Current Events > Haven't watched WWE since 2006

(+) Yeah! (+)

What I remember

- ECW was back, and Kurt Angle had a rage gimmick and was slapping guys around and choking them.
- Then, Kurt Angle went to TNA (I never watched TNA)
- Cena lost the title to Edge after winning the Elimination Chamber
- The booing of Cena really got started around this time, right?
- DX just came back, after that feud with HBK/Vince

Now I'm checking it out again, and here's what I've picked up

- Cena is still getting booed...the mixed reactions have still gone on for the last 12 years?
- There's this guy called Roman Reigns, he's been pushed way too hard and people hate him now.
- Edge retired.
- There was this guy Daniel Bryan, people loved him but he had to retire.
- Triple H cut his hair.
- Cena and the Rock faced each other at Wrestlemania.
- The Rock is around, every once in a while.
- Brock is back.

Well, okay.
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Skiggie posted...

The Rock is around, every once in a while.

Last time he showed up was two Wrestlemanias ago.

Brock is back.

This Wrestlemania is most likely his last since he's heading back to the UFC.
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Don't worry you're not missing much by not watching a fake sport

Last time he showed up was two Wrestlemanias ago.

I said every once in a while
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I haven't watch WWE since 2001 :/
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DirkDiggles posted...

This Wrestlemania is most likely his last since he's heading back to the UFC.

I hope so.
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Darkrobotisback posted...

I haven't watch WWE since 2001 :/

The last time the product was good.

Pre-Invasion 2001, that is.

Skiggie posted...

- Cena is still getting booed...the mixed reactions have still gone on for the last 12 years?

Cena is getting cheered a lot more now, but the reactions are still mixed. He's put over quite a few guys in recent years and greatly improved in the ring, which fix both of the main reasons why people hated him before. Roman Reigns being overpushed ten times harder than Cena ever was makes Cena look better by comparison, too.

Skiggie posted...

- There's this guy called Roman Reigns, he's been pushed way too hard and people hate him now.

Pretty much. Roman Reigns is about to main-event his 4th Wrestlemania in a row (which only Hulk Hogan ever did before) within less than 7 years of being in WWE. He's basically "Super Cena" times a ten with how overpushed he is and the ridiculous lengths WWE creative goes to try (and fail) and get him cheered.

Skiggie posted...

- There was this guy Daniel Bryan, people loved him but he had to retire.

Yep, Daniel Bryan got some the biggest cheers in WWE's post-attitude-era history. All of the fans loved him, he had his WM moment, and then he got injured... and even when he came back from it at one point, he was pushed aside and forced to job to Roman Reigns. Shortly after, he got injured again and was forced to retire. Some people theorize that he wasn't actually injured enough to need to retire, but that WWE forced him to so he wouldn't take cheers away from Roman Reigns.

Skiggie posted...

- Triple H cut his hair.

And he's the COO of the company, playing an evil authority figure. He's a part-timer now who only has 1-2 matches a year, and one of the main payoffs of his evil authority heel run was Roman Reigns winning the WWE title from him at Wrestlemania 32, to a chorus of boos from the audience.

Skiggie posted...

- The Rock is around, every once in a while.

The Rock hasn't actually wrestled a full match in years, and only shows up for special appearances or to try and get his cousin Roman Reigns cheered.

Skiggie posted...

- Brock is back.

Brock came back, ended The Undertaker's streak, squashed John Cena, and has pretty much destroyed everyone in his path, became the first to kick out of Goldberg's Jackhammer (oh yeah Goldberg came back too) and has held the WWE Universal title for almost a year straight... just to be built up as the "unstoppable" final boss for Roman Reigns to conquer so he can cement himself as the top star in the company.

TL;DR: Roman Reigns is the cause of everything bad about WWE today.
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Kurt Angle Wrestling Machine > Kurt Angle now

I think he-s the only one that made The Phenom tapped.
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It's that bad with Roman Reigns? And I thought they pushed Cena all the way up to the moon..
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if anything, the women's division is great now
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Sounds like I stopped watching around the same time you did. I briefly went back when the WWE Network was new.

I remember getting annoyed that Roman Reigns beat Kane's record for eliminating people in the Royal Rumble. But damn seems even worse now.
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Skiggie posted...

It's that bad with Roman Reigns? And I thought they pushed Cena all the way up to the moon..

Since breaking off from The Shield as a singles competitor in mid 2014, Roman Reigns has...

- won the 2015 Royal Rumble match (and was booed heavily) and was in the final 3 of each of the next 3 Rumble matches
- main-evented Wrestlemania 31 against Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship in only his second PPV singles match and was booked to be almost on even footing with Lesnar (Seth Rollins cashed in his MITB briefcase mid-match and won the title, so it's intentionally left open-ended whether Reigns could have beaten Lesnar)
- won the WWE title 3 times since then, including beating Triple H in the main event of WM32
- won the US and IC titles as well, but was consistently in the main event and even challenged for the Universal title while holding the US title
- defeated The Undertaker in the main event of Wrestlemania 33, seemingly (at the time) retiring him from WWE
- has been built up to win the Universal title from Brock Lesnar at WM34 (his fourth consecutive WM main event) in what will likely be Lesnar's final WWE match

And that's only in the past 3 and 1/2 years. The WWE's insistence to keep pushing Roman Reigns at a superman face despite overwhelming negative reactions is so huge at this point that it's warranted having it's own Wikipedia entry and not just being tacked onto Roman's own Wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_and_reception_of_Roman_Reigns
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Shortly after, he got injured again and was forced to retire. Some people theorize that he wasn't actually injured enough to need to retire, but that WWE forced him to so he wouldn't take cheers away from Roman Reigns.

what?
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Kelystic posted...

Shortly after, he got injured again and was forced to retire. Some people theorize that he wasn't actually injured enough to need to retire, but that WWE forced him to so he wouldn't take cheers away from Roman Reigns.

what?

Fans wanted Daniel Bryan. Really badly. Fans hated Roman Reigns. Really badly. Fans would chant Bryan's catchphrase "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and hijack entire segments because they wanted him. Fans would boo the everliving fuck out of Roman Reigns during his segments because they hated him. WWE thought that Daniel Bryan's mere existence was causing fans to want him over Roman Reigns. So some fans believe that WWE took Bryan out of the picture by forcing him to retire (AKA refusing to ever medically clear him due to concussion issues that Bryan himself has said were not as bad as initially thought) to prevent fans from wanting him instead and hijacking shows by cheering for him and not Roman Reigns.

Of course, we all know now that there are plenty of other reasons to hate Roman Reigns. It's mostly just a conspiracy theory at this point, but WWE so desperately wants fans to accept cheer for Roman as the top guy that no one would put it past WWE to do such a thing to eliminate what they thought was one of the obstacles preventing it.
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Reis posted...

Don't worry you're not missing much by not watching a fake sport

scripted*

The bumps are very real.
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Calwings posted...

Kelystic posted...

Shortly after, he got injured again and was forced to retire. Some people theorize that he wasn't actually injured enough to need to retire, but that WWE forced him to so he wouldn't take cheers away from Roman Reigns.

what?

Fans wanted Daniel Bryan. Really badly. Fans hated Roman Reigns. Really badly. Fans would chant Bryan's catchphrase "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and hijack entire segments because they wanted him. Fans would boo the everliving fuck out of Roman Reigns during his segments because they hated him. WWE thought that Daniel Bryan's mere existence was causing fans to want him over Roman Reigns. So some fans believe that WWE took Bryan out of the picture by forcing him to retire (AKA refusing to ever medically clear him due to concussion issues that Bryan himself has said were not as bad as initially thought) to prevent fans from wanting him instead and hijacking shows by cheering for him and not Roman Reigns.

Of course, we all know now that there are plenty of other reasons to hate Roman Reigns. It's mostly just a conspiracy theory at this point, but WWE so desperately wants fans to accept cheer for Roman as the top guy that no one would put it past WWE to do such a thing to eliminate what they thought was one of the obstacles preventing it.

This honestly seems like a stretch. WWE would be way more strict about medically clearing people considering their rather sketchy past.
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Brock rarely wrestles and all he does is suplexes and F5's and more people are starting to boo him because of that
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I've been watching some videos on Youtube, and the heat he gets is just nuclear. I don't remember it being that bad with Cena, except maybe One Night Stand against RVD.
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Roman's heat is solely because he's been pushed like Cena/Rock/Austin/Taker for the past 4 years now and it was 2ish years too early. If he wasn't in the main event against HHH at 31 and against Brock at 32 (having lower upper-card matches instead) and just retired Taker at 33, he'd be fine. His push was years early and it turned a lot of people off of him. Especially because Vince refuses to just turn him heel.

I think if Roman was turned heel and allowed more freedom on the mic like the Rock was when he was in the Nation, he would at least be booed for a legit reason. And then he could actually turn face later and be cheered like what Vince wants.
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Yeah Roman's career took a nosedive with WWE (or many thinking just Vince) preferring him to be the next top guy (along with Cena at #2), over many others who were far more popular. Early 2014 was the last time Roman was cheered by all, but WWE's motives became clear and he became the most despised on the roster.
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Worth a listen on the whole Reigns scenario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rttAxsI4ImY" data-time="

Little Kuriboh does great WWE vids.
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Honestly Roman's push isn't quite as bad as Cena's as he's not the main event of every damn single show, but he is Main Eventing Wrestlemania for his 4th year in a row and a lot of guys are being fed to him. There's similarities to the Cena type push, Roman at least isn't a white meat babyface as he's not afraid to cross lines and get brutal. He has wrestling skills unlike Cena circa 2006 (current Cena is miles better but his the amount of times finishers get spammed in his matches irks a lot of people myself included). On the flips side he's a pretty bad talker, cut a decent promo against Brock a few weeks ago but most of it's a forced unnatural feel WWE has created over the past 10 years.

Overall I like Roman but constantly trying to make him the top single guy is doing him zero favors with the crowd.

On the flip side you got Strowman who slowly improved in the ring and became almost a hybrid of Brock and Andre kayfabe wise. An athletic big man for his size who annihilates everything in his path, he's gotten far more over than Roman and has mastered the psychological aspects of wrestling but even though WWE makes him look nigh unstoppable 99% of the time they don't want give him the extra bolster over Roman. Some people dislike Strowman because he's booked cartoonishly strong but he has that surreal effect the Undertaker did.
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Cena had a much slower push, was heel when he did his "Word Life" gimmick of being a rapper. He then slowly became a fan favorite and then given his push against JBL at WM21. That's when he became Super Cena.
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Airhammy posted...

Worth a listen on the whole Reigns scenario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rttAxsI4ImY" data-time="

Little Kuriboh does great WWE vids.

That video is definitely one of LK's best serious wrestling videos. He has tons of humorous ones (every single episode of The Mark Remark) but his serious videos are fantastic too. That's one of the most informative videos on the whole Roman Reigns situation.
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Maybe I'm wrong since I haven't followed the show for a long time but since the Attitude Era it seems like the WWE just seem to struggle adapting to what the audience wants.

Like would Stone Cold have found his footing in the modern WWE? Or would he be tossed aside like he was in WCW and ECW? Would the Rock be main eventing as a squeaky clean babyface for a decade and never found his edge that skyrocketed him to being a superstar?

What the hell happened to this company? It's like they forgot everything about the late 90's. People got into it because it really felt like anything could happen. Hell I remember when they opened every single show with that commentator line. Sometimes it was total trailer trash and sometimes it was a looney tunes cartoon but at least it was fun. It seems like they've gotten extremely safe and stubborn.

I know it's not a total black and white issue. I know WWE has gotten a lot of flack over wrestler health and safety over the years and I believe they have gotten better in this area (along with actual better in-ring matches). But where's that charisma? Where's that underdog scrappy feel this company used to have? I don't see it from guys like Roman Reigns. Nothing about him makes me feel like I'm missing anything interesting.
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Calwings posted...

Brock came back, ended The Undertaker's streak,

That would be when I quit watching. Didn't even bother watching the rest of that Mania, and the next day I cancelled my subscription to the Network.
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SimpleMan posted...

Calwings posted...

Brock came back, ended The Undertaker's streak,

That would be when I quit watching. Didn't even bother watching the rest of that Mania, and the next day I cancelled my subscription to the Network.

could have been worse
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I stopped watching after Edge/Cena feud, briefly started following again in 2011 due to CM Punk (that MITB match with Cena is awesome - I sometimes go back and watch again, particularly the intros).

Edge was my favourite for years, when he finally won the title I lost my absolute shit. God I was a nerd
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I quit around the time WWE absorbed WCW.
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Why would you go to a WWE match just to boo at the fighters? Is the WWE crowd just shitty people?
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Chicken posted...

Why would you go to a WWE match just to boo at the fighters? Is the WWE crowd just shitty people?

It's like when people here come into a topic they have no interest in just to make fun of it.
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I also remember Cena beating HHH at Wrestlemania...funny to see shocked faces in the crowd. I think I specifically stopped watching a couple of weeks after DX came back, though. When Kurt left I became disinterested. I felt that he was legitimately the best wrestler there, because he actually won a gold medal.

Feels weird to see it all again..I've been browsing highlights and it actually is the first time in over a decade I'm seeing WWE action...and these are the top faces?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbblQ8QQc2k" data-time="

*insert Donald Glover pizza gif*
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Roman is just filling that "rammed down your throat" type role that Cena has had all these years. Cena's hate has become more of a joke now.

Meanwhile the true top guys are the likes of AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, and more.

Then there's NXT which is excellent in it's own right, and has many up-and-comers.
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Does Roman reigns have a personal/personality now?

I started watching again for a bit just around when the shield broke up. iirc Seth did a bunch of talking bit Roman seemed more like the silent dude.

has he at least stepped up his acting game since he appears to be pushed so much?
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Trayvon posted...

Does Roman reigns have a personal/personality now?

I started watching again for a bit just around when the shield broke up. iirc Seth did a bunch of talking bit Roman seemed more like the silent dude.

has he at least stepped up his acting game since he appears to be pushed so much?

he's had like...2 moments where he showed emotion.
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Skiggie posted...

I've been watching some videos on Youtube, and the heat he gets is just nuclear. I don't remember it being that bad with Cena, except maybe One Night Stand against RVD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsoq1MteXSU" data-time="
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Airhammy posted...

Roman is just filling that "rammed down your throat" type role that Cena has had all these years. Cena's hate has become more of a joke now.

Meanwhile the true top guys are the likes of AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, and more.

Then there's NXT which is excellent in it's own right, and has many up-and-comers.

AJ Styles and Seth Rollins are consistently rock solid performers. Some of the older guys can still do great stuff too (Randy Orton comes to mind). I think that one spot Rollins vs Orton had at WM a few years ago was one of the best I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8CSUaSzSI" data-time="
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Skiggie posted...

- Cena is still getting booed...the mixed reactions have still gone on for the last 12 years?
- There's this guy called Roman Reigns, he's been pushed way too hard and people hate him now.
- Edge retired.
- There was this guy Daniel Bryan, people loved him but he had to retire.
- Triple H cut his hair.
- Cena and the Rock faced each other at Wrestlemania.
- The Rock is around, every once in a while.
- Brock is back.

Well, okay.

-The boos for Cena now are similar to people chanting "You suck" at Kurt Angle. It's more out of a habit than anything now.

-Roman is getting the Cena treatment from 2005-2007. Pushed to the moon and main eventing practically everything despite there being people that are better in the ring and on the mic that the fans would prefer to see

-Sadly. He was wrestling on borrowed time after that neck injury he had years prior.

-This is an odd one. All the doctors Bryan has seen say he can compete, but WWE's doctors are saying no. The injury happened because of the fact that WWE had a story going with him that involved competing in multiple high profile matches multiple times in a night.

-Corporate look.

-Yup. Twice. Both were good matches akin to Rock-Hogan at X8

-Says he won't leave again, is hardly seen.

-And will probably be gone soon.
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More vague memories...on Smackdown, Batista was champion and the top face. He was with Rey Mysterio and they feuded with MNM. Mark Henry injured Batista and he had to give up the belt.

Rey Mysterio won the Rumble, became champion at Wrestlemania. (He was milking Eddie's memory at this point) Don't remember anything after that.

Smackdown now airs on Tuesday, and Raw is now 3 hours...bit much for me.
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WWE has expanded so much with RAW, PPVs, NXT, the WWE Network, and more. They have so much content.

The roster is so big RAW had to go 3 hours. Smackdown is actually struggling with a 2 hour show. Some of the talent there is never showcased.

PPVs are still 3 hours, but the big ones go longer. Wrestlemania is usually 5 hours now with a 2 hour kickoff show. Guess I should bring that up. All PPVs now have a kickoff show before the event, usually 1 hour and have one or more matches on them that couldn't fit the main card.
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Lucky you.
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