WWE Backlash (May 21st, 2017)

[Pharaoh]

I don't think Reigns' move-set is a big reason why that section of the crowd gives him the reaction it does. And if it is, its in so much as how it contributes to the formulaic quality of his matches.

I've been watching since 1985 - every top star has a formula for their matches.

The 5 moves of doom stuff can be thrown at pretty much every star ever! And it's thrown at Reigns asa reason to hate him. Bret Hart had his 5 moves of doom too. So did HHH. No one hates them for their matches

And making an apples-to-apples comparison across generations is always problematic because the product and fanbase and expectations of the fanbase aren't static. That Finn Balor-Karl Anderson match last night was fantastic. But in 3 days everyone's going to forget about it, but 25 years ago a match of that quality was just not as common on free TV whereas today its a weekly occurrence. And so comparing him to guys from previous eras is problematic because he's asked to do so much more in this area than they are.

The fact they can put a match of that quality on tv and it's forgotten in 3 days is WHY the talent dont do it every night!

We're talking about guys wrestling for 20 years here - having a legit career in the business and not retiring hurt.

You can't be doing Sentons and Moonsaults forever.

And Cena got a lot of crap for his moveset for a long, long time. There's still some of it today. And for a long time it was valid. Up until around 2011, 2012, Cena was not a great wrestler and he's really stepped it up since then.

Define what a great wrestler should be please.

What's the criteria? Who decided on it? When did this happen?

It's all subjective!

Some HATE Will Ospreay, some LOVE him

You can't have a whole card full of guys like that though. Same way you can't have a AJ Styles match every single match on a card.

Cause if that's what you have it's no longer special or different - it's just the usual stuff

Honestly, I haven't seen that much backlash to Jinder winning the title. But if it is, its because this was not set up at all. His final appearance on Raw was losing to Finn Balor in 2 minutes. He had never won a singles match on Raw since he came back. The week before winning the #1 contender's match he was jobbing to Mojo Rawley. There was ways to set this up under the radar and they didn't do that. And so if this winds up working kudos to them, but pointing out these flaws with how this has been set-up is perfectly reasonable.

The set up was when he won the title shot

Knowing he was out of his depth he enlisted help

He won the title

That's the set up to his story. Yes it's quick but you want WWE to create new stars, right?

And as far as Owens and AJ and Nakamura, yes they may not need the title as much as Jinder. But why shouldn't fans believe that there favorites should be in the featured spots? That seems like the bedrock of being a fan of someone, wanting to see him reach as high a level as possible.

You can't have a dude main event every night for 4 years! Gotta switch them in and out otherwise they get stale.

You would think smarks would know that

The way people consume various forms of entertainment is different. Just as those of us on this board and on social media will dissect wrestling, pretty much all of us have shows that we watch the new episode and then don't really give it much thought until the next new episode. In that same vein there are people who will watch wrestling for a few hours a week and then be done with it, those same people may watch a TV show and then hop on social media and dissect that TV show. The only real difference I see, is that WWE has an entire apparatus trying to appeal to that more ardent fan. The network's a great deal for everybody. But the more ardent the fan, the better the deal is for you.

The difference I see with WWE & tv shows is that people don't complain that Lisa should get more screen time than Bart or that Marge is more over than Maggie or that Homer needs a reboot cause his character is stale!

People watch TV shows and movies and are taken along for the ride with whatever world and characters are presented to them. They accept they have no control over it.

Smarks watch WWE and don't want to go along for the ride - they look for the negatives in every aspect of the show.

I'm sure we all watch WWE differently than we do tv shows & movies. Maybe test yourself and see if it's true





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[skbucks1985]

I don't deny that Reigns gets a critique that others in his position haven't in the past. But is a reflection of a different era more than anything else.

If you think Reigns' TV and PPV matches are consistently good, then you don't accept that criticism as valid. If you think his matches are sometimes lacking and its because he is doing it for the longevity of his career, that's another area altogether. If that's where you fall into, then he's making a prudent career choice but he's also going to get criticism that others in his position in the past haven't because the bar has been raised from when those guys where in those positions.

Sure, wrestling is subjective. But those saying Cena was not a great wrestler, including myself, are much less frequently levying that charge in recent years.

If you're in a #1 contender's match, there should be some explicit or implicit rationale for you being in that match. 2 of the other wrestlers in that match were Mojo Rawley and Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler is a former 2-time champion, Rawley was 8 days removed from winning the Andre The Giant Battle Royal. Jinder's inclusion in that match was arbitrary. What happened once he was in the match is a completely different issue altogether.

Again, wanting to see your favorites be as high on the card as possible is what it means to be a fan of that person.

How the hardcore wrestling fandom and the hardcore fandom of a TV show manifests itself is different. The season finale of Flash just finished 45 minutes ago and throughout the season I've seen people complaining on the internet about various storyline machinations and some defending those storyline machinations. Yes, fans of TV shows understand that they don't have control over what is presented to them but so do wrestling fans. When Roman Reigns is about to win a match, no one tries to jump the rail and stop the pin. They may boo, they may complain on social media and they may stop watching. The only one of those things that fans of TV shows don't do is boo and that's because its not a live, interactive program.

[Pharaoh]

I don't deny that Reigns gets a critique that others in his position haven't in the past. But is a reflection of a different era more than anything else.

If you think Reigns' TV and PPV matches are consistently good, then you don't accept that criticism as valid. If you think his matches are sometimes lacking and its because he is doing it for the longevity of his career, that's another area altogether. If that's where you fall into, then he's making a prudent career choice but he's also going to get criticism that others in his position in the past haven't because the bar has been raised from when those guys where in those positions.

Sure, wrestling is subjective. But those saying Cena was not a great wrestler, including myself, are much less frequently levying that charge in recent years.

If you're in a #1 contender's match, there should be some explicit or implicit rationale for you being in that match. 2 of the other wrestlers in that match were Mojo Rawley and Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler is a former 2-time champion, Rawley was 8 days removed from winning the Andre The Giant Battle Royal. Jinder's inclusion in that match was arbitrary. What happened once he was in the match is a completely different issue altogether.

Again, wanting to see your favorites be as high on the card as possible is what it means to be a fan of that person.

How the hardcore wrestling fandom and the hardcore fandom of a TV show manifests itself is different. The season finale of Flash just finished 45 minutes ago and throughout the season I've seen people complaining on the internet about various storyline machinations and some defending those storyline machinations. Yes, fans of TV shows understand that they don't have control over what is presented to them but so do wrestling fans. When Roman Reigns is about to win a match, no one tries to jump the rail and stop the pin. They may boo, they may complain on social media and they may stop watching. The only one of those things that fans of TV shows don't do is boo and that's because its not a live program.

I think you're missing my point Iin how tv shows and movies are treated differently

People don't trash cheesy dialogue or poor camera angles or poor chemistry between the actors as much as smarks trash WWE/TNA/ROH etc

The reason isn't that one is live - people don't just attend Raw and then trash it online. They watch from home and trash it too

I honestly don't know why hardcore wrestling fans trash the thing they claim to love as much as they do!

Maybe it's cause smarks think they can do it better - & there are numerous "Be the Booker" threads I've read over the years that support that claim - but they're not creating 10 hours of content every week and living inside the bubble!

As for Roman's matches...they are what they are. You want to see him fight and you do.

HOW he fights is what people criticize and again I ask:

When you watch Rocky do you trash the fight sequences?

When you watch Vin Diesel fight anyone do you trash the sequences?

Roman Reigns is a character and the matches (all matches) are now 95% by design!

Who's to blame for that?

The biggest difference between now and back in the 2000s or the 1990s and 1980s is that these guys are (mostly) playing a character that's 95% scripted for them

To me that's not wrestling

They don't embody the character, they dont cut their own promos from bullet points, they don't wrestle based on the crowd...all of that stuff is a dying art

It's not that the older stuff is "better" - it's that the characters were more "real" then because guys had more input.

I believe this is why KO, Nakamura, AJ, Joe, Roode, Rollins, Ambrose etc were signed in the first place - they KNOW who they are and how it's done.

Veterans on a rebuilding team if you will

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[skbucks1985]

I don't deny that Reigns gets a critique that others in his position haven't in the past. But is a reflection of a different era more than anything else.

If you think Reigns' TV and PPV matches are consistently good, then you don't accept that criticism as valid. If you think his matches are sometimes lacking and its because he is doing it for the longevity of his career, that's another area altogether. If that's where you fall into, then he's making a prudent career choice but he's also going to get criticism that others in his position in the past haven't because the bar has been raised from when those guys where in those positions.

Sure, wrestling is subjective. But those saying Cena was not a great wrestler, including myself, are much less frequently levying that charge in recent years.

If you're in a #1 contender's match, there should be some explicit or implicit rationale for you being in that match. 2 of the other wrestlers in that match were Mojo Rawley and Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler is a former 2-time champion, Rawley was 8 days removed from winning the Andre The Giant Battle Royal. Jinder's inclusion in that match was arbitrary. What happened once he was in the match is a completely different issue altogether.

Again, wanting to see your favorites be as high on the card as possible is what it means to be a fan of that person.

How the hardcore wrestling fandom and the hardcore fandom of a TV show manifests itself is different. The season finale of Flash just finished 45 minutes ago and throughout the season I've seen people complaining on the internet about various storyline machinations and some defending those storyline machinations. Yes, fans of TV shows understand that they don't have control over what is presented to them but so do wrestling fans. When Roman Reigns is about to win a match, no one tries to jump the rail and stop the pin. They may boo, they may complain on social media and they may stop watching. The only one of those things that fans of TV shows don't do is boo and that's because its not a live program.

I think you're missing my point Iin how tv shows and movies are treated differently

People don't trash cheesy dialogue or poor camera angles or poor chemistry between the actors as much as smarks trash WWE/TNA/ROH etc

The reason isn't that one is live - people don't just attend Raw and then trash it online. They watch from home and trash it too

I honestly don't know why hardcore wrestling fans trash the thing they claim to love as much as they do!

Maybe it's cause smarks think they can do it better - & there are numerous "Be the Booker" threads I've read over the years that support that claim - but they're not creating 10 hours of content every week and living inside the bubble!

As for Roman's matches...they are what they are. You want to see him fight and you do.

HOW he fights is what people criticize and again I ask:

When you watch Rocky do you trash the fight sequences?

When you watch Vin Diesel fight anyone do you trash the sequences?

Roman Reigns is a character and the matches (all matches) are now 95% by design!

Who's to blame for that?

The biggest difference between now and back in the 2000s or the 1990s and 1980s is that these guys are (mostly) playing a character that's 95% scripted for them

To me that's not wrestling

They don't embody the character, they dont cut their own promos from bullet points, they don't wrestle based on the crowd...all of that stuff is a dying art

It's not that the older stuff is "better" - it's that the characters were more "real" then because guys had more input.

I believe this is why KO, Nakamura, AJ, Joe, Roode, Rollins, Ambrose etc were signed in the first place - they KNOW who they are and how it's done.

Veterans on a rebuilding team if you will

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I think people do criticize those technical aspects in TV shows and movies, is it to as great a degree as they do in wrestling, no. But that's more of a function of TV shows and movies are, generally, high-level actors, actresses, writers and directors with multiple rewrites and takes over much longer periods of time to make sure everything is as perfect as it can be. Wrestling isn't afforded that luxury. But when those things do happen, when there's cheesy dialogue and bad chemistry between actors, I definitely see criticism.

Of course people criticism the product from home. Just as people who don't like a TV show or movie criticize that from their home.

Yes, people criticize fight scenes in movies. The whole reasons movies like Rocky and the Fast movies have choreographers is to make the fight scenes and the car chase scenes look as visually impressive and realistic as possible.

I think the overscripting of promos is probably a bigger problem than the overscripting of matches, but I'd definitely like to see less of both. And the fundamental problem with both is the same which is that you're sort of betting against yourself, so to speak.

You're largely right, I think, about how so many guys don't know there characters and those guys being contrasts as guys that really do. To sort of bring this full-circle, Jinder's had 3 different characters since he came back less than a year ago. First he was the guy who'd spent some time in the Himalayas and was a man of peace. Then he was with Rusev and was kind of a generic heel as Rusev's partner. And now he's got this new character and there's going to be natural growing pains with that. Contrast that with a guy like Joe who is playing, essentially, the same character for the last 15 years. And I've seen interviews with him and know that there is a difference between Nuufolau Seanoa and Samoa Joe. But every movement, every word is completely consistent with who the Samoa Joe character is supposed to be and I never see even a hint of Nuufolau Seanoa.

[improper]

Here's a quick question for WWE die hards:

Name 5 road agents that have been employed by WWE over the last decade

Easy right? Steamboat, Arn, Malenko, Windham, Dusty, Road Dogg etc

Name 5 Hollywood producers without using google.

Good luck

I think director would be more fair than producers. And I could easily name well over five directors.