[XL]

Originally Posted by Danny Electric Reading through here /wrestling forum is confusing. You have guys who dont like Cena,Reigns, Styles,Lesnar, Owens. Zayn, Balor, Ambrose etc I could go on. So tell me who you would like the belts on, who do you want people to cheer etc for? Do we really want to go back to Marc Henry headlining PPV's , I feel like sometimes people just like to bitch and moan for the sake of it and will always moan against who is being pushed and moan that someone else isn't being pushed. Then start moaning that that guy is being pushed. I don't know, I think the product is pretty strong at the moment. I think it didn't help Owens that HHH helped him win the belt and then just disappeared off the screens with no explanation , then they gave more screen time to Jericho who is made to look the stronger out of the two. From what I've seen of Owens I enjoy him in the ring and on the mic.

People will always have differing opinions, the idea that there is a concensus IWC mindest is patently wrong. It is a little difficult to sometimes marry individual thought processes together; there's a lot of "this is what I like so I reckon everybody else will love it", and a lot of presumption about that the casual fan wants versus what the hardcore fan wants.

Hate to pick on Noid again, but he's a key example of somebody you would have said was a typical IWC wrestling fan, who has now evolved to see "the bigger picture". He will have you believe that the product isn't as hot because of the vast majority of guys on the roster being very "everyman" rather than these "larger than life superheroes", yet will advocate that Shinsuke Nakamura is the next big star who should be brought up for a feud with HHH at Mania. I don't see it myself, and I can't see how the 2 streams of thought can exist in the same mind.

I also question how much the casual fan cares about things like psychology and selling, or whether these are things that longtime fans project on to other parts of the (potential) fan base. (Also don't quite get how you can call for the return of real-life superheroes yet bemoan a superhero-like comeback).

Don't get me wrong, psychology can add to a match, and makes the experience far more emersive if you know what you're looking for (look at the 2-out-of-3 Falls Tag Match at NXT Toronto, for example) but I think the importance to the casual fan is probably overstated.

Some elements of the IWC like to think of themselves about it all; they can see the strings and they love to let you know about it. "If you can't see what they were doing with the no-match between Lesnar and Goldberg then you don't understand the business" is a key theme that's been doing the rounds. JR on his podcast pretty much says this, he likens it to the NWA Champ dropping a fall in a tag match, stating that it's something that worked then so it should work today, completely ignoring the fact that what worked with limited/territory coverage has been used for the last 30 years and at this point it so transparant that it's laughable.

For me, you can dislike the Lesnar/Goldberg result because you can see the strings; another rehash at Mania. A match we've seen before, that will likely not benefit the longterm progress of the brand; Goldberg and Lesnar will likely be gone post-Mania anyway, and any heat/rub taken with them.

There's also rumours of an Orton/Taker match; another rehash, where nobody gains anything. Scratch that. Orton could beat Taker, to put himself in that bracket with Lesnar to set up a rematch between those two, but, well, another rematch.

I can pick apart 100 things that WWE do that don't make sense, but I don't think fixing those will be an instant fix to the ratings slump.