Hell froze over: I actually agree with something Vince Russo said

[Psykohurricane55]

The title says it all, while i'm not a fan of Vince Russo at all, in fact i really feel he's kinda the reason the WWE product and wrestling as a whole is stuck where it is right now, i still when on and listen to his interview on Sean Mooney's podcast. Mostly out of curiosity then anything else. Anyway, at some point, he said something that i feel reflect what the problem is with today's wrestling and especially WWE, they not enough modern characters on the roster and every is focus on the wrestling instead of telling a captivating story.

When i was a kid, in the 80's you had these over the top cartoon characters on T.V. every saturday morning and they were telling the stories of good vs evil. Like when Hulk hogan went on the brother love show after losing to the ultimate warrior and he got attack and taken out by earthquake or the whole savage vs hogan angle the ran a year. Those guys were telling stories with what they were doing and in the end it didn'T matter if the match was 60 minutes or 10 minutes, fans we're interested in seeing the characters act the final act of their story.

During the attitude era it was the same thing, Everything was centered around characters, if you didn'T have great characters telling a story, you wouldn't have been able to tell a story.

Now in 2018, we still get some characters, Strowman is one of the most popular one, but everything looks the same. I get it, fans like to watch long matches but if their no point to those matches why do them? Really, everybody on the roster right now, except for a few exception, look and feel the same. Nobody is able to tell a compelling story anymore and we have to get theses long boring matches every week on raw and every months on PPV. No wonder the fans are getting disinterested by the current product. Nobody stand out so we get a bunch of guys that look and talk all the same with no character development that seperate them from each other. And the same thing goes with NXT and 205 live right now. i feel like WWE is so focus in pleasing their current audience that they have forgotten what brought them to the dance in the first place, so the product is becoming more and more of a niche product because of it and less peoples are watching it because the product is boring.

Again, it's weird that something Russo said made me think of this but it did and they really need somebody with a new way of thinking to take charge and tell them that they need to change because both Vince and HHH are out of touch with what'S going on right now and i included HHH in this because he's just trying to do what Vince did in the 80's by raiding all the indy's of they're most over guys so that NXT doesn'T have any competition.

 

[Sexcellence of Sexecution]

Yeah Russo says a lot of things that makes sense. His execution of those principles as a writer is often shitty and contradictory to the principles themselves, but in terms of commentary on the television product he's not wrong very often. For example, he talks about the writing of wrestling shows needing to make sense and not "insut the intelligence" of the audience, then writes angles that make no sense and are mind numbingly juvenile and intelligence insulting. But I digress.

I'm a wrestling fan, and I enjoy wrestling matches, but not every match needs to be 20 minutes long with a million false finishes. One of the downsides of having 3 hours of RAW plus 2 hours of SmackDown every fucking week is that you have to fill a lot of that time with drawn out matches. Lengthy matches with a bunch of finishers and nearfalls belong on pay-per-view, or on network special events or whatever, when you do it constantly every week it becomes bland.

Also, matches today are rarely character driven, and often tell the same story. Most matches are "Wow, this is a war! Look at how tough these guys are! Look at the punishment they can take!" This takes the form of: big move, nearfall, both guys down, big move, nearfall, both guys down. Repeat until finish. We need more variety in the stories being told during matches, and that comes from having different, interesting, well-defined characters. In any form of storytelling, characters drive the plot.

ONe of the best WWE matches last year was Aleister Black vs. The Velveteen Dream, because it had the added dynamic of Velveteen wanting Black to say his name, and they kept coming abck to that throughout the match. Similarly, the Velveteen vs. Ohno match had the story of Velveteen trying to the KO in 30 seconds, so the fans got involved and were counting it down. Jericho/Mysterio from 2009 had spots and finishes involving Jericho targeting Rey's mask, using it to blind Rey, pulling it off. In the rematch, Rey had a second mask under is first, so Jericho's scheme backfired. It was a unique aspect of the character that played into the story of the match. I remember more from Mysterio vs. Jericho than I do from Michaels vs. Undertaker, supposedly the greatest match ever that happened around the same time. The Lesnar/Cena SummerSlam match was memorable too, because it had the story of Cena getting destroyed in a title match, something different and unexpected, but made perfect sense with Lesnar's character.

The point is, it's time to start developing gimmicks a bit more, and then actually playing up the gimmicks and using them in matches to tell different kinds of stories. It can't be the same story over and over. Different stories come from different characters.

 

[Mr.Maikeru_Sawyer]

The title says it all, while i'm not a fan of Vince Russo at all, in fact i really feel he's kinda the reason the WWE product and wrestling as a whole is stuck where it is right now, i still when on and listen to his interview on Sean Mooney's podcast. Mostly out of curiosity then anything else. Anyway, at some point, he said something that i feel reflect what the problem is with today's wrestling and especially WWE, they not enough modern characters on the roster and every is focus on the wrestling instead of telling a captivating story.

When i was a kid, in the 80's you had these over the top cartoon characters on T.V. every saturday morning and they were telling the stories of good vs evil. Like when Hulk hogan went on the brother love show after losing to the ultimate warrior and he got attack and taken out by earthquake or the whole savage vs hogan angle the ran a year. Those guys were telling stories with what they were doing and in the end it didn'T matter if the match was 60 minutes or 10 minutes, fans we're interested in seeing the characters act the final act of their story.

During the attitude era it was the same thing, Everything was centered around characters, if you didn'T have great characters telling a story, you wouldn't have been able to tell a story.

Now in 2018, we still get some characters, Strowman is one of the most popular one, but everything looks the same. I get it, fans like to watch long matches but if their no point to those matches why do them? Really, everybody on the roster right now, except for a few exception, look and feel the same. Nobody is able to tell a compelling story anymore and we have to get theses long boring matches every week on raw and every months on PPV. No wonder the fans are getting disinterested by the current product. Nobody stand out so we get a bunch of guys that look and talk all the same with no character development that seperate them from each other. And the same thing goes with NXT and 205 live right now. i feel like WWE is so focus in pleasing their current audience that they have forgotten what brought them to the dance in the first place, so the product is becoming more and more of a niche product because of it and less peoples are watching it because the product is boring.

Again, it's weird that something Russo said made me think of this but it did and they really need somebody with a new way of thinking to take charge and tell them that they need to change because both Vince and HHH are out of touch with what'S going on right now and i included HHH in this because he's just trying to do what Vince did in the 80's by raiding all the indy's of they're most over guys so that NXT doesn'T have any competition.

What atrocious spelling, grammar and sentence structure. My god it was difficult to read.
Now on topic..

It has nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with the utterly predictable booking, overly scripted promos(down to every word spoken by a wrestler) and repetitive scripted matches and story-lines.

when it comes to promos let them sink or swim the old way..bullet points to hit on in a 5 minute or however long promo done straight from the hip.

STOP. SCRIPTING. EVERY. MOVE. OF. A. MATCH. If they have a 10 minute match give them 2 or 3 (maybe even 4 depending on the participants) spots and have the rest called IN MATCH. Not the FULL MATCH practiced 8 times before the match even starts.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

What atrocious spelling, grammar and sentence structure. My god it was difficult to read.
Now on topic..

It has nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with the utterly predictable booking, overly scripted promos(down to every word spoken by a wrestler) and repetitive scripted matches and story-lines.

when it comes to promos let them sink or swim the old way..bullet points to hit on in a 5 minute or however long promo done straight from the hip.

STOP. SCRIPTING. EVERY. MOVE. OF. A. MATCH. If they have a 10 minute match give them 2 or 3 (maybe even 4 depending on the participants) spots and have the rest called IN MATCH. Not the FULL MATCH practiced 8 times before the match even starts.

First of all, not to get make a big deal or anything but I could have done without the snarky comment at the beginning. Plus It seem like you we're the only one that had a problem in reading my post so that's you're problem not mine.

Now to the topic at end, do you remember the attitude era, everything single thing was scripted back then but the difference was that the writers were working with the talents back then. Everything was as predictable back then as it is today but the difference was that you had characters that captivated the fans which you don't right now and that's as much the fault of the writers for not going to the talent and working with them as it is on the talent themselves for not trying to find a agent or producer or even one of the writers and telling them what works and what doesn't work. Talents are responsible for getting themselves over, if they don't want to fight and are happy with being told what to do then that's what you are getting in the end.

 

[JoeMallard]

First of all, not to get make a big deal or anything but I could have done without the snarky comment at the beginning. Plus It seem like you we're the only one that had a problem in reading my post so that's you're problem not mine.

Now to the topic at end, do you remember the attitude era, everything single thing was scripted back then but the difference was that the writers were working with the talents back then. Everything was as predictable back then as it is today but the difference was that you had characters that captivated the fans which you don't right now and that's as much the fault of the writers for not going to the talent and working with them as it is on the talent themselves for not trying to find a agent or producer or even one of the writers and telling them what works and what doesn't work. Talents are responsible for getting themselves over, if they don't want to fight and are happy with being told what to do then that's what you are getting in the end.

Talents are responsible to get themselves over, is that why Rusev can't seem to get a match or rarely be on tv? Oh look, Kevin Owens is at the top of his game in ring, promo and characer work, now let's have a McMahon overshadow him for the next three months, smart booking WWE... NXT doesn't tell stories, OK, the Gargano/Ciampa feud is one of the top feuds in the entire company... The writing is the problem on the main roster and when the talent gets themselves over when they're not supposed it, they get buried and taken off tv for weeks on end.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Talents are responsible to get themselves over, is that why Rusev can't seem to get a match or rarely be on tv? Oh look, Kevin Owens is at the top of his game in ring, promo and characer work, now let's have a McMahon overshadow him for the next three months, smart booking WWE... NXT doesn't tell stories, OK, the Gargano/Ciampa feud is one of the top feuds in the entire company... The writing is the problem on the main roster and when the talent gets themselves over when they're not supposed it, they get buried and taken off tv for weeks on end.

You see it being overshadowed, I see it being put in a position to shine. Owens as always been a big player in wwe because of his in ring and his character development, he's been put in a top program with Shane because of this, they don't put just anybody with Shane. So I don't get you're point here.

I agree with you on the gargano/champs story, it's one of the rare well done story in NXT but that type of booking isn't something that happens on a regular bases on the brand. Rusev isn't getting push because is popularity is too unstable right now. I get that fans want everything to happen as soon as they are popular but that's not how wrestling works. You have to be patient with certain thing and rusev is one of them. I wouldn't be surprise if they get a big push after mania.

As far as blaming the writers, I don't think they are the problem in fact, I feel that if they're was more cooperation between the wrestlers and the creative team instead, the characters would be better but we live in era where the wrestlers don't care about character work and just want to be on tv, so they accept what they are given without protesting and just cash their paycheck. The one that go out there and actually work with creative and go see Vince when they have a idea are the one getting the big push because that's what wrestling at his core is suppose to be. If you just sit there and do nothing or decide to go into business for yourself, you're going to fail. That's normal. Work within the system and if you get over then they will push you and if you fail, it's on you but in the end, the fault about who get push and who doesn't falls as much on the shoulder of the creative team as it does on the wrestlers themselves.

 

[Loveless]

For a company that supposedly focuses on entertainment and not wrestling, the WWE have an awful lot of wrestlers and not many entertainers. Some are talented enough to get away with that, AJ Styles doesn't need a gimmick for example, but so many of the other talents are little more than Generic Wrestler and what's worse is they're not allowed to become more than that (hello Rusev/Sandow/Ryder). The WWE needs to loosen it's grip a little, go back to letting talent cut unscripted taped backstage interviews and see who can make it work.

 

[Macho Mans Beard]

Yes the storytelling is bad, but then again, theres always been bad story telling in wrestling. Even during the prized Attitude Era, there were bad story lines. In fact I would say for every good story line, there was at least 2-3 bad ones during that era. You are just quick to forget because the bad stories were usually during the first hour of Raw. Then the 2nd hour (War Zone) came on and you got the majority of the story lines that are memorable to this day.

Thats where the problem is. WWE tries to hard to build a story. They have the promo for the big feud early in their shows and then the payoff later. And when you have a 3 hour long show, that promo or event that happened early in the show is long forgotten. So then they throw a snippet of what happened earlier to try to refresh your memory. But people who come in later in the show dont get to see or get the full effect of the story line.

You can build a great story by keeping it fresh and to the point. And not have the long break in between promo/match. Keep it fresh, its way more effective and memorable.

 

[HeenanGorilla]

I think Russo has a really good head for the business and even though he has churned out some clunkers, to say the least, I would welcome him or a protégé of his in a heartbeat. Yes, there have always been bad storylines in wrestling. No one watches wrestling for Sopranos- or Breaking Bad-level drama and storytelling. But there is CERTAINLY room for improvement. I remember back during the Monday Night Wars, but even further back when you would at least be excited about ONE angle progressing. Like this Kurt Angle/Jason Jordan father/son nonsense. On the surface, it is ridiculous. But with clever writing and creative progress, it could have still been interesting theater.

Things like G-TV from the AE, or Sister Abigail more recently, or the managerial "Battle for Bam Bam" back in the 80s (which did have a conclusion and was fine). None of these things were going to go down as groundbreaking. None of them were going to change the course of history. But they could have been entertaining, all the way through to a conclusion. Vince's mystery kid, the anonymous Raw GM--all of these angles can be entertaining if a) they don't drag it out FOREVER and b) they actually have a planned ending in place. Enough of this open-ended, endless wondering. Have a plan in place and go through with it. In the VERY RARE INSTANCE, that an angle takes on an unexpected life of its own an audible needs to be called, then fine--roll with it. But this constant beginning of stories, only for them to be left idling forever, it is awful!!

If you continuously have storylines, a clunker or two won't get killed as much because other storylines are also going on, or another will come along very soon. But when you put so much attention on ONE storyline and it goes NOWHERE, how could they expect people to not react so negatively?

They should put some storylines on paper. They have a HUGE roster. Throw some "on the fence" ideas at some lower-card performers. Maybe it will elevate them, or maybe it will fail....but TRY! This product is so lame and repetitive.

Ok, so random, faceless interviewer asks a bland, generic question and holds the mic. Wrestler A taunts Wrestler B with boring "smack talk" and walks away. Said interviewer looks off into the distance as Wrestler A walks away. My God, are they STILL DOING THIS?!?!?!

Then, Wrestler A gets in the ring with Wrestler B and they each go through their predictable, limited, meaningless move set while the announcers talk about something else throughout this match (remember when announcers talked about what was in front of them and not what was coming later?) False finish x 10 and then one of them wins, doesn't matter which one. Either a cheating finish or interference by someone who is seemingly uninvolved...but now there's a rematch at the next PPV. But not before two weeks of tag matches with Wrestler A and partner x vs. Wrestler B and partner Y, killing any excitement of seeing them at the PPV. PPV match...and then repeat.

How about some reason behind the interference??? Jake vs. Andre at Mania V. DiBiase comes out of nowhere and takes Damian. Mania VI - Jake vs. DiBiase. Now that is an unrealistically long time nowadays, but THAT is how you set up the next storyline. You blow off one, with the inclusion of someone else...and BAM new storyline is ready to go.

Like I said, not EVERY storyline has to be a winner, but give us SOMETHING. Who in the HELL was shocked Sasha turned on Bayley? My only surprise was that they waited so long. They pretty much paint you a picture and then pull the "swerve". In the old days it was "Oh wow!". Nowadays it's "Yep, there it is...finally."

WWE is in "if it aint broke, don't fix it" cruise control mode. And even though some of it IS broke, it's not broke enough for them to address it. Years and years of painting over mold and duct taping cracks instead of fixing the actual problem. Shame.

 

[FromGlasgow]

I have said that for a long time that what is lacking today in the WWE is characters, They do have a few and the ones they do have are quite successful but the problem is these same characters are doing things like going on social media and coming out of character too often, Characters back in the day like the Iron Sheik for example its believable that the guy was insane and I still wonder even today if he's sitting at home shooting promos on his family, friends or neighbours and telling random strangers he meets in the street of his dislike for Brian Blair or maybe thats all down to how good he was at playing his role. My point is back in the day made me question the believability but today it seems all out there and all the characters just seem like normal regular people when their not on TV.

 

[thebarber]

WWE hate anybody getting over that isnt there doing. Zack Ryder.......................
Rusev is organically over, and his days of getting the proper push are passed by.
I dont know, but I actually dont mind Vince Russo. There is plenty of merit in what he says about the current product. I do not want him back in charge mind you, I cant do 18 matches in 3 hours with no rhyme or reason but I would be happy to see anything but Roman Reigns calling a 40yo man a bitch each week. They want to impress me, let Reigns remotely try and shoot on Lesnar. The destruction of Reigns on live TV would put "bums in seats"

 

[enviousdominous]

I wouldn't give Vince too much credit. It sounds more like you were inspired to think a little more on the current state of wrestling as opposed to directly agreeing with Vince Russo. I'm pretty sure that if you sat down with him and explained why you agree with him, he'll only need ten seconds to respond with something so atrocious that you'll want to forget the encounter.

Fans' tastes evolve over time, it goes with the changing landscape of what's most important to the young adult market. The characters aren't nearly as colorful as they used to be, but they're still themselves in a big enough way to keep their loyal fanbases staying faithful. Kayfabe only works if it's done in an interestingly and believably enough way, thus you wouldn't be able to run another Ultimate Warrior vomiting due to a voodoo curse angle. These days you're taking a huge risk if you do much beyond keeping the drama relative to two athletes who want to beat each other up for status and perhaps to settle a longstanding grudge.

Out of morbid curiosity, I've listened to a few of Vince Russo's most recent monologues. It's impossible for me to pin down just what in the Hell he thinks about anything, or even if he's ever being serious about anything he's saying. The last thing I heard from him was that he was indeed a spy sent by Vince McMahon to destroy WCW.

 

[radec]

You see it being overshadowed, I see it being put in a position to shine. Owens as always been a big player in wwe because of his in ring and his character development, he's been put in a top program with Shane because of this, they don't put just anybody with Shane. So I don't get you're point here.

I agree with you on the gargano/champs story, it's one of the rare well done story in NXT but that type of booking isn't something that happens on a regular bases on the brand. Rusev isn't getting push because is popularity is too unstable right now. I get that fans want everything to happen as soon as they are popular but that's not how wrestling works. You have to be patient with certain thing and rusev is one of them. I wouldn't be surprise if they get a big push after mania.

As far as blaming the writers, I don't think they are the problem in fact, I feel that if they're was more cooperation between the wrestlers and the creative team instead, the characters would be better but we live in era where the wrestlers don't care about character work and just want to be on tv, so they accept what they are given without protesting and just cash their paycheck. The one that go out there and actually work with creative and go see Vince when they have a idea are the one getting the big push because that's what wrestling at his core is suppose to be. If you just sit there and do nothing or decide to go into business for yourself, you're going to fail. That's normal. Work within the system and if you get over then they will push you and if you fail, it's on you but in the end, the fault about who get push and who doesn't falls as much on the shoulder of the creative team as it does on the wrestlers themselves.

No stories in NXT? You've just lost. There's tons of stories on NXT. They pack as much on that 1 hour as they can, and i trust them to follow through on a storyline, unlike the main roster. Plus, colorful characters almost killed wrestling in 1995. Were the Dungeon of Doom making wrestling great again? Was The Bastion Bogger just making us gush with glee? It was only until we got reality based characters that business picked up again. Also, this Rusev Day thing has been going on for MONTHS. I think now is the time to cash in on that, and if they dont, the fire will be lost. By your logic, they should have waited a long time to push The Rock right around when he was getting popular in 1998.

Also, today's wrestlers DO go to agents, producers and writers. I hear tons of stories of wrestlers going to them, and they don't listen. Dean Ambrose is one that comes to mind. He goes to creative for plans, to make his character edgier, and they don't listen. To put the blame on the wrestlers is unacceptable, when they're finding ways to get over, but they (creative) don't wanna go through with the plan. And even when they do, they misuse it.

Btw, you contradict yourself when saying "if you get over then they will push you", when in the same comment, you were talking about Rusev and how WWE is wise for not pushing him.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Fans' tastes evolve over time, it goes with the changing landscape of what's most important to the young adult market. The characters aren't nearly as colorful as they used to be, but they're still themselves in a big enough way to keep their loyal fanbases staying faithful. Kayfabe only works if it's done in an interestingly and believably enough way, thus you wouldn't be able to run another Ultimate Warrior vomiting due to a voodoo curse angle. These days you're taking a huge risk if you do much beyond keeping the drama relative to two athletes who want to beat each other up for status and perhaps to settle a longstanding grudge.

I do agree with some points, such as Vince lightening up on the stranglehold he has over every little thing. For instance, let the talent cut promos in their own words. They do it in NXT and everything's fine, the sky doesn't fall nor do the seas boil. It's painful sometimes to listen to some talent cut promos because it's obvious that they're scripted. For instance, Ruby Riott's promo with Charlotte last night on SmackDown Live had her come off more like she was delivering some sort of lecture but in an extremely lady-like fashion. Ruby Riott is a goth/punk rocker chick who's promos shouldn't sound as though she's giving a civics lesson.

The tastes of modern fans can be extremely complicated in some ways. Some want things to be more over the top, more cartoonish in some ways, but many of those same fans will rake something over the coals when they see something like that. Whenever someone has done something over the top, something that's "larger than life", I agree that WWE takes something of a risk because, more often than not, they get crucified for it. Look at the "supernatural" aspects of Bray Wyatt, Finn Balor's "Demon King" schtick, New Day dancing around tossing pancakes, Goldust doing whatever it is he does, R-Truth's "Little Jimmy" bit from years back and you'll see tons of ridicule even though it's very much part of the over the top aspects of wrestling that people claim they want to see more of. One of the only "larger than life" elements of newer stars that's really clicked with people in a really long while has been Braun Strowman doing his thing. We've seen him flipping over ambulances, semi-trucks, pulling down scaffolding onto people, flipping parts of the stage onto people, holding up the rear end of a car to keep it from leaving, etc.. A big reason why it's worked is that there's enough realism, at least enough by pro wrestling standards, coupled with the over the top, larger than life elements to make it work. It's "realistic" to suspend disbelief for Strowman doing these things because, in real life, he's a big ol' mountain of muscle who used to be a strength athlete and strength athletes train to lift and move enormously heavy amounts of weight. From a pro wrestling standpoint, it's logical, and I use logic very loosely as you have to when you're discussing a pro wrestling angle. But when you go from something as elementally simple and primitive as a 385 lbs. Strongman competitor doing a "Hulk Smash" routine to dealing with something like three guys dancing & starting fights over pancakes or a cult leader from the swamp being possessed by the spirit of his long deceased mother figure often doesn't meet with remotely the same level of enthusiasm.

We're at a time when pro wrestling as a whole is gearing more towards simplicity in storylines, angle, booking and personas coupled with strong in-ring action. It's why NXT has thrived, it's why New Japan has grown into more prominence the past several years and it's simply the way the wind is blowing right now.

 

[enviousdominous]

I do agree with some points, such as Vince lightening up on the stranglehold he has over every little thing. For instance, let the talent cut promos in their own words. They do it in NXT and everything's fine, the sky doesn't fall nor do the seas boil. It's painful sometimes to listen to some talent cut promos because it's obvious that they're scripted. For instance, Ruby Riott's promo with Charlotte last night on SmackDown Live had her come off more like she was delivering some sort of lecture but in an extremely lady-like fashion. Ruby Riott is a goth/punk rocker chick who's promos shouldn't sound as though she's giving a civics lesson.

I think that the stigma of presenting the show live has a lot to do with the current state, I wish that I could have an editing department nix all of my daily verbal flubs.

I think Ruby's problem was more about stage fright than it was having the wording of her promos micromanaged. Presenting to an NXT crowd of barely 2,000 seems like it would be easier than presenting to a crowd of 15,000 where it only takes one douchebag tossing a beachball around to interrupt your flow.

The tastes of modern fans can be extremely complicated in some ways. Some want things to be more over the top, more cartoonish in some ways, but many of those same fans will rake something over the coals when they see something like that. Whenever someone has done something over the top, something that's "larger than life", I agree that WWE takes something of a risk because, more often than not, they get crucified for it. Look at the "supernatural" aspects of Bray Wyatt, Finn Balor's "Demon King" schtick, New Day dancing around tossing pancakes, Goldust doing whatever it is he does, R-Truth's "Little Jimmy" bit from years back and you'll see tons of ridicule even though it's very much part of the over the top aspects of wrestling that people claim they want to see more of. One of the only "larger than life" elements of newer stars that's really clicked with people in a really long while has been Braun Strowman doing his thing. We've seen him flipping over ambulances, semi-trucks, pulling down scaffolding onto people, flipping parts of the stage onto people, holding up the rear end of a car to keep it from leaving, etc.. A big reason why it's worked is that there's enough realism, at least enough by pro wrestling standards, coupled with the over the top, larger than life elements to make it work. It's "realistic" to suspend disbelief for Strowman doing these things because, in real life, he's a big ol' mountain of muscle who used to be a strength athlete and strength athletes train to lift and move enormously heavy amounts of weight. From a pro wrestling standpoint, it's logical, and I use logic very loosely as you have to when you're discussing a pro wrestling angle. But when you go from something as elementally simple and primitive as a 385 lbs. Strongman competitor doing a "Hulk Smash" routine to dealing with something like three guys dancing & starting fights over pancakes or a cult leader from the swamp being possessed by the spirit of his long deceased mother figure often doesn't meet with remotely the same level of enthusiasm.

The WWE seems to finally have a good gauge of when an idea qualifies as full on jumping the shark levels of stupidity. I think that they likely saw the second coming of The Undertaker in Bray Wyatt when his more idiotic moments were still just on paper. Comic relief like New Day is fun, but it's just redundant unless they have a fresh opponent to play their act off of. Also; I'm pretty sure that New Day weren't supposed to be comic relief until the "New Day Sucks!" chants spontaneously started.

Some of the same rules of old still apply, especially in regard to who should be allowed to base an entire gimmick off of who they are in real life. The internet gives fans all the backstory they need, so it's pretty much impossible to responsibly do something like introduce Kenny Omega as Shane's long lost brother (dear God I hope they don't read these forums).

We're at a time when pro wrestling as a whole is gearing more towards simplicity in storylines, angle, booking and personas coupled with strong in-ring action. It's why NXT has thrived, it's why New Japan has grown into more prominence the past several years and it's simply the way the wind is blowing right now.

This is an example of one of the positive aspects of social media. Vince McMahon can't just appeal to the voices in his own head for lack of another reference. When you have people incessantly sharing the thought that War Games was far and above better than Survivor Series, even he can figure out that fans prefer well-organized violence over cheesy plot twists (did anybody really care that HHH betrayed Kurt Angle?).

 

[#hamler]

Work within the system and if you get over then they will push you and if you fail, it's on you but in the end, the fault about who get push and who doesn't falls as much on the shoulder of the creative team as it does on the wrestlers themselves.

Wrong. You mentioned before fans have to be patient with guys like Rusev who have gotten over organically. Rusev is the most over act in WWE and they won't capitalize on it. Scratch that, they will, six months from now after he's on a 50 match losing streak and then you make a thread about how lame the Rusev Day gimmick is and how it sucks. Then blame Rusev for not getting over on his own without rightfully acknowledging that the WWE writers are indeed the problem.

 

[MAHGAWD]

The title says it all, while i'm not a fan of Vince Russo at all, in fact i really feel he's kinda the reason the WWE product and wrestling as a whole is stuck where it is right now, i still when on and listen to his interview on Sean Mooney's podcast. Mostly out of curiosity then anything else. Anyway, at some point, he said something that i feel reflect what the problem is with today's wrestling and especially WWE, they not enough modern characters on the roster and every is focus on the wrestling instead of telling a captivating story.

When i was a kid, in the 80's you had these over the top cartoon characters on T.V. every saturday morning and they were telling the stories of good vs evil. Like when Hulk hogan went on the brother love show after losing to the ultimate warrior and he got attack and taken out by earthquake or the whole savage vs hogan angle the ran a year. Those guys were telling stories with what they were doing and in the end it didn'T matter if the match was 60 minutes or 10 minutes, fans we're interested in seeing the characters act the final act of their story.

During the attitude era it was the same thing, Everything was centered around characters, if you didn'T have great characters telling a story, you wouldn't have been able to tell a story.

Now in 2018, we still get some characters, Strowman is one of the most popular one, but everything looks the same. I get it, fans like to watch long matches but if their no point to those matches why do them? Really, everybody on the roster right now, except for a few exception, look and feel the same. Nobody is able to tell a compelling story anymore and we have to get theses long boring matches every week on raw and every months on PPV. No wonder the fans are getting disinterested by the current product. Nobody stand out so we get a bunch of guys that look and talk all the same with no character development that seperate them from each other. And the same thing goes with NXT and 205 live right now. i feel like WWE is so focus in pleasing their current audience that they have forgotten what brought them to the dance in the first place, so the product is becoming more and more of a niche product because of it and less peoples are watching it because the product is boring.

Again, it's weird that something Russo said made me think of this but it did and they really need somebody with a new way of thinking to take charge and tell them that they need to change because both Vince and HHH are out of touch with what'S going on right now and i included HHH in this because he's just trying to do what Vince did in the 80's by raiding all the indy's of they're most over guys so that NXT doesn'T have any competition.

As I lay here suffering from insomnia and I have to get up to go to work in 4 hrs I figured Id put in my 2 cents. WWE is STALE. Its sterile. No build up for matches anymore..back in the day they would BUILD UP to a big match..today its..wrestler in ring cuts promo..wrestler comes out on stage and interrupts him..they talk smack..the GM comes out and THERES your main event for the next ppv. Also..the stage and the lighting in the arenas..the ring..all look the same. Different arenas give it more flavor. They all looked unique. Back in the day we had the Spectrum, msg, Boston garden. Now granted..all of the arenas alone are starting to look the same..but man..change things up. Make it less..Idk..movie like. Do u understand what I'm saying? Lol. Its the same thing..the same look..it just BORES ME. And the accouncers don't even call the matches anymore. The announcers like Monsoon, Solie, Ventura..they called the match like it was a sport. We all knew it was fake but let us get caught up again. They don't say.things like..hes really been softening up his leg the whole match..pretty soon he won't be able to continue. Or something like..sloppy non chalant pin..you gotta put your weight on them and really hook the leg..no way hes gonna win like that.Instead you have Cole saying things like talking about Twitter and the wwe network. Or booty os is trending world wide. IN THE MIDDLE OF A MATCH!!! You talk about the match and the match only..god that really burns me up..Go watch some msg shows in the mid 80s with monsoon commentating. And back to the arena..I have a suggestion..leave the arena lit up with the house lights when the wrestlers come out..and get rid of the freaking stage..and when the ref rings the bell..all the lights go out in the crowd and the ring is there shining all lit up with bright white lighting shining directly over the ring...they need to get back to diversity..its the same stage..the same ring..the same lighting..the same sucky commentating every week. You know you're not gonna see anything different. And the matches..well I'm not gonna get into that right now I'm finally gonna go to sleep.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The issue is more that the characters they do create are rehashes of older ones... When the Talent Initiative came in back in 2008 or whenever you had guys starting to recycle old gimmicks or cannibalise them and its still happening... Ziggler was basically Mr. Perfect then they tried to make him Shawn and now with Drew it seems to be Shawn/Diesel 2018 rather than them actually being good together. It happened less in the AE but it still was, Val Venis was just Rick Rude done TV-14, Kane was Undertaker II but some genuine characters could get through.

Since NXT it's worse... Bray was a version of Waylon Mercy and Jake Roberts, Breezango of Billy & Chuck and even now... No Way Jose is just Adam Rose done again, Tye Dillinger is like Rick Martel and Tito Santana combined and even Braun is just doing Bruiser Brody mixed with a bit of George The Animal Steele.

WWE doesn't want characters they want caricatures of previous successes and that kills talent.. Titus was clearly intended as a new Lashley type but now they have old Lashley back he is screwed. Sin Cara and Kalisto were replacing Rey and now he is back they are screwed...

Russo wasn't great at characters, he was great at caricatures... he could get a Val Venis to work for example but struggled when he actually had to write character driven stuff for guys who weren't strong personalities already. Someone like Edge would never have truly gotten over under Russo as the Rated R Superstar... he'd have been goofy or part of the Brood cos it was easy.

Someone like Shieky-baby is a great example where you couldn't miss as it was almost 100% legit... if anything he was toned down but he was from Iran, he was a legit bad ass and an asshole to boot. WWE tried it this week bringing Daivari back and it was not even a poor imitation, it was cringeworthy... Russo would have had Daivari pop a beer in Saudi as it was "edgy" but it would do nothing to get him over or develop a character.

The nearest WWE got to genuine characters in recent years are guys no longer with the company. Muhammed Hassan (I see he's wrestling again...Billy Martin time from Vince methinks) was a great character, the original Bray Wyatt was a great character, even if Cody hated it, Stardust was actually a great character...sabotaged by a talent who had no wish to do it. Russo wouldn't make those work and he'd be laughed out the building by someone like Jericho or Owens who are more creative than he ever was...

 

[XXJJ]

Times change. Can't be stuck in the past. For example, If they debut Undertakers/Kane characters in modern day wrestling everyone would be laughing at how stupid and unrealistic they are.