Lurker > Jakyl25

You can't really ANNOUNCE Punk vs. Austin right now though, with Punk riding this huge babyface wave and slowly becoming a new pillar of WWE.

If they announced Cena vs. Taker, that actually has a better chance of working, because that's a match that ONLY has meaning at Wrestlemania.

EDIT: Although good lord, if anyone thinks Cena = Superman now, just wait until they're actively building him as a threat to the Streak.

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From: TheRock1525 | #105
I'm just saying, you don't waste Rock/Cena on a lesser PPV. Wrestlemania is going to do absolutely huge PPV buys because of it. I don't think Extreme Rules would have the PPV buys to justify it that quickly, even if it makes sense storywise.

And all I was saying is that the storyline they created would naturally result in a match at Extreme Rules, and it's only due to deus ex machina that it didn't.

My whole point in all this is that the execution of the concept was horrible, not the concept itself.

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LOL I just read this, funny after what SMuffin said earlier:

- WWE is planning to announce the main event for WrestleMania 29 as soon as the Raw after WrestleMania 29. WWE officials are expecting the show to be the highest-rated of the year and are currently looking at John Cena, The Rock, Steve Austin and The Undertaker as the top guys to build next year's show around.

Austin has not committed to working another match yet but has been open to a return match in the right situation.

Credit: Wrestling Observer

So much fail.

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Can we still get Tebow on the cover as a Bronco? Because that would be funny.

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From: Wanglicious | #101
mind you, with that system you'd also have the rock actually gain new material and not be a pony spitting the same one liners for a month as he'd be free to talk smack about cena's antics during the year!

Hey, at least Rock this week actually acted like winning the match meant something! Progress! <_<

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Well there, you just proved my point that "a better creative team could have actually handled announcing the match a year in advance and made it work."

(although to be fair, that's presuming Rock can show up and wrestle a lot)

It's always bugged me that CENA was the one who suggested "let's wait a year then fight." That's not in his character. This is the same man that GAVE UP a WM Title shot he won in the Rumble just to get at Randy Orton quicker.

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Well that just leaves us in the exact same predicament we're in now, just with less downtime.

Heated rivalry ready to explode...but it has to wait a few months...because...they say so?

It doesn't matter if it's a 5 month wait until Summerslam or a 12 month wait until WM, it still faces the same issues of "creative only has about 8 weeks worth of material for this storyline"

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Well, no, more of a storytelling exercise, hard mode edition.

There WAS a natural match between Cena and Rock after WM. They legitimately built one, and (had Rock been available and willing) could have easily had their (first?) match happen at Extreme Rules 2011 and it would have been entirely organic.

Instead, they chose to DELAY the encounter until WM 28, and thus had the challenge of finding ways to keep it bubbling on the back burner while Cena was off doing other things in the meantime.

They failed, but still that's not to say that a BETTER creative team couldn't have pulled it off.

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But yeah I don't have any recollection of an actual announced match for that far in advance. The fact that it was ANNOUNCED instead of PRESUMED is kind of the point, inasmuch as now the build is a lot less natural. But it still was an experiment that I agree was interesting enough to try once.

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I think SmartMuffin might be more familiar with Sting vs. Hogan.

WCW or TNA, take your pick!

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From: Wanglicious | #088
using your biggest event of the year not as an ends but as a means to next year's biggest event also isn't new, and is never good either!

Worked for Wrestlemania IV. Kinda. <___<

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Right. I'm not criticizing the concept of announcing Rock vs. Cena a year in advance or the concept of doing a 6-month build to Roode vs. Storm in a cage. I'm just comparing the poor executions of both.

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Oh I agree, but it still remains pretty damn pointless to set it in stone so early and then barely bother to touch it until post-Elimination Chamber.

Same here with TNA. I have no doubt that the build between here and Lockdown should be good, but if they only had like 8 weeks of material total then they should have just blown it off at Genesis.

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If they re-hire Vince Russo between now and then, sure.

But then again they've done a pretty poor job building Storm vs. Roode. It's such a natural feud and it made sense from the day of Roode's heel turn that it should pay off at Lockdown, but along with that comes, you know, actually properly building the match in the interim.

It's TNA's version of Rock vs. Cena.

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Daniels, actually.

Aries is still 9th on the overall time spent as X-Division Champion list so he still has something to accomplish with the title. <_<

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I really really would have liked at least some establishing shot of, say, Bully Ray and James Storm fighting again backstage to explain why Storm never came out to help.

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Yeah but they already did that feud. I feel like Daniels could use it more right now, I'd love for him to be the next TV Champ.

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Also I must say I was very hyped by that MCMG return tease.

MCMG vs. Joe/Magnus will be the best WWE/TNA Tag Match of the year if it happens.

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My guess is that it's just a career achievement respect title, just to finally throw a singles title on his resume before he retires.

Most of the time in TNA, the question "Where are they gonna go with this new TV champ?" has been answered with "nowhere."

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He looked like a BEAST in that match, literally beating the top contender to his title while blinded.

Spoilers for next week's Impact (not this week's) are very interesting concerning him.

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From: SmartMuffin | #067
When KOTR went from PPV to on TV, it went from kingmaker to jokemaker.

Dost thou malign the glorious reign of KING BOOKAH?

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WWE Raw on Monday, March 19 scored a 3.09 rating, down two-tenths of a rating from a 3.27 rating last week. It was the lowest rating since the February 13 episode - the Raw before Elimination Chamber.

Raw averaged 4.38 million viewers, down nearly ten percent (450,000 viewers) compared to last week's show. It was the fewest viewers in five weeks dating back to Feb. 13.

Raw averaged 4.49 million first hour viewers, then Raw actually declined to an average of 4.27 million viewers in the second hour, despite John Cena vs. Mark Henry with Rock's appearance and a show-closing Undertaker-Triple H-Shawn Michaels segment. It was the fewest second hour viewers since the January 9 Raw against the BCS National Title game.

Ouch.

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From: CybrMonkey | #064
I thought they only give it to people they're upset with because they think making them go out in a crown and scepter is embarrassing. My guess is it goes to The Miz.

That only happened one time!

Granted, it was the most recent time, but still.

Just imagine Bryan suddenly adopting the use of the royal "we."

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From: DeathChicken | #059
AJ works perfectly in a Miss Elizabeth 'Why is this normal girl hanging around an idiot' way. The Bellas are just generically evil. They'd be Scary Sherri, except not half as good

Well good thing there's 2 of them then, maybe combined they equal one Sherri.

This reminds me: Daniel Bryan should totally win King of the Ring this year.

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From: SmartMuffin | #051
I don't see this happening. I feel like for the average middling TNA PPV, the audience they are going to get is pretty set. It's basically the "wrestling completionists" like you, and THAT'S IT. If you and people like you are going to buy it anyway, why should they charge less money?
-

This is a fair point. If they get, say, 8000 buys at $35, I doubt they'd even get 9000 buys for $20.

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I think if they're gonna use Victory Road this way, then it makes perfect sense to also use it as a guinea pig for tinkering with the PPV model.

If they want to book it the way it was booked and call it The Road to Lockdown and charge, say, $20 for it, that's completely acceptable. It's a way to say "This is more important than an episode of Impact, but not as important as a real PPV."

Although if you're gonna do that, you probably don't want to end the PPV with an angle that leaves everyone feeling dirty and gross.

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From: GTM | #043
If indies is pay-per-appearance, if they are booked, they drive to the show and find out they are no longer booked, do they get paid? Are they down their gas money?

Most likely they would not, and then in turn they would most likely never take bookings from that promoter ever again.

Gas money isn't even covered by WWE, so tough luck indie kid!

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Some thoughts after being away for a couple days:

--Raw was bleh. You guys seem to have that covered.

--LOL Shane Douglas. What an idiot. Both Dynamic Dudes were in the house though!

--Victory Road was another decent TNA PPV, aside from the excessively mediocre main event with the uncomfortable post-match. TNA sure knows how to send the fans home happy...with Bobby Roode molesting Dixie Carter!

I wasn't pimping Victory Road like the last two TNA PPVs because I'm against the concept of this being treated as "the road to Lockdown" despite being the same price and having a longer build. It seems ridiculous to actively sell it as inferior to the next PPV but for the same price. It's one thing to do it with Elimination Chamber where at least there's the Chamber gimmick to sell and the "last chance to get into the WM title hunt" concept, but here it's just silly. It would be like marketing Bragging Rights as the Road to Survivor Series.

That said, Aries once again stole the show, and Angle vs. Hardy was ***1/2 MotN.

Sting is SO washed up in the ring that it's sad, really. The one thing that really makes me hesitate about wanting him to do one WM match in WWE is watching all of his TNA matches the last couple years and seeing how much smoke and mirrors are required to get through his matches. Putting over A.J. Styles at Bound For Glory 2009 really should have been the end for him.

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Well the big difference is that low-end WWE = salaried and low-end TNA/average indies = pay-per-appearance.

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From: Wanglicious | #038
but you're in a single area

What?

TNA tours cross-country constantly now.

Only people like Sting, Hogan, and Angle get to ONLY do TV tapings.

Their house show main events are stuff like Jeff Hardy vs. Bully Ray or Bobby Roode vs. A.J. Styles.

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I think in the long run I don't have too much of a problem with WCW and ECW eventually forming the Alliance. This is ultimately the climax of Vince McMahon's 20-year arc of destroying all competition, and in the end it should be the WWF triumphant over one final force. But to tease the idea of a 3-way battle and not even humor us with ANY follow-through really was a letdown.

Working from the framework of "Must start at Invasion, must end at Survivor Series," I think maybe it could go like this:

1.) Invasion should have been purely WWF vs. WCW, with WCW gaining a slight upper hand
2.) Then introduce ECW as a chaotic third element to make Summerslam a 3-way struggle.
3.) ECW afterward sides with the WWF against WCW (I mean really, both companies hated WCW more than each other anyway) as Vince brokers a deal with ECW to wipe out their natural enemy and then work on co-existing, maybe even promising them a timeslot.
3.) WWF + ECW Alliance turns the tide at Unforgiven.
4.) Sensing defeat, in the ensuing month WCW starts to woo ECW under the pretense that Vince's history proves that there will be no peace after this war, and at No Mercy ECW turns on the WWF, forms The Alliance with WCW, and again turns the tide.
5.) Survivor Series pretty much goes as it did.


Still TONS of holes to fill but just doing some light fantasy booking to make the angle more dynamic and meaningful. I mean, really, the entire "ECW" faction of the Invasion was really meaningless after that first night aside from padding out the WCW side with some more WWF guys and giving an excuse to throw RVD into the mix (which admittedly was a pretty big part of the angle).

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Hey, don't forget Triple H as an "ex-WCW star" <__<

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From: Pram_the_Oracle | #003
What's a non-game game?

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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xokps_wwf-raw-2001-ecw-joins-the-invasion_sport

It was so damn good. It was thrilling. It was so logical yet so unexpected. It was awesome watching it all unfold and letting the puzzle pieces really start fitting together in your mind, and the foreseeing the professional wrestling Ragnarok on the horizon, from which only one company could survive.

And then an hour later they ruined it. :-(

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So yes, not only can the main event of Wrestlemania revolve around McMahon vs. McMahon vs. McMahon vs. McMahon, but the kayfabe biggest angle in history can also be reduced to McMahons vs. McMahons.

I mean, look at the PPV poster!


That's what we get to symbolize WWF vs. WCW/ECW.

McMahon.

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Okay, now there's LOTS of stuff.

WCW is now introduced as an opposing force looking to take over the WWF. They even get matches on WWF programming, including a match where Billy Kidman defeated Shane Helms to win the Cruiserweight Title.

Rhyno defeated Test for the Hardcore Title, but then was immediately waylaid by WCW wrestler Mike Awesome, who then won the title and took it under WCW control! Thankfully for the WWF, Jeff Hardy got the title back soon after.

Speaking of Jeff, he would lose the Light Heavyweight Title to X-Pac before that happened.

Kane lost the Intercontinental Title to Albert, thanks to some WCW interference for some reason.

The Dudley Boyz lost the Tag Team Titles to the APA.

During an assault on some WWF wrestlers (Kane and Jericho IIRC) by some WCW wrestlers (Lance Storm and Mike Awesome), a group of WWF wrestlers came out to help. The Dudley Boyz, Raven, Rhyno, Justin Credible, and Tazz. They then all turned on the WWF guys and joined with the WCW guys, and also ex-ECW guys Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer coming out of the crowd, causing Paul Heyman to leave the announce booth and declare that ECW has joined in the Invasion, stealing ex-ECW guys from both WWF and WCW!

Vince and Shane put aside their differences to wipe out the extreme threat, but as it turned out Shane was in cahoots with Heyman, who had sold ECW....to STEPHANIE MCMAHON.

So now Fully Loaded has become The Invasion, where Shane and Stephanie pool their resources to try and bring down their father's company with the assets of his two largest competitors.

WWF Champion: Steve Austin
Tag Team: The A.P.A.
Intercontinental: Albert
European: Matt Hardy
Hardcore: Jeff Hardy
Light Heavyweight: X-Pac

WCW Champion: Booker T
Tag Team: Chuck Palumbo/Sean O'Haire
United States: Booker T
Cruiserweight: Billy Kidman



Chyna is still officially the Women's Champ, but she's done with WWF for good at this point, never appears again, and the Women's Title is ignored until Survivor Series.

--
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From: SmartMuffin | #406
Like, "look kid, there's too much heat on you right now, just lay low and stick to the high school gyms and we'll bring you back once they've all forgotten"

Right, that's basically it, it's just that he was legitimately not a WWE employee for those 2 months.

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From: edwardsdv | #404
Also isnt that exactly the same thing that happened with Muhammad Hassan?

That one was entirely WWE's fault though, and Hassan suffered for it.

Bryan accidentally stepped over "the line" without realizing it, but it was of his own accord. Hassan got boned because the WRITERS suddenly decided to do some really genuinely offensive stuff with his character.

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Mattel, supposedly, was upset IIRC.

If it was really 100% work they would have told him to just take indy bookings until Summerslam and then stop. They probably didn't know for sure WHEN he was coming back so they just told him to take as many bookings as he could get, just to avoid TNA and ROH.

When he came back at Summerslam he still had indy bookings stretching into early October, that WWE graciously let him honor at the expense of missing house shows.

WWE is not that thorough when it comes to subversive angles to the point where they would undercut their own house show circuit just to work the internet.

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They're not allowed to post works on the corporate site.

He was seriously not a WWE employee for two months, with just an unwritten understanding that he'd be brought back once the sponsor outrage died down.

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Yeah, the Nexus thing happened so quickly that I'm fairly certain that those guys were still earning only whatever contract bump you get from being moved from FCW to the traveling roster.

I wonder if in that sense it benefited Bryan to get fired temporarily, since when they brought him back they undoubtedly had to draw up a new contract and since they were inserting him into a main event with his first match back and then straight to the US Title from there if he ended up making more than the other Nexus guys despite coming up at the same time.

EDIT: Then again, he may have been making more to begin with since WWE was willing to sign him straight to the main roster in late 2009 when he came on board, but it was his choice to spend some time in FCW to refine his skills to the WWE style.

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You're not living in the lap of luxury or anything but if you don't have a family to feed or something I think it's comfortable.

I bet a lot of the wrestlers are roommates to further cut down living expenses. I know AJ and Kaitlyn were.

And heck, Zack Ryder still lives with Chiapetta. <_<

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From JR's most recent blog:

Most underrated pure athlete you can recall in WWE? Hmmm, there are many but Billy Gunn would be near or at the top of the list thinking just off the top of my head. Amazingly gifted athlete in multiple and diverse sports who possessed many skills.

I thought that was appropriate to put in this topic. <_<

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