While I liked RAW last night I think it really brought into focus for me 2 big issues with the booking in WWE.
1.) They pay no attention to long term booking and what I’ll call transitive property in match results. By this I mean they just had Bliss and Cross win the tag titles. Cool they are an interesting act I think they will get the titles on TV which is a net positive. However why are they getting a shot? Just last week they lost back to back to Becky, and worse at Extreme rules they lost a handicap match to Bailey. So what that says is your tag team champions cannot beat a top singles wrestler 2 on 1. I mean WWE has a history of this with tag teams where they are clearly below singles stars (almost any time 2 top singles stars team up they beat established tag teams.) But it just makes the whole division look dumb. I see the same problem with the Goldberg v Dolph match. Assuming Goldberg crushes Dolph what does that say about all the wrestlers that he has been facing?
Which brings me to 2.) Legends are portrayed as straight up better than new talent. If you look at sports people always compare eras. Could Jordan beat Lebron? Is Brady better than Montana? But we rarely get to see these matchups or if we do it is either a passing of the torch where the older guy is on his way out and no longer in his prime, or an established star against a brand new talent. But it is pretty rare, so people question who would be better. In WWE we are not only frequently given the answer that Jordan is better than Lebron when they face one another, but he is better 10 years past his prime when Lebron is 28 and he is 50. So we get the message that not only is Jordan better, he is so much better that if they had faced one another when Jordan was in his prime it would have been a blow out. If legends come back IMO it should largely be to put over the new guys. Have a great match, show that you can still go, but take the L. Or get destroyed and be saved by a young baby face, or just to build up the new young monster. I mean imagine the Dolph match if Goldberg Spears Dolph but before he puts him away say Lars Sullivan hits the ring and just dominates Goldberg (or something similar). That would make Sullivan as a monster heel. Giving a win to Goldberg in 2019 does nothing for anyone except maybe to pop a rating.
The entire women’s tag division is a mess. The belts are not needed at all. And why were they taken off of Banks and Bayley? The Iconics have devalued the belts completely and really it’s just a division for people to waste time in when they can’t figure out other things to do. Like why was Sane even called up? She’s done nothing. Asuka is also being wasted.
Disagree about the Ziggler/Goldberg thing. I could see if it was a young-ish guy being beat, but Ziggler is 39 and has already lost to basically everyone. He’s not a guy they need to protect. Goldberg should squash him and then eventually build to putting over a younger babyface.
I mean it is not just Goldberg it is older guys in general. I’d be fine with Goldberg crushing Dolph getting killed if Goldberg then built to putting over a younger talent. But that is likely not what is going to happen. Just look at his last run. Beat Brock, enter the Rumble, best Kevin Owens, lose to Brock. What young guy did he put over?
This also goes back for me to the transitive property thing Dolph was just in a 50-50 feud with Kofi one of your top faces. So if he gets crushed what does that say about Kofi?
I do agree the screwed up the women’s tag division. For me it is largely that they never actually defend it in 1 on 1 tag matches(4 times, only once on PPV) most of the time it has been in multi team matches. Putting it as the prize in the elimination chamber was terrible, then it isn’t really even tag wrestling. They should have had a tournament for it, that way the individual teams get built up instead of just throwing people together for one night. I will say last night they booked the Iconics wrong, when they won the belts they largely avoided being in the match until they could win…last night they started in the Ring and fought, which was against their characters.
When Jericho was there putting over young talent…people were saying “why even bring him in? Everyone knows he’s just going to lose”…
Doesn’t matter what they do…someone’s always going to have a problem with it…and since I don’t care about Ziggler, I’m fine with him getting tossed around by an old man…like Charlie Murphy once said “I GOT ONE LEFT BITCH!”.
It is a bit of both if a guy loses all the time; beating him doesn’t mean much so for guys like Jericho who is on the regular roster it is a bit different than it is for one off legend returns IMO. The ultimate goal of older guys if they are on their way out should be to build up the next generation.
Meh I’m fine with how Mysterio is being used right now for the most part. He should be near the top of the card at his age.
As it says these are my issue, I’m sure others love legends coming back and winning and hate it when they lose. I just think when they win it makes the current guys look lesser and thus we have no big stars.
With Mysterio my thing is - why bother signing the guy in the first place? They have a billion other luchadores under contract that could do the exact same thing Rey does for them right now.
Because he has a known name. Which is back to the original issue of relying on legends. Mysterio is the only Luchador that has ever really gotten over in WWE so they stick with him instead of anyone new.
I can understand that if he’s put in a showcase match, but when he’s jobbing to Samoa Joe or Lashley in under a minute it makes no sense to use him. I just remember how fresh he felt in Lucha Underground. Most of this should be on Mysterio - he should know by now that WWE will misuse him.
WWE is using him (booking be damned) so no one else can. Dude is a draw, if he’s not drawing at other companies he is doing exactly what the WWE wants.
He has been used erratically, but not horribly, he has had some good matches and portrayed as a big deal. As for the mentioned matches I’m at the point where when someone gets a midcard title I assume WWE is going to screw them up while they have it.