WWE Thread (Spoilers)

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Big Boss Man]

That's because Becky lacks conviction in her gimmick. She comes across as playing a character and you can see it's artificial. As an example, look at Stone Cold. He really started perfecting his promos in ECW and showing his personality. Comes into WWF as the Ringmaster which immediately pumps the brakes on what he was doing in ECW. WWE is so micromanaged now we can't have a "Becky 3:16" equivalent moment where she comes across as a legit star.

It seems everyone, not just Becky, are missing that extra something and it's a very good point you're saying about Mick and a covers band. Becky is essentially a Conor tribute act. But WWE are in the position to bring him in to legitimatize her as a star if they bring in McG to do a segment with her. Another thing, WWE dont have their full promotional machine behind her either. Charlotte Flair is their choice and I'm not thinking they are intentionally I guess you could use the word "side tracking" Becky's push but WWE historically dont like being told who to push by their fanbase. They give talent a mini push (like The Revival winning the belts) but if you're not the "chosen one" any long term push isnt on the horizon.

WWE were super lucky to have Rocky, Austin and Cactus who are all charismatic in their own way and great promos. Today it's too cookie-cutter, colour by numbers and it comes across as robotic. That's why fans are tuning out and things like Cody/Dustin are a revelation, where they are just doing a classic old school wrestling storyline. Which above all, is believable. You have to get the audience lose that sembelence of belief everytime they watch the show. You don't insult their intelligence either, which they are doing every week churning out this mediocre product. It's telling that fans are all in on Bray's new Mr Rogers-esque gimmick when back in the day that wouldn't even got off the cutting room floor.

I watched Heroes of World Class again and the pops the Von Erichs were getting and the hot crowds whereas in comparison it's like night and day now. Attitude Era crowds were going OTT even over lower card matches but now there's that energy missing. It's because there's a drastic lack of and it's not the talents fault, it's the poor booking/storylines. If you gave the talent free reign to come up with ideas and actually make their gimmick more believable then the numbers will pick up. Then you'd see the mainstream take an interest again too like they did during the Monday Night Wars.

What's irritating too is that it's so easily fixable. They have millions at their disposal to improve their product. But maybe Vince is too stubborn to say "our product stinks" to even begin fixing it. I think Fox are regretting putting all that money on the table now. If this was 1998/99 then sure throw huge money at WWE to get that 18-34 demographic. Or even back in the Rock and Wrestling era. Macho, Hogan, Warrior etc came across as larger than life.

But now, it seems the talent either can't break the glass ceiling because they aren't given the ball or are content treading water. I think the former is true which is why Sasha, Revival etc want out. I'm hoping AEW will bring the I think the right word is energy back to wrestling again, that excitement.

[Bandit]

What Lio is saying is what Meltzer has said for years and what John Oliver was getting to. It's ridiculous to make these wrestlers pay road expenses when the owner is dumping hundreds of millions into his silly football league. I forget the number, but someone calculated the cost of paying all road expenses and health insurance/401k's for everyone and it was very affordable for WWE. Get him an extra $300 a night for his hotel room and rental car (and two guys can split a room and a car so that's really $150 a wrestler which is like pennies to WWE.)

I watched Heroes of World Class again and the pops the Von Erichs were getting and the hot crowds whereas in comparison it's like night and day now. Attitude Era crowds were going OTT even over lower card matches but now there's that energy missing. It's because there's a drastic lack of and it's not the talents fault, it's the poor booking/storylines. If you gave the talent free reign to come up with ideas and actually make their gimmick more believable then the numbers will pick up. Then you'd see the mainstream take an interest again too like they did during the Monday Night Wars.

Yes, I am watching World Class TV week by week (I'm on a WCCW kick after the Viceland documentary) and even the jobbers are over! The ref gets cheered! It's ridiculous. A lot of these guys really suck and the crowd is hot for them anyway. And now you have a very good roster in WWE and the crowd is so quiet most of the time.

It's just the format of the show. It's a 3 hour Raw plus taping Main Event so that's 4 hours plus the dark match at the end. So the crowd is burned out. World Class taped 2 shows so those fans were just there 2 hours which is perfect for keeping energy.

And the interviews in WWE make the crowd seem so distant because they're just guys reciting lines. The Von Erichs were awful promos (besides Fritz and David who were great talkers.) Kerry always stumbled on his words, Kevin was a bad actor and Mike was just terrible. But their promos were over because they felt real. It felt like guys telling us about their situation. Now it's guys reciting a monologue someone else wrote for them and you can tell. And then you had heels who could cut awesome promos like Michael Hayes, Gary Hart and Skandar Akbar. So just Kerry and Kevin cutting a basic promo saying those guys suck and they were going to kick their ass next week got huge pops. It's so basic but they want to make it difficult.

[Big Boss Man]

Exactly, it's staring them in the face how easy it is. The only real time they had that legit "Woah!" moment again was the Nexus invasion where they tore the ring up and D-Bry got fired for choking out Justin Roberts. They have thousands of hours of tape sitting there on the shelves where they can take pick the best angles/gimmicks and bring them into the 21st century.

They need to bring back managers too. They have Paul but like you say they had Gary, Skandor who were great on the mic and talked for their guys. If they had like Missing Link etc reciting lines off a script that wouldn't have worked. But they were protected as such because they stayed in gimmick. Plus you had a guy like PS who had charisma and was a great promo, not the best in ring, but he added a ton to the Freebirds because of how he came across as a character.

I think World Class is under appreciated for how innovative they were with their cameras/mics and how they presented the show too. But above all, it came across as real. That aspect is missing hugely now. No blood, no believable characters, boring storylines, no heat, dull crowds, 50/50 booking, robotic promos, it's just..dull. Again it's not the talents fault, they have a real strong talented roster. It's the crud they are given by creative and they are expected to draw with it.

Put WWEs current roster within the World Class framework and it's money all day. That's the real model you go for, it ticks all the boxes in terms of being appealing to the diehard fans and it comes across as fun and entertaining to the mainstream. And also as legit, like these guys and girls can really fight.

AEW have the huge opportunity now to take the ball and run with it. Dustin/Cody is harking back to the golden era which is why it's getting a lot of praise. Ideally an amalgamation of the World Class/ECW/New Japan product should be what they are aiming for. The realness & believability of World Class, the punk-rock cool anti establishment of ECW and the match quality & prestige of NJPW. In theory that's what WWE should and could be doing too, but for some reason, they are stuck in reverse, treading water and are content with their mediocre product.

[Big Boss Man]

What Lio is saying is what Meltzer has said for years and what John Oliver was getting to. It's ridiculous to make these wrestlers pay road expenses when the owner is dumping hundreds of millions into his silly football league. I forget the number, but someone calculated the cost of paying all road expenses and health insurance/401k's for everyone and it was very affordable for WWE. Get him an extra $300 a night for his hotel room and rental car (and two guys can split a room and a car so that's really $150 a wrestler which is like pennies to WWE.)

That's another thing, you have the guys and girls literally break their bones for the company and they don't even pay their rental cars, put them in economy class if they aren't higher echelon talent and don't give them health benefits. It's a multi million dollar company but they aren't even taking care of the talent. Would never happen elsewhere. They definitely need to unionise and they are just as bad as Lucha Underground holding talent hostage by keeping them under contract.

[Bandit]

He's become a Scientologist.

[Big Boss Man]

Either that or...

[Dr. Zoidberg]

The first Cena tweet is about BTS.

[Bandit]

[Bandit]

WWE RAW head writer Ryan Callahan was released last week, according to new reports from Pro Wrestling Sheet and Fightful. Callahan, who previously worked on The Bachelor and Monster Laws, among other shows, had been with WWE since December 2016.

Callahan was let go on the evening of Thursday, May 2, after butting heads with WWE's Senior VP of Creative, David Kapoor (Ranjin Singh). The release was not a response to the recent drop in WWE TV ratings. Callahan was a member of the "home writing team" that does not travel to WWE events.

Kapoor reportedly felt like Callahan took some of the WWE creative changes too personally, and was difficult work with. His feeling was that this did not set a good example for the rest of the WWE writing team. It was also noted that Callahan and Kapoor were butting heads often.

Wow, the head writer of Raw wrote for the fucking Bachelor. No wonder Raw was so bad.

[Bandit]

[Bandit]

Sasha is never coming back if she's seeing this. They'll probably give her a gimmick where she has herpes sores all over her mouth or something.

[Big Boss Man]

Like when they gave Nattie the farting gimmick, but apparently Vince finds that hilarious.

How long has Sasha left on her contract?, can she legally just sit at home and run it down til it expires?. Again, I've said this before, if the talent is unhappy, let them go, it will just create bad morale in the locker room otherwise. Plus from an outside perspective it looks bad. Like when they tried to keep Kawhi in San Antonio when he wanted to go and Pop would only trade him to a Eastern conference team. Can't Vince let Sasha go over to Japan and work for Stardom and then let her leave once her deal is up?. Can AEW buy talent out of deals or would that be seen as contract tampering?

[Bandit]

The kids looked just like those two cutaways to the live crowd.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Bandit]

While some WWE stars like Lio Rush might have some backstage heat with the locker room, it looks like another company employee does as well. Fightful reports that writer Jen Pepperman also apparently has some heat backstage after brandishing her Emmy award backstage. Pepperman won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Digital Drama Series for “After Forever.”

According to the report, Pepperman brought the Emmy to Monday’s WWE production meeting. She had placed the Emmy on the table in front of her, which was called “blind arrogance” by some backstage. Pepperman was also seen walking around backstage with the award as well. Some members of the team “zinged” Pepperman for the gesture, but she seemed to believe it was simply all in good fun.

won an Emmy despite hard pushes to do so gained her immediate heat, and she’s apparently oblivious to it.

One person suggests she might be on “cloud nine” to the point where she doesn’t even notice.

They are such children. This isn't Junior High, you idiots.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Becky with a Father Ted tweet!

[Bandit]

I was looking at the ratings break down. Seth Rollins is the biggest ratings draw. #2 is Drew McIntyre which surprised me. #3 was Rousey. Becky isn't drawing anything special, neither does Charlotte. Corbin was the worst. Shocking, I know. Bayley and Sasha were down there so that's probably why Vince wanted to split them.

[Big Boss Man]

I don't think Vince even pays attention to things like that. In his world who he wants to push is "the guy". I wonder even if today they had Austin, Rocky and Mankind on the roster whether he'd have pushed them to the moon or whether he'd have kept Rock as Rocky Maivia, Austin as the Ringmaster and Mankind stayed one dimensional and didn't turn babyface.

[Big Boss Man]

They are such children. This isn't Junior High, you idiots.

It all goes back to Vince. Look how he acted in the Bob Costas interview as just one example. Seems that type of bullying/childish is encouraged there. No wonder ratings are tanking, with that type of environment why do they bother trying?. I'm assuming backstage morale is low too with a lot of talent wanting out. Rhyno was offered double his salary and still walked away.