Scott,
I just rewatched Extreme Rules for the first time since April, having been disgusted with the way the main event ended. After the show, the blog was littered with people's disgust at the way the WWE DESTROYED Lesner, and how it would be IMPOSSIBLE to take him seriously as a true monster after that booking decision. Yet of course, come Summerslam, everyone was back in Lesner's corner. While I still despise the typical 30-second Cena comeback, both men came out of that night looking strong.
All this brings me to my point about how us smarks bitch endlessly about the decisions made by the WWE. Do you think our self-awareness leads to unfair criticism? Your rants are littered with "Wrestler Y jobs to Wrestler Z.... how can he ever be taken seriously now?" and "He goes over clean on free TV, and they expect me to pay $55 to watch later?", yet those same wrestlers proceed to grab your money and time come PPV night. Whether it's scripted movies, real sports, or sports entertainment: no one wins every fight they're supposed to win.
I just rewatched Extreme Rules for the first time since April, having been disgusted with the way the main event ended. After the show, the blog was littered with people's disgust at the way the WWE DESTROYED Lesner, and how it would be IMPOSSIBLE to take him seriously as a true monster after that booking decision. Yet of course, come Summerslam, everyone was back in Lesner's corner. While I still despise the typical 30-second Cena comeback, both men came out of that night looking strong.
All this brings me to my point about how us smarks bitch endlessly about the decisions made by the WWE. Do you think our self-awareness leads to unfair criticism? Your rants are littered with "Wrestler Y jobs to Wrestler Z.... how can he ever be taken seriously now?" and "He goes over clean on free TV, and they expect me to pay $55 to watch later?", yet those same wrestlers proceed to grab your money and time come PPV night. Whether it's scripted movies, real sports, or sports entertainment: no one wins every fight they're supposed to win.
No one was saying it would be IMPOSSIBLE to take him seriously (at least not the reasonable people). We were saying that they were leaving money on the table by doing it that way, and could have made far more than they did by building to a rematch. Not to mention that Brock only ended up having two matches for all of 2012, which makes it all the more bizarre that one of them was a loss to John Cena, the one guy in the entire promotion, outside of MAYBE Undertaker, who needed that win the least.
And yeah, ratings are down, and buyrates are WAAAAY down from even a few years ago. So I'd hardly say they're grabbing too much money from people right now. I watch because it's my thing and always will be, but they even managed to drive me away for about 4 years. So perhaps they should listen to that audience who they expect to buy their network.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I feel like in the minority in liking the finish. I mean I wouldn't have booked Cena going over if I wad in charge and probably would've done the Knightfall thing to get Cena ofc TV and build the rematch like the lot of you, but if he was going to go over, I wad find with the way it happened. It was like Brock's first match with Frank Mir where he dominated and got caught from being to reckless. It would be one thing if Cena just no sold and hit the AA but desperation punch with the chain -->AA to the steps worked for me. Although you could've maybe got a bump for the rematch, I don't think Brock was hurt by a fake fluke loss anymore than his real one. WWE is going to bat for Cena come hell or high water, so if they were gonna give him the W, I was fine with the way it went down.
ReplyDeleteThe BoD is dead quiet for the holidays, so Scott went back to Lesnar losing for blog hits. It's like McMahon strutting down the aisle for a ratings pop.
ReplyDeleteScott Keith = Future Corporate Millionaire!!!
Lesnar would=$$$ if He lost everymatch, it's how many $$$ that his win/loss record will affect
ReplyDeleteI dismiss this e-mailer on the simple fact that he misspelled LesnAr three different times. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, those of us that hated that finished were pretty clear on a couple of things. One, the match still ruled. Two, they left money on the table.
I think bignasty pointed it out very well. They squeezed about 6 or 7 weeks of buildup into three weeks and still did good buys year over year. Can you imagine, with a proper build for a rematch at summerslam the kind of dough this would've done? C'est la vie. Either way, as I said, the match rocked.
I've said it before but Cena had to win. If Lesnar was going to be around for the full year then of course he should win but he was brought in to get attenion and it has worked when he's around.
ReplyDeleteThe kids that are Cena fans that actually pay $ for merch and buy shows would have lost some belief in Cena if he lost clean to Brock, exactly like I did as a kid when Warrior beat Hogan clean @ 'Mania 6. Brocks a guy who is just here for money and will be shitting on WWE in 5 years when Cena is still selling merch and drawing 1 million buys at 'Mania.
Punk was a perfect guy to go over Cena cuz it made a big star for life. Ziggler looked like a star @ TLC when he topped Cena, hopefully they capitalize on him. Danielson Cesaro & The Shield are guys that need that big clean win on ppv more. Brock .vs whoever @ Mania is still going to help the buyrate cuz Brock is still a huge star like Rock & Taker.
The thing is, only Rock has gone over clean as a sheet versus Cena in the past years. Punk needed Cena to be distracted by Johny Ace at MITB when he was clearly the face (and everyone knew he would be going in) and Ziggler jobbed two straight weeks to Cena on Raw before needing AJ to get the win. Cena losing to Brock wouldn't of matter, he's been protected for years. And you say some of the kiddies would've started doubting Cena? Good, imagine the build for a rematch in which Cena is the HUGE underdog to this monster and then wins. Those kiddies would've been lining up to get their daddies and mommies to order the ppv.
ReplyDeleteOf course people would have doubted Cena, that's why he HAD to lose-fuck Lesnar's drawing power. That one month where Cena was doubting himself after losing to The Rock was the most Compelling his character's been IN YEARS...and then he beat Brock and we were right back to statuesque
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Cena doubted himself all of one segment on Raw (after WM). That segment was compelling and coupled with a loss to Brock...well, the story was RIGHT THERE.
ReplyDeleteThe announcer's (for once) did there job as "story tellers" and kept hammering home that segment though-does Cena still have it, does he believe in himself. I actually cared about the John Cena character--then he won and went right back to invincible pain in the ass Jock
ReplyDeleteNo, Brock shopuldn't have won.
ReplyDeleteIf the story is John Cena doubts himself, the pay off is John Cena wins a brutal match against Brock Lesnar. Especially as Brock, after Extreme Rules, left until Summerslam. John Cena would still be around after Extreme Rules, and if he doubted himself who would he fight?
There was no one on the roster Cena hadn't already beat.
If the doubt included three months off and then a rematch with Brock (after losing once), fine... but BROCK was the one with the minimal contract. Cena, while not a ratings or PPV juggernaut, was needed to sell merchandise. So he had to stay around. Which means he had to say strong, as Brock could get his heat back by beating the shit out of anyone he felt like.
Oh well if you say he shopuldn't have
ReplyDelete"There was no one on the roster Cena hadn't already beat."
yeah, but Plenty who hadn't beat him and were ready to take advantage of this new Cena. .
The thing is that I agree Lesnar should win, IF he's sticking around.
ReplyDeleteBut he wasn't going to capitalise on the win. Whatever happened, the next night was his last night for a couple of months. So he wouldn't benefit from it.
As for people beating Cena... as people have mentioned, few people beat Cena cleanly. Even Punk doesn't. So anyone beating Cena who wants to truly get oer either has to cut an 'OMG MONEY PROMO' ala Punk, or already be at a level competitive to Cena (Dolph Ziggler) cheaply and it still mattering. Few heels on the roster are that truly over save Daniel Bryan, but his career was saved by moving away from 'I AM WRESTLER' to 'I am the tag team champion.'
So again, if Cena left for a few months it'd work. But Cena working a losing streak gimick? It doesn't really prepare him for Brock again, because fans are conditioned for top line faces to not lose every match indefinitely.
There had to have been a better way to book Brock Lesnar this year although with only 2 matches under his belt i'll admit it's a tough job. The whole arrogant superstar angle where i'll fight but you'll have to pay to watch me one is solid enough and more than enough to get him to the HHH match at Summerslam but after that it gets fuzzy. Hell i still don't know where they're headed with Brock (Re-match with Trips at Mania i presume)
ReplyDeleteWas his contract that sweet? 3 matches for all that dough? If so i can see him re-upping for another year easy if McMahon matches the deal.
While I agree that Lesnar should have won to set up the big money rematch that didn't bother me as much as the post match shenanigans. I would have been ok with Cena just squeaking out the win but still was destroyed and barely made it out of the match alive. But after the match, basically no selling what happened and cutting that "goodbye" promo that went nowhere was just stupid. Vince should have also tried to get more dates out of Lesners contract, I know that's hard to do with Lesnar but in 2012 he wrestled twice for 3 million (?), that's Warrior in WCW level of bad.
ReplyDeleteYou have no clue how much i like this comment... which will bring the downvotes now... sorry...
ReplyDeleteI don't dislike the outcome either. my only complaint would be that the end of the match felt too fast and out of nowhere. even if they had decided to put in a lot fewer Cena comebacks into the match, for my taste there should have been at least one or two more than we actually got.
ReplyDeleteStatuesque is lol.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the emailer's point. I think everyone can agree that Lesnar after a) his big Raw return and b) the night he punched Cena was molten hot and everything fizzled out within a month. That's not the smark in me talking. That's the fan.
ReplyDeleteThey could have done SO much with Lesnar in 2012. Jobbing him to Cena would be like #47 on my list.
The fact of the matter is, Vince is scared. He's scared to do ANYTHING different at all because it MIGHT not work and cause ratings to dip and/or buyrates to decrease, which is all they live for moment by moment. The delicious irony would be that they're so afraid to do anything but what they've been doing for 5-6 years now, that they've wound up just repeating the same mistakes, misfires, and misconceptions over and over again and causing ratings and buyrates to plummet. But Vince is too terrified to take a chance on anything, even a guaranteed success like having Brock run roughshod all summer would have been.
ReplyDeleteSo much stuff was bungled in 2012...from Jericho not winning the Rumble (not to mention virtually ALL of Jericho's entire run), to Brock losing at ER, to HHH getting embarrassingly booed out of the building after losing TO Brock, to the GM angle being aborted w/ Hornswoggle, and then the horrifying screwups of Nexus & Bret's return before that, I wanna start watching again to build up to Mania and see how Punk, Ziggler, The Shield, and returning Rock/Lesnar do...but I have ZERO faith it won't just get pissed on like everything else (chief among them, Rock/Cena II, a match I have literally NO desire to see despite loving the first one. Although if it resulted in Punk/UT Streak vs. Streak, at least that would be cool.)
All the more reason for Brock to win the first match. Make Cena look vulnerable, get serious, and come back to beat Lesnar in an even more intense re-match.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Lesnar wanted to work that much, so with his limited dates they did the best they could.
ReplyDeleteAct 1: Lesnar returns after years out of the ring, Cena takes him lightly, fights valiantly, but ultimately loses (or just gets pummeled and the match ends via ref-stoppage).
ReplyDeleteAct 2: Cena is off TV for a short while to sell injuries, doubt himself, and train hard (Rocky style) for the eventual re-match.
Act 3: Cena returns harder (no poop jokes and grinning), Brock is now the over-confident smiling jock, and Cena beats him in an even more intense PPV re-match.
It doesn't have to be a year-long thing. It doesn't have to remove Cena from the product or make Lesnar the long-term focal point. It just makes an interesting storyline that can draw more than one buyrate. It can play out before summer 2012, at which point Brock can move on with the HHH stuff. Cena is still The Guy, Brock justifies his contract with more than one PPV match with the top guy, and you go different directions. A newly-confident Cena can still go after Punk's title at Summerslam, Lesnar can still try to assert himself by taking out the COO.
Extreme Rules....PPV OF THE YEAR
ReplyDeleteThis. The promo was far worse than the match result IMO.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I don't understand this portion of your point... but what did Nexus/Bret have to do with 2012?
ReplyDeleteI think he meant it was sort of foreshadowing the booking missteps they had in 2012.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I love The Shield, best thing they got going now...what from the past 5 years would indicate they're NOT going to fuck it all up at some point? Absolutely nothing. So a part of me quite rightly asks, "why even bother?"
ReplyDeleteDont mind the other guys... they dont know how to tell stories.
ReplyDeleteOnly getting two Brock Lesnar matches this year was my biggest wrestling disappointment. When Brock came back, it was so awesome. Like a conquering hero returning to save us. Sounds corny I know but that is how I felt.
ReplyDelete"No one was saying it would be IMPOSSIBLE to take him seriously (at least not the reasonable people). We were saying that they were leaving money on the table by doing it that way, and could have made far more than they did by building to a rematch."
ReplyDeleteYeahhhh, I'm sorta remember virtually everybody here talking about how Lesnar was only being brought back to job to the entire roster, all the way up to his match with Triple H at SummerSlam. That was four months of this talk. Let's not revise history and act like people were just saying, "well gee, they just missed out on making more money!"
Honestly, I'm not so sure about that. If the Triple H match is any indication, would they have been better off with a Lesnar win? Lesnar won the match in decisive fashion and disappeared the next night. He hasn't been seen or spoken of in over four months. I'd say that a significant amount of the momentum he gained has been lost. Now, that doesn't really hurt anybody since Triple H hasn't been on TV either.
ReplyDeleteI guess I could see their unwillingness to sacrifice their top act. When Lesnar returned for the Triple H program, nobody mentioned the fact that Lesnar lost against Cena. It really didn't matter. And when Lesnar returns for his WrestleMania program, the momentum he gained from his win against Triple H will be all but lost. I'm not in the boat that wins and losses don't matter (I think they matter a lot), but given his limited schedule, by the time he returns nobody seems to remember or care whether he won or lost his last match.
I don't understand why they didn't load up on pretapes for the weeks that he was at Raw to use for the weeks that he wasn't at the show. For example, if Brock is at the first Raw of the month, why not tape a few generic pretapes of him arriving in the arena, of him sitting backstage watching the show in his dressing room, with him interacting with authority figures, etc. to use throughout the rest of the month or two. He's already established as a guy who has no friends, so there's no reason for him to run out to the ring to save somebody. And he's established as willing to back down from a fight unless he's being paid, so there's a reason why he doesn't have to come out for a challenge. At least do something to keep him on screen and remind your audience that he exists.
ReplyDeleteI respectfully disagree with the notion that kids will stop buying Cena's merch if he loses to Lesnar. He may have lost to Rock too the previous month, but I seriously doubt that would've made a noticeable difference in sales. Also, I don't think Cena sells a million buys for a Wrestlemania. I think Rock can take credit for helping the last two years.
ReplyDeleteUnderstatement of the year.
ReplyDeleteI think that screwed a lot of fans up. We hear things, but I don't think anyone actually knows many of the details of the contract he signed. It seemed like most of us were expecting around 5-8 matches by Wrestlemania.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he signed up for 3 matches and that's it. Maybe he signed for more and WWE is going to go far into 2013 to fulfill that contract. I don't know. Definitely disappointing to not see more of him, though.
It seemed like you disappeared for a couple of months in the Fall/Autumn. It's nice to read your even-keeled, insightful, and eloquent posts again. Being serious here.
ReplyDeleteLet's see how it plays...ah, fuck you're right. We're screwed.
ReplyDeleteThe momentum issue isn't the fault of Lesnar's contract, it's the fault of the monkeys in creative. There is always a way to write around a worker's limitations. But creative has refined the art of finding the laziest way which also happens to kill everybody's momentum and fuck up any heat the program may have been building.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. But that same group of monkeys would be writing the John Cena/Brock Lesnar story as well. So those same creative limitations exist.
ReplyDeleteWhoever wrote his contract was probably smart enough to stipulate anytime his face appears on TV counts as "an appearance" they have to pay for, is why.
ReplyDeleteEverybody here is entitled to their opinions and I totally respect the fact that people come here to complain about a company and program we're all passionate about. But there was a period of time that I was somewhat enjoying the show and I'd come here and it would just be so incredibly negative that it was killing MY enjoyment. On top of that, for whatever reason, Scott's blog is blocked at work (the reason, humorously enough, is that it comes up as "Pornography"). So that ate into my browsing time.
ReplyDeleteSince we're all fucking accountants and statisticians, because numbers matter more than anything, here's a consideration: who drove higher buyrates this year, Cena or Lesnar? Lesnar's appearances on PPV had significantly higher returns than any of the shows where Cena soloed on.
ReplyDeleteGrown men were losing their shit like little kids and seemingly willing to hand Vince all of their money to watch that fucking ape pound people's faces in. Mania is going to sell near or beyond a million buys just because it's Mania. Why are you wasting all of Lesnar's appearances on a show that's going to sell with or without his involvement? They should have used most of his appearances on shows not named Wrestlemania to lift the buys on those shows because that's where the help was needed and people were willing to buy any show Lesnar appeared on.
Not only that, by why isn't Brock interacting with new talent? I thought he was there to help relegitimize WWE? He should have lost to Cena, yes, but we're beyond that point now; the only other person Brock should lose to is Ryback, period. Hunter shouldn't get his win back, he doesn't need it. Ryback is still in that in-between place between solid push and made guy. Mauling Lesnar at Mania should now be the ultimate goal. Ryback murders Lesnar and he's set for the rest of his career. I know HHH, Undertaker, and a few others are salivating at the prospect of "humbling" Brock, but that isn't what's best for the company. Building your next generation is what's best.
I don't like the way handled Lesnar. I understand he only has so many dates they can work with here, buy why burn through 4 of them just to put John Cena over in May and then have him disappear for months at a time? If they didn't have enough dates to keep him a part of the show for a full year, they should have started him later in the year and made him a focus from Summerslam (or after) until now. They could have even used him as a regular until January, have him lose to whoever to end that storyline, and then bring him back for a money match at Wrestlemania.
ReplyDeleteHaving a limited number of dates is a hurdle but they could have gotten around it - if he's at the arena for a 'date', couldn't they have him do pre-tapes for the following weeks to keep him on the show? There's ways to have him be more involved without physically being there every week, and personally I've cooled on him just because of how infrequently he's around. Beating Triple H should have been a big deal. By the time he comes back it'll be forgotten.
On the Cena match specifically...I don't think Brock had, or would ever, beat Cena in the end. But it seems backwards to have his first feud be the guy his last feud should be against, with a definitive ending. Cena over-came the monster. If they weren't so keen on giving us a re-match with The Rock with a less desirable result this time around they could have saved Cena/Brock for Wrestlemania. Or if they really wanted to do Rock/Cena again, let them do their thing while Punk chases Brock into Wrestlemania.
But then if Brock leaves, kids will go to school talking about how John Cena couldn't beat Brock and how it means UFC is better than WWE and it will be the end of the world as they know it.
ReplyDeleteThis whole "wins and losses don't matter" thing has gotten way out of hand. It came about when Austin lost to Bret but made himself a star, and it worked in the Attitude Era when most loses tied into the storyline and usually had some interference of some kind, but now they have a guy loses for six months at a time and when people stop caring about him because of it they act like he just doesn't have it because the losses shouldn't matter. I think Zack Ryder is a perfect example of that - he was this lovable underdog who managed to get himself over. People cared about his journey. Then they started having him lose all the time and nobody cares anymore. Naturally this is blamed on the shortcomings of Zack Ryder. Meanwhile, they do everything in their power to make sure anyone watches the show is aware that John Cena should win every match he's in, unless the bad guy cheats, and they let Triple H go on his power trip from 2002-2005 because he had to win to legitimize the title. He has to win because wins matter, but his opponent can lose because loses don't matter, or something like that.
ReplyDeletePre-tapes! That's what I said! But you said it first.
ReplyDeleteMy example was perhaps a little extreme -- getting more than a month out of one date -- but I'm sure they could have done more than what they've done. Hell, do a multi-part sit down interview with Jim Ross that they can extend for a number of weeks. Or go the nWo route, and have Lesnar "buy time" on the show by showing montages of his domination. Like others have said, by the time Lesnar returns, all of the luster behind his Triple H dominance will be all but gone.
ReplyDeleteWell Cena's an upstanding person so he wouldn't allow Johny Ace to screw over Punk. Cena would rather lose fairly than score a tainted win. So not only did he have Punk beat to prove he's a better wrestler, he only lost because he was standing up for all that is right in the world.
ReplyDeleteIf you follow Seth Mates on Twitter, he constantly says "wins and losses mean zero," which in addition to being grammatically incorrect, is absolute BS. There's a reason why people don't view John Cena and Dolph Ziggler the same way. Both guys are designed to look great in their matches, except one almost always wins and the other almost always loses. If John Cena vs. CM Punk at 2011 Money in the Bank was booked the same exact way, but Cena won, the storyline and Punk push wouldn't have worked nearly as well. If somebody like Zack Ryder (as you pointed out) was treated the same exact way but won most of his matches instead of losing them all, he'd be a FAR bigger star. Yes, wins and losses alone don't make a star, but they're pretty damn important.
ReplyDeleteLook at something like Edge/Angle in 2001. Edge has a match with a guy who's established as a better wrestler than he is, and he puts up a strong fight and comes close to winning, before losing. It makes Edge look good for getting that close, and re-establishes that Kurt Angle its a tough guy to beat. So it meant more when Edge was finally able to do it a month later. It's not always losing that doesn't matter, it's how you lose and what the follow up is.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the time it's what the losing represents. If a guy is losing 2 minute matches week after week for months at a time, clearly the company doesn't think of him as anything important so we shouldn't either. But they think they can do that and then if they randomly decide he matters again one week the audience will immediately react as such - and if they don't, it's just because Zack Ryder wasn't really that over and then it's his fault people think he's a loser after a year of being booked to lose.
Maybe not but him losing to an 'outsider' would take some appeal to him to the kids: the target audience. Us fans that yearn for this oldschool booking are thrown a bone by WWE sometimes(like with the LOW roundtables or the Punk-Danielson series) but we just don't matter much.
ReplyDeleteCena is still 'The Man', it was even said on Raw awhile back: even if he doesn't have the belt he's still the guy to beat.
I think this "redemption" win is going to happen, its just going to be against The Rock @ Mania instead. And we can just hope @ Mania they throw our kind a bone with a Brock-Taker fight and some good stuff with Punk, Bryan, Cesaro & the Shield
I'm sorry, but does Chris Jericho have to do with that?
ReplyDeleteThat ring is going to be littered with garbage if Cena beats the Rock.
ReplyDeleteHow are you supposed to be creative with a character on a tv when that character is never on the show. He's just a side attraction like Abdullah the Butcher who only came around a territory like once a year.
ReplyDeleteWould Walter White on Breaking Bad have been able to be a compelling character if he was on 1 episode per season. Lesnar has been maxed out for what he's available for
Im not shitting on your feelings, but Brock flaked on wrestling before.
ReplyDeleteThis aint HBK coming back from back injury, this is Brock Lesnar former UFC champion coming to do jobs for HUGE BUCKS.
I knew he was short shelf life and i knew he was going against Cena/HHH/Taker
I figured he would smash Cena, squeak a win out of HHH and then job to Taker at WM, cuz of the couple year old video they did after a Brock MMA fight.
But they jobbed Brock to Cena one month in.
#DONE. #handswashed
If he ever goes back to UFC, (doubtful but Dana White = 2012 Vince McMahon... never say never in THAT BUSINESS) Cena > Former UFC champ and biggest draw they had Brock Lesnar.
I guess they consider that "Scott Keith's Tits" picture Elvy posted awhile back to be "pornography".
ReplyDeleteI hate how much our opinions of what happens creatively are shaped by how we perceive it to be a good/bad financial decision for them. Why should I care if they left money on the table? Why should I care how Lesnar winning could've set up a rematch that they obviously never intended to do given Lesnar's limited dates?
ReplyDeleteSo much of the bitching about that finish revolved around those two things. So many people who hated it felt that way based on what hypothetically could have happened next. Yeah, they probably could have made more with a rematch. Don't care. Not my money. Since they only intended for it to be a one-off thing, that's what I'll judge it as. It was the right finish, and the match of the year.
Act 4: everyone in the world poses this scenario for months, driving me fucking insane.
ReplyDeleteThe CM Punk/Jeff Hardy feud is the only storyline of the past 5 years I can think of that wasn't botched or fucked with at some point. Other than that, I'm drawing a complete blank.
ReplyDeleteIDC what anyone says, i legit spittaked at that picture. It was sooo crudely funny.
ReplyDeleteThis post is completely 100% right. Vince needs to start giving us fresh matches between the new guys and the old guard because quite frankly WWE's getting to be worse than the movie industry when it comes to constantly giving us rehashes that we did not ask for.
ReplyDeleteBrock Lesnar vs. Undertaker didn't draw flies in 2003 when both guys were 10 years younger and still in their prime so what makes anyone think it would draw diddly squat in 2013?
I was pretty happy with the match and the result. It's not often you get to see something that unique and awesome from WWE. Plus, I was really feeling sympathy for Cena for the first time in years as he was getting beaten down by the sadistic monster, and I just wouldn't trust WWE or Cena and his smirking ways to sustain that sympathy for an extended angle.
ReplyDeleteIf that guy was helping me sell millions of $9 action figures, I'd probably have that exact same sentiment f'real.
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteThat anyone still thinks that it matters if Lesnar won or lost the Cena match is still so fucking bizarre.
Actually compared to last year most of the events have had more buys than last year. In fact they had 9 events in a row where it gained more buys than the previous year. I was really surprised when I found that out.
ReplyDeleteYeah this year didn't really go as I had expected in terms of Lesnar. I figured we'd get him vs. Cena, then him vs. Orton maybe, then vs. someone else before his eventual match at WrestleMania with whoever.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a huge problem. Lesnar and Cena was a huge match and now they never talk about it. It's like it doesn't even matter. Now no one even brags about wins. Not like after Jericho beat Austin and Rock in the same night and he STILL talks about it.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day wins and losses arent the most important thing, but you do have to make them SEEM important to the fans.
It's not so much the "money" as it is the storytelling, for me at least. Brock Lesnar was a pretty big deal when last he was seen in WWE. He went on to become a big deal in UFC which made him a legitimate bad ass. He returns to WWE, confronts WWE's top guy, and three weeks later he loses to that guy as is gone for a while. I just think it's poor story telling and short sighted. I don't care if it draws flies, having Brock return only to lose to their top guy within a month isn't a great story.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be like Batman beating Bane 45 minutes into the Dark Knight Rises then continuing the story along as it played out. Okay, Bane took over the city. But we know Batman can beat him so what's the big deal? Batman will beat him again. No doubt they would ultimately put Cena over Brock but why do it right away with a 3 week build? If it's just a one off, why not save it? It was very shortsighted and booked as if he signed for one month, not one year. If I loved John Cena as much as I'm supposed to I might be thrilled that he beat Brock Lesnar but as someone who just wants to see good storytelling having a legitimate monster show up and lose to the top guy to oppose him right away hurts my interest. Okay, he beat Triple H. That's wonderful. Triple H is semi-retired and Brock disappeared immediately afterwards. At this point he's just an attraction that's going to lose his appeal because he lost to Cena and him beating HHH didn't lead to anything.
and it will be glorious.
ReplyDelete