One-dimensional and corny are not remotely similar concepts. The idea that Batista "wasn't very interesting" is IWC groupthink propaganda. How the fuck was he so popular if he wasn't interesting at all? Want to talk about hypocrites? Anyone singing Cena's praises in the face of any criticism while throwing Batista under the bus in such a way certainly seems like a hypocrite to me. Maybe Batista wasn't interesting to you but that is where it ends.
I fail to see how Cena is one dimensional and Batista is. Speaking of IWC groupthink...
Batista was the guy that overpowered is opponent until he won, which is why his best feuds were with guys that were huge like him, namely Cena and Undertaker. However, when he wasn't feuding with one of those guys, he was dull because we all knew what was going to happen.
Cena has proven time and time again that he can adapt his style to anyone else's, which makes him one of the most deep guys on the roster. Great match with Shawn Michaels? Yeah, but who doesn't have one of those? Triple H? Sure does, but Triple H has been around a while. How about one of the best matches ever with CM Punk? Not many people can say that. Or how about solid matches with Orton, Sheamus, Miz, and the list goes on.
It is sad when people do not know the difference between a contributing factor and something being the only reason. You think he got handpicked by Flair and HHH soley because he made the correct type of small talk? Like him or not his spot was clearly justified once he got there.
It's a pretty well known fact that he was on the verge of getting released before he buddied up with Triple H, and then he was in evolution. I can't speak for the masses, but it seemed to me that he continuously benefited from working with the top guys on the card throughout his career. He wasn't exactly a self-made man... by any means.
He says he can't connect with it. What is so hard to understand about that? You have already admitted the product is different now than it was earlier in his career. What is so incomprehensible about him preferring the way it was opposed to the way it is. I don't know why you cling to this idea that he is only talking about storylines or characters.
I suppose the idea of him contributing to the PG Era for the majority of his career and then claiming it's unwatchable when he left the WWE is kind of hard to swallow. I wonder if he felt the WWE was unwatchable in the PG Era years he was wrestling during. Somehow I doubt it.
You did not refute ideas. You did mention something on that idea but the others you just went on rants about how you disliked him or other equally irrelevant things.
I countered the one point he had, which is that the guys don't pay their dues anymore which is why the audience doesn't find them believable. That's really the only point he has. Everything else he says is just obscure statements about how he doesn't watch the product anymore.
I don't think it is crazy to say that a top guy should have some intimidation factor. You don't have to be a roid freak to have some intimidation factor about your character. It isn't particularly common for a top guy to lack this quality even if he is working the dirty heel tactics. You have to admit WWE has skewed way away from size matters with their next generation. I am not a size elitist but the look is an undeniable part of the all-around package.
One of the best top guys of all time lacked the intimidation factor. Nobody feared that Ric Flair was going to destroy their hero. In fact, they were all confident that their hero had what it took to take down Ric Flair. But in the end, Flair always found a way to pull out a victory.
Look is a part of the all-around package, but the Batista look wouldn't have worked for a Ric Flair type of heel. This is classic heel booking, make the heel look weak so people buy the PPV to see the hero win, but then the hero doesn't win. A Batista type look doesn't exactly instill confidence in the face's fans.
So now any former star wrestler that critiques the product is self-involved? What is so terribly wrong with saying how you feel opposed to being a company yes man because you desperately still need any money they will give you?
No, that's just you being overly defensive of Batista. Not every star that criticizes the product is self-involved,
Batista is self-involved. Have you seen some of the shit that he says in his biography? How he cheated on his wife while she had cancer because she didn't have the energy to bang him? He doesn't see fault with what he did there. That's what we call a self-involved person.
If there isn't much logic to it then all the more reason to make the talent prove it over a longer period of time before thinking it means something. Why not figure out if people are going to get tired of seeing the guy before you commit to him as a top guy? How many times has WWE made this mistake over the past few years? It is why the value of the main event has been rundown in the company because almost none of these flavors of the month are sticking. I haven't been watching but I get the feeling that saying Mark Henry has been booked poorly recently is ridiculous.
1) I wouldn't say that "almost none of these flavors of the mouth are sticking," but it certainly is a problem, especially with three of their last five Money in the Bank winners. The WWE screwed the pooch on Swagger and Bryan, but I think Del Rio never really had it. Luckily, all is not lost for Bryan yet, but the WWE should have definitely slowed their roll on the other two.
2) Mark Henry's booking lately hasn't been ridiculous? What self-respecting monster gets himself DQ'd from a Title match? What self-respecting monster walks away in fear from his opponent? When they started this monster heel push for him he was confident, he could put anyone in his Hall of Pain. Now he's using cheat tactics to get the upper-hand on Big Show.
I am not saying freedom is tied to toughness. I am saying paying dues did build toughness. When WWE heavily limits freedom there is not much you can do to go above and beyond so we never see the benefit of it. I guess I am likening the WWE environment now to a Communist economy. Where is the motivation for innovation? They might really want that spot but if they have no choice but to do as told then we see no benefit from it. The biggest way people maintain their spots now is being WWEs bitch off the screen. That might help their business but it doesn't do shit for the quality of the product. All I am advocating is putting some of those efforts back on to the actual show
I think Zack Ryder disproves your theory right away, as well as the fact that Randy Orton was never big into politicking, as well as the fact that WWE creative requests that stars approach them with storylines. The guys that get ahead in the WWE are the ones that give the WWE reasons to push them, not the guys that take a ticket and wait in line.
If the performers do well in the ring and on the mic, they get to move up. That's how it works in the WWE, TNA, WCW... that's the way it's always been. Now all of these companies are guilty of pushing guys that haven't panned out, some for good reasons and some for bad, but just as it's true for the individual superstar to try to make their own breaks, the company has to try to make their own breaks as well.
Tying all of that back to Batista... Batista definitely falls into the latter category. Batista couldn't make his own break, so he snuggled up with some of the company's top guys and they helped the WWE make him into The Animal. For him to complain that guys haven't paid their dues anymore when he got to the top because he was buddies with Trips and Flair is hypocritical.
I don't know why Batista can't connect with it, but like I said before, I reckon it's because he is no longer part of the company. Batista has always been self-involved, and I doubt he would have been singing this song when he was in the WWE, or even just after he left. Notice he waited just until we had all forgotten about him to start giving his insight on the professional wrestling.
