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January Wrasslin' |OT2| Stop watching this garbage and get HBO Go

J

Jimmy King

Member
Does anyone know the ideal settings to make WWE 2k15 competitive and/or fun?

I can play on Legend Undertaker vs Sting and still put him away with one tombstone, the fuck is that?
 
C

Chopper

Member
bean breath said:
Ehhhh, I don't know...
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cesaro-kidd.gif
 
M

Macho Madness

Member
If you have an Observer subscription, definitely give the Todd Martin show this week a listen. He spit some truth like I haven't heard anyone do in a while.

The Royal Rumble was an unbelievable indictment that Vince McMahon would let the exact same thing happen two years in a row. The first year there were some signs, but given that crowds had never turned on a match on a major pay-per-view like that, I couldn’t call it predictable, but this year, it was basically the exact same scenario, and they learned absolutely nothing. That’s not a good sign at all.

And I’m so sick of this idea that it’s just these hardcore fans, and you’ve got to ignore them to appeal to a larger audience, like they’re these two completely disparate groups. I trust the hardcore audience to know what’s likely to appeal to the masses a lot better than one promoter, because even putting aside Vince’s questionable instincts in recent years, it’s just so much bigger of a sample size. You’re talking about one person with the two ‘Yes’ men in the office, and thousands of people that attend the shows regularly and watch the product and let them know what they think. The people watching right now, to me, are a lot better indication of the tastes of those who might watch, than one man’s guess. And that’s what the debate is: whether to listen to the fans, who the fans cheer the most, or to ignore them and assume that other guys who get less cheers or get boos are really the guys who are best for business.

And to me your hardcore fans should be your biggest allies in spreading interest in your product. They’re the ones who are most into your product. They’re the ones who still watch. They’re the ones who still care. They should be your ambassadors to your product. They’re the ones who are the keys to bringing in more people.

There are a bunch of people that I’m friends with that are some version of a lapsed wrestling fan. Some of them were big into wrestling and don’t watch right now. Some of them were never really that big into wrestling, but they watched it here and there when it was hot. Those people from time to time in the conversation, it will come up, “Hey, how’s wrestling these days?” And what they’re looking for is, “Is it worth checking out a show sometime?” And my answer to them is a key to whether a few people are going to check out the product, give it a chance and see if they might be interested in watching more. And my answer more often than not in recent years has been, “No, it’s not worth checking out!” That’s who all of these hardcore fans are. All of them know people. All of them are asked about the product. And their willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth, to say good things about the product, is one of the key ways that they can grow their product. And if their perception is, “It’s a product that isn’t intended to appeal to me,” then why are they going to say anything positive about that product?

Moreover, there’s this idea that those biggest fans are just impossible to please. “They’re so hard to satisfy. There’s nothing you can do to satisfy these people.” I call bullshit on that too. It’s not like these hardcore fans were shitting on the top acts when business was hot. There wasn’t a problem when the business was at its peak with large numbers of people booing Austin or booing Rock or booing Sting or booing Goldberg. They’re shitting on the top acts now. And business is weak. That should tell you something. It’s Vince who’s been the champion of the guys who haven’t been able to bring in the new fans, not them.

And it’s not some sort of generational thing either. Every year in pro sports, about half the teams are winning teams and about half the teams are losing teams. Now, do the fans of those losing teams turn on their teams the way we’ve seen fans turn on WWE so often in recent years, like you’d expect if it was this generational thing where people are just so much more hostile? No, that doesn’t happen. Not even close. You only occasionally get loud booing and heckling when a franchise is genuinely wretched for a long period of time and fans lose all patience with the people running the team. And when it does happen it becomes a big news story. It was a big news story with the Bears this year, where the fans just got fed up with what was going on. And invariably in sports when that happens, it leads to the coach being fired, it leads to the general manager being fired, it leads to new people being brought in with a different philosophy. Only in WWE, the coach and general managers continue on with the exact same model. That’s what WWE is. It’s a terrible sports franchise. It’s been having losing seasons for a really long time. And the fans’ reactions should be a kick in the pants to do things differently, only they keep doing things exactly the same.

The reaction on Sunday wasn’t about the fans; it was about the WWE.

I reject the notion that Reigns has never been booed before. I think that’s blatantly false. There were scattered boos for various things he’s done for months. Moreover, you wouldn’t expect him to have those sorts of scattered boos for the things that he was doing given that has hasn’t done anything for them to dislike. He only turned last year. He wins absolutely ever match that he’s in. He’s booked to be this monster destroyer that gets the better of the heels absolutely every time. They’ve given this guy every advantage possible, and the fans turned on him at the point that it was apparent that they were going with him as the top guy. You started to see the little signals here and there when they were just pushing him really strong. But the point where you would expect the fans to give their opinion of what they think of the guy is when it becomes apparent that he is now the top face. He’s now the guy challenging for the title at Wrestlemania. That’s the moment of truth. That’s when you find out what people think about this guy. And you saw the reaction.

And as far as the story going forward and, “just one crowd,” I guess we’ll see. If it ends up being just this one crowd, and this Philadelphia crowd ends up being an anomaly, and you don’t hear boos going forward, then yeah, obviously that was just an anomaly.

But I don’t think the possibility of that being the only crowd we hear boos for Roman Reigns going forward is conceivable. I don’t think for a second that that’s going to be the last you hear about it.

Last year when Batista came back he got an okay reaction on television. He didn’t get a great reaction on television, but it wasn’t like people were booing the guy. And then he showed up at the Royal Rumble and he got booed. And he didn’t even get booed as badly as Roman Reigns. They hated Reigns more than they hated Batista. But Batista never got another positive reaction on television again. And that was without them airing the Royal Rumble on free television the next day last year. If anyone thinks that’s the end of Reigns getting booed, they’ve got another thing coming.

“But if these hardcore fans at the Rumble every year only want to see Daniel Bryan win, we’re going to have a problem!” That’s a facetious argument. “There’s these people that don’t get it, and just always want Daniel Bryan, no matter what.” Here’s the story of Daniel Bryan over the last year. Here’s a guy who never got handed anything, who worked his way all the way to the top. And finally, after they never gave this guy his proper due, they never gave him his chance, the fans let the promotion know they really wanted this guy to be in the top position. So they finally gave this guy his chance. And he succeeded massively. He delivers fantastic performances. He gets fantastic reactions from the crowd. And then he suffers a career-threatening injury. He’s out of action. You don’t know if he’s going to comeback. His father dies. He’s in this terrible situation. You don't know if he’s ever going to be able to return. He finally works his way out of it. He comes back. He works his way to the top. He never loses that title. The title run he was supposed to get after all this time was two months because of that injury. He comes back. He gets thunderous reactions. And they said, “Well, he gave you your pity run last year. We’re on to other things now.” Of course they reacted to Daniel Bryan that way. Because they wanted this guy to get a shot on top. He got injured through no fault of his own. And when he came back from injury, they just moved on with someone else, despite the fact that the crowds were reacting in a way that suggested that they wanted this guy on top.

This isn’t just, “Oh, these presistent fans, they keep cheering for Dolph Ziggler, year in and year out, we can’t listen to them and just give them Dolph Ziggler.” This is like if after Shawn Michaels got beat up in the night club and if they said, “Ya know what? We got Diesel. Fuck this Shawn Michaels. Let’s just bury him on the undercard.” Of course people are going to want Shawn Michaels in that position. Because he was a really good performer. He was getting hot. And he had a sympathetic thing that made people want to root for him more because he was coming back from this big injury. And they went the absolute other way.

I don’t think there’s any sort of indication that fans are just going to perpetually want Daniel Bryan on top. But how about just giving him his chance? I don’t even think that Daniel Bryan is the long-term answer. I still think Dean Ambrose is the guy. But right now the crowd wants Daniel Bryan. So give them Daniel Bryan.

“But what if they just hadn’t brought Daniel Bryan back before the Royal Rumble. Would we have gotten the exact same reaction for Roman Reigns?” Exact same? No. Still getting boos? Yes. Because it ties into the larger theme of not caring what fans think, and just going with their own top guy.

Let’s remove Daniel Bryan from the equation and look at what else happened. We were just talking about Dean Ambrose. Look at the other guys in that Royal Rumble. They booked weakly every other guy that the fans liked, just to make sure everybody knew Roman Reigns was the only one that mattered. Dean Ambrose comes in late. He does basically nothing, gets dropped out like a sack of garbage. Dolph Ziggler comes in late. He does basically nothing, gets dropped out like a sack of garbage. Sandow is getting a following, so he was thrown out basically immediately and treated like a joke. Bubba's big return lasted less than five minutes. Meanwhile Roman Reigns throws out the two giants, he throws out the evil Russian, he moves into tenth all-time in Rumble eliminations in just his second match. And he gets the endorsement from The Rock, who they fly in just to put over Roman Reigns. Reigns is literally the only face booked strong in the entire match. So of course people are going to react negatively to that.

If Vince has confidence that Roman Reigns is the guy, then let him swim, let him prove himself. Reigns has been gifted everything from day-one, whereas other guys have been gifted nothing. And those guys who have been gifted nothing, in some instances, have accomplished so much more, and connected so much more with the audience despite not getting booked to win every single match and look like the unstoppable monster from day-one.
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Even if you don't agree with it all, that put things in perspective much better than I could have.
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
I will always respect Jeff Jarrett for being able to piss off Vince so much that no one else has ever been able to. Jarrett is the king of Vince heat.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Titus Andronicus said:
Does anyone know the ideal settings to make WWE 2k15 competitive and/or fun?

I can play on Legend Undertaker vs Sting and still put him away with one tombstone, the fuck is that?
Click to expand...

I don't think there's a way to make the game fun, honestly. I've hated every aspect of it.
 
S

Serpentine

Banned
TheWesker said:
If you have an Observer subscription, definitely give the Todd Martin show this week a listen. He spit some truth like I haven't heard anyone do in a while.



Even if you don't agree with it all, that put things in perspective much better than I could have.
Click to expand...
This dude is pretty much right on the money
 
S

somedevil

Member
This is hilarious. From the TNA tapings.
Drew Mcintyre
new gimmick is champion of the wrestling fan giving out this promo:

Drew Galloway came out for a promo and said he feels the passion from the real wrestling fans tonight. At one point, the handheld camera man had to point to Drew where the hard camera was, which was quite funny. Drew went into the crowd and talked about companies shoving people down our throats. He asked the fans for a show of hands of who wants to take back wrestling.
Click to expand...

The promo doesn't make sense because he is on the wrong show. Plus who are these fake wrestling fans?
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
somedevil said:
This is hilarious. From the TNA tapings.
Drew Mcintyre
new gimmick is champion of the wrestling fan giving out this promo:



The promo doesn't make sense because he is on the wrong show. Plus who are these fake wrestling fans?
Click to expand...

I feel no pity for anyone who willingly goes to TNA these days.
 
J

jred2k

Member
Thanks for posting that Wesker. Its a good read. It's really hard for me to see any scenario where Reigns is top guy in a few years. Main eventers need to be connect with an audience and keep them engaged for a 20 minute match and I just don't think he has it in him.

Vince has such a weird double standard. He's sacrificing whats hot right now for who he thinks will make him money in the future. This is tge same guy that rewrites shows twenty minutes before they air live.

I really can't wait for this SCSA podcast Monday. HHH is better than Vince at spinning things on the fly, but Stone Cold has a great bullshit detector.
 
J

Jimmy King

Member
Austin isn't going to do shit. He pushes back enough to keep his cred, but he let Vince shit on the entire roster. As "one of the boys" you'd think he would defend them at least a bit.
 
F

funkystudent

Member
Anyone else get the impression that Vince is becoming more and more stuck in his ways and off base as time passes?

Its easier and easier to tell what is a Vince story and what isnt. When he says "fuck it lets do it this way even though no one likes it" and when he gives a bit of leeway.


Its just that we are clearly in the last few years with him on the road every week calling the shots from behind that stage at every show and I dont want him to go out like this.

The fact that the day Vince finally says he cant be on the road anymore is automatically going to mean a giant jump in quality is sad.
 
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