34 minutes ago, SirEdger said:

On any other RAW, the level of outrage would've been way different. But it's the RAW after Mania; I say 90% of the crowd were expecting that interference to be the debut of the Undisputed ERA but instead, they got The Bar. The way I took it, fans were pissed about who made the run-in, not the fuck finish itself.

Exactly.

The Bar reveal was like all those times they had The Big Show turn heel or make a surprise return. It wasn't a knock on Show, just that he had been written to be so inconsequential for so long it's difficult to care.

The same can be said for every tag team on the roster. This was a really tag team heavy show which I wouldn't have minded if the tag team division was booked well. The problem is that everybody in the tag team division is a geek and if somebody like Bobby Lashley or Drew McIntyre decided they wanted the tag team titles they would win it instantenously. It hurts the show becuase guys like Ricochet, Aleister Black, Chad Gable, Bobby Roode, The Revival etc. should absolutely be given time in the middle, but when it's such low stakes it's difficult to get invested.

This definitely wasn't a post-Mania 14 edition of Raw. It was more of a Wrestlemania night-cap than anything else, just something to help calm the audience down before the superstar shake-up.

6 hours ago, sek69 said:

LOL @ everyone here being all "fuck wrestling fans".

Yes, really.

The idea that fans should just shut their brain and be corporate drones and eat whatever they are served is ridiculous. BTW, they are the same fans who were "awesome" during Gargano & Kofi's wins, so... 

10 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

Yeah, but like... The Bar are bad guys and that match literally couldn't have had no other outcome other than a fuck finish. To get THAT mad (and not in a good way) over basic pro wrestling booking is wild.

I'm not overly bothered by it and expected a non-finish, but they shouldn't have booked the match if they had no good ideas to get out of it.

10 hours ago, sek69 said:

I saw it as the crowd rejecting guys who are a mid card act on SD going above their pay grade interrupting a match between the two singles champs. 

Dear 2014 Us: In 2019, everyone will be upset about Cesaro disturbing a main event after being happy that Daniel Bryan dropped the title to a career midcarder.

That's not a statement making fun of people for outrage. I have no moral authority there based on my own history. It's more that your comment reminded me of the funny way wrestling changes on a dime.

An example once again of how much better all these guys come off when they're allowed to speak more naturally

2 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

I'm not overly bothered by it and expected a non-finish, but they shouldn't have booked the match if they had no good ideas to get out of it.

 

Right - there's a difference between "this was bad booking" and the reaction online from certain people, which is treating this like the WWE lied about a Wrestlemania main event or something. 

4 minutes ago, Jesse Ewiak said:

 

Right - there's a difference between "this was bad booking" and the reaction online from certain people, which is treating this like the WWE lied about a Wrestlemania main event or something. 

Yeah, people talking about this driving fans off forever for refusing to give them what they want the night after we got three new top babyface champions is pretty ridiculous but some people are looking to spin a narrative as opposed to just looking at the facts in perspective 

2 hours ago, Charles (Loss) said:

I'm not overly bothered by it and expected a non-finish, but they shouldn't have booked the match if they had no good ideas to get out of it.

While I agree that having The Bar wouldn't be as good as say, Bryan and Rowan or even Lesnar himself, the live reaction was something to behold.

Chanting for refunds, beach balls and AEW at something like that is just so very weird to me. Specially after they've booked basically every major result that weekend according to fan's tastes.

It wasn't a perfect ending for an otherwise really good RAW episode, but the overreaction over something so minor (at least it seems minor now, maybe it is the start of a bigger storyline?) was baffling. 

It's possible Seth goes to SD tonight to suggest they finish what they started and it turns into another makeshift tag, or there's a big angle. We'll see.

I think the interruption went down badly because of who did it rather than people 'not getting the promoted match'. If it was Daniel Bryan & Rowan or Brock Lesnar avenging their Wrestlemania losses, Drew Galloway continuing his vendetta against The Shield or an NXT debut then at least it would constitute an angle. The Bar doing a run-in was just totally random and so replaced a title unification match with a tag match with no storyline/stakes at all.

I think that's part of it, yes. The Bar had no obvious motivation.

Theoretically, the whole idea of the Bar is that they're the line that you have to cross to make it to legitimacy or whatever, so testing the new World champions kind of makes sense, but that's probably more thought than they put into it.

Oh, so that's the meaning of the Bar ? Fuck me, I thought it was about drinking or something. The Bar. Like… lowering the bar. Damn.

It's kind of both. After that best of seven series (which was fucking amazing), they became a tag team that really didn't like each other. They started to become friends after a BAR brawl, much like those the APA used to have.

Their catchphrase alludes to what @Matt D said: "We don't just set the bar, we ARE The Bar!"

 

26 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

It's kind of both. After that best of seven series (which was fucking amazing), they became a tag team that really didn't like each other. They started to become friends after a BAR brawl, much like those the APA used to have.

Yeah, I remember that, the whole not-getting-along partners who end up getting along. Anyway, as far as makeshift tag team, they really end up working very well together. Crazy Cesaro never got above tag-team wrestler level though.

It's really impressive how WWE has been able to flip the discussion completely. In the 90s, fans rejected the vision the company had for Blue Chipper Rocky and they used that as the motivation to make him a superstar. Now if the same thing happened today, we'd get people on the internet saying fans should just shut up and enjoy the show. The business used to be based on listening to the feedback from your paying customers and adjusting accordingly for maximum financial impact. Now WWE doesn't need to cater to the fans thanks to Fox Sports and MBS so now the fans are an annoyance who don't play their parts correctly. 

so apparently Sasha was upset over an incident that happened backstage at mania.  She wasn't on Raw, cancelled her appearance on the Wendy Williams show at the last minute and left a cryptic message on her socials

Must be something related to Alexa Bliss.

23 minutes ago, sek69 said:

It's really impressive how WWE has been able to flip the discussion completely. In the 90s, fans rejected the vision the company had for Blue Chipper Rocky and they used that as the motivation to make him a superstar. Now if the same thing happened today, we'd get people on the internet saying fans should just shut up and enjoy the show. The business used to be based on listening to the feedback from your paying customers and adjusting accordingly for maximum financial impact. Now WWE doesn't need to cater to the fans thanks to Fox Sports and MBS so now the fans are an annoyance who don't play their parts correctly. 

and I think this is why the fans that have been around for years, and have loved wrestling since they were little kids, and genuinely give a shit, feel so alienated by the product. I sit back and I am astonished week in and week out that the biggest wrestling company on the planet has seemingly forgotten how to book fucking wrestling. They needlessly over complicate every angle and every story to justify having 30 soap opera writers on staff, and do everything in their power to distance themselves from that dirty word "wrestling."  Yet, as you've said, in their narrative and in some corners of the internet, I am the bad guy for thinking this way.

56 minutes ago, sek69 said:

It's really impressive how WWE has been able to flip the discussion completely. In the 90s, fans rejected the vision the company had for Blue Chipper Rocky and they used that as the motivation to make him a superstar. Now if the same thing happened today, we'd get people on the internet saying fans should just shut up and enjoy the show. The business used to be based on listening to the feedback from your paying customers and adjusting accordingly for maximum financial impact. Now WWE doesn't need to cater to the fans thanks to Fox Sports and MBS so now the fans are an annoyance who don't play their parts correctly. 

A year or two ago they did a match on one of these shows where it was two talented cruiserweights that the post-Mania audience should like busting their ass doing big spots in the ring and the fans were playing with a beachball. Like, what booking decisions are you supposed to learn from that?

In no way am I saying that WWE's booking is infallible or anything. It's usually subpar in reality and the general atmosphere of the presentation is sterile. However, they've actually ditched their original plans for two of the top Mania programmes and went all in with the hot hands to give the audience two real feelgood title victories at the biggest show. That's something that probably wouldn't have happened even a year ago. So maybe a shitty TV main event the next night isn't really the biggest deal in the world.

7 minutes ago, FMKK said:

A year or two ago they did a match on one of these shows where it was two talented cruiserweights that the post-Mania audience should like busting their ass doing big spots in the ring and the fans were playing with a beachball. Like, what booking decisions are you supposed to learn from that?

Maybe not putting talented cruiserweights on a lightly watched ghetto of a show so people will care when they are given a spot on a big show like that?  You can't train people not to care then get mad when the people don't care. 

1 hour ago, Strummer said:

so apparently Sasha was upset over an incident that happened backstage at mania.  She wasn't on Raw, cancelled her appearance on the Wendy Williams show at the last minute and left a cryptic message on her socials

If all of that is true, Sasha's maturity issues are the main reason why she hasn't gone further in the company IMO.

I would also push Alexa way ahead of Sasha - even though Sasha is obviously better in the ring - because Alexa "gets it" in every other aspect.

It would depend on the nature of the incident though, wouldn't it? If she flipped out over the wrong kind of bottled water in catering, then yes she's immature. If someone was backstage flopping their junk, then maybe it's not on her.  

So the post Mania RAW averaged 1 million less viewers than last year.....BUUUURNNN IT DOOOOOOOOOWN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was still the n°1 con cable for the 18-49 demo so everything is not lost I guess?

 

All jokes aside, does anyone have an idea of what kind of ratings they are gonna need for Friday night once they go to Fox? At this point it seems they will be moved to FS1 in November

I don't but Vince better get his shit together by then because they might not even make it through FS1 if FOX thinks he's booking a shitty product.