Quote:
Originally Posted by Mota
One thing that I'd like to see from the WWE is a sense of progression.
Right now they take new guys, overpush them, see that they don't work and then shove them into the lower or midcard after having been WWE Champion. It just doesn't make any sense, and the fans seem to not take to new guys because the feeling is that these guys are only temporarily successful.
Take 75% of your guys and start them in the lower card. Then make them develop a finisher or some new moves that help them out and they progress to the next level. Get the fans invested in the wrestlers as they develop, and when they finally made it to the top, they're "our" wrestlers that we've been watching develop over 1-2 years. I used to see it all the time in the "olden days" and it was cool.
There's always the top 25% though that you want to protect right from the start and not hand them too many losses, but that's reserved for the guarantees, like a Brock Lesnar or Rock who you know are going to be future stars. I'm talking giving the progression push to guys like a Drew McIntyre or Sheamus, both of whom were damaged by being pushed directly to the top without getting the required experience. It's been a long road for Sheamus but they are trying to rebuild him now. I think McIntyre is done for, even though today he is probably good enough to justify the "chosen one" gimmick that he was given when he first started but wasn't good enough to sustain it.
|
I totally agree with that, but if you look back in this thread, or elsewhere on the internet, almost everybody wanted the same thing back when these sudden pushes started - Orton and Cena out of the main event scene and every cool heel midcarder getting pushed to the moon. Not just world titles, mind you, but they wanted the actual shows built around guys that were brand new. Even now, but especially then, any time Cena or Orton won a match, any match, or were in a PPV main event, any PPV main event, the whining would explode. So they finally change direction on that, and everyone hates that too. Back then, the pushes to guys like Sheamus and Swagger and Hardy, and Miz, and the first Punk world title push and all the others were considered "not enough" because even though they had the titles, Orton and Cena were still in the main event scene so people were pissed. But NOW, the same fans consider those guys to have been OVERPUSHED back then (and I suppose the implication is that all 5 of those guys, and probably a few more I'm leaving out, should have somehow, together, all maintained #1 or #2 guy type-pushes).
I wish I could, in some fictional universe, watch the RAW, and the WWE storylines play out in a way that would make that cynical group of IWC fans like the product. I actually don't think it's possible. I think that if such a theoretical, alternative universe existed, it would be so incorrect at its core that it might swallow the universe whole.
People talk so fondly about the 80s when so much of it is garbage, especially by today's standards. Have you ever watched a 1986 WWF TV show? You never had a match last more than 2-3 minutes, and 75% of the matches were guys kind of standing around or taking a breather before their next move. Or take the NWA in the 80s - everybody loved the Wargames match, they say that's what's missing from today, those long feuds. Almost all of those matches ended with JJ Dillon submitting for the four horseman so none of the real wrestlers had to. Yes, in a match where one submission is all you need, the four horseman always brought JJ Dillon. Just one example of many. If the WWE booked main events like that today people wouldn't just dislike it, they'd get ANGRY and actually take it personally.