The Super pre-SNME Thread

[The Niggardly King 0]

Why not open the match with some flippy floppy mexican action of Mexicool vs CW champ?

 

Should have opened up with MNM vs Mexicools.

[CanadianChris 0]

Is it me or has Kurt's body gotten a lot smaller lately? My gentlemen friend noted last night how small Kurt looked. I guess he's not on the roids any more?

I noticed that last night in this thread. His arms just looked super-skinny, like he hadn't been lifting at all.

[Guest Brian]

Is it me or has Kurt's body gotten a lot smaller lately? My gentlemen friend noted last night how small Kurt looked. I guess he's not on the roids any more?

I noticed that last night in this thread. His arms just looked super-skinny, like he hadn't been lifting at all.

 

Atrophy. It's that bad.

[Guest JRE]

It was just sad...if they would have aired a recent episode of Smackdown it would have showed so many better aspects of the WWE. Finlay, Lashley, Benjamin, RVD, MNM, Kennedy...hell, Burchill, the cruiserweight division, Matt Hardy, Carlito, Big Show....no where to be found. How the hell couldn't they use the Big Show? Benoit was restricted to less than a minute of the show. Competent wrestlers like Michaels and Edge wasted. All the main eventers thrown into the opener and never seen again. At least a Chris Benoit match would have gotten the WWE a little bit of respect.

 

They just have a horrible of idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the roster.

[razazteca 0]

Why not open the match with some flippy floppy mexican action of Mexicool vs CW champ?

 

Should have opened up with MNM vs Mexicools.

Its true, its true. But if the point was to open the show with star power than nobody is bigger than SCSA, the man is known by everybody! The 2nd biggest star that has the possibility to drew in fans would be Cactus Jack under the "Foley is god" badass persona. If the rating are as important as it is hyped to be then why wasnt the main eventers saved for the 2nd hour for a double main event in order to inflate the ratings numbers?

[JimmyHendricks 0]

I think they opened with the tag match just so they could spend 10 minutes individually introducing EVERY participant, complete with FULL entrances for each. They blasted off so much pyro that the ring was in a haze for the first 5 minutes of the match. I bet as soon as they went to the first commercial break the ratings started to drop. It's not that people don't like wrestling matches, it's that they don't know who any of the people participating are. I mean, it's like turning to Monday Night Football expecting something exciting, then realizing that it's the Arizona Cardinals facing the Houston Texans. I think they wanted people to go "Ooh, this looks COOL!" but eventually people lost interest because they didn't care about any of the participants.

 

As much as he would like to be, even HHH has never been that cross-over star that Hogan, Rock, or Austin was. The rest (Cena, Rey, Orton, Angle) are really only known by people who have watched the product before. I mean, Austin walks out and Joe Schmo from Anytown, U.S.A knows who he is instantly. Angle or HHH walk out and they don't recognize them. And the people watching for the first time in forever are astonished that HHH and Kurt Angle are still wrestling. It's the same reaction Hogan and Austin get. "Wow, Hulk Hogan is still around? Isn't he like, 65 years old now?" It's not good and doesn't help the product to bring the old timers back. Sure, SummerSlam popped a good buyrate, but it's something that shouldn't be celebrated, because it won't (and didn't) last.

 

Anyone else notice how much the announcers kept giving a history of every person that appeared on screen? As if that will make people keep tuning in. I'm sure the average American will order WrestleMania knowing now that Mark Henry dead-lifted 903 pounds. "Ooh! Honey, look! That HHH has won the world title ELEVEN times! Let's watch RAW on Monday!"

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Someone called me a hypocrite on another board because I have said in the past that wrestling is about popping an audience and what the WWE did on SNME was designed to pop an audience, so their intentions were good. Or something.

 

Wrestling is about making money. Period. Pops are good. You want the crowd to be entertained and their positive reactions tell you they are (though in todays WWE, there is somewhat of a pavlovian response that isn't an indication of anything other them knowing what to respond to) - but this is only in the name of money. Popping a crowd is a symptom of making money. And like symptoms are to sickness, not all pops mean that you will be making money. A cough is a symptom of a cold. Not all coughs mean you have a cold, though. Saturday Nights Main Event and how the crowd reacted in no way means that the WWE has a caught a cold. The WWE's intention isn't to pop a crowd, it's to make money**. Popping a crowd just happens to be tied directly and irrevocably in with making money. However, like I said, not all pops mean you make money. You just can't make money without the crowd pops. It's like one of those SAT Questions. Not all A is B. But all B is A.

 

I'll use an example from SNME, and this can pretty much be applied to everything they did last night.

 

The WWE put out crowd-favourite Steve Austin with JBL. This was designed to do what? It wasn't designed to make money. Cause the Wrestlemania match is between Benoit and JBL. Austin can't wrestle and JBL was buried. Benoit was barely there. JBL and Austin won't be interacting in the future. So where was the money in this?? What was being sold? I can see someone saying "Well, Austin is a big name and he brings attention to whatever he's doing". Ok, but that attention wasn't used for anything productive. There was no focus, there was nothing to build on or from. The only purpose it had was to put Austin out there and drink beer so the crowd could pop, but there is no money. Not all A is B.

 

(**Edit: That is, the WWEs intention *should* be to make money, and not pop a crowd. Somewhere along the way Vince has confused the two so for the past few years he has just been out to get a reaction from the crowd. So that's what he and his writers try to do and they have forgotten about the making money part. The objective for them is to get a reaction, when it should be to make money and entertaining the crowd is a way of getting money from them. Vince hasn't been trying to make more and more money, he has been trying to get a strong and stronger reaction. This, of course, has proven to be flawed. As they have made countless attempts to offend the audience, to get their blood boiling, and have made very little money from it.)

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Someone called me a hypocrite on another board.....

 

You're also a dumbfuck, it seems.

 

Just remember, all you people complaining about the "lack of wrestling," "this is your life" featuring The Rock and Mick Foley, which lasted for about half an hour, is the highest rated segment in Raw history. At least to the best of my knowledge.

 

And how many tickets or PPV buys do you think that segment sold? Ratings dropped once the segment was over, so it's not like any major portion of that 8+ rating stuck around to bring in ad dollars either.

[Si82 0]

Is it me or has Kurt's body gotten a lot smaller lately? My gentlemen friend noted last night how small Kurt looked. I guess he's not on the roids any more?

I noticed that last night in this thread. His arms just looked super-skinny, like he hadn't been lifting at all.

 

Atrophy. It's that bad.

Christ, Angle's fucked. This guy needs to stop wrestling now, but he won't.

[Guest GoJoe]

From Meltzer...

 

--Last night may have been a good show, but the ratings were a bomb. SNME did a 3.2 rating on the fast nationals, dead last among the four networks that were programming, two of which were running reruns and CBS did a 6.0 with the NCAA Basketball tournament in the two hours head-to-head.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

The "this is your life" quote is hilarious. So what? It got that rating in 1999. In case you haven't noticed, it's 2006 now and tastes have changed. People are 7 years older now. Someone who was 10 then, is 17 now. You're saying a 17 year olds taste isn't different from when he was ten? Someone who was 16 then, who cared about whether the girl sitting next to him in high school chemistry likes him or not, is 23 now and either in or past college and is working on his career. They'd like different shit. It's akin to saying "The Blair Witch Project made 140 million in the box office" in support of making a Blair Witch-style movie now. Or "Who wants to be a Millionaire" was the top rated show in 1999, so there should be more gameshows like that on TV today. It's a classic case of not getting it. But I'm the dumbfuck.

[Guest Brian]

Is it me or has Kurt's body gotten a lot smaller lately? My gentlemen friend noted last night how small Kurt looked. I guess he's not on the roids any more?

I noticed that last night in this thread. His arms just looked super-skinny, like he hadn't been lifting at all.

 

Atrophy. It's that bad.

Christ, Angle's fucked. This guy needs to stop wrestling now, but he won't.

 

If the reports are true, he's probably having atrophy problems, as it's similar to what happened to him around WM 19.

[RedJed 0]

Seems like the general consensus here was that SNME was a dissapointment/letdown. Guess I have to disagree as I saw two pretty decent matches in the first and last ones of the night and a handful of angles that meant something in the build to Mania, and those angles were well done and thought out to mean something substantial.

 

The handicap tag could have been better but yet there was some good intertaction with the SD v. RAW guys in there. I didnt care too much for the HHH show near the end there (pretty much coming out of the match above each and every guy in there except that Angle got to throw him out of the ring) but the finish was well done, as I didnt expect Cena to get up and actually pin Orton there. The boos for Cena were bad enough that WWE has to explore the thought extremely hard about a double turn at Mania.

 

The street fight match was well done sans the finish. With that said though, pulling a finish like that was extremely old to the times and really was a negative on a mostly positive night from my standpoint, but one has to think either they are still trying to bait Bret by this, or else have already made a deal for him to show up in the match at Mania. Otherwise they seem to be digging that whole deeper on trying to get Bret to appear by a move like that. Suplex spot was NUTS, all there is to say about that.

 

The angles done here were good, I thought. Not groundbreaking, but stuff like this on either show would be highlights and standout for sure. The Foley-Edge stuff - well they got me interested in that match FINALLY. Boogeyman/Booker - goofy shit but it worked. Taker/Henry - explanation as to why Davairi likely wont be involved in the casket match. Benoit/JBL has some heat from the Austin/JBL segment, which actually was pretty entertaining by my standards. What was up with Bradshaws nose, it started swelling up and bleeding as he was laying there. That in itself was quite a weird sight to see - a guy's nose swelling up on camera.

 

I guess my expectations were about as high as I would have for a normal Raw or Smackdown show, so with that said, perhaps thats the reason why I enjoyed this more than some. I didnt expect some ppv streamlined action packed show and nothing more because we all have to consider the main point here is BUILDING MANIA. And it appeared they did that pretty well here, at least better than the weekly shows have been putting out. Having Jim Ross back was a breath of fresh air and professionalism in that it seemed like a big show with Ross announcing. Honestly wouldnt mind this same three man team heading up and announcing Mania entirely. It seemed to work.

 

And I cant get over how someone is bitching about that Big Show wasnt on the card. Wow.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Wrestling-wise, I didn't have a whole lot of problems with the opener. Booking wise, it was awful.

 

The last match, though, was bad both wrestling-wise and booking wise. Not because it was a garbage match, but because it was a bad garbage match. That table spot was poorly placed and not very smartly used. It was such a big spot and they had it placed in the opening stages of the match, and didn't build to it at all and didn't build from it either. It was used as a spot leading to the commercial break, and after the break they were on their feet and fighting in the ring like it never happened. So the heat they got from that one spot, the buzz, they never improved upon or used. So even though it worked in exciting the crowd, it didn't have a lasting influence on the match in anyone way.

 

Now, some would say "But Rudo, Taker/Angle had no selling and you said it didn't matter because the crowd was still into it. If the crowd was into that move, it shouldn't matter if it was poorly used or no sold, you are being a hypocrite again". These, of course, would be the people who don't actually read what I write and just pick that one part out of my argument and think that's my entire point. Taker/Angle used their no selling in a way that got the crowd buzzing and they continually progressed forward and furthered the "momentum" of the heat, right until the climax. That was "working" the crowd. That was part of its brilliance. There wasn't a whole lot of "work" done in Michaels/Shane and specifically in that ladder spot. It was random. The shit done in Taker/Angle was done for a reason. Much smarter. Much better laid out. Much more effective, because the crowd for Taker/Angle was much more rabid than Shawn/Shane.

[Angle-plex 0]

The opening match was awful because instead of using the time to try to get the audience connected to wrestlers that need it (Cena, Orton), they went out there and did the same things they always do, using the wrestling as filler in between the big spots and finishers.

 

How RedJed is possibly interested in Edge/Foley after the same old same old segment yesterday alludes me, and how Booker/Boogeyman "worked" I'll never be able to figure out.

 

I do think the screwjob finish kind of fits in this feud somewhere, but it's been used so many times in the past 9 years that it doesn't even matter anymore.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The street fight match was well done sans the finish. With that said though, pulling a finish like that was extremely old to the times and really was a negative on a mostly positive night from my standpoint, but one has to think either they are still trying to bait Bret by this, or else have already made a deal for him to show up in the match at Mania. Otherwise they seem to be digging that whole deeper on trying to get Bret to appear by a move like that.

There is no deal and it would take something extraordinary for there to be one. They've tried countless times and offered scenario after scenario to Bret to try and get him to come back on-screen and he's shot them all down. I think their mindset is that if they keep goading him like they are, then Bret might feel the need to return just to write the final chapter on that whole mess. The trouble is that even if they did the near impossible and somehow convinced Bret to do such an angle, they'll never let it go, and Bret knows that. Everyone knows that.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I've heard numerous times that this show did a good-great job in building towards WM. That it helped further angles.

 

This show did nothing to further anything.

 

What did it do?

 

HHH hates Cena. Cena hates HHH. We know this.

Smackdown is lesser than RAW. We know this.

Edge doesn't like Foley and vice versa.

Booker and Sharmell are afraid of the Boogeyman. We know this.

JBL is a tool. Austin likes to get drunk. Benoit is there. We know this.

Vince hates Shawn. Shane hates Shawn. Shawn is having a hard time with them hating him. We know this.

 

It didn't further anything. It just re-established shit that we already knew. If this show never existed, it wouldn't have mattered, because it didn't do anything more than what they've already done.

 

The only thing that they furthered was Mickey/Trish, and even that was something we knew. If they did a spin on it, like Trish decks Mickey after kissing her, then it would have mattered. Mickey turning on Trish? If someone had missed the show and you told them that, they just would have said "Oh". If Trish beat the crap out of Mickey, it might have gotten a "Oh, really?".

[RedJed 0]

How RedJed is possibly interested in Edge/Foley after the same old same old segment yesterday alludes me, and how Booker/Boogeyman "worked" I'll never be able to figure out.

 

For once the feud had some intensity and the usage of the table on fire, thumbtack spot, and the conceirto (sp?) reciept for Edge actually made me feel like Foley was there more than just to constantly be commonplace beaten down by Edge. It was a different angle - incorporating spots I would have assumed would have been saved for their match, but yet it draws more interest in that match itself because of it. Bottom line is that it gives me hope for that match as I would imagine there is going to be some significant stuff planned for it if they are using what they did on SNME as a prelude to it.

 

As far as Booker/Boogeyman, all of the Boogeyman nonsense you have to take with a grain of salt. Its not rated as any typical fare but as far as a storyline to build to their Mania match, I thought there could have been alot worse ideas they could have went with.

[Guest Dam(o)nYankees]

I'd like to know why you think the streetfight was well done. Why should a four time champion be beat up by the guy that runs the website?

 

I still stand by my feeling that the only way to do this was a carbon copy of McMahon vs. Undertaker.

[Papacita 0]

Did it really bother you that much, Dam(o)?

 

I watched the street fight a second time, and I still say that aside from the fact that a McMahon was fighting AT ALL, there was nothing to get up in arms about. Really, if you watch the match, the only times that Shane takes control of the match is when Vince is running interference, the one exception being a reversed Irish whip into the post at the start of the match, which is more or less your equivalent to a lucky punch. I could maybe see someone taking issue with his using the surfboard to work the back, but even that is somewhat passable as Shane has had some wrestling experience in the past. Could they have gone about it a better way? Definitely, but I just don't see how someone could watch that and say that Shawn came off looking weak. It's not like he was facing Kane or somebody.

[Guest Dam(o)nYankees]

Did it really bother you that much, Dam(o)?

Yes. It makes anyone that Shawn ever had a competitive match with look bad. It makes anyone Shawn ever beat look worse. And this isnt the first time Shane's done this. I don't care if Shawn isn't a "tough guy" He's a four time champion who has beaten some of the biggest names ever. He should handle Shane, who couldn't even be bothered to get in shape.

[pochorenella 0]

Seems like the general consensus here was that SNME was a dissapointment/letdown. Guess I have to disagree as I saw two pretty decent matches in the first and last ones of the night and a handful of angles that meant something in the build to Mania, and those angles were well done and thought out to mean something substantial.

 

The handicap tag could have been better but yet there was some good intertaction with the SD v. RAW guys in there. I didnt care too much for the HHH show near the end there (pretty much coming out of the match above each and every guy in there except that Angle got to throw him out of the ring) but the finish was well done, as I didnt expect Cena to get up and actually pin Orton there. The boos for Cena were bad enough that WWE has to explore the thought extremely hard about a double turn at Mania.

 

The street fight match was well done sans the finish. With that said though, pulling a finish like that was extremely old to the times and really was a negative on a mostly positive night from my standpoint, but one has to think either they are still trying to bait Bret by this, or else have already made a deal for him to show up in the match at Mania. Otherwise they seem to be digging that whole deeper on trying to get Bret to appear by a move like that. Suplex spot was NUTS, all there is to say about that.

 

The angles done here were good, I thought. Not groundbreaking, but stuff like this on either show would be highlights and standout for sure. The Foley-Edge stuff - well they got me interested in that match FINALLY. Boogeyman/Booker - goofy shit but it worked. Taker/Henry - explanation as to why Davairi likely wont be involved in the casket match. Benoit/JBL has some heat from the Austin/JBL segment, which actually was pretty entertaining by my standards. What was up with Bradshaws nose, it started swelling up and bleeding as he was laying there. That in itself was quite a weird sight to see - a guy's nose swelling up on camera.

 

I guess my expectations were about as high as I would have for a normal Raw or Smackdown show, so with that said, perhaps thats the reason why I enjoyed this more than some. I didnt expect some ppv streamlined action packed show and nothing more because we all have to consider the main point here is BUILDING MANIA. And it appeared they did that pretty well here, at least better than the weekly shows have been putting out. Having Jim Ross back was a breath of fresh air and professionalism in that it seemed like a big show with Ross announcing. Honestly wouldnt mind this same three man team heading up and announcing Mania entirely. It seemed to work.

 

Pretty much my sentiments exactly, RedJed.

 

While I agree the show was more or less a glorified edition of RAW, I enjoyed the majority of the show. I felt it build nicely to WrestleMania and so did a friend of mine that watched the show with me. We specially liked the build to Foley vs Edge and I liked the Street Fight (NOT a FCA match, people!) although the ending felt a bit flat with the Montrel screwjob reference. The opening match was adequate, I laughed quite a bit for the beer bash, and that double-take Booker did to Teddy Long after he saw the Boogeyman was pretty funny too.

 

These kind of shows are not gonna accomplish anything more than what RAW or SD! can do on their regular days, bad rating not whistanding, but it was a decent outing specially on the heels of WrestleMania. I give it a mild Thumbs Up (TM Ebert)

[AndrewTS 0]

What time did this shit even come on last night, I flipped on NBC at 11 and it was not on

 

8-10.

 

Yeah, I was thinking it replaced SNL too, since that's what it did back in the day and I didn't take note of any announcement for 8 EST on the advertising. I knew the day it was on, that was it.

[dh86 0]

The whole promotion is screwed up bigtime.

 

It's funny how before WCW started to go down the shitter, the WWF NEVER acknowledged its own past, but all they've done for the last five years is focus on their history. There's got to be a happy medium here. I don't understand this philosophy of creating a product that's more or less an homage to the past but happens to be set in the current day. Wrestling has always been about progress and finding the "new big thing." Not rehashing past eras. I hate it when people talk about "dream matches." What the hell? Austin vs. Goldberg would have been fine in '99. It's 2006, people. Who really needs to see it now? Austin vs. Hogan? No! Hogan was popular in the 80s, Austin was popular in the 90s. Great. What does it have to do with anything? Wrestling is not supposed to operate that way. Guys should not be feuding because one was popular during -time period x- and one was popular during -time period y-.

 

Look at it this way. Yeah, business sucked in the mid 90s. But had Randy Savage not been under contract to WCW, would the WWF have brought him back for Wrestlemania 13 to put him in a "dream match" with Shawn Michaels? How about bringing Harley Race back to wrestle the Undertaker at Wrestlemania XI? Would this have ever happened in a million years? Of course the business was different then because Vince had competition, but the objective was always to get new people over. Maybe business sucked, but they focused on the PRESENT instead of the past, and something FINALLY clicked with Austin, and clicked big. It's all about evolution. The WWE has not evolved since 2001. Business may have been down in 1992-1996, but that whole time they still EVOLVED. Turn on Raw today and it's the same shit from four years ago, starring guys from 5-10 years ago (and beyond).

 

Another thing: Mick Foley should not be on TV. Aside from barely being able to walk, he has no rub left to give. If Edge beats him, it means nothing. And that whole feud is a prime example of what's wrong with this company's mentality.

 

Look at the show. There are never any real issues. Nobody is feuding over anything tangible. Foley/Edge makes NO sense: "I'm a better transitional champion than you." What the fuck is that?? That phrase never should have been used on television. Vince/HBK and HHH/Cena make NO sense either. It's like everybody is fighting over their status or their place on the card and their place in history instead of an actual reason. It's one big confusing mix of status and nostalgia. It's like a show within a show, and that vibe does not work for wrestling.

 

During the video package for the HBK/Vince feud tonight, there were a million audio clips from JR and Shawn himself, describing Shawn's place in history. "The showstopper. The icon. The main event. The most decorated Champion in history. The most legendary superstar." Blah, blah, blah. Listen to all the adjectives used to describe HBK, HHH, Undertaker, Austin, or any "legend" that comes back for an appearance. It's all the same shit. We get it- there are legends that have accomplished a lot in this business and somehow they're all still around in some fashion. When HHH, HBK, Flair, and Undertaker (and to some degree Angle) are gone, they're going to be in even worse shape. They haven't built anyone up that can replace them in the eyes of the fans. When Austin was catching on, they had the established guys like Bret and Shawn and then Taker to put him over huge. The Rock, in turn, had Foley and Austin to put him over huge. Foley and Rock made HHH. HHH easily could have made Jericho or Angle or maybe even RVD. He never did. And with Foley, Rock, and Austin all gone, he was the guy that had to do it at some point. But that's never happened. I don't care how many times he jobbed to Batista or Benoit- he didn't MAKE anyone. He's still the top guy no matter what and everyone knows it.

 

And the worst part is, in 2, 3, 5 years, where do they go for new talent? There are no other promotions that are giving other wrestlers instant credibility. There are no more big free agents. Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, and Mysterio aren't going to show up on your doorstep and give you that depth to the roster. Territories are of course long dead. Because there's no competition they HAVE to make their own stars, and they're failing at that. The last guy they truly created was Angle and that was 7 years ago.

 

I'll give them credit for trying with the likes of Cena, Batista, and Orton. But even those situations were screwed up from the start. That's a whole other thread, but the bottom line is it hasn't been done properly and the fans don't give a shit.

 

Not only is the formula of the shows stagnant, as you guys have touched on, but look at the roster itself. It's ridiculously stale. We don't realize this but think about it. Look at the midcard and above in the 80s and early 90s. DiBiase's singles run lasted 4 years. Jake was around for 6. Perfect for 4. Beefcake about 5. Honky for 3. Santana for 6 or so before he came irrelevant. Savage and Hogan were around for 8-9 years. Back then, they got what they could out of the midcarders, and when they ran their course they moved on. Bret Hart's entire singles run lasted 6 years. So did Shawn's original run. Look at the WWE roster today. HHH won his first Title SEVEN years ago, and he's showing no signs of slowing down. Kane has been around for EIGHT years. Big Show for seven. Bradshaw, Edge, Hardy, Benoit, Angle... I'm not even getting into the Undertaker here. And look at the amount of exposure today compared to back then. Weekly TV (twice-weekly from 99-02) and 12-16 PPVs per year. 5 years these days is like 10 back then with all that happens. There's only so much you can do with a wrestler before there's nowhere else to go; that's why Show and Kane are where they are right now. In the territory days, you'd go somewhere for a few months, get built up, do your big program and leave. It's that simple. There's only so many guys that can be on top at once, so eventually there's nowhere to go but down. Benoit had his run with the Title, but now what? There's nowhere else to go but down and he's gonna look like a shmuck because he used to be the Champ but now he's nowhere near the main event. He's already peaked.

 

And once you've peaked in wrestling, it's over. Austin peaked, and rode that popularity for a long time, but when it started to slip he was gone. It's a good thing he left when he did because what would the alternatives have been? Either you keep the guy on top, which will inevitably get stale after years and years, or you demote him down the card and he looks like a loser because he's not the same guy on top anymore. Same deal with the Rock. He wasn't even 30, had been a main eventer for 4 years, and had won the Title who knows how many times. Where else do you go with that? Well, the WWE has waaaay too many guys that have already peaked. There's nowhere to go with them. The entire roster is either guys who have peaked (HHH, Kane, Show, etc.), "legends" (Shawn, Undertaker, for awhile it was Goldberg and the occasional Austin, Foley, Hogan, Rock appearances), guys whose big chances have slipped by and will never recover (RVD, Booker, soon to be Edge and Rey... Jericho fell under this category as well), guys that are pushed but aren't very over because in this environment there's no good way to get them over (Carlito, Masters, Benjamin, etc.) and guys that we aren't given a reason to care about at all.

 

And those are major reasons why the product sucks, aside from the general crappy booking. Overexposure, a stale roster, the show-within-a-show complex, this constant nostalgia kick, and the unwillingness to commit to the future and find the right guys to do it with.

 

All that, and we didn't even touch the issues of:

- The show is way too scripted and no one's allowed to be themselves and come up with their own promos

- The stale format and production.

- Even-steven booking. (How can anyone get over when everyone has to get over?)

- Lack of focus on what a wrestling match is supposed to be (this bothers me so much; I'll have to elaborate later).

- Wins and losses that don't matter.

- Unnecessary "authority" figures.

- Vince and Shane all over TV.

 

And the politics of HHH.

 

legendary post

[nl5xsk1 0]

The rating sucked because the card sucked & was utterly predictable. A show like SNME is NOT going to get mainstream fans to tune in, it's going to get wrestling fans to tune in. And many wrestling fans either (a) go out on Saturday nights -and- (b) saw that the card sucked & presumed that staying home to watch it was a waste of time.

 

The idea that putting wrestling on prime-time on a Saturday night will instantly make non-fans watch is a laughable one.

[razazteca 0]

Too bad the present does not have a future.

[ANKLELOCK 0]

GREAT post, humanoid. You ought to consider writing for the website.

[hyperchord24 0]

Wow..looks like they replaced the mat.

Yeah. They do that usually.

 

They did at Mania XX when Vince came out to talk to the audience after Brock/Goldberg.

He talked to the audience? What did he say?

[Caliban 0]

Basically thanked the fans for making Wrestlemania "what it is today"

[Guest Dam(o)nYankees]

Basically thanked the fans for making Wrestlemania "what it is today"

It should be noted that "today" means 2004. I don't want anyone thanking me for what Wrestlemania is today in 2006.