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Post by Another 8MWR Tag Champion on Jan 30, 2022 0:40:37 GMT -5
A MARYSE MATCH WAS THE BEST MATCH OF THE NIGHT LMAOOOOOOOO
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Post by Red Pirate Rogers on Jan 30, 2022 6:36:08 GMT -5
I am admittedly a lapsed fan returned during the pandemic, but I do not get Brock Lesnar. Every time he shows up I feel like I did when Hogan showed up in the early 90s...welp..he'll probably win unless he gets interference (and if he gets interference I'll hear about it for months building to another show)
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Post by Slashmaster on Jan 30, 2022 15:18:02 GMT -5
The show peaked with Seth's entrance and it was all downhill from there. At least I made it all the way through the show this time, so it was better than Day 1.
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Post by Pierre The Enormous on Jan 30, 2022 17:48:21 GMT -5
My friend and I watched together and we raged when Naomi came out right after Cameron's elimination
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Post by Duke Mongoose on Jan 30, 2022 20:34:08 GMT -5
My brother summed it up pretty well:
“WWE isn’t a wrestling company anymore. They are the equivalent of a clickbait YouTuber. Gotta get them views!”
I’m just curious as to why every active woman on the main roster was in the Rumble EXCEPT for Xia Li. They’ve really done her dirty since calling her up from NXT.
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Post by Skullgore on Jan 31, 2022 0:26:53 GMT -5
My brother summed it up pretty well: “WWE isn’t a wrestling company anymore. They are the equivalent of a clickbait YouTuber. Gotta get them views!” They haven’t exactly hid that their not a pro wrestling company. They’re sports entertainment; they are “content creators.” How they completely dismantled NXT should make it abundantly clear that if you want a pro wrestling product, you should look elsewhere. They want to make all their own talent by scratch? Great. Doesn’t affect me because I stopped watching (save a couple shows; more on that below) several years ago. Now they can stop taking some of my favorite pro wrestlers to make their mediocre sports entertainment. The pro wrestling field looks like it is getting more fertile. Hopefully, in the next few years we’ll see a couple new places where pro wrestlers can make a living wage wrestling full time. The last WWE PPV I watched live was the 2020 Royal Rumble. I think if you only watch one or two WWE events a year, you choose the Rumble and/or WrestleMania. Of course, the Men’s Rumble that year was excellent and the Women’s was serviceable. It only took them a year to make the product so unappealing that I only watched the 2021 ones after the fact with friends. This year’s Rumbles looked like dog shit on paper and boy does it seem like it that is exactly how it went down. As far as the outcome goes, I don’t think it could be worse than the “lol, fuck you” end of the 2015 Rumble, but it seems like it was close. Even for me, that is sad. Within two years they went from a likely Top 5 Royal Rumble to having one of the worst of all time. And what will they probably do to respond to the overwhelmingly negative reaction they were met with? Double down. That has been their M.O. for the past year and I don’t expect them to deviate from that. I really don’t know who the hell they are making these shows for outside of young kids and people who have a similar IQ level. And even at that, I try to imagine being a kid now. Would WWE in 2022 hook me in like little Skullgore got 30+ years ago? I have a hard time thinking it would even be close to that. |
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Post by Dark Mauler on Jan 31, 2022 0:42:46 GMT -5
My brother summed it up pretty well: “WWE isn’t a wrestling company anymore. They are the equivalent of a clickbait YouTuber. Gotta get them views!” They haven’t exactly hid that their not a pro wrestling company. They’re sports entertainment; they are “content creators.” How they completely dismantled NXT should make it abundantly clear that if you want a pro wrestling product, you should look elsewhere. They want to make all their own talent by scratch? Great. Doesn’t affect me because I stopped watching (save a couple shows; more on that below) several years ago. Now they can stop taking some of my favorite pro wrestlers to make their mediocre sports entertainment. The pro wrestling field looks like it is getting more fertile. Hopefully, in the next few years we’ll see a couple new places where pro wrestlers can make a living wage wrestling full time. The last WWE PPV I watched live was the 2020 Royal Rumble. I think if you only watch one or two WWE events a year, you choose the Rumble and/or WrestleMania. Of course, the Men’s Rumble that year was excellent and the Women’s was serviceable. It only took them a year to make the product so unappealing that I only watched the 2021 ones after the fact with friends. This year’s Rumbles looked like dog shit on paper and boy does it seem like it that is exactly how it went down. As far as the outcome goes, I don’t think it could be worse than the “lol, fuck you” end of the 2015 Rumble, but it seems like it was close. Even for me, that is sad. Within two years they went from a likely Top 5 Royal Rumble to having one of the worst of all time. And what will they probably do to respond to the overwhelmingly negative reaction they were met with? Double down. That has been their M.O. for the past year and I don’t expect them to deviate from that. I really don’t know who the hell they are making these shows for outside of young kids and people who have a similar IQ level. And even at that, I try to imagine being a kid now. Would WWE in 2022 hook me in like little Skullgore got 30+ years ago? I have a hard time thinking it would even be close to that. Even as someone who grew up during the late Ruthless Agression/early PG eras, it’s clear that WWE has fallen off hard. |
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Post by Skullgore on Jan 31, 2022 2:45:14 GMT -5
That’s the thing. While trying to be as objective as possible, I have a hard time thinking of a point in my lifetime where WWF/WWE has been as bad as it currently is. Maybe in that “New Generation” era, especially 1995 going into 1996. A lot of the guys who’d be big in the Attitude Era were there, but they hadn’t found their groove yet - i.e. Austin, Triple H, etc. You had the nWo guys heading out the door. They really squandered some big acquisitions from WCW like Vader and Ron Simmons. And as much as it was the New Generation, they weren’t really making any new stars. Like… Ahmed Johnson? The guy was always getting injured and was very limited athletically.
I don’t know, I’ve joked for a while that the matches are the least important thing to WWE. Now the joke is, “They are probably going to get rid of the wrestling matches next.” And even then I’m maybe only half joking? It used to be that they had to sell you into buying PPVs and attending house shows. Between the Saudi blood money and the Peacock deal, they are in no immediate danger of seeing their profits drop significantly. Even solely from a PR perspective, it makes no sense to me that they are taking this much heat lately and they not only are not addressing the criticism, but they are just that dog saying, “This is fine,” as the house burns down around them. I get it, they are most likely focused on selling the company above all else, but does tanking the product really make it a compelling long-term investment? I guess this is late-stage capitalism at work which only conjures up feelings of nihilism for me. And that’s why I’ve given up on that company. If wrestling stops being fun, then what’s the point? And pro wrestling is doing just fine to me. I’ve got Stardom, I’ve got AEW, and there are dozens of other companies making good pro wrestling all just a few clicks away.
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Post by Dyno on Jan 31, 2022 9:39:23 GMT -5
I was so down on the Rumble going in as am completely disillusioned by the current product WWE offer, even more so with what they've done to NXT.
However:
The non-Rumble matches aside from Lynch v Niven were really well booked (especially considering the late changes at Day One due to Roman testing positive). From a UK standpoint, I was really looking forward to Lynch v Niven so even there I can forgive the poor lead-up as it's a match I simply wanted to see (and want to see more of). I thought all four non-Rumble matches, aside from the ending of Roman/Rollins, were solid 3 star matches.
It was the Rumbles themselves I was down on...the mens field was more akin to the ones early on when there were a lot of fillers with tag team guys who were never going to win. It's all good seeing the "legends" return in the Women's rumble but aside from the Bellas, Mickie, Lita and McCool the rest were made to look like nothing (especially Milena).
McIntyre was a nice surprise and he became my pick to win (and go on to face Lashley) but when Lesnar's music hit there was only one winner...and from a booking standpoint it made sense. Same with the women's, it's great seeing Rousey back but as soon as her music hit there was only one winner.
Not all was bad though...the little "pay off" with Mickie, McCool and Lita was nice, as was Mickie coming out not only with the Impact title, but her entrance music too.
But yeah, as far as Rumbles go, these were both mostly forgettable.
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Post by Thumper Moore III on Jan 31, 2022 9:47:06 GMT -5
That’s the thing. While trying to be as objective as possible, I have a hard time thinking of a point in my lifetime where WWF/WWE has been as bad as it currently is. Maybe in that “New Generation” era, especially 1995 going into 1996. A lot of the guys who’d be big in the Attitude Era were there, but they hadn’t found their groove yet - i.e. Austin, Triple H, etc. You had the nWo guys heading out the door. They really squandered some big acquisitions from WCW like Vader and Ron Simmons. And as much as it was the New Generation, they weren’t really making any new stars. Like… Ahmed Johnson? The guy was always getting injured and was very limited athletically. I don’t know, I’ve joked for a while that the matches are the least important thing to WWE. Now the joke is, “They are probably going to get rid of the wrestling matches next.” And even then I’m maybe only half joking? It used to be that they had to sell you into buying PPVs and attending house shows. Between the Saudi blood money and the Peacock deal, they are in no immediate danger of seeing their profits drop significantly. Even solely from a PR perspective, it makes no sense to me that they are taking this much heat lately and they not only are not addressing the criticism, but they are just that dog saying, “This is fine,” as the house burns down around them. I get it, they are most likely focused on selling the company above all else, but does tanking the product really make it a compelling long-term investment? I guess this is late-stage capitalism at work which only conjures up feelings of nihilism for me. And that’s why I’ve given up on that company. If wrestling stops being fun, then what’s the point? And pro wrestling is doing just fine to me. I’ve got Stardom, I’ve got AEW, and there are dozens of other companies making good pro wrestling all just a few clicks away. We can always count on Skullgore to have a well stated and well thought out opinion. 👍🏻 Nothing is going to change with them unless those ten figure TV deals turn into nine figure TV deals. And that won’t happen until Fox and NBC/Universal decide that based on viewership, which will likely not happen with the changes coming to Nielsen in the near future (they’re moving toward commercial views rather than “ratings”, and I see WWE doing Picture in Picture (a la AEW) to keep viewers around during commercials). In most sports products, natural breaks in the action occur, and you know how long nothing will happen— 90-120 seconds between innings, or a 90 second timeout in the NFL. You can flip away, and have a reasonable expectation of when to flip back. AEW is ahead of the curve in this, with PiP for Guevara’s cue cards or for 2-3 matches keeping the action going during commercial breaks. WWE will follow suit soon, because they may no longer know how to do a wrestling show, but they sure know how to extract every last dollar from fans and advertisers. That being said, even in the Attitude Era, WWE was not putting out 25 minute bangers every week like WCW’s Cruiserweight division could. They won due to larger than life personalities and some horrible self-inflicted wounds by WCW, like the Fingerpoke of Doom, the championship reset, giving away Hogan v Goldberg for free on Nitro, and the botched endings to Sting v Hogan and Goldberg v DDP. I’m just saying that WWE is the same company now and then. The only thing that’s changed is 20 years of running unopposed has made it less necessary to push the envelope, and they will never change as long as VKM is in charge and the money keeps flowing. |
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Post by Dyno on Jan 31, 2022 10:07:12 GMT -5
NXT has been doing PiP for as long as AEW, so WWE can do it.
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Post by Duke Mongoose on Jan 31, 2022 12:20:46 GMT -5
Didn't Raw or Smackdown have PiP breaks but the network told them to stop? I seem to remember that.
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Post by Penguino on Feb 1, 2022 12:05:54 GMT -5
Everything wrong by about the rumble
the ending of Rollins vs reigns
the ending of the mens rumble
they should’ve had miz and Maryse win
make the surprise entry smack someone across the face for once. seriously though they need to give the shockers a chance to come in like to was happy when Ivory came out and then 5 seconds later I was pissed
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Post by joshdoingthings on Feb 19, 2022 8:36:25 GMT -5
My brother summed it up pretty well: “WWE isn’t a wrestling company anymore. They are the equivalent of a clickbait YouTuber. Gotta get them views!” I’m just curious as to why every active woman on the main roster was in the Rumble EXCEPT for Xia Li. They’ve really done her dirty since calling her up from NXT. Speaking of Xia Li, in an old Journey of Wrestling save I did a bit back now, I basically turned her into a top woman’s star. Then I got a bit bored of the save and moved on to the attitude era save. I haven’t paid to get more game slots and stuff, something I should really do actually, so I couldn’t leave it there and go onto another one. [Here used to be me rambling on about JoW but I deleted it because it went really off topic. The tangent went in a tangent] |
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Post by Benedict.B.Batslice on Feb 21, 2022 16:50:44 GMT -5
I’m kinda just stuck watching wwe I can’t get into aew just feels (to me at least) as the wrestling equivalent of a spiteful ex I enjoy mlw but it’s just too short I can’t watch njpw due to having to pay to watch it but I watched a wk but I couldn’t get into it I guess I prefer a polished show a polished pile of crap but hey-ho it’s what I’ve watched religiously (mostly out of habit) for the last decade
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