Loss

Shield vs Wyatts seems like it should be more out of control and have a bigger element of danger. The segments are too "neat" with the lights out for every single Wyatts attack and the Shield's perfectly worded promo in perfect lighting. It's heel vs heel. The "oh shit" feel should be much stronger than it is, instead of just coming across as an ordinary PPV match.

Talk about it here.

According to Dave, right now, even the HHH vs Bryan plan isn't etched in stone. Everything that was planned is now up in the air. Cena's eye injury also might end up an issue, depending on how bad it is.

I'm fairly confident they've gotten the message and are going to give us the happy ending to the story now. But the idea that that has been the plan all along is something we pretty much all know not to be true. In the end, if they do the right thing, their motivations for doing so aren't really an issue for me. But I also don't believe HHH doing a parody of his mythological Internet persona is something deliberate. Why? Because the people who would get it aren't a large enough part of the fanbase.

People rightfully give credit to HHH for the Batista feud, but I remember after their HIAC match, the announcers said HHH suffered injuries in the match and it would be a while before we saw him again. In his first promo back, he made clear that he was just taking time off. Your milage may vary over whether that's just a plothole or something self-serving. It's a small detail, but I remember it standing out to me at the time.

There was this long quote about his experiences working with Matt Hardy.

There is an interview recap from someone named Luke Hawx on F4W talking about his experiences working in WWE. I have no earthly idea who this is.

Such an easy response to that but I don't want to get into this debate again.

HHH did the promo right before HIAC comparing him to Jericho, Edge and RVD in a disparaging way. All three guys had various levels of success in WWE, but they were all second-tier main eventers even at their peaks. It's hard for people not to believe that point, and you can't tell me fans don't know the difference between those guys and Cena, Orton, Batista, HHH, Shawn and Undertaker. HHH basically told everyone that was all he could ever hope to be right before his big opportunity, which he lost in the end.

I'm sure it drew some casual interest. I just don't like seeing it get sole credit for the buyrate when the Cena/Michaels and Undertaker/Batista issues were both relatively hot as well. Both Shawn and Undertaker got unexpectedly over around that time, and people were generally raving about WWE in the first half of 2007.

Someone obviously believed it, or Daniel Bryan would be the top draw in the company right now.

But at the time, it doesn't feel like there was enough excitement and mainstream exposure about that to justify the buyrate for the show. However, there was a lot of buzz about WWE being in a resurgence and they were pretty hot at the time. What am I missing? Why wasn't Cena vs Michaels what sold the show?

Speaking of Mania, I've always been somewhat skeptical that Donald Trump was what sold that Wrestlemania, simply because I don't remember any buzz at all about Trump's involvement at the time. I think I'm wrong on this one though and would appreciate it if someone would just tell me why.

I remember my initial reaction to that angle being that they were copying the Nitro where the NWO threw Rey into the trailer. The main reason I thought that was because of Sunny, who was acting exactly like Woman was in the NWO angle.

Feel free to start one. I'm not really a Dolph fan. That said, he gets a great reaction and I'd probably protect him a little bit more than they do if it was up to me for that reason.

Personally, I think it was because the country had just gone to war in Iraq and people weren't thinking about wrestling. Seems like others have seen that as excuse making through the years, but I think it's perfectly valid.

Yes, they were there. In case you missed the previous post:

Yeah, I don't think it was very good. This should be a topic where he can pretty easily speak from the heart, so it not feeling genuine is odd.

Another example is that just two years ago, Rock called Cena inauthentic and suburban (I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something to that effect) in a video package to build Mania 28 and WWE edited that line out after the first airing.

I think this is the best possible explanation of what I've been trying to say about promos. Thank you. Yeah, but who sat there and said "you know, I really like Danial Bryan, but what asshole HHH said makes me think otherwise"? It's more that people see the surface level stuff and think "This guy is a wrestler? He's short and kind of a geek", then HHH reinforces that thought by mentioning those things in a promo. Then the guy has a title match and loses. So I guess HHH was right all along. The bad guys won and were correct. Wrestling is depressing. I'm about to go do something else. There's a reason heels weren't allowed to call Dusty Rhodes fat, or call Hulk Hogan bald, or comment on Austin's knee braces, or point out that Rock was wearing a t-shirt to hide the recovery from his bitch tits plastic surgery, or mention that Undertaker is a crippled has been that can't work a full schedule, or point and laugh because Jericho wore lifts in his boots to make himself appear taller. Hell, mentioning HHH and Stephanie's real relationship was a no-no for years because DX was supposed to be a rebellious group and he was married to a McMahon. Good wrestling presents people positively. Every wrestler has potential real weaknesses that could undermine them, and the idea is that you hide/avoid/downplay those things instead of making them the centerpiece of a feud.

I'm glad to hear that the feedback is generally positive and that people like where we're going! That said, so that it's more clear how to proceed, I decided that I'm going to do this "invisibly" until it's closer to complete. This will allow the 90s stuff that we've been working on for nearly four years (and are about to wrap up!) to be the focus for now, and will ensure that it's easier to access until we're ready to take the big leap.

Yes. I'm happy to add something not there now if you want to discuss it.

I'd prefer for now not starting threads, ONLY because I am pretty picky about how the thread titles are written. First and last name of every wrestler, Versus abbreviated "vs" with no period, etc. Everyone has their hang-ups on little things that are meaningless, and that's ultimately one of mine. My professional background is in knowledge management and creating meta data to make content more easily searchable, so when I see labeling inconsistency, it bugs me. I even catch myself doing something inconsistently from time to time. You can post in threads that have already been started though. And of course, more will continue to be added. If this gets to a point where it's beyond overwhelming, I may loosen my stance a little.