Has there ever been a more exciting time to be a WWE fan?

[Oaf]

Well, what say you?!

Perhaps back when WWE signed WCW and there was all this potential of bringing all of these big names in... but what an age to be a fan right now.

For the last decade or so, WWE have had that shitty policy of not signing established indy stars. They did one or two, the most notable being CM Punk, but basically a decades worth of indy stars built up and rather than being drip fed into WWE over the course of the decade, they just were not being signed up. Instead, WWE chose to make their own stars, with the likes of Lesnar, Cena, Orton and Batista.

But then these big signings started to come through... Del Rio and Sin Cara were signed up, followed by names like Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Ambrose and the likes. But the floodgates have really opened up over the last year or so, and now we find ourselves in a state where WWE is getting filled with a decades worth of talent in one big injection.

Ambrose. Rollins. Owens. Neville. Zayn. Cesaro. Samoa Joe. Balor. Itami. Bryan. 10 big indy stars that all have incredible potential and will be key players moving forward in WWE.

And the best part is... WWE are actually backing them too! Rather than just letting them sit and fester at the bottom of the card, they all look to be getting set up for great careers. I mean, the first two names on that list have just main evented a PPV for the WWE championship.

(EC spoilers...)

Spoiler

I think it's fair to say that a clean win over Cena means that WWE have big plans for Owens...

Neville is in the WWE roster and getting plenty of time. Zayn looks due to come to WWE when he's recovered. And we don't even need to discuss Bryan, when he's not fucking injured, he's one of the biggest names WWE have and a clear indication of where the other 9 names want to be. And one of the best things about those 10 people? They're all superb to watch in the ring as well.

But let's not discount the WWE made stars, too. Wyatt is a bit samey, but cool. Reigns is better than he's given credit for. Those two still have big careers ahead of them. And there are always others, the likes of Harper, Ziggler and company who are waiting for their break. And people like the Lucha Dragons are lighting up the tag division.

I've been saying that WWE have a heck of a roster for a couple of years now, but after the events of last night we can see that WWE are totally up for backing these people as well. Perhaps now is the time when they're finally moving on from the big names of the last 10 years and actually looking to get new people to that level. They've finally crawled out of their cave and realised that there is a world of untapped talent out there, and that they can't rely on the Cena's and Ortons forever. The signings they've made over the last 4 or 5 years have set us up for a hell of a future. Just have to hope creative can give us a product worthy of that talent.

 

[TractorBoys]

Wrestling is shit.

 

[Oaf]

Wrestling is shit.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

I could argue quite afew years really mostly based on fact people seem to still sh*t all over the weekly shows for the majority of 2015 so far (I've praised almost 5 months straight worth of weekly TNA shows yet people on here over same period maybe praised at best 5-6 Raws......that to me is not a sign of their fans being 'excited')

but that being said it is good to see you have some things to get excited about moving forward......but WWe fans get so many false dawns, but we'll see come November

 

[Oaf]

Granted, there have been plenty of occasions over the last 5 years or so where we've looked set to have an exciting future (and to be fair, I think the roster is certainly in a better place now than it was 4 or 5 years ago, for sure) but right now, with the current crop of NXT signings as well as seeing the likes of Owens doing what he did, that's a hell of a lot of faith installed in this next generation of superstars, something we've not seen in a while. The future usually tends to look bright, but right now it's shining.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

It might and good luck to you guys if it is, I just think 'most exciting time' has been used 4-5 times before and usually ends up being nothing.

WWE is at present doing its usual....give the fans what they want in the summer, usually the time when ratings bomb and then use the crap ratings as their excuse to say everything the fans wanted was bullsh*t and go back to their usual come November.

not meaning to p*ss over your fire, but being the usual WWE cynic that I am I've heard you lot claim this many times before...summer of punk, Bryans reign, the rise of the shield etc, etc, etc just recent examples.

If come November (usually a time when WWE puts on horrendous uninteresting sh*te) they are doing interesting things then maybe it is a new fresh start and you could deservedly bring the thread back up.

although I'd still say it will never ever be in the excitement levels to 1997-2001 when frankly survival of the fittest added another notch to wrestling.

 

[NiallQuinnDiscoPants]

most exciting time? hmmmmm 50 / 50 on that really.

whilst the talent we have coming in is absolutely outstanding (I thought that single performance from Kevin Owens at EC was one of the best "debut" performances i've ever seen in the WWE), there's fundamental issues wrong with the product. Nothing to do with the talent, a lot to do with the way the product is sold and creative.

main thing is, there's too much wrestling on tv. in the "magical" attitude era days you had 2 hours of raw, 1 hour of heat and then a PPV every month. now we have 3 hours of raw, 2 hours of smackdown, 1 hour of main event and in the past month we'll have had 3 PPV's. that's overkill for me. one of the mistakes that vince openly says that WCW made towards the end of it's death was throwing all it's tricks out early and having nothing left to fall back on. now you had an exciting program in Cena v Rusev which could have gone on over months and stayed relevant if they played it right. instead we have over kill. Runs from February to June and Cena has pretty much destroyed the momentum that Rusev had. Another example is Sheamus v Ziggler. 2 guys who work so well with each other. Feud runs from April to June and it feels like they've wrestled about 100 times. Now when you hear Sheamus v Ziggler is going to be on Raw, you mutter and shake your head. Not again.

If you want to have 3 hours of Raw then you need to do away with Smackdown. If you want to do Smackdown, you need to do away with that 3rd hour of Raw. Instead of 5/6 Reigns segments on Raw, why not have a decent 10 minute tag match or give someone like Heath Slater a singles match. If I ever have to see Reigns v Kane again, I'll poke myself in the eye and pour vinegar into the wound.

With the advent of social media and the network, you don't need tv time to actually promote your angles. you can do it on twitter, on facebook, on youtube. Hell even devote a bit of time on the network to a backstage clip of Ziggler cutting an epic promo telling the world how he feels like he's being held down. There's something that the indies are doing right that the WWE is not, and that's 'treat them mean to keep them keen'. If you follow an indie promotion, each show feels special because you have that build up and suspense to it. You have the build up of angles to it that your fans will follow. You don't have 3 big PPV's in a month because that doesn't make them big, that makes it wrestling for the sake of wrestling. Maybe one of the reasons NXT is much easier to follow and more exciting than WWE is because you only get it for an hour a week and you only get a special every 2-3 months. That's how it should be. They need to make the most of that hour so they make it special. WWE has 6 hours a week to fill so instead of having an epic slow build of tag partner being disgruntled and turning on his tag partner going on for 3-4 months, you have someone like Stardust spend 8 weeks losing the same match to the same opponents in the same way and having the same reaction to his tag partner Goldust. And where was the blow off match? Oh yeah it got cut short because everyone got bored of it. Because there was no originality.

 

[Oaf]

Absolutely agree with that post. It is a case of having all the tools but using them the wrong way. That's kind of the reason I used the word "exciting", rather than saying "has there ever been a better time to be a WWE fan?" with the thread title... there are a lot of things to improve (and as you say, a lot of that is due to the overkill of wrestling right now) but the potential is there to do something great.

But yeah, it's seemingly the USA network who are pushing for the 3 hour Raws to be a constant thing. From what I've seen, WWE actually want to put it back down to 2 hours, because 3 hours for Raw every single week is near impossible to keep up a high level of writing for. I sort of hope that the WWE network can possibly put the ball back in WWE's court a bit... imagine of WWE held Raw ransom and said that they wouldn't extend the contract with USA, because they can show Raw on the network if they wanted? Use that as a bargaining chip to get it back down to 2 hours. USA network would surely rather have 2 hours of Raw per week than not have any at all.