2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

I think the reason WCW did that was to establish the show as separate entities for ratings purposes. Raw was technically called Raw and War Zone for its two hours for a long time for that purpose, even going so far as to rerun the Raw intro for "War Zone", though the product was always called Raw on camera.

Other than having three shows they can brag about for Did You Know? bumper purposes, I'm not sure what the point is. Most people don't even know Main Event exists, or at least never watch it, and I can't remember the last time a Main Event match/angle was referenced on Raw or even Smackdown.

If I had to guess, the three-hour Raw was actually supposed to be a WWE block with a new season of Tough Enough leading into the normal Raw, but that never happened of course. It'd be nice to get some sort of WWE show that wasn't Raw to take one of the hours, but I'm at a loss as to what it would be.

I know some people would like to see NXT get national TV again, and for selfish reasons I'm one of them, but trying to build up a new character for Raw/SD becomes a lot harder if people already know it from NXT (or worse, if someone establishes an NXT character, then does something different for the bigger shows). It would just be a brand switch at that point. Plus by putting NXT on national TV, you don't give wrestlers the opportunity to work out the kinks of their characters in relative anonymity before trotting it out for prime time (early Bray Wyatt was great, but a far cry from the Bray Wyatt we're seeing now). And if the character doesn't hit early, they're more likely to scrap it and try again at that level, meaning there's no margin of error for development.

 

When the E split it up into Raw and the War Zone originally, they did it to get two different TV ratings. The War Zone was supposed to be more adult-oriented.

Of course, that went by the wayside pretty quick.

 

I really see no point to the plan. Any of it.

 

Okay, so anyone know the deal with TNA right now? I ditched my cable months ago and quit watching, but my Twitter blew up last night concerning Tito Ortiz and a dead live crowd. I'm guessing he was supposed to be a big reveal, and the crowd didn't even bother to shit all over him. They just ignored him.

 

Kurt Angle busted for another DUI.

It's easy to blast these guys when you can't stand them. Angle's one of my favorites. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-stories/100-tna/32490-kurt-angle-arrested-on-dwi-charge-today

 

Part of it is it wasn't really that big a reveal in that they only hyped it for, what, a week? Last night's crowd was pretty deadsville throughout, and TNA has burned itself with lackluster or nonsensical reveals for so long that when he popped out, it was just another disappointment in a blah Impact. Plus he just sort of appeared after a quick blackout, interrupting a pretty OK angle with the two gangs. And all he did was stand there with a ridiculous watch and stare at everyone in the Main Event Mafia and Aces and Eights for the better part of a minute.

And finally, try though they might, they cannot get MMA stars over as wrestlers to wrestling fans. Ken Shamrock was the only success story, and he was the first one, and it only worked for a couple of years tops.

 

The whole Tito thing was stupid. That's how they end the show and reveal him? What shit.

 

Dan Severn had a pretty good run in the lower independents and Japan, but didn't do too well in the WWF, mostly because he didn't have much of a personality and didn't have the workrate to make up for it. He would have been somebody who could have benefited from somebody like Heyman working with him.

 

He was a more boring Steve Blackman. Wrap your mind around THAT.

 

Blackman started off really rough in the WWF, but I thought he was a pretty good Hardcore champion and he did pretty well as the straight man for Al Snow in their tag team.

 

Yeah, for some reason, guys like Blackman and Hardcore Holly didn't take off until they became quasi-funny hardcore faces.

 

The WWE sometimes tries to foist the "actual badass" sort of image down people's throats, which doesn't seem to work, especially with the emergence of MMA. I mean, if fans wanted to see actual, they'd probably just watch boxing or MMA.