gimmick was 'big unstoppable monster' and destroying jobbers (the kinds WWE weren't really accustomed to supplying anyway) week after week would've been silly at that point despite the fact that it pretty much made the gimmick. Coupled with these troubles is that even WCW themselves were at a bit of a loss to know what to do with him after someone inevitably defeated the undefeatable. WWE could've got a bit more mileage out of Goldberg by setting him up against a similar, fairly quick wrecking machine type of guy. Like Brock Lesnar. But we know how that ended up. One thing I will give any critics, like the Wiki page here: putting him up against The Rock was not a good idea. I wouldn't consider it the vicious nail in any sort of vicious spite coffin though.
There were only two possible scenarios for WCW to work with regarding Goldberg and his monster face bullshit. 1. Have him lose and drop the title to someone (which is what they did). 2. Continue having him bury everyone on WCW roster until the fans got tired of his schtick. So by virtue of booking him as monster face WCW wrote themselves into a corner.
I've not followed wrestling regularly since the early noughties, so maybe my impression is wrong, but why do Cena and Orton get so much stick for having supposedly limited move-sets? Aside from the fact that Cena seems to have at least quite a wide variety of power-moves (from what little I've seen of him), Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin (the poster boys of their respective eras) both had move-sets pretty much limited to punch, kick, clothesline, irish whip and their personal finisher. How come this generation is put under so much scrutinity regarding move-sets, while previous ones get a free pass (and I am aware that both Austin and Hogan's limited move-sets where compensating for various injuries they accumulated over the years, but the point still stands).
For one, Hogan and Austin didn't have as much exposure as Orton and Cena do. Hogan came about in an era where seeing the champ compete wasn't as often as you see these days and Austin's tenure as the top guy was relatively short due to his nagging injuries. See Cena and Orton do the Five Moves of Doom every week for seven years can get a tad stale. Also, there is a bit of Nostalgia Filter going on though many fans that rip on Cena don't think much of Hogan either and will acknowledge he's a slightly better wrestler than Hogan was.
No one has ever accused Austin of being an outstanding technical wrestler, though to be fair his moveset was limited by injuries. What people praise Austin for is his ability to sell a match, to draw a crowd into the emotional intensity of it. Most of the Five Moves of Doom directed at Cena is fandumb; the more serious complaints usually relate to either the relate to the repetitive nature of his matches (Cena gets his asskicked before using heroic willpower to make an astounding comeback, rather than a more competitive match) or his inability to sell (see Money in the Bank 2011 where he failed to sell a leg injury throughout the whole match).
I'm actually sick of hearing people bitch about Lay Cool. For ages people have been begging for proper diva feuds and storylines as well as character development. When they finally get that they start bitching because they don't like the girls involved. Is there any middle ground? Lay Cool weren't being pushed any more than The Nexus, John Cena or Randy Orton at the time so what was the problem? People bitch that Michelle buried Melina at Night of Champions when she won the match with Layla's help - ie. in Kayfabe she couldn't do it by herself - so Melina's credibility wasn't damaged. And Melina couldn't have lead the women's division with the state she was in after her injury. Who would she have feuded with? Jillian was on her way out, she had already buried Alicia Fox, Maryse should never be allowed near the title again, Tamina was too inexperienced and the rest of the divas were faces. She would have ended up feuding with Lay Cool again and at least with Lay Cool as champions we saw someone new get pushed (Natalya). And Lay Cool were on their way out after losing the title.
Much hypocrisy but much hatred of Lay Cool comes from Michelle being married to The Undertaker. Fans are not happy because a wrestler from the capable half of the diva roster is being pushed over one lacking wrestling ability because Michelle's married to The Undertaker. WWE giving Lay Cool promo time despite real heel heat being rare for them, isn't trying to promote the Women's division's top heels after years of neglect, it's because Michelle is married to The Undertaker. The nepotism, real or percieved, undermines anything good done by Michelle.
The sad truth is, as a former writer recently stated in a Torch interview, that the Divas are generally only thought to be able to carry one TV segment (with anything else being a ratings drop). So if a dominant heel team of female wrestlers breaks out, they're going to be featured in the "Diva" segment week after week.
It really bugs me that everyone compare Alberto Del Rio to JBL when they really dont have enough in common to compare. the things they do have in common are not unique e.g. they both pull up in cars, big deal Eddie Guerrero did that. They both wear nice suits, big deal Chris Jericho does that. Alberto is a mexican aristocrat whilst JBL is a new york buisness tycoon, plus Del Rio is a lot more Affably Evil then Layfield. On top of this they potray two different types of rich guys, Del Rio is the kind whose known for indulging in his lavishness, JBL is the kind whose known for being a self made man and gives of an air of Corrupt Corporate Executive
Because tropers try to be know it alls and use tropes like expy to prove they've seen everything? Both of them having disdane for Rey helps though, even if again, its for different reasons.
Didn't WWE have Christian compare them early on? "Juan Bradshaw Layfield", I think was the line.
If you ask me, they have enough in common for that "juan" joke to be funny. But not enough for Del Rio to be considered an Expy of JBL
Christian made that joke within weeks of Del Rio's debut where all he was really known as was a smug rich guy who wear suits with scarves (JBL did the same with towels) and came to the ring with cars. That's JBL all over. Since then, Del Rio's really put forth his sense of entitlement and taste for physical sadism against JBL's more passive cruelty but since Christian made the "Juan" thing an Ascended Meme pretty early on, it stuck.
So basically everyone just based the comparison on what Del Rio showed right off the bat. Insted of waiting to see what kind of character he is
Really, more of Never Live It Down. Del Rio does have a lot of differences from JBL but enough similarities to make jokes about it. It's the same thing with Randy Orton and his differences/similarities with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The similarities between Orton and Austin are way more in your face then ADR and JBL we have seen tons of rich guy heels through the years, but how many times do we have a character like Randy Orton or Steve Austin where they have no excuse to be called the good guys, they just are by default of Popularity
Okay, I get the thought process of putting the title on Randy Orton as soon as possible, considering he just got moved to Smackdown and you want to build him as the top star, but would it really have been so bad to wait until Over The Limit to get the title off of Christian? You know, considering it was his first world title reign ever?
They could've jusy overturned it in the same sloppy way they did with Miz winning back the title in his rematch against Cena.
They seem to be attempting to make a decent feud out of it now, and the two together have put on a handful of good matches. But with 3 title matches already and a fourth announced for next month, it's beginning to suffer from Arc Fatigue, as if Creative is scared to try something different.
The reason for the quick drop was to catalyze Christian's Turn to set up the feud. The original Plan appears to have been a "Brother v. Brother" feud between Christian and Edge, where Christian was jealous of Edge's success (much like their 01 IC feud) but with Edge forced out due to injury Christian took his place at Extreme Rules, and Randy 'stealing it' gives him an excuse -- holding off to OTL because it would have been fair would remove Christian's justification of his later actions - if you lose a fair fight, you've lost, if you convince yourself you were cheated, you can now justify cheating others
Something that bugs me is how guys like John Cena & Rey Mysterio, Jr. get made fun of for having fanbases that consist mostly of kids. What makes this so confusing for me is that these same people making light of this are more likely then not the same people who were cheering for the likes of Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Sting, Goldberg, Austin, Rock, & a slew of other wrestlers back in the heyday but now all of sudden it's bad for a wrestler to appeal to kids?
The problem isn't the fact that they appeal to kids - the problem is that the bookers tend to focus more on making the kids happy to the detriment of the other sectors of the fanbase.
In their defense, the 'adults' that they would be trying to appeal to (and most of the people that have been complaining about WWE's new direction) are fans from the Attitude Era, which was not only TV-14, but took every inchof that territory that they possibly could. In short, there was no way WWE could have it both ways because the two demographics are too far apart. A product somewhere dead center, instead of appealing to both sectors, would be just a bit too edgy for their child demographic, but still not hardcore enough to satisfy the old Attitude Era fans.
Happy Kids = $$$ so you can't blame them for going with that mindset. Also kids are a lot less picky than those other fanbases.
Rey Mysterio, Jr. is always going to appeal to the children because he's tiny (in comparison to the other wrestlers, obviously) and flashy. It just so happened that Cena was the most marketable and the most over with the fans at the time. WWE is suffering from a shortage of Faces that do solid mic work. There have been a few guys in the WWE that do good mic work, but most of them have been most effective as heels (CM Punk, Chris Jericho).
It may be just me but what led up to R-Truth's Heel run just reeks of dumb. Mainly the flak he caught from his "Friend" Morrison for drinking water in between stages of the previous week's gauntlet match (He won two and was waiting for the third) and the subsequent manipulation out of the championship race. Really the whole thing comes off as one of the flimsiest turns in recent memory.
They wanted to turn R-Truth heel as well as write John Morrison off TV for a while (he was having surgery to repair a pinched nerve in his neck and was expected to be out for a few months). Since Morrison was one of the more over faces on the brand, having Truth put him on the shelf was probably the first thing they thought of to get Truth some real heel heat, which is hard to do on a guy that's been a face for such a long time. In any case, Edge's retirement threw the roster into disarray and forced WWE to rearrange everything, nearly on the fly. TBH, though, it's been to R-Truth's benefit. He's been pushed higher on the card, competes in much higher-profile matches, and gets a lot of face time for the Little Jimmies of the world to boo him.
Originally, Truth turning heel seemed really stupid, it seemed almost baffling that they couldn't get him legitimately over without turning him, but what's come of it has at least somewhat made up for it. Truth being this weird and crazy as a heel is hilarious, so we can say they improved it.
Truth was already over as a face.
No he wasn't. His song was over. Once that ended, the crowd always turned into crickets and barely had any reaction to him at all.
This was true a few months ago but I'm pretty sure he was over in the months leading up to his heel turn.
Something I've never been able to figure out is why Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan are talked about as if they were the definitive commentary team of the 80's, when Jesse Ventura was commentating with Gorilla Monsoon for so many more years.
People have mixed feelings about Jessie, Bobby was a beloved Ill Boy.
"Definitive" doesn't mean "first" or "longest". Besides, Heenan replaced Ventura on the syndicated and cable broadcasting (what almost every wrestling fan saw, as opposed to the PPV's, which had much lower viewership) in 1986, meaning that for most viewers, the Monsoon/Ventura duo only lasted two years. While Heenan couldn't match Ventura's freaky charisma, he worked much better with Monsoon and was generally better at keeping the stories straight.
It's odd that the unbranded Big Gold Belt was the "WCW Championship" and the current WWE-branded Big Gold Belt is unbranded as the "World Heavyweight Championship".
Is it? It was labeled as the "World title" following the end of the WCW invasion in 2001.
Speaking of the title belts, why do they keep the "World Heavyweight Championship" name if they don't have a weight-class limit on who can compete for the damn thing? Granted I may be limiting myself by the semantics here, but logically, shouldn't they play it as the WHC being...well, the world heavyweight champion, while the WWE title is only the champion of the company, but is open to any weight class?
There sort of was. Raw was home of heavyweights and Smackdown home of cruiserweights. Initially wrestlers like Matt Hardy would talk about trying to make the weight for which belt they would challenge for or if no weight restrictions existed on a belt. Rey Myerstio becoming Heavyweight Champion, and then killing the cruiserweight division undermined this this though so now the World Heavy Weight Title and WWE Title are pretty much the same thing.
Unlike in modern day combat sports, where "heavyweight" has a very specific meaning, it used to mean pretty much the same thing as "open weight", i.e., no weight restrictions either way.
Why do they keep putting Jim Ross onscreen as a play by play man he often messes up the names of moves gets wrestlers names wrong and just repeats the same stupid catch phrases over and over again. While he can be entertaining and would make a great color man he is not cut out for play by play. It seems Kevin Dunn (or whoever is in charge of tv now) douse not relies this and made the much better play by play man Michael Cole into a clone of J.R. and then turned him Heel because people did not like that. While I respect JR and think he did a good job behind the scenes, he has never been as good in front of the mike as a lot of people clam especially compared to people like Vince McMahon and Michael Cole, when working with one of them he was at his best as he could give insight and color while the other one called the match. Now the best play by play guy is Todd Grisham hopefully they will not mess him up like they did Cole.
Grisham was a weak commentator and honestly had no business being at the desk with JR much less Striker the odds of them putting Grisham at the desk for any of the brand shows (again) looks largely dim at the moment, so you don't have to worry about them messing up his character. Also I don't know where you're getting the idea of Michael Cole being a better commentator than JR especially since the majority of the IWC likes Ross a great deal better than Cole though they're opinions tend to become irrelevant when they start criticizing Cole for making mistakes that even JR has made in his career.
Most people inside the business and out of it consider Ross to be one of the best play-by-play men in wrestling. It isn't about getting move names right (Vince didn't even try when he was on commentary, for one), it's about getting the fans to believe in the story of the match and the characters of the participants.
JR probably would be better color and Jerry would probably do better play by play being a former wrestler but that's not how they started out so Grandfather Clause always puts them that way. Fans will admit that JR could do better but few will talk of anyone one that does better than JR. And for any of JR's faults most fans will say Cole is worse. Really what should have been done was not replace a fan favorite with a Scrappy as Cole developed into one during his time on Smackdown with Tazz. Replacing a fan favorite with him was just begging for a Replacement Scrappy when you consider fans still liked Joey Stiles and Paul Heyman and even they got hit with the "not good as JR" bug to a degree.
Most smarks will swear to you up and down about how they hate politicking backstage but another example that proves how hypocritical and full of crap they are is Beth Phoenix's current feud with Kelly Kelly. As everybody knows (but chooses to ignore) Beth is CM Punk's girlfriend so after he manage to convince people backstage that Beth was deserving of a push (which she really wasn't) the IWC exploded with positive fanfare heralding this as a sign that the Women's division will return to it's "mythical" prominence. Well here's where I take the piss out of Beth's unnecessary push 1. Beth's a multiple time champion so the idea she was in desperate need of another title reign or tile shot is...well bullshit, 2. Gail Kim who incidentally left the company a few days after that Battle Royale was unarguably more deserving than Beth and her not getting the push may have been the very reason she quit, 3. Up until that match you wouldn't have even known Beth was still active in the company much less thought she was walking out of that match as #1 Contender, 4. Turning Beth Heel was just too damn predictable. Unsurprisingly the smarks weren't happy that Kelly retained at Summerslam which is ironic within itself since these are the same people who also bitch about Champions dropping belts way too soon which they insist makes the champion look weak and the belt look irrelevant never mind the fact they also wanted that match to end in a squash. I have to sit down all this ranting is making my head hurt.
It's no surprise, given that the Smarkdom are among those who personify the Hypocritical Fandom. They'll complain about a crappy booking decision/match/angle, but if it benefits a Smark Darling then it's okay.
Past writers for WWE (that John Piermienani guy, for one) have stated that Vince is really high on Phoenix for some reason. As far as the all-purpose bitching about "smarks" or "teh IWC" goes, I doubt many of them really know or care which interchangable Barbie doll is holding what worthless belt at any moment in time.
CM Punk gave an unexpected worked shoot, Beth just bashed other wrestlers like heel. What was surprising was her abrupt turn despite still being over after all the time she worked into becoming a fan favorite (okay, not surprising but people weren't hoping for it). Exactly why did Gail never get another run or Jillian get one at all? Because they had little backstage pull.
Am I the only one who's kinda finding it hard to get behind CM Punk right now? I mean, I get that he's supposed to be a rebel going against the Corrupt Corporate Executive ala Stone Cold, but it's a lot less effective when the executive in question isn't really all that corrupt, and Triple H hasn't exactly done anything to warrant everybody to turn against him outside a few circumstantial situations that he might not even be responsible for.
Judging by the Money In The Bank buyrate and the flat RAW ratings, no, you're not.
It helps to point out that they've not tried to make the storyline about Punk anymore. Since Triple H got involved, he's progressively taken over the storyline and become the face of it, promoted as the sympathetic eye, and turned the storyline into about a guy trying to defend his wife while they've done their best to just make Punk appear to be a case of The Complainer Is Always Wrong. Which raises a major question as to why would HHH go out of his way to turn himself into hero when they have a massively over Face. Of course, the answer is pretty obvious when one knows how he can be at times, which is sad, since he could have offered so much more potential as heel.
Which would make sense in hindsight if maybe just maybe the storyline wasn't still on going at this point. That and the storyline just would've come off as looking too samey.
Making NXT fan voted really wasn't a good idea. Season 1 wasn't fan voted and so Wade Barrett won because management wanted him to. Kaval wins season 2 thanks to the fan votes...and jobs for a few weeks before walking out while Alex Riley and Michael McGillicutty get pushes. Kaitlyn wins season 3 despite having no experience and then AJ gets brought up and featured more than her while Naomi hasn't even been called up yet. Johnny Curtis wins season 4 and his title shot is forgotten about while Brodus Clay gets to go to WrestleMania.
Fairly certain the fan-voting was rigged anyway.
If that was the case Wade Barrett would've never won season 1 and Kaval would've never won season 2.
This is not an excuse but this goes back farther than NXT. Million dollar Tough Enough: The crowd loves Daniel Puder, he leads fan votes by large margins, he wins. He never gets used, gets released and they bring in The Miz. Miz rides the X-Pac Heat the WWE title! Like many WWE problems, it really started with the diva search.
Diva Search 2003: Jamie says she wouldn't mind wrestling but is never seen again.
Diva Search 2004: Winner released, runner up makes two appearances. Candice and Michelle McCool win gold and X-Pac Heat. Maria gets her hair died red, be happy voters!
Diva Search 2006: Rosa and Maryse get more screen time than winner Layla (who even said they couldn't walk the walk) but then WWE starts caring about wrestling matches being watchable again so Layla gets her spotlight...err gets to leech off Michelle McCool's spotlight.
The times WWE listened to fan votes were diva search 2005 and 2007. 05: They don't send Ashley to developmental, put her in pay per view matches and then let the fans tear her apart when she (predictably) doesn't wrestle well. Ashley ends up leaving on her own. 07: Eve probably made it only because she's naturally talented or something. She's the only winner WWE did not release or try to bury in some way.
As of last Monday Night Raw, all but the top-card people (I didn't see CM Punk, because he's awesome and he's Face, and I didn't see John Cena either) were at ringside and gave Triple H, the new COO of the WWE, a vote of no-confidence, most of them walking out of the building, including face commentators and several other faces. Are these people all just made a Face Heel Turn and the heels already there just become more heel-ish? I would call them traitors, since most of them know that it isn't Triple H's fault and that it was the Heels who decided to call the boss out on it. I think its a good storyline with a Face Corporation and all that, but I can't imagine that all those people became heel.
All the faces turning their back on Triple H makes sense when you realize how Triple H's reputation as a heel precedes him. Hell, Randy Orton no showing makes sense when you remember how Triple H kicked him out of Evolution and (unintentionally) broke his collarbone.
Randy Orton wasn't their as well, and I don't remember seeing Kelly Kelly or Eve Torres either. Still, from the faces it wasn't as much as "This isn't your fault, but you're the cause of all of this," rather than "We know it's not your fault, but all of this started when you became COO and all that you've done to fix it haven't worked, and we're concerned for our safety."
While we are talking about it, Beth Phoenix saying "We are Girls.". Isn't this the Diva who was the second one to enter the Royal Rumble? Didn't She Eliminate a former World Champion? So much for Girl Power I guess, my head needs to have a personal talk with a wall now.
Heels are hypocritical? Shocking! Still, it didn't make much sense for the faces to all walk out. It just made them look like chumps for agreeing with the guys who had no leg to stand on. Miz and Truth come in and cause havoc after their firing? As opposed to Drew McIntyre doing the same? As opposed to John Cena doing the same? As opposed to the Nexus doing the same? As opposed to the Nexusbeing the Nexus? All of this before Triple H was COO. What an Idiot Plot!
So, Raw has started..and I'm gonna be honest with you? Everyone that was out at the start at the show was all the people I'm behind at this point. Why should I feel good about any announcer, wrestler or person who works for the WWE. All of them turned on us and the company as a whole. How am I supposed to respect any of these people when they were so willing-Face or Heel-to turn this show into nothing? They are worse than bad guys. They are deserters.
Why did people take a bad April Fools Day joke from last year about the WWE banning the word wrestling? Seriously, when they continually used the words throughout their programming, and why do people still use it to clam Vince McMahon does not care about the industry?
The smarks are as dumb as any other fandom and jump on any excuse to complain about what they don't like?
Also, why do people use the fact that they wanted to make clear Drew Carey was going into the WWE Hall Of Fame and not the unaffiliated Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, as proof that Vince hates wrestling?
Drew Carey is not a wrestler, nor a long time WWE employee. People feel there were people more deserving?
WWE's had a celebrity wing in the hall of fame for eight years now. Granted, I don't think Drew Carey earned a place in it, but Kane's induction speech for him was hilarious, so I'll give it to him.
So, um, are we to assume Laurinaitis was the anonymous RAW GM?
I think we're meant to forget the anonymous gm ever existed.
Ok, so, what in the blue hell was the point of the Kane vs John Cena feud? Nine years. Nine years of people crying for Kane to be remasked and they waste it on that? Did Cena need this? Would losing to a monster like Kane really hurt him so bad going into mania? If anything it would have helped him play the underdog role. What annoys me is that it started off so promising. But the way it ended...my god. Just...was the whole thing just a long, sadistic take that to all the Kane fans clamoring for the remasking? Or is that giving them too much credit, and the whole thing was just a set up for the "Broski for a hoeski" joke?
Short answer? They needed something for Cena to do before Wrestlemania, and they needed a storyline to bring Kane back in since Mark Henry was injured (even though they kept using him). Now would Cena losing to Kane hurt his momentum? Yeah, generally losing two PPVs in a row hurts your momentum, and also raises questions as to why Cena's taking his eye off Kane if nothing was resolved. You could also speculate it was meant to sow the seeds of a possible heel turn, and the WWE decided not to do it.
Prince Albert/A-Train returning after X years as Lord Tensai. It's like they're actively trying to recreate the One Man Gang becoming "The African Dream" Akeem.