Smark Era..... Good or Bad?
 

So we have been in this snark era for awhile now. Whenever there is a semi awesome spot in a match we get the "Holy Shit" and "This is Awesome" chants. We have AJ Styles and a dude with more body fat than Curtis as our champions. Everything the internet community wanted basically.

Is this really good though? These wrestlers are not larger than life like Cena, Rock, Brock, Kurt, Goldberg, and such. Vince wanted to make Reigns into a huge deal like them but people wanted AJ and such insteadd. I don't think the current setup is designed to succeed. No matter how wonderful you book AJ he will never be able to compete against Brock and Goldberg. The mystique of these huge ass dudes beating the pissed out of each other is gone.

Are you in favor of this era? Even if you are, do you believe it is setting WWE to succeed or fail in the long run?

It's turned me off current wrestling. I watch to see the wrestlers get themselves over, not the fans.

Bad. /thread

It is annoying, but I don't think either Owens or AJ are bad champs at all. Balor winning the title was a joke though so this smarky era is dangerous. The holy shit chants and this awesome chants annoy the fuck out of me when the spot doesn't deserve the chant.

People chanted holy shit when Undertaker showed up..........................really?

The chants "this is awesome"/"holy shit" are about the performances in the ring. I also have no problem with "you deserve it." All of those chants are about praising the wrestlers so there should be no problem with it.

The sour part is when the crowd tries to hijack the crowd with chants that are not about a superstar or solely about themselves. When Baron Corbin debuted on Raw after WrestleMania there was a beachball that was floating around the floor. It got confiscated and the fans booed. Throughout the entire match they chanted "hey we want some beach ball!" like Bayley's chant. It ruined Corbin's debut after winning the Battle Royal.

Also "we are awesome" has to stop.

Baron Corbin wouldn't have had that problem if he wasn't so bland and boring.

He's contemplative.

It's such a tough line to walk. On the one hand the annoying fans that ruin aspects of shows are the same people that buy the Mania travel package, subsribe to The Network, go to three shows in one weekend, but merch, and will never stop watching.

But what appeals to them in my opinion will never help grow the business. When you read fantasy booking on places like this, you see what these people like, and you can see how it only would appeal to the hardcore sports entertainment fans.

I listened to Baron Corbin on Talking Smack and his comments resonated with me. While guys like Daniel Bryan can get over to a massive degree with the captive audience, I don't think those types of guys will ever grow the fanbase. Not to say I think Baron Corbin will. But I do believe a guy more similar to Baron Corbin is more likely to grow the base than a guy like Bryan.

The good thing for WWE is they figured out a way to get more revenue out of the hardcore fans with The Network, so it makes financial sense to cater to them by pushing indy looking guys over guys who look like real stars. The risk is have they alienated so many casual fans that it will hurt them when it comes time to negotiate a new TV deal. On the other hand, what if they decided to bring all of their TV content in house to The Network? Can they bring in another million subs that way? If that happens, then you have to keep catering to those smark fans and that will just be the new reality.

I didn't want this.

I'm cool with Styles as champ though. I think he's a pretty good heel champion and a perfect fit on SmackDown. I'm really enjoying his stuff.

As for Owens, he's just shite.

The problem there is that the Smarks chant that to all their "Internet Darlings", so they chanted it to Kevin Owens, even though Owens is a heel (and a big one at that) and cheated/got help to win the title.

Why would you congratulate and praise someone like that who's a bad guy and didn't win the title "legitimately"?

I'm not a fan of the Smark chants.

Chanting "Holy Shit" when two people are staring each other in the ring or "This Is Awesome" when someone pulls out a move that some Japanese wrestler does, is just annoying now.

I'm also not a fan of chants that follow wrestlers from the Indies, like Sami Zayn's "Ole" chant. To me, that chant is El Generico's and Sami Zayn is not El Generico. He's Sami Zayn. If El Generico came to the WWE and then unmasked and proclaimed to be Sami Zayn, then sure, "Ole" chant until your heart's content.

I also wouldn't say it annoys me as such, but when UK fans create a chant that follows a wrestler, that "gets to me" a bit, like Enzo's chant where his name is sung to the tune of "Seven Nation Army" or "Fandangoing".

It's hard to put into words, but whenever fans that aren't British do that, it just feels like they're trying too hard to be British fans and failing at it. It just feels weird.

They need TV slots or else they will be a niche product.

Damn culture vultures.

Unfortunately you can't avoid the smark era. Information is too readily available on the internet.

Don't have a problem with the era itself since its lead to better in-ring quality but could be better off with less moments of the crowds trying to make things about themselves.

Crowds are no longer interested in Vince's vision or preference for wrestling and WWE has done a horrible job transitioning to this new era because they keep being stubborn on listening or gauging what the crowds want. The Cena model no longer really works although could argue that model had a very short shelf life since Cena failed at carrying his kids market into becoming new long term viewers.

Crowds seemed to be more interested in Triple H's vision based on how he's running NXT and him wanting to bring back more NWA/WCW aspects to WWE style wrestling like Cruisers.

I'd rather have a loud crowd than a silent one, so I like the crowds.

Love them or hate them, it's all WWE's fault for them. They've driven away their casual audience with terrible TV and that's all they have left.

Modern WWE is booked exactly like how I used to book my EWR games. Mostly talented wrestlers working long matches on TV every week, mostly 50/50 booking to appease the EWR feud system so one guy didn't dominate the storyline.

Only difference is in EWR people got over by doing that.

Booking has EVERYTHING to do with it. Do you honestly believe that Brock and Goldberg would be over at all if they'd been booked as badly as everyone is today? If so you're daft. Ryback and Reigns falling flat are the most recent proof that size doesn't = success, and there's plenty of others that have proved this point as well. On the flip side guys like Shawn Michaels, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, etc are proof that a guy can be larger than life without being physical giants.

You're also not factoring in the cultural shift that has occurred outside of wrestling. People are leaning more and more every day toward more "realistic" and "relateable." In fact relateability has become a major selling point in most works of fiction these days. People want heroes that they can project themselves onto. Hell, even our action heroes are changing. You don't see many Schwarzeneggers or Stallones anymore. Even in comic books which are the closest thing to wrestling you are seeing fewer and fewer of the quintessential superheroes and more "average" characters. It makes sense that wrestling would make this shift too, especially given the current feeling toward steroids and whatnot.

Anyway onto the actual question. No, I don't totally enjoy the current era, but not because of the wrestlers involved. The talent is fine, and in fact I'd argue it's probably the best roster overall that WWE's ever had (note I said overall. This is because other eras have had a few guys like the Rock who beat out everyone, but outside of those few greats their rosters of peers were often meh in comparison.) The reason I don't quite enjoy wrestling today is because of the 50/50 booking, and the awful writing. It's like getting together an extremely solid cast of actors and then giving them the worst possible script and director.

All of that said I've come to terms with what's going on right now. I manage to find enjoyment in what wrestling is now even if it will never actually be legitimately good again. It's pretty much a guilty pleasure to me now. A Sharknado if you will. Yeah, it's bad, but there are certain moments that are legit entertaining sprinkled in, and even the bad such as Elsworth is so bad that it's hilarious.

WCW proved that you can do both, you can have great matches and then stars at the top of the card, the problem, as they found out, is that you have to create new stars eventually and the workers need upward mobility. Its that balancing act that noone has found a formula for.

Right now on WWE TV, there are no stars. Not when you define a star as a Hogan, Stone Cold, or even a HHH, Angle, Sting, Undertaker. Just a glimpse at how over Goldberg is can tell you that. It is a different leve totally, a different planet.

How do you make stars without stars? It's a tough one, but I don't think they have even tried. Whether that is a positive thing depends on if you like what you are watching right now. A world where WWE is the only star.

I have said on here before and I don't see Ryback as a giant or anything. The guy has huge muscles but is short(er) and doesn't seem strong; he seems to struggle with basic power moves. Also, Hbk, Y2J and Angle were huge compared to guys today. Even though Guerrero was short he was juiced to the gills and was larger than the guys today. They were comparatively small back then but they are still stars today and ohysical size playes a role.

Eddie was fucking jacked and so was Angle. Check out Eddie vs Benoit at ONS. They were both juiced to the gills.

You sound confused about what you yourself even believes is "big." You say that Ryback isn't big because he's short, but then say that it's not the height it's the muscles when talking about guys like Guerrero and Angle. I realize that I too was a bit vague here, but you're outright contradicting yourself.

Also, Ryback is 6' 3'' tall. Are you seriously calling that short? The Rock is only 2 inches taller, Steve Austin is 2 inches shorter, and John Cena is 3 inches shorter. Ryback is exactly the right size to be considered the prototypical WWE superstar. Same applies to Reigns. Anything over 6' is well above average height and will look like a beast next to your average man.

As for Guerrero and company being much more ripped, yes, they most certainly were, but as I stated in my previous comment muscle isn't really that relevant anymore. Those sort of physiques aren't looked at in a good light anymore by the general public. In fact most people immediately jump to say that anyone with any amount of "big" muscle is on steroids. I have literally never seen anyone argue that that sort of physique was attractive outside the wrestling world in well over a decade.

Now I'll agree that muscle tone definitely does play some roll. A guy that looks like Randy Orton or even AJ Styles (who is in great shape compared to normal people) are going to have a much easier time of looking like larger than life characters than a Kevin Owens or CM Punk, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible, nor does it mean that the guy looking like Orton will actually be perceived that way. That sort of look is just icing on the cake, not a necessity. Like I said before people gravitated to the Rock, HBK, etc because of their personalities, not because of their physiques. Looks can help catch someones eye, but they can't keep them around.

Also please note that I'm not saying that looks aren't important, just that you're looking at looks in the wrong way. Lean, athletic builds are what people see as the ideal these days. Our movie stars, professional athletes, and even pop culture characters reflect that. If your assertion that the muscles and size were what was selling these guys then Brock and the like should have been pulling in massive audiences that dwarfed what the current roster does. They should have been able to pull in tons of casuals and non-wrestling fans with the "mystique" they exuded. Instead they caused slight bumps in buy-rates and that's about it. That's because even this larger than life men with bodies like Greek gods only brought in old wrestling fans who'd stopped watching. They brought in casuals who already had an interest in wrestling and likely tuned in not because they saw two monsters on a poster but because they saw their childhood heroes on said poster. It's the nostalgia, not the muscles that sold them, and that's the biggest mistake I see people here making. A lot of you seem to think that wrestling still has the ability to be as popular as it once was, and I'm sorry to say that it doesn't. Wrestling is a niche product for a nerdy subculture and children. Mainstream adults will NEVER look at wrestling as cool again and no amount of musclebound giants will ever change that.

I think he means 'big' as in Big Show big.

But it was said that the size of guys like Brock and Goldberg was their selling point. If that's the case Ryback should have sold too because he's roughly in their ballpark in terms of size.

I like AJ Styles and I honestly believe he's got an innate charisma that would allow him to stand up there with real stars. He's not out of place working with John Cena. Kevin Owens on the other hand...you can be good in the ring and good on the mic and still be missing something that really captivates people.

The WWE ran away crowds with a casual interest in wrestling, so now all that are left are the smark crowds who get in on the trends. The only thing is that they aren't as smart as they think they are, they look dumb when get worked, and they give the WWE these false ideas like Adrian Neville and Tyler Breeze are going to be stars in any sort of main event sense. They eat up shit like Broken Matt Hardy because they think it's different, and the shit we cheer for scares most sane people away.

The suspension of disbelief element of wrestling has been thrown out the window for a "hey, look at how fake we all know it is" mentality, and nobody is really over as a result. The shitty booking doesn't help anyone, but no one really knows how to be a star. They're all drinking the Vince McMahon/Triple H kool-aid of "hey, we're all a super team and everybody gets a shot."

I could actually buy Kevin Owens as a mega-heel before I could buy Styles as one.

That's interesting.

He's just got a better overall style. Styles is an athlete and Owens is an ass kicker. Owens looks and acts (at least when he was in NXT/when he first got called up) like one of those Vader-esque fat guys who might actually be able to beat someone up. Styles comes off more like a Mr. Perfect-esque mid carder who can feud with the top face occasionally but never in a big fight situation.

In fact, outside of Bray Wyatt, Owens might be my ideal choice for a top heel from the full-time roster.

I think casual fans are turned off when they think they could beat up the wrestler. All these short skinny fat neckbeard wreslters don't translate to the casual fan. WWE is a live action cartoon/comic book. Who wants to grab a comicbook whose superhero is a regular joe? Hardcare fans do maybe.

The thhing Ryback lacked was any coordination and athletic ability. The guy was awkward and sloppy, he struggled doing power moves, and being powerful was his gimmick. It didn't work.

I am not a tough guy at all, whether on the interent or not. I don't get into fights and I steer clear of conflict. I am athletic but not a chisled god by any stretch. I am 6'4", 218lbs, I am not interested in turning on rasslin and watching guys smaller than me in height and weight competing for the heavy weight championship because it's not believable to me when they look like I can take them. Unless a smaller guy oozes charasima, can wrestle realistically, and can talk I am not tuning in to watch.

I don't think that at all. The last time that WWE got any real momentum with casuals was with CM Punk. of course, only one man could ruin it

http://i.imgur.com/rhao6.gif

Punk oozes charisma and is somewhat believable in the ring.

Agreed with Stickman. I fully expect the main event wrestlers to be in better shape than me or be like Braun/Kane type of big. I should never feel I can take on the world champ. I should feel like the guy would destroy me.

Exactly

I agree 100%.

He was very over until the WWE fucked it up

WWE's motto of the past decade.

Id like to see some numbers that demonstrate punk was brining in new viewers

http://www.sescoops.com/cm-punk-drawing-power/

And that's with fucking it up straight after MITB 2011. After the "pipe-bomb", Punk was in mainstream magazines and TV shows talking about it, it got the attention they weren;t getting in the pre-ESPN partnership era.

Gotta call foul. There a lot going on during punks run. Not least of all Cena chasing the title. And then there's The rock as well. Couple that with the linchpin of the argument being battlegrounds buyrate completely ignoring the fact that there was nothing of meaning on the show. Everyone knew that show wouldnt effect mania at all. Hardly evidence of anything.

Id argue that punk pulled in departed hardcore fans that had moved on to being full time indy fans. Not casuals.

I would agree. CM Punk brought this stupid era on us.

Exactly. Wrestling is at its best when it's larger than life. There's nothing larger than life about most of the guys the typical smark want to be stars. They're guys who will please the smarks but do nothing to bring in casual fans. And the smarks are going to watch anyway. It doesn't make sense to cater to them at the expense of building stars who can draw in a new audience.

You could pick apart anybody's "drawing power" like that. Diesel is known as one of the worst draws in WWF history but he was on top when the show was top-to-bottom garbage.

Its especially easy when punk was vocally disgruntled because he wasnt the focus of the show during his reign. If by his own words he wasnt the center piece of the show then its successes (or failures) cant be his.

I have to disagree with your assessment of Owens. It worked in NXT, I'll give you that. On main roster WWE, he has to be very close to his opponent in size to pull that off. Owens is less believable than Tazz would have been in the role. When they had him try to stand eye-to-eye with Roman Reigns a few months back, it made Reigns look like a joke for not being able to just wipe his ass with him.

AJ Styles is built like a guy who has fine-tuned his body and style to work for him. I agree with the Mr. Perfect analogy, but I'd also put him up there with Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart in terms of aura -- he's a New Generation-esque "this dude's ability is off the charts" sort of competitor. He wrestles like a star; Owens wrestles like an independent spot monkey.

I'd argue somewhat the opposite in the sense casual fans were bolting en masse well before the switch away from Vince's preference or "larger than life" characters. UFC's rise n popularity and WWE getting way too lazy/horrible over the years did more damage than this era's appeal towards indie-like workers for stars. If anything, the WWE gambled way too much on Cena being able to turn his massive kids market into their future base and didn't have a backup plan for when it didn't occur.

UFC made it popular for regular looking guys to be very successful which gave it a bigger appeal than the WWE and caused the market to shift more towards their direction. Boxing had similar problems with the change and post-Tyson era but did a better a job than the WWE shifting to the smaller divisions for to generate big fight hype.

I was a big fan of Punk at the time, but was he as good as everybody is making him out to be? Was the pipe-bomb even that good a promo, or was it just that it came along in a sea of scripted bullshit? I mean, The Miz cut one good promo on Talking Smack and people were comparing it to "Hard Times." Jeez.

Punk vs. Jeff Hardy is one of my favorite feuds of the past decade, and I've never been a big Jeff Hardy fan. Those two were perfect rivals for each other though. I thought Punk's commentary run while he was injured was brilliant, and I wanted to see him go against John Cena, but his other stuff really fell flat. Punk could play well against extremely popular and charismatic babyfaces that could keep up in the ring and work to his style. His ring work as a babyface was really quite dull and repetitive (that spin into the swinging neckbreaker, the bulldog, the elbow off the top -- fucking hell), and it was all carried by how hot he got after one promo.

It was booked to shithouse, don't get me wrong. Triple H should have turned heel and been the Vince McMahon to Punk's Austin. Kevin Nash should have been nowhere near Punk or Triple H at this point in time (he should have been the bodyguard to Christian). But in retrospect, there's a reason that Punk/Jericho didn't go on last over Cena/Rock, and we can all recognize it in the pits of our stomachs. CM Punk and Chris Jericho just don't add up to being stars of the same magnitude. Punk arguably should have been the hottest act in the mid-card.

I honestly don't really miss him at all. The matches we haven't seen aren't enough to really make me wish he was around. Even the potential promos aren't making me wet, because the only pay-off to them are matches, and I'm not too keen on seeing those.

Color Commentator Punk only.

Casual fans started bolting when Stephanie McMahon took over creative. She wasn't the only driving force. Vince McMahon's ego put her in that spot and a lot of the WWF's ego during the Invasion killed a lot of interest there dead. The Undertaker deserves a lot of blame for that.

Remember when The Rock came back and stood toe to toe to Cena and he made Cena look small? Cena does look like a champ but these stars from yesteryear were stars, guys today not so nuch. I think a big part of it is also charisma and understanding how to sell. Guys showing emotion and intensity helps the believability as well. Watch the Rocks facial expressions when he wresltes, watch Stone Cold, HHH, Goldberg, Lesner. These guys looked pissed off and are there for a fight. I think thats one reason why Cena and Reigns had a hard time connecting, it doesn't seem sincere.

I actually do buy Owens as a champ. Sure he isn't built great but he is built like that guy who picked on you in highschoool. He acts like that bully who picked on you. He has charisma, he can sell the opponents moveset but can sell his own moves also. He looks smug in the ring, he looks like he is there for a fight, and he does look like he could beat you up, but you want to see him get beat up. Him as a face champ would not work, definitely works as a heel.

I don't think having giant wrestlers matters all that much. Most big guys are busts anyways. I also don't think most people care about whether or not wrestlers should look like they can beat them up, I think you guys who want this are repressed homosexuals, and when you say you want to see superstars who can kick your ass, what you really want is a superstar who looks like they can pin you down and fuck you.

I also think the enormous success of the Attitude era had more to do with the direction of the overall brand. Wrestling at the time was able to tap into the weird ass late 90s early 2000s zeitgeist. I would also argue that Austin wasn't really "larger than life", if anything he was the antithesis to the larger than life characters that were so common in wrestling.


The problem right now is with the writing. WWE can't seem to tell any original, cohesive and engaging stories. Everything is meandering and repetitive or just plain stupid (see Sting v Triple H story line turning into a tired WCW v WWE angle). I feel like the last great story WWE told was Daniel Bryan's.

I think the real blame is WWE making everything be about social media. Tout, Twitter, Facebook etc.

The death of the American Heavyweight boxer killed boxing. UFC and boxing moved to focusing on smaller divisions because there arent any interesting American boxers/fighters anymore. If a dominant American Heavyweight came along again, he would out draw any other fighter.

Lots of big ass wrestlers in the mid 90s and from 2006-2011 and no one gave a shit.

You aren't going to get a bunch of people tuning into 5 hours of this shit a week because some of the guys are really big and muscular.

2006-2011 had a shit ton more viewers than today.

Not as much viewers as Pre-Cena.

Yup

You mean the era when pretty much everyone was juiced?

Yeah dumb argument @ Ruien, and misses. As STD has implied ratings were trending downward and I don't want to get into a Cynick (although he's right) argument about how viewing habits, entertainment options are different today. My general point is how even with lots of big guys, business is not always great.

Well of course having the guys who fit the correct description is only 1 variable but its still a variable.

Lol, Owens is shorter than 6'0. He acts like the fat kid who mutters something under his breath and then shies away when you confront him about it.

Good for a weedy heel, don't get me wrong, but I don't get where this "tough guy" visual comes from.

It's a variable that doesn't really mean shit. I'm not trying to argue that small, work rate guys are huge draws or anything like that.

The 80s boom was about the dismantling of the territories, and the rise of cable television and PPV. The attitude era's popularity was founded on a complete pivot away from what wrestling was at the time. It was Sable's tits, crotch chops, and a cool, beer drinking, redneck beating up his boss. It had nothing to do with big, roided up guys.

Personally I don't think this level of popularity is ever coming back. But I do think WWE can find a way to tell cool, exciting stories again, and they don't need massive guys to do so.

Steen being a top guy in the business is basically why im against this era as a whole. Looks like a fan crawled over the barrier and started putting matches together.

If he was booked like a pussy I'd be able to deal.

you sound like a bitter worker who's jealous of Kevin Steen.

Oh on a personal level im thrilled for him. Guy lives for the business. But i cant watch the product anymore.

Steens position gives license to every fat twat on the indys to not hit the gym amd work in a tshirt

Fat people can have good cardio. Just because he looks like a fat slob doesn't mean he's not in good cardiovascular shape. He's there because he has a unique look. Him succeeding doesn't mean WWE will be getting more of his type. He's the only one and will be the only one.

Well they have 2 already sooooooooo

Owens is the thing that makes it impossible for you to watch the product today? A fat guy as champ is literally the biggest reason why you can't watch the product? I'm not trying to sound like a dick, but come on, dude. There are sooooo many more reasons to hate the product that are far more detrimental at this point. The product as a whole is shit these days. Blaming that on any one factor is just dumb.

Maybe everyone here is right and big muscly hulks would raise ratings (I still stand by my statement that it wouldn't have that big of an impact and will continue to until proven otherwise.) However, even if they would help the ratings it wouldn't fix the product and suddenly bring back the days of yore. Even if they fixed the writing, gave the talent more freedom like back in the day, and essentially just fixed everything wrong with the company right this minute it still wouldn't bring back the kind of audience pro-wrestling used to. We live in a different world today. The carny spectacle that is pro-wrestling just will never draw in the kind of crowds it used to ever again. They could definitely do better than they are now, but I honestly believe all of our debating about this is moot in the long run. Wrestling is going the way of its cousins, the circus and side-show. While I think wrestling has enough of a subculture around it to stay alive and not completely disappear like the former are doing I don't think it's possible to change the connotations that wrestling has in mainstream culture. I never hear non-wrestling fans say "eww you watch wrestling even though it doesn't have big stars anymore." I hear them say "eww you watch wrestling? You know it's fake and/or gay, right?" I'm sorry, but I just can't buy that going back to the old way would do anything to change that perception. In fact if anything I think it'd make it worse.

I dunno, man, it's a pretty big turn-off for me too.

Just the other day I heard two guys at the pub talking about UFC. These are the sort of guys that would make fun of a guy for liking "fake pussy" wrestling. They were talking about one of the guys in one of the fights -- I dunno, but it was the heel. And I say heel, because they were honestly talking about the guy being a cocky prick they want to see get his shit sorted.

You can still work people in 2016. A lot of people didn't know what the fuck was going on with CM Punk in 2011. People got fucking worked by The Miz talking shit to Daniel Bryan on a SmackDown post-show. You get guys that people think could beat the shit out of each other, and you can convey the idea that their ego won't allow them to be walked over, because they're the real deal -- you've got potential draws.

Everybody is so convinced that wrestling is an indy circle jerk that no one even fucking tries anymore. The Revival tried and got heat with Bubba Ray Dudley and Road Dogg for fuck's sake.

I think I told this in 100,001 replies, but I showed him to a friend and she thought he was a joke wrestler, just because he's so "not what you'd expect." You'd think it'd be in a good way, but not so. He's the antithesis of what people associate with wrestling in many ways. It never dawned on me until someone laid it out like that. He doesn't look ripped, he doesn't have crazy hair, he's not loud and riddled with catchphrases, he does "joke moves" (that was in respond to him faking a dive and hitting a clothesline) and he does a "stand-up routine." He was described as a kid trying to be cool. I honestly think you need to be a smark to "get him." If you like wrestling, you might have time for his shtick, but he's not hooking your average person.

But she also thought Dolph Ziggler was a freak too. That's just anecdotal, but maybe we should face the fact that some of the guys "we" love just don't draw. Sorry guys.

When it comes to a guy like Kevin Owens, I think about Bobby Heenan. Now, I might be off on this. I've looked for the reason Bobby Heenan quit being an active wrestler. I've heard he was a pretty good worker though. Maybe he got injured and tried to make another go of it, but he still took the occasional bump as a manager. I look at Heenan and I don't see a wrestler though. I see a smug weasel whose brain is his best weapon, realized it, and became a bonafide legend because of it.

Heenan might have been a wonderful wrestler, but he was never going to be the AWA World Heavyweight Champion, or WWF World Champion. He could manage them though. I hate to sound like millenial-hating CyNick, but we live in a world now where everybody gets a turn, and if a dude can technically take bumps and chain together a sequence of moves, then he's counted as a worker and he gets the same sort of push as someone else. Brian Hildebrand becomes to mind too. He was apparently a great little worker, but was too small to be a threat in the day, so he was a referee.

Now it's like "Well, Spike Dudley works hard and can put together some moves. Maybe we should make him the World Champion? It'd be different and people seem to really love Spike." You're seeing James Ellsworth beat the WWE Champion each week, Kevin Owens is the RAW World Champion, Goldberg is legitimately the most bad-ass star they have in 2016, and it's fine that he beat Brock Lesnar because no one else could do it believably. But it's all fine, because the boys can all "work" right. Part of working is making people believe in you, thus putting asses in seats.

I'm just ranting and raving now, but I honestly think it is more damaging to the business than a "feel good" brigade would have you think. Somewhere the ceiling became lower and the prerequisites for being a top guy were lifted. Do you really think Kevin Owens is better than Bobby Heenan? It seems like a weird comparison to make, but I need to use someone that is loved that never got given a World Title despite their talent. What about Brad Armstrong? Dean Malenko? Mr. Perfect? These guys never got WCW or WWF World Title reigns, despite being so good in the ring; Mr. Perfect was good on the mic too. But apparently you're a cunt for thinking that maybe the nut-busting for Kevin Owens isn't proportionate.

The thing is these guys were over with the crowds but just didn't have the politicking ability of a Hulk Hogan.

Would Perfect have replaced Bret Hart in the title picture if he would not have gotten injured?

These are fair points, and maybe Owens is a master of politics, but is he really the A1 guy? Is he really that over?

Kevin Owens = Tank Abbott in the UFC (not WCW lol). I get the appeal.

He has the tools to get himself over and is in the position to be able to work with larger and small opponents and make it look "real". In an era with no managers he has the means to get himself over and be entertaining. He has "it" for the current era. I think where he might be on a roster would depend on the era.

I think if he's the top guy you diminish the product completely. I look at him the same way you would look at David Arquette.

:y:

I feel WWE's problems are far more an issue of booking that an issue of people not having "the look". Yes dudes like James Ellsworth and Colin Delaney look like complete jobbers and should be presented as such (get the shit beat out of them, when they win it's only because they got a significant amount of help) - but I don't think smaller wrestlers automatically turn off the audience if they end up headlining. I feel it can be booked believably in a way that the entire audience would accept, it just takes perfect execution - which WWE doesn't often do.

But if they're trying to draw in kids - I don't think kids are terribly picky about their wrasslers. Smaller guys probably appeal to them more than adults because when a kid sees a smaller wrestler succeeding it could make them think that someday, they could do the same thing. Basically I think if a kid likes wrestling they're going to eat it up no matter who's on.

Just stop with the 50/50 booking bullshit. No matter who you're pushing - big guy, small guy, whatever...you don't need every wrestler on the goddamn roster trading wins with each other every week. And don't have two guys who are supposed to have a marquee PPV match wrestle each other 4854395894859 times in the build up to that PPV. Certainly not in singles action and if it's a tag match, the heel champion should want to tag the fuck out as soon as the guy he's feuding gets tagged in. Give people a reason to want to see the face get his hands on the heel at the PPV.

I don't think I've ever seen/met a wrestling fan that could "take" any WWE wrestler lol

I would destroy Curtis Axel. Said it for years and he knows it.

:lol:

Pretty sure I could kick Scott Hall's ass with 1 hand tied behind my back.

To be fair, to most kids any wrestler is probably a hugely larger than life personality. I remember watching WCW back in the day (born in '87 so you figure it out), and even guys like Juventud Guerrera and Lash LaRoux were all "huge superstars" to me.

I know wrestling fans today are generally more "educated" and the business has opened up a lot since the 90's, but kids are still kids.

The thing that a lot of people gloss over is that even though ratings are way down from its peak, it's still an episodic program that has been consistently one of the most watched things on cable every single week. No other shows can lay the same claim and produce the amount of product WWE does.

I look at something like TWD, which has amazing ratings, but have been in steady decline for some time now. Eventually the show will pewter out and disappear. Meanehile, I could easily see 20 years from now WWE still having programming in the top 10 in cable every week.

I think it's very possible to see ratings come back, it just takes the right personalities at the right time. There was a time when people said game shows were dead. Then things like Millionaire came around and suddenly they were all the rage. Now they're dead again. It's the nature of people who follow fads.

The cool thing about being a sports entertainment fan in the modern era is for only $10 a month, you get access to so much great programming, and I really believe there's something for everyone. The NXT stuff appeals to the hardcore wrestling fan, 205 will appeal to fans of smaller guys, the future women's show will appeal to another subset. On top of that you can watch any era from the past at your leisure. Plus get all the new content and the original programming they have spearheaded.

So I think you're left with a scenario where perhaps fewer people are watching on traditionsl platforms, but you're growing the base of fans that provide revenue to the company by providing them more and more bang for their buck. As a fan of the product that's a good thing. If I was the type of person that needs to have 7 million people watching what I'm watching because I need that validation from others, then I likely will be disappointed.

You can't compare wanting to see someone get their ass kicked in UFC vs. wanting to see someone get fake beat up in sports entertainment. It's like saying if the Joker-Batman dynamic in The Dark Knight movie was good enough, you would want to see Joker get beat up as much as people wanted to see Bin Laden killed for 9/11.

You mentioned CM Punk, I don't think anyone outside regular sports entertainment fans knew anything about that angle. And further I don't know anyone with a decent amount of intelligence thought that was anything other than an angle. And it wasn't even that great of an angle to begin with because CM Punk had no credibility. He was claiming to be the best, but he was clearly inferior to the guy who was in the ring while he was cutting the promo.

I can't think of any angles in the last 20 years that people thought was legit.

This is an overblown complaint that I just don't understand.

Look at MMA. The programs that go to three fights almost always do better by the time they get to the third fight.

In the Attitude Era, guys traded wins all the time. I believe Rock and Mick had 7 major TV or PPV matches in which they went back and forth with wins. All of their PPVs did well, and they drew very strong ratings. Rock and Hunter went back and forth and continued to do huge numbers. Austin and Taker exchanged wins and then did one of biggest TV ratings in cable wrestling history.

The difference between then and now is Rock was superior to Roman Reigns, Austin superior to Dean Ambrose, HHH superior to Seth Rollins, Foley superior to Kevin Owens, Taker superior to Bray Wyatt, HBK superior to AJ Styles and on and on.

:lol: at using TWD again to claim the WWE is better. You did this several times before and each time forgetting how massive TWD viewer base is compared to WWE's and their drops following the traditional pattern for tv show seasons. Meanwhile WWE has been dropping yearly ever since the end of the Attitude Era with the 3 Hour Era producing larger yearly drops. WWE's pretty much down to their core audience since Cena wasn't able to bring in the next gen of long term fans.

This season had the 2nd highest ever premiere in series history and improved from the previous premiere. It is trending downward but is also very early in the season so worst case scenario for this season is maybe Season 3 numbers which would still put it around 3x larger than WWE's overall.

You also way overestimating how valuable the Network is to the mainstream and wrestling fans or else WWE wouldn't be struggling to sell Network subs at the rate they were expecting by now. They expected 3-4 million by now and only have around half of it in terms of paid subs.

This is a moot point. It's about perception. I don't get where this tough guy perception of Kevin Owens comes from. The company is too afraid to let Owens take off his shirt.

CyNick logic: Discredits link between MMA and wrestling in one post; in the next links MMA and wrestling. Nice job, Nicky. You're a hack. Get the fuck out.

I think it was Vito who said he would rather have a loud crowd than a quiet crowd. Are the crowds today even loud? They go mild for most shit.

The Walking Dead average ratings per episode (in millions)...

Season 1: 5.24
Season 2: 6.90
Season 3: 10.40
Season 4: 13.30
Season 5: 14.40
Season 6: 13.15
Season 7: TBD

The Walking Dead season premiere ratings...
Season 1: 5.35
Season 2: 7.26
Season 3: 10.87
Season 4: 16.11
Season 5: 17.30
Season 6: 14.63
Season 7: 17.03

Man. Look at that steady decline.

Again, for everyone who still wishes to take The CyNick seriously... just... come on...

Yeah, you're probably right, but he made an uptick of viewers in general and a lot of that analysis also focused on the whole year when his appeal had already been squashed at Summerslam. If he did have more mainstream appeal, that was all turned off within a month.

I think the whole 50/50 booking thing is driving away casual fans. What's the point in the weekly shows? Since the brand split, Smackdown has gotten better at this, but it doesn't matter who won on Raw at all since it doesn't advance anything. The only people tuning in will be these hoping for a good match.

Who cares if he wears a shirt? If I'm in a bar, Kevin Owens looks like one of the last people I'd want to fuck with.

Really? Are you being serious?

I wouldn't want to mess with him. Fat doesn't mean unfit or a pussy.

You people are silly.

I've never been hit harder in my life than being hit by someone built like owens. He would Def be one of the last people I'd pick a fight with.

I can't imagine what type of world you live in if you don't think Kevin Owens looks like somebody who could believably kick a dude's ass. Especially compared to many of the smaller dudes on the roster.

Noid wants to see those glistening pecs.