Board 8 > Best All-Purpose Wrestling Topic of the Decade, Part 492

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm not saying they're not saying they're alternate personalities. That much is obvious.

I'm saying you're fleshing it out a lot more than they are running with the premise that they're ripping off Split.

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fiend sux
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I mean I'm not fleshing out anything beyond what I just stated.

There are currently two personalities that are not the same as the original one. And one of those is blatantly a supernatural possession.

Yeah, I filled in some more blanks on the "I assume they're going for" post, but that post is kinda irrelevant. What they've given us is enough for it to make sense if you buy into supernatural stuff. The Fiend is not Bray Wyatt, which is why The Fiend is stronger than Bray Wyatt. That's really the important part.
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I guess the meat is I accept supernatural stuff in angles but if it makes them way stronger in the ring that just feels like a copout to push a guy that isn't on that level unless it's fleshed out well. Even a stupid supernatural explanation of why Fiend is so much stronger would probably be fine, but we don't have one.

More elaboration on why the Fiend is stronger than Bray Wyatt is needed for coherence. "He's not Bray Wyatt" is not enough explanation for me. That just explains why his mannerisms would be different. Compared to Mick Foley's alter egos which imo were actually done well, they had fairly consistent power levels and were just sliding bars of sadism vs masochism vs neither, which had varying efficacy depending on what was most effective vs his opponent.

And to be fair I think The Demon King Finn Balor is super dumb too, so I'm at least consistent in that regard!

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The Demon is dumb because they never DID anything with it. The Fiend is actively Bray's in ring character now, so it is easier to buy in.

But as usual, the real strength comes later. Say Bray drops the title to Roman (because of course he fucking will) the situation then becomes what his ceiling is with his next feud and the power level of his opponent.

Faces
Roman
Bryan
The Gulf of fucking Mexico
Miz, Ali, SHORTY G (FuckyouVince), etc.
New Day...maybe?

Turn him face, and well

Heels
Corbin (blargh)
Nakamura/Zayn
Roode/Ziggler (fucking what?)
Sheamus...?

Like, outside of Roman and Bryan, Fiend shouldn't have any trouble hoklding serve over SD as "not Kofi plummeting to fucking death in weeks" obscurity

Just put Bray as the defacto "top grudge/non-title feud" guy and just have him win each one, correcting the previous mistake, until WWE decides they actually have a new shiny toy.

The problem last time always was Bray BEING that gut already, but Vince preferring other people. SD's current landscape is sparse enough that (maybe) WWE isn't dumb to fuck up again...

...

"Stop supporting WWE"

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Lopen posted...

I guess the meat is I accept supernatural stuff in angles but if it makes them way stronger in the ring that just feels like a copout to push a guy that isn't on that level unless it's fleshed out well. Even a stupid supernatural explanation of why Fiend is so much stronger would probably be fine, but we don't have one.

More elaboration on why the Fiend is stronger than Bray Wyatt is needed for coherence. "He's not Bray Wyatt" is not enough explanation for me. That just explains why his mannerisms would be different. Compared to Mick Foley's alter egos which imo were actually done well, they had fairly consistent power levels and were just sliding bars of sadism vs masochism vs neither, which had varying efficacy depending on what was most effective vs his opponent.

And to be fair I think The Demon King Finn Balor is super dumb too, so I'm at least consistent in that regard!

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this, since to me, "It's not Bray Wyatt/it's a supernatural possession" is enough for me if I'm already readily accepting somebody controlling fire and somebody being immortal.

Like, I don't ask "Why is Undertaker immortal?" or "Why can Kane summon fire?" I just accept it because they said "He's supernatural and he can."

So to me personally, I could see somebody buying into all three, or somebody going "No, this is stupid" to all three, but it's weird to me to accept "immortal" and "flame conjuror" but not "possession."
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Also yeah, I think Fiend is handled waaaay better than Demon Balor, since Fiend actually acts different along with his noticeable power boost, and it's just... What he is, now. They built up to Bray becoming The Fiend, he's not just putting on his Sunday best like Balor. Demon Balor is literally just Balor going "Occasionally I put on facepaint with no rhyme or reason and I wrestle the same but now my moves do more damage and I take less damage but there's no actual consistency to when I do it."
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I mean it's hard to argue the guy who once went by Husky Harris and latered was "possessed" by Sister Abigail didnt suffer from some sort of personality disorder.
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HashtagSEP posted...

So to me personally, I could see somebody buying into all three, or somebody going "No, this is stupid" to all three, but it's weird to me to accept "immortal" and "flame conjuror" but not "possession."

I told you the difference multiple times

If Bray always had this aspect to his character it would be fine. The ability to tap into some sort of nigh invincibility at random from time to time, rather than it just randomly surfacing over 5 years into his career. If you just make it surface, a damn good explanation is necessary, which we have not received. Kane and Undertaker, that's how they've always been, so you kinda just accept that this is what the established character is.

Like if say I don't know TNA had Willow, Jeff Hardy's alternate identity, able to tank ungodly amounts of punishment or able to throw lightning when Jeff Hardy had never shown that ability, I would shit on it too.

Like you can refuse to accept there should be a difference but I'm telling you the difference I see, and it's a significant one. Changing an existing character demands more detail in the writing than introducing one. And that's true of anything, from the supernatural type characters to the normal ones. It's the same reason you typically would expect a reason for someone to turn someone heel, but if they debut as one you don't care as much.

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Undertaker randomly stops being supernatural until someone kills him - Very consistent, being a zombie, then a cult leader, then a biker, then a zombie then just kind of forgetting about it and being a dude that seems weird is all perfectly logical and consistent

Kane randomly stops being invincible until his mask is removed at which point just being kind of angry makes him invincible until it's inconvenient for him to be, then he's a joke again until he randomly borrows Undertaker's supernatural powers briefly despite not having displayed those specific ones before, then goes back to being a joke until he puts on a *new* mask to become super strong for three weeks, then becomes a corporate dude who occasionally randomly becomes a monster - Yes! This all is so consistent!

Bray Wyatt has moments of clearly hearing voices that influence him (and occasionally doing supernatural stuff) over the years, leading to months of building up a split personality that is stronger than he normally is - What the hell? Total nonsense.

Apparently Bray should have just shown up one day with the Fiend mask on and been instantly invincible. Always made perfect sense when Kane did it, after all.
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Lopen posted...

If only Glacier would come to WWE his blue lights would cancel the red lights

I was thinking Sin Cara but this is an even better idea


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I mean first of all Kane and Taker have never completely no sold the amount of crap The Fiend has in just like 2 or 3 matches/

Second of all Kane and Taker started at the level and went down and back up as they ebbed and flowed. It's easier to accept they can return to that power level because you've seen it before.

Again you can keep false equivalence going because "hee hee ho ho" but they're pretty different situations. Fiend really is more of a Jinder situation than a Kane or Taker situation. It's just instead of jobber -> ME we have midcarder -> super ME.

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Undertaker has literally no-sold his own death! Paul Bearer also no-sold storyline death twice for some reason.

A character being a joke until he instantly becomes invincible is not somehow more sensible just because once upon a time the character was booked stronger. In fact, that makes it LESS consistent! It just tells you there is no consistency and Kane's power will never make sense and just fluctuates totally randomly for no reason. As it did for many years. It makes a lot more sense for a guy to spend actual months being turned into a brand new character coinciding with him becoming stronger. Kind of happens all the time in wrestling, actually. Daniel Bryan was a decent midcarder until popularity made him suddenly better than Cena, then good enough to beat three main eventers in one night while already injured
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Kane and Undertaker have never really been a joke though. This is at best hyperbole, at worst outright fabrication, in order to make your point stronger.

Like yes Kane has has his ups and downs over his career, but I would say at worst he has been a stronger midcarder than Bray typically is, and at his best he has been significantly weaker than The Fiend. But you know what? This is true of every wrestler in the WWE. They all have ups and downs. It's all about thresholds and ranges. The further you jump up or fall, the more detailed an explanation you need. I would say Bray vs Fiend is the biggest jump in power we've ever seen in WWE, over even Jinder, by a large margin

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All supernatural stuff the viewer is supposed to take very seriously sucks
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The part I'm struggling with is that you accept The Fiend is supposed to be a supernatural possession/it's not just Bray Wyatt after going to the gym for a few months, but then insist there's no reason for why he's stronger now. The supernatural possession IS the reason. And that's no different than just "Oh the Undertaker is immortal because he is." You're just trying to attach more rules to some stupid supernatural gimmick that you aren't attaching to other stupid supernatural gimmicks.

Rejecting the supernatural gimmick as stupid makes sense, and then, yes, your argument would make sense, since it'd just be "Bray Wyatt got stronger out of nowhere."

But you've admitted you have no problem with Kane or Undertaker supposedly being otherworldly demons, so it's just weird to apply different logic to them and Fiend, when Fiend is also supposed to be an otherworldly presence that is possessing a dude who has already in canon been possessed previously, so it's not even anything new with the character.
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Steiner posted...

All supernatural stuff the viewer is supposed to take very seriously sucks

See, this is a perfectly logical viewpoint that I won't argue in the least.
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Steiner posted...

All supernatural stuff the viewer is supposed to take very seriously sucks

Yeah, people that defend the Fiend with "WELL IT WAS FINE WHEN THE UNDERTAKER AND KANE DID IT THOUGH, RIGHT???" (which may or may not be anyone in this topic, as I have no desire whatsoever to actually read into the minutiae of this argument) are all mistakenly assuming that those two were universally praised.

Their shit was bad too.
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Bray Wyatt has not had supernatural possession that changes his strength before, and he's an over 5 years established character, so we need good explanation as to why it does. Like if his gimmick was always that he was a spirit channel and his strength would change from month to month based on the strength of the spirit flowing through his vessel or whatever that's fine but we've never been told that. We've had Bray ramble about vessels but yeah it's never been anything substantive.

Again it's just a different standard for establishing a character vs changing a character. I hold the latter to a much higher standard than the former.

That being said Kane and Undertaker at their most stupid with throwing fire and lightning and crap were a bit much too. But at least that stayed out of the matches, generally.

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NBIceman posted...

Steiner posted...

All supernatural stuff the viewer is supposed to take very seriously sucks

Yeah, people that defend the Fiend with "WELL IT WAS FINE WHEN THE UNDERTAKER AND KANE DID IT THOUGH, RIGHT???" (which may or may not be anyone in this topic, as I have no desire whatsoever to actually read into the minutiae of this argument) are all mistakenly assuming that those two were universally praised.

Their shit was bad too.

I'm only arguing with Lopen because he's specifically arguing Undertaker and Kane were good, logical supernatural gimmicks and Fiend is an illogical supernatural gimmick.

I'm all in favor of saying they all suck!
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Lopen posted...

Bray Wyatt has not had supernatural possession that changes his strength before, and he's an over 5 years established character, so we need good explanation as to why it does.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't the implication that Sister Abigail specifically made him stronger, but he just got overcome by The Demon Balor?
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Lopen posted...

Kane and Undertaker have never really been a joke though. This is at best hyperbole, at worst outright fabrication, in order to make your point stronger.

Kane absolutely was a joke at various times. Corporate Kane was a joke. Kane crying over seeing stuffed Paul Bearer dolls getting destroyed in his feud with Edge was a joke (Team Hell No Kane was also a joke, albeit not in the sense of being a weakling/loser). His entire supernatural gimmick essentially became a joke with the Katie Vick angle firmly establishing that he was a totally mundane dude with a totally mundane life despite what his backstory supposedly was, except he randomly went back to being the supernatural dude every now and then. It's pretty damn hard to argue there was any sort of greater consistency with Kane when it's outright impossible to even tell what his story is supposed to be when it's been retconned back and forth so many times over that no one even knows.

Bray has consistently had mild supernatural themes and had several moments that hint at some split personality stuff, or at least hearing voices that influence him in some way (fittingly, mostly while feuding with Orton). It seems like a lot less of a jump for Bray's supernatural elements to become the focal point of his character than it does for Kane to be so offended by the thought of people seeing the scars he doesn't have that he's been covering up since childhood despite having had a totally normal high school life, that it makes him become invincible again because it returns him to being the monster that he used to be but can't actually be because his backstory has just established he never was.
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Turns out I'm half right

According to Balor, the plan was for Wyatt to wrestle as Sister Abigail, and for Balor to reveal a new, stronger version of The Demon to defeat him, but the match never happened because Wyatt got sick.

But yeah, Sister Abigail possession was supposed to be a powerup.
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Was a pretty minor footnote in a bad feud so I don't know. Maybe that was the implication. It was sold so poorly as a relevant detail, and never actually caused Bray to win or even perform significantly better in a match, that I wouldn't count it myself.

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Lopen posted...

Was a pretty minor footnote in a bad feud so I don't know. Maybe that was the implication. It was sold so poorly as a relevant detail, and never actually caused Bray to win or even perform significantly better in a match, that I wouldn't count it myself.

Well, turns out it was only so insignificant because the match got called off since Bray got the mumps. >_>
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Here's the main difference between Kane and Bray

The Fiend at his strongest took like 45 Curb Stomps, getting thrown through explosives, hit with a sledgehammer, chairs, and a bajillion other objects, and completely no sold it all to boot.

Kane at his strongest kicked out of two Tombstones. Impressive, but nothing a high card guy like Roman Reigns hasn't done.

Bray Wyatt at his weakest was a lower midcarder who would go on losing streaks for months

Kane at his weakest was I guess Corporate Kane, a dude who was still an upper midcarder in spite of not having supernatural elements, entirely off of being big more or less.

Just look at their career win/loss records should tell you these are completely different beasts in terms of overall credibility, with Bray's Win rate being about 30% and Kane's being about 50%.

I mean they're similar, but only at a superficial "I want to win an argument" level. Any attention to the details will tell you that Fiend is way more of a jump than Kane ever had.

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The argument isn't about the level of jump. The argument was over whether they did anything to explain the jump or not.

I'm arguing that "supernatural possession" is an explanation if you're already buying into supernatural elements of other wrestlers, especially one that has a history of supernatural possession, including the fact that it was supposed to be a power boost then, as well, and only wasn't because of outside circumstances scrapping a match.

I'm not saying you have to like it. My argument this entire time has simply been that saying Undertaker and Kane were logical and fine, but Fiend is "No way"(jose) is just weird to me. I fully understand hating 'em all or liking 'em all, but defending the others while saying Fiend is illogical just seems silly.
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There is no argument

The Fiend Sux

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The Fiend does indeed suck

Firefly Funhouse was always bad

Bray Wyatt is very mediocre at best
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Bigger jumps to levels not previously seen have higher standards for me to accept-- that's the gist of it.

I also never said Kane and Undertaker were "completely logical and fine" I said they were easier to accept because they were closer to in line with their established power levels, were less of a jump in general, and got slightly better explanation. I said me disliking The Fiend has nothing at all to do with him being Supernatural and as such he shouldn't be lumped in with them.

Like your argument is basically the equivalent of saying I can't say JBL's world title reign was easier to accept as something that happened than Jinder Mahal's because they were both punching above their weight class for their reigns.

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I mean you've been sitting here defending the supernatural elements of Kane and Undertaker as "Oh they debuted that way so it's fine" so that's why I've been arguing. You've been defending supernatural elements of one and lamenting supernatural elements of another, despite saying it has nothing to do with the supernatural stuff.

We're just repeating ourselves at this point.

They all suck. That's what I'm gonna leave it at.
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I'm lamenting Bray's "supernatural elements" because they alter his power level significantly more than Kane and Undertaker's ever have, and demands more explanation than theirs have, because they came in with a base level of credibility which was higher than Bray's ever was, never fell as low on credibility as Bray has, and have always had that as an overarching element to their characters, whereas Bray did not except at a token level at best.

Again it has nothing to do with the supernatural in and of itself, it has completely to do with internal character and booking consistency. Bigger jumps in gimmicks and card placements require better explanations. To me, that is just an obvious fact of how writing in general works, not even WWE specific.

I'm only repeating myself because you're trying to make the argument about something it's not, because you want to paint my thought process as inconsistent. I'm sorry if you can't understand it, but that doesn't mean it's inconsistent. It's not. There's a reason I keep dragging the argument to Jinder and Tensai and you keep dragging it to Undertaker and Kane. It's because I'm not arguing what you think I am, and I don't know why you keep insisting it has to be about the supernatural part.

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Y'all are talking a lot about something WWE is going to ruin within 3 months anyway.
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thought it was already ruined.
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People threw a hissy over the first Seth Rollins match, but other than that it's been fine. Could it be better? Of course it can. We're 7 months into this thing though and I've greatly enjoyed it.
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I love the Firefly Fun House.

I'm still up in the air about The Fiend.
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Y'all are talking a lot about something WWE is going to ruin within 3 months anyway.

how do you ruin something that's very concept is actively terrible from the start
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Steiner posted...

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Y'all are talking a lot about something WWE is going to ruin within 3 months anyway.

how do you ruin something that's very concept is actively terrible from the start

WWE finds a way
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https://www.wwe.com/article/john-morrison-agrees-wwe-contract
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ninkendo posted...

https://www.wwe.com/article/john-morrison-agrees-wwe-contract

Steiner posted...

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Y'all are talking a lot about something WWE is going to ruin within 3 months anyway.

how do you ruin something that's very concept is actively terrible from the start

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Ah yes, John Morrison, part of a very exclusive club with Noam Dar, Curt Hawkins, and, to my knowledge, no others across the vast, expansive boundaries of professional wrestling.

Can anyone guess what that club is?

Wrestlers who, against all odds, had a shitty match with AJ Styles on the indies after his TNA days.
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Please let him come back as also The Fiend
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RPGlord95 posted...

Please let him come back as also The Fiend

not against this idea
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Johnny Fiend.
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Johnny Fiend is an amazing idea

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBXH1PYT6qA

Seth playing "somewhat" diplomatic about Twitter wrecking his standing with the fans, but it's actually an understandable position he takes. Obviously, they've taken this character and run with it on TV, but I can't fault him when he comes across way better and level headed than a derp on his phone. He doesn't really play up the recent "turn" at all. Eit.her he knew WWE was a safer space than a third party interview...or maybe he learned something (doubt it)

Still, stay off Twitter. It's not good for him at all. Being passionate is no excuse for being a social media whore in the wrong way.

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If we're talking about supernatural elements not making sense, can we talk about how the Prince is a further different character from Finn Balor than the Demon ever was?

The Demon was a cool entrance and some excellent body paint, but he was Finn Balor with a cool entrance snd excellent body paint. The Prince is a captivating menace!
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Seth on Backstage said that a big problem with the HiaC match was that he didnt know the red lights would stay on until they did, and it affected how sharp his work was

Seths work being sloppy wasnt really an issue...

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https://twitter.com/randyjcruz/status/1202082805737545729?s=19

Come the fuck on, guys. This comes across as WWE levels of lame.

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Joy...

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