Official WWE/ECW/WCW/TNA talk, or whatever v2

[Yanda]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Not sure about Aleister Black. I think his back injury literally did him in and he just never got the momentum back.

I read this as Aleister Back LOL

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Getting better everywhere on the card except at the top where it's still Jon Moxley wasting everyone's ####ing time.

Yeah, the bit between Hangman and Swerve to close Dynamite this week was really well done.

It's both good and frustrating to see them doing longterm storytelling and proper builds. Good, because it's making for compelling TV. Bad, because they wasted two years just booking nonsense.

EDIT: I do hope they can move away a bit from the blood and "extreme" spots. I don't need ECW every week.

[rubecube]

Sucks that Jay White is out for a long time now. They finally seemed to have figured out what to do with him.

[rubecube]

In other news, Pat McAfee continues to be a real piece of ####.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity...-what-to-know/

[SuperMatt18]

TBH outside of Cena and Cody's promos this WM build has been a bit awkward and clunky.

Not sure what was going on between Tiffany and Charlotte tonight too but that felt a little messy and some rumours they went off script.

Still have no idea how they thought trying to bring Charlotte back as a face who wins the Rumble was a good idea.

[trackercowe]

Kevin Owens injuring his neck and missing months at a time is a downer as well. I assume it happened in his match with Zayn. Hopefully he signed that new contract.

Also that means Orton is without a partner for Mania. I wonder if he might face Aldis after the RKO tonight, or perhaps a mystery opponent (Rusev or Black)?

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

TBH outside of Cena and Cody's promos this WM build has been a bit awkward and clunky.

Not sure what was going on between Tiffany and Charlotte tonight too but that felt a little messy and some rumours they went off script.

Still have no idea how they thought trying to bring Charlotte back as a face who wins the Rumble was a good idea.

Charlotte just does not seem to have the composure to handle when things don't go the way she thought they would. This harkens back to her pissy behaviour that had Sonya Deville looking like she was about to braid up and murder her a few years ago. Stratton has struggled so much in this match up, and she finally started to hold her own and Charlotte just unravelled.

Charlotte was instrumental in helping the WWE's women's revolution take off. She was, at the time, likely the best of the four horsewomen and earned her spot at the top. Since then is she even in the top 10 for best women wrestlers in the world? Hell, in the WWE?

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

I assume it happened in his match with Zayn.

He said he's been dealing with it for about 4 months so probably in January. But the match with Zayn probably didn't help.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Charlotte just does not seem to have the composure to handle when things don't go the way she thought they would. This harkens back to her pissy behaviour that had Sonya Deville looking like she was about to braid up and murder her a few years ago. Stratton has struggled so much in this match up, and she finally started to hold her own and Charlotte just unravelled.

Charlotte was instrumental in helping the WWE's women's revolution take off. She was, at the time, likely the best of the four horsewomen and earned her spot at the top. Since then is she even in the top 10 for best women wrestlers in the world? Hell, in the WWE?

I get argued with all of the time in terms of Charlotte, but I was a fan of hers for while, but after a while everything with her seemed forced. They kept her in the title picture constantly, even when other woman were blowing past her in terms of ability and mic work.



Yeah, the Tiffany and Charlotte thing last night was clunky. From my understanding it came from the WWE office asking Charlotte to push Tiffany because her work hasn't been what they wanted. So Charlotte went off script first. Last night Tiffany went off script and it was a full fledged punch in the face to Charlotte.


Even at her height it always felt like Flair had to be scripted and she had to know what was coming from her opponent. So when Tiffany collected her receipt and went off of script, Charlotte as predicted lost her composure.



As physically talented as Flair is, she just like her old man, she does paint by numbers same old matches, and I'm hoping that's not the case here. Tiffany has serious talent, she really does, but people seem to forget that she's still green, but she might need to push the pace, carry Charlotte to a more interesting match. But Flair looked awful on the mic last night.



When the 4 horsemen backstage concept took off, Charlotte was in the lead, but Becky certainly blew by her. Bayley's probably just as good of a worker, she's more independent on the mic and way more creative.And Sasha when she wants to is certainly a better working in the ring, but Sasha has always been kinda hot garbage on the mic without being protected by a strict script. So is Charlotte even the best of the 4 Horsemen? Not really, and in today's woman's division, she's been really badly surpassed.


And yeah, I remember when Sonya DeVille looked like she'd finally had enough of Charlotte, out of all the woman in that division at the time, Sonya is the one that you don't push to that point.

[Inferno]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1908531581033287990

[SuperMatt18]

Spoiler!

Just what this Moxley story needed...The Young Bucks!

[trackercowe]

What is with AEW and these overbooked mess of a main event. Does every match need to have everyone and the kitchen sink... What the heck are they doing? There must have been 42 different people involved in that match. Absolutely atrocious booking.

[CaptainCrunch]

Its the issue with giving workers a lot of creative space. Just because a guy like Moxley is creative, it doesn't mean his ideas are good. He's like Jericho, and as much as Jericho complains about his time in WWE, frankly the fact that Vince put a limiter on him and gave him a strong producer that could say no to Chris made him better.



There were people like Arn and Mark Henry there and when they tried to act like producers they were told by talent that they didn't need advice, its the same story with Regal.



And when you have a fan like Tony who's booking experience is basically on line efeds, you get outright chaos. You can probably control the younger guys and the inexperienced guys, but if the Moxley's and Omegas and the Bucks decide they're going to do it their way, then things tend to go bad.

[SuperMatt18]

I'm not sure that's the case here.

This feels like some vision that Tony K has that nobody else just has right now.

And it's very 90s booking too TBH.

Where factions and groups work together and then turn on one another on a whim.

WWE had that in the attitude era at times in the DX / Corporation / Ministry of Darkness period where people made weird decisions within the factions at times.

Same with WCW / NWO / NWO Wolfpack etc in WCW.

"Bucks siding with Moxley and taking out Swerve is Shocking! and Shocking is good!" type of logic.

[LIP MAN]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I'm not sure that's the case here.

This feels like some vision that Tony K has that nobody else just has right now.

And it's very 90s booking too TBH.

Where factions and groups work together and then turn on one another on a whim.

WWE had that in the attitude era at times in the DX / Corporation / Ministry of Darkness period where people made weird decisions within the factions at times.

Same with WCW / NWO / NWO Wolfpack etc in WCW.

"Bucks siding with Moxley and taking out Swerve is Shocking! and Shocking is good!" type of logic.

I mean it does tie together what happened when they left, and some of the stories. Only issue is people want long term storytelling, but want some booking decisions to make sense. There are interwoven stories here, but they have to do a lot on Dynamite to make sense of it all. This isn’t dissimilar to Cody being dragged into Mania, as that storyline sorta dragged at times, but the payoff was the point I suppose. It’s an issue with modern day booking, it’s either hot shot booking or dragged out storylines, but it’s been more compelling now that we have more of a reason.

Either way solid PPV, not their best as some matches felt like they weren’t necessary on a PPV; but we have some good stories going on with FTR and the Omega/Speedball/Ricochet match was really great, and Kevin Knight is quickly making a name for himself in North America.

[TheIronMaiden]

I don't follow close enough to be in the know about small tells or any long term hints, but it feels to me like a mistake about the difference between MYSTERY VS. CONFUSION.

On one hand you have WWE which has Hayman walking with Punk at WM ( the most obvious favor that is probably meaningless ) and AEW which has a Heel Faction helping another Heel faction for seemingly no reason.

[TheIronMaiden]

My Dream Match is Gable vs El Grande Americano. Those two would have awesome chemistry I bet.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I don't follow close enough to be in the know about small tells or any long term hints, but it feels to me like a mistake about the difference between MYSTERY VS. CONFUSION.

On one hand you have WWE which has Hayman walking with Punk at WM ( the most obvious favor that is probably meaningless ) and AEW which has a Heel Faction helping another Heel faction for seemingly no reason.

I mean Seth's "I didn't stomp your head in, so now you owe me a favour" stuff is dumb as hell.

The build to Mania has largely been trash. The Iyo/Rhea/Bianca stuff is lazy as hell. Punk/Roman/Seth is super forced. Is there a tag title match anyone cares about?

Meanwhile, in AEW, you have the biggest "go away" heat guys aligning with the second biggest "go away" heat guys.

Great stuff all around.

[trackercowe]

The tag divisions in both companies suck. AEW has nobody to book against The Hurt Syndicate. Bryan Kieth should be nowhere near a title shot. Things have fallen significantly from 2-3 years ago when there were multiple strong teams. WWE should probably merge the divisions again, but maybe a long heel New Day run will help... although it's tough when they are barely featured on Raw. Back in January they were involved in the hottest angle after they turned on Big E.

[SuperMatt18]

The problem with the Mania build this year is really that they couldn't commit to stories in the mid-card at all.

At 40 everything came together with more of long term builds.

Rhea and Becky, Jey vs Jimmy, Sami w/Gable vs Gunther, Bayley vs Iyo Sky / Damage CTRL, Rollins vs Punk vs Drew, Orton vs Paul vs Owens, The tag team titles, all of those programs had long term builds that were in the works as far back as Summerslam.

The only forced matches were The Pride vs Final Testament, and the LWO/Dom tag team match (long term build that Dom was kind of shoe horned into).

They did a great job of building long term stories that worked throughout the entire card - and managed to turn around what could have been a disaster by going back to Cody and Reigns with the Rock bringing his A game to amplify the entire storyline.

This year feels a bit like the opposite.

Gunther vs Jey has long term build - but also a bit underwhelming due to Jey not really bringing what he brought to his great singles fued with Roman.

Cody vs Cena / Rock has been okay, but also lacking due to just Cena/Rock not being present on TV enough.

All the US Title and Intercontinental titles (Men and Women) have lacked focus and have been a bit thrown together.

In the Women's division having Iyo and Bianca being the two challengers to Rhea and Tiffany respectively would have made way more sense because them trying to make Charlotte win the rumble as a face was always idiotic (although like Tiffany said I thikn Charlotte really wants to be that loved babyface at least once in her career and she thought a big injury return at RR could be that moment...but nope)

And the real problem is too many of their best wrestlers are tied up in things that just don't really have much real stakes...

Punk, Reigns, Rollins, Mcyntyre, Priest, Bayley, Liv Morgan, Sami Zayn these 8 wrestlers plus Gunthier and Cody are who carried WWE through most of the past year.

And those 8 are either in matches without a title or any real stakes attached, or aren't in a match at all (as of now). I think a big part of it was due to the uncertainty around The Rock, and Cena's involvement in the card and where they would be.

And I think another part of the problem is the trap of too many titles again...

Undisputed WWE Champion
World Heavyweight Champion
Women's World Champion
WWE Women's Champion
Intercontinental Champion
US Champion
Women's Intercontinental Champion
Women's US Champion
World Tag Team Champions
WWE Tag Team Champions
WWE Women's Tag Team Champions

11 Titles is way too many titles for the show to support - especially when the brand split is relatively soft right now and people are bouncing between Raw and Smackdown.

If they aren't going to stick to real brand splits then just Collapse the US and Intercontinental titles for men and women, and unify the men's tag team titles again, and the show would probably be a lot better in terms of builds that make sense.