Topic: Wrestling?

I think he DOES get winded a little too early but to say he CAN'T wrestle? That's a bit ridiculous. Compared to Goldberg who he's more or less modeled after, he's got supreme skills.

He has a surprisingly DECENT mic skills, especially when he plays up the meat head angle. That stuff with Kane was good. "With extra protein" c'mon!

And that match with Cesaro was good. A little clubky? Sure. But still good. And I don't think that Cesaro just carried him.

This is the second time he's got big heat after it was KILLED last time. Just shot completely dead. To be able to get it back says something, I think.

Not my words, dirtsheet news. I think he improved a little bit under the tutelage of Curtis Axel in the ring, although that march at the end of the match doesn´t help to make him look good in the ring, that is so corny. I can´t get behind him anyway when he is in full caveman modus, he is severely lacking in that department and has nothing on the Warrior or Goldberg in terms of in ring presentation, intensity and power projection in general.

Ryback isn't without talent, but he suffers from the same problem Goldberg did, once the match goes past the 5 minute mark, he starts to have issues.

That was the problem with the Cesaro, it was decent and had a good ending, but it was still clear Ryback just can't really handle longer matches yet. Neither could Goldberg or Warrior, with the sole exception of Warrior/Hogan, which was scripted and rehearsed as tightly as possible.

Plus, no offense to Cesaro, but that match made no sense. Ryback JUST got back a month ago, is being pushed and promoted, is headlining the next PPV. Cesaro is a heel with no heat who, while at the start of the year was getting great reactions and had huge potential, has since had his push dropped and is so unimportant that he didn't even have a match at the PPV, so WHY is the mid card heel with no heat or purpose doing a solid back and forth against Ryback?

Its like they did the match JUST to expose Rybacks flaws.

One thing I think I appreciate about sports that I think is a big problem in wrestling, maybe American wrestling specifically, is the idea of heat. In wee it seems so fickle and fleeting and forever depleting, whereas if Alistar Overeem went back to kickboxing, everyone would still watch him based off what he's done and what people know he can do, not just what he's done this week in relation to other fighters.

@Tai
To be fair, Warrior had every reason to be winded. Alone his entrance was so taxing that he was probably starting to run out of gas after the rope shake already and his opponent had to begin to stall the match a little bit by escaping from the ring and complaining about this and that, at least Rude and Perfect liked to do that. Add the idea that he had bigger muscles and was way more roided with much worser stuff than Ryback, then his matches were still better than most matches of Ryback before he teamed with Curtis Axel. Just compare the entrances, Ryback basically does nothing than to raise his arms and scream wake up! . In this regard, he is much more Goldberg than Warrior, but Goldberg could pull a very convincing power move, and his gestures were much better in general. so even improved, Ryback still can´t hold a candle to any of them in my opinion. A place as upper midcarder would be justified of course.

@Blue
I too wonder if people really like it that way, or if it is just that WWE has a business model that looks for the quick and fleeting dollar and simply refuses to see itself as a sport, not even a fake one, that could produce wrestlers with a real name value like the Klitschko brothers. Boxing matches with both brothers had over 6 million viewers(close to 10% of the whole population) here and had spectacular critics and satisfied people, although both box or boxed a rather slow and unspectacular match most of the time. Unthinkable for Cena, half of the people would instantly switch channels once they saw him, another third would be lost with a corny promo.

When you produce a Barney the Dinosaur like show, and WWE did that for a good time, you murder any attempt to reach a large number of people for the sake of money from Matell, especially when your product was aimed at a more mature audience some years ago. I guess it is done intentional. As long as the sponsor dollar is better than the dollar of the more mature customer and people really start to vote with their feet by not appearing or watching, things will stay stable, but heatless and predictable.

The Attitude Era was an aberration, not the norm, brought on by desperation and being stuck at number 2. It worked for its time, then it cost them in the long run by costing them a lot of sponsors, Sponsors they've gotten back in the last 6 years for the most part.

Besides, the people that watch WWE at some point and then remain fan for a long time is a small number. The average fan catches it at some point, usually when young, watches for a few years, then grows up and discovers something better, nowadays UFC, and moves on. That's not counting the "fans" who only tune in when something happens big enough to get mainstream attention.

Hell, WWE knows their audience has a high turnover rate, that's why they like to keep reusing story lines. For example, Kane has buried Undertaker alive 3 times now. 98, 2003, 2010

Stone Cold drove a semi truck into a ambulance with Triple H inside in 1999

Hulk Hogan does the same thing to The Rock in 2002

and so on and so forth

I'm curious...is there anyone here that watches ALL of the WWE's content every week? Raw/Main Event/Smackdown/NXT/the monthly PPV?

I never watch main event, I forget all the time about NXT, I haven't watched Smackdown in years. I pretty much only watch Raw and PPVs

Used to watch all the televised stuff every week, but haven't seen any reason to watch any of WWE's TV stuff other than Raw for a long time. Would watch NXT, but don't have the WWE network. And can't afford every PPV, but I always order Wrestlemania.

I watch Raw. Usually am busy on Fridays but have been catching Smackdown Lately (since Halloween it's been pretty good)

We try and watch NXT but don't always catch it. (mostly we watch for the Vaudevuillains though even though NXT is pretty good.)

We do watch every PPV

and fuck Main Event. (though I DO like the format of it)