Hi Scott,
Whether you answer this or not, I'd like to pose a quick question about Batista.
A) Been gone for four years and immediately demands a title match
D) Hugs HHH
Finding a reason to root for ANY of the selfish assholes who inhabit the WWE main event scene has been a real problem for years now, which is probably why people like Daniel Bryan so much.
"Selfish assholes on top" has been their thing sine Hogan.
ReplyDeleteThe cognitive dissonance in the booking is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThey're PG friendly and aiming the product at kids.
So they bring back a guy who was main eventing four years ago, when a LOT of the 10-14 year old fans might not have been watching any WWE.
And they expect that those kids will cheer, rather than going "uh... who?" when they see someone who they likely barely remember.
Dave right when he left the company was awesome. Some of the best heel work in the last decade
ReplyDeleteShouldn't they get credit for that then? Diversifying their target demographic?
ReplyDeleteThe e-mail points out Batista hugged HHH on Raw, and people still think this isn't part of a bigger storyline where Batista becomes the corporate champion?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is HHH and Steph have been doing this "Now we're heels, now we're not" magic act for months. So does Batista hugging HHH mean he's going to turn heel and join them? Or does it mean they decided those two were faces last week (since they also sat around bashing Orton)?
ReplyDeleteThe promo from the wheelchair when he quit was just perfect
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JegzQqoWddk
Batista looks like one of those shaved cats plus his tits are sagging, his stamina is fucked and he dressed like a fucking idiot. I'm enjoying the crowds shitting all over him.
ReplyDeleteIt makes no sense at all from a marketing standpoint.
ReplyDeleteAmong the major demographics watching:
The kids want Bryan and Cena. They don't care about Batista.
Slightly older fans (older teens, younger men) who've been watching for a few years (and probably remember who Batista is) still want Bryan. If they're the types to cheer for a bruiser who just hurts people, they've already got Lesnar.
The established fans who've been watching the product for a long time know who Batista is, and don't particularly care - he's not been gone long enough for the nostalgia pop, and they don't want him over their favorites
The most casual fans (fans who tune in very occasionally, or women) go with the recognizable names - Cena again, or Punk/Bryan who get the big pops. Someone like Batista is not particularly familiar to them, other than the couple of brief hype videos.
There is absolutely no target demographic that really wants Batista, and a couple of demographics that barely know who the guy is. Throwing him down everyone's throat like this makes absolutely no business sense.
Ideal way to book this might be the corporate champion in reverse (or the 98 Austin storyline).
ReplyDeleteBryan overcomes the odds at EC to win the belt, Batista turns into the Authority's animal to get the belt onto a proper champion. Douchetista returns.
From there, there's so much the WWE can do (or rather, fail to do): HHH gets upset when Bryan retains at Mania, decides to give Lesnar his title shot at last to murder Bryan.
Or Wyatt, who has the only recent clean pin over Bryan on PPV, gets a shot and a feud over the belt.
Or Orton chases to try and redeem himself in the Authority's eyes and use his rematch clause.
I couldn't disagree more. The majority of the backlash is from people that want Bryan to get his spot (RR win amd title match at WM), which I get. He's still a legit main eventer who is not John Cena. He's not the Rock but he's a name to casual fans. Separating it from the Bryan backlash, I don't see how it's not a net gain for wwe over the next 2 years.
ReplyDeleteSteph is a natural heel. HHH is a fantastic heel capable of some great promos as the smarmy dick in charge of the show who can antagonize the crowd and hide behind the Shield. The opening promo yesterday was fantastic.
ReplyDeleteIf they stuck to doing that with Batista as their handpicked champion, it could get Batista over in a big way.
Just fucking stop pretending to be faces, please.
And? What does that have to do with the point of of his e-mail? Whether it's part of a bigger storyline or not, that doesn't change the fact that he nominally came back as a face, his interactions have mainly been with ADR and Orton (two heels) and his first action was to hug the heel authority figure.
ReplyDeleteThey're going to turn Batista heel and they'll be all like, "see that was the plan all along! haha" when it wasn't.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, do they try to shove heel Batista down our throats through WrestleMania.
I, for one, support the idea of Batista/Orton at WrestleMania just so 60,000 people can take a crap on it.
The strange thing is, even though he's gotten so much hate for it; At least when Cena main evented Wrestlemania, people's way of coping was the cold hard fact that a) he brings in money b) he's THE man c) he's got a huge fanbase that make themselves heard every night. So it was easy to justify that he was there for the younger contingent among us and that it was in fact good for business (if not dull for the rest of us) and even then...we were likely to be treated to a great match (HHH in 06, HBK in 07, triple threat in 08, Batista in 10, Rock in 12). With Batista, i don't think there is a single person out there who believes that Batista brings in Cena type numbers, nor do i think he appeals to anyone the way Cena does, nor is he half as hardworking in the ring or the mic as Cena.
ReplyDeletePoint being this is probably the least attractive potential WM main event since Cena vs Miz, and even by then people didn't despise Miz the way they do now. With Batista and Orton...people just don't care.
That's the thing, it would work so well because it's such a natural progression. It's how everyone already feels towards them. It's like when everyone hated on Rock because he was "hollywood"....so they made him Hollywood Rock, and lo and behold he was the most exciting person on television again.
ReplyDeleteOr an Orton face turn which would be no buys at all.
ReplyDeleteMan, that match will be such a disaster. And they probably have no idea. Remember, this company was planning to put cena over the rock in Miami!
ReplyDeleteBravo, my friend. That was awesome.
ReplyDeleteOrton on top = no buys, whether he's heel or face. If this latest run of him as champion proves anything, it proves that Orton belongs in the midcard, champion or not. People just do not care about him being the #1 or #2 guy. Did you hear him come out on RAW last night? Zero heat. No boos, no cheers, NOTHING. Turning him face, at least he will get face pops in the arena.
ReplyDeleteand of course his dumbass bellybutton tattoo is grandfathered in to any current criticism, even though it's been talked about since the dawn of time
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's true. "psycho" Orton always worked great, at least regarding crowd reactions.
ReplyDelete'The e-mail points out Batista hugged HHH on Raw, and people still think
ReplyDeletethis isn't part of a bigger storyline where Batista becomes the
corporate champion?'
the person who sent the e-mail clearly was never hugged as a child and is simply projecting his feelings of resentment and abandonment onto batista, who would be more than happy to hold him in an embrace not unlike the one batista shared with hhh
but as my friends and i were discussing at the rumble, we all have to remember that according to vince, there are no more heels or faces, and obviously he knows what's best for us
ReplyDeleteI think the selfish main-event WWE asshole archetype is what Vince McMahon sees as "a real man" and he believes that subconsciously we all admire people like Batista and Randy Orton.
ReplyDeleteIt would be cool if they referenced the match where a still-winless, still-in-NXT Daniel Bryan took on Batista on Raw and declared, "I'm gonna make him TAP out." and then made it look for a second like he actually might.
ReplyDeleteI mainly remember it being kids who were into Batista any point prior to total asshole heel Batista.
ReplyDeleteThey really need to get the title off him ASAP. I don't care who has it, the guy is beyond stale.
ReplyDeletePlease to not be stealing jokes from Brandon Stroud over at Uproxx. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThat... is really the perfect answer to this question. It's not a Batista problem, it's a WWE problem.
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteAlso like to add that it never dawned on me til AFTER Wrestlemania 27 to say "Jesus, what was Miz doing there". I must have foolishly felt in the buildup that Miz and Cena would be having a ****+ classic and then The Rock would find his way to ringside.
90% of that joke was original material though - don't hate, appreciate
ReplyDelete"Looks/talks/sounds like an asshole" - the Batista Story.
ReplyDeleteDon't know how much of a name he is to the casual fan--most of the people watching the Rumble with me only knew who he was because of the hype videos from Raw this month.
ReplyDeleteHis first night on Raw, I just assumed he had been flown in from the set of The Jersey Shore movie.
ReplyDeleteWill Orton/Batista be more of a disaster then Lesnar/Goldberg was? I mean the crowd just hated everything they did in that match, only cheering for Austin. Maybe they'll drag Austin out at WM30 as ref?
ReplyDeleteHe looks like the older brother Pitbull borrowed the Trans Am from in high school,.
ReplyDeleteThat was awesome.
ReplyDeleteLesnar and Goldberg could have been a good match, but neither guy cared so the crowd didn't. Orton and Batista had terrible chemistry if memory serves and Batista has only gotten WORSE since the four years he's been off.
ReplyDeleteIt's Lesnar/Goldberg all over again.
Seriously, he has a reverse tramp stamp in that belly button tattoo.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Batista leave the WWE because he didn't like the PG direction the company went in?
ReplyDeleteI seem to be one of the last Batista defenders on this board, and that' fine, but in the interest of Devil's Advocacy:
ReplyDelete1) His in-ring work (four years ago, anyways; he's clearly rusty now) was really solid for a big guy, with a decently varied and high-impact arsenal of offensive moves and a willingness to sell/show ass for guys like Rey, Eddie, and yes, Daniel Bryan.
2) He's definitely rough character wise unless he's playing either his genre savvy face or his Kanye heel, in which case he's awesome. I suspect his Kanye heel will be back soon enough, though.
3) I don't have an opinion on him outside of the ring, really. Shawn Michaels is my favorite wrestler ever, but was absolutely an ass for at least half his career, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to start damning someone's on-screen character for their off-screen antics unless the two are related (*cough*Triple H*cough*).
4) I'm pretty sure all the Twitter stuff is a work, but I can't prove it, so reasonable men can differ there.