Loss Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 The Royal Rumble is over and this is going to be a hot topic for a while, so I thought we could dump stuff here. Latest post from Dave: (Link will only work for subscribers) How do we measure who should be the top guy? Not ticket sales. His fans are the type that don't go to house shows. Yeah, I know, guys in their 20s never go out nowadays to sports events. Not TV ratings, they're fake, I don't have a Neilsen box Not PPV. His fans aren't the type who buy PPVs. Not merchandise - His t-shirts are ugly Not overall web activity - That's a bullshit stat (Cena is far and away No. 1 there) Not Facebook & Twitter followers - Zack Ryder proved using that metric is a joke, hey even I prove that every day going from 0 to 25,000 in almost no time with zero business increase and UFC and WWE's numbers in both are through the roof at times when popularity of both has declined Okay, is what makes the company money doesn't count, if the bullshits metrics that I think are shit don't count, how do we judge who should be the top guy? Lots of people chant "Yes." Too bad you guys didn't grow up watching Jimmy Valiant. He had awesome charisma, danced to the ring and tore the house down every night. Yet for some reason, Jimmy Valiant headlining never came close to Flair or Wahoo or Dusty. So Jimmy Valiant was used the way he was used. Daniel Bryan absolutely should be in the top 3-4 guys in the company and he will be champion and should get a run, partially because the title no longer is that important and doesn't drive business anymore. Should he be the No. 1 guy. When they give him a shot to be and he then, at that point, beats Punk or Cena, then he should be. If you ask him, and he said it himself, the guy on top should be the guy who sells the most tickets and PPV orders. I don't recall Jimmy Valiant fans crapping on the Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes main event and chanting Valiant's name during matches he wasn't involved in. Daniel Bryan is a draw. Last night he asked the entire building if they came to see him, and they responded that they did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I also hate this argument that because John Cena is more of a draw, this means Daniel Bryan isn't one at all. No one is arguing that Daniel Bryan should replace John Cena on top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 What disturbs me is that we have been told that the brand itself is the draw. However, the same people buying tickets to the show are shitting on the brand and calling for ONE guy to be the featured star. Also, Dave said it himself... when he is given the title and outdraws Cena or Punk, he should be the top guy. He hasn't been given the fucking chance yet. That is what the fans are calling for!!!! Give the guy the chance to succeed or fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 The Royal Rumble is over and this is going to be a hot topic for a while, so I thought we could dump stuff here. Latest post from Dave: (Link will only work for subscribers) How do we measure who should be the top guy? Not ticket sales. His fans are the type that don't go to house shows. Yeah, I know, guys in their 20s never go out nowadays to sports events. Dave does understand that Pro Wrestling is not "Sports Events"? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 Absolutely. And even more than that, the bigger issue is not that he has to go on last at Wrestlemania or supersede everyone in the main event scene. He just needs to have his feud with The Authority properly blown off. He has to prove himself a bigger draw than John Cena to get a match with HHH at Wrestlemania? Come on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 What disturbs me is that we have been told that the brand itself is the draw. However, the same people buying tickets to the show are shitting on the brand and calling for ONE guy to be the featured star. Also, Dave said it himself... when he is given the title and outdraws Cena or Punk, he should be the top guy. He hasn't been given the fucking chance yet. That is what the fans are calling for!!!! Give the guy the chance to succeed or fail. Bryan is elite-level over and deserves a SHOT at an elite-level push. I don't mean a bone-throw semi-push during the off-season. I mean the real deal, Rumble win followed by Wrestlemania main event. Was Batista a draw by the time he got that push? Enormous crowd reactions don't = money, but they are a signal that they have a guy who they can turn into money. To do that they have to invest in him and present him as a real top guy. Giving Bryan the Rumble and the main event could make him a Batista-level star for the rest of his career. Or it couldn't, maybe the naysayers are right and Bryan is fundamentally not a draw for whatever reason. His reactions as of now still demand a shot. They have Batista that they can put in a showcase match for Wrestlemania. They have Cena, Taker -- they can put them in big matches to sell the card if Bryan on top doesn't generate enough interest in its own right. And then all those eyes will be on him looking like THE guy in the company and having the entire crowd lose their shit over it. That's how you make someone take off, that's what they did for Batista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 What disturbs me is that we have been told that the brand itself is the draw. However, the same people buying tickets to the show are shitting on the brand and calling for ONE guy to be the featured star. Also, Dave said it himself... when he is given the title and outdraws Cena or Punk, he should be the top guy. He hasn't been given the fucking chance yet. That is what the fans are calling for!!!! Give the guy the chance to succeed or fail. No-one will get the chance to become a bigger draw than John Cena until someone new is given the chance to. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Also, by all metrics Randy Orton is worse or no better than Bryan. Yet there's no evidence of WWE torpedoing his push. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 Orton is clearly worse than Bryan. Orton is worse than Mark Henry as a draw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 The Orton push is even worse when you consider that when Orton and Bryan underwhelmed on PPV, Bryan was dropped to the midcard and Orton was given top billing with Big Show which bombed as a program yet Orton is still holding on to the belt. No punishment, no backlash, no dropped push. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 Was Batista a draw by the time he got that push? To be fair to Batista, there was quick evidence that he was catching fire when they started teasing his babyface turn. New Year's Revolution (2005) drew a great buy rate for the Elimination Chamber match before they even properly broke Evolution up. Of course, that was a different era where it was easier to get numbers moving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 No-one will get the chance to become a bigger draw than John Cena until someone new is given the chance to. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. More likely no one will be a bigger draw until they're so over the company can't help it. That was the case with Austin. While they had hopes for Rock long term, he got there faster than they thought (the NOD tapped into a better side of him) and he took off. Their plans for Foley evolved over time, but they never projected it for the level it reached in the series with Rock that it did. Of course there is a slight change: Trip had hoped to get the spot that all three of those guys did, and they beat him to it while he was stuck below them. He didn't have power then. He does have power now, and has for more than a decade. And we know what started happening after he got power. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I don't even know what being the "top guy" means at this stage. Randy Orton is the world champion, but John Cena is the top guy regardless of who the champion is. Someone can be the champ without having to be the man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrainfollower Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 And they won't give DB a shot at EITHER role. Give him one to make his fans happy, it's not really that hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 Can someone PLEASE explain to me how this isn't WWE just working its fans? Yet again, from my perspective from the outside looking in, it just looks like a work. When else have they built someone else up to the main event level with this slow a build? I thought it was clear live that they probably knew going in they would be some Bryan chants but hoped the elevation of Wyatt, superman push of Reigns breaking the Rumble record (which I don't think many people got live), and fresh returns of Sheamus and Batista in ring after 4 years would counteract any Bryan supporters, that clearly wasn't the case and I think they had no idea that Big E would get silence and Sheamus and Rey would be boo'd out of the building along with Batista's eventual win. Yeah, I can accept that "something went wrong" and they weren't banking on such an overwhelming / card-defining reaction for Bryan but .... Well look at this. Call me cynical, but look at where Bryan is positioned there. It's clear that the 3 most prominently placed stars on this are Cena, Bryan and Punk. Do you think the WWE don't know what they've got in him? I imagine they have some Alec Baldwin-figure there with a breakdown of demographics of who Bryan is over with and why and how many t-shirts he's going to sell and to whom. I'm not saying they haven't fucked up here, it seems like they have -- or at least they've misjudged the situation quite a bit. But at least some part of the Bryan deal is a work. I mean in terms of tweets, mentions elsewhere on social media, message boards, articles and articles and articles, how many people are talking about Bryan right now? Is anyone believing that Bryan's OWN tweets and things saying "it's me vs. the system" aren't just a massive work? I don't know, maybe wrestling has got to the point where I don't understand it anymore, but watching this whole thing build from afar and it looks like they know what they are doing with it. I just don't think they banked on it taking over the whole Rumble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 The "me vs. the system" stuff is clearly a work. I don't think anyone is disputing that. However, part of the work is a reaction to the negative response the rest of the roster has received. Keep your fans placated. My argument is that his full potential will not be realized until he is given the chance to be the guy with the belt or the guy who the company revolves around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Boricua Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I'm amazed they willingly ran with The Miz of all people as champion in the Wrestlemania main event, but won't consider trying with a guy who is getting genuine reactions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmare007 Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I get Dave playing devil's advocate and trying to explain how management thinks but the post Rumble rant didn't make much sense to me. Bryan did bring ratings when he was WHC on SD!, but that didn't mean shit to anybody at the time. His 3 month run on top - that everyone agrees was impossible to get good results considering the circumstances - didn't bring major ratings but didn't bomb either. The only thing that showed was the he wasn't a ratings movers like Cena, big deal. Expecting a guy whose been treated like he doesn't belong as a top guy (which doesn't mean he's getting BURIED~!, that's nonsense and anyone with a brain knows that) to compete in house shows attendance against their Ace of the last 7 years, who is traveling in bigger markets and with a more powerful roster, AND has the only World Title in the company being defended in his shows is mind blowing. Asking any guy to overcome that is beyond insane...and that's why fans are so pissed off. Then he used Jeff Hardy as an example. He didn't have it easy at all, and he did overcome a lot of bullshit. But, he benefited from a long hiatus from the company and came back as a MUCH bigger star thanks to the nostalgia factor and fans craving for a new guy to be in the main event. He also had a much more solid roster in his house shows IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I think Dave's coverage of this is an interesting example in the wake of the "Where do Dave's sympathies lie?" conversation we had a couple weeks ago. Try and imagine if this was like 1996 and something like this was happening. I imagine his talking points would be a little different. I mean to be fair, there are other posts of his on the board where he says if he was Vince he'd push Bryan to the moon and they're missing an opportunity. But those lines are drowned out by all of the rhetoric on Bryan not moving the needle and etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I'm amazed they willingly ran with The Miz of all people as champion in the Wrestlemania main event, but won't consider trying with a guy who is getting genuine reactions. Miz was sort of the poster child of a guy they made to be exactly what they wanted him to be. That's sort of why the Miz/Bryan NXT pairing was put together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efrim Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 The way Raw played out and the Bryan worked tweets hitting after the wrap-up of the Rumble have gotten some people clucking about what a bunch of marks everyone is. Their criticism of the "omg what a burial" doom-sayers is justified, but I don't think that necessarily means that they know what they've got and this is all carefully orchestrated. I think what people haven't mentioned as much (and maybe didn't even consciously realize) is that the crowd jumped to the assumption that Bryan was in the Rumble because of the booking of the rest of the show. Bryan loses clean to Wyatt and the same night Wyatt is rolled up at the undisputed top of the totem poll guy in Cena. So you've got Bryan decisively losing a big feud and immediately being portrayed as the small fish next to Cena. After it went down like that I immediately figured Bryan would get to save face by a win or at least a great showing in the rumble. Fans are conditioned, "smart" or not, and everybody knows that faces don't just eat shit like that unless they're Kofi or The Big Show or something. If you had Bryan getting the win earlier, or at least not eating the loss so hard, I'm not sure you get the insane reaction during the rumble for a guy that was clearly not stated or hinted to be a part of it. So for me, the Wyatt loss says a lot more than the lack of a rumble win. If that's a top 3 or so guy for you heading in to Wrestlemania and your head spun around by the top of the cage moment, I can't believe you would go out and make him look so weak and secondary at the exact time he needs to be hitting high gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 It seems like the consensus is that he probably shouldn't replace Cena, but he should be given a chance as a top guy. And I think that's what has mostly happened. He headlined 4 PPVs, has been all over TV (including his music playing after his team won Monday, not Cena's), Dave is confident he'll get a title reign this year and has hinted it may be soon. He should be a CM Punk level guy for a long time, above the level of an Alberto Del Rio or Sheamus type. Outside of the unsatisfactory payoff to the Authority feud (and I think the payoff is still coming), why are people not ecstatic with Bryan's current place in WWE and his future with the company? If he can stay away from the concussions, we should have a bunch of great featured matches in our futures like the one with Bray at the Rumble. How crazy would such an idea have been three years ago? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efrim Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 I mean if you buy the notion that they're doing this stealth top-guy booking, then that entire thing hinges on Daniel Bryan being held down unjustly because he is too pure and beautiful for this world. Such a guy has no business just taking a clean loss in the blow off match of a major feud. That is demonstrably a guy that is not rising above his station. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 It's not "stealth" top guy booking when you get the most TV time of anybody over the summer (including being the first guy to beat the Shield and clean wins over Orton and Cena), 4 straight PPV main events, you're chosen to be the guy that carries the company when Cena goes down during football season, and even recently - your gauntlet match with the Wyatts and big angle afterwards takes up the last 40 minutes of RAW, and then your turn back face two weeks later gets the main segment of RAW and is presented as an epic moment. And the RAW the night after the Rumble is based around you with the big promo spot at the start of the show and being a key focus of the main event. No one has gotten a more sustained push over the past 7 months. Punk was feuding with Ryback and Axel in the micard for a while. Cena was feuding with Del Rio for a few months, lost clean at TLC, and is in the 4th most important match at Mania. Big Show had one month on top. Orton has been portrayed as a lackey that only wins because of HHH's help, and has had visual pinfall losses to Bryan several times. The only thing WWE has done that people don't like is delay his title win, but it's smart, because he only gets more over every week as people think he's being held down. When he finally wins, it's going to be an all-time epic moment, and Meltzer says it's coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrainfollower Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 There's also the story that Vince has said Cena will be the guy until the day he retires. I wonder if HHH is on board with that. I can't figure out how Cena/Wyatt goes on last. Taker/Brock is such a foregone finish I can't see that either and god help them if they try and finish with Batista-Orton. Bryan has gotten the "almost but not quite push". He might get the big push but a 5th most important WM match against Sheamus just isn't it. I suppose it's POSSIBLE Meltzer is actually on board with WWE's storytelling, reporting what they tell him to. Or he's being worked as well, but I wouldn't think he's that naive. Breaking up the two world titles is looking like a dumb move, since it might give them a way to give Batista what he wants and all the fans what they want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted January 29, 2014 Report Share Posted January 29, 2014 It's not "stealth" top guy booking when you get the most TV time of anybody over the summer (including being the first guy to beat the Shield and clean wins over Orton and Cena), 4 straight PPV main events, you're chosen to be the guy that carries the company when Cena goes down during football season, and even recently - your gauntlet match with the Wyatts and big angle afterwards takes up the last 40 minutes of RAW, and then your turn back face two weeks later gets the main segment of RAW and is presented as an epic moment. And the RAW the night after the Rumble is based around you with the big promo spot at the start of the show and being a key focus of the main event. No one has gotten a more sustained push over the past 7 months. Punk was feuding with Ryback and Axel in the micard for a while. Cena was feuding with Del Rio for a few months, lost clean at TLC, and is in the 4th most important match at Mania. Big Show had one month on top. Orton has been portrayed as a lackey that only wins because of HHH's help, and has had visual pinfall losses to Bryan several times. The only thing WWE has done that people don't like is delay his title win, but it's smart, because he only gets more over every week as people think he's being held down. When he finally wins, it's going to be an all-time epic moment, and Meltzer says it's coming. Dave has said that they're holding Extreme Rules in Seattle "for a reason," Bryan's going to get pushed and that Batista is expected to turn heel later this year. Golly fucking gee. Wonder what's going to happen. Also, the people he's talking about in the quoted post are pretty much the same people posting in this topic. Regardless if you believe it or not, he's been pretty well protected and pushed and he's not moving the numbers like people think he is. People were chanting for Matt Hardy like crazy during the Edge/Lita scandal and he pretty much bombed when he came back. They chanted for Ryder almost to the level that Bryan has gotten. He was given a decent mid card push and an angle with the top guy. He failed. Daniel won't, but the point is chanting doesn't mean much if it doesn't translate into numbers. Also, the merchandise talking point amuses me to no end. The number one seller of merchandise in the company is Cena. You know...this guy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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