IWC Not Being Targeted by the E?

[Mudlup50]

I've just about had enough of this argument guys so let's break down how the WWE isn't focusing on it's hardcore fanbase.

1. The matches: Have you guys stopped and realized how much the overall wrestling has improved? Like really, there aren't that many bad wrestlers on the entire roster! Most nights we get multiple decent to good matches and about once a month they try to push us a great match.

2. Ambrose: We all know realistically Dean isn't winning at Roadblock, yet he has a title shot less than a month away from Wrestlemania. You wanna know why? Because the WWE knows the hardcore fans who haven't subscribed to the WWE network will consider doing so to see Dean get a chance at the belt. Not too mention he was in the final 2 at the Royal Rumble, fought Seth for the belt twice earlier this year and he even had an IC title run thrown in there. Plus they have him set up to fight the Beast Incarnate at Wrestlemania 32

3. Seth Rollins' title reign: We all have to realize that this was quite an anomaly, he held the belt for about 7 months. As a heel...in 2015. You have to realize this was done to help convince the hardcore fans to subscribe because he's an actual wrestler! He had big time matches with Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Sting! It looked like he was going to hold the belt till Mania before his injury derailed him.

4. Divas Revolution: This was a move aimed towards 2 fanbases, women and hardcore wrestling fans who wanted to see divas actually matter. I'm not saying it worked but look at the Mania match for a second. You have Charlotte daughter of Ric Flair an IWC legend, Sasha Banks herself an IWC legend and Becky Lynch. While I'm not looking forward to the match, you have to realize this was done to please our demographic!

5. Shane's return: Seriously guys, this is a move aimed at us. 2 Attitude Era guys, a match that's going to be filled with high spots or interferences. I mean I'm looking at it and you have 4 different guys who could interfere that would be huge; John Cena, Sting, Finn Balor or the Rock. Not too mention all of his promos thus far have been jabs at things we have been saying for years! From him saying certain talentless people have been pushed to the top, to his subtle mentions of having 3 sons while Trips has 3 daughters! His return was designed to give us something to mark out for

6. Zayn/Owens: They actually are setting this up to either be a Mania match or a part of another match, either way...it's Steen/Generico at Wrestlemania! This is an ROH match for Wrestlemania!

7. AJ/Jericho: Realistically fans who know who AJ Styles is, are hardcore fans. So they have him feud with Jericho before anybody else, someone hardcore fans lose their mind over! Then factor in the bullet club being in NXT just waiting and now you have a NJPW faction set to debut in the WWE and a hardcore fans dream match to happen at Mania.

8. League Of Nations: Remember this faction? I'm sure you do I mean they do appear on Raw every single week yet for some reason they have no Mania plans set up yet. What community dislikes them? O that's right the Hardcore fans don't care about them. Then there's Ryback who seems to have some story yet, it hasn't come in fully yet. The Big Guy very well might not have anything big for Mania!

9. Golden Truth: An obvious homage(at least to me) of Bookdust, they are pushing this hard and for almost no reason. Why did this randomly pop up? It's wasting time we could be using to build up the Wyatt's or Ryback or any other guy. Because it's humor that they hope will remind the hardcore fans of the Attitude era!

10. New Day: In general this group should have disbanded already, yet they still are together. Just waiting for something to break them up. I mean really, the New Day is around because the hardcores love them, Kofi even got a match with Lesnar!


Are you guys seeing my point here? I'm so tired of hearing about how the WWE doesn't target the IWC when just about all of their programming has been aimed at us! The 1 Mania match that isn't for us is the Main Event, and even that has Triple H in it who will be getting cheered for NXT a product designed for...you guessed it, the hardcore crowd! I do find it funny though, the product is so set up for the IWC yet I have very little interest in the product. With the overall storytelling at a minimum and no match aside from Shane/Taker grabbing my attention yet, it should be interesting to see how much I like Mania this year.

Some questions to ponder. Am I right in saying the WWE is more focused on hardcore fans than they have been in years? Will Mania be a good show because of the emphasis on hardcores or will that hurt it? Have the WWE been wasting their TV time with segments like: Golden Truth, Ryback going solo when he hasn't been a tag guy in almost 2 years and the Wyatt's lack of direction. Also what will the Wyatt's be doing at Mania?

 

[Stone Cold Tea]

I do find it funny though, the product is so set up for the IWC yet I have very little interest in the product. With the overall storytelling at a minimum and no match aside from Shane/Taker grabbing my attention yet, it should be interesting to see how much I like Mania this year.

I find it interesting you have marked out 10 points as to why the product is aimed at yourself and the IWC as a whole and then confirm you have no interest in it.

Answer why you have no interested in what you claim is aimed at you and then you have the answer as to why people think it's shit.

I enjoy it and I'm excited for 'Mania because it'll be fucking fun.

 

[Mudlup50]

I find it interesting you have marked out 10 points as to why the product is aimed at yourself and the IWC as a whole and then confirm you have no interest in it.

Answer why you have no interested in what you claim is aimed at you and then you have the answer as to why people think it's shit.

To be fair I'm typically not a fan of the more wrestling heavy parts of wrestling. I prefer storylines and have no problem cheering for the big guys, I mean Ryback is probably in my top 5 right now. But if you look at the storylines they're pretty much nonexistent: Triple H/Reigns and Shane/Taker have story but just about everything else has a dull PG era story to it. I mean Dean/Lesnar is about Lesnar being mad that Dean got pinned, yet he's not mad enough to show up on Raw every week...but I'm losing focus here.

I do agree the product is really bad right now, part of that is the injuries, part is the companies direction and part I think, is the focus on what should make the IWC happy.

 

[Piss Bucket]

Forgive me for being picky, in fact I'll probably get a PM from a Mod for this post, but IMO the main reason Seth Rollins was Champion for so long is because HHH has a man crush on him

As for the IWC, their stupidity was proven this past Raw when they started a CM Punk chant during the Vince/Shane/Undertaker opening segment.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Are you guys seeing my point here? I'm so tired of hearing about how the WWE doesn't target the IWC when just about all of their programming has been aimed at us!?

Except for the part were they brazenly ignore pretty much ever basic fundamental of booking wrestling, something every hardcore fan is bound to take umbrage with. The rest of that shit doesn't matter without the foundation.

 

[Hyorinmaru]

The IWC should never be the WWE's main concern. We are the minority, a very vocal minority but still we make up the smallest percentage of wrestling fans.

The E will do some things the IWC clamors for but because they want and because it makes them money not because we demand it.

Their main concern is and should be the children and the parents who buy the mercy. They get the main amount of booking consideration outside of whatever Vince wants to do (which seems to change daily) and that's as it should be.

 

[OYDK]

1. The matches: Have you guys stopped and realized how much the overall wrestling has improved? Like really, there aren't that many bad wrestlers on the entire roster! Most nights we get multiple decent to good matches and about once a month they try to push us a great match.

I think this has more to do with the natural progression of wrestling than any sort of pandering towards the internet community. Back in the 70s and 80s, it wasn't uncommon for a match to go 40 minutes. That's what the majority of fans wanted to see. While many of these guys wouldn't be seen as "entertaining" by today's standards, a lot of them were perceived as great wrestlers of their time. In the AE, it was all crash-TV with very little wrestling because that's what the fan base of the time wanted to see. Many of the fans who came during the AE were not wrestling fans and stuck around only as long as that type of programming was aired. The RA era saw the WWE move towards a more wrestling centered product once the bulk of the AE fans began to leave because, you guessed it, that's what the fans wanted to see. That's also around the time Creative began to seriously suck. Now, we get very good wrestling because that's what wrestling fans want to see. But we get very little entertainment value. Believe it or not, not every member of the IWC is content with only watching decent wrestling.

2. Ambrose: We all know realistically Dean isn't winning at Roadblock, yet he has a title shot less than a month away from Wrestlemania. You wanna know why? Because the WWE knows the hardcore fans who haven't subscribed to the WWE network will consider doing so to see Dean get a chance at the belt. Not too mention he was in the final 2 at the Royal Rumble, fought Seth for the belt twice earlier this year and he even had an IC title run thrown in there. Plus they have him set up to fight the Beast Incarnate at Wrestlemania 32

Or maybe he's just over? Everybody seems to love Ambrose and he gets a great reception from more than just hardcores. It's not pandering to the IWC when the whole crowd wants to see him in the main event. Plus, let's not give ourselves too much credit. This story was the most logical way to go in terms of Roadblock. HHH will beat Dean and heap more heat on himself heading into Mania. That's it. It ain't rocket science.

3. Seth Rollins' title reign: We all have to realize that this was quite an anomaly, he held the belt for about 7 months. As a heel...in 2015. You have to realize this was done to help convince the hardcore fans to subscribe because he's an actual wrestler! He had big time matches with Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Sting! It looked like he was going to hold the belt till Mania before his injury derailed him.

Again, maybe he was just over. In my opinion, Seth was given the title because he was the most deserving of it, not because he's an "actual wrestler". There are plenty of "actual wrestlers" on the roster. Jeez, is it pandering to the IWC when WWE does something logical?

4. Divas Revolution: This was a move aimed towards 2 fanbases, women and hardcore wrestling fans who wanted to see divas actually matter. I'm not saying it worked but look at the Mania match for a second. You have Charlotte daughter of Ric Flair an IWC legend, Sasha Banks herself an IWC legend and Becky Lynch. While I'm not looking forward to the match, you have to realize this was done to please our demographic!

The #GiveDivasAChance movement (or whatever you want to call it) was more than just an IWC creation. It got thousands and thousands of signatures from fans around the world. It was also noted that HHH and Stpeh had been wanting to revamp the division for a wile. I'd say the Divas Revolution has worked in spite of hardcore wrestling fans. Predictably, while many of the people on this site have turned on Charlotte, Becky, or Sasha, the casuals have carried their momentum.

5. Shane's return: Seriously guys, this is a move aimed at us. 2 Attitude Era guys, a match that's going to be filled with high spots or interferences. I mean I'm looking at it and you have 4 different guys who could interfere that would be huge; John Cena, Sting, Finn Balor or the Rock. Not too mention all of his promos thus far have been jabs at things we have been saying for years! From him saying certain talentless people have been pushed to the top, to his subtle mentions of having 3 sons while Trips has 3 daughters! His return was designed to give us something to mark out for

This return was meant for everybody. It was meant as a way to sell Mania to the masses and it seems to have worked. Hardcore wrestling fans are not the only ones who know of Shane. It's actually kind of ignorant to say that WWE pulled off this miraculous surprise only because of a small percentage of people on these sites.

6. Zayn/Owens: They actually are setting this up to either be a Mania match or a part of another match, either way...it's Steen/Generico at Wrestlemania! This is an ROH match for Wrestlemania!

I'll buy this one.

7. AJ/Jericho: Realistically fans who know who AJ Styles is, are hardcore fans. So they have him feud with Jericho before anybody else, someone hardcore fans lose their mind over! Then factor in the bullet club being in NXT just waiting and now you have a NJPW faction set to debut in the WWE and a hardcore fans dream match to happen at Mania.

It's also a great way to ease Styles into the WWE. Unlike others, Styles has had to skip NXT and adjust to the WWE style on the fly, right in the midst of Mania season. Other than Cena or HHH, who better to put him up against but Jericho? See. There are other ways of thinking.

8. League Of Nations: Remember this faction? I'm sure you do I mean they do appear on Raw every single week yet for some reason they have no Mania plans set up yet. What community dislikes them? O that's right the Hardcore fans don't care about them. Then there's Ryback who seems to have some story yet, it hasn't come in fully yet. The Big Guy very well might not have anything big for Mania!

You're making a lot of broad generalizations in this thread. The hardcore community are the only people that dislike the LON? What are you, on crack? There is deafening silence whenever they enter a building, not many people seem to give a shit about them. AND WHY SHOULD THEY? What the hell have the LON done since Sheamus lost the title?

9. Golden Truth: An obvious homage(at least to me) of Bookdust, they are pushing this hard and for almost no reason. Why did this randomly pop up? It's wasting time we could be using to build up the Wyatt's or Ryback or any other guy. Because it's humor that they hope will remind the hardcore fans of the Attitude era!

Yeah, because I'd rather see Golden Truth than a segment used to build Mania. Seems to me like this is more for the kiddies.

10. New Day: In general this group should have disbanded already, yet they still are together. Just waiting for something to break them up. I mean really, the New Day is around because the hardcores love them, Kofi even got a match with Lesnar!

Fuck sakes, they're still together because they're over. All I've gotten from this thread is that anything WWE does that makes the least bit of sense constitutes pandering to the internet community. Should they bury Rollins and Dean in the mid-card? Disband New Day? End the Divas Revolution? Let's not give WWE credit for doing the shit they're supposed to be doing.

If they were really pandering to the IWC, we'd see AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens in the main event of Mania.

 

[Navi]

I agree and disagree with some of your points, so let's take them one by one.

1. The matches: Have you guys stopped and realized how much the overall wrestling has improved? Like really, there aren't that many bad wrestlers on the entire roster! Most nights we get multiple decent to good matches and about once a month they try to push us a great match.

Wrestling might have improved but then everything improves with age. I highly doubt that it has been done to please us the IWC. With places like the performance centre, advances in technical equipment ie-rings and such, if the product doesn't improve there is a problem. I would also say most of not all of the wrestlers on the roster are good, but their booking is what let's them and us down.

2. Ambrose: We all know realistically Dean isn't winning at Roadblock, yet he has a title shot less than a month away from Wrestlemania. You wanna know why? Because the WWE knows the hardcore fans who haven't subscribed to the WWE network will consider doing so to see Dean get a chance at the belt. Not too mention he was in the final 2 at the Royal Rumble, fought Seth for the belt twice earlier this year and he even had an IC title run thrown in there. Plus they have him set up to fight the Beast Incarnate at Wrestlemania 32

Dean Ambrose by himself will not bring in Network subscribers by the thousands. It's been said before that wrestling is a niche sport and has a very limited fanbase. Those who watch wrestling will shell out the money each month for the network regardless of who is in the main event picture. If we take your scenario then they should have lost thousands of paying subscribers with the Reigns push. He hasn't been well received, and two years of him in the main event would have turned people off. Fans want to see everyone wrestle not just a chosen few.

3. Seth Rollins' title reign: We all have to realize that this was quite an anomaly, he held the belt for about 7 months. As a heel...in 2015. You have to realize this was done to help convince the hardcore fans to subscribe because he's an actual wrestler! He had big time matches with Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Sting! It looked like he was going to hold the belt till Mania before his injury derailed him.

Rollins was given the belt for two main reasons. First the backlash at Mania against Reigns caused them to make a change in plans. They couldn't have 70+ thousand people booing their next face at their biggest show of the year, so that's why Rollins got the nod for the cash in. Secondly Rollins is a pretty good wrestler and can hold his own both in the ring and on the mic. He deserved to have a title run, which quite honestly wasn't that spectacular towards the end.

4. Divas Revolution: This was a move aimed towards 2 fanbases, women and hardcore wrestling fans who wanted to see divas actually matter. I'm not saying it worked but look at the Mania match for a second. You have Charlotte daughter of Ric Flair an IWC legend, Sasha Banks herself an IWC legend and Becky Lynch. While I'm not looking forward to the match, you have to realize this was done to please our demographic!

Women don't really care about the Diva's. Not one female wrestling fan I know, including myself cares about them. The Diva's aren't put out there for my benefit, they are there for the guys. Women don't look and fawn over other women in skimpy outfits, it's meh to us.

5. Shane's return: Seriously guys, this is a move aimed at us. 2 Attitude Era guys, a match that's going to be filled with high spots or interferences. I mean I'm looking at it and you have 4 different guys who could interfere that would be huge; John Cena, Sting, Finn Balor or the Rock. Not too mention all of his promos thus far have been jabs at things we have been saying for years! From him saying certain talentless people have been pushed to the top, to his subtle mentions of having 3 sons while Trips has 3 daughters! His return was designed to give us something to mark out for

Let's face it the Authority has been in power now for over two years, and they are stale. They had to do something. Bringing Shane back not only freshens up that story line, but also gives us hope that we might see an end to the 20 minutes of HHH and Stephanie each week. Besides Vince is getting older and maybe he doesn't trust HHH fully to run the company. Shane has been brought in so there is always a McMahon at the helm.

6. Zayn/Owens: They actually are setting this up to either be a Mania match or a part of another match, either way...it's Steen/Generico at Wrestlemania! This is an ROH match for Wrestlemania!

This feud has been writing itself since ROH, and the WWE would be idiots not to take advantage of the chemistry between the two. It will be one hell of a feud and I'm looking forward to it.

7. AJ/Jericho: Realistically fans who know who AJ Styles is, are hardcore fans. So they have him feud with Jericho before anybody else, someone hardcore fans lose their mind over! Then factor in the bullet club being in NXT just waiting and now you have a NJPW faction set to debut in the WWE and a hardcore fans dream match to happen at Mania.

They did the right thing with Styles. Brought him into the Rumble, made a huge deal of it on commentary, had him eliminate a few people before going out himself. They had to set him up with a pro, someone who knows the WWE and could help him along. The feud with Jericho let Styles get his feet wet and the Bullet Club is an added bonus. This was done strictly to help Styles out and make money down the road.

8. League Of Nations: Remember this faction? I'm sure you do I mean they do appear on Raw every single week yet for some reason they have no Mania plans set up yet. What community dislikes them? O that's right the Hardcore fans don't care about them. Then there's Ryback who seems to have some story yet, it hasn't come in fully yet. The Big Guy very well might not have anything big for Mania!

The LON took 4 guys who where doing nothing, put them together and they're still doing nothing. Weakest, lamest faction ever, and you'd think with all the title belts these guys have held they would be received better, and better overall. As it is, no one really cares about them, other than to watch Rusev go from an unbeatable monster, who came into Mania in a friggin tank, to a guy who's BFF's with Sheamus. What a waste of talent.

9. Golden Truth: An obvious homage(at least to me) of Bookdust, they are pushing this hard and for almost no reason. Why did this randomly pop up? It's wasting time we could be using to build up the Wyatt's or Ryback or any other guy. Because it's humor that they hope will remind the hardcore fans of the Attitude era!

Both of these guys can go in the ring still, and why not team them together. The run up to this has been hilarious, and seeing how Stardust and Goldust worked together, this should be a hell of a tag team. Once they can work out the kinks.

10. New Day: In general this group should have disbanded already, yet they still are together. Just waiting for something to break them up. I mean really, the New Day is around because the hardcores love them, Kofi even got a match with Lesnar!

New Day is holding the tag team division together at this point in time. The Uso's are boring, Dudley's are on their last run, Lucha Dragons okay but one of them is holding a mic card title. New Day is it. Everyone loves them, not just the hardcore fans, the three of them are entertaining, funny as hell on the mic, and I really want to see them fight a kid - with love of course. LOL


The WWE in the end run does what they want and they don't pander to anyone. If they did Reigns would be holding the US title not Kalisto and Ambrose would have already held the World Title. It's all about the money to Vince and Co., as much as we like to think we matter, we don't.

 

[SHAGAMANIA 3:16]

Yeah I don't really care about the so called "match quality " when I watch WWE, I got into it because of the storylines and characters. It does seem like HHH is trying to impress the smarks hate how wrestling heavy Raw is with stale matches nobody cares about we literally had Owens and Ziggler for about 8 straight weeks with a week storyline.

 

[Piss Bucket]

If Vince gave a hoot about the IWC, CM Punk would be back by now, and Daniel Bryan would still be an active performer.