I haven'ty watched any WWE in 3 months

[Lamuella]

so my question is: should I bother starting watching again?

and have I missed anything cool?

[DaveWadding]

well, Kane got Lita pregnant...and then she miscarried.

and Orton won the belt at Summerslam...then dropped it to HHH.

Nah, nothing cool.

[Head]

There was a crappy Diva Search on Raw that just ended.

[Lamuella]

so your answer is don't bother?

Will do.

[ColdwaVer]

Well hey, Raw has some decent bits going, specifically what's happening between Christian, Jericho, and HBK... when Edge gets back that's going to own.

[Disturbed316]

It's had its ups and downs in the last couple of months, mainly downs though.

[Funky Fly]

so your answer is don't bother?

Will do.
The thing is, everything they do lately has potential to be huge, but they screw it up somehow (eg, using the Last Ride match instead of bringing back the Casket Match, bringing back Vis and Gangrel even if it was short term).

Just watch because your captions make me happy.

[loopydate]

^ What the Funkster said.

The Christian/HBK feud on RAW has the potential to bring about some fantastic matches, and you just know the promos will be gold. Randy Orton chasing Triple H for the World Title could be interesting, as it looks like they're back to booking Orton properly. Plus, with a potential Kane face turn and Hurricane heel turn, there should be some unusual stuff coming up.

SmackDown's a little harder to judge. JBL bringing back the Ministry (even if it is short-term) makes me actually give a damn about his feud with Undertaker. Kurt Angle's little faction has the potential to be very big if booked right, and Big Show looks pretty good again.

Honestly, though, you can catch most of that on Velocity and Heat which - imo - are the best wrestling shows on national TV right now.

[The CyNick]

I would say there's nothing that will drab your attention right now. Orton-HHH is boring, Taker looks like he will be the focal point of the WWE title picture for the next 6 months. HBK-Christian might be good whenever that happens, but aside from that, I dont see much.

[Loose Cannon]

They NEED to start doing swerves again. That's why I loved the nWo and that's why I think most people liked WCW back then. Each week you didn't know who would sell out or who would betray who. You watch now and it's like so Orton vs HHH for the next 6 months. Okay I'll tune in 6 months from now to see how it ends and that's because nothing will happen in between that. That's why wrestling sucks. Everything flows down a one way street.

I mean look at a show like 24. Why did most people keep watching that first season? Because you wanted to know who was behind everything and what kind of swerve they would throw at us that week. People love twists, surprises and shocking TV. Just look at all the reality stuff.

In the WWE and TNA there are no surprises at all. And when there is, you see it coming a mile away.

[El Santo]

so my question is: should I bother starting watching again?

and have I missed anything cool?

Well, there's...

I mean, how can you miss wrestling when...

Um...

You know, I can't recommend anything in the WWE right now when the current champs are Bradshaw and Triple H.

[The CyNick]

They NEED to start doing swerves again. That's why I loved the nWo and that's why I think most people liked WCW back then. Each week you didn't know who would sell out or who would betray who. You watch now and it's like so Orton vs HHH for the next 6 months. Okay I'll tune in 6 months from now to see how it ends and that's because nothing will happen in between that. That's why wrestling sucks. Everything flows down a one way street.

I mean look at a show like 24. Why did most people keep watching that first season? Because you wanted to know who was behind everything and what kind of swerve they would throw at us that week. People love twists, surprises and shocking TV. Just look at all the reality stuff.

In the WWE and TNA there are no surprises at all. And when there is, you see it coming a mile away.

At the same time, when you do a bunch of swerves you run the risk of doing more harm than good. The Invasion seemed easy enough to book, but the WWE threw in a bunch of swerves (Shane buys WCW, Steph buys ECW) and look how that ended up. There are other examples of this as well.

On the other hand, simple booking often leads to the biggest money making programs in history. It was pretty obvious from the moment that Andre ripped Hul....Hollywood's shirt that it would end with Andre getting beat at Mania III. Still they followed the path and everyone got rich. The night after SurvSer when Rock won the title in the tourny it was extremely clear that the story would end with a Stunner in the middle of whatever Philly's arena was called back then, but they followed the path and it was, as Donald Trump would say "Uge".

You mentioned 24, and thats probably a good furmula to use when booking. Yeah you know at the end of the "day" Jack Bauer is going to save the day, but how they get there doesn't have to be so obvious. But then it just comes back to good basic booking. Going back to Austin in 98/99. We all knew he would win, but they managed to create entertaining programs for both him and Rock to keep the fans occupied before Mania. Then when they finally got back together it was gold.

I think one of the problems plauging the WWE (besides the obvious glass cieling issues) is that they cant do anything that gets people talking. We've seen everything ten times over. There's no "Beer Truck" moment that gets people calling up their friends, and anytime they try to do something similar it seem like a cheap immitation.

They've already went over the edge in the ring. Take the last Ladder Match, decent match, but when you watch it with people who were fans during the boom period, they go "meh, remember Jeff Hardy and Edge at that one PPV, that was sick". You cant compete with that.

So yeah they could do a bunch of swerves, but I dont think thats the key to turn things around. It might be better for us, because we already know whats going to happen before it happens (well sorta), but the vast majority of the fans dont.

What they really need are characters people care about. When you have characters people care about the booking becomes easy. Yeah everyone knows Austin will get Rock at the end, but thats great because thats what they want. They are entertained by both guys and want to see them perform. When you shove people down the fans throats that they dont really care about, it becomes an uphill battle. Whats worse if that new stars wont/haven't be(en) created for a variety of reasons. And on top of that, its not as easy as snapping your fingers to create another Rock/Austin/Hogan type character.

[Loose Cannon]

See, those swerves in the Invasion were pretty shitty. I'm mean I wasn't to thrilled about Shane being the one to buy WCW and I knew that Invasion angle wasn't going anywhere when Steph walked through the curtain. Then you had Austin turning and Angle turning which really didn't make sense at that point. So, I can see your point about the swerves.

However you brought up 98/99. Remember Survivor Series 98. The PPV which I consider to be one of the greatest PPV shock endings of all-time minus the Screwjob and Bash at the Beach. Anyway, they turned Shane and the Rock on that show and all of a sudden people are talking.

Then HBK swerves DX and joins the Corp not to long after. Kane and Chyna do the same thing. HHH turns on DX at Mania. The Outlaws did a fake turn and swerved the Corporation. See, I think this is just one element of what the WWE is missing. Like next week, the viewers know nothing shocking is going to happen, so they don't tune in.

I don't know, it's just frustrating that they could put on a good show, but they just don't seem to care.

[The Mackem]

Cynick probably highlighted what is wrong with wrestling now. People seemingly come straight from OVW and get ridiculously massive pushes which die and ends up in the wrestler going back to OVW when something wrong with their skills gets highlighted. They really need to stop ramming wrestler down our throats.

[Vastardikai]

There's also the lack of jobbers. I mean, I don't miss the thought of "World Champion Triple H...in action," but the jobber matches can help in this sense: it gives people a reason to care about the guy and gives the talent a chance to show what they can do.