Pawn Stars, he says. Bringing out the strawmen, I see.
Uhh, I don't think you understand what a Strawman argument is.
Your argument is that pro wrestling is just like any other TV show. Pawn Stars is a show on television, a very popular one. I could have said Pawn Stars or Big Bang Theory or Law and Order, and the point remains the same.
The WWE is not like any of them.
Pro wrestling is, in McMahon's own words, scripted, episodic, action-oriented entertainment.
And that's all true. But it's also live, makes money by selling tickets to the show and other shows, the TV show builds for a PPV, etc.
When Burn Notice is over, then the episode's story is over. They're not trying to get you to pay money to watch a show at the end of the month. They're not trying to get you to buy a ticket for a show which is not put on TV. The WWE is completely different from other TV shows.
If you don't understand this very basic truth, then I don't have much hope for you to understand anything else related to the business.
They've already tried to make Cena more sympathetic to the rest of the audience. Would they bring up his Make a Wish Foundation accomplishments and the hard work he puts into the business if they didn't want the crowd to like him? Those aren't the kinds of things you do for a character whose reactions you don't care about.
What are you talking about? You cannot be this dense.
I don't know how to break it down any simpler for you. John Cena has a certain character. Those things you mentioned are John Cena's character. The WWE mentions those things because it furthers who John Cena is. If the fans like those things and wish to cheer Cena, great. If they despise the fact Cena is a "company man", then fine. The WWE isn't trying to make fans cheer Cena, they are constantly telling the fans they can cheer Cena if they want, or boo him if they want.
Just because they show videos and say things which further Cena's character doesn't mean they care if he gets booed. As a parallel example, I run a website. I get people who tell me all the time how much they like the website, how helpful it is, etc. And that's great, I try to make the site be the best it can be. But if someone in the community doesn't like it, and thinks it's not what my site should look like, then that's fine. I don't really care, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
It's the same thing. The WWE does what they do with Cena's character. If people like it, great, they people don't, the WWE is fine with that too.
And it's not true that WWE fans don't like a stand-up guy. There are other popular archetypal babyfaces on the roster, like Mysterio.
Mysterio is old, he was around when the people who currently boo Cena were growing up. Name me a wrestler who entered the main-event after the Attitude Era was over, and played a stand-up kind of guy the entire time.
The point is that Cena/Punk was a face/face dynamic and was booked like one.
I'm not disputing that. But you can't dispute the tremendous heat in that match was not because both were faces, but because the demographic which claims to hate Cena, falls over itself when it comes to Punk.
That's the point. And Punk actually wasn't booked as a face, he was actually booked in a heelish manner, but he was saying things that the 15-25 male demographic had been saying for years, so he got cheered for it. But that is irrelevant in the grander scope of the argument.
Total bullshit, considering the amount times where he was booked as a clear cut face VASTLY outnumber the angles where he was supposed to split the crowd.
Seriously?
You just admitted the WWE puts him in angles where he is booked to "split the crowd". How does that not prove the WWE doesn't care if he gets booed? If they didn't want him to get booed, they would NEVER book him in programs where he splits the crowd.
Why are you having so much trouble understanding such a simple concept?
The only times where WWE specifically books him to split the crowd is against faces and tweeners equal to or above his caliber. throughout his whole career there have only been four people like that, and two of them are Rock and Punk.
And HHH, HBK and RVD.
So at least five that I can think of. And three of those five have come at Wrestlemania, the biggest show of the year, where the WWE makes the most money from any show all year, and the most people purchase a PPV.
So, on the show where they get the most revenue and most people watching, they've booked Cena in programs where he will split the crowd in three of the last seven Wrestlemanias. Are you ready to admit the WWE doesn't care yet?
that's like saying, "No, Pat Patterson isn't homosexual. He just prefers sexual relationships with other men."
No, it's actually nothing like that.
Either way, it's not true. Cena is pretty much the standard WWE face. He just gets a less positive reaction than the others.
And as long as the people continue to pay the WWE to watch him, the WWE doesn't give a damn. And if people are paying to watch him, how can it be a bad thing if he gets booed?
You're not making any sense, nor any headway into disproving my original statement.
Yeah, that promo was great. I distinctly remember that great February 2012 moment.
We were talking about things that happened in 2011, remember? Stay focused.
What's amusing is I was just going to let you have this one, without pointing out how ridiculous your statement was.
But how did Cena respect the Rock "last year"? From jokes about The Tooth Fairy, to the "Bringing it Via Satellite", "Cena bitch slapping Rocky trending worldwide"...nothing about that was respectful to the Rock. And that was just from 5 minutes of YouTube videos.
Cena was constantly disrespectful to Rock last year.
Not really. If he was, Rock would've never posted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-8ARolUybU this shoot vid, dissecting Cena's entire argument and even his gimmick.
Oh, so because Cena's opponent talks trash about Cena, that means that Cena wasn't booked as the company man, the hero of the WWE locker room?
Please. You're not making sense.
You also must have missed that WWE.com link I posted which acknowledged Cena's kayfabe inferiority to Rock. Here it is again:
http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2011-11-21/john-cena-needs-a-reboot
No, I saw it. I didn't read it, but I saw it. I didn't think something so stupid had to be responded to. I was just assuming you knew your argument was completely wrong, and you were throwing all the shit you could against the wall hoping something would stick.
You were serious about that?
And as we know, if WWE acknowledges it, it's most likely a work. Now you want me to think that Cena's turned the feud around totally on his own merit? Don't be a mark.
I'm a mark because I can see with my own eyes on several occasions when Cena walks to the ring getting booed, and walks out to massive cheers?
I have REALLY tried hard to be a nicer person on these forums, I really have. I told myself again the other day I need to tone things down. But you're talking like a complete idiot. There's really no other way around it. The fact you think that Cena making up nearly 20% of the WWE's revenue is a sign that his character is "bad" for business just proves how little you truly understand wrestling.
The long and short of it is this. The WWE doesn't care if Cena gets booed, as long as he makes them money. Making money is never bad for business.
Just one last thought. You're claiming the only reason Cena is getting more cheers against Rock, one of the greatest of all time (and arguably the greatest promo cutter of all time), is because the WWE has been booking him to get cheered. You're also claiming that the WWE cares that Cena gets booed. If the WWE REALLY cared that Cena got booed, and if the WWE can magically book Cena to get cheered against one of the greatest workers of all time...then why wouldn't the WWE book Cena to get cheered against everyone else? Your logic has a major gaping flaw.
The fact of the matter is that Cena is getting cheered because he's great, and the WWE doesn't care if people cheer him or not, as evident by the fact they keep putting him in situations where he is likely to be booed. It's that simple.