Why does the bad always overshadow the good with WWE?

[rayisawesomeness]

I was watching some promos on YouTube from the Jericho/Michaels 2008 feud (my personal favorite feud of all time) and it just seems like it has been so forgotten. I guess it's because most people would rather talk about bad things than good things.

A lot of times when I'm on forums, people like to discuss things in the WWE that are... bad. For instance, most people in here talk about how boring the feud between Triple H and Orton rather than how amazing the Jericho/Michaels feud was. Wherever on go on any wrestling oriented forum, people talk about matches like Hornswoggle vs. Chavo or Orton vs. Batista rather than talking about matches like Jericho vs. Mysterio or Hardy vs. Punk. Why do you guys think that most people would rather talk about bad things than good things?

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[Reddannihilation]

Firstly, because it's human nature to focus on the bad. Secondly, because there's usually a lot more bad going on than there is good and thirdly, because you can't have much of a conversation about how good something was. e.g "Damn that match was really good", "I agree". Where do you go from there? When you hold a negative opinion on something, a whole bunch of discussion topics arise just from that one opinion. It's not so much that people only ever talk about the bad, it just happens to be more frequently discussed because there's always a lot more bad then there is good especially in wrestling today.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

I agree with you that The bad overshadows the good. However, that is for a couple reasons. And they are in no particular order:

1) Wrestling fans are critics by nature. A lot of us have been watching and following the business for so many years that specific tastes for "what is good" and "what is bad" have been formulated in our minds. Many of us have graduated from the days of being simply spoon-fed whatever we got. Where as that may have been good enough in the past ... it isn't now.



2) In general, we are a more opinionated society now. Not just pertaining to wrestling, but for just about every topic. Why? Because of the Internet. Through more effective means of communication and conversing with each other ... combined with everyone having a library at their fingertips .... this has also developed our senses of "what is good" and "what is bad". We are influenced by a lot more factors now, since our communication capabilities have been vastly improved.

Being that the IWC is comprised of mostly critics and the tone is more often negative than not ... this negative energy is transferred over to the forums ... as we pick apart everything.



3) The Internet has also made us more impatient. We want instant gratification and we want it now, Now, NOW. We don't have the patience for any mistakes that McMahon (in this case) may make. McMahon has made HUGE mistakes these past several years ... mostly by failing to push and develop enough new performers ... and not focusing on the Mid-card. In terms, the IWC has been extremely unforgiving and very impatient in seeing him try to catch up.



4) We like choice and competition. If one product doesn't suit our needs, we like having the option to visit another. Vince never bothered replacing those choices when he bought out his competition ... and instead only offers one product across the board. That has left MANY fans with a very negative taste in their mouth.



5) Quite frankly, because WWE programming has not been at its best. People are upset because there IS more bad than good when it comes to programming. Vince has slacked off since putting his competition out of business and it shows in his product. People have simply taken notice.


There are still a lot of people that like being spoon-fed whatever they receive, and they are satisfied with that. However, there are just as many people that aren't satisfied. Because they are more opinionated, they know what they want out of the business. And if they don't get it, they are unhappy and spread the negativity.



6) Along with that, people like novelty. Vince has clearly ran out of ideas and we simply aren't seeing new and innovative things from him. He seems to be caught in between the New Generation and the Attitude Era all over again, with not knowing what to do with his product. In doing so, we aren't seeing anything new we haven't seen before. And that upsets people.


Those are some of the main reasons why this negativity exists, and why the Bad overshadows the Good.

 

[johnbragg]

Short answer: Because if you take a gallon of the world's best ice cream and one dog turd and mix them together, you have a dogcrap sundae. No one cares about how double-smooth the milk was is or how carefully selected the vanilla beans are.

WWE could have two hours of awesome wrapped around a 3-minute Hornswoggle segment and the show would add up to Suck to anyone but confirmed addicts or heavy DVR users.

 

[Nicole13Edge/HardyFan]

People usually don't remeber good fueds like Shawn Michales and Chris Jericho. I mean does anyone even rember the Rated RKO DX fued I do. It's just that now since the WWE has gone tv-pg people are just looking for bad things within the business. People don't remeber good fueds because they would rather complain about what Vince is doing.

 

[T2KFreeker]

The problem right now is that most of what is happening on WWE television isn't the most stellar stuff Vince and crew has come up with. Shaking things up is what the shows need because stuff is just really stiff and stale right now. I was floored when C.M. Punk came out and had that match with R-Truth and lost this last Friday. There was an unexpected and hopefully good future angle. Look at the rest of the show though. It was the same damn thing over and over again for the most part. I would like to see WWE go in the right direction as there is quite a bit of tallent on the rosters, but they just seem to be doing one or two things at a time and then throwing together the rest of the shows. If there was more good stuff going on right now, there would be more poritive feedback.

 

[Razor]

A lot seem love that shit known as the Attitude Era. They can't seem to let it go. Why, I'll never know. If it doesn't have Edge screwing some Diva in the middle of the ring, then it just isn't goddamned edgy enough!

Those who don't love the Attitude Era, usually find legit things to dislike. I mean, Cena isn't going to be loved by everyone. Neither is Kofi, Hardy, Taker, HBK, anyone. The Swoggle, especially.

The key, as I've always seen, is to either take a break from WWE or don't get so caught up in who is getting pushed, who is getting squashed, or who is going to win that title next PPV. Just take the WWE in as a show, and the product will increase 10 fold.

I think the IWC have lost their inner mark, as if that's a bad thing to be or something. And when you lose that inner mark, everything the WWE puts out is automatically a lot worse than it really is. Have people really forgotten how bad earlier wrestling was? I've gone back and watched a few shows, and I've read KB's reviews. That shit was just plain horrible. Worse than the PG era, that's for sure.

 

[jinglin]

It is true we often times think of the bad rather than the good, but have you seen a recent trend here? When thinking of the past 4-5 years, many of us would point out the crappy things and the rivalries that seemed to drag on for way too long. That's mainly because those few years are still fresh in our mind. But if you ask someone to remember the Attitude Era, or anywhere in the past 8 years or so, they could only remember good things. The Attitude Era was NOT perfect, for every 2 hours of excitment, theres bound to be 10 minutes of boredom somewhere in there too. But when we look back to the past, we look back in rose-colored glasses, which means we only remember the great and memorable things and never the shitty ones. We still think of the last 3 years as bad because fueds like John Cena vs Randy Orton was still happening 2 weeks ago, so it was still bright in our mind an reminded us of how much we hated there continous lame matches and always being in the title picture. But wait a few years (or months) to pass, and we'll rememeber the excellent Jericho/Micheals/Mysterio/Whatever Else fueds and leave the bad ones decomposing in our memories. - JLZ

 

[HBK-aholic]

Absolutely love that feud, one of my personal favourites also. I'm in the minority on forums in that I generally still love the WWE. I'm the opposite as what you say, there are a few bad parts, everything will have. Especially when the WWE has hours of programming a week. But I focus on the things I love because otherwise, what's the point in watching?

People focus on the bad because they're not happy unless they're complaining. The words 'PG era' are full of so many bad connotations that people seem to think anything happening in this era is bad because it's not the beloved Attitude era. They really need to get over it. The attitude era was never the 'point' of wrestling in the long term, it was to win ratings when WCW looked sure to win the Monday night wars.

I also think on a forum it's easier to come across as more negative as you generally let bother you. For example, if someone says a segment was really good, and you didn't, you two simply having a debate on the quality of that segment will come across as you being negative, despite the fact the segment didn't take away from your enjoyment when you were actually watching the show.

 

[Sean Valjean]

It's just human nature; it's much easier to create conversation and interest from something negative than positive. You can only say so much about how good something is, but if something's bad, you pick it apart, criticize it, and try to find out how to make it better. Just watch the news for proof.

As far as the WWE goes, it's human nature combined with the fact that there IS more bad than good going on.

The Good:

Smackdown/ECW
The mid-card belts finally being used
The slow rise of the mid-card
On a personal note, there are more superstars I enjoy than hate.
Good heels
Um...it's in HD?


The Bad

Raw, mostly the guest host thing
Stale main event scene
Mid-carders/Divas not being developed as well as main eventers
Mediocre Tag/Divas division
Stale commentary
Too many gimmick ppv's with terrible names (too many ppv's in general)
Decline in quality storylines
Bland faces
Hornswoggle

Even with all that, I still watch and will continue to watch because I still find enjoyment out of it. I may criticize the hell out of it, but I still love the WWE; it's just more of a tough love because I know they can do a hell of a lot better than they are now.

 

[Tastycles]

There's more talk about the bad then the good because everyone has different opinions. As soon as someone says something is good, someone else bashes it. When there is a universally perceived good thing, threads about it die. The feud between Jericho and Michaels generated little discussion because people just allowed themselves to enjoy it, without needing to question every facet of the feud in minute detail. It's part of the reason why I often stop posting on here, just needless dissection of things to find the negative. When something is genuinely shit, it actually generates less discussion than when someone bitches about something that isn't.

The IWC doesn't thrive on the positive or the negative, it thrives on people finding the negatives in the positive.

 

[Ubiquitous]

We all have to remember that regardless of who we are, how long we've watched wrestling, how long we've been part of the IWC, we're still all different people. We have that common interest that is wrestling, but our lives are all completely different. Different tastes for different people. Some people get easily offended by stuff that generally isn't offensive to the majority. Example? No problem!

The Eddie/Rey "I'm your papi" feud. Most people loved this feud, as far as I can tell (i've never really seen too much discussion on it since I'm still relatively new to forum lurking). It was an interesting storyline, full of back and forth action and a compelling and personal story to pull you off the edge of your seat. Me, on the other hand, knew someone that's had to actually deal with a situation similar to that. They weren't able to have kids so a friend offered to help them out (be the surrogate mother) and ended up getting so attached during the birthing process she couldn't let go and actually took the parents to court to get custody of a child that wasn't hers. It hurt everyone. Seeing that made me cringe at the thought of WWE pulling an angle similar. I didn't enjoy any of it but, that's human nature. Back on track now.

I think it's just plain more fun to complain about what's bad, to be completely honest. Everything in WWE is claimed to be bad by someone, somewhere, all the time. I mean, seriously, even the term "PG era" has this bad aura around it, and all it defines is a time.

It's funny though, because it doesn't really matter. No matter how much someone says how that match sucked, or this match was too short, or this match ended wrong, If I loved it, I'm still going to love it. What I mean to say is the bad doesn't necessarily overshadow the good, because "the good" is what we all watch wrestling for.

(for the record, I agree that the Y2J/HBK feud was genius. HBK going through the Jeritron was amazing)

 

[gd]

That's just the way things are, especially on a discussion forum. You need people arguing both sides, and a lot of times it's cooler to say WWE sucks, wrestling sucks, life sucks instead of just enjoying things. HBK/Jericho was absolutely amazing, so there was nothing to talk about or to argue.

It also comes with being part of the IWC and becoming a "smarter" wrestling fan. I still enjoy the WWE, but I don't think I do as much as I did before joining my first forum. Sometimes people just need to watch wrestling without thinking too deeply about it and it'll be a much better experience.

 

[ThePeoplesChampion]

It's simple....people dont care bout the good...which sad to say....this goes past wrestling and into the media it self....i watched fox pregame today and they showed something the news hasnt the good thing happening over seas and the troops.....watch the news most of it is bad...so it just goes along to these forums.....jeff hardy go wrestle a great match but once he gets arrested thats all they talk about....im not a cena fan but everybody disses him and his wrestling skill....no one mentions what he does for the make a wish foundation and the young fans he is bringing to the sport/enterainment....this is a world that loves the bad news....thats why you hear bout every death in the war but nothing good that the troops are doing....you hear every lil cry terrell "T.O." Owens makes...but a reciever who is way better gets no credit reggie wayne....and you hear of every detail of the jeff hardy drug story but nothing bout what he did to the business.

 

[The Phenomenal One]

This happens in everyday life. People, for some reason, love to focus on the negatives and never the positives. I know this is a little weird comparison, but I'll a say that a prime example is Whitney Houston. It was a video of her performing on Oprah this past September. And I was watching the video on Youtube. And I saw a myriad of people bringing up her past issues. Now everybody knows that Whitney was on drugs and she was also in an abusive relationship. But now she's over all that, singing again, and doing her own thing. But for some reason, people love to focus on her past. People love to focus on all the negatives and never the postives...i.e her being off of drugs, divorced from Bobby Brown, regaining her spirituality, singing again, having another number 1 album, ect. Another example is Michael Jackson. You have people, less now than before he died, who'll focus on him being a "pedo" (even though that shit was never proven to be true) and they'll totally overlook all his awesome contributions to music. Another example is Wrestlemania 25. IMO, that WM is severly underrated. People say that it sucked but I think that most say that b/c of the main event. People will over look the awesome MITB (Kingston and Shelton owned in that match), the awesome Jeff/Matt match, the memorable encounter between Jericho and Steamboat, the pretty awesome triple threat match, the classic HBK/Taker match, the memorable moment that saw Austin saying his final goodbye to the fans, and only focus on the anti-climatic main event. Alot of people just love to focus on the negatives and never the postives.

 

[Southwind]

Look lots of people are just pessimists in general, and society kinda works that way now the mainstream media encourages this. The media always covers bad people and stories while ignoring the huge lot of great people today.

Sometimes people don't get what they want so they will crap on whatever is put on their screens.

You can't really complain about it, if you have a wrestling forum, or any forum of public opinion. You are encouraging, and empowering people to give their opinions whether they are positive or negative.

 

[Sedated]

Ummm, topics are generally kept current. What's currently going on in the WWE is usually seen as being bad hence we discuss the bad.

Why would we still be talking about a feud from over a year ago? I'm sure people sang their praises while it was happening. To say we're focussing on the bad simply because we don't keep talking about the good from many yesterdays ago.. well, I just don't understand that.

 

[The Bar Room Drunk]

Because although we may not like to admit it deep down we all like a good moan. We like to go crazy over something thats pissed us of. And to be honest with its experiance and the number of veiwers i expect the WWE to be getting it right everytime. So if they do its more to talk about than if they get it right.