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Sheamus was a lost opportunity for the brand and Owens. Shea mus wouldnt even had needed win or lose it could of been interrupted by Orton, Cesaro, Rusev. etc.

Instead Owens Walks out of the Rusev fight and then goes clobbers a defeated Cesaro.

I keep seeing reports that cena makes Rusev, Owens and Cesaro look better than they are.
is that the plan for their next generation.. seems like a bad one.
I took a long break from wrestling. Owens was one of the guys that got me back into it.

Hopefully this is just a temporary approach to Owens since he still has a nxt title fight coming up on the NXT takeover.

This article points the finger at Kevin Dunn who is allegdly in a power struggle with Triple H and Stephani Mcmahon.Apparently Dunn doesnt like Nxt or any of its products.

http://www.inquisitr.com/2270095/ww...-fail-why-did-he-tap-out-at-wwe-battleground/

Im sure Owens reputation from ROH didnt impress Dunn Either
 
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Tornicade said:
I keep seeing reports that cena makes Rusev, Owens and Cesaro look better than they are.
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That, to me, is just a ridiculous statement. Owens has been great in damn near every match he's fought in since coming to the WWE, and Cesaro has plenty of great matches other than his Cena bouts as well.
 
Jack Brickman said:
The problem is that Cena isn't putting anyone over. Having a good match but still winning in the end is the opposite of putting someone over. Letting a younger guy win is putting him over. What Cena is doing with his repeated feud wins against young guys (who almost invariably win the first match, then lose several follow ups) is burying them. They start out the feud strong, but then just keep losing and losing and losing until they look weak.

Owens losing by tapping out was the epitome of this. When he started his feud with Cena, he looked like a total badass. He beat Cena clean and just looked like the better wrestler while he did it. Then he lost clean. Then he fucking tapped out, which made him look like a bitch. Owens was on the perfect path to being a great heel. A guy who could be a total dick on the mic but back it up by being dominant in the ring. Then he ran into John Cena and, as Cena is wont to do, he made him look like just another guy.

The same thing happened to Rusev. He was being booked very nicely, then he feuded with Cena. Now Rusev is lost in mid-card hell in some terrible love story feud with Dolph Ziggler that he's basically destined to lose. Rusev went from being a dominant up and comer to a guy no one gives a shit about any more. They even removed the valet who helped make him into a great heel and turned her into a face even though she's spent the past year talking shit about America and praising Russia.

And the problem here is that Cena is in a position where he can afford to take a loss, but he never has to. If Cena loses a feud, it means absolutely nothing to him. The kids will still love him and they'll still buy all of his terrible t-shirts. Cena could lose ten matches straight and he'd still be able to headline PPVs. That's why it's so insane that the WWE protects him like they do. Hell, if he had lost the belt to Owens, he could have changed the US Title open challenge to the John Cena open challenge and never even skipped a beat. Cena can take that loss and still believably win any match for the next five years, but to Owens it was devastating.

Cena is at a point in his career and status where the WWE should be using him to put over the next generation of talent. Obviously he shouldn't lose every feud, but he should certainly lose some of them, especially to guys like Owens who could easily be main event talent right now. The issue is that he never loses any of them, and they're all the fucking same.

I saw someone joke that Cena should be called the Undertaker, because he's buried more guys than anyone in the business. :chuckle:
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Again, until Owens or Rusev can sell $merch$ and headline main events like Cena can, if they ever can, you're just headbutting a wall. I'm not arguing against anything you're saying (although I dont view wins and losses as very important at all in the 'sport' we're discussing), I'm arguing for the company's point of view.

I'm sure countless conversations have gone on in WWE creative meetings that went along the lines of 'John Cena's character arc is really stale' followed by the powers that be replying 'his merch this year is worth $X million, the latest WWE video game with him on the cover is worth $X million, and the PPV he just headlined made $X million... why would we change a thing?'

Until it starts affecting the box office, Cena will be Cena, and fans with your point of view will hate it. I just cant knock the business decision, that's all.
 
jlegg21 said:
Again, until Owens or Rusev can sell $merch$ and headline main events like Cena can, if they ever can, you're just headbutting a wall. I'm not arguing against anything you're saying (although I dont view wins and losses as very important at all in the 'sport' we're discussing), I'm arguing for the company's point of view.

I'm sure countless conversations have gone on in WWE creative meetings that went along the lines of 'John Cena's character arc is really stale' followed by the powers that be replying 'his merch this year is worth $X million, the latest WWE video game with him on the cover is worth $X million, and the PPV he just headlined made $X million... why would we change a thing?'

Until it starts affecting the box office, Cena will be Cena, and fans with your point of view will hate it. I just cant knock the business decision, that's all.
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The problem is that you can't expect guys to sell merchandise like Cena if you don't spend time building them up. That's one of the main reasons that WWE sucked for a good decade after the attitude era. They had a couple of stars who they rode as hard as they could at the expense of developing the mid-card guys into stars of their own. If the WWE continues to ride guys like Cena and Orton at the expense of everyone else, they won't have anyone to sell merchandise whenever Cena eventually calls it quits (or gets hurt, or moves on to starring in Hollywood movies like the Rock).

Beyond that, Cena's merchandise will continue to sell well regardless of whether he loses a feud. Kids aren't going to stop buying his shit because he got beat a couple of times. In fact, it might actually help him, as folks generally love an underdog. Steve Austin was as popular as he was because, even when he was champion, the odds always seemed stacked against him. That's what made Daniel Bryan's Wrestlemania win last year so epic. He had to overcome "legitimate" obstacles to even get into the main event, and then he had to fight two guys who were more than willing to team up against him to keep him from the title. What obstacles has Cena had to overcome lately? It's not terribly exciting when a supposed face goes into every match as the favorite to win.
 
Ever since Cena won the US title, he's actually been incredibly watchable. Steen made him step his game. There last few matches have been great. The one this Sunday was phenomenal.

Complaining about how the US/World titles, recently, have been booked is absolutely futile and makes me laugh. I'm deeply concerned for literally everything else, though. Sheamus is absolutely awful. He's had, tops, seven good months in his career on the main roster. He can't talk. Miz versus Show is awful. Tyson Kidd getting broke by Samoa Joe ruined the tag division. NXT? Super watchable, though. The first and last thirty of raw? Plus when Cena is on? Super watchable.

And unless there's plans to debut someone to be on Rollins side in the inevitable HHH feud, Sheamus will be taking that belt and making Raw unwatchable. I hate everything to do with MITB. It's the most overrated match of the year, and it rarely goes to good use with furthering a SL. Rollins, of course, being an exception.

Paul Heyman, though, might be the best person to ever cut a promo, bar none. Magisterial.
 
Yeah I really have no idea why they had Sheamus win that briefcase. It should really only ever be used to further the career of a young guy. That's why I hope he ends up in a match with Owens with the briefcase on the line. It would actually make the MitB case interesting if Owens has it.
 
Owens has done quite well in regards to Merchandise since he left ROH for NXT.

Alot of Steens fans have followed him over.

The guy is very marketable.



On a side note I read that TNA was letting contracts expire and paying by appearance. That will have a few of them possibly willing to got NXT. May be a reason why they moving over so many guys from NXT into WWE rather quickly
 
Jack Brickman said:
Yeah I really have no idea why they had Sheamus win that briefcase. It should really only ever be used to further the career of a young guy. That's why I hope he ends up in a match with Owens with the briefcase on the line. It would actually make the MitB case interesting if Owens has it.
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What would need to happen to make Shamus be willing to put the MITB on the line
 
On a different note, I was thinking about something earlier. Who the hell is the top face in the WWE right now? I honestly can't think of anyone. Lesnar is probably the closest, but having an unbeatable monster as your top face is problematic for obvious reasons. Lesnar really should be a heel, but since Rollins has the belt and is the in-ring face of the Authority, Lesnar becomes a face by default.

It's not Cena, even though the WWE will try to force him down our throats at Summerslam. Cena gets far too many boos to be considered the top face. When Austin or the Rock came to the ring in their primes, you didn't have half the crowd chanting that they sucked. Ambrose probably should be in the top face role, given how much pop he got when he "won" the title a few months ago, but the WWE seems to forget that he even exists for months at a time, and he didn't even fucking wrestle at Battleground. They tried to force Roman Reigns on us, but after that backfired he's been relegated back into the mid-card and is out of the title picture for now.

Who else is there? Orton is popular enough, but he's not in the main event picture right now. Ziggler is a mid-carder. That's really all the big faces I can think of off the top of my head. Bryan was obviously that guy when he was healthy, but he hasn't been healthy in a long time and they haven't really gone to great lengths to replace him at the top of the card.

While I'm on the subject, the heel situation isn't ideal either. Rollins is clearly the top heel right now, but he just doesn't draw the kind of heat you want from your top bad guy. He can't generate anywhere near the level of hate that Triple H or Stephanie can, and that's a problem since neither of them seems all that concerned with making the fans hate them. The WWE is at its best when there's a strong villain, and right now they just don't have that.

WWE really dropped the ball by not turning Brock heel on Sunday. They should have had Triple H come out with his sledgehammer while Seth was getting beat up, changed the match to a no disqualifications match, and then promptly turned on Rollins and leveled him with the hammer. Boom. Brock becomes the new face of the Authority, the crowd turns on him, and you have an actual enemy in the business again.

That would then allow a true face underdog to emerge, which is the kind of guy they really need right now.
 
WWE has a problem, Lesnar can be one of the best heels the company as ever seen if they use him that way. He'll beat every piece of talent you throw at him, and when he's close to calling it quits you pick the guy (face of course) to take him down. I don't like Rollins to be the star studded face. Whoever straight pins Lesnar will be the man and forever be worthy.

I really don't see anybody worthy right now. Before (not this era) you had a ton of guys that could steal the show. Their's no Austin's, Rock's, Hogan's, Savage's, Warrior's, HBK's, Hart's, Undertaker's, HHH's.... I know I missed a few.

These group of guys now are all intercontinental type wrestlers compared to them named above.

Could you blame creative? Sure you can. Could you blame the wrestler himself? Fuck yeah you could. Razor Ramon came up with his own gimmick, as did Austin, Rock, etc. The Undertaker was probably a manufactured product. But it was easier back then because it was Attitude.

Wrestlers these days have shitty gimmicks, most can't work a mic or a crowd for that matter. I'm still waiting for that perfect persona, gimmick, moveset, finisher, pretty much the next big thing not named Brock Lesnar.

Some may say that everything has been done so its hard to come up with different shit.
 
That's why I really don't understand the move to turn Lesnar into a face. The biggest, baddest motherfucker on your roster shouldn't be a good guy. He should be reveling in the boos of the crowd. Lesnar needs to be a member of the Authority. He needs to be the guy they send in to destroy the guys the fans love, which is why it's frustrating that he's wasting one of his few yearly matches on a fifty year old Undertaker. I know fans love the Taker, but that match is basically face/face.

Daniel Bryan seemed to be the perfect candidate to catch lightning in a bottle and become the company's top face. It really is a shame he can't stay healthy. The main event picture could look so much different if he had never gotten hurt

I've been a little disappointed at how the Authority has just kind of disappeared into the background, too. Triple H and Stephanie are both masters at generating heat, but they're mostly just not getting involved right now and it's leading to a rather boring main event picture. The WWE is always at its best when the WWE itself is the villain. They need to get back to that.

I'd also like to see Rollins wrestle in a few matches where he actually gets to wrestle. He's really good in the ring and he almost never actually gets to show that. I get he's supposed to be the coward heel, but that doesn't mean they can't put him up against some lower-card guys in non-title matches from time to time and let him go to work. I feel like hardly anyone ever wrestles in non-feud related matches on televised shows, and they need to get away from that a bit and occasionally pair up some guys who can put on a good show.
 
Yeah I agree with everything. WWE is bending over for Taker right now as he pleases, they figure their is nobody worth fighting Taker and he wants to wrestle so they have to respect it. Well it will draw the big bucks. But why couldn't it be a title match at least with Brock teamed with Authority and go over dirty with interference from a HHH sledgehammer?

And I say that because I do not want Cena shoved down my throat holding the US and World Heavyweight belts. That is WWE Network cancelling type of shit right there.

They obviously want to hold off the epic buildup of Sting/Taker for Mania.

Writing is so horrible right now, creative has been a problem. Sheamus has the briefcase and he's a type a guy that should lose when he cashes in because nobody has 0 interest in watching him hold the belt.
 
That's why I truly don't understand the decision to give the case to Sheamus. Does he have some dirt on Vince McMahon that keeps him relevant? As far as I can tell, and granted I wasn't watching WWE when Sheamus started out there, he's mediocre in the ring, can't really talk, and doesn't exactly look like the Vince McMahon ideal superstar. His ceiling should be mid-card heel with that array.

I totally understand their decision to scale back on Roman Reigns as a main event guy after he bombed at the Rumble (and would have been booed out of the stadium and Mania had he won the belt), but that case really should have went to either him or Ambrose (who wasn't in the match, I know, but still). They could have easily given Reigns the briefcase and kept him as a mid-card guy for a while to earn his cred with the fans and had him cash it in six to eight months from now when he's gained some ability in the ring and on the mic.

I want to know why Ambrose isn't being given more of a push. His gimmick sucks, but he's good in the ring and he's solid on the mic. He just had a title shot like a month ago, but now he's being demoted to Reigns' sidekick. It just doesn't make sense.
 
Watching NXT, man WWE should just cut their loses with Eva, she terrible all around, I'm sure they got tons of good looking girls lining up that bring more then her.
 
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