Enough Hot Potato Already

[ShinChan]

Have a look at what KB wrote.

https://wrestlingrumors.net/kbs-review-we-get-it-already/

I agree with what He said. The constant change of title has made every past title change less special and more common.

Still, what's done is done. We can't change anything now but Sasha should have a longer reign now. If she drops the title again, I don't think that it would be right even if they both have a 5 star match.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Have a look at what KB wrote.

https://wrestlingrumors.net/kbs-review-we-get-it-already/

I agree with what He said. The constant change of title has made every past title change less special and more common.

Still, what's done is done. We can't change anything now but Sasha should have a longer reign now. If she drops the title again, I don't think that it would be right even if they both have a 5 star match.

Just read the whole article and i couldn'T agree more with him. Everybody is been hyping this as the best women's feud of all time which is not. Me, i actually use to trish stratus vs Lita feud as an exemple in one of my comments because i thought it made more sense to use that. Just look at how the feud was build from the beginning of their careers to the end when trish retired. That how a great feud is supposed to be book in my opinion. While i like the in ring ability of both women's, this feud is lazy booking 101. The creative team knows that these 2 can have great matches so they just give them the stupid rematch clause gimmick, put a stipulation in they're match and do the title change so that they can continue the feud by doing the same dumb thing. It's like they don'T have confidence in the other women'S on raw to be able the deliver a great match or something. They have Bayley, Nia Jax, Alicia Fox, Dana brooke, Emma is still waiting to make her return which i think is been delayed because of this feud. Tamina is supposed to be added to the raw roster when she comes back. You got so many talented women's on the raw roster and it would be so easy for them to put the spotlight on some of them and build them up as challengers instead of rehashing the same old crap every three week. But what's done is done i guess, wouldn'T be surprise if they do a rematch at roadblock in another stipulation match these 2 haven'T done, charlotte wins the belt back again because wwe wants to protect both girls so they are doing 50/50 booking and the feud continue until they ran out of idea for stipulation matches for these 2.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Have a look at what KB wrote.

https://wrestlingrumors.net/kbs-review-we-get-it-already/

I agree with what He said. The constant change of title has made every past title change less special and more common.

Except that is his and your opinion. As much as i am happy to see that his is getting an opportunity for people to see his writing, opinions like yours ans his don't resonate with WWE's target audience for Raw. Raw was not a great show yet it did good numbers and the third hour shockingly didn't lose many viewers. This despite all the previous title changes that are getting so many complaints in this thread. This despite Aaron Rodgers and smark central Philadelphia playing on Monday Night Football. This despite no Goldberg or Lesnar.

Fans are tuning in for Sasha and Charlotte and they continue to put on good to great matches that are leaving a legacy that people will talk about. Even if that talk has terms like 'hot potato' that make people feel smarter about their wrestling knowledge, it will be talked about.

Did you really not enjoy that match? Did you really not enjoy that submission?

 

[LBGetBack]

A few thoughts:

- This feud has been great because of the matches. People love to nitpick, but ultimately the matches are what matter the most. These two have produced good to great matches everytime.

- I like the back and forth nature of the feud. It has made the match results unpredictable. As an adult fan in this era, I feel like I usually know who will win....and I'm usually right. This feud has completely stumped me multiple times, to where I had absolutely no idea who would win the falls count anywhere Raw match.

- I like the way they are presented as equals who keep one-upping each other. Charlotte won in Boston, Sasha won in Charlotte AND got props from Charlottes dad.

- WWE as usual, has tried to force the narrative they are going for, i.e. the "revolution". Hey, look it's the first time women are main eventing a PPV! First hell in a cell! Main eventing Raw! They treat the audience like idiots by saying things they already know 500 times per show.

- Sasha's mic work has suffered because she's focused on talking about the women's revolution so much. Sasha can talk. She can cut a promo, she can get the crowd behind her or against her, and she can build a feud. I feel like she's been held back by the material. I think she will shine on the mic when she goes heel, which hopefully will happen down the road a bit when she turns on Bayley. It will be great. Charlotte took awhile to find herself on the mic....and needed WWE to stop forcing stupid, corny narratives on her to start shining.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

A few thoughts:

- This feud has been great because of the matches. People love to nitpick, but ultimately the matches are what matter the most. These two have produced good to great matches everytime.

- I like the back and forth nature of the feud. It has made the match results unpredictable. As an adult fan in this era, I feel like I usually know who will win....and I'm usually right. This feud has completely stumped me multiple times, to where I had absolutely no idea who would win the falls count anywhere Raw match.

- I like the way they are presented as equals who keep one-upping each other. Charlotte won in Boston, Sasha won in Charlotte AND got props from Charlottes dad.

- WWE as usual, has tried to force the narrative they are going for, i.e. the "revolution". Hey, look it's the first time women are main eventing a PPV! First hell in a cell! Main eventing Raw! They treat the audience like idiots by saying things they already know 500 times per show.

- Sasha's mic work has suffered because she's focused on talking about the women's revolution so much. Sasha can talk. She can cut a promo, she can get the crowd behind her or against her, and she can build a feud. I feel like she's been held back by the material. I think she will shine on the mic when she goes heel, which hopefully will happen down the road a bit when she turns on Bayley. It will be great. Charlotte took awhile to find herself on the mic....and needed WWE to stop forcing stupid, corny narratives on her to start shining.

Personally, if you're read some of my comment on that subject, you will know that i'm not a fan of this feud mostly because of 2 reasons in particular.

1. they've been feuding on and off since wrestlemania and have been on every raw women's title match on every raw and duel brand ppv since the brand split except for survivor series which leave not place for any of the other woman on the raw roster.

2. the results have become predictable because of the lazy booking of it. While the matches are great, i can't denied that, i tend to tone out because when they do a match on PPV, i know that charlotte is winning and same goes on raw. just to give you an exemple, i never watch the last hour of raw because i need to get up early for work the following day so i tend to pvr the last hour of the show. So last week, when i found out that the title match was the main event of the show, my first thought was, wouldn't it be funny if they are stupid enough to booked the same finish three times in a row and sasha wins the belt again. So i woke up the next morning and open my tablet to watch my e-mail and i see a notification from the wwe apps notifying me that sasha won the belt again and i started laughing and thinking that, yeah they we're stupid enough to give the belt back to sasha again.

The other thing that i think make even less sense in this feud is why is dana brooke never around during these matches, she's supposed to be the sidekick of sasha but for some strange reason, the only time she's not there is during those matches and last week excuse for why she wasn'T there was the weakest one in my opinion because she must be really weak if all it took was her getting slam into the stairs to explain why she didn'T come back for the rematch especially in a fall count anywhere setting.

But, i agree with you on some thing like how the fact that they have to plug the revolution stuff as hurt this feud and sasha is a better promo then what she's shown on tv especially as a heel character and that the match we're great even with the lazy booking and the forced narrative surrounding it but this feud needs to end after roadblock and it need something that it didn't have in a long time, a surprising ending of sasha retaining the title against charlotte at the ppv because raw as too many talented women'S wrestlers being wasted because these 2 are taking all the place with this feud.

Until this feud end, i will continue to enjoy the smackdown women's division which as become my favorite thing in wwe right now because of it's un predicbility and the great promos cut by all the girls involves in feuds right now on smackdown.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

So a great thread. Calling it hot potato is perfect, It wouod have not gotten as many dummies if you would have called it "Stop doing what you have always done to build a point and a storyline that can transend 20016 into different years".

Rock -Mankind-Rock-Mankind-Rock Dec 98-Feb 99)
Triple H -Rock-Triple H-Rock (Jan 2000 - July 2000)
Triple H -Orton - Triple H (1 night)
Orton -Cena-Orton-Cena (June 2009- Dec 2009)
Orton -Bryan-Orton- Bryan (Aug 2013- Oct 2013)

WCW
Savage-Flair-Savage-Flair (Nov 95- Feb 96)

Learn your wrestling, this has been the way things work. When you have two top talents that are clearly above the rest you build a fued by swapping back and forth.
When they swap back and forth a fued can keep moving forward, if you have a 1 off or even a two off (Goldberg -Lesnar) that isn't a fued that is one dominate force beating a not so talented force. It is like this in every sport. 49ers-Cowboys was a fued it went back and forth for 6 plus years.....Now the 49ers suck and Cowboys are dominate, this is no longer a fued.

Then you look at the other talent Bayley (fan favorite) but not so good in the ring. The fans don't know jack crap....this is why they voted for a clown like Sara Lee and Mandy who is already ring ready is showing why she was the easy choice. The clowns of the WWE universe have no clue and don't really see the bigger picture.

Banks not winning at PPV makes he winning at a PPV that much bigger, As it does the same for Charolette who has never lost a PPV title match. Think about the undertaker, the fans didn't see 21-0 coming back when the man won his first PPV, WWE proably didn't even see it until he was 5-0 or even 10-0.

It is building a foundation. Bayley is far from the top 10, Jax is just a big Beach, Brooke is a clown shoe. Most of the women from the divsion on RAW lack depth, smackdown has most of the talent and still most feel new, if you didn't watch NXT.

Not seeing the storylines progress from NXT to Smackdown or Raw is like watching the new walking dead season and never seeing any previous seasons. To you those who died this season were special to you from past seasons, and new watchers will never understand. Now if you did watch NXT and saw how things unfolded and your still but hurt about teh same wrestling trends that that carried the company for years......Stop watching.

This is spot on. People bitch about everything. I'm tired of it being cool to bitch. Feud is one sided? bitch. Feud is even? People bitch. Long title reign? People bitch. Back and forth reigns (which is pretty realistic)? People bitch.

Learn your history like he said. I used to think Bayley was top 5 like a lot of people, but the more I watch, I think she's more like HHH. She's not top 5, but she elevates herself when she's in the ring with a top 5. She doesn't elevate the other women though. I like Bayley a lot, don't get me wrong, but Charlotte/Banks is gold.

first of all, i love how all your examples are from either from the last couples of years or during the attitude era and are all feuds that nobody really remember or cares to revisit.

Having said that, you really should watch some older wrestling that happened before the attitude era, when you we're still able to tell a story without being force to do lazy booking like they are doing with this feud or all the feud you mentioned as example. I know that wrestling and it's fans have chance since the 80's and early 90's but the fundamental on how to booking are great feud are still the same. Have your babyface chase the champion, fail, get back up, go through some obstacles to get your rematch and then on PPV you go and have you babyface challenger beat your heel champion. That'S wrestling booking 101 and that's how a memorable feud is build. Then after the babyface champion won the belt, the heel champion gets his or her rematch and fail and you move on with another challenger until it's time to revisit this feud.

Right now, this feud could have been so much more if book correctly because while they have done some great matches, it'S just that a series of great matches and they are position as the 2 women's that are getting all theses groundbreaking stipulation matches and main event and you're not really connecting with neither character. From what i've heard from somebody that was in the crowd last night, most of the fans we're confuse about who to cheer for because they wanted to cheer for charlotte but we're kinda forced to cheer for sasha because of the ric flair dedication. So both girls aren't over, their matches are.

If it was me that was booking that match, nia jax would have interfered in the match costing sasha the championship and this would have lead to a match between sasha and nia and charlotte would have gotten into a small program with bayley and i would have keep the ultimate match between Charlotte and Sasha for wrestlemania next year. This way, you get new feud for the raw women's roster while still not really forgetting about this feud and keeping the big match for mania and you have sasha finally beat charlotte on PPV in the ultimate wrestlemania moment.

I would challenge you to go back and watch the weekly shows from the 80s. Squash, squash, interview, squash, "main event" with a mid card losing in 7 minutes to a top guy. It sucked. It was horrible. It wasn't "smart build" or "slow build". It was boring as fuck build because there were only 3 TV channels and PPV was a novelty. They could lazily drag out feuds for 6 months. You can't do that anymore, too much competition.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

This is spot on. People bitch about everything. I'm tired of it being cool to bitch. Feud is one sided? bitch. Feud is even? People bitch. Long title reign? People bitch. Back and forth reigns (which is pretty realistic)? People bitch.

Learn your history like he said. I used to think Bayley was top 5 like a lot of people, but the more I watch, I think she's more like HHH. She's not top 5, but she elevates herself when she's in the ring with a top 5. She doesn't elevate the other women though. I like Bayley a lot, don't get me wrong, but Charlotte/Banks is gold.



I would challenge you to go back and watch the weekly shows from the 80s. Squash, squash, interview, squash, "main event" with a mid card losing in 7 minutes to a top guy. It sucked. It was horrible. It wasn't "smart build" or "slow build". It was boring as fuck build because there were only 3 TV channels and PPV was a novelty. They could lazily drag out feuds for 6 months. You can't do that anymore, too much competition.

I don't have to go back because I live it. That's the era that I started watching wrestling and that's was my era that I miss and sometimes wish would come back because wrestling wasn't as scripted as it is today. You had performers that could tell stories and didn't need to have everything scripted for them and could improv with their promos. The build we're better in the 80's because you had less product and less ppv which meant that everything felt special and fresh because you had less star vs star matches. You only see them on saturday*night*main event and in the opening match of superstars. That it. The guys didn't need to do all thoses highs spot to please the fans and it was all about the stories told by the wrestlers instead of the moves like it is today. The fans actually believe that this was real back then and it made the show better compares to today's fans which are smarters and would rather cheer for the performance of a wrestler then believe in the character and react to the character.

So maybe you find it boring, that's your choice, but unless you live through it you can't really realize how great this era was. I miss this era of wwe so much because back then they had the luxury to think a couple of months ahead and not do the lazy booking like they are doig today.

 

[#tamale]

There is a clear distinction between hot potato and hot feud(s):

Between October 1996 to August 1998 Rock, HHH, Austin, and Owen Hart were constantly seeking the Intercontinental Championship. Between the 4 of them there were 8 title changes exclusively to them. This was not hot potato with the Intercontinental Championship. This was 3 future superstars and a solid upper midcarder fighting for a title that they felt was rightfully theirs as they built themselves for the main event.

Between October 1998 to October 1999 the Intercontinental Championship was switched 11 times between 9 different wrestlers. Ken Shamrock, Val Venis, Road Dogg, Goldust, The Godfather, Jeff Jarrett (3 times), Edge, D'Lo Brown, and Chyna. That is playing hot potato with the championship.

The Sasha/Charlotte feud falls into the first category. They fought over a championship that each felt they rightly deserved and in the end their characters benefited greatly from it. It helped establish Sasha in terms of recognition among the fans as well as being the top face, and it showcased how great Charlotte was as the champion and leader of a division that up until 2015 was dead. That's the clear benefit.

 

[Greg4WWE]

I am thinking Sasha goes on to feud with Jax? Charlotte with Bayley as the Dana Brook turn keeps slowly building.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

So what a segment last night was, that kinda shows how they really ran out of ideas for this feud when they rehash a segment they did in may and it was even better. with the exception of sasha coming to ric flair aid and getting laid out, that was pretty much the same segment.

that's kinda why i really hope that this ironman match will be the last chapter in this feud and both girls can move on to different feud after this match because the last couples of month for me as been so predictable and boring.

Before i get some respond like i did in previous post i did on this subject, i just want to explain something that might make you guys understand the reason i find this feud boring and predictable and i write that it'S pretty much lazy booking.

Since i started watching WWE(F) wrestling in the late 80's, i always was fascinated by the storytelling that these characters we're telling in the ring. I'm always be somebody that couldn'T care less if the wrestlers had a 5 star match in the ring, the only thing that i cares about was the storytelling going during the feud and during the matches. That what i cared about. Last year i saw a great women's match between sasha banks and bailey, where they told a great story about how bailey would do anything to win the belt from sasha and i couldn't believe how great that match was because they use old school psychology to book this match and they relied on storytelling to make this match better. The second match which was the end of the feud was as good as the first one and told a even better story and again,no gimmick were needed, not alot of high spot were needed, all they did was wrestle and tell a story throughout the match and that's why i love it. They also realize that they needed to move on from this feud and didn't milk it too long

That's what i think the sasha/charlotte feud is missing right now because of all this 50/50 booking, the feud as become predictable and that moment where your with sasha as she'S trying beat the evil charlotte is over because they blew that moment on raw back in july. So all you're left with is meaninless great matches that means nothing.

Maybe, this match at roadblock will surprise me and they will do the right thing by having sasha finally beat charlotte on PPV which is the last major surprise left to do with this feud, but i'm not really getting my hope too high that they will do the right thing and have charlotte get beat on ppv.

 

[LBGetBack]

Charlotte showed again last night that she is the best promo in the company. It's not even close really. I'd also say she's been the #1 wrestler in the company this year. She's got it all, and consistently produces every time. I'd say a pretty clear #1, and AJ Styles is the only other one I'd consider. But Charlotte is a much better promo.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Charlotte showed again last night that she is the best promo in the company. It's not even close really. I'd also say she's been the #1 wrestler in the company this year. She's got it all, and consistently produces every time. I'd say a pretty clear #1, and AJ Styles is the only other one I'd consider. But Charlotte is a much better promo.

for this era of wrestlers, i have to agree with you, she one of the best at promos which isn't saying much in today's wwe. She's becoming a great actrice and it doesn't feel like she's delivering lines anymore compare to a lot of the other talents in both division male and female but if it was another era when everything isn'T scripted for her, i doubt she would be able to improvise because you saw it again last night, when the crowd started to do the ''what'' chant, she got a little bit distracted and didn'T know how to react to it. That where i think her dad should comes in, she need to learn how to improvise and go off script when the situation demands it, like kevin owens, aj styles, john cena and chris jericho are able to do. That's probably are only flaw in her promos in my opinion, the rest is spot on and i really want to see what she'S able to do latter on when pair with somebody else.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I know i'm going to get some backlash to this but please somebody explain to me again how this feud help both girls or made the championship more prodigious.

Yes the matches we're good and they put a lot of effort into this but what was really the point of all of this? they been running in circle for half a year now and Sasha is pretty much lower then she was when this feud started since she will always be looked at as the women'S that's not able to retain her championship. She won the belt 3 times and lost it 3 times in her first title defence. Charlotte didn'T really advance either but at less she really didn'T lose ground like sasha did.

And the championship fell just like another title now because of all this flip flop title changes that really meant nothing. They might say that charlotte is a 4 time women'S champion but in my mind, it'S still a continuation of her first title reign.

I really hope that after the reaction these 2 got last night that WWE will realise that this feud is over and done with for now and move on after they give sasha her forced rematch that will help set up her next feud and give a chance for charlotte to finally move on to bayley as challenger.

 

[#hamler]

I know i'm going to get some backlash to this but please somebody explain to me again how this feud help both girls or made the championship more prodigious.

I agree with you for the most part here.

This entire feud felt as though the WWE higher ups tried way too hard to make this storyline seem like one of the all time epic feuds and I wouldn't be surprised if five years from now they're not treating it as such.

It seems as if they just couldn't wait to make history with these two; the first women's pay-per-view main event, first women's hell in a cell, iron man match, main eventing raw which is a very rare occurrence for the female division. It's like the higher ups thought they had a limited amount of time and talent and the division suffered for it.

As far as Sasha, I don't think she looks weaker compared to before. If anything, they made both women look like they are on the same level which ties back into how epic WWE wanted this feud to be.