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

cobainwasmurdered

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Since they changed things up I figured it is time to start a new overall thread for WWE.


WWE roster
Raw
  • Men (22): Drew McIntyre (c, WWE), Bobby Lashley (c, United States), R-Truth (c, 24/7), AJ Styles, "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, Braun Strowman, Matt Riddle, Jeff Hardy, Keith Lee, Ricochet, Elias, Sheamus, Angel Garza, Humberto Carillo, Drew Gulak, Tucker, Dabba-Kato, Titus O'Neil, Akira Tozawa, Riddick Moss, Arturo Ruas, Erik
  • Women (8): Asuka (c), Charlotte Flair, Naomi, Alexa Bliss, Lacey Evans, Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, Lana
  • Men's tag teams/factions (5): The New Day (c), The Hurt Business, The Miz & John Morrison, Retribution, Lucha House Party
  • Women's tag teams (2): Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax (c), Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke
SmackDown
  • Men (15): Roman Reigns (c, Universal), Sami Zayn (c, Intercontinental), Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, Jey Uso, Big E, Aleister Black, Apollo Crews, Otis, Murphy, Kalisto, Lars Sullivan, King Corbin, Shorty G
  • Women (5): Bayley (c), Sasha Banks, Bianca Belair, Carmella, Natalya, Billie Kay, Tamina, Zelina Vega
  • Men's tag teams (4): The Street Profits (c), Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura, Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode, Rey & Dominik Mysterio
  • Women's tag teams (1): The Riott Squad
Undrafted
  • In pools but not selected: Andrade, Mickie James
  • Not in draft pools: Becky Lynch, Jimmy Uso, Ivar, Sonya Deville, Edge, Jinder Mahal, Samoa Joe, Mojo Rawley, The Forgotten Sons, Bo Dallas, Big Show, John Cena, Bill Goldberg, Ronda Rousey, The Undertaker
Just at a casual glance looks like Raw really loaded up on the big boys for Drew and Bray to feud with. Smackdown kept the ongoing feuds the company has going intact and feels awful heel heavy so someone is likely going to have to turn face unless Bryan is coming back soon.
 

Brocklock

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Vince will probably make Lars a face to counteract the heel heavy SD nature lol. Rey I think has a cache with fans that no matter how much you bury him, he'll always be a star so they could always use him in the main event. I'd fucking love Roman vs Rey tbh.
 

King Kamala

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Interesting random fact. This is the first time in nearly eight years that RAW hasn't featured a member of The Shield on the roster.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

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So, they broke up Heavy Machinery and the Viking Raiders? For who? For what? Also, does them moving Miz and Morrison to Raw mean that their feud with Otis just ends, with no resolution?
 

cobainwasmurdered

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i remember reading somewhere one of the viking raiders is injured so I'd geuss that since he is undrafted when he is healthy he will be back with the other one but who knows.
 

Dandy

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Ivar was injured in a match last month and is out for some time. Erik just had some loose surgical hardware Removed from his arm last week. It had been bothering him for quite a while. I would assume his prospects of a solo push were not substantial so he decided it was a good time to correct that and then rehab while his partner is out. Erik still should be back way before Ivar, so they may give him some random tag partners; stick him in some six man tags; and give him a middling singles run until Ivar comes back.

Otis seemed to be breaking away from Tucker before the draft. My guess is Tucker will get a slight or slow character change and likely an expanded name or rename as part of a new tag team. Or they could have him join Retribution because he feels like he got the shaft.
 

Epic Springs

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NXT BROUGHT BACK "SPIN THE WHEEL, MAKE THE DEAL!"

I know who's winning the ratings war come Halloween Havoc!
 

Tino Standard

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Surgery for Andrade, out for an undisclosed length of time. Him not being drafted makes a little more sense now.
 

geniusMoment

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My guess is tv will return much sooner though. I think by spring of 2021 they are regularly doing tv in front of crowds again.
 

King Kamala

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I would be shocked if they aren’t doing TV in front of crowds by Royal Rumble. They just aren’t going to be touring at their normal pace until 2022.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

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That was quietly a decent match between Roman and Braun last night; probably the best Braun match I've seen, IMO. Thought they did a very good job at the beginning, of having Roman using Braun's size against him; it was almost like, "What if a heavyweight wrestled another heavyweight like a cruiserweight?", because you could imagine smaller guys trying to wrestle Braun like that, but just not having the power to make him go where they wanted him to go.
 

HSJ

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What was the point of breaking up the Iconics just to keep Peyton in the tag team division?
 

RedJed

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So suffice to say, after the mess that was Raw last night, they are sure dealing with the same problems. What is weird is that I thought Smackdown flowed really well and was a damn good show for the "season premiere" but holy fuck, Raw was clearly not.

The only real strong point of the show I thought was the Ali promo in the back. Everything else was either bad, dull, or just plain ridiculous in the booking choices they were making.

In one fail swoop, we got last night...

-Keith Lee once again getting shit on, Riddle isn't faring any better either being on Raw instead of SD.
-Retribution getting completely buried in the match with Hurt Business, post-match with Wyatt too. What the FUCK is the idea there with Wyatt and Retribution? I highly doubt there will even be a followup.
-Matches were generally shit, and commercials were taken at really strange times within the shitty matches.
-The hell was up with the ending of the show? I've never recalled a Raw ending with such a cut-off ending like that.
-Can someone let the announcers know they can state a person's name (Jordan) clearly after they already showed it on the graphic with AJ Styles? I am kind of confused why AJ needs a bodyguard type, seems like he could be put with someone else that would benefit better from that pairing.
-The Elias concert. Oye vey.
-Lana once again being positioned as a heel, but then gets the samoan drop AGAIN? I thought the idea of the weekly table bumps was to generate a babyface persona? Apparently not as she was being booed by fake fan sounds before the match itself. The women's tag was also a fucking mess.
-El Gran Gordo? So now we get Otis on both shows? Can they just end this fucking storyline already with Miz/Morrison please?
 

Epic Springs

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I watch the condensed version of Raw every Tuesday on Hulu in the background while I work. A lot of stuff is weeded out and I half-pay attention to the rest. My thoughts:

- I like the Hurt Business. Perfect use of all of its members.
- Retribution is garbage and they especially looked like trash last night so not sure what they're trying to accomplish HOWEVER, I do like that Ali is getting some time to shine.
- In classic WWE main roster booking, Keith Lee went from squashing Orton is just being another guy.
- AJ really should have brought Joseph Park as his bumbling sidekick instead of the big dude from Raw Underground.
- I really like Drew Mac as champion and I hope he holds it until crowds are back. He deserves to get a legitimate crowd reaction for his hard work.
 

King Kamala

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Drew McIntyre is the first babyface since Stone Cold where I feel like they may be worth of an multi year, old school Bruno/Backlund/Hogan style superhero babyface title run.

I was really really worried that he'd drop it to Orton at SummerSlam since Orton is having his best year in over a decade but I'm glad WWE has stood firm on Drew being top guy. So far...I guess Orton could win the blowoff on Sunday.
 

cobainwasmurdered

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Wut.

If they had the worst RAW of all time and no one (except @RedJed ) watched it, would anyone care?


I read the recaps on WO and they made it clear this was an angle serving several purposes. On the one hand they were shilling Elias's music which they've had on the network etc and on the other more important hand at the end they had Jeff Hardy interrupt him and set up a match at HIAC. Not saying it was a good angle or anything but it was pretty clear.
 

Tino Standard

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Are they making Lana look awful as a punishment for her husband going to AEW?

What is the point of jobbing out Retribution so hard at the beginning of the show and then doing a big reveal about their motivations later in the same night?
 

Brocklock

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Having the most dangerous wrestler on the roster put her through a table 5 times seems to indicate a punishing to me.
 

strummer

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I guess Raw was so bad, John Pollock, the most level headed wrestling commentator ever, threatened to turn the show off and was at a loss for how terrible it was
 

geniusMoment

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The new season of WWE brings you the new season of VKM by David Lynch. VKM goes to the black lodge:

 

Tino Standard

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Interesting that after NXT was put over so strongly at Survivor Series (and got a significant boost on Wednesdays) last year, this year’s PPV is apparently back to being just Raw/SmackDown only.
 
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