So we are entering a new era in WWE

[Psykohurricane55]

So last night, the McMahon family came out and announce that they will start listening to the fans and give them what they want and we will get a new and fresh product. Yet, after saying this, all I saw was the same old thing they've been doing for years now.

The only sign that they give that stuff will change was the announce of the NXT call ups and even that didn't feel like a huge came changer. Let's face it, I look at the list of NXT performers that are being call up and outside EC3 and Nikki cross, nobody feel like this huge thing. Lacey Evans and heavy machinery will tank on arrival in my opinion, Lars Sullivan is a crap shot at this point but I don't see him making a huge impact.

Anyway, I don't see this being the thing that will fix anything especially on raw because in the end, you still have the same guys wrestling each other while a bunch of other lower mid carders stays in obscurity and only wrestled on main event and live event. Calling up new people isn't going to permanently fix the problem and is just a band aid that will easily peel off. Plus having the McMahon in charge is such a old idea that they can spin anyway they want, it still a old idea that will get old really fast.

 

[Dave]

To be fair to the WWE and Vince in particular, they said you would see these changes over the next few weeks and months. I don't think you can really expect everything to change in one show. It'll be interesting to see how things change in, say, a month or two.

The Royal Rumble is on the horizon now and that means interest coming back to the WWE in time for Mania season. The WWE has a lot of work to do to get people back on side but it's a personal choice on whether you want to give them that time or not. Raw has been very, very poor for a long time now but we'd be foolish to think that slump is gonna last forever.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

It's impossible to know what they meant last night if it meant anything at all. It could have been corporate marketing bull to get us to tune in just to see Vince and hear what he had to say and then keep us around to see what he meant. I will say that I don't understand why it had to come from another "McMahon announcement". Everyone knows that the McMahons are pulling the strings. Why not use the talent to proclaim changes and then follow through? The talent are the people that people devote their time and spend their money on. Build stories around changing the product, don't just say that you are changing the product.

I think the best tipping point to gauge whether things are changing is with the title. I'm not one that cares if the title is present but I know it bothers a lot of people that it is not there and therefore has zero probability of being defended.

Unfortunately what that means is that they need to build up a champion. I didn't see the start of that last night. Seems like everyone that could be put in that position (Rollins, Balor, McIntyre, Lashley, Elias) is getting caught up in mid-card level stuff. Heyman's appearance next week will be an interesting gauge to see where things are going.

I know this will make me a monster to some on the internet but other than the recent loss of Reigns and Strowman the biggest change to Raw recently was the number of matches and segments the women are getting. I don't know if this is part of Raw's recent failures but I think I am right in saying that the women have gotten more storylines and matches over the past half year. WWE may see that as part of the reason they are failing. I think most will agree that Rhonda is a compelling spectacle but she's not the most compelling character. Beyond that the depth of the division isn't exactly must see and Becky's popularity makes Raw's women seem inconsequential.

Beyond that the whole Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be turning fans off completely but I'm guessing subconsciously the bad taste it has left in people's mouths makes it easier to tune out. Between the murder, cover up, Michaels crap appearance, and Hogan return there was a lot to that event that might make someone uncomfortable being a WWE fan.

I've enjoyed what I've seen of Raw lately but I may not be a typical fan. I will say that I am watching out of habit not that I'm excited to tune in. I can definitely understand why fans are dropping off from the product. There really isn't much happening or promised that will draw one in. I'm certainly not expecting much to change but who knows?

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I haven't been able to watch a full three hour raw since they started it way back when. I normally watch 2 hour and pvr the third hour and even then, most week, I fell asleep during the part I watch or do something else to keep me awake. I watch raw out of habit more then anything else at this point.

My main problem is mostly that they focus a lot on doing long matches on this show to fill time and That's being the case for a long time now. Last night, when HHH said the thing will change in a few weeks and months, I felt like this was a repeat of something they did a few years ago when HHH was first put in charge of raw. The thing the bugs me the most was the NXT call ups. You look at the list and they don't feel special, they fill like HHH looked at the NXT roster and just pick characters that the brand didn't need. They all feel like afterthought just like most NXT call ups have before them and they haven't even debuted on the main roster.

The worst thing you can do with call up is to have them during mania season because they normally get lost in the shuffle and get put in the battle royal come mania.

This feel so much Like a marketing ploy which is what the McMahon are the best at. I've read the spoilers for the Christmas eye's show and let me tell you that I will be one of those who won't be watching live next Monday as the show looks horrible just by reading the spoilers.

Anyway I really hope the product will change but I feel the only way they can truly change is if somebody outside the McMahon family is in charge of the company because Vince is set in his old way and HHH isn't changing anything since he's following in vince's footsteps in creating a predictable product with no intrigue.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Declarations of vague definition like this have been made before and little to nothing has come of it. The storyline they did with Baron Corbin in which the blame was put on his shoulders was...well I guess it was just a means to get Corbin out of the spot, which was probably going to happen in the first place, but it's something nobody believes. Everyone and their mother knows that Vince is the only actual writer for WWE main roster programming; he either writes the show himself or he dictates to the writing team what he wants to have happen and they simply put in the nuts and bolts. I've maintained for years that the primary job of WWE writers is ultimately to do one thing: do whatever makes Vince McMahon happy.

Like most people, however, I have this little spark of optimistic hope that actual changes will present themselves over the coming months. My expectations are incredibly low because it would mean Vince actually stepping away and allowing others to have control over the product and I simply do not see that happening. It's even more remotely possible, I suppose, Vince could change his position on things but that's just not realistic as he's a very stubborn, set in his ways 73 year old man with an ego of near mythic proportions who happens to have a net worth somewhere in the $2.5 to $3 billion range and feels he doesn't have to listen to anybody. If something isn't working, yet Vince himself likes it, he'll double, triple and quadruple down on his position to keep it going even if hundreds of thousands of people via social media each and every day tell him that it sucks.

Fresh faces coming up from NXT, especially if they've been down there for a long while working their ass off, is refreshing for a while but you have to consider that many of them probably won't be used but a fraction of their potential. WWE has one of, if not THE most talented rosters in its history but Vince doesn't seem to care about the big picture anymore. He's been so secure in WWE's dominance of the past 15 years or so that he feels quite comfortable putting most of his eggs in only a few baskets while often half-assing it with much of the rest of the roster.

One thing that did sorta excite me a bit was the notion of doing way with automatic rematch clauses. Maybe it'll be done on a feud by feud basis or something but there are times in which you don't want to see a feud dragged out for months at a time, especially if they wrestle frequently on both TV and ppvs. Right now, for instance, I wouldn't mind another Bryan vs. Styles match but, at the same time, I'd sort of like to see it put on the backburner for a while, move them both onto other things, maybe pick things back up a little bit later down the road.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

I don't think anybody expected a major change last night, but with three hours who could blame us if we did?

They did absolutely fuck all to show that the next week would be better though, and that is really my focus here. Elias/Lashley has been a thing since JULY so slide them into the obligatory hardcore holiday match? That's the change we want to see? Corbin wrestling outside of his league again? Come on.

The only fresh thing I see is Natalya vs. Rousey which I don't think is the worst idea in the world, it is still a little uncomfortable. Do I really want to spend part of my Christmas Eve being reminded that Natalya doesn't have a daddy anymore and all this is for him, etc? I don't watch wrestling to feel sad. Not during the holidays. Fuck that.


Though I can't wait to hear a soundbite of Cole asking Vince if he has to say "A New Era" again for the hundredth time. That's something to look forward to.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Every year we kinda get the same thing over and over again, the ratings drops in december during the build up to TLC, fans start panicking and the reporters are going around building the narrative that the Mcmahons are panicking because of the low ratings, a week before the holiday episodes, Vince or somebody else in his family will comes out and found a clever way to spin the fact that the creative will be better after the holiday and we go into mania season thinking that something as change when in reality nothing as change.

Fans like to talk about how out of touch Vince is with his audience but i don'T see it that way, he probably the smartest business man in the world. Just look at how he Started the NXT brand for example, Vince created the brand and gave the o.k for the format change after the reality format ran is course. But instead of saying that he was in charge of the whole thing, he made HHH the figure head of the Brand and fan bought it more because he knew that fans were starting to get tired of him. Everytime they have a major signing, HHH is the guy that is doing the press conference not Vince. In fact i think outside the mania press conference and quarterly reports, vince is barely present anymore. He pretty much left all that stuff to HHH and Stephanie.

Why do i bring this up, it's to illustrated how Vince as been able to play the fans and dirt sheet for years. This i feel, was part of the plan to kickstart mania season. The corbin storyline was about to end so that you could put the mcmahon in charge. Seeing they had plans to make Raw great again just fell into their laps when fans and wrestling reporters started complaining about how bad the show as been lately. So the incorporated that into the story, now when creative become good to great again after the new year, they can say, we promise you change and here the change and they will pat themselves in the back for having played the fans again like they do every year. Fans like to bitch on Vince and praise HHH, but let's face they are the same, in the end they look at it from the business side of thing and not the wrestling side. If they're a way to appease the fans by making them believe something while still doing the same thing they will. That how NXT as been running for years now and still being praise while in reality, it's just a shorter version of RAw or smackdown.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Calling it a "new era" came off really forced considering that nothing seemed to change much. Granted, it's only been one edition of Raw and Smackdown each since the announcement.... I'll give this time and give it a chance. The McMahons being in charge again really just does not seem like the best idea. What would actually fix things would be taking care of some major problems. First and foremost they NEED a full time Universal Champion. That needs to happen ASAP. Changing that problem and not doing the same matches over and over again would turn things around on Raw more than simply putting the McMahons in charge again. Then there's the effect the "new" management had on Smackdown. I disagee with them having removed Paige from being Smackdown GM. Shane stated tonight that Paige will have a "new role". What was wrong with her being Smackdown GM? She did a great job. Hopefully it will still be a good role for her, whatever this new role is. I liked Smackdown this week other than the Paige situation but goodness Raw was still awful. The idiotic fatal fourway tag team match and the highly boring gauntlet the women had really brought the show down. I never want to see another gauntlet ever again. It's boring every single time. I also don't understand why the triple threat or fatal fourway tag team matches can't have someone from every team in there at once. Tagging in someone who is NOT on your team makes NO sense. It never has and it never will. On a positive note the people coming up from NXT might help some. Lars is extremely boring and I can't STAND Heavy Machinery, although I am looking forward to the main roster promotion for each of the others. Nikki needs to be on the same show as Sanity. Doesn't matter to me where the others end up. I'd put most of them on Raw since the red brand needs them more. Mixed feelings from me on this overall. I'll say this at least. It's better than Raw had been the last few weeks. Every Raw since after Roman left has been horrible.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

I kind of wonder if Vince looked at Trump's most staunch supporters and decided to bring up the rich elite white guy, the proper elite blond woman, the two not so bright blue collar dudes, the white supremacist looking badass dude, and legal immigrant chick (I don't really know much about Nikki Cross).

Not much color for this change which is fine but I would much rather see Velveteen called up than anyone else.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I'm surprised Vince McMahon is right back to getting 90s level TV time after he reportedly didn't want to be on television anymore. He was even on Smackdown.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I kind of wonder if Vince looked at Trump's most staunch supporters and decided to bring up the rich elite white guy, the proper elite blond woman, the two not so bright blue collar dudes, the white supremacist looking badass dude, and legal immigrant chick (I don't really know much about Nikki Cross).

Not much color for this change which is fine but I would much rather see Velveteen called up than anyone else.

ALLEGEDLY, the word going around is that they wanted to bring up some of the talent with strong characters but who's absence wouldn't hurt NXT all that much. Talent like Dream, Black, Gargano, Ciampa, Ricochet, the UE, Sane, Baszler and a few others are the major draws for NXT. At some point in time, it wouldn't surprise me if it comes about that NXT talent can stay as part of the NXT brand while making main roster level money.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

This is something I would love to see. In my opinion, the fans are already treating NXT as a brand on the same level as raw and smackdown, which as hurt the talent being called up, why not just do what the fans want and make it a official third brand instead of continuing the charade of this being a developmental territory which it hasn't been for a few years now.

Same goes for 205 live I think. Also instead of doing one big superstar shake up every year, which as proven to not being working, you could just do like any major sport and have a major trade day deadline after mania, then they can't trade anybody until summerslam and from the day after summerslam through mania, you can resume trading, that way you always keep thing fresh and exciting by not knowing who will show up on a particular brand.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Fans like to talk about how out of touch Vince is with his audience but i don'T see it that way, he probably the smartest business man in the world. Just look at how he Started the NXT brand for example, Vince created the brand and gave the o.k for the format change after the reality format ran is course. But instead of saying that he was in charge of the whole thing, he made HHH the figure head of the Brand and fan bought it more because he knew that fans were starting to get tired of him. Everytime they have a major signing, HHH is the guy that is doing the press conference not Vince. In fact i think outside the mania press conference and quarterly reports, vince is barely present anymore. He pretty much left all that stuff to HHH and Stephanie.

Yeah...this sounds more like an alternative fact than anything else. if Vince was really and truly the one in charge of NXT with Triple H as just some sort of figurehead, it would've been leaked out many a year ago. This is the first time I've ever heard anybody make this sort of claim and I don't buy into it; even a rumor of this remotely possibly being the case would've been all over the internet within, at most, a few months and NXT has been operating in its rebranded format now for over 6.5 years. If Vince was really the brain behind NXT, then NXT would still be operating under the format of some sort of reality/variety show when it debuted almost 9 years ago. It just doesn't make any logical sense for Vince to make NXT so strong while keeping Raw and SmackDown, comparatively speaking, so consistently weak by comparison. That's especially true when you consider how much more money is invested in Raw and SmackDown via their television deals; if Vince wanted to make something as strong as he possibly could, that's where his efforts would be rather than NXT. Reportedly, if Vince doesn't just outright write Raw and SmackDown himself, he basically tells WWE creative what he wants to have happen on those shows; if WWE's main roster was a skyscraper being built, Vince would be the architect who designed the building and had the blueprints made while the creative team are the construction workers who puts everything where he tells them to. It doesn't matter if everyone else thinks the design is ugly as hell, it's what Vince wants to build and the workers have no choice but to build it the way he wants it built and you can tell by watching NXT that NXT isn't being booked to please an audience of one. I'm sure Vince could step in and make any sort of changes he wanted to at any time he wanted to do so but if he did, then NXT would be like 205 Live when Vince and Kevin Dunn were running it.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Yeah...this sounds more like an alternative fact than anything else. if Vince was really and truly the one in charge of NXT with Triple H as just some sort of figurehead, it would've been leaked out many a year ago. This is the first time I've ever heard anybody make this sort of claim and I don't buy into it; even a rumor of this remotely possibly being the case would've been all over the internet within, at most, a few months and NXT has been operating in its rebranded format now for over 6.5 years. If Vince was really the brain behind NXT, then NXT would still be operating under the format of some sort of reality/variety show when it debuted almost 9 years ago. It just doesn't make any logical sense for Vince to make NXT so strong while keeping Raw and SmackDown, comparatively speaking, so consistently weak by comparison. That's especially true when you consider how much more money is invested in Raw and SmackDown via their television deals; if Vince wanted to make something as strong as he possibly could, that's where his efforts would be rather than NXT. Reportedly, if Vince doesn't just outright write Raw and SmackDown himself, he basically tells WWE creative what he wants to have happen on those shows; if WWE's main roster was a skyscraper being built, Vince would be the architect who designed the building and had the blueprints made while the creative team are the construction workers who puts everything where he tells them to. It doesn't matter if everyone else thinks the design is ugly as hell, it's what Vince wants to build and the workers have no choice but to build it the way he wants it built and you can tell by watching NXT that NXT isn't being booked to please an audience of one. I'm sure Vince could step in and make any sort of changes he wanted to at any time he wanted to do so but if he did, then NXT would be like 205 Live when Vince and Kevin Dunn were running it.

But i'm not saying that Vince is in control of NXT, i'm just saying that it was smart on his part to start NXT in this incarnation and give the control of it to HHH which let's face it is a cooler and younger version of vince Mcmahon himself. Let's face it, and this might shock some people, but HHH is pretty much doing what vince would have done in his place, you look at some of the gimmicks that they created in NXT, theses are strait out of the 80's wwe model, the booking of NXT is really 80's style booking, everything in NXT screaming 80's style WWE booking. Even the way HHH is hiring wrestler for the brand is pretty much the way vince would have done it. HHH is the second in command of WWE and it's been reported on multiple occassion that Vince doesn't likes to get HHH's input before taking a decision nowadays. Even 205 live hasn't real change that much since HHH took over. The only thing that truly change was some characters took a more serious turn and they put a clown as the gm of 205 live. outside of that it's the same old tired booking but since fans knows that vince is running the show anymore, it's picking up steam and it's becoming cool again.

That's kinda what i meant with my comment, it's that vince knew that if he wanted those side project to be accepted, he had to put HHH in charge of them, but in the end, it's still Vince's company and if he didn't want something to happen within the company he wouldn't green light it.