Quote:
Originally Posted by RainMaker
I guess I don't understand why you use your two biggest moments at the RR (ending Punk's reign, winning the Rumble) to push a match that doesn't really need anything extra to it. Having the belt on The Rock at Mania isn't adding more buys. And you don't need Cena to win the Rumble to make it happen.
Ending Punk's reign should have been used on someone like Ryback, Sheamus, Ziggler, anyone who is young and on the way up. And if you're setting up Cena-Rock at Mania, just have someone else win the Rumble and get the push.
Nothing they do makes sense. I don't know why they wasted Heyman on Punk who needs no help on the mic. Should have just used him as the mouthpiece for the shield or something if you wanted him on the show.
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Rock/Cena for the title adds something entirely new to the match that wasn't there last year, I think that does add buys. You also have the element of having a movie star doing the media rounds, with the belt, to promote what will be your biggest match on your biggest grossing event of all time. That is the biggest match on the biggest show, and the WWE title will be the centerpiece. They've gone away from that recently and everybody complained about the WWE title being an undercard thing and the not the focus of the show. Now it's treated as the biggest thing in the most important match of the year.
And I loved the Punk/Heyman combo and now it's leading into a thing with Lesnar. Established guy with new guys can work in spots but it also can come off as manufactured. And besides, if Heyman was the shield's "mouthpiece" people would still complaining about they're not letting the Shield get over on their own and making them rely on the "crutch" of an established and over guy who gets most of the heat. If your manager is a bigger star than your wrestler that's not ideal either. The Shield's doing fine. They're in a protected booking spot where they don't have to lose matches, they interact with all the main eventers, but there's still plenty of room for upward mobility once they split up and have singles runs, for those of the 3 that connect with the fans. Heyman's maybe the best actor and promo guy the company has, I want to see him in the top stuff.
"Building new stars" has been the internet buzz word/rallying cry at least since I've been following wrestling on the internet since around 1995, and they certainly have built plenty of stars in those 27 years (as have other the promotions, all of which are gone, leaving only this one company that doesn't do anything right but somehow still makes millions where everyone else failed), but I think at some point to like wrestling you have to learn how to appreciate the top guys in their prime and not be upset any time any big star wins a match instead of a "new guy". If you're only into "new guys", you end up in the position where you have 20ish former main eventers on the roster who have now all been "buried" because they show doesn't currently revolve around them. The older territory promoters understood this, of course they didn't have to deal with cynical internet fans who hated everything they did. I mean, we remember guys like Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat, and Ted Dibiase as "legends", but under today's rationale, they'd all be considered failures because they were never pushed as the top guy in the company ahead of Hogan. Under today's IWC wrestling philosophies, Hulk Hogan would have lost the title to an "up and comer" like Hercules at Wrestlemania 2. He'd probably get the belt back, only to lose to some other "up and comer", leaving Hercules to flounder for a while and get "buried". Hogan would end up on top again because he was clearly the bigger star, and the other guys would be left to flounder in the midcard again, and everyone would complain that they were "pushed too soon." Then things look like WWE 2008-2011 and the title doesn't mean anything anymore. Unless you permanently demoted Hogan and pushed the new guy as the new Hogan, but that would have been an even more terrible idea, as it would have been if you "passed the torch" permanently from Cena to Lashley or Christian or Kennedy or somebody 5 or 6 years ago. Or if you decided to end the Undertaker's streak to an "up and comer" like Kennedy. That would have generated no business, you'd be killing a gimmick for future Manias, and Kennedy still would have been exposed as sucking balls once the "HE'S A NEW GUY" aura wore off.)
I used to kind of feel like way, like at it'd be fun if more random things you don't expect happen, and if you watch wrestling enough, they still do, but at a base level, the biggest stars in wrestling should win most of the big matches. Otherwise they're not big stars, and you end up with a watered down mess. Like WCW or TNA. Wrestling is so much more enjoyable if you can just kind of take it in as a fan and appreciate what everybody can do, whether they're in the main event or pogo sticking a chair to get back into the ring in the middle of a Royal Rumble. Sure, it's possible for wrestling companies, like TNA and WCW, to be so ridiculous and incoherent that it can just take you out of everything, but WWE so rarely goes to that level. Nobody remembers 1999-2001 WCW anymore. It was amazing. You can nitpick anything to death because it's absolutely impossible for any wrestling company to match one's preferred vision of what should happen 100% of the time. When people hate everything that happens I always wonder what year and promotion from history they consider "good booking" - I guarantee I can pick apart the "problems" with that year/promotion as well.
Edit: I remember the last time they tried to use the Mania main event to establish a new guy. We got Miz v. Cena. God help me that was awful. And people will say it was awful because they didn't go all-in and have Miz squash Cena clean and have that torch passing moment. But really, if he did, would we living in a world today where Miz is the top star and that's a universally great thing that everybody's into? No fucking way. We'd still end up with Cena/Rock, or, if instead they were REALLY intent on passing that torch, we would have had Rock v. Miz. No thanks.