[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by Emperor Smeat There was a rumor recently about WWE starting to become very wary of their tv ratings woes and taking a lot more risks to find stuff that sticks with audiences.

If that's the case, it's totally self-fulfilling.

A couple of pages ago, it looks like an argument took place about Bugenhagen (a name I can't repeat without thinking of Final Fantasy VII) and indy neckbeards digging it and getting him over or somesuch. While it may be true that *that* might not work on a grander stage (but maybe it will... you don't know that from a single appearance), the bigger issue is NOTHING seems to work on a bigger stage for one reason or another, and a lot of those reasons are self-inflicted. In the span of that show, Bugenhagen showed his charisma, Gulak had a decent match and put him away, but not in a one-sided beatdown that made it look like he didn't belong, then cut a good promo calling out competition, which drew the attention of Matt Riddle, and led to a very good match between Gulak and RVD-lite, ending with a show of respect between the two. Later, Eric came back out and danced again, and got a pop for it.

So, you had an ok match, a damn good match, three guys showing their own brand of charisma, and all three guys coming out better on the other side of that, and got interest for people to see more of them sometime in the future.

Had something like this transpired on the main roster, Bugenhagen would be totally made to look and sound like a chump in both squash match fashion and from constant berating from the booth. Then, Gulak and Riddle would have just fought to a no-contest so they can hurry up and show Liv Tyler stretching backstage or have that one chick who asks stupid and obvious questions to some wrestler so she can point her tits to the camera . They'd announce a match in passing for Drew and Matt for 205 Live, and you'd never see or hear from any of those three again for a couple of months unless they need a jobber to feed to Bobby Lashley or something.

Main roster WWE continues to tell people through writing, booking, and actions that:

- The only people worth a damn are stars who got over maybe about ten to twenty years ago... and ironically, some of them were seen as not stars to hang their hat on to carry the company back then.

- Any new NXT callup is either only worth being a surprise Royal Rumble entrant at the least, and maybe about a month worth of hype at the most, and then all the shiny gets rubbed off of them in short order.

There is no reason why Bobby Roode should be tagging with Chad Gable outside of not knowing what to do with Gable besides tossing him into random tag teams for a majority of his time in WWE. Roode had everything to be fast tracked into being taken seriously (fast tracked, not hotshotted) and had a working gimmick, music, plus the ability in the ring and on the stick. So, what has he done? Feuded with Dolph Ziggler who shit on that. Roode didn't come out better proving he's "more than an entrance", he just fell to where almost everyone else is: a face in the crowd.

- The Women's Evolution has been distilled into all the women falling into one of two categories: gimmicks where they're badasses, or gimmicks being that they are hot.

- If getting over isn't in the plan for that person, they get derailed instead of rolling with whatever unless there is sustained pushback that actively fucks up some plan. Conversely, they will beat a horse to death, perform CPR, then beat it to death again if they want something no matter how much it clearly isn't over.

Balor was brought in as a big deal, but he got hurt, so fuck him, and it took quite a long time to finally decide to push him back up the card to where he was to begin with. Slow trigger pull on Becky. A retconned trigger pull on Bayley even though she got the "about time" pop from folks. A cynnical push for Jinder for marketing reasons, multiple failed opportunities for a heel turn for Roman to warrant the boos, finding ways to stick Charlotte Flair (one of the few NXT stars to get more than a fair shake... but gee, I wonder why) into the top spot of either women's divison even if it is at the detriment of any other talent... the list goes on.

It's almost like 80% of anything compelling on the main roster is totally accidental, like Nia being sloppy and punching Becks in the face for realsies. You couldn't make that up, and that was a short-term angle handed to them on a platter, and they still found a way to fuck that up and kill interest in seeing Nia get a reciept... and that's the other 20%; staying to see exactly how they are going to fuck up the next project.