The WWE Thread

[supersonic]

You should have higher standards for the biggest show in the entire industry. Everybody should expect an entire card of great matches with great builds and satisfying payoffs. There shouldn't be anything on the card that you have to rationalize or convince yourself wasn't really all that bad. It doesn't have to be like a Ring of Honor show but it should at least be good.

Wrestle Kingdom doesn't have an *entire card* of great matches. However, it does *DRIP* with them, which is what WrestleMania should also strive to be in addition to going for mainstream/casual fan programming highlight reels.

The consensus last night is the card provided one of the greatest celebrity matches ever, and one of the greatest WrestleMania main events ever, and the card was paced/produced perfectly, lacking in the grating bloat that has defined the show since WM32. That's more than I honestly got out of about a third of the WrestleMania's I attended (all but WM33 from 2009 to 2018.)

[Montana]

Wrestling is like pizza for me... even the bad stuff is good. It doesn’t bother me, but I just don’t see wasting your own time on something you don’t like.

As for holding wwe to higher standards... depends how you look at it. Not every mania match needs to be great. Not every build up needs to be great... satisfying payoffs... all these things are YOUR expectations you place on wwe. The wwe has been using the same formula for 15+ years... and they aren’t changing now for you. You either like what they offer or not. Every wrestling company has tons of flaws.

Like if I watch impact, I’ve got low expectations. I pretty much what to expect with all the major companies. With wwe they aren’t doing long term booking, they book week to month. I’m not watching for long term booking. A main eventer can go to jobber in 6 months. Wwe is about characters.

Anyways...if it so so easy to make the perfect wrestling show/brand... it would have been done by now. 4 billion dollar companies/people control the top 4 companies... and none of them got the right mix right now to engage the mass fans.

[famicommander]

Enjoy cartoon birds flying out of Matt Riddle's ass, I guess

[Montana]

That never happens.... but i guess i'd just deal with it, if it did happen...considering he still has banger matches like he did with Sheamus last night.

Speaking of WWE and Matt Riddle... i quite like his character, and find him to be one of the most enjoyable wrestlers to watch between backstage promos and in the ring. With his scooter in hand, his ridiculous ideas, forgetting his lines, meeting up with RVD, good stuff. On top of that, his matches are typically very good. I think he's a future world champ.... Sheamus is at the top of his game right now too. Looking forward to a rematch.

[famicommander]

It happened last night and the previous Raw. Cartoon birds flew out of Riddle's ass. Twice.

[supersonic]

The characters are hindered by the refusal to do slow burns like Savage vs. Hogan and HHH vs. Batista - both which drew absolutely outstanding box offices. That has even dripped down to NXT, which may be a case of them pussing out on it when Ciampa got injured and couldn't close the saga properly by dropping the title to Gargano... when the mistake was putting him on throwaway main roster matches instead of completely preserving his body for that final chapter.

[Montana]

Lol... i went back and checked it out... that is kind of odd; although they are experimenting more with like that CGI ; hologram type stuff. Lashley and the Fiend's look good. The birds with Riddle doesn't really make sense. Riddle is one of my fav's, but the birds are pointless.

I thought you weren't watching mania... yet watching Riddles ring entrance?

[famicommander]

Lol... i went back and checked it out... that is kind of odd; although they are experimenting more with like that CGI ; hologram type stuff. Lashley and the Fiend's look good. The birds with Riddle doesn't really make sense. Riddle is one of my fav's, but the birds are pointless.

I thought you weren't watching mania... yet watching Riddles ring entrance?

It went viral. I didn't watch Mania but I did see various clips and gifs.

[famicommander]

So since I get Peacock for free anyway and the app automatically installed itself on my smart TV, I decided maybe I wanted to check out some WCW stuff from my childhood.

Why is there no option to sort shows by date? Who wants to scroll through hundreds of episodes of Nitro, watch one, scroll through all the episodes of Thunder, watch one, scroll through the list of PPVs, then scroll through the list of years, then watch that, then scroll all the way back through hundreds of episodes of Nitro again?

This criticism can also be applied to Impact Plus, Honor Club, etc. Give us a god damn timeline feature. Like if I want to watch ECW, show me a tab that just has every ECW show on the network in order of airdate. Not separated between PPVs broken down by name, Hardcore TV, and the TNN days. Just all the ECW shows in chronological order. All the WCW shows in chronological order.

For ROH, all the episodes of TV interspersed with all the other shows in the best possible order. Same with Impact and all their shows (they still need to buy back the rights to the first few hundred episodes of Xplosion, too; that's all lost content from before the weekly Impact days).

[NewROHFan2020]

That would be a neat feature for wrestling services to have, but the majority of OTT users are used to sorting by season. Which is totally fine for normal TV shows. Wrestling is obviously different though.

[Shanahan]

Peacock is a mess. So terrible i havent watched anything on it besides live ppvs and the office.

[famicommander]

I certainly wouldn't pay money for it. It's not even better than other free services like Pluto or Crackle.

Leagues behind HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, or Amazon.

Thankfully Paramount+ and Apple TV haven't lured me in yet. I'm hoping they just merge Paramount+ with Showtime, which I already pay for due to boxing.

[Montana]

I tried to watch Hell in Cell, about an hour into the show, and wanted to watch from the beginning... Nope. Can't do that. Yeah, Peacock, kinda sucks; BUT at least it's cheaper and it's free for me. Hopefully they improve the WWE section, closer to what the network was; BUT kinda figured it would be like this for a bit.

If your WWE; your just racking and stacking that money now though. The USA & FOX deals, now the NBC/Peacock deal.

All things considered; i do think WWE has done an alright job improving all three products. SD has been very good; probably the best show in wrestling, NXT has some solid storylines, and really good wrestling, then theres Raw. I feel like if it wasn't 3 hours, it would be a pretty solid show. Here nor there; they create characters/superstars. Drew and Lashley are superstars; and i think theyve done a really nice job with them. RK Bro is fun to watch. Bliss with her character, has been interesting. Certainly not my cup of tea to spend 3 hours.... BUT they are building stars/characters. I think this is what AEW lacks; where everyone is a winner.... no one stands out. Omega has like 15 belts, but to me he doesn't stand out on the show. That could be the missing piece to AEW success. I've always heard WWE say it's a "superstar" driven business. I even think early AEW with Jericho, it was a tighter more focused show. Now they've got a mess of people and everyone is trying to be over.

I like both companies, and prefer watching Dynamite, but SD is probably the better overall show.

[famicommander]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

[Reaper G]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

Um... no. Just no.

[supersonic]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

For star power, definitely. A loaded roster means nothing without proper leadership to steer them though.

[famicommander]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

Um... no. Just no.

All four shows have done something this calendar year at least as stupid as Samoa Joe getting kidnapped by ECW ninjas.

[Reaper G]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

Um... no. Just no.

All four shows have done something this calendar year at least as stupid as Samoa Joe getting kidnapped by ECW ninjas.

What, pray tell, has NXT done that was that dumb?

[famicommander]

Um... no. Just no.

All four shows have done something this calendar year at least as stupid as Samoa Joe getting kidnapped by ECW ninjas.

What, pray tell, has NXT done that was that dumb?

Karen Q is a 1000 year old Chinese mythological character for one.

[Montana]

Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Dynamite are all worse right now than Russo era Impact. by a lot.

To each his own... if you like that, good for you. Ive never been a big tna/impact guy, maybe a bit from 2005-2007.