Ugh. Who is writing raw? We now have no less than 3 tag teams who all have the same storyline..rk-bro, Ali/mansoor and Niki a.s.h/Ripley.
Do the writers not see this? Do they simply not care? The same storyline happening (the reluctant partner angle) with all three pairs at the same time in a 3 hour show. Good lord. There’s got to be more creativity than this, no?
The bottom line is that creative is a huge part of the problem with Raw. Once again this felt like a sloppy show where little made sense.
And you can sense the crowd turning against it, we're hearing more boo's then cheers now, for the most part.
Let me put it this way, I love Alexa Bliss, I think she's the best pure character and mic worker on the roster right now and clearly she's invested in this Harley Quinn style of character that she's pushing. But lets be honest, when she's getting one of the biggest pops of the night and a Yes chant for asking for a title shot, it means that your audience is checking out on other characters.
Ray is a complete mess, I was looking for something entirely different in response for AEW's PPV last night.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The new theme with the "You're going to get your #$@#$@ head kicked in" chant weaved in is amazing.
And it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the WWE right now. AEW is really building what HHH was trying to do with NXT in a lot of ways, but it's being promoted as the main brand and doesn't have Raw/Smackdown/Vince looming over it.
Tensions have to be pretty high there right now and really I don't see WWE getting better until Vince realizes he actually needs to step aside. I'm not a HHH fan but there is no doubt in my mind that he would be delivering a better product if he was allowed to run the show now and they tried to make the whole roster more like what was building at NXT's peak.
Instead a lot of NXT wrestlers just went up to the main brand only for Vince to try to re-package them and then get ruined.
I have a feeling WWE would look A LOT different if HHH was fully in charge. RAW and Smackdown would be feeling a LOT more like NXT/AEW, and they'd be pushing talent with actual wrestling ability, signing and embracing indy stars, promoting Twitch accounts, and establishing partnerships with other leagues across the world.
Vince is so out of touch it's scary. 99.9% sure bet HHH knows this.
I have a feeling WWE would look A LOT different if HHH was fully in charge. RAW and Smackdown would be feeling a LOT more like NXT/AEW, and they'd be pushing talent with actual wrestling ability, signing and embracing indy stars, promoting Twitch accounts, and establishing partnerships with other leagues across the world.
Vince is so out of touch it's scary. 99.9% sure bet HHH knows this.
HHH is effectively pushed off to the side, the loss of the NXT vs AEW stuff really stunted him and gave excuses for the Pritchards to jump in and knee cap him.
I don't know if Vince is going to willingly hand off his baby to his kids like he probably originally planned. Shane looks like he's gone from the company again, Stephanie has faded away and HHH is neutered and probably looked at like a failure.
I have this sense that WWE will be sold over the next year and Vince will finally retire.
But the company is a complete creative mess, Lashley and Reigns are pretty much their only real main event guys with interesting stories. The woman's division that used to be a strength is a mess right now and Becky wanted to come back as a heel, sheesh.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I have a feeling WWE would look A LOT different if HHH was fully in charge. RAW and Smackdown would be feeling a LOT more like NXT/AEW, and they'd be pushing talent with actual wrestling ability, signing and embracing indy stars, promoting Twitch accounts, and establishing partnerships with other leagues across the world.
Vince is so out of touch it's scary. 99.9% sure bet HHH knows this.
Yeah and it's clear because that's how HHH booked NXT. He was willing to push guys that had wrestling ability, wasn't afraid to promote their successes around the world before NXT, and had logical natural fued progressions that wasn't just the same guys fighting over and over in variations of tag matches prior to the 1:1 match at the PPV.
Look at the guys who were NXT champions under HHH once NXT became a real brand.
Neville/Pac
Zayn
Owens
Balor
Samoa Joe
Nakamura
Roode
McIntyre
Andrade
Aleister Black
Ciampa
Gargano
Cole
Lee
Kross
These guys all had great NXT runs, and were booked awesome in NXT. But which of those guys has actually had success with Vince on the main roster?
Owens, Balor (in flashes), Joe (in flashes), and McIntyre.
With the talent at Vince's disposal over the last couple years the WWE should have had amazing success, instead they've floundered because Vince has no idea how to book these guys.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
HHH is effectively pushed off to the side, the loss of the NXT vs AEW stuff really stunted him and gave excuses for the Pritchards to jump in and knee cap him.
I don't know if Vince is going to willingly hand off his baby to his kids like he probably originally planned. Shane looks like he's gone from the company again, Stephanie has faded away and HHH is neutered and probably looked at like a failure.
I wonder about this. Nick Khan is a smart guy and anybody who has paid attention to WWE over the last 5 years knows that NXT has been successful under HHH and really overshadowed the main brand most of that time.
AEW won the ratings war on Wednesday nights but anybody outside of Vince should probably realize that wasn't really HHH's fault.
Honestly if I was a company that was looking at buying WWE I'd probably want part of that agreement to be that HHH stays to help with the transition, and potentially gets an executive role (with Vince retiring). Because even though I don't like the guy I think it's pretty clear that AEW is pretty much just what HHH wanted to do, but with the full support behind it, instead of Vince never fully getting "NXT" like in WWE.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 09-07-2021 at 10:25 AM.
Is anyone else watching the show Heels on Starz? So far it's four episodes in but you should be able to watch on demand.
Basically it's a tv series about a small town local wrestling promotion where the older brother (Stephen Amell) is the booker and main heel and the younger brother (Alexander Ludwig .ie Bjorn from Vikings) is the main face. So far Luke Gallows has been in a battle royal and CM Punk played a hillbilly legend.
I really enjoy the series, I've posted about it in the TV series thread.
Its funny how they've kinda sewn in some real world Wrestling stories. They have the Jake the Snake character. The tragedy of the pro wrestling life style.
Its a fun series.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Looks like Zayn contract is up in October and Owens in January.
Owens has changed his Twitter location to “Almost There”, and tweeted (and then deleted) the latitude and longitude coordinates for Mount Rushmore.
Mount Rushmore was his faction in ROH with Cole and The Young Bucks.
Guessing Zayn and Owens both end up in AEW too…AEW really is going to be the best of NJPW and NXT on one show.
If the WWE wants to get themselves out of this, they really need to be selective with who they keep/push moving forward....just like they did when WCW was raiding their talent in the '90's. Guys like Luger, Warrior and even Bret Hart were "allowed to leave" so that they could start giving other guys the spotlight and move forward and turn the page.
Although I really like Zayn, both Owens and Zayn have had their time in the WWE. If they leave, they leave. There's only so much they can push someone before they have to start the cycle with someone else. Neither one of those guys I'd consider long standing acts in the WWE.
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WWE is doubling and tripling down on things wrestling fans don't want to see but what non-wrestling fans think wrestling is.
For the first time in my over 25 years of watching professional wrestling, I am pretty close to watching zero wwe/wwf product. Almost all the guys I really want to see are now in AEW and I am not going to tune in for the short clips of New Day/Mcyntire etc because they're being booked like garbage. I don't think AEW's booking is all that much better, but if everyone I want to see is there, then, well yeah.
WWE is doubling and tripling down on things wrestling fans don't want to see but what non-wrestling fans think wrestling is.
For the first time in my over 25 years of watching professional wrestling, I am pretty close to watching zero wwe/wwf product. Almost all the guys I really want to see are now in AEW and I am not going to tune in for the short clips of New Day/Mcyntire etc because they're being booked like garbage. I don't think AEW's booking is all that much better, but if everyone I want to see is there, then, well yeah.
I don't disagree with any of that.
But if you think about what the wwe is doing now (other than the terrible booking) is that they are cleaning house on the older guys. For example, although I think it was terrible creatively to promote the hell out of Black for weeks only to cut him a week after his debut, he's 36 years old. If they wanted to push him, he'd be competing with other 36 year olds who are already over in the WWE.
For months I've been saying that NXT has been by far the better product over RAW and Smackdown. However, having said that, how many of the guys in NXT were in their mid-20's? Almost none. And that's the issue. NXT was supposed to be the farm system for the RAW and SmackDown brands, but it failed miserably at that goal because if talent was brought up to the main roster, many of them would only have 2-3 years....and that's only if they could get over on the main roster.
When the Rock and Foley and Austin were in their prime they were in their late 20's or early 30's. The guys in the current farm system are just too old. I don't mean that they're not still talented, I just mean that their window is sooooo much smaller to make a significant impact at that age.
And I think that's what the WWE sees too.
The WWE has always created stars on their own, but they have a gap here now in talent (age wise) and they need to really focus on developing young talent instead of holding onto ones that may only get a couple more years in the spotlight.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. If you look at the WWE their roster reflects WCW in its decline. Older vets that aren't really doing anything innovative while the younger mid and lower card guys who have to fight for TV time are being smothered.
I mean at this point I love Kevin Owens, but we have to admit that he's been heavily pushed in his time, but maybe its time to depart him, same with Sami who seems to have trouble staying healthy.
With NXT the issue after a while was they stopped seeing it for what it is, a minor league training ground to build stars. Instead they jumped on Independent older stars and it just didn't create as much excitement. I also agree with what a columnist said. NXT pays too well and is too cushy and dosen't foster competition. Competition made Stone Cold and the Rock and Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels what they were. fight for the top spots and the money. instead there's a sense of satisfaction and luxury and you get a bunch of NXT players that are like nah, I don't want to go to the main roster, I want to stay here.
A demotion from the main roster where you still make your guarantee and all that while getting a share of the top of the card doesn't foster hunger.
The WWE workers almost seem passionateless right now because there's no competition breaking the glass ceiling.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I also agree with what a columnist said. NXT pays too well and is too cushy and dosen't foster competition. Competition made Stone Cold and the Rock and Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels what they were. fight for the top spots and the money. instead there's a sense of satisfaction and luxury and you get a bunch of NXT players that are like nah, I don't want to go to the main roster, I want to stay here.
A demotion from the main roster where you still make your guarantee and all that while getting a share of the top of the card doesn't foster hunger.
The WWE workers almost seem passionateless right now because there's no competition breaking the glass ceiling.
I hadn't really thought of it that way, but yeah, that does make sense.
There's a lot of negative talk right now about such and such wrestler leaving, but at the end of the day, this is entertainment...it's not professional hockey. Why would the WWE invest in a talent that they can only use for 2-3 years when they could do the same for someone younger and get 10-15 years of PPV's, merchandise, etc.
Keith Lee is another good example of that. So many negative comments about his "mis-use", without taking into context his age (almost 37). Regardless of what you think of his ability (I don't particularly think he's a great wrestler despite what the pundits say), they have almost no time to get him to main event status and even less time to profit from that main event status....and that's IF he even get over (which I don't think he would).
LA Knight is 38! There's no way the WWE is going to give him a big push at this stage of his career...even though I think he could be great on the main roster.
The best guys in NXT's golden age were basically all in their 30's by the time they were champs:
Finn Balor
Samoa Joe
Bobby Roode
Sami Zayn
Kevin Owens
Shinsuke Nakamura
Drew McIntyre
Tommaso Ciampa
Johnny Gargano
Older indie guys had the experience and understanding of the business to craft their characters and have the wrestling chops to boot. Most talents under 30 just haven't left their impact on the brand the way these guys did.
If NXT wants to be used as development, fine - but your best stars are in their 30's and there's really no way around this. Maybe improve the booking on RAW and Smackdown to ensure these guys get maximum exposure while delivering the product they've crafted over all these years.
If not, then NXT would be where I want to stay too based on style of wrestling and storyline writing.
And clearly with AEW snapping up all of the talent (with most of the big names in their 30's and even into their 40's) people are hungry to see characters who can wrestle and deliver on the mic no matter what their ages are. Even then they let the 20-somethings get their feet wet with AEW on Dark and Elevation.
AEW has figured it out on how to utilize actual wrestlers. WWE seems to want to move away from that and go towards gymnasts, athletes, Olympians, and reality show contestants.
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When the Rock and Foley and Austin were in their prime they were in their late 20's or early 30's. The guys in the current farm system are just too old. I don't mean that they're not still talented, I just mean that their window is sooooo much smaller to make a significant impact at that age.
Guys like Rock, Orton, Cena, and Brock tend to be the exception in terms of being young guys in Wrestling that were able to draw.
Austin was 32 when he won his first title, Foley was 33.
Punk was 33 for the Summer of Punk.
Byran was 33 for Wrestlmania 30 and the Yes Movement.
Austin won the Royal Rumble and his first Title at Wrestlemania in 1998. 4 years later in 2002 his career as a full time wrestler was pretty much over when he walked out on the show.
Even the young guys like the Rock and Brock didn't have long initial runs. Rock won his first tile in 1998, dropped the title to Brock at Summerslam 2002, and was a part timer for most of his career after that.
Lesnar won that title at Summerslam 2002, left the business by Wrestlemania 2004, and returned in 2012 when he was 35 years old.
Early to mid-thirties isn't that old for a Wrestler traditionally and 4 years is a long long time in wrestling. Really if you spend 4 years as a main eventer in Wrestling then you are doing really well.
If AEW can even get 2-3 good years out of Punk, Bryan, etc then that will be good enough for them to gain a foothold and a portion of the industry.
Guys like Cole and Andrade are still early 30s and have a lot they can give to AEW still.
WWE does need to focus on creating their own stars again, but they've really struggled to do that in recent history, and really I'm not sure they will have success at doing it without changing how they look at the industry. And the problem is they needed to treat the NXT Superstars more like they treated Kevin Owens, and less like they treated guys like Ricochet/Kross. You don't need to re-brand these guys, and re-introduce them when they come up from NXT. Just have them come up as actual, credible threats on the roster from day 1.
And I think the biggest impact is going to be that I don't think they are the premier draw in the industry if you are a young wrestler right now...people might look at AEW as the place where you want to be if you are a wrestler right now because I'm not sure you would really trust Vince with creating a character and brand that would really push you as a wrestler.
I think this is happening in NXT too. I don't think guys want to stay in NXT because the pay is too high or because it's cushier. It's because they know when they go to the main roster it's a 90% chance they just stay in the low to mid card and have their character ruined by Vince.
I'm kind of surprised we've never seen guys Foley and Austin in creative roles behind the scenes. You'd have to think they'd be able to have better creative than what we are seeing right now, problem is they'd probably push back on Vince too much.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 09-08-2021 at 11:43 AM.
The best guys in NXT's golden age were basically all in their 30's by the time they were champs:
Finn Balor
Samoa Joe
Bobby Roode
Sami Zayn
Kevin Owens
Shinsuke Nakamura
Drew McIntyre
Tommaso Ciampa
Johnny Gargano
Older indie guys had the experience and understanding of the business to craft their characters and have the wrestling chops to boot. Most talents under 30 just haven't left their impact on the brand the way these guys did.
If NXT wants to be used as development, fine - but your best stars are in their 30's and there's really no way around this. Maybe improve the booking on RAW and Smackdown to ensure these guys get maximum exposure while delivering the product they've crafted over all these years.
If not, then NXT would be where I want to stay too based on style of wrestling and storyline writing.
And clearly with AEW snapping up all of the talent (with most of the big names in their 30's and even into their 40's) people are hungry to see characters who can wrestle and deliver on the mic no matter what their ages are. Even then they let the 20-somethings get their feet wet with AEW on Dark and Elevation.
AEW has figured it out on how to utilize actual wrestlers. WWE seems to want to move away from that and go towards gymnasts, athletes, Olympians, and reality show contestants.
Booking is hugely important....no doubt. Not arguing that at all. Its been terrible lately.
However, talent still has to get over. Some of the best, most legendary wrestlers had terrible gimmicks and were booked horribly early on too. Some wrestlers that were heavily pushed never amounted to much. Its not 100% on creative. It never is. It never was.
There's also a difference between being in your 30's and almost 40 (10 years if my math is correct) Kevin Owens is 37 NOW. Samoa Joe is 42 NOW. Robert Roode is 44 NOW. Sami Zayn is 37 NOW. Nakamura is 41 NOW. McIntyre is 36 NOW.
And...we're talking about the product being stale and that most of these guys arent over in terms of main event status.
So now, who do they have to come in and cycle these stars out with?
Keith Lee: 36
LA Knight: 38
Kross: 36
Matt Riddle: 35
Ciampa: 36
Gargano: 34
O'Reilly:34
Bronson Reed (cut): 33.
Who's coming onto RAW to take the show over for the next 10 years? All of these guys will be in their 40's (or close to) by the time they're ready to do that.
It's why we're seeing a shift in the direction of NXT.
WWE creative has been terrible....no doubt. But they won't be able to get out of this if they don't have anyone in their 20 ready take over.
Booking is hugely important....no doubt. Not arguing that at all. Its been terrible lately.
However, talent still has to get over. Some of the best, most legendary wrestlers had terrible gimmicks and were booked horribly early on too. Some wrestlers that were heavily pushed never amounted to much. Its not 100% on creative. It never is. It never was.
There's also a difference between being in your 30's and almost 40 (10 years if my math is correct) Kevin Owens is 37 NOW. Samoa Joe is 42 NOW. Robert Roode is 44 NOW. Sami Zayn is 37 NOW. Nakamura is 41 NOW. McIntyre is 36 NOW.
And...we're talking about the product being stale and that most of these guys arent over in terms of main event status.
So now, who do they have to come in and cycle these stars out with?
Keith Lee: 36
LA Knight: 38
Kross: 36
Matt Riddle: 35
Ciampa: 36
Gargano: 34
O'Reilly:34
Bronson Reed (cut): 33.
Who's coming onto RAW to take the show over for the next 10 years? All of these guys will be in their 40's (or close to) by the time they're ready to do that.
It's why we're seeing a shift in the direction of NXT.
WWE creative has been terrible....no doubt. But they won't be able to get out of this if they don't have anyone in their 20 ready take over.
Here is the problem though.
WWE has been hiring tons of young names for the development center over the last 10 years, it's not like they've only hired the more well known indie guys for NXT. Problem is they haven't really been able to actually convert any of those young guys to stars. They've had to hire the well known guys off the indies to try to fill the gap because the Performance Center has failed at creating their own guys internally.
So the question is are they focused on the wrong type of people to start with, or is the performance center just bad?
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 09-08-2021 at 11:53 AM.
