To me, it rarely felt like there was any progress at all, either on the house shows or on TV.cero2k wrote:the two things i saw myself explaining the most last year was that matches had already been signed/announced or that such and such said something in a promo. I think we that follow show by show, it's easier for us to follow since we see the progress on how they book shows, but when watching TV for instance, the Castle vs Young was suuper disconnected because you were not seeing the progress each show. Or for instance, I still have no idea why Shelley tagged with ACH and Sydal at Final Battle.Big Red Machine wrote:With the exception of the Vegas show (and particularly Kyle making Lethal tap), I thought they did a good job of making sure that storyline-relevant stuff from those shows did air on TV. Maybe the Elgin "face turn" in Amarillo should have aired on TV, too, but that whole storyline was so poorly-executed that the whole idea that Elgin turned face during that match almost seems more like something fans have found to better explain the storyline than it does something that was put there by the booker for the purposes of it being important to the story... but that all just shows how poorly the house shows are being used: the hardest of the hardcore who watch every show still aren't clear on exactly what events have led to some important storyline developments. It's like Delirious is telling us "this is the general gist of what is going on" but then doesn't fill in the details. We understand what they are trying to get at, but it doesn't feel as genuine. It's exposition rather than a series of events we see for ourselves.cero2k wrote:I can't disagree with anything there, all year last year I was under the idea that any non-named show was feeding the TV show. This is also helping me understand some people I know that have a lot of trouble following ROH just with the TV/PPV
No one can figure out what the reason for the ACH vs. Sydal series was because there was no adequately explained reason. Just some side comments from the announcers about so many different little things that I can’t remember most of them (I think at one point they said there might be some jealousy there, and a another point they said that ACH wanted to prove himself against a veteran and then there was something about one of them not being sure if he could count on the other or not). There was nothing leading up to it, either on the house shows or on TV.
Castle vs. Silas felt disjointed because there was no progression of any kind. Silas won the match so the Boys had to go with Silas. Then the Boys turned on Silas and went back with Castle. There was no attempt to show us how sad Dalton was that he didn’t have the Boys (the announcers mentioned it maybe once, but there was nothing done through promos or through Dalton’s actions, which means that Delirious never told Dalton to anything like that or booked him in a way that let him show that- and I’m confident in blaming this one on Delirious because no matter what you think of Dalton Castle, you can’t deny that the man knows his character), nothing done to show us that the Boys might be having a change of heart and might want to stay with Silas, or at least might want to try earning his respect.
As for Shelley teaming with Sydal and ACH, I assumed it was because he doesn’t like the KRD and they also have issues with the KRD (stemming from the SOTF match) so he wanted to team with them to fight the KRD. That being said, there is really no excuse for him not to cut a promo about it. It wouldn’t even be hard, either. ROH is the place for honor and the KRD winning via interference is dishonorable and has no place in ROH, so Shelley will even go to war with his best pal in order to stand up for the company that put him on the map.
I think that this total lack of a clear explanation is a sign of an even bigger problem. I think Delirious is relying too much on the emotional punch of the moment as something that will make up for poor storytelling. He thinks we will be so angry or shocked that Adam Cole turned on Kyle O’Reilly that we’ll overlook how stupid the whole “it was an evil plan all along” explanation is, or that everyone will be so shocked by the reveal that Alex Shelley was the guy who screwed the Addiction of the tag titles and is now standing face to face with Chris Sabin that he doesn’t think he’ll need a good, logical explanation for why Shelley screwed the Addiction and why he felt the need to hide his identity while doing so
He thinks we’ll be so happy that the Boys are back with Dalton that we won’t question why they are allowed to back to him now, or why they just cost him a match a minute before rejoining him.
It’s very…. Russo-esque, to use a scary word. He seems to think that we will just kind of accept the status quo that we are told to accept without thinking about it. ACH hasn’t done sh*t all year aside from lose a feud to Adam Page, but we’re telling you he deserves to be an All-Star, so you should all believe us. It also explains why the televised part of Elgin’s face turn was just the announcers telling us that #BigMike has turned his life around and has turned over a new leaf as opposed to doing anything to actually show us this transition. And that’s not good. It’s the sort of thinking that allows you to ignore wins and losses (especially at house shows) because whatever someone says on TV should somehow trump the things we see with our own eyes and the logical conclusions we should come to from them.
The more I think about it, the more clear it becomes that this is exactly how Delirious approaches things: the pop of the moment is the most important thing, and people will believe that they are told on TV without thinking. Look at the booking of the California/Lockport weekend (California especially):
The Addiction start off the show with a solid tag team win, then cut a promo demanding that they get a rematch for the tag titles, which is something they are 100% entitled to. Then, in the main event, they job cleanly to the Briscoes, who have mostly been wrestling singles matches this year. Why? Because in Delirious’ mind, it’s more important to get than random pop for a Briscoes win from which the Briscoes gain nothing than it is to keep your presumptive #1 contenders to the tag titles strong. It also explains why a lone Matt Jackson got to completely get the best of the Kingdom so many times that weekend: Because the random pop for him superkicking Cole and Taven or beating Taven is more important than doing anything that could actually be used to build heat in the long term.
That is the exact sort of thinking that leads you to too many turns and too many swerves and too much overbooking, and that is the exact opposite of what ROH is supposed to be about.