garbage in, garbage out

Sometimes, I don’t think WWE is stupid. I think they’re justly badly informed. Every aspiring .net wrestling columnist has attempted to make the same point in the last month: the RAW/SmackDown! feud doesn’t work, because it’s unbelievable the wrestlers would have such strong feelings about their brand, with many of them having been on the … Continue reading “garbage in, garbage out”

Sometimes, I don’t think WWE is stupid. I think they’re justly badly informed.

Every aspiring .net wrestling columnist has attempted to make the same point in the last month: the RAW/SmackDown! feud doesn’t work, because it’s unbelievable the wrestlers would have such strong feelings about their brand, with many of them having been on the other show in the recent past. I’m not arguing their wrong, although I think it’s worthwhile to take it case by case for a moment

Should they have a strong affinity for their current show?

SmackDown!
JBL: his career peak has come on SmackDown, so Yes.
Mysterio: never a part of RAW. Yes.
Lashley: never a part of RAW. Yes.
Batista: his ascension happened on RAW, and he’s really been The Man on SmackDown. He really shouldn’t have a strong preference either way, but I think since he’s the top guy on SmackDown, he’s got take it upon himself to be the leader. Yes.
Orton: Big career wins happened on RAW, Undertaker notwithstanding. No.
(Eddie would’ve been an easy Yes. Christian would’ve been a No. Matt would be a Yes.)

RAW
HBK: never been a part of SD!. Yes.
Chris Masters: never been a part of SD!. Yes.
Kane: never been a part of SD! (I think). Yes.
Carlito: Carlito’s been on both shows, been on the same position on both shows, hasn’t particularly cared. No.
Big Show: Too recent of a jump. No.

7-3. Not bad. Should be better.

Anyway, my point isn’t that the angle makes sense – let’s go with the concept that brands mean nothing more to wrestler than what days they work, what day they’re on TV, and what color shirt they wear to meetings, and work from there.

Any hack writer can cite this and say “this premise doesn’t work at all! I can’t believe they’re doing this.” See, I just did. It doesn

2 thoughts on “garbage in, garbage out”

  1. What you said about Linda is pretty much right. WWE has their own way of thinking, their own universe so to speak, and nothing will change it. It’s pretty much always been that way.

  2. This kind of speaks to why I’ve taken one or two swipes at Scaia this last month that no one noticed. He was complaining about some TNA six-man that put Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe and Alex Shelley against AJ Styles, Austin Aries and…I guess Sonjay Dutt. And Scaia was upset because Samoa Joe was “a face” being teamed with two heels. Now, if we suspend our disbelief and decide some talent booker is just making up teams for these showcase six-man matches and not building angles, it makes no sense for these six-mans to always be three faces and three heels. But that’s neither here nor there. Samoa Joe is a “face” only in that the fans like him. He just goes out there, beats the crap out of his opponents, then leaves. There’s little if any playing to the fans, no interviews where he talks about how much their support means to him, nothing. It’s almost Goldbergian how they just let his actions and his presence do all the work. So when he “betrayed” Daniels a few weeks later (this is after Scaia made the complaint that bugged me) he didn’t even really turn heel because he was being completely consistent with his character: a big dude who likes beating people up and happens to be Samoan. Generally, if you take a second to look at what a character’s motivation is supposed to be, you can make their actions fit. Otherwise, something like Rob Conway having secretly not liked Quebec those two years wouldn’t have been so jarring, we’d be used to it.

    The problem a lot of WWE fans have in tuning in to TNA is that TNA is only just now getting around to trying to cram characters into face or heel molds, since the workrate smarks who brought them this far will cheer heels out of spite if the face is crappy (read: John Cena.)

    Now that I look back, I’m not sure that’s really what you were talking about, even before the tangent about molds. But I’m going to post this anyway.

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