supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
If the PPV experiment had been a success, then Sapolsky is kept around, the creative remains fresh, and the PPV contract gets extended. None of those happened.
Fair point, but I'm not sure that it's necessarily that PPV not working as well as they hoped that led to Gabe's firing so much as it is that if it had worked better Gabe's job would have been saved.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
In the 9 months following Glory By Honor V, these are the flaws off the top of my head:
Cheap imitations of the PPV multiple locations on Driven 2007 first used by Starrcade 1985 (more thorough critiquing in my Domination and Driven 2007 reviews)
This whole thing never bothered me much. I actually thought it was an interesting way to try to turn the fact that the PPVs are taped well in advance into an advantage, although I will fully admit that the idea doesn't seem as good if Nigel and Dragon don't put on a killer match. I think what happened is that Gabe thought that KENTA an Marufuji would overload the card (and I think he wanted to avoid putting them against each other in a singles match) so he booked this one in Philly instead. I also think that you are overlooking
United We Stand as a factor in all of this. I think Gabe liked the idea of having both Sydal & Claudio and Dragon & Nigel team up the night before (or, in Dragon & Nigel's case. "before") going one-on-one. I think Gabe saw this as a bit of an experiment. He was getting his artsy thing in on the DVD continuity while in the "lihe had Nigel lose the #1 contendership but then get a huge win over Morishima in his very next match to rehab him. I certainly don't think the way Gabe did it was good, but I really don't think it hurt anything, either.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Putting the Tag Titles on Sydal & Daniels instead of going directly to the Briscoes when Castagnoli had one foot out the door
The timing doesn't work out, though, for a few reasons:
1. The Briscoes were still heel at that point, and I think they needed Homicide to win the title- thus dissipating any specter that something they did might have cost him the title- before being able to be fully babyface again.
2. Gabe needed something for Sydal to be concentrating on so as to keep him out of the Gen. Next split. The tag titles not only served that purpose, but also allowed him to start getting over the cockier personality that would eventually lead to him signing with Sweeney before the split started, so as to give yet another reason why Sydal wouldn't care about his best buddies breaking up.
3. The grand plan for the Briscoes was to finally regain the belts after two and a half years, then shockingly lose the belts in their first defense, fight each other to toughen up, get the belts right back and go on to have the most dominant run we had ever seen up to that point. I think Gabe specifically wanted to do the title changes on the exact shows he did because A) He liked the artsy-ness of the Briscoes finally winning the belts 365 days after their big return
B) He wanted to give the UK fans a major surprise (which the title change definitely qualified as)
C) He wanted to throw Dragon Gate a bone, and letting their guys winning the tag titles and hold them on a DG tour accomplished that (and the weekends where the title changes happened were the only ones where they had multiple Dragon Gate guys two weekends in a row, and Claudio would have theoretically been long gone by them).
D) Having the Dragon Gate guys be the ones to trade the titles with the Briscoes also meant that whoever the Briscoes dropped the belts to then won them right back from wouldn't be a second ROH team in the same position as the Briscoes, who would then look bad because the Briscoes would bounce back from this by being extremely successful while this team would not.
(Also, Daniels & Sydal not getting a rematch played into the promo where Daniels quit at
Good Times, Great Memories. My gut says that that whole thing was probably conceived after the title change happened, but if it was part of some grand plan all along, then Daniels & Sydal needed the belts, and the time between them losing and Daniels' promo had to be both short enough that it felt reasonable for ROH to have not booked a rematch yet while also long enough that it would be understandable that Daniels was frustrated, and that again would have required a title change well after Claudio would have left).
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Failing to use the easy KOW reunion storyline, with Sweeney's reason being "You know what? I admit I made a mistake, Hero's been pestering me, and Claudio, I'd be happy to be the super agent for the best tag team in the world."
We just got KOW, and not just for nine months in ROH but for well over a year in both CHIKARA and CZW. I liked the idea of doing something different with them. Furthermore, fans were going to be happy that Claudio wasn't leaving, which naturally predisposes him to a babyface reaction, and you can't book him as a babyface while teaming with Hero and being managed by Sweeney. Babyface Claudio opened up more opportunities, including actually giving us a large babyface to challenge large heel champion Morishima.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Breaking up KOW and Aries & Strong just a couple months apart, BOTH before Steen & Generico becoming part of the picture, and thus creating a weak tag division
Totally disagree on this. Firstly, Aries & Strong breaking up didn't weaken the division. It actually strengthened it because the idea was that both guys were going to wind up with factions, so he's actually turning one team into two. As for KOW and Steenerico, your timing is wrong. The decision not to put KOW back together was made AFTER Steenerico earned their roster spots with the match against the Briscoes in Philly.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Thinking anyone would give a shit about Konnan as a foil to Jim Cornette
It was something they did for ONE SHOW in order to have a kayfabe explanation for why Cornette was out of power and thus would not be able to do anything to f*ck Homicide out of the title in the main event of Final Battle. You weren't supposed to care about Konnan. He was just a conveniently-placed person who people could actually see as someone who could command respect and have a bit of sway with the people running a wrestling company, who was also a believable ally of Homicide's.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Giving a major push to Jimmy Rave... AFTER Prince Nana had fucked off
He was still a hated heel without Nana and it was able to turn Nigel babyface. The matches were great and the feud accomplished its goal of turning Nigel from a top heel into a top babyface. I'm not sure why you think this was any sort of failure.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Trying to turn Cross & Stevens into the new Evans & Strong
This is certainly a fair criticism, and I think, in hindsight, it really hurt Stevens' run.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Morishima losing his debut against the departing Joe
Yes, this one was huge mistake.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
McGuinness losing in the UK against the departing Joe
I think the idea behind this was as follows: Gabe was worried that giving Nigel the big win over the departing Joe in the UK would be seen as more of throwing the fans a bone than it should have been, so he had Nigel beat Joe in Chicago instead, then had Nigel lose to Joe in the UK in a match that did everything you could possibly do to make Nigel look like he was in Joe's league while still having him lose clean, with the idea being that Nigel's first win in the UK would be the big blow-off win over Rave the next night. If I were booking it I would have had Rave cost Nigel an undercard match in Liverpool and probably gone with Davey vs. Joe in the UK and Joe vs. Roddy in Dayton, maybe? Again, it wasn't the best thing to do, but it wasn't completely nonsensical or un-ROH. It wasn' good, but it wasn't terrible, either.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Failing to crown McGuinness in the UK and then putting him on the creative treadmill for another 7-8 months while Morishima was champion
Homicide had to win the title from Dragon, plus Dragon still had other feuds to blow-off before dropping the belt (Joe, Cabana, KENTA) so Dragon dropping the title at Unified was not feasible. Nigel might not have won that night, but the match did make him. And I don't think he was really ever on a creative treadmill for long. After that he faced NOAH's top guys, feuded with Rave, then got put into the title picture with Dragon and Morishima, did a bit to set up is first feud as champion against Hero, then was right back in the title picture and won the belt.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Failing to replenish Cabana's comedy void (a key component in the variety that defined the 2004-06 golden age,) instead trying to make Delirious a serious business upper-midcarder and also not bringing in Human Tornado
We're going to have to disagree on how important Cabana's comedy was to the 2004-2006 product (especially since he wasn't doing any comedy from the end of 2005 until after the Danielson feud, and then stopped it again one he dumped Lacey and got jumped by Jacobs in October 2006), but I disagree with the idea the he didn't try. You had the stuff with Cabana, Lacey, & Jacobs where Cabana was being dick to Jimmy (dark humor, but still humor nonetheless), proud manservant Shane Hagadorn, Cornette managed to funny while also being angry, all of the SnS stuff- especially with Dempsey- and we had Rhett Titus.
As for Human Tornado, Gabe was going to bring him in. He was supposed to be the guy in Rhett's role (or something similar to Rhett's role) in the Rhett/Daizee/Delirious angle, but then Tornado's knee got f*cked up.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 amNot cutting the dead weight that'd later be known as the Hangmen Three after Good Times, Great Memories
I didn't think they were so terrible (I actually really liked Albright in the ring). They filled a role as undercard heels. They had a decent feud with Delirious and they turned Steen & Generico babyface. When it was clear they weren't working early the next year Gabe did fold them, and went a different route with Albright while using Pearce for his NWA World Heavyweight Title (and I believe Gabe did confirm that he was pretty much done with Pearce once the Albright/SnS feud wound down).
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Roderick Strong losing a trios match clean the night before challening Morishima for the ROH Title, without any kind of creative justification for it like at least Morishima had being humbled in his debut the night before challenging Homicide.
Yes, this was a bit of a misstep.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
Speaking of Homicide, loved that there was no farewell match to put over Romero and pay off their angle too
I'm almost certain that the announcement that TNA was pulling their guys (who, at that point would have been Daniels, Aries, Cornette and Homicide) came after
Good Times, Great Memories so Gabe didn't know that he needed to give any of those guys a farewell or immediately wrap up their angles.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 am
There's still plenty more to unpack for 2007, including the misfired pick to break the Briscoes sweeping gimmick in 2/3 falls matches
An acknowledged mistake. He was trying to use that fall to elevate a new team, and they were ones that needed it.
supersonic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:02 amthe Vulture Squad,
The idea for Jack to also have a faction in the NRC-Resillience War has some logic to it, and it built up to the faction warfare angle that never got off the ground because 1) Jack wasn't around enough to lead his group, 2) Trios Tournament 2007 got wrecked by a snowstorm and turned into
Unscripted III, 3) the Resilience was clearly floundering, so we got a change-up to more of a focus on Strong vs. Stevens until Davey joins SnS and the NRC disbands while Aries moves into the program with Jacobs.
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