Live WWE TV Discussion Thread

[Powder]

Did Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin or The Rock or Kevin Nash or Ultimate Warrior ever cut a promo about watching WWF when they were kids and dreaming of the title? No, the cut promos about how much of a bad ass they were and how they were going to kick the Champ's ass.

Why can't Ricochet go out there and just say "nobody in this company thinks I have a shot, but I'm going to go out there with these guys, beat their asses and prove to everyone in the back and all of you that I can kick Brock's ass in Saudi Arabia"?

Coach, I know you know, but there wasn't a WWF when Hogan, Warrior, Nash, and Austin were kids. The Rock did have it as he is 10 years younger than Austin. He is an exception though, as he literally grew up in the business with his family. But with Austin, who is the youngest of the rest mentioned, by the time the WWF was essentially a brand, he was already in his 20s.

Yes, there was professional wrestling, yes there were popular stars, yes there were multiple territories, but no one crossed over into the main stream until Hogan. Andre did, but not to the extent of Hogan. Wrestling in the 70s and early 80s was still looked at as a hillbilly, lower class niche. Once Vince blew up that stereotype, you had wrestling being in the mainstream, kids literally had the dream of being WWF(E) champion. Now you have almost everyone who wrestles today growing up with the WWF(E) being there as part of their childhood, and being WWE champion is their dream. I mean the first mainstream use of the boyhood dream story was HBK's first title chase against Bret Hart. But even still, how could Main Eventing WM or being WWF champion be his boyhood dream as he was about 19 when the WWF started to get it's footing?

I agree that the promo is awful, but to be fair, the wrestlers today (basically everyone 45ish and younger) all grew up with dreaming about being WWF(E) champion.

[Team Farrell]

We know everyone as a kid wanted to be WWF Champion, but what about "this is my childhood dream and I just want to attain it" makes you cool, or bad ass, or makes me wish that I was you.

Steve Austin probably grew up watching WCCW wrestling and dreaming of having the NWA US or American Heavyweight Title. But dreaming of being a Champion wasn't the crux of his rise, it was the fact that he was a bad ass and just like every Champion who came before him he wanted the title, recognition, money and power that came along with being Champion.

It's just so pussy-ish. "This is my dream". It sounds like something a teenager would be fighting for, not a grown man.

It goes back to the reason Stephanie McMahon can emasculate the male wrestlers in the ring, or Big Show, a millionaire multiple times over, will burst into tears if he's fired. Being in WWE is everyone's dream, so you can't risk getting fired or standing up to the small woman talking down to you.

I want more guys like Brock. Guys who want the belt for the money, prestige, and power. Guys who aren't just happy to be there living their dream and actually have some balls. Fire them if you want to, they're going to kick guys asses and win belts.

EDIT: Maybe WWE thinks people need to be super "relatable" in order to be an over babyface. Babyfaces used to be aspirational, now they have to be relatable.

I miss the days where guys like Bobby Lashley would be a babyface that fans could aspire to work hard and be like. Today, his physique is "too good" and people want to boo him.

[PEN15v2]

There's a balance that's needed. I think these lifelong dream ideas are a good foundation, but they can't be the core of a promo. Ricochet is already weak on the mic, so expecting him to convey a dream from childhood is not going to go well or seem genuine, even if it is.

But COACH is right, no one has been a main eventer with the gimmick if "this is my dream". They might get there with a push, like HBK, about a boyhood dream. But his case was against another babyface. It wasn't angle about overcoming odds from a dominant heel, it was "can I keep up with the best hero of the last 5 years?"

It doesn't bother me as much as you, COACH, but it has to lead somewhere. And for Ricochet, it didn't. So it fell flat.

[Team Farrell]

It's just one more of those things in modern wrestling that makes me crazy. Don't even get me started on the "you deserve it" chant.

[T.O.]

Sometimes I think WWE would have been right to book Orton vs Batista for WresteMania 30

[Team Farrell]

It does make me wonder. Where is the company, and mainstream wrestling as a whole, today if they hadn't given in?

[T.O.]

They never listen to me anyways.

I'd have been up to Rock/Cena X by now if they did.

[PEN15v2]

Orton vs Batista would have been fine if it weren't for how Daniel Bryan was booked for the 4 months before that. Had Daniel been booked to be below the main event (clean losses), and not just someone screwed out of it, the fans wouldn't have been waiting for his next chapter in the story.

But, I feel that was the right move because it created a new star, and one WWE have used well since. Orton is an incredible talent, but he's not someone who can carry a brand. Daniel can and has.

[Powder]

We know everyone as a kid wanted to be WWF Champion, but what about "this is my childhood dream and I just want to attain it" makes you cool, or bad ass, or makes me wish that I was you.

Steve Austin probably grew up watching WCCW wrestling and dreaming of having the NWA US or American Heavyweight Title. But dreaming of being a Champion wasn't the crux of his rise, it was the fact that he was a bad ass and just like every Champion who came before him he wanted the title, recognition, money and power that came along with being Champion.

It's just so pussy-ish. "This is my dream". It sounds like something a teenager would be fighting for, not a grown man.

It goes back to the reason Stephanie McMahon can emasculate the male wrestlers in the ring, or Big Show, a millionaire multiple times over, will burst into tears if he's fired. Being in WWE is everyone's dream, so you can't risk getting fired or standing up to the small woman talking down to you.

I want more guys like Brock. Guys who want the belt for the money, prestige, and power. Guys who aren't just happy to be there living their dream and actually have some balls. Fire them if you want to, they're going to kick guys asses and win belts.

EDIT: Maybe WWE thinks people need to be super "relatable" in order to be an over babyface. Babyfaces used to be aspirational, now they have to be relatable.

I miss the days where guys like Bobby Lashley would be a babyface that fans could aspire to work hard and be like. Today, his physique is "too good" and people want to boo him.

I 100% agree, I was just pointing out that WWF didn't really get it's feet wet until 1984ish. And yes the "It is my life long dream" reason to be champion is done. Once you win as a babyface, you can say that, but it should not be your driving force.

Bo Dallas, who is a third generation wrestler, where literally all his family knows is professional wrestling, probably has a lifelong dream of Main Eventing WM and being WWE champion. But for reasons, he will never get that chance. So the 'lifelong' dream promo should be gone.

[Team Farrell]

Orton vs Batista would have been fine if it weren't for how Daniel Bryan was booked for the 4 months before that. Had Daniel been booked to be below the main event (clean losses), and not just someone screwed out of it, the fans wouldn't have been waiting for his next chapter in the story.

But, I feel that was the right move because it created a new star, and one WWE have used well since. Orton is an incredible talent, but he's not someone who can carry a brand. Daniel can and has.

It's not that, so much as it is that the change of direction in 2014 and giving in to fan pressure seems to have been the start of the entitled mainstream wrestling fan and catering to the 2009 IWC fanbase.

It was a complete reversal of traditional booking logic -- you book a card, people either pay for it because they want to see it or they don't pay for it because they don't, and you adjust from there -- toward catering to the desires of vocal fans directly and in the moment. With the benefit of hindsight, it feels like the root of today's fanbase (things like chanting "you deserve it" and the thankfully dead "2 sweeeeeet" after two counts) and directly playing to the "always online" fans like they do today.

Maybe I'm way off base. I just sometimes wonder where we'd be without those little changes. Is NXT the NXT we know it as today? Do more of the IWC fans drop off from the WWE in 2014, and if so do we get the indy boom earlier or do those people walk away from wrestling entirely? Is AEW a thing, or would an indy like ROH or TNA (again) have gotten enough fan support to put them in that head and shoulders number two position?

[PEN15v2]

You're not offbase, and they are valid questions.

BUT, at some point WWE started booking while ignoring fans tastes. I'm not saying fans always know best, and WWE shouldn't ever ignore them. The difference is that almost every promotion listened to the audience to decide where stories can go, especially at the top of the card. In this case, WWE was very recently talking about listening to the fans in a kayfabe and shoot way. I go back to when CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Zack Ryder all wore gold, and there was a big deal about how the fans supported these guys to their titles, late 2011 I believe.

Plus, you go back to before Bryan won the title from John Cena at SummerSlam 2013, when they announced who would earn the title shot by having the full roster on stage and Cena choosing who will face him. The whole angle was booked about the fans supporting someone, and Cena acknowledging it in the middle of the ring for the first Raw to build to the 2nd biggest show of the year. It wasn't a throw away segment. The focus was on the fans supporting Daniel Bryan to the point that Cena said he earned the main event of the #2 show of the year. And then he won, clean.

WWE REALLY f'd up if they thought they could build Bryan up this much in August, involve the fans support as part of the angle, strip it all away with the Authority, and then expect Bryan to just drop to midcard. I don't believe WWE planned the whole thing to go the way it did the way they've sort of hinted at, but if there was a story that was perfectly build long term in 2013-2014, it was how they build Bryan up with fan support, only to be screwed repeatedly, and then finally vanquish all obstacles at WrestleMania. To do everything they did to make Bryan a credible main event guy, including pinning John F'n Cena clean... and then expect Orton vs Batista to just take the main event spot... WWE created that mess themselves.

[Team Farrell]

But that's what I'm wondering. They booked themselves into a bit of a corner to begin with, no doubt, but it wouldn't be the first time that a popular babyface had gotten pushed to the main event, only to be put back down.

Let's say for the sake of argument, they just didn't change course. Maybe they plan for Bryan to do something with Orton or Batista after Mania. But Randy Orton vs Dave Batista is the main event of WrestleMania 30, and maybe Bryan gets Triple H since Hunter needs a match.

But they never book the Occupy Raw angle, and literally just ignore the desire to push Bryan into the main event of WrestleMania. WWE subconsciously tells their fans in one angle that no matter how hard you cheer for someone else, we have a plan and we're going to execute it, either watch or don't.

Do people walk away, and if so where do they go? What happens to the Network? Is the main event boo'd out of the building (we hadn't really gotten there with fans on a mainstream basis yet)? Is it really all that dire a situation for WWE at all or just business as usual? And where is audience entitlement, "give me what I want, when I want it", today?

[T.O.]

Who goes over in Randy vs Dave?

[Team Farrell]

I mean, you put the belt on Batista, and show him some fucking respect in the process and you might have had an Avenger on your roster off and on the entire five years instead of just coming in once more to retire.

[T.O.]

Yeah but it's Randy Orton, Coach...