So at my house, we got MTS and i was browsing the channels and came to channel 1528 and low and behold, wwe network free preview. Pretty cool stuff, went to parents house, they have shaw and switched it to 225 and low and behold, wwe network but no free preview. My dad told me it's because Shaw are A holes but yeah.. Anyone gonna get this channel? I'm thinking about it, 11.99 a month, lots of footage, archived stuff, get to watch NXT, lots of history on that channel it seems, plus pay per views are included in that 11.99 a month. Say what you will but if a fan of wrestling, 11.99 for all that stuff plus a pay per view which goes for like 50 or more bucks on ppv, Not a bad deal is it? 

 

 

And Wrestlemania is coming up this Sunday too, not sure how many wrestling fans there are here but anyone gonna check it out? I haven't watched as religiously as i have in the past but do enjoy me the big 4, gonna say 3 cuz survivor series has sucked recently but do enjoy watching the big 3 PPV's (rumble,mania,summerslam)

 

and hell, it's only gonna cost 11.99 this time i think. Instead of the 50 bucks, Gotta make that decision to order the network soon i think, unless the free preview on MTS is all this month. 

Sheamus in the main event will do that 

Sportsnet360s been playing alot of old best ofs, if this is what the wwe network provides, I might be interested. So far watched top 10 ladder matches, wrestlemania rewind and great rivalries between ric flair and ricky steamboat.  Sooo much better then todays stuff bagawd

39 minutes ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

Sportsnet360s been playing alot of old best ofs, if this is what the wwe network provides, I might be interested. So far watched top 10 ladder matches, wrestlemania rewind and great rivalries between ric flair and ricky steamboat.  Sooo much better then todays stuff bagawd

Those are all network shows. And each one is a series. For example the great rivalries also has Cena/Rock and a couple others I can't remember. 

The WWE List with the top ten has a ton of episodes. 

Beyond The Ring is the documentaries that are on many of their dvd releases. 

i also recommend Monday Night War which is a several part series about the war and its really good. 

But it yeah all that content is on the Network. 

Im watching the monday night wars right now, very good watch so far.  I miss the old razor ramone tho

Anything with Sheamus in a  main event ... click. Nothing endearing in his character. Nothing to cheer & nothing to boo. Boring. 

On 25/12/2015 at 11:35 AM, Taynted_Fayth said:

Sportsnet360s been playing alot of old best ofs, if this is what the wwe network provides, I might be interested. So far watched top 10 ladder matches, wrestlemania rewind and great rivalries between ric flair and ricky steamboat.  Sooo much better then todays stuff bagawd

Just watch the wwe network on Kodi

Watched the 92 Royal Rumble on the WWE Network a few days ago. Ric Flair won the RR that year. What a phenomenal worker he was & just a great wrestler. And he was in his 40's at the time a little past his prime but still better than most guys in that ring 10 years younger. 

WTH kind of opening sequence was that on Raw Monday night with Vince, Stephanie & Roman Reigns?? I've seen some bad performances & ugly storylines but that was one just about hit bottom. With Stephanie screaming, I just turned it off & never watched the rest of the show as it was so embarrassing. Three hours of Raw has now become unwatchable & I seldom watch from start to finish now. Anymore like the **** they threw at us in the opening segment of Raw I'll stop watching completely.

Vince and Roman were ok. Steph was way over the top tho. 

The only thing that makes it entertaining is Vince as a performer. And his willingness to be insulted. He has now been called old, shrivelled, senile, geriatric etc. Hilarious. Watch his face when Steph calls him geriatric.  

Imagine of Steph or Hunter were willing to be insulted like that.  

So the NYPD was inundated with phone calls from people thinking vince was really arrested. 

Ratings stayed strong for vince. But how long can they keep using him....

It's 3:20 AM and I just saw a former TNA/WWE wrestler get creamed by a monster roided up BJJ champion at Rizin championships...

Japan is awesome!! 

 

8 hours ago, Brandon said:

It's 3:20 AM and I just saw a former TNA/WWE wrestler get creamed by a monster roided up BJJ champion at Rizin championships...

Japan is awesome!! 

 

Did you happen to watch the Sapp/Akebono "fight"?  I can't believe I stayed up for that garbage.

I gave up at the intermission I could not stay awake any longer.

I did watch the next day on YouTube... I'm guessing the massive delays on fixing akebonos cut was to give them both more time to gasp for more air?

It's sad that Akebono Sapp 1 was the most watched mma fight ever in Japan.

Great article :

 

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-wwe-dying-and-how-to-fix-it/

7 hours ago, Brandon said:

Great article :

 

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-wwe-dying-and-how-to-fix-it/

Im not sure who that writer is.  He makes some good points but misses on a few others.

 

Quote

Some time around 2008, the WWE switched its content from beer, cursing, blood, and ass to a TV-PG rating. Wrestling fans love to speculate as to why that happened, but there's no single underlying reason.

There is a single underlying reason.  WWE wanted to broaden it's appeal to sponsors and clean up its image as it became publicly traded.  PG vs PG14 is not the reason for the lower ratings.

 

Quote

In the industry (and for hardcore fans), championship titles mean one thing: This is the person the WWE has marked as the company's highest standard.  Let's go back to 1999, when WWE hit their highest ratings. Because of the Monday Night War, both companies had to constantly surprise the audience.  That year, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship changed hands 12 times. Six of those times happened on regular TV.

In 2015, the title changed hands four times (two of which happened in the same pay-per-view). Of those four, exactly one happened on RAW.

 

I would agree that suspense and surprises are an issue.  But thats more to do with the creative and not how often they switch the titles.  At one point WCW switched their World Championship 20 times in 35 weeks.  It devalued the title and lowered ratings.

 

Quote

#3. There's Something Modern Wrestlers Don't Understand About Their Roles

He goes on to say that heels dont behave like heels did in the attitude era (ie. Austin).  This isnt about modern wrestlers not understanding their roles.  Its modern creative writers not understanding the heels' roles.  The writer used Alberto Del Rio as an example pointing out he was a good heel and a lousy face.  That's true.  But Del Rio is one of the biggest international stars there is.  He knows how to be a face and a heel.  WWE doesnt.

Quote

#2. The Divas' Division Is An Afterthought

This is sort of a yes & no.  It's not so much an afterthought as it is passe and poorly written.  Considering the amount of time and energy invested in the women in NXT and the time invested in the women on RAW since the "revolution", the division most certainly is not an afterthought.  But its sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.  They book it poorly but give it time...the audience rejects it...WWE says 'see, the fans dont care about women wrestling'.  NXT proves they do.  Its just lousy writing and passe characters and booking.  When Sasha and Charlotte were called up, they should have dropped "Diva", replaced the purple butterfly belt and de-emphasized the Bella's.  Instead, Nikki is John Cena's girlfriend so they retconned the angle to be a revolution started by the Bella's who were presented as the shining example of top notch women's wrestling.  Bad, bad booking.

Quote

#1. The Man Running The Company No Longer Understands His Audience

All heat is good -- it means the fans are giving a **** enough to get mad. The absolute worst reaction a wrestler can get is cold, dead silence.

Here are the average TV ratings for RAW for the past seven years:

2009: 3.57
2010: 3.28
2011: 3.21
2012: 3.00
2013: 3.01
2014: 2.95
2015: 2.65

Mostly yes.  Vince is 70+ years old and stubborn.  Its probably true to say he's less likely to relate to an 18-35 year old demographic than he was even 15-20 years ago.  Vince's performance on RAW when they put Roman over shows he still understand how to get someone over.  But the biggest issue with Vince is his reluctance to change creative.  And its weird because switching out bookers every so often was a staple of the pro wrestling business since long before Vince was around.  But that's the issue - WWE isn't pro wrestling.  It's sports entertainment and Vince sees them as an entertainment conglomerate akin to Disney.  So they add more and more creative members. 

When WWE exploded in the 80's the booker was George Scott.  Then Pat Patterson.  When WWE ushered in the Attitude era, the bookers were Vince Russo & Jim Cornette (with a few "lieutenants" like Pat Patterson and Bruce Prichard) with McMahon as the final word.  Cornette was eventually dropped and Russo became head writer (bringing in his own lieutenant Ed Ferrara).  When Russo jumped ship, Chris Kreski was promoted to head booker and was booker of record during WWE's highest rated and profitable time.  Kreski was replaced when Vince promoted Steph and she ushered in the era of Hollywood writer and ratings began nose-diving.  In every other era, when Vince would have made changes, he simply wouldnt when it came to Stephanie.  And I think that once he got past the idea of never changing creative, its become a scenario where where they simply dont see it as a creative issue.

But it is a creative issue.  So the whole article would be more accurate if it had one category and simply said "Creative sucks". 

Local boy continues to make good.  #2 wrestling in the World (behind only WrestleMania), New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom at the Tokyo Dome:

KENNY OMEGA VS. KUSHIDA FOR THE IWGP JR. TITLE

Great match, with Kushida turning the One Winged Angel into a Kimura and then a cradle for the pin to win the title.  Kushida wa great here and Omega did a tremendous job of selling the left arm during this match.  The Bucks interfered helping Omega.  Ryusuke Taguchi came out as Doc Brown from Back to the Future with Kushida.  The Bucks took him out early with a double superkick.  He came back and took out the Bucks with garbage can shots.  Both did big dives and suepr crisp wrestling.

AJ Styles also lost and I suspect he's entertaining a WWE offer.

The traditional heel and face roles just don't exist anymore.  Fans will cheer whoever they want, regardless of good guy or bad guy.  Look at Kevin Owens.  He's a heel but people love him.  Is that good or bad?  I'm not sure.  Times have changed.  Ask 10 fans what WWE "should" be doing and you will get 10 different answers.  Ask a month later and you get 10 different answers again.  It's so easy to say Creative sucks when you don't actually have to be accountable to your own suggestions.  Meaning WWE fans in general, not you TUP.

5 hours ago, Atomic said:

The traditional heel and face roles just don't exist anymore.  Fans will cheer whoever they want, regardless of good guy or bad guy.  Look at Kevin Owens.  He's a heel but people love him.  Is that good or bad?  I'm not sure.  Times have changed.  Ask 10 fans what WWE "should" be doing and you will get 10 different answers.  Ask a month later and you get 10 different answers again.  It's so easy to say Creative sucks when you don't actually have to be accountable to your own suggestions.  Meaning WWE fans in general, not you TUP.

In the "old" days creative was probably mlore accountable. Three guys sitting around Vince's pool is easier to not only build upon each others ideas but to argue and point out problems. Now if faceless writer #24 provides a bad segment he just moves down the pecking order for a few weeks. It's been a long time since any senior writers were replaced. 

Reharding heel/face it's always been true that fans cheer who they want.  It's only recently that wwe stops clearly defining those roles and muddying the waters and being defensive when the fans don't react the way they want. 

Ric Flair was often cheered all over the world when he was the #1 heel in the business. Hogan was boo'ed out of wwe in 92 and most of his run in WCW.  Undertaker was turned on 92 based on the cheers he received. Sid was always cheered. It's always happened. And it's a good thing really. 

12 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

 

AJ Styles also lost and I suspect he's entertaining a WWE offer.

WWE announced today they have signed AJ Styles. 

    In a surprise move Monday, WWE have reportedly signed former IWGP and TNA Champion AJ Styles, former IWGP Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson away from New Japan Pro Wrestling

Edited January 5, 201610 yr by The Unknown Poster

And watch Styles be assigned to NXT. Samoa Joe should be on the WWE main roster. Instead we have Social Injustice. All failed mid card heels. Can't make it on their own so they have to be in a group. The New Day may have sucked, rocked, sucked in 2015 but these guys??? I predict lightning won't strike twice with them. If any of those 4 were dropped by WWE, they'd never be missed.

Edited January 5, 201610 yr by iso_55

So, Show now is a face? Heel, face, heel, face. More changes for that guy than a Chamellion in the sun. After awhile it doesn't matter anymore.

I imagine AJ will report to NXT first although making his debut at RR would make a lot of sense too. They didn't want AJ a year ago. But they need talent for NXT. Whether it makes them change their mind on AJ as a top talent remains to be seen. At his age they need to strike while the iron is hot. He could be a Bryan-level fan favourite. 

Jericho's return was flat and boring. Social Injustice is awful. New a Day is passé.  Roman still isn't very good but Vince bumping for him speaks volumes that they won't give up. 

I listened to the Jerico-New Day exchange & wow all 4 of them seemed to be reading right off of script. Flat is absolutely right.

Nakamura is a bigger Deal than styles IMO 

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

Nakamura is a bigger Deal than styles IMO 

I dont know...probably not in North America.  He's the current New Japan IC Champion which is sort of a big deal.  Word is he will drop the title before leaving (unlike Alberto Del Rio).

Thing about Styles is, he's doing the best work of his career right now...he'll be 39 this year.  WWE made him a low offer a year ago.  Suddenly they have interest because of their need in NXT and Styles work in New Japan.  I think Samoa Joe helped pave the way a bit too because Aj Styles isnt the same unless he's AJ Styles and that was a huge WWE no-no.  But they brought in Joe as Joe.  AJ has to be AJ.

Given the fact they signed Gallows and Anderson, I have a sneaking suspicion they might be doing the Bullet Club group in NXT.  They've been pushing "Balor Club" and they were annoyed at the Bullet Club co-opting the nWo mannerisms.  So it wouldnt surprise me to see Balor, Aj, Gallows and Anderson as the Balor Club and possibly "invade" RAW.

A lot of people think Nakamura will flop in WWE.  They have a hard time with Japanese workers.