Backlash Results and Impressions

[TheGame]

Originally posted by The Strangler
Game, you talk about people not being able to handle a push... do you even REMEMBER Jericho's title run? He got MASSIVE heel heat, and not the Big Bossman kind, good heel heat. So what happened? He walked Steph's dog and cleaned up its poop on national TV. The WWE champ walked Steph's dog. Gee, I wonder who she was going out with at the time? Hmmmm???

And how do you know who can and can't handle a title push? I mean, how WOULD oyu know seeing that HHH won't actually put anyone over. You keep on talking about HHH winning by cheating, and that is silly. Heel champs are supposed to cheat, and face champs are supposed to overcome the cheating and win anyway. That doesn't happen with HHH. He buries everyone. How tyou can think he is a good champion blows my mind. I try and put myself in the shoes of a HHH fan and he still stinks, in all categories except maybe his mic work, and even that has become redundant and counterproductive as he just belittle's all his opponents before beating them.

Now Nash is feuding with HHH, and Booker gets the joy of working with Flair. Gee, that won't kill any heat on Booker now will it? NAW. BTW, Nash looks like he should be on crutches, the way he hobbles around the ring.

Step back and take a look. The only people that HHH puts over are those that work with him on the storylines. Thank God Jericho finally learned the politics and decided to work an angle on the same side as HHH. Now maybe he won't have to lie down for him.

Question: Who do you think would logically make sense to get over on HHH?

You blame Vince, and I'm not saying you shouldn't, but that doesn't excuse HHH's backstage politics. Not at all. He's Nero, playing his fiddle as Rome burns. HHH should pick up a bucket and try and put out the fire instead of worrying about himself.

Hmm...

You make nice points, but I'm still trying to figue out how you are argueing with me?

Who would it logically make sense for HHH to lose to? Well, take Flair away and it would make sense for him to lose to a lot of guys. Now that he turned into a heel again, he has been barely coming out of his mathes alive. (you can disagree if you want, but come on, HHH's last title run reminds me of when he had chyna cheating for him EVERY match, he hasn't went over fairly in a long time)

As for being ready for a push, where did I say Jericho is not ready? Where did I say Jericho was not ready? In fact, I said Jericho IS ready... people who I feel who aren't ready falls into the category of.. say, A-Train.

Oh, and I remember Jericho's title run... VERY well.

WARNING: I'm about to cross the line between the time where I didn't give a damn about backstage politics and if a guy gets a push or not

Lets just put it like this... I used to HATE Jericho, and at the time time, I used to LOVE HHH. Back then, if I had a gun, and I met Jericho, I would have shot him. I hated everything about him, and even worse, he was champ. He wasn't a guy I loved to hate too, he was a guy where when he came on I took a bathroom break or changed the channel. I liked him in the WCW, but soon after he enterd the WWE it turned to hate.

Now, from what I know now, that was a good thing... maybe. Me crosing the line of changing the channel was bad, but hey, he was and could have been one of the biggest heels of all time. In my book, as far as my personal distaste for a wrestler at the time before I cared about backstage crap... he was the most hateable wrestler I have ever seen.

Now, is that good? No. If were still as big as he could have been, I think I would be completly turned off to the WWE right now.

Also, you say I think HHH is a good champion... I think he's not the best champ, and not even a great champ right now. But I think he's NO worse than Brock... In fact, I'd call him better (more entertaining) than Brock if you throw backstage politics out the window.

As for your rule on how a heel is supposed to lose and a face is supposed to overcome cheating, I find that to be a horrible excuse for making HHH lose. It would be a LOT worse if he won cleanly and fairly every time, and you know it.

I put it like this, if he is going to write himself in as keeping the belt, I feel he could have done a much worse job at staying a heel champ... Not to say he's doing a great job staying a heel champ, but it is still better than what it could have been.

HHH looks very vunerable, unlike our friends Mr Lensar and Mr Goldberg... an unbeatable face vs a Heel who doesn't lose but looks weaker than most championship contenders.

[nWoCHRISnWo]

I think The Strangler thought you meant that Booker and Jericho weren't ready for a title push, and then wrote all that out... I agree with his points, nonetheless.

And to add my opinion on whose the better champ between Triple H and Brock, well, I don't know exactly because wrestling is "fake." I mean, one could say Brock is a better champ because he is a "real" athlete and brings prestige to the belt, while one could say Triple H is the better champ because more people know of him right now. But just for entertainment value, I think Brock is a lot more entertaining then Triple H is right now. They both suck on the mic, even if Brock sucks more, it doesn't matter because Triple H's talking isn't entertaining either. And in the ring, Triple H has had maybe one good match this title reign (well, counting when he held the title the last time too), while Brock has had a lot more good matches IMO. I also like Brock's program with Angle tons better than I liked Triple H's feud with Nash right now, and Booker and HBK before that.

[Professor S]

Yep, I thought you said they weren't ready. My bad. The way the power levels are right now, I think Booker and Jericho are the best bets to go over HHH.

Man, I should read a little closer before going off on my tirades...

[TheGame]

Originally posted by nWoCHRISnWo
I think The Strangler thought you meant that Booker and Jericho weren't ready for a title push, and then wrote all that out... I agree with his points, nonetheless.

And to add my opinion on whose the better champ between Triple H and Brock, well, I don't know exactly because wrestling is "fake." I mean, one could say Brock is a better champ because he is a "real" athlete and brings prestige to the belt, while one could say Triple H is the better champ because more people know of him right now. But just for entertainment value, I think Brock is a lot more entertaining then Triple H is right now. They both suck on the mic, even if Brock sucks more, it doesn't matter because Triple H's talking isn't entertaining either. And in the ring, Triple H has had maybe one good match this title reign (well, counting when he held the title the last time too), while Brock has had a lot more good matches IMO. I also like Brock's program with Angle tons better than I liked Triple H's feud with Nash right now, and Booker and HBK before that.

Personaly, I liked the Angle/Brock feud a lot more than any of HHH's recent feuds too. But right now, from the last four weeks of Raw vs te last four weeks of SD, I think HHH has simply out-preformed him.

the funny part is, people now are useing the same excuse for Brock that I used for HHH around 4 months ago, nobody to carry him in a feud. Brock just has a lot of guys on SD to eat for lunch, and nobody who I can even imagine beating him (w/o outside interference) at this point.

Every time Brock gets on the Mic and says "Here comes the pain" I get embarrased for him because he sounds very stupid. But I will admit, his in-ring preformance is better than HHH, but if you get me more excited about a match, it enhances how good it is.

I wish I would have never read a WM spoiler with Angles neck, or never heard about the Big Show feud before this last PPV. It really takes the fun out of a Brock match. (Even though the same could be said for HHH and goldberg, but he avoided being in an obvious winning situation by having a tag match)

But it's all just opinions anyway... no true facts when it comes to somthing being acted out, just what you or I like to see more.

[Professor S]

I thought the Brock/RVD feud had all kinds of possibilities and the crowd thought so too. Evidently Vince didn't... RVD is from ECW right? Thats what I thought, too.

The biggest thing contributing to the lack of ratings and interest now, though, is that the WWE has gotten back to how they were before WCW. Raw is now only used to build up PPVs, and its getting more and more obvious that this is the formula they are using. Remember when world titles changed on Raw? That doesn't happen anymore. Without competition the WWE has become apathetic and is content to use their TV shows as commercials and hype machines for their PPVs, and people are catching on. No one watches the TV, because they know that nothing really big is going to happen. Goldberg was unveiled, but did he wrestle right away? No, they held off until a PPV.

The WWE reached their heights because they treated almost every Raw like a PPV, because they had to beat the competition to survive. They need to get back to that mentallity, or we may see them seeing audiences like those in the early 90's again very soon.

[TheGame]

Originally posted by The Strangler
I thought the Brock/RVD feud had all kinds of possibilities and the crowd thought so too. Evidently Vince didn't... RVD is from ECW right? Thats what I thought, too.

The biggest thing contributing to the lack of ratings and interest now, though, is that the WWE has gotten back to how they were before WCW. Raw is now only used to build up PPVs, and its getting more and more obvious that this is the formula they are using. Remember when world titles changed on Raw? That doesn't happen anymore. Without competition the WWE has become apathetic and is content to use their TV shows as commercials and hype machines for their PPVs, and people are catching on. No one watches the TV, because they know that nothing really big is going to happen. Goldberg was unveiled, but did he wrestle right away? No, they held off until a PPV.

The WWE reached their heights because they treated almost every Raw like a PPV, because they had to beat the competition to survive. They need to get back to that mentallity, or we may see them seeing audiences like those in the early 90's again very soon.

I agree... in the late 90's Raw felt like it was a great show on it's own, now it feels more like some type of advertizing tool for PPVs. Well, it has allways been that way, but now it just seems even worse.

I really think turning the world title into the main story on both shows is kinda killing the shows too... It feels much more like an orginized sport than it did in the late 90s.

Another possibility for rating drop-offs could be that the fans are afraid of change... Think back to when WWE first started skidding,it's like Vince just kept making more and more changes and the shows fell deeper and deeper into a hole.

For myself, I think knowing too much backstage and behind the scened info is making the shows worse to me. I think I would have liked WM even more than I ended up liking it if I didn't care if HHH won or not, and if I didn't know Angle was going to lose no matter what. Little bits of info kills the shows at times for me personally, but that won't explain the ratings.

[nWoCHRISnWo]

And bringing in guys like Goldberg and Steiner, both of whom (wow, I can't believe I used the word "whom"... does it even fit there?) got the crowd to turn on them in their FIRST MATCH in WWE certainly doesn't help anything.

Didn't Vince used to make fun of WCW for having a bunch of old guys as their biggest stars? Now WWE has the same old guys but they're give years older...

And I kinda disagree with TheGame in one point, that being I believe that the world title should be the main focus on both shows. When feuding for a title, the main reason for the feud should be because the challenger wants the damn belt, that's why it's there in the first place. Start with that very simple formula, and then there can be added agendas as the feud carries on. If there's gonna be a feud between two guys because they used to be old friends and now have split, then don't make it for the damn belt. It seems like every feud now is for the stupidest reasons, or for no reasons at all. (Ie. Hogan/Vince, this feud is also a prime example of my second point.)

They really need to make the titles mean more than they do right now. I remember when Bret Hart wanted HIS IC Belt back, and his match with Piper at WM8 seemed to meant so, so much. Razor Ramon was screwed out of his IC Championship, and he wanted to prove he was the real IC Champ and he had a classic with HBK in a Ladder match. Then there were also matches like Austin vs Bret at WM13 (well, most of that whole feud) that weren't for the belt, and it worked perfectly. The story was that Austin was the new big thing, this tough SOB, had no respect for anything, and he thought babyface good guy Bret Hart was a piece of ****, so he said so. Bret comes back, and they have an awesome feud while the World title was in a different feud because it wasn't needed here. Then I also remember when number one contendership matches meant so much to me. Like in 1994 (I think) when there was a battle royal on Raw, and Razor and Rick Martel were the last two standing.

Now I just don't give a **** about title matches or number one contendership matches. They're all predictable (not just for people who read wrestling news on the internet either, any idiot knows who'll win most of the matches in WWE), or built up badly. In short, I want matches that mean something.

That's more of some of my good memories of wrestling than it is a thought out idea, but hey, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

[TheGame]

Well, I'm not saying to throw the world titles out of the windows as a form of a big story, but at the same time there HAS to be some type of escape from it.

I'm just tired of the double main event one-on-one matches for the belt, it just gets old. What happend to having a huge feud for the hell of it? I mean, there doesn't allways have to be that prize to push feuds.

What happend to factions? Ok, nWo failed miserably, but with Steph and Biscoff being so closely involved with the story I think they could at least pull off some type of faction with power. Bring back the corperation, do some cross brand fighting, do more trading between brands... SOMTHING.

I just feel the world titles aren't worth as much because they are split up... now they mean 50% of what the old WWE championship used to mean. When you had the belt before, you were at the top of the hill, and there is only room for one up there. Brock and HHH both look like they still have somthing to prove. This is why I hate the split to begin with... but I don't want to go off on that subject again.

I don't know what could help ratings now, there is just going to have to be some new Superstar to come up, or, WWE may go through a dark age again until it gets some competition with some huge financial backing.