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So it's been nearly a year since my last entry from this portion of the website?
Time sure does fly. In the 8 months since RawDown Rebound made it's return SmackView has been on hiatus one thing is pretty clear that Raw has gotten even worse since I called it quits with RDR first time around back in late winter/early spring 2014. SmackDown has been ok. I still maintain it's better than Raw due to the fact that the midcarders get a chance to shine and it's not the 3 hour glorified soap opera that is Raw. But in October of last year, I finally got round to watching NXT and it's what WWE should be on the main roster. TakeOver Respect was my introduction to the Promotion and it was monumentally 20x better than the main roster. Announcers are calling moves, women are actually treated with repsect and allowed to wrestle rather than just be an after-thought. Asuka, Bayley & Finn Balor are the ones to watch in this Promotion as they act as atheletes, not sports-entertainers. Yes, there is an entertainment aspect still, but it's more heavilly emphasysed on wrestling. So, when Season 4 arrives in 3 weeks (just so that there's a decent cool-off time from RDR) I will be focussing on NXT. I will do the first Bout as audio only and the second on-camera and you can tell me which you'd rather me produce it as. See you on SmackView in May.
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So, it appears that the stars are not aligning in Rollins' favour as of late if the return of the former Undisputed Champion is anything to go by.
Last year; The Diet Corporation, brought in Lesnar as a means of taking the Title off of Cena when Rollins was not able to as he was then dealing with Dean Ambrose. http://www.wwe.com/videos/seth-rollins-responds-to-the-return-of-brock-lesnar-smackdown-june-18-2015-27526908 now whether this is a sign that the writers will have Lesnar dethrone Seth and become a 5-time Champion remains to be seen. That said; I am not liking the prospect of another Lesnar reign so soon as it amounts him to showing up as and when it suits him, which is a complete double-standard from last year where they strip Daniel Bryan of the Undisputed Championship due to injury yet won't repeat it with Brock which directly contradicts the mandatory 30 title defence. I won't deny that Brock is an amazing physical specimen; he is unique. But that does not excuse his absence when he should be made to defend his Championship. I might not be the biggest John Cena fan, but at least he's there every single night. There's Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns or even Kane that are there every single week and they are more deserving of a Championship reign than Lesnar. The sooner that WWE realise that Lesnar is a liability more so than an assett, the better.
I appreciate that I can go on like a broken record at times and that is a hang-up I have to deal with. But when WWE continue to make the same mistakes of yesterday it does make me question how they have continued to survive when they attempt to over-saturate the PPV market.
Now, one PPV a month? Acceptable. 1 at the first Sunday of the month and then the very last Sunday of said Month? Ok. although it's 2 in the same month, it's still morealess a month's distance between each other. 3 PPVs 2 weeks before and after each other is just overkill. There was something to be said for having one a month because it allowed for stories/rivalries/anticipation to build so that the fans could feel like the buildup was leading to a decent payoff. And the flipside to that is that it gave the writers and Superstars time to really give the stories life and not feel like they were rushing into it. That is WWE's problem as of late; they don't give the stories nor their talent time to really develop the angles fully nor properly. When you go from PayBack, to Elimination Chamber and to next Sunday's 6th Annual Money in the Bank PPV; it's not only too much on the writers to be able to churn out a decent angle that quickly but it doesn't allow the athletes to rest up as Pay Per View quality matches really take a toll on them as they are working harder than what they do on Raw or SmackDown. It's exhausting for the fans on their attention spans as well those who still watch the events on PPV and not the Network. As PPV is still VERY expensive in the United States with Standard Definition being unscrupulously expensive at $59.99. And I thought I was being charged a lot for £14.95 on Sky Box Office before I switched to the Network? $59.99 is a lot just for a WWE event. I don't envy people who still have to pay that. This situation reminds of 2006; when WWE re-introduced ECW as a Brand against Raw and SmackDown making the company split 3 ways. While this was good for the talent to be able to have TV time on another brand than what they would have with either of the 2 flagship shows, it still added to the already extensive PPV calendar which at that stage was 14 PPVs with it becoming 16 due to ECW One Night Stand 2006 and ECW's December to Dismember. Although the WWE has 13 events (this is not counting the NXT or King of the Ring) it is still far too excessive. When you look into WWE's past you will find that the writers allowed the stories to grow at a pace that the audience and the Superstars could digest to make the anticipation worthwhile. If we were to look at The Rock Vs Austin II from WrestleMania 17 in 2001 for the then WWF Championship as an example; you would see and feel the tension building with each passing week from the night after No Way Out on Raw til the end of the Main Event of that year's WrestleMania. The Rock had become the 1st 6-Time Champion in the company, a record that shattered Bret Hart's record of being the 1st 5-time Champion (foreshadowing the future of Championship reign tallies) and he was going against what many argue was one of the greatest Superstars and Champions in WWF History. The Texas Rattlesnake - Stone Cold Steve Austin.
You had to tune in each week to see who would get the better of one another so that by the time it made it to the start of the match the fans couldn't wait to see the two release the tension and it made the buildup justified.
The setup they went with involved the Champion and Challenger rattle each others cage to a point where Austin dropped the Rock with a stunner for in his own mind at least, failing to protect his manager, who just happened to be Austin's wife at the time, Debra McMichaels. And how do you get back at someone before the biggest match of their career after being disrespected from their point of view? you use their signature move against as Rock hit Stone Cold with the stunner just days before their encounter at the Houston Astrodome. That's how you give a match much more of an angle. Because it wasn't just about the Championship; it was also for Austin to gain retribution for being disrespected and letting the locker room and the world know that he would do whatever it took to be the man again. And doing whatever it took comes into play as he sided with Vince McMahon in order to gain his 5th Championship and to shock the world by turning heel aligning himself with possibly the biggest heel that the WWF/WWE has ever seen. That is what is missing from today's WWE. They don't allow the angles to grow and get the audience to care nor do they go for a surprise factor. Seth Rollins cashing in at WrestleMania and inserting himself into the Undisputed Title was a move I didn't think they would actually implement despite it being one of my predictions, so I shall give credit where it's due. That was inventive and original on their behalf. But that is what they need to do more of; the SURPRISE factor and the suspense factor. Only then will they get more of the WWE Collective to renew their faith and passion as fans rather than looking for alternative sources for professional wrestling shows. 
The original article pretty much hammers home what I've thought about Mr.McMahon's mind set about the company for some time in the sense that he's not stepping out of his comfort-zone and doing the same thing over again.
I go into more detail in the video. |