Re: The Official WWE Thread - Part 13 - BRYAN NEW CHAMP YES! YES! YES!

[Onyx]

It's interesting that WWE is handing out the "Cesaro section" signs to fans in the crowd even though Cesaro's supposed to be a heel. The plan is to create the idea that the fans want Cesaro turned while he stays with Paul Heyman and doesn't actually turn, all while giving the impression that there is a groundswell on turning him babyface.

Basically they are trying to create a Daniel Bryan situation on their own this time. There's been speculation that this will lead to a Cesaro vs. Brock Lesnar match.

[Onyx]

WWE trying to force something that happens naturally.

[Onyx]

Regarding Cesaro and Paul Heyman not coming out to theme music, that's the plan for now but only short-term. WWE is working on new music for Cesaro but the feeling is that not having music is a talking point for him.

[Onyx]

Dean Ambrose is currently 10 days away from having the longest WWE United States Title reign since it became a WWE title. Ambrose is currently at 333 days and MVP has the longest reign with 343 days.

[Onyx]

The hardest thing to do in professional wrestling right now is to be a successful babyfabe. Unlike being a heel, the standard for what gets it done as a babyface has changed so much over the last few decades that to be a major success, a performer must be almost completely unique to the fans in order to gain success.

For example, let's take what made Hulk Hogan, arguably one of the best babyfaces of all-time, did and see how it translated to such success. Hogan had a great look and physique, he said all of the right things, preaching hard work and dedication, and he was booked as being nearly invincible. If that same character came along today, would the fans accept it the way the fans of the 1980s accepted Hogan? Absolutely not. We would call him boring, repetitive and vanilla. The standards for what got Hogan over three decades ago are just so vastly different than what they are today.

The standard for heels, on the other hand, hasn't changed nearly as much. Let's take someone like Ted Dibiase, a heel colleague of Hogan, and how he was successful. Dibiase as an arrogant, conniving, cheater who used his wealth to scheme his way to many a victory. His character of a rich aristocrat would be a little cheesy now, but overall, his actions would still make him a successful heel.

In modern times, the wrestling fan has become so much more sophisticated that we can longer just accept a guy as a favorite because he doesn't cheat and he says all the right things. No, we need someone that is wildly entertaining on the microphone, with a great catchphrase, and someone that can walk the fine line between comedy and drama that gives us everything we desire when it comes to watching wrestling. If a heel is charismatic enough, he can just cheat, insult his opponents and the fans, and he will get over enough to be in the main event. It takes someone truly special to be a face.

Something that is very important in wrestling today, and sometimes I don't think promoters and booker realize this, is the best faces become popular organically, and not because they are pushed as being these great good guys right from the get-go. The two biggest success for WWE over the last few years have been CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. What do those two have in common? They were both heels right before they became big-time faces. Bryan and especially Punk were so popular as heels, and fans were rooting for them more than they were cheering for the so-called faces, that it only made sense to turn them storyline-wise, into faces.

Contrary to Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, there are the faces that WWE basically tells us that these guys are going to be faces, and they then proceed to shove them down our throats. Sheamus is a perfect example of this. Sheamus is a decent talent, but so far, within his character, there is not a lot for fans to really support. He is simply just an Irish guy that likes to fight, and since he beats up heels and high-fives fans on the way to the ring, we are supposed to accept him as being a face.

A problem WWE has had is that they fail to let their characters grow organically sometimes. Sheamus is someone that WWE most likely believes that if they show him enough, have him do all these promotions and advertisements, and have him beat enough heels, that eventually he will get over with all of the fans. Sheamus has his group of fans, but I hardly think that he is over as much as they would like him to be. He reminds me a lot of Lex Luger, who WWF really wanted to be a top star in the company, but his character was just so shallow that no matter how hard they tried to push him, he was never going to get over as a face.

The future of babyface wrestling is going to come from guys like Punk and Bryan, guys whose popularity stems outward from their personalities and not just because they beat on heels and because they always say the right thing. The era of the anti-hero created a greater parameter for what a babyface can do, and that is what is needed in today's wrestling culture.

Right now, within WWE, there a few stars who are destined to be big faces. In addition to Bryan and Punk (whenever he comes back), there are two guys who I fine to be future faces, who are currently not at the main event level. The first guy is Cesaro. Similar to Punk and Bryan, Cesaro is a heel who is getting a lot of positive reactions from the crowd. Cesaro is arguably one of the five most popular wrestlers in WWE, and they have only begun to reach his potential. Cesaro broke up with Colter and Swagger, and aligned himself with Paul Heyman, who is by far the most natural heat seeker in the company. Cesaro is still going to be a heel, but his relationship with Heyman can only last so long, as his popularity is going to continue to climb now that it appears that WWE is behind him again. Eventually, WWE will have no choice but to turn him face, and away he will go.

The other star is actually Cody Rhodes. Going back to when he was still heel at Money in the Bank 2013, Rhodes, for some reason showed why he can be a major player in WWE. The match was a seven-way ladder match, and every single wrestler in the match, Rhodes, Damien Sandow, Antonio Cesaro, Dean Ambrose, Fandango, Jack Swagger and Wade Barrett, were all heels at the time. The match was pretty much open for anyone, yet it was Rhodes who became the crowd favorite. Rhodes was so over that it would end up launching his face run with his brother Goldust. At Money in the Bank, Rhodes got the most organic of face reactions from the crowd, and with his ability at his age, the sky is the limit for him.

Finding a face to get over in wrestling today is so difficult, that when someone shows up that gets such a natural reaction from the crowd, that it is inexcusable for a company not to capitalize on it. Something promoters need to learn is that, whether they want to admit it or not, they actually have very little control over who ends up being the top guys in the company. The roar of the crowd is what decides who is over and who isn't, and who is going to do business for the company and who is going to flop at the box office. Booking and promotion can certainly help (or hurt) a faces popularity, but the major factor in deciding who is going to be a top face is how they connect with the crowd, and some guys naturally have that while others do not.

[Firenze]

Dean Ambrose is currently 10 days away from having the longest WWE United States Title reign since it became a WWE title. Ambrose is currently at 333 days and MVP has the longest reign with 343 days.

dat prestige.

WWE trying to force something that happens naturally.

I'm shocked. It's not like this has been a proven successful formula throughout their history.

[Onyx]

Trying to make a heel look like a face has never been a successful formula.

[Firenze]

Thought you meant pushing Cesaro.

The fans already cheer Cesaro like a face, but so long as he's with Heyman he won't be one, they aren't really forcing it.

[Firenze]

problem is with that though that you can't drag out something like teasing him turning face properly for a long time, people will get bored, he will have to fight Brock in a couple of months maximum and I don't think he's ready for Brock. It could elevate him though if they handle it right, I'm interested in that storyline.

[Onyx]

If Cesaro beat Lesnar.

[Tomwin Lannister]

I honestly don't see Lesnar losing in any of his next few big matches. Not after being the man who conquered the streak.

[M99]

https://24.media.tumblr.com/7ef4ff67e007cca7f41db2155946f9d6/tumblr_n3qbdmmodj1si9kpgo7_r1_250.gif

[Onyx]

Cesaro interview:

The last time World Wrestling Entertainment brought its act to the Baltimore Arena, it was a special “Old School” edition of its signature television show, Monday Night Raw, complete with a 1990s-style set and ring ropes and plenty of WWE Legends such as “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Jake “The Snake” Roberts on hand. But when the WWE invades the arena for another live broadcast of Raw on Monday, coming off the heels of its biggest event of the year, WrestleMania, it will have a decidedly new-school feel.

Fans and WWE Superstars agree, there was a changing of the guard at WrestleMania XXX, which saw underdog fan favorite Daniel Bryan win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship for the first time, the culmination of a storyline that began in August for the bearded grappler being held down by the on-screen characters The Authority, who represented both the old guard of wrestlers as well as the current regime of backstage decision-makers — Triple H and his wife, Stephanie McMahon, the daughter of company Chairman Vince McMahon.

In addition to Bryan, a 32-year-old who has been wrestling since the age of 18 on the independent circuit before joining WWE in 2010, the event was a watershed moment for several other young talents, but perhaps none more so than Cesaro, a powerhouse from Switzerland who looks an awful lot like actor Jason Statham in spandex.

Cesaro, whose real name is Claudio Castagnoli, traveled a similar path to the WWE as Bryan, having worked all over the world on the independent scene, wrestling in front of small crowds before finally breaking into the WWE, making his television debut exactly two years ago Sunday. At WrestleMania, in front of a crowd of 70,000-plus in the New Orleans Superdome, Cesaro won the inaugural Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, outlasting 30 other wrestlers.

While he became a wrestling fan after Andre’s prime, Cesaro said in an interview with the Times this week that winning the battle royal named for the French-born “Eighth Wonder of the World” was a spotlight moment in his WrestleMania debut.

“Every wrestling fan knows about Andre the Giant, especially growing up in Europe,” Cesaro said. “He was such a huge icon, and it was an honor to be the first Andre the Giant battle royal winner.”
Cesaro is often touted as the strongest man, pound-for-pound, in the WWE. He certainly proved that in waning moments of the battle royal, body slamming the mammoth 7-foot, 400-pound Big Show — this generation’s Andre, according to Cesaro — over the top rope to win the contest, invoking memories of Hulk Hogan slamming the Giant 27 years earlier at WrestleMania III.

“I think it was a nice way to pay tribute to Andre,” Cesaro said.
Like most WWE Superstars, Cesaro spends his off hours between traveling to gigs and performing in the ring at the gym. Despite his strongman persona — one of his many nicknames is the Swiss Superman — Cesaro says he’s not concerned with being able to lift the most weight at the gym; rather, he lifts for functionality.

“If someone can bench press more than me, so what?” he said. “I don’t care. How does that help me to be better in the ring?”

Being a standout in the ring is exactly what’s got Cesaro rocketing to the top of WWE as one of its featured attractions. With a unique moveset that includes vicious variations of uppercuts and his signature Cesaro Swing, his style has positioned him well on the card moving forward.
He notes that the swing, which he’s performed on behemoths like the Great Khali and Big E Langston, helped get him noticed by the fans after a few years toiling with gimmicks that included speaking five different languages and even yodeling his way to the ring.

“It’s one of those things, you see it in movies, you see it in comic books, it’s something a superhero would do,” Cesaro said of the swing. “I’m like a real life superhero.”
And while like comic books, the WWE has always been about larger-than-life characters, the new generation of grapplers are often smaller and wrestle with a little more flash than the lumbering giants in the company’s past like Hogan and Andre.

Some, often condescendingly, refer to the flashier ringwork as the “indy style” of wrestling, particularly as it relates to Ring of Honor, a promotion now owned by Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcasting.
For years, it’s been thought that wrestlers who competed for ROH and other smaller independent promotions would never be pushed to the top in WWE. The company instead preferred to promote characters it created. Cesaro, Bryan and other ROH alumni like Seth Rollins, of the Shield, are shattering those perceptions.

However, Cesaro said he’s never felt like he’s been held down because of his past wrestling on the independent circuit, and compared the indies to the territories of the 1980s, which operated in different parts of the U.S. before Vince McMahon and WWE began gobbling them up to create a global monopoly on the business.

“No one ever said, ‘Oh, you’re a territory guy,’” Cesaro explained.
While Cesaro technically plays a villain on television, emphasized by his on-screen partnership with nefarious manager Paul Heyman, he still receives adulation from the crowd and likely will in Baltimore Monday, when he’s scheduled to compete with Rob Van Dam in the second round of a tournament to determine a No. 1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship.
That’s because of the respect the fans have for his in-ring work.
“I’m like the mailman,” he said. “I always deliver.”

[RealGunner]

https://24.media.tumblr.com/7ef4ff67e007cca7f41db2155946f9d6/tumblr_n3qbdmmodj1si9kpgo7_r1_250.gif

What is this Fandago gimmick wannabe. One is barely surviving in WWE

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

Adam Rose will beat Bryan at Summerslam u pos.

[Firenze]

that's the adam rose pleb that's being called up soon? looks turrible

no wonder they brought batista back if the best from developmental is fandango jr, bo-lieve dallas and alexander scrubev

[Onyx]

Is there anyone in NXT that has a serious gimmick.

[RealGunner]

[Onyx]

Austin: It’s the damnedest crowd reaction I’ve seen in a long, long time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it - that Yes! chant and everyone pumping their fists like they do.

So the fact that he took the belt at Mania, damn right the machine needs to get behind him 120 percent and push him to the moon.

[Onyx]

Good interview here. He understands he can't be the underdog forever.

[Firenze]

Bryan's win didn't elicit that good a reaction at Mania.

Austin slowly creeping out of my top 5 if he keeps this up smh.

[M99]

Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville are pretty good from NXT. WWE is taking their time to develop them more.

Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, Wade Barret, AJ, Paige etc all came from NXT.

[Onyx]

In what's either wonderful or depressing news, Dean Ambrose is very rapidly approaching MVP's record for longest reigning US Champion in the WWE era.

Now on his 333rd day, he stands just 10 behind Mr. Porter's record. And to be clear, that is the amount of days he's held the belt, not the amount of days since the last time he defended it.

[Onyx]

As noted earlier, Paul Heyman appeared on the latest episode of The Steve Austin Show. The episode was taped a couple of days before WrestleMania, and Austin noted how he predicted that CM Punk would return at the event. Heyman said that Punk would not be there unless Punk and Vince McMahon have a first conversation or a "very wild move is pulled."

Heyman noted that he talks to Punk all the time, but they don't talk about the business because it's a sore spot and that their friendship really doesn't have anything to do with the business. Heyman noted that there were only three people in the room the night that Punk quit: Vince, Triple H and Punk himself. Heyman said that while he knows certain perspectives of what happened, he doesn't know the whole story. He said that until one of the three people that were in the room go public, we won't know what happened and it will only be speculation.

Heyman went on to note that Punk is fine. He doesn't think that Punk misses the business, although he never asks him if he misses wrestling. He said that while they can talk about True Detectives for hours, they rarely discuss the business.

You can listen to Heyman on Austin's podcast below:

http://podcastone.com/Steve-Austin-Show-Clean

[Onyx]

During the Warrior documentary, there's a scene where Warrior meets with some of WWE's merchandise people about some of the things they had planned for him. On the wall, there are recent WWE pay-per-view posters hanging. The 2014 Royal Rumble poster had a post-it note stuck over CM Punk's face.

[Onyx]

It looks like Vickie Guerrero is only mostly gone from the WWE. It appears that she will have a similar set-up as Eve Torres, where she is still part of the WWE family, but only visits on holidays like WrestleMania week.

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