What has WWE done right lately?

[d_henderson1810]

These boards just seem totally negative these days.

According to a lot of you, nothing about today's WWE is any good whatsoever. All I hear is what Vince and Triple H have done wrong. I have yet to hear one positive thing being said for a long time.

So, I throw down a challenge. I want you to give me three things that WWE have done right this year. Three creative decisions that you fully endorsed. Three things that you have liked in the PG era.

I will go further. Tell me something that you feel that the PG Era has done better than the Attitude Era.

I am willing to tip that most of you can't even come up with one, since this board are full of sheep and haters. This will expose you once and for all, as anyone who loves WWE will be able to reel off at least three creative decisions that WWE have done.

 

[CyberPunk]

Alright, if that's how you think. WWE has done quite a few things right this year and in PG era. Let me try a few.

1. Wrestlemania XXX: one of the best booked shows of this year. The story leading up to it was done well. The matches were good to great and the stories were told well. Even the ATGBR was decent. Great lead up and show overall.

2. Shield: yes, the broke up this year, but there booking till their breakup was one of the best in modern times. Not only that, it gave us three future stars in Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns and kick started their singles push.

3. Brock Lesnar's world title win: Whatever the booking was after SummerSlam, the lead up and the subsequent match was delivered perfectly. Brock's invincible run till this time was done very well.

Honorable mention to NXT. They've been on fire this year and almost all NXT specials have delivered. Sting's debut at Survivor Series was another fantastic moment. In fact Survivor Series main event delivered in a big way. We have had strong showing from likes of Ziggler, Rollins, Ambrose etc. Rollins and Ambrose feud was great to begin with. And I am sure I am forgetting few good things about what WWE has done right.

WWE's real problem at this time is lack of consistent booking and proper follow ups on hot angles. I hope that with time, it can be sorted out.

 

[JDHale]

1. Dolph Ziggler
He is having the push of his life time at this point in time. Since Survivor Series, the booking of Ziggler means there is no contender for hottest property in the company right now. In the ring he is putting in some of his best performances in his career, with the help from Luke Harper, and is being dubbed as 'The Man' for 2015. I feel WWE know who Cena 2.0 should be, and it's someone who can wear as many multicolored t-shirts as Superman himself, has a connection with younger viewers, is respected by most in the IWC, and is indeed a show off. and yes, im a Ziggler fan, so allow for a tiny bit of bias..

2. Team Cena vs Team Authority
WWE executed this to perfection - a 10 out of 10 in my opinion. They needed the Authority gone, check! They needed to keep everyone looking strong, check! (excluding Mark Henry) Finally they needed Sting to debut and give someone the win of their caeer, and having the main man Ziggler have Rollins beat before Triple H got involved was great story telling, elevating Ziggler and therefore the IC Title to WHC status, and it gave a platform for Sting's long awaited debut. Top stuff, but im biased ha!

3. Emerging Main Eventers.
It has been a great year in WWE testing the water for the future, with the WWEWHC going on holiday for most the year. If you look at who can win the Rumble now, it has gone from a one horse race to a three or four horse race, with names like Reigns, Ziggler, Ambrose and such being thrown into the mix. This is proof alone. You then have Seth Rollins, Mr Money in the Bank who will hold the title early next year, allowing for a regularly featured WWEWHC holder. Rusev and Ryback have climbed the ranks to, and you can expect at least one to challenge for the main strap in 2015. Finally, you have Wyatt and the Lunatic Fringe *thanks Cole for the input* who add intriguing characters to the roster, and you wouldn't bet against them holding the belt later next year.

Finally I would state which is better than an attitude era moment, but I wasn't old enough to watch at the time and so I wouldn't have a clue to be honest with you.

 

[OYDK]

1. Improving Mid-Card Title Situation

In this case, mid-card titles include IC, US, Tag Team, and Diva's Championships. 2010-2013 saw some of the most horrendous booking of mid-card championships in a long time, if not ever. I literally can't remember an IC champ in those three years that had a decent run with the strap other than Cody Rhodes and maybe The Miz. The US title wasn't even defended for nearly a year while Ambrose held it and the Tag Team situation was as bad as it's ever been with about 2 legitimate teams. Before AJ won the Diva's title, that bad boy was hotshotted around to nearly every Diva on the friggen roster at one point. Although 2014 started out basically the same in terms of mid-card booking, it rapidly began to improve later on. IC champs included some real quality workers, and the big thing was, the fans were actually behind a lot of these guys; There was BNB who many think will soon be a WWEWHC, Dolph Ziggler is arguably the most over man on the roster right now, and Luke Harper was fresh and a nice change of pace. We saw Sheamus take a step down and try to garner some interest in the United States title which I think he did fairly well... Now of course, the right man has the US belt in Rusev, and fans are finally beginning to care about the once prestigious belt again. The Tag Team Division is still relatively weak at this point, but 2014 saw the emergence of WWE's next go-to tag team in the Uso's, and some of the matches between The Uso's/Wyatts were MOTY candidates; with The Ascension coming, I expect the tag team scene to keep improving. Diva's division saw the emergence of Diva's that the casuals can actually start investing themselves in like AJ, Paige, The Bella's, and Naomi among others down in NXT. If there's one thing WWE did right this year, it's FINALLY breathe some life into the mid-card scene.

2. NXT

NXT was pretty hot throughout 2013, but I think it really began to garner attention when the WWE Network was launched. WWE did an amazing job of not only scouting and hiring these great talents, but showcasing these young "rookies" and introducing them to the main audience as well. I think there are many future main eventers down in NXT such as Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Tyler Breeze and Hideo Otami just to name a few, as well as others who can carve out solid careers like Adrian Neville, Kalisto, Mojo Rawley etc. The booking of nearly every NXT show has been superb, and gives me hope for the future...

3. The Shield, Bray Wyatt, Daniel Bryan, and Dolph Ziggler

We finally saw a new crop of superstars that have the potential to create a solid base for the future. For the longest time, the main event scene was a revolving door that included, Randy Orton and John Cena and... that's it. There didn't seem to be any superstars in sight that were perceived as the clear future of the company, and all of the sudden, 2014 saw the explosion of 6. WWE finally moved away from their comfort zone and took a gamble by giving Daniel Bryan his Wrestlemania moment, and it worked beautifully. Mania 30 was seen by many as one of the best Wrestlemania's of all time, and I think that's what really gave WWE the kick in the ass to start seriosuly pushing a new crop of superstars. The future looks brighter than it has in a while.

As for what the PG Era does better than the Attitude Era? I would say that the PG Era definitely has consistently better wrestling matches than the Attitude Era did. Most guys on the roster nowadays are accomplished and experienced in-ring wrestlers, whereas in the AE it was mostly about whoever had the craziest gimmick got over.

 

[L@RISANO]

I have actually enjoyed much of this year's programming, except after Survivor Series, which I feel WWE really dropped the ball instead of building the momentum gained from Sting's debut appearance. Granted, with Reigns, Bryan and Orton out of action, and with HHH and Stephanie off TV, with Sting and Brock Lesnar part-timers, it was kind of expected, though unfortunate.


That said, this year we got:

1) More S.H.I.E.L.D - These guys have been the focal point and by far, the breakout stars of 2014, especially with Brock off TV and Bryan injured. Ambrose has had an unlikely brilliant face run, whilst Rollins has excelled as a heel. As his fan, I haven't been too keen on the way Reigns has been booked in storyline as I felt it never allowed him to get over with fans in a natural way, and the injury didn't help, but still his obviously continued strong booking has found favour with the casuals, which I think was the main plan of the WWE.


2) The re-boot of some guys of past years - Dolph Ziggler and Ryback, to be exact. I do feel both these guys got pushes due to the injury problems. However, given how they have done since the end of HiaC, it is clear that the re-boot has worked wonders and both could be part of the Main Event scene again soon enough. That has to be commended, because, lMO, the more options in the Main Event, the better programming we as viewers should get once they don't drop the ball again.


3) Great Moments and Surprises -
Daniel Bryan winning at WrestleMania 30 to end off a brilliant angle;

Dolph Ziggler defying the odds to dethrone the Authority;

The Streak of the Undertaker was conquered by Brock Lesnar;

John Cena was squashed by Brock Lesnar;

The night after clean-sweeping Evolution... Seth Rollins became WWE's Most Hated by turning on his SHIELD brethren and aligning himself with the Authority/Evolution;

the Long Long Long Awaited debut of the now known as, Vigilant STING!!!




There are a few others, but any fan of the WWE has to admit that the WWE really gave us loads of moments to remember at different points this year, and that alone means that it far from a terrible year as some A**holes come on the internet and claim.



As mentioned by CyberPunk above, the WWE's problem has been lack of consistency in booking and quite a few throwaway shows, be it Live RAW or even a couple of PPV propped up by a single good match/feud...but we can't deny that with the moments and surprises, that the WWE has kept us hooked enough going into Mania season, which I feel, with the amount of fresher talent available might well prove better than last year from an overall talent standpoint(Reigns, Rollins, Ambrose, Ziggler, Ryback, Rusev, Cesaro, Bray Wyatt).


Since it was 3 points, I have stated them, but I could go on if needed as I haven't even mentioned the numerous great matches that have taken place this year.

That said; given I took a long break before restarting my following post-SummerSlam last year, I might have more patience than others who watched what I consider some mediocre years after the deaths of Eddie and Benoit... so I do understand those who might have burnout.
My advice to you who have been following non-stop, is to take a break, and maybe watch the product as a casual does, and maybe you can get some enjoyment back as doing such has worked wonders for me.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Pretty much my response in the "A Retrospective Look To WWE In 2014" thread seems pretty appropriate here:

"At any given year in any given promotion, there are always gonna be "I wish they'd have done this", "I wish this would have happened" or "I think they missed an opportunity" moments. It's just the facts of life and always will be as there's no means of satisfying everyone, hence there can be no perfect year.

For the first 8 or 9 months, I thought WWE was strong, I think things started to slow down about June or July but things were still going well. There were any number of great matches going in at any given time, guys like Daniel Bryan and The Shield were riding high, John Cena was still contributing to things even though he really wasn't the center of attention until Bryan had to vacate the title due to injury, The Authority were genuine heels that were easy to dislike, WWE had the strongest tag team division, overall, that it'd had in years, etc.

There were some bumps in the road in the beginning of the year, mostly involving WWE's booking of Daniel Bryan and Vince's seeming insistence on having Batista face Randy Orton at WrestleMania XXX for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Now some will say that the mishandling of Bryan was all by design while other say it was more of an example of Vince being out of touch, I'm more inclined to lean towards the former but there's ultimately no way of knowing. Either way, it resulted in fans being more invested in a title hunt than they have in quite some time.

The WWE Network has had some mixed results in terms of how many subscribers its had but, on the positive, I can't see anything to complain about when it comes to content or value. Even if all you have the network for is to watch the ppvs, it's still a helluva deal at only $10 a month. The WWE Network has also featured the emergence of NXT as a genuine alternative to more mainstream WWE programming of Raw & SmackDown!. NXT has been consistently strong throughout the year with its periodic live specials featuring some of the best wrestling matches to be seen in 2014. We also saw some unforgettable moments including the utter shock & awe of seeing the streak die, we saw Sting step into a WWE for the very first time in his career and, over the past couple of months, we SEEM to be seeing more prominence being put on the mid-card titles.

After SummerSlam, or possibly Night of Champions, things started to go downhill for WWE and go downhill in a hurry. We were entering the beginning of the fall television season, which always means much lower than usual numbers for Raw, but what was disheartening, to me at least, were so many programs and booking ideas coming about that just weren't all that interesting. Another problem that came about is that it seems Vince has taken a more hands on approach to WWE creative than he has in a while, especially in much of 2014.

This is just a guess on my part, I've no way of knowing it, but I'm basing it mostly in differences I see between booking in NXT and on the main roster. For the last several months, there's been a lot more "sports entertainment" filler or meaningless matches to serve as filler than we've seen on WWE TV in quite a while. We all know Vince enjoys sports entertainment while Triple H is, reportedly, more of a straight wrestling guy who believes that matches, compelling storylines and interesting characters should be the focal point. Vince ultimately makes the final decisions creatively and the return of the various "sports entertainment" stuff seems, at least to me, that he's more insistent on having them be more prominent than we've seen. We've also seen the tag team division pretty weakened the past several months, though still nowhere near as bad as it's been for much of the past decade or so.

We've also seen what, in my opinion, has been the mishandling of Bray Wyatt at various points, mostly during his feud against John Cena. Vince is highly resistant to doing anything that even suggests John Cena looking the slightest bit weak, so much to the point that it becomes a detriment. Whenever Cena does look weak, Vince has to...I dunno...restore fans' faith in Cena or something by having him eat guys alive, the most unfortunate victims of which were The Wyatt Family in 2014, especially after his loss to Brock Lesnar. Speaking of Lesnar, there's been no shortage of complaints lodged towards WWE for having a guy who wrestles 3 or 4 times a year be WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

However, while the past several months, as a whole, haven't been the stuff that dreams are made of, I still think that there's been a lot more good than bad. It hasn't been the best year, but it's definitely been a year where a whole lot has happened and there's been absolutely no shortage of interesting things to talk or debate about. Whether it be anything regarding CM Punk, The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Bray Wyatt, The Shield, Sting, Dolph Ziggler, The Wyatt Family, NXT or whatever else, there's a little something for everyone to talk about good & bad.

If I had to rank the year as a whole on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd probably go with about a 7.5, though it could've been higher if the past 3 or 4 months as a whole hadn't been so lousy."

 

[Mustang Sally]

I'll give you three: Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins.

When the company decided to bring the three up to the main roster, did they foresee these guys being the wave of the future? When they were established as a trio, did Vince McMahon and Creative see them as terrific individual stars who could take WWE into the next decade?

As hard as it is to build real stars, the company was either lucky or foresighted to have three individual stars come out of one group.....but what a terrific turn of events it's been; all three have shown distinct, dynamic personae and emerging ring skills that fans are getting behind.....these guys aren't being forced on us, they're really taking the best advantage of their pushes and all three have broken through as solid performers.

As the Shield, I questioned some of Creative's decisions along the way. For instance, the idea of a group of renegades suddenly becoming enforcement people for the Authority seemed as unlikely and ineffective as anything I could think of.....yet, it worked, as did the ultimate break-up of the crew; it came at just the right time, imo.

As a result of it all, we have (not one, not two) but three unique ring personalities to build on into the 2020's. That's doing something right.

 

[L@RISANO]

I'll give you three: Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins.

When the company decided to bring the three up to the main roster, did they foresee these guys being the wave of the future? When they were established as a trio, did Vince McMahon and Creative see them as terrific individual stars who could take WWE into the next decade?

As hard as it is to build real stars, the company was either lucky or foresighted to have three individual stars come out of one group.....but what a terrific turn of events it's been; all three have shown distinct, dynamic personae and emerging ring skills that fans are getting behind.....these guys aren't being forced on us, they're really taking the best advantage of their pushes and all three have broken through as solid performers.

As the Shield, I questioned some of Creative's decisions along the way. For instance, the idea of a group of renegades suddenly becoming enforcement people for the Authority seemed as unlikely and ineffective as anything I could think of.....yet, it worked, as did the ultimate break-up of the crew; it came at just the right time, imo.

As a result of it all, we have (not one, not two) but three unique ring personalities to build on into the 2020's. That's doing something right.

Sadly, there are many who can't see that we could be getting 3 New Guys at the top with possible brilliant feuds between them to look forward to, and thus, they are actually pushing for the one thing they claim to hate... Having 1 Guy at the top!

As I have maintained, I would love to see all 3 headlining as Major Stars by SummerSlam 2015, and so far, so good, as long as WrestleMania 31 is booked in a way that all 3 have great moments to build off of.

 

[MartialHorror]

They did an excellent job booking the Shield, Rusev and re-working Daniel Bryan into their Wrestlemania plans.

 

[Papa Pillman]

These boards just seem totally negative these days.

According to a lot of you, nothing about today's WWE is any good whatsoever. All I hear is what Vince and Triple H have done wrong. I have yet to hear one positive thing being said for a long time.

There's one easy response for this: The Product has sucked for months. PERIOD.

You don't think so? That's your problem. But don't give everyone else shit for realizing how garbage the product is. When the WWE has a good product working, then everyone can't wait to praise it.

If anything this thread should be re-worked and put in the TNA section. TNA is where the unfair hate has been coming from. From late-June all the way through late-October TNA had easily the most consistently quality Television product in all of North American wrestling. But people still hated on it like crazy and wished it to die. Where was your thread whining about that?

Basically all I'm hearing from you is: "I'm an easy to please WWE apologist who can't handle reading honest criticism about the garbage product that is being shit out on a weekly basis."

No one wants the WWE product to suck. We want it to be great. But the fact is that the product has been indefensibly bad since before the summer.



As for what has worked in 2014:

NXT
It's been booked perfectly and the talent has delivered at every opportunity. Along the same lines...

Talent Signings
WWE has finally started making a habit of signing the best wrestlers on the planet from outside the company, instead of almost exclusively focusing on building their own guys. If at the start of 2012, you would've said that by end of 2014 the WWE would have Pac, Brodie Lee, El Generico, Sami Callihan, Samuray Del Sol, KENTA, Prince Devitt, and Kevin Steen all under contract, no one would have ever believed that(it would have been way too much of a "too good to be true" scenario). And because of this the "developmental" brand is blowing the main roster offerings out of the water, and actually giving the fans a chance to be optimistic that the product may have a revival on the horizon in the next couple years.

WrestleMania 30
One of the great openers in Mania history, and an amazing main event with a ridiculously perfect final moment.

The Current Booking of the Singles Champions
The IC champ is riding a great wave of momentum and delivering every time he's put into position to; The US champ has been booked as unbeatable; The WWE champion, while perpetually MIA, has gotten some of the best "monster" booking in WWE history(squashing the face of the company in the main event of the year's second biggest show is unheard of, Hogan never would've agreed to take a beating like the one Cena took at SS); and Mr. MITB has gotten some of the best main event heel booking in years. Speaking of...

Seth Rollins
Enough Said.

 

[LBGetBack]

Lately as in the last few months? Not much.

If we can go back a bit....Summerslam was excellent.

Bryan vs. The Authority was excellent. Unfortunate timing for Bryan's injury.

The Shield was excellent all the way through from start to breakup. They put on some great matches earlier in the year before the breakup.

Rollins has been well booked as a chicken-sh*t heel with ability.

At least they seem to be trying to get Bray Wyatt back on track, and it may work.

Ziggler is getting a well deserved push, and it's working.

I like that they have booked Rusev so strong. I don't have a lot of faith that they will handle his first loss and booking thereafter too well.....but I could be wrong. So far, so good, at least.

 

[chuckmdubya]

1. Wrestlemaina was great, and it gave the biggest fan favorite the title. One of the best ever PPV's

2. Launching WWE network was huge, it give long time fans a chance to go back and watch stuff they never thought they'd see again and lowered the cost of PPV dramatically.

3.Going back to a single Belt re-established to seriousness ad prominence of the WHC

Bonus 4. The splitting up od the two most popular factions turned out to be great booking I think. The Wyatt family members have all moved on and been good singles competitors. Bray picked up where he left off with playing his character better than anyone else plays theirs and his former minions are moving on up the card.
The former Shield members are all gonna be WHC one day, and they have all past our expectations for success. I already look forward to the day when the re unite from time to time like NWO and evolution do.

 

[Vader]

I'm interested in seeing if the WWE network will end up eating up the PPV sales long term, IE PPVs becoming less profitable because of the network.

The Shield vs. Wyatts was great. They did a gamble on two heel groups going at it and it paid off.

Bringing Sting in.

Not trying to woo CM Punk back is great too...

 

[MERPER]

WWE post WrestleMania has been garbage but I am giving it more time because they went through a really rough patch of injuries for a while there and are just now getting healthy again (Daniel Bryan, Reigns, Barrett all went down within a couple months of one another) at the same time Jericho's contract came and went, Batista left again, Ambrose and then Orton left to shoot movies and the roster got pretty depleted.

I think my biggest issue with them is a clear lack of consistent quality or capitalizing on the "BIG" thing.

The rivalry of the year, arguably, was Rollins vs. Ambrose once the Shield broke up. We get to Rollins/Ambrose HIAC where "nobody can interfere" and they inject wyatt for no good reason.

Sting comes out and does his Survivor Series thing and then disappears. Ya can't book the guy for the next night? Or 1 week later or something to further the storyline just a bit?

It's things like this, the seemingly inability to write for more than a week at a time that is maddening and it's why everything but the top 8 guys are so difficult to watch or care for.

The women's division is in a puddle of waste. I like Nikki, but you've run AJ into the ground. Tried to split the Bella's then reunited them without ANY explanation as if everyone would just forget the split. You started Paige off red hot as though she were some special talent (and she might be) then have removed her from TV basically.

The tag team division is a lost cause. The USO's aren't very good. Miz/Mizdow is only watchable cause of Mizdow's comedy and the Star brothers are just a sideshow gimmick.

Too many wrestlers are just irrelevant and/or bad: Kane, Cesaro, Bo Dallas, Adam Rose, the Matadors, Rowan, Mark Henry, New Day, Swagger.

Shock element has been basically lost. We're lucky to get 1 surprise or heel/face turn a month at this point.

Just way too much blah going on. Hopefully a healthy roster and the road to WrestleMania can kick start things again but something really does have to get going quickly here.

 

[DirtyD79]

Sheeps and haters, sheep and haters. Bullshit! The product has been a steaming pile of shit for a long time now. Complaining about it is not being a sheep and hater it's realizing "Hey wait a minute this show sucks!" If actually paying attention to what I'm watching long enough to know it's shit makes me a sheep and hater well then guilty as charged.
#sheepandhaters

 

[kadroan]

1. Booking Ambrose to beat Cena in the 10/13 RAW main event where the winner faces Seth Rollins in a HIAC.

I thought since Cena didn't win the title back at NoC, they would have had him beat Rollins, to look strong going into a rematch against Brock, disregarding one of the best feuds of the year. However, WWE did the right thing booked Ambrose to win so Ambrose can get revenge against Rollins while Cena faced Orton.

2. Having Seth Rollins turn on The Shield. I always thought either Reigns would turn on The Shield and eventually become this age's Corporate Champion like his cousin The Rock did with The Corporation or Ambrose because he was more successful as a solo wrestler than Reigns and Rollins.

It turns out taking the gamble on Rollins worked out as we to this very day get to see Rollins grow into one of the best heels WWE has ever had.

3. Booking Bryan into the main event of WrestleMania 30. I really thought they were seriously going to go through with the Batista/Orton main event at WrestleMania.

 

[RYBACK]

Getting rid of C.M. Punk was a very good move although they should have done it a couple of years ago. Of all the people no one has caused more trouble in the company than him.
Logic has spoken.