Board 8 > All-Purpose Wrestling Topic 491: Seth Rollins Appreciation Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yaaaaaay Emi Sakura.
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poor cody
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https://twitter.com/jeremylambert88/status/1193375027133063168

not a plant?
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I forgot to put an addendum on my "never watching AEW again" if Cody didn't win and that was "if it facilitated MJF's full heel turn" earlier in the week.

Obviously this is sounds like revisionist history but I remember thinking it earlier because using Cody's overness to make MJF the top heel like he should be would make sense.
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Apparently Jimmy Havoc got drunk and took a swing at Excalibur in front of Tony Kahn before the PPV started. And got choked out lol

Has anybody ever submitted a clip to Botchamania? Because I went to a pretty dang good local indy show last night where one guy threw his cowbell into the ring....hitting the ref in the back of the head.

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Interesting live take on AEW:

https://www.cagesideseats.com/2019/11/10/20957622/aew-full-gear-bad-crowd
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https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/status/1193607090771759104?s=19

Ouch.
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He scorpioned on the ramp, so I'm really not surprised.

And I do agree Baltimore sucked, I'm ashamed for us.
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"Blades are dangerous, better use the entire ramp to get some color."

And honestly, I think in general that sometimes super smarky audiences just are bad audiences. It's why both my first and second trip to Full Sail I was super disappointed in the crowd. Second time especially.
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Why would anyone dislike Orange Cassidy

I mean I could see if his 'offense' was getting sold but he does his stuff, looks like a fool, and gets laid out or ignored. It's great fun. It's not like Santino or Joey Ryan where the comedy offense is doing damage.
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And sometimes his negative fucks given stack overflows into too many fucks given, and he actually does take people out. It's perfect.
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20 years ago today, The Big Boss Man stole Big Show's father's dead body and Big Show went casket surfing.

I somehow remember this whole feud vividly.
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https://twitter.com/WWEotd/status/1193880133821779969
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Rusev/Lana/Lashley may be the single dumbest storyline ever.
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Oh, and Sin Cara/Hunico asked for his release.

Frankly, I'd love to see Hunico wrestle again. He was legit great before they put a stupid mask on him.
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He's also 42 and in low demand.

He also supposedly has 3 years left on his contract.
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So, the whole Lana thing got me wondering, is there a style of storylines that just don't work AT ALL (Katie Vick for instance), or is down to the writing and presentation?

Because Vince has this "thing" for soap opera over "I'm just better than you. They has fight." But I wonder if that's just on him, or if writers and promoters on the whole just do't get it.

I mean, it doesn't help that Rusev and Lana's entire post-Cena arc has been about trying to break them up...for some reason.

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I think it's a bit of both. I can't think of anything that couldn't be executed decently with the right writing, acting, presentation, and context, but some things are going to be a lot harder to pull off than others.

...I say that but I'm having trouble thinking of a "good" way to do Katie Vick <_<

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A lot of it is just using the right characters too. Like if you had a Val Venis or a Joey Ryan or whatever type on your roster this type of storyline becomes a lot more natural with no real work needed. Bobby Lashley doesn't really fit though-- he's just a generic muscular body. Rusev doesn't really play into it super well either as you never really had any pattern of the guy being super protective or anything like that.

Feel like lately any sort of adultery storyline is just like, these guys don't have anything to do let's give them a stupid reason to feud that's worse than the simple "I'm better than you let's fight" That doesn't mean it can never work but you gotta make some basic effort to make it feel natural and believable.
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Tom Bombadil posted...

I think it's a bit of both. I can't think of anything that couldn't be executed decently with the right writing, acting, presentation, and context, but some things are going to be a lot harder to pull off than others.

...I say that but I'm having trouble thinking of a "good" way to do Katie Vick <_<

Well so Katie Vick at its core was trying to peel back the onion on Kane's character so there would be some angle for Triple H to exploit on this otherwise emotionless monster that would seemingly be his achilles heel.

The histort they chose to give him was really stupid even before we get to the necrophilia so the good way to do it might be to capture and assault Paul Bearer after years of him not being around. Or lay some ground work for months prior to set up for this. The reason every Macho/Liz thing worked is they took their time laid all sorts of ground work and paid off the angles every time.


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Strife2 posted...

So, the whole Lana thing got me wondering, is there a style of storylines that just don't work AT ALL (Katie Vick for instance), or is down to the writing and presentation?

Because Vince has this "thing" for soap opera over "I'm just better than you. They has fight." But I wonder if that's just on him, or if writers and promoters on the whole just do't get it.

I mean, it doesn't help that Rusev and Lana's entire post-Cena arc has been about trying to break them up...for some reason.

The reason I'm such a strong proponent of a dedicated sports-esque presentation of wrestling is that I don't think ANY storylines that aren't firmly rooted in one guy trying to prove he's better than the other guy work in wrestling.

I've always been of the opinion that if I want to see drama, I'll watch a drama tv show. If I want comedy, I'll watch a comedy. There's not a single genre wrestling can do better than a good example of that actual genre. Wrestling is its own unique thing and it's a source of great confusion to me that it tries so hard to be everything it's not instead of perfecting what it is.
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NBIceman posted...

The reason I'm such a strong proponent of a dedicated sports-esque presentation of wrestling is that I don't think ANY storylines that aren't firmly rooted in one guy trying to prove he's better than the other guy work in wrestling.

Problem is that some of the best wrestling related things involved storylines beyond "I am better than you" like Austin/McMahon.
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Or even think of something like Daniel Bryan's WM30 run. I don't think it would be as compelling if it was Bryan going "I am better than you, Randy Orton, let's wrestle".
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TheRock1525 posted...

Or even think of something like Daniel Bryan's WM30 run. I don't think it would be as compelling if it was Bryan going "I am better than you, Randy Orton, let's wrestle".

That storyline was trash and actively hurt Daniel Bryan who continuously got over in spite of it - and the basic story of competition and the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat does not mean anybody said "let's wrestle". I don't think you're completely wrong as the Austin point is a good one but Bryan got over in spite of that storyline
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"actively hurt" in that context is going to get taken wrong - obviously he continued to get huge reactions throughout it but he basically got over in the summer fighting the Shield and then was at peak overness fighting Cena at Summerslam, and the authority story isn't what to credit for that
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There was definitely bad elements to it but as a whole it worked in Bryan's favor.
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Yeah I think there is a place for wrestling storylines that aren't "I'm better than you let's fight"

I do feel they should be a rarity more than the norm though. Wrestling, WWE in particular, is often overly concerned with creating "fresh storylines" when the default should be to keep the feuds simple unless the characters/histories lend themselves to something better. And they often don't-- that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself but you should know the limits of the character development you've put in.

Like you look at a guy like Rusev or a guy like Lashley and they just don't have fleshed out characters to the point where any other type of storyline makes sense. And really if Rusev and Lashley just wanted to beat each other up because they're both strong dudes who want to show they're the strongest, it'd be so much better. I love two big bruisers just smashing each other. No need to bother with stupid shit like a tug of war or arm wrestling either as it doesn't make sense for the characters to want THAT, just let em fight.
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Steiner posted...

"actively hurt" in that context is going to get taken wrong - obviously he continued to get huge reactions throughout it but he basically got over in the summer fighting the Shield and then was at peak overness fighting Cena at Summerslam, and the authority story isn't what to credit for that

I'm gonna disagree, he got even more over as time progressed. One of the loudest pops ever was him turning on Wyatt.

The Authority angle's problem was it trying to "keep down" wrestlers like the fucking Big Show and John Cena. When their wrath was focused on Bryan it worked to perfection because it was actually believable.
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Steiner posted...

https://twitter.com/WWEotd/status/1193880133821779969

per the comments on the thread: three months prior to this, Big Boss Man fed Al Snow the remains of Pepper the Dog.

didn't realize Boss Man was such a savage heel
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Yeah I think it's revisionist history to say that the storyline didn't work to help Bryan overall

Like, it's an easy argument to make that because they had to audible so many steps to actually let Bryan break through there and that it wasn't that way by design to begin with that the storyline had a lot of potential to hurt Bryan and it was almost by sheer luck that it ended up working, and had a lot more potential to kill him, and I wouldn't even necessarily disagree with that... but...

In the end I think Bryan gained something from it, more than he would have had he not been jerked around so much. Was the gain worth the risk? Probably not, but if you had competent writing there's less risk, too.

Like if we're saying current WWE should always just be "who is better let's fight" I wouldn't disagree with you because they haven't actually intentionally made any storyline better than that since arguably as far back as that very same Austin/McMahon. But there is potential, assuming good writing.
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Well I think for sportslike presentation you are imagining like dry characters and interviews we get with say professional football.

The actual genius of the sportslike presentation is that you do still get characters to emerge. Things they care about and are. You still get your Connor McGregors and Jon Joneses and since the whole thing is fixed you can control and develop such conflicts over time such that when you do choose to go soap opera you're going there with a fleshed out character and you're going to resolve it in the ring because that makes sense.

The reverse is when youre so storybased that the question "why is this resolving in a wrestling match" doesnt really have an answer. Why hasn't Seth Rollins just showed up on raw with an Uzzi to end The Fiend once and for all? Almost nothing about their feud has a single god damn thing to do with Wrestling. And the Fiend is clearly a monster and probably a child predator so he'd be somewhat justified in his actions.

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Eddv posted...

Well I think for sportslike presentation you are imagining like dry characters and interviews we get with say professional football.

The actual genius of the sportslike presentation is that you do still get characters to emerge. Things they care about and are. You still get your Connor McGregors and Jon Joneses and since the whole thing is fixed you can control and develop such conflicts over time such that when you do choose to go soap opera you're going there with a fleshed out character and you're going to resolve it in the ring because that makes sense.

The reverse is when youre so storybased that the question "why is this resolving in a wrestling match" doesnt really have an answer. Why hasn't Seth Rollins just showed up on raw with an Uzzi to end The Fiend once and for all? Almost nothing about their feud has a single god damn thing to do with Wrestling. And the Fiend is clearly a monster and probably a child predator so he'd be somewhat justified in his actions.

Right.

A lot of wrestling fans seem to take "sportslike" as some kind of dirty word that's trying to strip away everything that makes wrestling a unique medium. What I'm actually trying to communicate is that the tendency to get caught up in the grand "why" of stories actually strips away that unique mythos that wrestling has. When I say I want wrestling storylines to be rooted in one guy proving he's better than the other, I mean "rooted." That doesn't mean there isn't room to expand on that based on character histories, personalities, etc.

The best storyline in the past decade of wrestling was the Okada/Tanahashi rivalry. The core basis of that rivalry was that they were trying to prove they were better than each other. But over the years, their motivations changed so much as their characters grew, and their reasons for wanting to be better than the other kept evolving. Tanahashi went from the pure, admirable, undeniable pillar of the company who believed Okada didn't represent NJPW well as champion to a desperate man on the downturn of his career, fighting against the new ace who'd become everything Tanahashi said he couldn't, just to prove that he still had a little bit left in the tank.

You don't need anything more than that. Those two men, despite all the grandiose showmanship that defines them, are simple and believable, but no less compelling for it.
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Sure. I get it. I mean I'd consider say, the only good WWE storylines of the past 10-15 years-- Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker, CM Punk vs John Cena, AJ Styles vs John Cena, Jericho vs Shawn Michaels, to be rooted in one guy being better than the other, and these were good storylines, and there was more nuance to it than just that, which is fine.

I don't think it's a dirty word but I don't think doing something more is necessarily bad either is all. I feel like the very best American Wrestling stories (now 20+ years old) have not been rooted in that. Most of the second tier has been-- and most of the bottom tier has not been rooted in that either so it's clearly risky, but yeah.

Strangely I actually think the non-main eventer types are the ones who gain more, because storylines not directly about one guy being better than the other can be better used to develop characters and stuff. Once you have those characters established and cared about, then doing the simpler storylines is generally better.
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Sure but that's not necessarily a good thing.

Like the people who got the most of out McMahon vs Austin in terms of character development and money made vs what they would have otherwise made were Patterson and Briscoe.

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Yeah it's really hard to balance the ridiculous story lines where it's like "you kidnapped my family and burned my house down so let's settle this IN A WRESTLING MATCH". I appreciate the silliness that comes with ridiculous stories sometimes but when they miss they REALLY miss and you're stuck with them for 3 months.

I think if you're going to take a risk on a stupid story you need to be willing to drop it quickly when it's not working. To me, the problem isn't that WWE does bad stories, the problem is that I don't think Vince genuinely knows the difference between a good or bad story so we get equal time with both.
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I think you misunderstood what I meant. Yeah there is an argument to be made that Austin gets over anyway just on the KotR and feud with Bret, and that McMahon as an evil boss character (who imo was a draw) can do it without an extended program with Austin, but I don't really agree with that. Patterson and Brisco being the main beneficiaries seems absurd to me.

nWo is another storyline that isn't about one guy being better than another, and a company was basically made competitive entirely off of it. I would not say random mooks like Buff Bagwell gained the most out of that either. Goldberg's streak was arguably not about one guy being better than another either-- though it was rooted in simplicity as well.

Anyway what I was more saying that for guys lower on the totem pole, having those types of storylines where it's not one guy vs another guy can establish characters more efficiently and make them better usable for the money one guy vs another guy matches. But it has to make sense. You can't just force a character on a guy who already had an established one and make it work. But if instead of Lashley this was a debuting guy you wanted to have some womanizer type gimmick it might actually serve a purpose.

If you want a good storyline that didn't involve dudes being better than other dudes from WWE in recent memory, The Fashion Files are probably your best example even if it wasn't followed through properly. The guys got way more over doing that goofy comedy than they would have feuding with anyone.

Like I said there are more duds than great things from these types of storylines but a well crafted storyline that has more than just guy vs other guy can do a lot more in terms of drawing potential overall. But yeah they're overused to be sure. That's why there are a lot more duds than great ones out there. The problem isn't that the storylines are inherently bad just that they're misused pretty often.
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Eddv posted...

The reverse is when youre so storybased that the question "why is this resolving in a wrestling match" doesnt really have an answer.

This is the big issue to me. A story doesn't have to be purely about competition, but it does need to logically lead to a wrestling match. A big heated blood feud can work just fine without any sort of "I'm better, trust me!" motivations as long as you make the blowoff a no DQ match or equivalent, since it makes perfect sense that two guys who hate each other with a passion would be eager for the opportunity to legally beat the shit out of each other with anything they can get their hands on.
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nWo could literally be most easily summed up as "we are better than you, prove us wrong"

Goldberg is literally at its core about NOBODY being better than him.

Both are still relatively sportslike in presentation.

The only reason Austin vs McMahon had to happen was the lack of compelling heels that were on Austin's level. The reality that Mankind and The Rock (at the time) sucked compared to Austin was what that crutch was needed for. And it stuck around for way too long.

Ultimately I don't think Rock or Foley NEEDED the Corporate angle to be relevant - but people like Big Bossman and Pat Patterson would have been dead in the water without it.


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NWO was about a group trying to take over the company and replace it with their vision.

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And why did they need to do that?

Because they were better.

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Raw viewers

2.358M
2.063M
1.753M

What was in that third hour THIS week? Was it Seth again?
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The third hour is the second-least-viewed hour in the history of the show, beating only the first hour of Christmas Eve 2018 by 1000 viewers
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Eddv posted...

And why did they need to do that?

Because they were better.

If you're stretching that hard I think you're just trying to win an argument to win an argument.

Why did Lashley need to bang Lana

Because he's better.
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I'd say something like Gargano/Ciampa definitely moved beyond "I'm better than you, fight me".
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Jakyl25 posted...

Raw viewers

2.358M
2.063M
1.753M

What was in that third hour THIS week? Was it Seth again?

For a pretaped RAW against one of the best Monday Night Football games in decades, that might be a victory!
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And the Lana/Rusev/Lashley storyline is still the most viewed on YouTube. So I have no idea if its brilliantly idiotic or something. Rusev is claiming a lot of it is his and Lana's ideas, too.
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After watching for thefirst time

My take is they are trying to set lana up in a vicki Guerrero type of position
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CM Punk is officially back in WWE.

https://twitter.com/WWEonFOX/status/1194480602583633925?s=19
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Hey maybe they'll double those Backstage ratings and get 100k!
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