A "newbies" opinion on the WWE. Comments/Opinions welcome!

[OliG83v.2]

This is a bloody long read, and for that I apologize. But I would be extremely greatful if you people interested in Wraslin' would give me your opinions/comments on my post. Thanks.

I have been watching WWE for a good 12 months or so now, having been a more than occasional watcher (not really a proper fan) when the Rock, Stone Cold and all those guys were around.

Having watched for sometime, I have a few questions and opinions I would like to share/ask. I have summerised it in 10 points. Please, if I've got names, etc wrong don't bitch. I'm trying to have a proper discussion so don't just bash me. This is a culmination of me watching WWE for a year now

1.) WTF is the WWE's obsession with these comedy, blow up freakshow guys like Cena and Batista? I hate the whole super human strength, "power game" shit that these guys are about! They are crap wrestlers with about 4 moves, so why do they get pushed over almost everybody else?! Cena's matches especially, they are the same every time! and they always culminate in him doing some ridiculous feat of strength!

2.) Why do they make it all so obvious as to who is going to win? I reckon 95% of the time I know exactly who will win! Why don't they throw in a few more upets, etc? When CM Punk (not a huge fan) cashed in his breifcase thing and won the title it was good, because it wasn't obvious from a mile off.

3.) Shane McMahon needs to leave the wrestling to his employees! Ok, he has taken some serious bumps, etc. in previous years and doesn't seem a bad wrestler, but it hurts the company IMO when you have him boxing like a mixure of Ali and Floyd Maywather, singlehandedly beating down guys who are supposed to be the "future of the WWE", is it just egotistical, because that's how it comes across!

4.) Triple H is a joke! He's a good wrestler, and sells injuries really well but it seems like he can only handle a week or so with the title, then wins it back against ridiculous odds! Another huge ego (I'd guess) that hurts the WWE!

5.) The WWE now seems to be geared towards the kids more, with better wrestlers than Cena/Batista being constantly beaten by these steroid wrecks!

6.) The writing seems to be rather lazy at times! It's like they have got stuck in a rut, although I actually fear that the WWE thinks it's hit a formula they like: ie: feud starts, good guy gets beat during the TV shows, can he win at the PPV? It doesn't look like it! Good guy wins at PPV! Repeat. Yawn!

Now I know this isn't happening all the time but it happens more often than not.

Another example of lazy writing seems to be the feuds and how they start! Somebody looks at someone funny and they have a match at a PPV, then the feud dies. What happened to the seriously long, ongoing feuds of a while ago? The Rock and Stone Cold had an on/off feud that seemed to last years! It was a real history between them, now they seem to think they can just tell us they have a real history, even if they've never wrestled each other before!

A great feud to just keep going and going would be this current Hardy's feud! Just keep having Matt fuck about with Jeff, with them splitting the wins slightly in Jeff's favour but when he wins he just wins, when Matt wins he fucks Jeff up. Then right at the end, have a huge epic of a match and have Jeff properly fuck Matt up! A feud like that, with Matt doing the kind of stuff he has been woulf build him into a big star!

7.) Why do they keep guys with legit fan bases/legit heat as card fillers/jobbers? It makes me laugh how Kane is always described as this unstoppable monster and then he jobs to guys left right and centre! Same with Umaga, he is a badass wrestler yet the same thing always happens, he jobs to other guys! This is part of my earlier points, it's just so obvious at times whats going to happen! Same to a degree with Jericho! Why the fuck have him wrestle Ricky Steamboat and beat him at Backlash? Either have him lose to the Dragon (which would have been good) or have him up there in the mix!

8.) The 3 hour Draft show the other day was really good! I'd be tempted to change the entire format of WWE programming to 2 3 hour shows, with a similar format. ie: keep the 3 seperate "Brands" and have inter brand feuds! That way there is no real limit to what rivalries you can have, plus with the longer format you can develop the feuds through non in ring segments better. Also, the commentating mix was much better as it allowed more of a competition between them, as well as bitchy comments, etc. Seemed like the announcers where really enjoying themselves for once!

Plus ditch these fucking retarded "The VIP lounge", etc. segments in the ring. We all know that they will end up fighting at the end of it, so just give them a match!

9.) Facial overacting! Where do wrestlers get trained in this?! I'M ANGRY!!!! AND MY FACE IS GOING TO SHOW THIS!!! Lol. Santino Marella is comedy genius, but even he has been recently put through the facial overacting bootcamp! Is it a sign that they think wrestling fans are a bit simple, that everything such as accuents, etc have to be so overexagerated?!

and finally...

10.) Legacy can be the catalyst for a major up turn in the WWE's fortunes in my opinion! They have the look, the talent, the attitude and already with the WWE's backward thinking writing they have a decent amount of heat! Putting the Belt on Orton makes perfect sense to me, I'd also go as far as putting Priceless over Carlito & his brother (whats his name?) by way of them cheating (thus gaining more heat) and give Legacy 5 belts between them! I'd have Rhodes and DiBiase using anything to win, kind of like how Edge is now. They might get beat up by the comedy blow up men, but they pull off victory after victory using underhand tactics, then smirk the shit out of it and the fans will hate them! Treat the fans with UTTER contempt!

Then just keep throwing the faces at both Orton and Priceless, and then after 4-5 different feuds, have a face take the belt from them. Thus the simpletons who make up the majority of WWE live fans get to wank themselves silly that Cena is the champ again! Then have Legacy feud with another major face, maybe put them out for a while (thus gaining more heat) whilst the champion has a feud or 2, and then Orton/Priceless go after the title again and beat the current face champion (more heat). These guys know how to do the arrogant piece of shit routine to a tee, so let them run with it!

A heel as champion is much better because you only need 1 good heel, and then a shit load of faces for the crowd (especially the dopey little kids) to get behind, cheer their little hearts out and then bam, Legacy wins (better if they cheat to win! build more heat!) and the fans come back, waiting for the day that that nasty Randy Orton is finally beaten!

MMA shows us this! Tito sells so many tickets because everybody wants to see him get his head knocked off! When he wins, people don't say: "Ok, fair enough, I like him now! They say: Fuck, I hope the next guy he faces kills him! and they buy the next PPV to see if it happens! It's really simple.

So there you go, there's my opinions on the current state of the WWE!

Other quick points I'd like to make:

Jack Swagger is going to be a big star IMO. He is so young yet has all the tools. Lisp is unfortunate but if he's cocky, then it might even work in his advantage!

Put together a few more stables. Legacy is the best one I've seen in a while (I am aware of the history of WWE, even if I haven't watched it all. Ive done my research!) Edge is a major start (even though hes a pony wrestler) and, like they are doing with Orton & Priceless, if they are careful with who they add to an Edge lead stable, they can turn them into stars real quickly.

Where the fuck is Umaga? As soon as he's back, give him a belt (literally like the first match back, have him crush MVP or the current ECW champ, then actually build him as a monster! Not a monster that is great until he inevitably gets fed to a face at a PPV! THAT SHIT PISSES ME OFF AND GETS OLD REALLY QUICK!

Sorry it was such a long read!

[A.H]

1) Vince McMahon loves the big guys! Always has. Just look at WWE history, you have Hogans and Andres and Cena and HHH and Big Show and ect ect ect!

It takes a smaller wrestler with insane ability (Benoit, Eddy, Jerico) to get over before Vince tags them. Usully he just tages who ever is biggest at the time. Always has, always will.

2) Did I mention Vince likes Big guys?

Really the story telling aspect in the WWE is bad for two reasons:

a) The writing is bad. Stephane was the lead writer last time I looked and really the product shows it. I hate hate hate Vince Russo as a person but back in the day when he was writing and vince was picking out the best stuff, it worked and worked well. WWE just doesnt have a Russo writer and TNA doesnt have a Vince MacMahon to censor out Russos stupid stuff so bopth orgs fail because of it.

b) Modern day wrestlers abilities. For all the horror stories we read of coming up through the different federation and barely surviving, one thing is missing from that era. Ability and pride in ability! Modern day rasslers just dont have it. Im kinda a fan of the Legacy group but Ted jr cant hold a candle to his fathers ability on the mic. Same goes for Cody when compared to Dusty (whom I hate with a passion I should point out) or Randy to his father. In all 3 cases the older people are the better pure proffessional wrestlers.

Blame WWE for getting so big or the switch from denying it was scripted but Modern day wrestling has lost something in the storytelling dept.

So end result is winners and loser become rather predictable because the writing is so predictable.


3) Agree. Shane only hurt the supposive legitness of a wrestler everytime he enters the ring and holds his own or better. Its a shame and everyone knows it.... but hes a MacMahon! That says it all!


4) Like it or not, HHH is apart of MacMahons so is going to rewrite history and beat out Ric Flairs 16 title runs record and any other record he so wishs to own!

Hes a child in a candy story picking out the best peices!

Thats not going to change anytime soon.


5) WWE has always been marketted towards kids.

Even the attitude era of Stone Cold was marketted towards kids!

Thats never going to change!


6) See my rant about writing i above answer!

As faras feuds go, PPV has really hurt fueds and it shows.

In the old days before PPV, a good fued would be built up over a 6 month period and then play out in the local arenas and on TV for the next 6 months!

Wrestlers had time to tell their stories and it was great.

Today however you have 1 months (sometimes less) to introduce, promote, fighter, and end so you can go onto next months opponent!

Even when there was only 4 PPVs a year it was ok as the wrestlers still had 3 full months to tell the story.

Today 1 month lines just dont work and have been a thorn in the sides of real wrestling fans for a long long time now.


7) Did I mention Vince likes big guys?

This is nothing new. Perhaps the single greatest Wrestlemania match ever fought was not the main event!

Randy Savage vrs Ricky Steamboat was INSANE and easily won match of the year honors by Pro Wrestling Illistrated and other publications and to this day is always a top 3 contender for greatest Pro Wrestling match ever.

Yet to this day, when ever the WWE talks abouut the Pontiac Super Dome they talk about Hogan vrs Andre (which was a terrible match btw..Andre could barely stand up he was in so much pain from his disease that was killing him).

That says it all inregards to why big men get over in the WWE.


8) Draft was ok but as Nitro showed, you cant substain quality when writing for 3 hour shows constantly. Think about it, your already complaining about the 2 hour shows, how much worse do you think it will be if they get more hours to fill?


9) As I said, wrestlers dont learn their trades anymore in the minors! Its hurt the product but not going to change anytime soon.


10) Orton, Ted jr and Cote have big things ahead of them but I for one hope they take a step back to mid card for a while and get better at their trades.

Legacy, like its members, needs to slow down and grow into their positions.

They just to young to have all the titles and be the goto guys for the company right now.

But having said that, Legacy will have the Tag team and World title belts before to long, its the easy route to go and the WWE loves the easy route.

11) Oh definately. I love that swagger on ECW rather then Raw or Smackdown. Hes learning his trade and growing into his own slowly!

When this guy hits the big shows, hes going to go over huge!

Swagger is a prefect example of how Legacy should have been handled!

A warm up run on ECW for a year would have been great!


12) To many groups deminish the top groups effectivness and uniqueness. Better they have one group and write it up properly!

13) LOL who cares where Umaga is :P Gawd im bored of the super human Samoan storyline! Send his one dimensional arse to TNA!~

[jolecore204]

Great post Oli. To avoid also writing a novel, here are just a few of my knee-jerk reactions to the above mentioned points:

- Like A.H. said, Vince has always and will always have a hardon for the big men.

- The writing is shit. Has been since the late 90's IMO. It is too short-sided (with plans/storylines that span a month or 2 at the most, then forgotten). The WWE writing team has been in shambles for quite some time. About 8 months back they even hired Freddy Prinze Jr. onto their writing team. Even young Freddy was shown the door while shaking his head at the joke of a 'writing team' WWE employs. EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THE WRITING!!

- All characters seem to be the same to me. They are all generic looking, generic sounding, and generic wrestling. There is very little distinction between any of the workers. Of course there are exceptions in the opening bouts. Goes back to the writing, but if some of the guys real-life personalities are allowed to bleed through into their character, maybe they would be more distinct.

- Overacting....is good alot of the time. Overacting not only drives home a message to the viewer, but often also gets more heat on the heel. I'm thinking of Steven Regal as an example. Some of my most favourite/hated moments with Regal came when he had that sneer on his face and he over-acted when he gets punched.

- Triple H is good in small quantities. I reckon the reason he dropped the belt on Sunday is so he can take some time off, and come back hot again, as he's become stale recently. That seems to be his M.O. I would still love to see him as Thor in the Marvel movie.

- Legacy to me is not the stable that will make stables the 'to do' thing again. Orton is a great leader, but I don't think any of the 3 guys are where they need to be for it to be any more effective than they already are. Again going back to the short-sided storylines, I anticipate seeing Legacy turn on eachother and break up within the next 4 months.

I do however LOVE stables in wrestling, when done properly. For some reason....again back to writing....they feel that splitting up any successful tag team / group is the right thing to do. I disagree 99% of the time.

[jolecore204]

^^and here I was trying to keep it short.

[(v2)ROVPitViper]

As the others mentioned Vince loves the big men [insert Freudian joke here].

I do have to admit that the Legacy trio has brought a more legitimate heel side of things to the WWE (and yes, I include Edge in the non-legitmate heel group by the way). Especially with Orton getting pushed by the feud with the McMahoniquins.

As for Triple HHH.... the only game he has ever been good at is laying the pipe to Steph so he too could be a McMahoniquin. So no matter what, Vince, Shane, and HHH will always be a large focus of the WWE. Unfortunate but we are stuck with it.

The storytelling done by the wrestlers as directed by the writing of the "producers" backstage is horrible all around. I think that until Vince (much like Al Davis for the Raiders) lets go of the reigns (something he will never do) and gives others a chance to advance their ideas that the product will suffer because a lot of the new guys won't ever have a chance to be creative with their characters.

For example even the announcers can't get two lines out to start the show without Vince screaming in their headsets about what they should be saying. I know I would have a hell of a time doing my job with all that stress/yelling going on multiplied by micromanaging.

The bottom line for me is that the WWE as a whole has forgotten that the characters are what sells the product. Not some Old Crazy Guy in the back screaming in headsets and thinking that his 80's skits are still funny today. Imagine if he (Vince) had controlled Austin when he gave his memorable KOTR speech after mudholing Jake. The whole Austin era would of never happened because Vince would of had him (1) putting on a tough guy smirk while (2) standing totally silent looking "imposing".

Vince is the biggest problem, followed closely by the rest of his clan including Triple Gay. They should learn to separate themselves from the business and let the wrestlers have some room to develop without being micro managed.

[Scorcho]

1.) WTF is the WWE's obsession with these comedy, blow up freakshow guys like Cena and Batista?

Vince built his fortune on the back of Hogan, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior, etc. He doesn't know how to do anything different. He likes the big guys plain and simple

2.) Why do they make it all so obvious as to who is going to win?

Poor writing

3.) Shane McMahon needs to leave the wrestling to his employees!

Agreed

4.) Triple H is a joke!

I partly agree but he also gets the belt so damn much because WWE doesn't know how to build up younger talent into the main event spot.

5.) The WWE now seems to be geared towards the kids more,

WWE feels they can get more money out of kids from merch and stuff. Also if kids go to the shows they have to bring their parents so that's one extra ticket. Some feel that kids are easier to book to so the writing team can slack. Also, Linda McMahon was trying (and succeeded) to get on the CT Board of Education, so some feel they were toning down the violence for all that time because of that.

6.) The writing seems to be rather lazy at times!

Unquestionably


7.) Why do they keep guys with legit fan bases/legit heat as card fillers/jobbers?

Because the writers at WWE don't care much about how the workers get over with the fans, they are booking to please their boss and they will push the guys Vince wants them to push. Everyone else is just filler until Vince gets interested in them.

8.) The 3 hour Draft show the other day was really good!

I don't know, I didn't watch it.

9.) Facial overacting!

Wrestlers are trained in facials by the same people who train them in wrestling. Though I suspect the overacting is something they're told to do by Vince/someone high up. And yes, they do think fans are simple and need things drilled into their head. Thought if you want an example of great facials in a match hunt down the Shawn/Taker match from Mania.

10.) Legacy can be the catalyst for a major up turn in the WWE's fortunes in my opinion!

I agree with 2/3rds of that statement. Rhodes and Dibiase are great and are gonna be future stars. I can't stand Orton though.


Jack Swagger is going to be a big star IMO. He is so young yet has all the tools. Lisp is unfortunate but if he's cocky, then it might even work in his advantage!

Others feel this way too but that lisp is only gonna bring him down


Put together a few more stables. Legacy is the best one I've seen in a while (I am aware of the history of WWE, even if I haven't watched it all. Ive done my research!) Edge is a major start (even though hes a pony wrestler) and, like they are doing with Orton & Priceless, if they are careful with who they add to an Edge lead stable, they can turn them into stars real quickly.

Maybe but stables can be tough to book if there's too many around


Where the fuck is Umaga? As soon as he's back, give him a belt (literally like the first match back, have him crush MVP or the current ECW champ, then actually build him as a monster! Not a monster that is great until he inevitably gets fed to a face at a PPV! THAT SHIT PISSES ME OFF AND GETS OLD REALLY QUICK!

Umaga is recovering from injury and should be back soon.

[Spmack 2]

GOd damn that's a long fuckin post Oliver!!!!

Most of your questions have been handled aleady, so I'll just brush through a few of them... (In the order I remember them, not how you wrote em)

Facial overacting:
This is a throw back to the old days IMhumbleO. Wrasslers used to have to be able to comunicate their "feelings" facially to the people beyond the first few rows. The best way to do this was to go completely over the top so there could be no mistake how the wrassler was feeling. Ona close up on the big screen or your TV it looks a bit silly, but it does make it clear what's happening for the people with shitty views. The same can be said for "over selling" moves.
+ The're bodybuilding gymnasts, not trained actors.

Triple H is a joke:
HHH is the boss' son in law, and he's been in the WWE longer than anyone except the undertaker now. He'll always get top billing while his father in law and wife run the company.

Shane needs to leave wrestling to the employees:
Agreed, but when carried by a decent opponent Shane has enough basic skills to be able to pull of a decent match (Kurt Angle). But,,,,,,,,,,
I think the old Shane that would take MAD bumps is gone now and he should stay away from the ring, unless he's being pummeled by an up and coming star.

Legacy could be catalyst:
In a perfect world yes, but it's in the hands of the writers and bookers. So your guess is as good as mine.

[BP65]

They need to bring back the groups they had back in the day like the corporation,DX,Ministry,The Union(Bring back Shamrock:))

[xXLongRangeXx]

I hate that everytime i check into the WWE i see Jericho having to drag the mid card along.
That guy is the best wrestler currently in the WWE. But because of the horrible top order that the WWE whores to their market, the talented, like Jericho, are left to fill in the gaps.

It's bullshit, and the reason i stopped watching WWE on a consistent basis.