Not enough racism or xenophobia these days

Twas a great way to get heat back in the day

I hated Iraq and all Iraqis for years throughout my teens thanks to Piper, Hogan and co

They really need to get a monster Muslim heel gimmick going that causes some bomb threat level hate from the masses

A lot of the fans are waiting for the cue to cheer or boo though. Some don't care about the matches because neither of the participants is doing anything that makes people want to see them get beat up. They have no horse in the race. And although some like to say heels and faces are outdated, in fact in just about every action movie they have very clearly defined good and bad guys.

Not so much in tv anymore though. Just off the top of my head, the wire, sopranos, oz, mad men, breaking bad, etc all feature evil characters that the viewers, for whatever reason, root for or sympathize with.

I don't mind avoiding traditional heel/face distinctions at all if somebody is getting over. But neither WWE nor TNA has had much luck getting people over of late, and if WWE does get somebody over they tend to start acting strangely, moving away from what is getting them over.

While it is true that they are evil characters in those shows that we root for, they almost all have at least one redeeming quality about them, and since they are the lead character more often than not that is why we root for them. In wrestling the heels are supposed to have no redeeming whatsoever and that is why we boo them

This already happened, and it was glorious

In light of recent events, I think Saddam Hussein can legitimately be considered a 'tweener'. Middle Eastern politics is just like wrestling. Constant backstabbing, unlikely alliances, and regular face / heel turns. America used to mark out hard for the mujahideen, now they have nuclear heat. Iran used to be the top heels, now they're starting to win over some smarks with solid work in their feud with ISIS. The Hezbollah leader has also gotten them pretty over with his promos. Definitely the CM Punk of the muslim world IMO.

Whoever that guy was, was absolutely right, Annoying, but right. Lucha Underground is probably the best all around product on TV right now. I dont count ROH, because I cant get it here in Chicago. They can get it in Peoria which is 3 hours south of here, but I cant get it in the 3rd largest market in the U.S.

But back to my first thought, as much as I think Lucha is the best product today, their audience is literally 1-2% of the size of the WWE and that is just in the U.S. So that is why I titled the thread like I did and then spoke mainly of the WWE

That's Bryan Alvarez, author of 'The Death of WCW', author of the Figure Four online newsletter, radio host at Wrestling Observer (both the live show and the subscriber only shows with Dave Meltzer) among other things.

I pulled that piece of audio from the end of another subscriber only show, 'The Bryan and Vinny Show', which is less formal and more goofy than the other shows (hence the 'Voice of God' at the end). It's one thing for you and me to talk about how bad the business currently is, it's another for him to talk about it.

If you want to be really pedantic about the whole discussion then I'll say this. There's nothing wrong with wrestling. Maybe there's something to be said for the dissolution of kayfabe, but that would be impossible to maintain in today's world. WWE has taken themselves out of the wrestling business. The letters literally (original definition) do not stand for anything anymore. They are putting on the show that Vince wants to run because it's his 'sports entertainment' company and what he says goes. We'll have to wait for him to die before anything might change and then there are no guarantees.

It's like being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. Every discussion you have is eventually going to come back to 'Well, Jerry Jones is the owner and GM, and until he's gone we're stuck with what he gives us because he's never going to fire himself.' So we wait.

Bumped because the last Raw got the worst ratings of 2015 (and the worst in 2.5 years if you discount Christmas weeks).

http://www.pwinsider.com/article/947...-news.html?p=1

I haven't been able to watch a minute of Raw live in the last 2 weeks, and I can't say that I feel like I missed anything. Unless it involves Cena/Owens or maybe the tag division, I just don't give a **** anymore.

I mean, outside of Owens, and kind of the authority but that's not even about the wrestler with the title it's about creating an opposing force...

For every guy on the roster you should be able to fill in a "he has done XYZ for the last six weeks because _______" and you just can't do that with most of them.

Also for me personally, I'm sick as hell of every other episode ending in the beat down that isn't even done creatively. It's a bad crutch and people actually bothering with the match is about as useful as Charlie Brown lining up to kick a football.

Yeah, I have been thinking something similar as well, but I do think that there is more that is good with WWE than Owens and the Authority. Although it appears they are either reworking or doing away with the Authority, which I think is also a good thing. I think Cena is killing it in and out of the ring every week. I also like the fact that they actually have a decent heel stable now, which is something they didnt have when I started watching again about a year ago.

As for your roster statement, I also agree with that, and think I know of a way that could help with that. I think it is time for a brand split. Now I know its been done before, and some people would probably say its been done to death. I dont know this, because I actually have never watched wrestling when they did this before so if what I propose is what they used to do then maybe it isnt such a great idea.

First, I would make it a hard split. I would have no crossover whatsoever except for the WWE champ. Just like they did in the old terrtitory days the WWE champ would "travel" between the two brands but everyone else would be tied to their particular brand. In addition to the WWE champ, I would have a brand champion for each brand. The US Title would go to one brand and the IC title would go to the other brand. You can rename them if you want, I dont think it matters all that much.

AS I stated earlier, I wouldnt have any crossover at all. I would take advantage of the fact that the USA Network is going to air both shows starting in the fall and have that be the time to make this happen. I would also look into the possibility of making Smackdown live every week along with RAW. If that isnt feasible, I would definitely do something similar to TNA and have occasional shows live. This would give the Smackdown brand a bit of equal footing. I would also have completely separate PPVS too, with completely separate annouce teams. This is possible now because of the WWE Network. The only two PPVs that I would have both brands at would be Wrestlemania and probably Summerslam.

I think that would do wonders for showcasing more talent.

I would be happy with a brand split if it actually followed the guidelines that you laid out. Unfortunately in practice I think that creative would start commingling the rosters after about 2-3 weeks. They could never seem to help themselves from doing that in the past.

Raw apparently had its lowest rating in a decade on Monday

Why it sucks to me and why I stopped watching except the occasional youtube clip is the only main eventers face or heel I actually want to watch are rollins and Bork and Bork shows up once or twice every 3 months

Everyone else is a boring retread or for some reason kane. Seriously, in 2015 a fat unmasked talking in a suit kane is getting the most screen time and the wwe is shocked ppl don't care?

But the biggest problem is besides the main event feuds there's no point getting invested in any of them cuz they'll last 6 PPVs and feature the match done EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. on raw

That too

Story lines don't advance in Raw, they only ever end on PPVs anyway so why watch to find out what's going on, if there's an actual good match you can find that 10 minutes and watch without sifting through the fart jokes and Ziggler and Lana pretending to care.

Current prime examples of what I'm talking about is Sheamus, who turned heel not because of any perceived wrong that was done to him, or fans turning on him or whatever, but because creative decided they needed another heel this week (see also: Show, Big).

The reason the Cena stuff works and the tag stuff works is that you know why they're fighting (the simplest reason of all, they want titles ldo, works fine). The reason none of Bray Wyatt's feuds matter is because there is no sensible motivation behind any of them other that "hey, Bray Wyatt is on our roster, we need to use him, let's have him fight that guy".

It's rare, even, that "good matches" on Raw are all that compelling. The thing where they've stripped away all meaning from TV matches is a huge issue. I was able to get invested in Cena vs. Cesaro as a Cesaro fan hoping that he wouldn't just get squashed, but in most matches why am I supposed to care who wins? Good action in a vacuum isn't worth much; a total lack of ability to invest myself in who wins most of the matches means that I barely pay attention when matches are on, even if the workers involved are capable of putting on a good show.

That too.

Not that there's anything wrong with having some matches for matches sake (you almost have to do this or else you really really have the "they're having the PPV match again this week on Raw" problem), especially if the action is fun.

But there's other ways to have them advance the storyline. Have Owens come out on commentary for the match. Have an actual surprise run in instead of "oh I wonder what odds I can get on Kane coming out here". Have a Beat The Clock challenge so help me god. Have Owens beat random opponent by using Cena's moves of doom. There, I just wrote a month of "Cena and Owens don't like each other" without them wrestling each other.

With the Authority as really the only true top heel in the company, they've boxed themselves in where they can't do that even if they want to, because who cares if Roman Reigns has to face Kane or Sheamus or HHh on the way to Rollins anyway, they will just make it 5 on 1 and nobody cares to do anything about it. Guve them a new on screen actual authority figure that isn't HHH and those run ins become more meaningful.

To be fair, isnt that pretty much what they have done with Cena/Owens?

Also, I think they have built up a decent heel stable. Rollins, Owens, Sheamus, Barrett, and Rusev (when he comes back) is a decent line up.

They haven't done anything revolutionary with Cena/Owens. It's the talent of the men involved making it work.

...And the writers being smart enough to not try to gimmick it up with needless shenanigans... That is, staying out of their own way, which is surprisingly difficult for WWE creative.

It is more or less what they've done with them, kinda sorta, and everyone universally agrees it's awesome and the best part of the show.

The Open Challenge stuff from Cena was simple and good too and everyone loved that. John Cena has a motivation: show everyone (including himself) that he's still got it, show that he's a fighting champion. His opponents have a built in motivation: they want a title that they're not going to get a shot at any other way. Simple good storytelling. People have Reasons For Doing Stuff.

Rollins isn't a heel. Well, Rollins is a heel, but Rollins is a heel more as an extension of The Authority than as a stand-alone figure, so it only halfway counts.

Owens is confirmed awesome, so you have 1.5!

Sheamus we covered already; he has ~ no reason for being a heel other than "creative needs another heel to plug in so Ziggler's got something to do, I guess, so let's have Sheamus attack Ziggler blah blah", he has no reason for even talking with the Authority who have the thing he should want (the title, he has the MITB contract).

Wade Barrett is currently fighting with R-Truth because it apparently amuses R-Truth to mess with Wade Barrett this month; he's also managed to lose to R-Truth a lot. So I don't know that I count him as a credible heel.