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3 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

I'm going to go ahead and add Bugenhagen to the pile of gimmicks that get over huge in NXT and die horribly on the main roster.

He's over in the locker room and on the Florida live events  the same way Juice Robinson was (and Mojo Rawley). So yeah probably. 

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Just watched the segment and its some fun stuff. 

A Van Hammer that can actually wrestle? Ain't nothing wrong with that. Its one-note, but I like that one note more than No Way Jose and that "Get Me To The Greek" guy from a few years ago. Just don't add groupies. There's nothing funny about a rock star surrounded by people who treat him like a rock star. The comedy comes from the fish being out of the water, not in it. 

The Gulak/Riddle match was the best Riddle match I've seen - though, I'm pretty limited to what I've seen (read: only his NXT matches and probably not every one of those). After seeing this match, I definitely get why he's a big deal more than I did before it. That deadlift powerbomb? My god. Then a knee to the jaw? I think that should've been the finish instead of having Gulak tap a few seconds later. I know Riddle said he was going to tap him out before the match, but that combo was fierce.

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Johnny Gargano saying he's feeling dangerous is some shit that... just sounds corny.

Also, regarding Bugenhagen: the presentation is nice. He looks good, has charisma, seems like he can go in the ring and he does have a legit background in Greco-Roman wrestling. I am not sure, however, if those high notes will last long.

Still wanna see him doing Rick Rude arm wrestling spots at the tapings, tho

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To be fair, the Bugenhagen gimmick is designed to fail.There's zero mileage for something like this after the first few appearances. So of course WWE will move it to main and shove it down our throats until we hate it.

I partially agree with Dream. Something hasn't clicked quite yet with the gimmick, but I think it will and when it does it will stick. If they sent him up today, he'd never find it and would get washed away pretty quickly.

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The Performance Center needs to do a better job of teaching body part psychology. This past episode of NXT had two separate matches where a guy had a limb worked over the entire match and he sold it by doing the stuff he normally does with no apparent difficulty, grabbing the limb for a few seconds, and then going about his business. In a way, that's even worse than completely blowing it off because you're acknowledging that it should matter but you can't seem to think of a way to really make it count.

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They also need to learn the difference between "small room" gimmicks and "large room" ones. They're really good at coming up with ideas to get folks over at Full Sail that turn into career sinking anchors when they get called up and have to bring their gimmick to a large arena.  Some of that is because of different creative teams for sure, I can just imagine Vince and/or the writing staff looking at things created in NXT as minor league or the old "we didn't come up with it therefore it sucks" mentality.  It reminds me of when Jim Cornette was booking OVW and he would talk about his goal was to book guys like how WWE books people rather than how he would ideally,  because going to WWE was the main goal so his job was to prepare them for how they do things. That's something NXT seems to fail at, which is kind of amazing considering it's in house and should be better at this shit by now. 

They want NXT to be a third brand but also their main feeder league, and they can't have it both ways. A feeder league by definition can't be a third brand, and a third brand with a unique style will inherently fail as a feeder league since it's not properly preparing people for how the main roster works. 

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16 minutes ago, sek69 said:

They also need to learn the difference between "small room" gimmicks and "large room" ones. They're really good at coming up with ideas to get folks over at Full Sail that turn into career sinking anchors when they get called up and have to bring their gimmick to a large arena.  Some of that is because of different creative teams for sure, I can just imagine Vince and/or the writing staff looking at things created in NXT as minor league or the old "we didn't come up with it therefore it sucks" mentality.  It reminds me of when Jim Cornette was booking OVW and he would talk about his goal was to book guys like how WWE books people rather than how he would ideally,  because going to WWE was the main goal so his job was to prepare them for how they do things. That's something NXT seems to fail at, which is kind of amazing considering it's in house and should be better at this shit by now. 

I strongly disagree with this one, because I think that more often than not, they at least try to give the original gimmick a chance to work.

Alexa Bliss was very much an NXT creation and she also rocks in the main roster. The 4HW are also greatly used on Raw/SD without major changes from who they were on NXT. Becky is the outlier and Charlotte had that shitty face period, but other than that they're still the same people we grew to love.

In spite of acts like The Revival taking a long time until they finally are put to good use, some are indeed pushed right out of the gate and it just doesn't work, and it's not because the writing team sees them as minor league or as "unworthy". American Alpha got the SD Tag Titles pretty early into their run and were met with crickets. AOP were champs for a while and also generated nothing. In AA's case, one could argue that the main roster writing did them more favors than anything - Jason Jordan being the doofus son of GM Kurt Angle and Chad Gable maturing as a singles star was dope.

Paul Ellering couldn't be on the road with AOP, so they tried with Drake Maverick in the manager role (which is OK), and the recent Akam injury hampers them - much like the Revival being injured at different times did.

Baron Corbin being a lone wolf emo with terrible hair was met with silence on the main roster, and that's exactly who he was in NXT. They changed his gimmick and he's a pretty effective heel, and grew loads as a promo.

Balor, despite not really a NXT creation, was over as fuck in NXT and remained over in the main roster. You could argue that the Demon gimmick is better booked now than it was on NXT.

 

All in all, while there are acts that work better on a smaller stage, like Blue Pants, CJ Parker, Bugenhagen (so far), Tyler Breeze and the such, I think that the main writing team is willing to use the gimmicks when they get called up other than just flat out rearrange things their own way.

 

Also, come on. People say how wrestling - or at least WWE - needs distinct, larger than live characters, and people are complaining about Velveteen Dream? I think there's almost zero chance he won't work on the main roster due to people being unable to write for him. If anything, disciplinary issues could hamper him more, but in terms of presentation he's grand.

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39 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I strongly disagree with this one, because I think that more often than not, they at least try to give the original gimmick a chance to work.

I guess techinically they do, but then you see in cases like Bayley where they clearly don't understand why the original gimmick worked so well in the first place. They took EC3, who's gimmick is he's the rich snob who tells you he's better than everyone, and make him basically a mute who is doing a discount Narcissist gimmick backstage. 

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It seems that they are booking Bayley closer to what she used to be and her confidence is restored. The past few weeks where she was basically wrestling handicap matches and either winning or making a valiant effort is what she's supposed to be all about. And the crowd is responding in kind, too.

I mean, I'm not saying they are doing a perfect job, but at least most of the time they are trying to write the characters like they were in NXT. When it doesn't work, usually they make changes that are improvements.

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Bayley was a tough one. I wasn't watching for the full Bayley origin story in NXT but wasn't the idea that she rose the ranks over a lengthy period of time? That it was a slow, gradual process where the underdog eventually became the Champ after, like, 2 years of just showing strong effort but not beating Charlotte, Sasha, etc.? When she got called up, they had two options - restart the entire storyline and have her lose immediately, basically showing that she was a big fish in a small pond that couldn't compete with the Alicia Foxes and Nikki Bellas of the world. She plays the underdog for 6-8 months and you hope the wider audience rallies like the NXT one did. Or you push her as a legit threat from the jump and hope that the niche NXT audience would be vocal enough for a "monkey see/monkey do" reaction to happen when she was in front of the wider audience (in other words, if those guys sitting in my row are cheering for her, I'll cheer for her too even though I don't know who she is). I'd say they went more with the latter than the former and it didn't really work...but if they had done the reverse, I don't think that would've been 100% guaranteed to work.

I'm curious what they do with Gargano and Ciampa as they're in a similar position. They too are in this weird position where it feels like their career-defining angle happened already. What do you do when you call them up? Repeat the original angle verbatim with #DIY and everything? They should try something fresh, obviously, but in doing that, there's no guarantee you're creating characters that can carry shows/connect with the audience the way they do now.

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Bayley's start in NXT was totally different than what she received on the main roster. Originally, she was this awestruck fan-girl - just happy to be there and constantly greeting people with hugs.

She put in the work and took the fans along with her on that journey. They grew to respect and support her.

She showed up on the main roster as Sasha's best friend or whatever and was treated like... Well, everyone else basically.

The move & the upgrade in competition provided them the perfect excuse to have her reignite the same story essentially. She should've been in awe at the sight of WWE main roster stars for the first time. But I digress...

Regarding Gargano/Ciampa, the main roster doesn't really do angles like that. The closest comparison is something like the awful Dean/Seth stuff. That's their equivalent - just endless rematches with a loose excuse kind of assigned to them in an attempt to justify them.

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Well, Gargano/Ciampa kinda sucks so I hope they never revisit that. It was good when the turn happened and we all were heartbroken but then Gargano never got his win and then went full edgy 90s comic book character and now they are pretty much partners again.

What the fuck is the endgame there? Gargano snapping back to being a face and finally winning the NXT Title? 

And imagining they go to the main roster, it would be better for them to do some Sting/Luger dynamics than reenacting that... horrible storyline.

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21 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Also, come on. People say how wrestling - or at least WWE - needs distinct, larger than live characters, and people are complaining about Velveteen Dream? I think there's almost zero chance he won't work on the main roster due to people being unable to write for him. If anything, disciplinary issues could hamper him more, but in terms of presentation he's grand.

On the main roster he's going to come off as a dude cosplaying as Randy Savage/Rick Rude & it won't work. I guarantee it. 

If he's more Prince and less old school wrestlers, he'll be fine. 

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