WWE: New Rosters, New "Season", Same Problems

[snuffbox]

Yeah but can she beat NO NAME Frank Thomas?

 

[King Kamala]

RUMOR AND INNUENDO that Bruce Prichard was the one making the hard push for Vince to send all of those guys back to the Performance Center and he's been constantly shitting on NXT to Vince.

Hope Bruce ends up in a locker room with @Laz doot doot doot!

 

[Baby Shoes]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1338738871580803072

 

[Baby Shoes]

@The Art of Postin' - you see @King Kamala doing that attack on my reaction score for sharing RYBACK thinks Vinnie Mac is a CUCK BITCH?!

King Kamala must be Maine speak for “Reaction Score Terrorist”

 

[909]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1338738871580803072

WWE Raw ratings hit new all-time record low

Image: WWE Raw last night set its all-time record low with both 1.53 million average viewers and a 0.41 rating in 18-49. For the first time ever, not only did

www.f4wonline.com

• 8 p.m. 1.63 million viewers
• 9 p.m. 1.51 million viewers
• 10 p.m. 1.44 million viewers

AEW beat their 18-49 numbers even with another wrestling show running against them.

 

[Brocklock]

I can't believe they got that rating with some incredible segments like this

Edit: This is somehow worse than I was expecting. Holy shit Riddle can't talk at all.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

raw looks like the most unwatchable fucking shit. I'm tempted to watch SD sometimes because of Roman (and some of the other stuff like Bryan) but I'm pretty happy just watching the ppvs. There's nothing on Raw that interests me at all though. Feel really bad for guys like Drew./

 

[Baby Shoes]

I like most of the Smackdown wrestlers better. The show runs smoother and right now they let them do decent length matches. It isn‘t great right now but fine.

RAW is awful. They’ve dumbed down a lot of the guys that are talented and do corny and insulting stuff. They can’t seem to book things straight. Outside the couple bully segments, I have no reason to boo Hurt Business. So they are a top heel group but really just come off as no nonsense bad asses. In the meantime, I love New Day but since they came to RAW, the RAW booking and writing of them makes them feel more heeling, like they are ducking the Hurt Business a couple times or some of the lame babyface insults they have Kofi hurling.

Riddle‘s demeanor was fine in NXT where he was just a chill guy that occasionally threw in an off the wall remark. Which was exactly how he comes off in interviews. Main roster Riddle is “stoner ramble stoner ramble stoner ramble PUNCHLINE”. I was laughing at the Cuck Bitch thing from Ryback but he is telling the truth on the show. It does not feel special and feels like a chore.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I agree that Riddle worked well on NXT when he was doing comedy. It wasn't over the top or goofy. Once a guy goes to the main roster they strip all the nuance away from whatever they were doing and make it the most basic dumb version because that is all vince can understand, Right down to a one word name.

 

[Brocklock]

In terms of just delivering lines though, RVD was never that bad doing the "WOAH COOL DUDE BOGUS" WWE stoner humor. It's was bad, but holy shit Riddle was like Hogan seeing Warrior in the mirror levels of bad in that skit.

 

[Baby Shoes]

In terms of just delivering lines though, RVD was never that bad doing the "WOAH COOL DUDE BOGUS" WWE stoner humor. It's was bad, but holy shit Riddle was like Hogan seeing Warrior in the mirror levels of bad in that skit.

Oh, absolutely. It is just the modern day WWE over the top. He came off more in the RVD vein during NXT if you look towards the Broserweight stuff with Dunne. They had him go overkill on the comedy segment with Thatcher right before the call up and then it has been BRONUTTS and BRO-NOUNS since main roster.

But what do we expect at this point? Keith Lee is hot act right now so let’s “promote“ him by changing his music, his look and making him just another guy. We better tell him how to work too, even though his work is what got him over in the first place when they underutilized him until guys got hurt during a bunch of random call ups.

I kinda shrugged at Eric Young’s argument “if you can’t find five minutes for Eric Young” because my favorite Eric was like 2006 comedy curtain jerker Eric but I’d say that sa,e argument is valid for Aleister Black. NXT had him looking like a modern day Undertaker possibility. He comes to RAW and is MOODY and does nothing as they slowly phase out many of the elements that made him special. Last seen he was just another guy and since his wife spoke up, they can’t seem to fit him on TV.

 

[Dandy]

Yeah, that was like watching porn acting their with Riddle.

 

[Brocklock]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1339015721230151682

 

[King Kamala]

WWE needs SOMETHING to change drastically but I really doubt it will with this current regime. I was just thinking this morning about how this is indisputably, the worst year creatively for WWE since '95. Yeah, the pandemic doesn't help but AEW, NJPW, and even ROH & Impact managed to create exciting and buzzworthy moments. WWE has just been so devoid of life.

At least '95 WWF felt like a rebuilding team where things were bad but you could see something good was going to develop out of it. 2020 WWE is like the '00s (or late 2010s) New York Knicks. Just a lot of expensive and/or miscast talent going to waste because of piss poor management.

 

[Brocklock]

Lol this was already two years ago

 

[King Kamala]

I think that's my biggest problem with WWE of the past half decade. They pretend that they care about fan feedback then just proceed to do whatever the hell they want. It's just frustrating and I've stopped watching outside of PPVs (and even then I just handpick the matches on the show that I want to see).


DO ALL THE SURVEYS I FILL OUT SENT FROM THE WWE FAN COUNCIL MEAN NOTHING!?

 

[Epic Springs]

This is the lowest my interest has been in WWE since I started watching in the early 90s. I don't know how much of it is age but even sitting through the condensed version of Raw on Hulu is a chore most weeks. I don't bother with Smackdown (even though I heard it's the better show) and I still try to catch NXT most weeks.

Thankfully, my interest in wrestling as a whole hasn't diminished as I'm still an avid follower of Impact, AEW, and NJPW.

 

[King Kamala]

Most WWE I've watched in the past 6 months is seeing what my buddy Anthony Greene August Grey is up to on 205 Live and even that show feels less important than it used to (which is really saying something).

WWE is fucking up cause I'm just as big of a fan and watching just as much wrestling as ever. It's just not them unless it's an old show.

 

[Epic Springs]

Yeah, we can have an entire discussion about this but the seeds were planted way back when WCW and ECW died. With no competition, the company just didn't bother putting in any effort in their product. There obviously have been stretches of greatness and lots of future stars have come up during this time but attendance and overall quality has been on a downslope for almost the past two decades and they have no one to blame but themselves.

With AEW really heating up and there being lots of decent alternatives where dudes can work now, I'm always hoping WWE will realize they need to get their act together. Maybe they look back on when Impact tried to compete with Raw 10 years ago and laughed off any potential AEW threat?

 

[Tino Standard]

As long as WWE considers itself an entertainment conglomerate and not “just a wrasslin’ company,” it is never going to be the wrasslin’ company that we want it to be anymore.

They are a streaming platform company. They are a TV production company. They are a merchandiser. The core wrestling business that we care about is a content generator to fill needs for all of those other purposes, and nothing more. With shareholders and business partners to answer to, they want sterile, safe, overly produced content that is easy to churn out en masse.

If you care about getting the best pure wrestling product possible, it’s not going to come from a company with its eyes on so many other priorities now.

 

[Valeyard]

My interest in WWE such as it was got hobbled by Covid and how the company has dealt with pretty much 2020 as a whole. There's Roman and Drew, then there's everyone else. Nothing has felt like it's mattered in so long, like legitimately holding pattern and not trivial.

It's why AEW vs Impact should be a Monday night Clash of the Champions special and ideally light some fire somewhere.

 

[Epic Springs]

It wouldn't surprise me if AEW did a Monday Night Special within the next year to fuck with WWE. Vince's reaction will either be loading the show with both brands and actually making must-see TV or one week only or putting the same shit out thinking that their worst can beat AEW's best. Wasn't the few times NXT beat AEW was when they featured main roster folks?

Remember when Raw featured a random ass Carlito/Evan Bourne match just to prove that two low undercard guys can get a better rating than Impact's main event program? They were correct if I recall.

 

[Brocklock]

It hasn't helped that Daniel Bryan has seemingly been on the Sidelines for the most part since after Wrestlemania in 2019. He's been around here and there, but he's one of the only guys that I still sort of have that connection with. Where I want to follow his career and watch every match while he's still active and he's mostly been an afterthought since he dropped the title to Kofi for the most part.

 

[Valeyard]

If this year had been different, I'm 100% confident in saying NXT would be beating Raw at least once a month while still losing to AEW. It'd be some quality freakouts.

Bryan being in orbit sucks, but every bit of coverage the company has gotten has been very negative because they're horrible. They could go dark and just show "best of" episodes of Raw or SD and ride the two week ratings bumps.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Otis did an interview with Ryan Satin and addresses that PC training story

On the reports that Vince McMahon sent WWE Superstars back to work on things at the Performance Center following a behind-the-scenes blow-up at Monday Night Raw: "I think it’s always been there, it wasn’t like, ‘hey, we were told this and that.’ That Performance Center is a tool for us to get better. If another big man wants to come up to me and wants to work on stuff, or vice versa. We’re always working. So, that report was kind of funny at the same time. We’re never not working. Especially now that we don’t have live events, so we can’t really get our stuff out. It’s just bottled inside in a little bottle. Right now it’s like; we’re not getting that stuff out there. So, we’ll find more and more ways to get in the ring with each other."


On his reaction being that the news reports were ridiculous and how he first heard about them from his dad: "Here’s what it sounds like, ’Oh, did you guys hear that they’re doing weights?’ To me it kind of sounded that way. It was like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna train, know what I mean?’ There wasn’t much of a report. I don’t know if somebody saw somebody. That’s, again, with my reading dyslexia, I don’t even read any of the stuff on there. That’s probably bad for the good stuff, but my head’s always been, ‘Just tell me right here,’ know what I mean? I found out through my father. He told me. I go, ‘Well, dad, I tell you when I’m going to the PC.’ It was just one of those things where it’s a misinterpretation, of course, of 2020 … almost come to 2021, baby. Let’s get a crowd, finally. Beat this damn virus."

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

otis is much better off not reading things online irrespective of any stories being about him.

 

[Baby Shoes]

otis is much better off not reading things online irrespective of any stories being about him.

Not only is this true but it is even better when I see your avatar and envision the Tribal Chief making this statement.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1340066036826169345

...
Idk who was joking about Vince Russo being being brought back but now I am thinking that might not be a joke.

 

[Baby Shoes]

I really hope that’s a fake report. I think we are past the trash TV era like Jerry Springer. I mean, there’s still trashy reality but I don’t think it goes to the levels of the stuff that was on TV during the Attitude Era.

There is no reason they can’t make a compelling product that is still family friendly. That was NXT until it got moved to USA and started getting some of Vince’s fingerprints and tropes. Adult-oriented seems like an easy way out and while the stigma of wrestling fan hasn’t gone away, it would certainly heighten some of the public disdain for the genre again.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1340005419708628992

Good for the guys getting paid, but it's crazy to compare something like this to Mick Foley making 500 bucks for 3 death matches in one day in Japan. (But he got a soda for a bonus).