Let's talk about RAW last night...

[Crash]

I usually don't like to complain and I try to be optimist most of the time. But last night while watching RAW there was not a proper match going until around approximately 55 min in the show... So we can say very close to an whole hour..

Are they doing this on purpose at this point? Is Vince trying to tell that he don't care about AEW and their competition and prove that he can still put on a shit show with little to no wrestling? Or are they really just that clueless and just let boat sink a little more week after week? I haven't watched the rest of the show but I will later today to see if it was any better. But this is like Vince is trying to see how low the quality of his product can go.

 

[Pop Tatari]

Matches have always been a inconvenience for Vince.

 

[Rosie]

"We aren't Wrestling, we're Sports Entertainment!"

It was not exactly a great response of a show to Double or Nothing. Brock dancing aside which after seeing it, I laughed my tail off, it isn't exactly good to have a "wrestling/sports entertainment show" without wrestling all the time. Sure there are a couple of episodes of Smackdown which are promo heavy, but there is some balance.

Oh, also, to people who say WWE isn't at all thinking of AEW, Sami Zayn name dropped it pretty blatantly on the show. Like I don't know if it was Sami trolling the fans in an off the cusp moment or Vince wrote it in there, but they clearly gave them a free advertisement to the people who decided to stick around for all three hours to watch AEW.

And at their Saudi Blood Money show Baron Corbin has a world title match. I guess they realize a fair amount of people don't want to watch it so they picked Baron Corbin to give him a spot to test himself?

 

[Snowman1]

Last week the Usos and Revival got a great reaction.
Ricochet and Cesaro was so great that I don't even mind the 50/50 booking.
When you look at the 3 big babyfaces they put over at Wrestlemania 35, Kofi and Seth got over specifically on match quality.
Shoot, a big part of Becky Lynch's success was about her having a winning streak in the background building up to her Summerslam title shot.
Brock Lesnar got over by getting the biggest victory in WWE history. Braun Strowman got over by destroying shit.

Hell, how many TV shows last an hour. Where you get everything a quality TV show has to offer. Where you turn them on to watch the banter between all the characters and laugh and live vicariously through them.

And then people turn on a wrestling show to watch wrestling and see a mcmahon talking about BS for an hour.

 

[The Sheik]

Sounds like I made the right choice not watching RAW.

After Double or Nothing on Saturday, I had no interest in watching a WWE show I figured it would be the same shit.

 

[Mr. Roman Empire]

I thought Raw was pretty entertaining last night. Lets see how AEW holds up on a weekly live television program first before we shit all over WWE. Thats a whole different animal than throwing a PPV every few months

 

[Solid Snake]

To me, seeing Brock like this:

Is better than him just standing around grunting. He is showing personality here and it is funny. A lot of people weren't sure how to react which makes it even funnier. I was shocked they only had, what, 4 or 5 matches? I didn't watch it, I only went back and watched the Brock bit.

I see people complain when they do too few matches, I see people complain when they do too many. I say they cut it back down to 2 hours for the show and focus on 4 or 5 matches a show with story building happening in between them. PPVs are meant to be where the big matches are put on with little filler anyways. Let the weekly show paint the story for people.

I still have no interest in tuning in but I was pleased with Brock's segment.

 

[Rosie]

To me, seeing Brock like this:

View attachment 10295

Is better than him just standing around grunting. He is showing personality here and it is funny. A lot of people weren't sure how to react which makes it even funnier. I was shocked they only had, what, 4 or 5 matches? I didn't watch it, I only went back and watched the Brock bit.

I see people complain when they do too few matches, I see people complain when they do too many. I say they cut it back down to 2 hours for the show and focus on 4 or 5 matches a show with story building happening in between them. PPVs are meant to be where the big matches are put on with little filler anyways. Let the weekly show paint the story for people.

I still have no interest in tuning in but I was pleased with Brock's segment.

It's about finding the right flow. The crowd waited a long time for a single match but the first match was an angle more than a match and it was a non-wrestling doing a squash. Also I think the fact that Raw always starts with a long segment, it is already formulaic and to have THIS long of a time can lead people to be frustrated.

 

[Solid Snake]

It's about finding the right flow. The crowd waited a long time for a single match but the first match was an angle more than a match and it was a non-wrestling doing a squash. Also I think the fact that Raw always starts with a long segment, it is already formulaic and to have THIS long of a time can lead people to be frustrated.

When you see a show live, you get a match first but they don't air this on TV so for fans at home, it can be a bit meh. I liked the segment but it could have been placed at a later point and likely got a bigger reaction.

 

[Jay-Ashley]

Last night WWE killed the only thing I liked about Brock...the Boombox meme of him...RIP Brock Meme

 

[Jacob Fox]

Vince would always rather tell an out of ring story than to have good matches. He keeps thinking back to the Hogan era when the matches were short and he introduced a lot of out of ring drama into matches. And really, it was out of ring story telling during the Attitude Era that saved his company from going under. So it makes sense that he will have a preference for that.

Again, I don't care what anyone thinks, AEW is a really challenge for WWE. I've seen this happen before. I have seen people say "Oh, no one can be a competitor to WWE." And then WCW, who was losing MILLIONS of dollars a year took them down for two years. As I mentioned in another thread, Blockbuster was supposedly unbeatable video giant. Look at them now. Kodack was the unbeatable camera company that decided not to change with new inovations. Now, their stock is trading at a little more than 2 dollars. AOL was a company that was so HUGE that they were able to buy Time Warner... and became so pitiful that Time Warner just got rid of them. JC Penny, IBM... the list goes on and on. Anyone who thinks that simply because a company is number one with amazing resources that this makes them unbeatable... you don't ANYTHING about business.

WWE is vulnerable. Period. And Vince is going to fall back onto what worked for him in the past. It doesn't mean he will win. But at least maybe he is smarter than a lot of wrestling fans by realizing that AEW is a competitor. So expect more out of ring story telling coming forth. You cannot teach an old dog a new trick.

 

[edge4ever]

Vince is scrambling. I haven’t seen it this apparent in forever.

We see him with the wild card rule (so he can bring the top draws to both shows and still give stars more “opportunity”), he is doing contract extensions and throwing more money around than ever, and he’s having stars like Brock, Taker, Goldberg, show up. He’s starting to push the envelope more because he’s nervous.

With that being said, Raw was... how do I put this? All over the place? The matches still don’t have a lot of depth, reason, a real purpose. Cesaro and Ricochet made it worth it, but the rest was.. just weird. It just seemed like Brock showed up to simply draw ratings and give a stupid twist to the show....

Also, Brock dancing and being all goofy makes no sense with his character push that they’ve been doing since Mania 30...he’s always the badass who simply brutalizes and gets into fights. It’s not to say that he can’t be goofy or different, ever, but it was with 0 explanation. He just “decided” to be a goofy spit fuck for 0 reason... all the commentators said was “Brock does what Brock wants...” hahah like that’s supposed to just explain it. It would be different is something happened and Brock had a segment where he literally says ya know what... “fuck Raw.. screw Seth Rollins... I’m gojng to have a little fun for once and cash this in whenever I want... you’re on my time Seth...” It was never really conveyed and contradicts his entire character. Stupid.

All in all, Seth and Kofi... it all feels like they’re forcibly pushing them onto the show and using wildcard somewhat pointlessly. Corbin also winning... I just... fuck that guy, for real, not buying into his “heel” push.

 

[Jeffry Mason]

Brock's character isn't necessarily a badass. If anything he's more of a schoolyard bully. His character gets pleasure from putting people down because he feels he's better than them, and whether that comes from beating people up or teasing them in some way, that's really kinda secondary as long as he's having fun for himself.

 

[Snowman1]

It feels to me that, with the reports that NBC Universal/USA were furious about Roman Reigns (and Brock, and Ronda) being off of Raw, they had to create the Wild Card rule to bring the stars over from SDL to Raw and vice versa, pack these shows with all the main event talent they have. And they had to do the Brock MITB thing to tell USA "Look! We have stars!".

Like Vince is just trying to appease network execs that don't know how wrestling works, and that's all that matters. They have the Saudi deal and the big NBC/Fox contracts, keep those two parties happy and that's all that matters (unless Fox kicks SDL to FS1 and they aren't able to get another big TV deal like that one...)

Still, maybe this is the old TNA fanboy in me, but even their episodes with hour and a half talkathons seem to accomplish more than this did

 

[edge4ever]

Brock's character isn't necessarily a badass. If anything he's more of a schoolyard bully. His character gets pleasure from putting people down because he feels he's better than them, and whether that comes from beating people up or teasing them in some way, that's really kinda secondary as long as he's having fun for himself.

Lol show me more videos, since Mania 30 where Brock isn’t really a badass, he just teases and has fun for himself? Even if you can show something, it’s beyond few and far between. Brock’s character has been built a nothing more than a heartless badass who only cares about kicking ass and taking the title, period.