WWE is fast becoming worse than WCW circa 1999-2001

[cero2k]

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- Matt Showalter of Prescott Valley, Ariz.: WWE is fast becoming worse than WCW circa 1999-2001 & TNA. Raw's return of The Authority show was very depressing. You could sense it from the live crowd and see it in the face of the wrestlers, too. Why continue to denigrate talent? They did it on this episode to Sting among others. They should have kept Stephanie off TV for several months and not bring back Hunter at all. He's dragging her on-air persona down. She's dynamic and versatile whereas his character is dull and demeaning.

WWE has been been booking against the will of the fans for some time. It seems as if McMahon/Triple H are against it if the fans are for it. They've pretty much snuffed out the potential of Ziggler, Cesaro, Ryback, tag teams, and they're close to scuttling Ambrose's top card capability, too. Plus, they do little to nothing to elevate minorities, relegating them to low-to-mid-card status afterthoughts. Monday's show even put Seth Rollins in a weak light with The Authority as his daddy and help from Kane & J & J Security.

The three-way for WWE Title at the Royal Rumble negates having the MITB briefcase, which is one of their major PPVs. WWE is perishing creatively. However, hopefully another couple of wrestling organizations will elevate to watchable status.

- Kevin Hall: If I wanted to watch Nitro, I'd put on the WWE Network. This Raw was like one of those NWO-dominated, masturbatory Nitros that are just a big f-u to viewers. Instead of Bischoff/Hogan, it's The Authority. The total lack of live crowd response should send a big blaring stoplight to Vince McMahon that the product sucks. Instead, it's the s.o.s.

- Chris in Parkesburg, Pa.: The all-time stupidest, predictable ending to the all-time stupidest, predictable show. 20 years ago, WWE had what was arguably the WORST talent pool in history (The Goon, T.L. Hopper, Henry Godwinn, Waylon Mercy, Diesel, etc.) and the matches on Raw were STILL better than this schlock.

Dead crowds, matches we've seen before and care about less and less, plus The Authority storyline which has been played out in ALL promotions is just plain boring. Plus the thought of Roman Reigns main-eventing WrestleMania and possibly Bray (YAWN) Wyatt against The Undertaker at 'Mania is vomit-inducing. The Road to WrestleMania may start in Philly, but it's gonna dead end before it hits San Francisco if the show doesn't improve. Thank God for Lucha Underground and NJPW when it arrives on AXS TV in two weeks.

[Big Red Machine]

Lot of negativity here, and I don't agree with most of it.

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- Matt Showalter of Prescott Valley, Ariz.: WWE is fast becoming worse than WCW circa 1999-2001 & TNA. Raw's return of The Authority show was very depressing. You could sense it from the live crowd and see it in the face of the wrestlers, too. Why continue to denigrate talent? They did it on this episode to Sting among others. They should have kept Stephanie off TV for several months and not bring back Hunter at all. He's dragging her on-air persona down. She's dynamic and versatile whereas his character is dull and demeaning.

Personally, I enjoy Hunter as a heel. While I won't deny that the announcers will bury the talent and that is very bad, complaining about Hunter calling Sting a "painted up goof" is utterly ridiculous. HE'S A HEEL! He's supposed to say things like that. It pissed you off that he showed such disrespect to the Icon, Sting? GOOD! That's called "heat."

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WWE has been been booking against the will of the fans for some time. It seems as if McMahon/Triple H are against it if the fans are for it. They've pretty much snuffed out the potential of Ziggler, Cesaro, Ryback, tag teams, and they're close to scuttling Ambrose's top card capability, too. Plus, they do little to nothing to elevate minorities, relegating them to low-to-mid-card status afterthoughts. Monday's show even put Seth Rollins in a weak light with The Authority as his daddy and help from Kane & J & J Security.

Can't argue that WWE has been booking against the fans wishes, but I don't think that they have killed the potential of many of the names on this list. How many times have we said that about Dolph? And yet he still always stays over. He's not like Zack Ryder, who was a fad. He's like Bryan: a guy who is too talented to keep down forever. As long as Dolph keeps having great matches, the fans will keep pulling for him.
Same with Ambrose and Cesaro. Ryback a bit less so, but if use and misuse of Mark Henry over the years has taught us anything, it's that it is easy to make a monster if you just keep pushing him like one for a while. Would I have booked these guys like this? No. I would do more to keep my wrestlers stronger and protect both wrestlers and matches (cheap plug for my fantasy booking, available in the Wrestling Fantasy subforum), but the idea that people won't get behind a guy like Cesaro once he turns babyface and starts getting a push is silly.
The idea that tag team wrestling has been irreparably buried is equally silly. All you need are some good teams and some real focus on it. Hasn't that been the entire story of the last six months of 2014 in TNA?
On the minorities thing... look: It's REALLY hard to push a guy as "the Insert Minority X Here Superstar" nowadays. I know that that is how Vince Sr. used to do things and I know that it has worked more recently with Rey, but it doesn't work most of the time nowadays. Look at Del Rio. They made him the Hispanic hero and put him against racist babyfaces in main events for the World Heavyweight Title and for whatever reason, it just didn't work. Furthermore, I think that pushing someone too hard that way, even if it works with the target demographic, causes resentment with the rest of the fanbase, unless the guy you are pushing really is good enough to be in that spot.

As for Rollins- again- HE'S A HEEL! You had two choices with the match they booked. Either you let Ryback get beaten or you have Rollins get beaten. Doing it the way they did protected Ryback while letting Rollins get heat by running around bragging about how he beat Rbyback.

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The three-way for WWE Title at the Royal Rumble negates having the MITB briefcase, which is one of their major PPVs. WWE is perishing creatively. However, hopefully another couple of wrestling organizations will elevate to watchable status.

Why? He doesn't lose MITB for getting the shot. Why can't the guy with MITB earn a title shot some other way? It's happened before and no one screamed about it.

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- Kevin Hall: If I wanted to watch Nitro, I'd put on the WWE Network. This Raw was like one of those NWO-dominated, masturbatory Nitros that are just a big f-u to viewers. Instead of Bischoff/Hogan, it's The Authority. The total lack of live crowd response should send a big blaring stoplight to Vince McMahon that the product sucks. Instead, it's the s.o.s.

Okay, there is a big difference between these two things. Nitro was nWo all over the place because Hogan, Nash, Bischoff and whoever else wanted screen time. What WWE did tonight definitely focused on the Authority a lot, but it was in the service of telling a larger story. The Authority is back and they are now going to wreak vengeance upon Team Cena. It's the same idea as last week when Edge was all over the place in order to set up the segment at the end of the show. They used those segments to build up his injury and Cena's respect for him, so that it didn't come completely out of left field when Rollins used it against him.

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- Chris in Parkesburg, Pa.: The all-time stupidest, predictable ending to the all-time stupidest, predictable show. 20 years ago, WWE had what was arguably the WORST talent pool in history (The Goon, T.L. Hopper, Henry Godwinn, Waylon Mercy, Diesel, etc.) and the matches on Raw were STILL better than this schlock.

Predictable does not mean bad, (see my standard Disco Inferno wanted Lance Storm and Mike Tenay to be Martians example), and I didn't even think this was that predictable. I honestly didn't see the firings coming.