WWE TV 12/05 - 12/11

[KawadaSmile]

After a good RAW show and a great SD PPV, how are they going to follow up their storylines?

 

• Will they keep doing those Cesaro/Sheamus skits?
• Charlotte/Sasha is far from being over, but are they going to mix it up?
• Is the BIG DAWG going to be US & Universal Champion? What will happen until Roadblock?
• Is JeriKO over for reals?
• Who's going to stand up against the Wyatt's reign of terror?
• Did Nattie really attack Nikki?
• Is Ellsworth going to win against AJ and become the WWE Champion??????

 

Also, I think I missed something: with the cruiserweights having their own show, do they still appear on Raw?

[Mando]

Also, I think I missed something: with the cruiserweights having their own show, do they still appear on Raw?

 

Yes. The prevailing opinion is being on both Monday and Tuesday nights will give them more exposure. Something that occurred to me last night while watching the PPV: Raw can sometimes seem like an uphill battle at 3 hours but now Tuesday nights WWE will be producing 3.5 hours of live television with SmackDown! Live, 205 Live, and Talking Smack. Add on Main Event and NXT on Wednesday and that's almost 9 hours of weekly wrestling content over 3 days each week.

[hammerva]

Or they can do the 2016 version of Ric Flair trying to bang Precious in a hotel room with Enzo and Lana. Except of course the "can I watch" part from JJ Dillon and Dillon falling in the hot tub. although I am sure 1987 Precious would have never been a hot as Lana in red

 

Hey it could have been worse (or better depending on mindset). 15 or 20 years ago I am sure Vince would have replaced those strawberries with bananas

[Loss]

So that closing segment was pretty phenomenal.

[The Chief]

Pretty good Raw this week. Big Show looked incredible. Not only did he lose all the weight but he was very quick on his feet. You wouldn't guess those knees have been carrying 500 lbs for so long. Whenever he's slimmed down after a layoff in the past the road life always caught up with him. Hopefully this time he can stay healthy.

[cpst]

 

• Charlotte/Sasha is far from being over, but are they going to mix it up?

 

Apparently, no. I'm sure the Ironman match will be good, but they really need to build somebody else up in that division.

[Strummer]

So Rollins out of nowhere calling out HHH 3 months after costing him the title? They pushing that match up to the Rumble?

 

Love Charlotte but man they really gotta move on from the Sasha feud. I think Emma from her tweets is going to be next for Sasha while Charlotte moves to Bayley. Sasha/Charlotte is probably best feud of year in wwe but the PPV *has*to be the blowoff.

 

Still think Jericho is great. Have no idea when they go to the Owens match. Can they possibly wait till mania? Reigns also seems to have no obvious mania opponent right now either

 

Also not much Mick and Steph the last few weeks has been a nice break

[Stennick]

 

 

• Charlotte/Sasha is far from being over, but are they going to mix it up?

 

Apparently, no. I'm sure the Ironman match will be good, but they really need to build somebody else up in that division.

 

 

Meh I think its just a matter of they need a filler match for December. I would think Charlotte either wins it back (god I hope not I'm sick of the hot potato), Sasha wins out and then turns on Bayley before WM, or Sasha/Bayley go to WM as buddies, Sasha loses and then turns. I'd rather not see Sasha turn since they are kind of already setting up Jericho/Owens for one of them to turn on the other so I'd rather not have two feuds heading into WM kickstarted by someone being turned on. Either way I think Bayley is walking out of WM as the champ this year. Even if the crowd was dead as hell for her tonight or atleast her entrance I didn't catch the rest of her match. She doesn't seem to be getting the reactions she got in NXT though thats for sure.

[Codysseus]

They really have had nothing for Bayley at this point. Once she starts feuding with Charlotte or Sasha, who will the other person feud with? They all need to be on TV regularly. I like the idea of a heel Paige feuding with Bayley to help establish her on the main roster, but that doesn't look like much of a possibility. I guess we'll have to see what happens with Emma.

[Loss]

Sasha followed the same pattern, as did Becky Lynch before going to Smackdown. They don't really have a creative infrastructure yet to support multiple women's feuds getting over at the same time on the same show, which is unfortunate, because the talent is there.

[WingedEagle]

Charlotte's growth into the best heel the business has seen in years is really remarkable, arguably more so because of who her father is. But she's nonetheless become the best promo and character on Raw. Its really time for the Sasha feud to go on the backburner for a bit, as even if its probably my feud of the year certainly the most important feud of the year, they need to diversify that division ASAP. Very much looking forward to the iron man match at the PPV as I'm sure that'll deliver but sustaining the momentum these two have built in recent months requires adding a couple other gals to the mix.

 

I'm normally in the camp that he must retire, but last night was the most I've enjoyed Big Show since the Reigns match on PPV after Mania last year. They kept it short and simple and he was quite effective.

 

3 hours is still so long. Looking forward to Smackdown and the AJ Styles show tonight. Perhaps starting to build for Taker at Rumble if that's the direction? As long as he's healthy and this ankle injury from TLC isn't a big deal I'll definitely be grabbing a ticket to the christmas MSG show in the next day or 2.

[AirJordanFan93]

Pretty good Raw this week. Big Show looked incredible. Not only did he lose all the weight but he was very quick on his feet. You wouldn't guess those knees have been carrying 500 lbs for so long. Whenever he's slimmed down after a layoff in the past the road life always caught up with him. Hopefully this time he can stay healthy.

Seems he does this every few years. Remember when he came back in 2008 after a year off of the road and it was the slimmest he had been probably since his early days in WCW. Given life on the road I don't think it will be long until his weight will balloon again. Not saying that to be cruel or anything.

[goc]

Big Show HAS been on the road this year. It's not been a 100% full time schedule but you don't lose all that weight just because you weren't on the road in August or October. He's only really been on the foreign tours since July but he's still had 75 matches in 2016.

[KawadaSmile]

I'm praying Big Show and Braun have a Body Slam Challenge on TV, like they had on some house shows.

[NintendoLogic]

Sasha followed the same pattern, as did Becky Lynch before going to Smackdown. They don't really have a creative infrastructure yet to support multiple women's feuds getting over at the same time on the same show, which is unfortunate, because the talent is there.

 

Smackdown seems to manage to do it.

[stro]

Seth is such a bad face, Christ. He's so fundamentally unlikable, and he's never going to be a good enough or sincere enough promo guy to make draw you into believing he's atoned for his sins or is even passionate about anything other than himself. As a character, he doesn't even have the moral high ground to be calling HHH out, considering how he turned on his brothers, and HHH turned on him because he was being a disrespectful and unappreciative shit towards the only two people who fought for him in kayfabe, reality era kayfabe, and in real life.

 

No one should feel any sympathy for Seth, ever. And that's kind of not a good thing for a face. People thought there was so much money in him as a face because he could do flips, but so can 80% of the roster, and his face run has been about as lukewarm as possible. I don't think fans are going to majority cheer him over HHH or KO. Or even Jericho in certain markets, at this point. He went from being a scumbag chickenshit heel who worked like a cruiserweight face to a nondescript face who works like a cruiserweight face and has people as engaged in his matches as they are the actual cruiserweight matches.

[C.S.]

Seth is such a bad face, Christ. He's so fundamentally unlikable, and he's never going to be a good enough or sincere enough promo guy to make draw you into believing he's atoned for his sins or is even passionate about anything other than himself.

 

Ironically, he was a fantastic face before The Shield turn, to the point where most people were questioning if he could ever be an effective heel.

 

Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case this time. His entire turn has been bungled so badly, starting with his return where he got a massive face reaction only to heel the crowd right away. He lost everyone for good after that. It reminds me of the terrible Miz and Del Rio face turns. In all three cases, the timing was bad, the motivation for the turn was spotty, and their characters could never "flip the switch." For whatever reason, Seth is still playing the post-Shield version of his character, but as a face. That doesn't work at all. Only Stone Cold could get away with that, and Seth Rollins is no Stone Cold.

[stro]

See, I thought Seth was the least interesting dude in Shield, too. I didn't think he was a great anything in the group, and everyone conveniently forgets that he was the least liked dude in the group in arenas and online for pretty much its entire existence. Online, everyone was too busy blowing Dean (hilarious in hindsight) and the in arena crowds were way more into Roman. Seth's initial post-Shield push felt very, very forced from the start, and it took him damn near a full year of INTENSE overexposure before he really started getting reactions by himself.

 

Those months where Seth would get the 15-20 minute monologue to start the show, have a backstage segment after every match (sometimes before, too), a mid show promo, and a 10-15 minute match to close the show were dark, dark times. Really, all 3 have floundered since the break up, none reaching near the potential people thought they had, and putting them back together would be a step back for all 3. Some of it is the fault of the wrestlers themselves, more falls on the shoulders of writing and booking, but in the end, Shield produced 3 big enough stars for their era instead of 3 superstars that everyone thought.

[KawadaSmile]

I think the ONLY time Seth seemed like a babyface, or at least seeking redemption, was when he dove off the cage against Rusev and KO, who were assaulting Roman.

 

Other than that, it felt like he was still his smarmy cunt persona back in his awful 2015 reign of terror, but we were supposed to cheer for him. Of all the three Shield members, I think he was the one who sunk the lowest.

[victory]

The only reason I liked Seth in the Shield was due to his fantastic bumping and feeding at the time which I put a lot of stock in. Once he went on his own I realized he had zero match structure ability and most spots were done with no rhyme or reason. His selling and mannerisms have become atrocious and is not suited for being a babyface at all.

[FMKK]

See, I thought Seth was the least interesting dude in Shield, too. I didn't think he was a great anything in the group, and everyone conveniently forgets that he was the least liked dude in the group in arenas and online for pretty much its entire existence. Online, everyone was too busy blowing Dean (hilarious in hindsight) and the in arena crowds were way more into Roman. Seth's initial post-Shield push felt very, very forced from the start, and it took him damn near a full year of INTENSE overexposure before he really started getting reactions by himself.

 

Those months where Seth would get the 15-20 minute monologue to start the show, have a backstage segment after every match (sometimes before, too), a mid show promo, and a 10-15 minute match to close the show were dark, dark times. Really, all 3 have floundered since the break up, none reaching near the potential people thought they had, and putting them back together would be a step back for all 3. Some of it is the fault of the wrestlers themselves, more falls on the shoulders of writing and booking, but in the end, Shield produced 3 big enough stars for their era instead of 3 superstars that everyone thought.

I wonder if there would still be any resistance among the wider internet community to the argument that Reigns is the best worker from the Shield.

 

The ruination of what seemed in 2014 like three can't miss main event prospects from a super hot act should be analysed as a perfect study of dreadful modern WWE booking. It's something Melzer has gone on about recently actually. How exposure on WWE TV works to make people less over rather than the obvious goal of making them more over. And no one has been more overexposed in the last couple of years than Seth Rollins.

[Loss]

It does say a lot, for example, that despite giving him two wins over John Cena and making him champion, AJ Styles is not as over as he was when he first came in. There are some things, sure, but it's not like there's a mountain of things I could point to in the way he's used and say this is why that's the case. And he's still very much a star and very much over, so he's far from a failure. But he's not quite a gigantic success story either.

[KawadaSmile]

I actually got the opposite impression, really. Until his feud with Roman, AJ wasn't getting pops as big as one would expect, Rumble debut not withstanding. His feud with Jericho, IMO, hurt him a considerable lot.

 

I would say he's doing quite well in his feud with Ambrose/Ellsworth in terms of crowd reaction.

[FMKK]

It does say a lot, for example, that despite giving him two wins over John Cena and making him champion, AJ Styles is not as over as he was when he first came in. There are some things, sure, but it's not like there's a mountain of things I could point to in the way he's used and say this is why that's the case. And he's still very much a star and very much over, so he's far from a failure. But he's not quite a gigantic success story either.

I think just being on TV so much and being in so many matches kinda dilutes the novelty of anyone. Everyone ends up overexposed because there's just too much content.

 

But I also kinda agree that the Reigns feud might have been his high point in terms of crowd pops.

[goc]

It does say a lot, for example, that despite giving him two wins over John Cena and making him champion, AJ Styles is not as over as he was when he first came in. There are some things, sure, but it's not like there's a mountain of things I could point to in the way he's used and say this is why that's the case. And he's still very much a star and very much over, so he's far from a failure. But he's not quite a gigantic success story either.

I don't really know what this means. He debuted in the company at the end of January and now he's THE top guy on Smackdown and has been pretty much since the brand split. If people were expecting him to suddenly become a Rock or Austin I don't know what to tell them because that was really never in the cards. He's not that good of a promo or that charismatic.

 

It's also a bit silly to compare the pops he was getting earlier in the year to his reactions now because he's a heel now and he was a babyface then.