Serious thread. No console wars please.

What actually killed the buzz?

>>18176144 (OP)
bloodline fizzling out. WWE making the same mistake WCW dod wotj tje NWO. creating offshoots that stink.

>>18176144 (OP)
Triple H ran out of Vince's storylines to continue

>>18176144 (OP)
They seemed to have busted the final nut with "finish the story"

>>18176144 (OP)
rickson by armbar

>>18176144 (OP)
Woody?
Idk
Haven't watched the new Toy Story

>>18176144 (OP)
Nick Khan and Ari sold Netflix on the idea that their boomer audience would follow them to streaming and they haven’t at all

hhh can't book

They have no actual dime drawers, save a few that are aging out soon. Even top guys like Seff are shitters that no one would miss if they fucked off forever. No one has any real rizz and the most glaring thing is that almost all wrestle the same match. The Nose needs to create stars now or else things will be truly dire.

>>18176144 (OP)
Triple Paul's booking is extremely stagnant, predictable, and risk averse which works fine to maintain ongoing storylines but makes starting new ones almost impossible.
Cenas heel turn sucks and flopped. Cody is already being booed and called Cody Hogan. Seth's new faction still, after 3 months, has no reason to exist, or motivation for involved to allign. Things like Dom and Finn breaking up are made so obvious, but take so long to actually happen it ruins all interest. You can skip 4 months of programming, and you might miss one storyline

>>18176204
>"The buzz" was just some old dudes born in the post World War 2 baby boom

Booker Ts dogshit wrestling school with his dimeless flippynigs

>>18176144 (OP)
>What actually killed the buzz?
Striking while the iron is hot. Triple H is so rigid and focused on the long-term, that he once he finally begins to GET an act, the moment has past. Gable embodies this tenfold.

>Gable was getting great reactions, many felt maybe he should have been the one to take the IC title from Gunter at Mania given the storyline
>Nope, gave it to Sami because muh underdog (he won the tag titles in the Main event the other year, ignore that)
>The storyline shifts direction and Gable assaults him out of jealously. Still getting solid reactions, people even cheering for Otis to stand up to him. Instead, Sami beats him THREE TIMES. Not even a cheap DQ by Otis.
>Gable is cast aside to form a new group
>Meanwhile Zayn BEATS an equally popular Bron to defend the title, only to drop it at Summerslam (in which Bron is working mostly face)
>Bron drops the title to YEETMAN two weeks later to appease Rikishi

If Hunter was willing to lean into the reactions, Gable should have WON the title in the second Sami defence via outside help; furthered the abuse tenfold by forcing Otis to do his bidding. Bron's win over Gable at Summerslam would have had more impact taking down the smug abuser than LE UNDERDOG,. Maybe after Bron has left with the belt is when we have it be when Otis strikes Gable down rather than in a throwaway RAW segment.

It's why since Hunter has taken over, MITB has become so lame. Seth does not need the case, he can get title matches anytime. HE GOT ONE FROM YEETMAN WITHIN WEEKS OF MANIA. But he has it because Hunter hates the idea of an unpredictable outcome to a long-term storyline. We'll never have a Ziggler or Punk type cash-in again.

tranny thread

record profits lol

>>18176144 (OP)
Is Netflix it's the fact that they prioritized all of the international aspect while at the same time fucking their home audience. If you don't live in America, all you need is Netflix and you get to watch all of WWE it's basically the equivalent of the network
In America you need Netflix You need peacock you need cable you need tubi.
An America people that pay for Netflix. You know something that shouldn't have commercials in it at all. Have to watch commercials because of the way the WWE does its business now during those commercials, crucial moments are happening. They're not major but there are some story lines that if you didn't watch those commercial break segments, you wouldn't know what people were doing. A lot of things that Ludwig Kaiser was doing was all in the commercials same thing with the new day when they were at the very beginning of their heel run like they were at the top of the world. But then you couldn't see them on TV unless you watched the commercials. I made numerous calls to Netflix pleading with them but when they actually put the episode back up after it's over put the content that the American audience misses during the commercial breaks and put it on the replay. You can still put commercials there and just show people things. But no in order to actually watch everything you actually have to spend like I don't know like 22 fucking like. There's no reason that that Netflix package is the way that it is. I don't care if I want like fucking like futuristic like high def like fucking ultrasonic fucking 4K 40. I don't give a shit about that. Just want basic Netflix with no fucking commercials and I get that with everything else but with WWE so they don't want to change that either Netflix WWE or both. They've oversaturated their shows. They don't do House shows anymore but they do a fucked kind of Saturday Night main events. They're not fucking things the same anymore. 2024 they were firing on all cylinders

>>18176144 (OP)
>No console wars please.
Nah

>>18176265
>to appease Rikishi

Yeah, he really liked that 51 day title reign.

>>18176292
I would argue that 2024 was probably the best year of wrestling for WWE and their programming of this entire century so far. I'm actually really intrigued for somebody to tell me. Another year that was as enjoyable was as properly booked and just made as much sense as 2024 was and the whiplash that we get from Netflix is ridiculous. Also it's Roman also. It's like a lot of part-timers. It's a lot of bad fucking decisions. I fucking hated solo sikoa when he first got introduced. Then Roman dipped and solo made me give a fuck about him. He put in the work and then Roman eventually showed up because he wants to come back to work or they forced him to go back to work and they made everybody in the new bloodline lose them. Then they put the ulafala something that they've spent past like 5 years saying how important it is on the line against Roman and solo. I personally believe that everything would have been a lot better if Sola won because Roman won got the ulafala said that he be back on January 27th. He was not. He was just Paul Heyman advertising that Roman reigns is going to be on the cover of WWE 2K every time we've seen Roman reigns since then. He's never worn the ulafala. Then he fucks off. Roman wrested like what three times this year. The guy gets paid 15 million fucking dollars and he can barely fucking do anything like I genuinely don't like him all the people that actually still cheer for him. It it just crushes me. It just crushes me how stupid some fucking people are that you could actively be like. Yeah, I want to see the guy that never shows up and I want him to beat all the people that are there constantly and they get paid less than them. It's bad booking it's making promises that they havent kept. There's just a lot of story lines that went nowhere. One of the most interesting things of the end of last year was the new day heel turn. They dogged on big e for him breaking his neck. Down there is like weeks of them just being ignored

>>18176144 (OP)
easiest layup of all time

>>18176307
And once they went to Netflix, all their shit became during the commercial break shit and then it took him like 5 months to win the championships when it should have been what they did like a couple weeks after they fucked over Big e and then like what like a few weeks later or month later without even defending them without a new fanfare they lose them to fucking Finn and Co the Wyatt. 6. The fuck why are they still leaving a thing? You book them and like immediately you did nothing with them. I went from watching everything all the smackdowns all the raws all the pay-per-views and like actually being hyped for everything. So just I haven't watched anything really except pay-per-views and occasionally clips that interests me on YouTube. And if their pay-per-view decisions keep on ending up being the way that they are and they lead me to just not like that, I will do what I normally do when the WWE does their shit just stop watching. Stay on this message board and until you guys give me the general vibe that it's even worth looking at again, then I'll start trying to give it a chance until then. At the current moment it's a piece of dog shit that has some good sprinkled in it. I don't think anybody's going to read most of this. I done all this by text to speech. So if anything that I said sounds confusing, it's because the goddamn robot doesn't know how to fucking translate any of the words coming out of my mouth. I don't have the time to write all the things that WWE has done wrong this past 7 months, but most of the 7 months and most of the decisions that they've done in those 7 months have all been bad.

>>18176292
>I made numerous calls to Netflix pleading with them

>>18176144 (OP)
>Gaytch cooking from Vince's ideas, and then being exposed for the creatively bankrupt hack that he is
>TKO being Hebrews

>>18176292
I think Tubi is free for everyone

>>18176151
>finish the story
Yeah not gonna lie, marketing it this way was probably a huge mistake. It's pretty much signalling to the crowd "hey you can stop watching when Cody wins," which is pretty much what happened.

>>18176265
I was in the building the night Sami beat Gable in that gauntlet match. One of the few times where I can actually say that you could feel the air sucked out of the building, especially for a clean finish between two babyfaces. It's not even like Sami was hot either. Gable already had the story with Gunther and was clearly more over for a while at that point. Just a mindboggling decision.
He's done what he can with El Grande since then, but they absolutely missed the boat with that one.

>>18176144 (OP)
I still cannot fucking believe that Gaytch wasted Cody vs. Gunther on a meaningless Saudi show with zero build up, and I'm still convinced it would be the feud that would solidify Cody's otherwise dimeless reign

>>18176144 (OP)
WWE getting sold to the same jewtards who ruined UFC. Now they're making all their decisions based on profit and nothing else. They're running WWE like it's the Ferengi Wrestling Alliance. They don't care if the shows are trash or the booking is nonsensical, as long as they make money. And I'm not going to put all the blame on HHH because he's just the booker, his decisions can be overruled by quite a few other people.

>>18176317
why not try something other than WWE?

>>18176149
This. No one wants to watch “solo leading two nobodies against fatu”

>>18176342
Gable has attempted to course correct multiple times now. The reaction El Grande got when running across all the ladders at MITB shows that the people want it. If Hunters fear is he is a low-rent Kurt, fuck it. In this market, I rather a low-rent Kurt that anything else getting half-measured pushes atm.

>>18176391
Profit is the only valuable metric for a fucking company, why would they not make their decisions based on it lmfao you fucking idiot

Record profits btw

Reminder, Punk and Rollins have been feuding since Punk came back and it likely won't be resolved for another 5-6 months. No memorable promos, no good matches. Just two washed dudes fighting over nothing.

>>18176626
And it will still draw more than any AEW event.

>>18176633
I don't care, it sucks

>>18176144 (OP)
Wrestling is just dead. Both companies have their flaws. WWE is way to dedicated to being like days of our lives and AEW is dedicated to just getting paid and half assing it.

after every hot period a cold one follows

>>18176144 (OP)
Triple H getting the book.

In more recent times though WM41 was terrible. Usually WMs restore hope but the last one exposed how shitty WWE’s roster is.

>>18176265
if match results mean a lot to you then it means that the wrestling is actually shit. if someone cant lose and look great at the same time then its a skill issue.

It all started when the F was stolen from them by the panda fuckers at the World Wide Fund for Nature

any champion that needs a belt to be seen as the champion isnt really ready for it

>>18176144 (OP)
This is what’s killing it for me personally
>too many belts
>ad breaks airing over backstage segments and intros
>lack of quality of backstage segments that do make it to air. Everything is complaining to GM, interviews, or sneak attacks. Nothing memorable or exciting
>bloated rosters
>wrestling storylines have been done and repeated so many times it’s to the point where they just recycle the same shit over and over again.
>heels keeping their babyface themes
>crowds have no attention span and will go from booing heels to cheering them, and then go back to booing. No actual heat gets generated.

>>18176582
Record profits was already debunked btw. Tko is drowning in debt

>>18176144 (OP)
Jawn keeping his look and music the same.

>>18176582
if you're a consumer of entertainment you should be worried about whether you like the product or not. if you're a shareholder though then power to ya

>>18176310
It’s literally this. Jey winning the Rumble caused everyone to take a step back and realize how shit Paul’s booking is and everyone started hyperanalyzing stuff to the point where people began turning on the product

>>18176144 (OP)
Triple H's shit booking.
Jey Uso winning the Rumble was retarded. Yes, retards, I know he gets a pop and people do the yeet shit but you DON'T make him win important shit like the Rumble just to curtain jerk Mania in a dogshit match no one wanted to see.
You don't turn Cena heel then make him do the gay "THE LE FANS... SUCK!" just because you wanted to sell faggot shirts.
Triple Gay is the biggest retard alive. Anyone who watched NXT after Dusty died always knew how fucking bad his booking was.

i caught every raw, smackdown, and PPVs this year except for last weeks and that was because of 4th of July

>>18176144 (OP)
i can't even tell you what started it

>>18176144 (OP)
TKO shenanigans and Paul's horrendous booking

ive been enjoying Solos segments, and most of Seth and Bronns aswell

>>18176633
I could livestream myself taking a monster poo and it would draw more than AEW, it doesn't mean it's good content

Like others said, the vibe you're looking for is dead. The two main promotions today are both at the same time what's wrong with wrestling. One is an ad-filled entrance fest with bad actors. The other one is nerds flipping around in hour-long matches where they kick out of every possible move.

Basically modern wrestling is wrestling parody vs wrestling cosplay. You pick your poison. The closest you can find to wacky storylines that are actually believable and not some nerd shit is 2004-2010 TNA. I'm on a rewatch right now because I was on the same boat as you. It's not like WWE once was, and it's way more gory for no reason, but it's a decent fix.

>>18176626
How the fuck is Rollins washed? If you wanna see washed, watch Omega vs okada this weekend

>thread about wwe
>drones immediately defect to AEW
Genuinely what is wrong with edrones

>>18177113
>make faggot bait thread
>take cheap shots like a faggot
>it's clear you're an AEWfag who hates level playing fields
>"aew sucks and you're a faggot"
>why are edrones like this
You deserve to be shit on for being a faggot retard, it's common sense

>>18176915
WWE has nothing to do with TKO having to pay UFC's $375 million class action suit or TKO buying IMG, On Location and a bull riding group for over $3 billion. Either way, it is normal for companies to take out loans to acquire long term revenue streams similar to how a farmer goes into debt to buy a tractor to make money with. Amazon has $76 billion in debt, Netflix $15 billion, Disney $43 billion. TKO has $3 billion debt but $12 billion assets and healthy income statements and a buy rating from Goldman Sachs.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TKO/financials/

https://tradingeconomics.com/wwe:us:debt

>>18177163
pEdrone oinkin

>>18176149
Solo will never be Roman. Women don't tune in for him, and he has improved a lot, he'll never have the charisma of Roman. And Jacob is not a babyface by trade. He should be in the enforcer role for life. The new bloodline has no Jey Uso, no Sami Zayn, noone that can evoke emotion and sympathy. The new bloodline civil war shit is horrible and whoever is booking it doesn't understand the basics of what made the OG bloodline so good. And then you have Seth's new stable which is ever worse than the new bloodline.

>>18177979
HHH seems to have a thing with creating dimeless and uninteresting stables
>Judgment Day
>Damage CTRL
>Flop Dolla and friends
>Nu-Bloodline
>Seff's new stable

>>18178047
>Judgement Day
Vince era product pushed by Edge
>Damage CTRL
Bayley's intended goal was much larger and worse, I assure you
>Hit Row
You 100% got me on that. The fact he kept B-Fab and Adonis on is absurd
>Nu-Bloodline
Samoans gonna Samoan, you should have learnt this by now
>Seff's New Stable
The choice in acts weren't the best frankly. Bron with Baron is how he should be. A meathead. Not a silent killer. Legit sucks knowing Baron is gone because those two would be a saving grace to the Smackdown and RAW title scenes right now.

Bronson frankly should be in the Nu-Bloodline (given he aligned with them prior) and this spot should be used for someone far more hungry and in need of the limelight. If you are keeping Bron, replace Bronson with either Charlie Dempsey or Lexis. That way you outright have your new Evolution.
>Flair = Heyman
>Hunter = Seth
>Batista = Bron
>Orton = Dempsey or Lexis

>>18177979
Also Seth's new Shield is ass-backwards.

Bron and Bronson were doing fine on their own, in an organic way, were over doing their big spots and having good matches. Now they're two lackeys for a guy that they were mixing it up with previously. You can understand Bron and Bron being added to Seth's stable if they had no direction, or were guys coming straight from NXT, but that wasn't the case. It's stupid. HHH is not a good booker.

>>18176144 (OP)
Increased meddling by Ari and his jew cabal turning it into an advertisement for advertisements and bad Netflix comedies and UFC while also cutting costs on presentation.

>>18176149
"Time for my weekly Bloodline interference show! Maybe tonight I'll order some of that Scott's Lawn care that they show on here, must be good for my grandma's lawn. Better pick up some Wing Stop on my way home from furry night at the library. They really are the best affordable chicken nuggets with sauce money can buy. I hope Dwayne is on tonight, haven't seen him in a while he just makes me feel like the good Ole days"

I think we all know why WWE is ice cold.

>>18176144 (OP)
I can't speak for anyone. I still watch it every week but I would say the Bloodline going away was a big part. The show is ok now but it felt massive when Roman was champ for so long.

>>18176144 (OP)
Haitch is booking WWE like NXT. In other words, short term storytelling, with no plans for the future. Its why all his title runs have had no impact.

>>18176144 (OP)
last straw for me was JCW fucking with them. Proved the juggalos had best show all night.

>>18178737
The fact you started typing this retard shit out, stopped trying halfway through, still clicked post on absolute dogshit, I think it shows your thought process is 10x colder than you perceive WWE to be

>>18178157
honestly, if I were trips I would just drop the bloodline and fire most of the samoans. they've gotten far too demanding and hurt both the company and the business as a whole. Most of them aren't even particularly popular.

>>18176149
Nobody gave a shit about The Bloodline. People complained about Cena being forced down everyone's throats for years, Roman and Bloodline was that x 1000.

>>18181114
Yeah smackdown was doing almost 3 million at Bloodline's peak popularity. You're wrong.

>>18176144 (OP)
>What actually killed the buzz?
Nothing. They’re still selling out venues

>>18181341
And all they ever did was cut the same tired ass "ACKNOWLEDGE ME" promos. Roman only wrestles on PPV.

>>18181341
it's fair to acknowledge that the bloodline angle was really over for a while. Unfortunately, they didn't do a good job of capitalizing on that. Like another person itt pointed out, they made the same mistake WCW made with the NWO (not having any kind of plan for the end of the story).

>>18176144 (OP)
The fans

I don't watch it so take this with a grain of salt, but its what I noticed:

People like the Bloodline faction, but it ended I believe or has been diluted with no-names. Either way it's gone from my social media.

The John Cena retirement tour has been underwhelming. I don't see anyone happy with it anymore, and haven't since not long after it began.

Explosion of commercialism on the on-screen product (ads in the ring, etc.) and in ticket prices. People are buying the tickets obviously but it inevitably prices out a chunk of the audience.

There are too many shows and events. I don't even know how many there are anymore. There's two sub-NXT level shows if I'm not mistaken. There are both too many tv shows (main roster, nxt, sub-nxt, reality shows) and events in general.

The Rock is not active.

Time has passed, and people realize whatever they do not like about the current product is here to stay and can't be attributed to Vince.

This one is out there but I met a guy at a bar on a business trip who watched WWE. He was a total normie, and not super into wrestling but watched occasionally. He told me seeing the Wyatt Sick or whatever debut made him embarrassed to watch it. They are incredibly cringy to anyone above the age of 12 so I understand that, and feel like others probably think the same.

>>18176144 (OP)
The crowds are still hot and the shows haven't reached Vince levels of awful yet or anywhere near AEW's awful gay fake shit. Sure they were hotter before the last two Manias. The bloodline and Cody stories got momentum at the perfect times. The Cena stuff has been up and down more than you will admit. You just want it to be all bad because it didn't meet your expectations early on and now you are just ready to shit on everything. The original turn, R-truth return, and the pipebomb rehash were all legitimately great moments

>>18182233
>The original turn, R-truth return, and the pipebomb rehash were all legitimately great moments
holy grim. the bar is so low.

>>18182158
Oh, I forgot, from the outside it seems like they're heavily dependent on the old heads to pop ratings and help draw crowds. Orton, Killings, CM Punk, etc.

The only young guy I can think of who is over is Rick Steiner's son. Maybe Trick Williams. Women seem to be in better shape in this regard.

It also seems like for a company with such a large developmental program they are becoming somewhat dependent on bringing in younger talent from AEW who are essentially already over by virtue of coming from AEW.

>>18182233
>the pipebomb rehash were all legitimately great moments
LMFAO

>>18182233
>The original turn, R-truth return, and the pipebomb rehash were all legitimately great moments
pEdrones are subhuman

>>18182233
>The original turn, R-truth return, and the pipebomb rehash were all legitimately great moments
opinion discarded

>pretending the original turn was bad
Damn i get being contrarian but this is a just dogshit take. Sorry he didn't end a cool heel with a leather jacket, I can't believe you are still crying about that shit.

>>18182483
it was never followed up and lead to Travis Scott being in the main event of Wrestlemania. everything went downhill since that moment at elimination chamber.

>>18176144 (OP)
HHH is the least creative booker ever.

>>18176144 (OP)
The talent has to somehow get over in spite of the shitty booking instead of the booking helping them. Which almost none can. No interesting segments or feuds. The same generic story where the heel interferes with face and then the face interferes with heel and then they have a match. Everytime

>>18182501
the dogshit main event is the dogshit main event and the turn was the turn and the turn was based

>>18182606
it didn't mean anything. even as it happened it was retarded.

selling out to Endeavor in 2023, then moving to Netflix and plastering ads all over the mat
you marks never saw it coming

>>18176214
seth could die tomorrow and we'd be better as a species.

I mean, Cody finished the story- that’s it lol. Everything after is kind of like when a good show goes past season 4- now we wait for the next story but in the meantime they’re doing great business the crowds still hot still popping on tiktok and social media- they’re fine guys.

The only worry is, does anyone trust Helmsley to make any new stars as Cody gets older and Roman makes his exit?

>>18176144 (OP)
Wrestling going PG
No interesting fun over the top larger than life characters
Thinking the wrestling matters more than the characters and story
Flippy bullshit doesn't draw outside of for the small base of smarks
way to many manlets
most modern wrestlers are pansy ass faggots both in and out of the ring
Social Media has exposed wrestlers for faggots that most of them are
No effort in trying to keep kayfabe

>>18176395
I cant watch new japan live and I cant get invested when everyone I care about gets poached by AEW and occasionally WWE.
All other wrestling that isnt WWE or NJPW is gay and lame or joshishit thats just not for me.

>>18176144 (OP)
Once the momentum from the things that began under Vince ran out, people realized HHH has no idea how to book, has no creativity and takes no risks. He just books for return/debut pops and that is it.

>The whole bread and butter of wrestling is that two men put on a staged fight with thrilling twists and turns. Each individual in said staged production must act and respond as if the fight were real.

>Modern wrestling is so bad that said people will get clobbered by pipes, ladders, wrenches, chains, go through announce tables, get speared through cells, have faces rubbed on cages, etc. but never look or act hurt.
>Modern wrestling is so bad that people will be hit by a flurry of moves, and neither be dazed or confused, or even bothered, springing right back up to then get there moves in.
>Modern wrestling also has no gimmicks: everyone is an athlete who also happens to wrestle. They're all just varying degrees of one another. It's just people, acting like themselves, when throughout history of the show, the gimmick was important.
>None of the "superstars" of current WWE feel larger than life like the ones of old did.
>You could have Stone Cold v Kane v Undertaker v Triple H on a Monday for a belt. Now you only ever see title changes at 3 PPVs per year.
>Stories blow, nothing has legs or momentum, things are just abandoned or stopped talking about.
>People also lack distinct music. Outside of 5 people, everyone elses shit sounds so similar that nobody can tell who is who.

>>18176144 (OP)
Me

>>18176144 (OP)
Long title reigns and repeated matches

>>18177101
Did you start watching this year ? Rollins has dropped off massively in the last 5 or so years.

Smarks will die alone on the hill and never acknowledge the fact that Based Big Dog was a dimes drawer the moment he turned heel.

Then they overextended their welcome and dragged the Bloodline thing for too long.

>>18176144 (OP)
Hhh

>>18181402
In-ring nonsense is by far the least important part of wrestling

>>18176144 (OP)
the ads, internal drama between hunter and tko, dwayne, and the fact that aew is finally getting interesting again

Paul

>>18176144 (OP)
Hmmm let me see well the show has been completely unwatchable since HHH took over... Must be the wind

>>18186082
>the fact that aew is finally getting interesting again

This is also a factor. I feel way more interested in the death riders vs hangman shit than anything WWE has going on right now and that’s knowing Mox is probably going over cause tonedog wants Darby to be champ when he returns.

>>18176229
>Cody is already being booed and called Cody Hogan
No, he's not.

>>18176921
any fuckup cena makes as a heel is correct because he's Ruining Wrestling

>>18177003
That's true. Dusty was long gone when that shitty ending to NXT brooklyn happened.
That moment was when NXT's momentum just fucking died.