Official Monday Night Nitro 12-5-16

Besides being too long, I didn't think RAW was nearly as bad as people are acting. Sure I would like for Bayley vs Charlotte programs to continue, and I was hoping Nia Jax would attack Sasha during a celebration. But I enjoyed the Enzo/Cass/Rusev/Lana bit. Cruiserweights had good matches. IMO Zayn vs Owens will never get old. Tag storyline could have been better. Y2J/Roman was entertaining. Show returning was a surprise of sorts.


As far as Roman goes, he their new superman. WWE always has one or is looking for one. Hogan, Warrior, Austin, Rock, Cena, and now Roman. It's Vince's formula. Has been for 30+ years, so I'm not sure why people are acting surprised by it now.

Charlotte vs Sasha = Cena vs Orton. YEAH I SAID IT!!!!

The hotel attack on Enzo was great and I'm intrigued to see where it goes from here. My ultimate dream scenario is that they book Rusev and Shining Stars against Enzo/Cass and a mystery partner with Angle returning.

I know its far fetched but goddamnit I just want to see Angle return in Pittsburgh at Roadblock.

lol

Nice spelling

I thought raw was good

I get what you're saying....but comparing Roman's rise to Superman-dom to those guys is just wrong. Roman is 100% Vince....the rest of them were started organically and they said "ok we need to run with this"

Hulk Hogan was in the right place at the right time, in an era when people still believed Wrestling was 100% "real". He was a larger than life, hero...who was ADORED by the fanbase. He was built like a brick building and had the power of the WWF machine fully behind him. Fans didnt care about booking or storytelling, they wanted to see big muscular guys destroy the evil bad guys.

Brings me to Warrior....Warrior was the anti-Hogan. The "cool guy" who people were completely enamored with. He was flashy, energetic, and juiced out of his mind. Again, in an era when people didn't know someone was writing stories. Warrior was legitimately a large-than-life persona. They tried de-throning Hogan with Warrior, but Hogan was too powerful. And then it all ended with contracts, and the company was stuck with a bunch of good, but not great, personalities. They tried filling the Hogan void with Bret, HBK, Diesel....all were pretty major flops as "#1 guys"....and then comes Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Austin was completely out of nowhere. He was supposed to be the ultimate bad guy, but in a time when the WWE was in dire need of stars, they realized that the kids who had been watching during Hogan's era were now teens/adults and they wanted their guy to be someone who destroyed property, flipped off his boss, and drank beer. Austin's popularity was completely unplanned, but when they saw how the FANS reacted, they went all in and created the biggest star almost ever, he's at least #2....some would say #1. Austin's reign at the top was ended by injury, not by their choosing.

Rock is to Austin as Austin is to Rock. They tried creating a vanilla white toast babyface in Rock and NOBODY bought it. So they made him a cocky heel, and his TALENT on the mic combined with very good wrestling made him what he was. He didn't have a big run on top, kind of like warrior, but he was not ever forced down the fans throats. He was entertaining as all hell, and unanimously loved once his character got rolling. Then when Austin kind of cooled off...it was Rock's time at the top, but he got into a movie and Hollywood came calling so he left the fans high and dry for greener pastures.

They went through another down period where they tried to hand the company over to Brock Lesnar, but he spit in their faces and because he didn't like to travel, he left....which leads us to John Cena.

Cena came out of nowhere too. Cena was a prototype (no pun) mid-card geek. A white guy, rapping...wearing sports jerseys, and padlocks. His schtick was corny as hell, but he had moments where he was hilarious. He was built up from the beginning...he had a nice US title run and was a popular mid-card guy for a couple years. When he won the World title....EVERYONE was going nuts, because here was a home-grown guy finally getting his big moment. It was earned through hard work and FAN support. Everything that happened afterwards was the fact that the WWE refused to let anyone in Cena's spot and to be honest, he never gave them a reason to. He never fully left, he never really got hurt. And when they were trying to distance themselves from things like chris benoit, and go to a more family friendly type of show...Cena was THE perfect guy. The adults still watched, the kids love him...it was literally the best possible outcome. Forget about how much the landscape of wrestling as a business has changed the last 10 years.

The indy fanbase grew and we got "our guy" CM Punk in what we thought was the next spot....but that turned into a complete mess.

Now we have Roman.
A guy who was brought up as the 3rd member in a group. Who people enjoyed because he was a powerhouse kind of guy....but he really had no character. Then all of a sudden...during every Shield match, Roman was the pin guy. The commentators started talking about how amazing he was, almost like the other 2 guys weren't even there. He was getting ALL the focus, ALL the attention. And everyone was like "oh they are just trying to build this guy up because Ambrose & Rollins are so good"

All of a sudden, Reigns is winning like every match, he's getting the chit kicked out of him then coming back hitting a spear and getting pins. He's turning into an unbeatable super-hero before our eyes....but NOBODY WANTED THAT. We wanted Roman as a guy....but not THE guy. He's not good enough, he's not likable ,he's not relate-able, there is literally nothing that connects him to those other guys you brought up. The difference is force. None of those other guys were forced. Reigns has been purposely forced at the fans because it's what the WWE wants. Sure they wanted Cena, they wanted Rock, they wanted Austin....it's good for business, and maybe their own tactics were what made the fans want those guys too...but if you look back and think back to how they all happened, they at least were sold as being "accidental"

If you look at the roster today....not one single guy is booked the way Reigns is. He rarely loses, even when he does it's never "clean". His matches have become the exact same formula where he's getting beat up, takes 15 power moves/finishers, kicks out, hits one spear and gets the pin....and the commentators sell it every single time like it's the most incredible thing they have ever seen. It's completely unbelievable. Especially when the entire rest of the roster look like chumps compared to him.

Reigns has been handed Rumble wins, Wrestlemania main events, Multiple title wins...he's already a 3x WWE Champion! and this is all with enormous fan backlash. they think that its cool and cute, because people are mad and the fans are just "crazy and having fun! man that Roman....nobody gets reactions out of the WWE Universe like him!!!!" but its legitimate.
Kids don't care, they just want to see big guys beating up other big guys. But people dont seem to realize that the MAJORITY of the WWE fanbase is males 18-49. It always has been, and it always will be. And a majority of those guys don't want to see another 10 years of Roman Reigns "overcoming the odds"

He's not Austin, he's not Hogan, he's not even Warrior or Savage or HBK or Batista. And he's NOT Cena.

There are 10 other guys on the roster currently that the fanbase would actually get behind the kind of superman push that Roman gets. But instead we are treated on a weekly basis of the rest of the roster being 50/50 booked to oblivion, and Roman looking strong.

I don't disagree with anything you said. All I'm saying is Vince is going to find someone to beat us over the head with. If it's not Roman, it'll be Balor. It'll be Rollins. It'll be Cena... again. Whomever he thinks will make him money, he will force feed him to us till we either gag or swallow it. It's nothing new. It's the way WWE has been since I started watching in the early 80's and I'd be willing to bet it'll be that way for the foreseeable future.

Point I'm making is, it blows my mind that people are acting surprised Roman is kicking out of situations they feel he shouldn't. Don't like it if you don't want. But certainly don't be surprised by it. Because history has shown us, that is how Vince thinks he can get his top guys over.

Point about Vince is spot on. He is always going to find "a guy"....but it just boggles my mind how stubborn they are with Reigns, where as I dont think anybody would complain if someone like Rollins, or Balor, or even Ambrose....was getting the treatment Reigns got

my point in all that was just even though the formula has been the same....the guy at the center of all of it was WANTED in that spot