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WWE TV: July 10-16


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I agree wholeheartedly with Loss. It's exhausting being a WWE fan when they seem so determined to wage war against their paying customers. Instead of giving fans what they want they almost take gleeful satisfaction in frustrating them, like it's a game and they have to "win", and if you let the crowd become too happy then they "win" and you "lose" (somehow, by making more money?).

 

The way that they have almost all heel champs. The way that they book PPVs where the heels win practically every match and give the crowd no feel good results. The way they get to the PPV and have heels retain their belts by some lame countout nonsense. The babyface can never get a damn win at the PPV! The way they had Hunter and Steph come out every week and berate the crowd and the crowd's favourite wrestlers for being stupid little marks for years up until very recently. The way they push a guy like Roman seemingly to spite people. The way they take an insanely popular dude like Enzo and have him be completely annihilated by a guy like Cass because one is 7ft tall and one isn't. The way they have insanely popular girls like Bayley and Sasha and have no idea what to do with them except beat them over and over and over. And so on.

 

You combine all of that heel-heavy, disappointment-heavy booking with the general drag of three hour Raws and endless television that feels like it all runs together and it's all just...tiresome. There's no joy in watching at the moment. Wrestling should be fun - it should feel like fun - or else why waste our time with it? I need that joy and I'm not getting it from the main roster anymore outside of Fashion Police skits.

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I agree wholeheartedly with Loss. It's exhausting being a WWE fan when they seem so determined to wage war against their paying customers. Instead of giving fans what they want they almost take gleeful satisfaction in frustrating them, like it's a game and they have to "win", and if you let the crowd become too happy then they "win" and you "lose" (somehow, by making more money?).

 

The way that they have almost all heel champs. The way that they book PPVs where the heels win practically every match and give the crowd no feel good results. The way they get to the PPV and have heels retain their belts by some lame countout nonsense. The babyface can never get a damn win at the PPV! The way they had Hunter and Steph come out every week and berate the crowd and the crowd's favourite wrestlers for being stupid little marks for years up until very recently. The way they push a guy like Roman seemingly to spite people. The way they take an insanely popular dude like Enzo and have him be completely annihilated by a guy like Cass because one is 7ft tall and one isn't. The way they have insanely popular girls like Bayley and Sasha and have no idea what to do with them except beat them over and over and over. And so on.

 

You combine all of that heel-heavy, disappointment-heavy booking with the general drag of three hour Raws and endless television that feels like it all runs together and it's all just...tiresome. There's no joy in watching at the moment. Wrestling should be fun - it should feel like fun - or else why waste our time with it? I need that joy and I'm not getting it from the main roster anymore outside of Fashion Police skits.

 

Agree with a lot of this, although, I feel like wrestling bookers/companies for decades have enjoyed frustrating the paying customer and continue to do so - not just WWE. In terms of a chase and building heat, cheap wins/DQs/run ins/heel tactics can all be helpful points on a bigger journey, the key is knowing when to cash in and let the face go over or win the big one at the right time. Too many times, you get a cheap ending, justified as building heat, when the time is right for a payoff. I think I remember Will talking about it on either one of the reaction shows or Dangerous Alliance podcasts, but the problem a lot of the time with wrestling is that there aren't enough feel good moments when you really think about it. Obviously it would be boring - and it would turn the crowd off - if babyfaces always won against the odds, but the art of sending home crowds happy and giving them something...anything....to cheer about or get behind often just isn't there.

 

Even when someone does get that big moment, or there is something that genuinely makes people happy, it's so quickly moved on from or taken away from them. I know that's a bit the nature of the beast with wrestling not being in seasons or having down time, but fans being able to revel in the success of a hero or feel good moment might help people to feel more invested and make dodgy/controversial finishes have more impact.

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I look at how Goldberg was booked in the first month or so of his return and I think if Reigns is booked like that (obviously not identically but in the same vein) he wouldn't have the mixed reaction issue, at least not to the same extent. Goldberg in his opening promo came across as a bigger ass-kicking cool badass babyface than Reigns and all his "I am THE guy" promos.

 

So I guess the company does know how to book babyfaces and make them look badass instead of geeks or losers who cannot hang with the evil heels, but..they choose not to do that with Reigns and co.? I dunno, it is very weird. I really like Goldberg, but Reigns is a significantly better worker than he is, and yet he has never looked as good as Goldberg was booked to look, even without the surprise squashes.

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It is a balancing act, and of course heels have to build heat. But even heels dominating can be fun and exciting. When fans can tell their moment is coming, they are usually willing to be patient and go along for the ride. When it's questionable or obvious that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, that's a different story.

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I wonder what the reason is/was. It can't cost that much to produce, right? Was there issues with travel for talent and staff? Do the numbers show that Talking Smack does worse than putting on a random PPV in terms of live Network viewers?

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It's so fucking weird and telling that so many of you chose to go on rants about Reigns to deflect from talking about how fucking great RAW was this week, at least on HULU. Joe fucking killed it, The Revival return ruled, Big Show comes out to teach Big Cass a lesson and fucking owns his m one may with some amateur shit before kicking the shot out of him until Cass takes a powder in an angle I now really want to see play out hopefully, and the storytelling involved was great, and lots of truly great tv. It's the best RAW I've seen in a long time and yet, "Roman Reigns , have we ever blathered on about him before? "

 

"Ye..."

 

"No? Well, sit right back. I prepared a PowerPoint presentation."

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Our old friend rovert is now claiming on twitter that they are building towards Charlotte v Rousey

 

Charlotte has been pretty lackluster since she got moved to Smackdown.

 

She was like always on top on Raw and the PPVs but since the move to Smackdown she hasent been noticable at all.

 

Cant stand Charlotte but why did creative go this way instead of doing what they had done on Raw?

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