Wrestling Thread 7: FTR Baldhausen • Page 187

I don’t think there is one prospective mania match that is at all interesting aside from Reigns Lesnar and that is a stretch. How is that possible???

Company has fallen off a cliff…

 

Even if the actual events kind of fell flat, at least WM34 and WM35 had some really interesting matchups on paper. Funny enough, WM36 probably would have sucked in reality, but COVID gave them the Boneyard match and Cena v Bray that actually worked well. But now sticking to the two night thing feels like its gonna be a big mistake. Gonna be two VERY soft cards...with a crowd that probably wont care by the time the main events hit. That Charlotte/Ronda match is probably gonna get heckled hard.

 

Rhetorical question, but I really don't know how a company like their's can become so out of touch with their own product and fans. I know some will argue about how much money they're making - but that has everything to do with the state of the television industry and demand for live content, and they could be do anything and everything differently creatively and still be making that money. It's as if they've collectively forgotten what good wrestling and storytelling it.

 

The stuff about Gage on Reddit sucks. Seems like he's stiffed a lot of folks out of booking fees.

 

Bryan Danielson's HOF episode on ROH TV this weekend. will be a clipshow but still.

 

The interesting part of this is that, prior to the last TV contracts, there was a year or so where they did actually piece together a pretty coherent creative strategy. I think a lot of it was dumb luck that so many got people hurt heading into WM32 and they had to abandon a lot of stuff, but, out of WM32, they had the AJ/Roman feud that worked, they had the KO/Sami feud and The Miz bookending the IC title, The New Day were on their long title run and they called up a bunch of the NXT tag teams to build them into that. It all built to Dean cashing in, a solid Battleground PPV, and nearly everyone built in that timeframe became integral to the brand split Smackdown being good. AJ came out of the Roman feud and fought (and beat Cena). Dean came out of the Triple Threat as champ. The Miz held the IC with some credibility after beating KO/Sami/Cesaro. The 4HW were all built up by Summerslam time and Sasha/Charlotte helped carry RAW. I think that was even when The Bar was formed. In that time, ratings actually stayed flat or even went up

And their takeaway from all of that wasnt "wow, maybe we can actually build new stars and progress stories", it was to have Shane face AJ, the Jeri-KO feud get moved aside by Goldberg, to again bury Bray Wyatts push, to bring back The Hardys rather than give Enzo/Cass a moment, and main event the show with a Roman/Taker match nobody wanted.

Its all been downhill from there

 

Danielson retired six years ago today. Wild to see his resurgence in the last year.

 

Titus O'Neil, the true forbidden door?

 

Yeah being an opiate addict, government heroin addict, they are some of the most manipulative dishonest people out there.

 

To not have any interesting build up at this point is really a sign of how bad things have gotten. The ME matches are just marquee BS especially Ronda. All the titles feel completely irrelevant right now and I can’t remember the last time some of them were defended.

 

The majority of viewers still get excited about Goldberg and Lita. That’s the true problem here. Fox and USA executives what that kind of content. They are likely in the drivers seat for most of this.

 

The majority of remaining viewers - maybe, but with viewership consistently on the decline, that shouldn't be reassurance for them. Also, you can still run out celebrities or nostalgia acts while also minding the foundational elements of good wrestling storytelling. They have more than enough writers and producers to ensure they have decent storylines supporting their titles and divisions - and yet no.

 

I think the average age of viewers for NXT is like 64 lol

 

@Fixed Glitch age demographic

 

haha!

I thought it was still cool dammit!

 

I’m sure the writers are frustrated when they decide to march Goldberg out for a spontaneous title challenge. It must handcuff them creatively.

eventually it has to change once the viewers demo phases out. Or once the old guys and girls can’t do it anymore… though that already happened with Goldberg though geez

 

Raw did 1.3m viewers on SyFy

only thing it lost to was the Olympics

the show sucks but somehow it’s still getting the viewers. Big win for them

 

Everyone loses no matter what with WWE weeg

 

Creed Brothers are so damn good

 

Perfect Danhausen usage

 

I’m just gonna be honest… Ziggler in NXT 2.0 makes me more interested in NXT 2.0