WWE putting more focus on ringwork

[Stopspot]

If you listened to Austin's podcast with Cena, he claims, not necessarily to his or Austin's approval, that WWE is slowly moving away from promo and character and putting more emphasis on in ring competition. He claims their justification for this is the growing overseas market and how the non-English speaking countries will absorb in ring storytelling over promos. He also says it bodes better for the roster because most of them are better in ring than on the mic.

Opinions on this? I have noticed we are getting much longer matches on the regular and as a ringwork mark I love it. But I do not think they will give up promos and storylines, just cut them down a bit and make them more important and matter more, instead of getting a bunch of throwaway segments each week. Getting more segments that matter and advance story mixed in with well worked matches.

 

[edge4ever]

I can only pray this is true.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

personally wish they'd give us more reason to care for most of the matches instead of 90% of them feeling random or pointless.

 

[B.Dazzle]

I don't see why they can't balance it out 50-50.

 

[Snowman1]

When having a mini-chat with @Adam Jackson in the subforum about Evolve, this did kind of stick out to me.

WWE in many ways is catering to indy fans. They have a ton of wrestling matches on the show that are very entertaining and don't mean anything, and the only thing we as fans can do to pick what wrestlers we like is to go on the individual talents and pick and choose who to cheer from that alone since the vast majority of the roster either has no character or not a good enough character to influence crowds one way or the other.

Suppose when this change took place was when fans were pretty unhappy about the wrestling quality a few years ago, when fans were clamoring for more wrestling and less storylines/dance offs/other bullshit (granted Russo pissing people off with that didn't help), and now it's swung too far in the other direction. If there's one thing we learned from Raw in 2013 it's that you absolutely need storytelling and meaningful matches in wrestling.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

When having a mini-chat with @Adam Jackson in the subforum about Evolve, this did kind of stick out to me.

WWE in many ways is catering to indy fans. They have a ton of wrestling matches on the show that are very entertaining and don't mean anything, and the only thing we as fans can do to pick what wrestlers we like is to go on the individual talents and pick and choose who to cheer from that alone since the vast majority of the roster either has no character or not a good enough character to influence crowds one way or the other.

Suppose when this change took place was when fans were pretty unhappy about the wrestling quality a few years ago, when fans were clamoring for more wrestling and less storylines/dance offs/other bullshit (granted Russo pissing people off with that didn't help), and now it's swung too far in the other direction. If there's one thing we learned from Raw in 2013 it's that you absolutely need storytelling and meaningful matches in wrestling.

yep, and it doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just SOMETHING more than hey this guy is wrestling this guy cause this is a wrestling show. TNA IMO does a better job of at least making every match feel like there is some reason for it (outside of the X Division that is 1: )

 

[Snowman1]

yep, and it doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just SOMETHING more than hey this guy is wrestling this guy cause this is a wrestling show. TNA IMO does a better job of at least making every match feel like there is some reason for it (outside of the X Division that is 1: )

Totally agree. Oh, TNA does a great job of it! But then vast majority of wrestling fans want their company to die and crap on every storyline they do lmao. You can't please wrestling fans at all. Kinda-sorta disagree with the X-Division thing, that title has meaning due to Option C so therefore the title matches have meaning, we just need more of them. (Plus they even tried having that storyline between Aries and Sabin, but it didn't really work)

On-topic: Raw has 3 hours. I don't see how it is so much trouble to fit in 30 seconds of Heath Slater talking shit to give the Big E squash a little context, lol

 

[Laura]

It sounds good, but who knows. First they dumb down move sets and tell commentators to ignore wrestling holds, now they wanna focus on ring work. Seems counter productive.

 

[Pop Tatari]

Its nice to see matches like Cesaro vs Cena being of high quality, I think most fans or most non casual fans to put it better want this. Promo and storylines etc will always be at the forefront as that's what wwe want but its nice to see some pretty good matches.

 

[Championship Material]

I hope it's true... it's not 1998 anymore... ROH is such a big influence in today's product (WWE or TNA)

 

[edge4ever]

As I think on this topic more, I feel that having big storylines needs to continue to happen, however. If they focus too much on ring work, sure, the matches will be better in general. But, in the same breath, what makes a great match even better is the story behind it.

 

[Cloud]

This is great as people like Cesaro will shine. However there does need to be a backstory to help us get invested in the match. But if it means less gimmick segments like dance offs etc I'm for it.

 

[RaveWayneBoo]

I myself prefere more wrestling over the storylines, I guess Im just wierd but I kinda only watch the matchs. Most of the time when there is just some B.S. segment going on im doing something else or zoning out. I just have a problem staying focused when they are just talking.