RAW Superthread

Furious-Red wrote: »

Drew Gulak is great

Furious-Red wrote: »

I hated the glass shatter thing everytime Matt would talk

PTH2009 wrote: »

has he actually appeared in person yet since he became Woken ??

chatticusfinch wrote: »

On the better matches point at a younger age, that really is a case of the wrestling environment of the day. Reigns, had he been around in the late 80s/90s/ could well have had a Warrior style of in, superman punch, spear, 123, repeat. The fact Reigns is competing in an environment much different from Taker (in terms of workrate, the influence of cruiserweight and high spot wrestling, hybrid styles like Kevin Owens etc), isn't comparing like with like. If Taker was a young guy now, he'd probably be working a much quicker style.

With regards to Promo quality, I'll definitely give you Taker's Badass promos as being a bit meh, but I'd chalk that down to moving from not having to do much talking as an undead cowboy shaman, to having to be a flag waving biker. He later excelled as a heel, even killing the What chant dead in that youtube clip. Reigns, on the other hand, is a C level talker. Without even going into the sufferin' succotash bit, he's not the best guy on the stick by any metric. His talking won't ever sell a match, and the fact that the same few sound bites (Big Dog, His Yard etc) get repeated so often show that the Reigns character itself is very generic. This is a point to take away from Reigns, because he's active in a time where being mike capable is a big part of the job, which, to be fair to Taker, wasn't as essential for him when he had Paul Bearer doing his talking for him. Taker, though, as was shown in his heel run as Big Evil, was pretty good on the heel mic work, at least.

It also has to be said that any of Reigns top matches came about with him being the junior in the match (Cena, AJ Styles etc. I've yet to be convinced of him being a great match maker. Taker has a feel for the fabric of a match which Reigns doesn't, and I don't think will ever have, as he hasn't shown a meteoric rise in quality or anything. There is a blueprint for nearly every Reigns match where you can see the finish (sets up the spear, gets reversed, opponent goes up on the top rope or something, jumps and gets speared, etc "vintage Big dog" everyone goes home wondering why Cesaro still hasn't had. a run with the IC title)

He's grand, with the occasional great match, and that's not a slight on the guy at all. He's in a company where you have Aj Styles, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Nakamura, even Cesaro, who would all put on a better quality of match than Reigns, despite the card position so I know who I'd rather watch in a main event program. I think Reigns would be better suited, both in terms of career quality and fan likeability, if he wasn't as featured as much in nearly every top billing feud on the calendar. It's totally obvious that he'll unseat Lesnar at Mania for his 4th Coronation in a row, and it's getting boring, to say the least.

The being loathed element is totally relevant, as you can draw a parallel with the last guy I can remember in a similar spot; Lex Luger. He was Vince's golden boy with a bus tour across the US, bodyslammed Yoko on the Intrepid, was involved in a controversial Rumble etc, but the fans wanted Bret. Where this differs is that Vince eventually dropped Lex for Bret in the long run. Now with regards to Roman, Vince is digging his heels in, pushing Roman at the expense of the rest of the product. A lot of Roman's spot, in a glib sense in down to this Vince golden boy spot. He's a guy who is a Triple Crown champ who got a World Title reign before he ever held a secondary singles title. He had no real feuds in the run up to his main event push, and he hasn't had many memorable moments that weren't tanked by booing, like the Rock's face when he had to endorse him. For his accolades, there hasn't been a massive amount of deserving in them, if that makes sense.

Being loathed by the fans, or an element of them does affect the quality of the push, because, like Lex, it can derail how you're perceived. Roman, had he not had the Vince backing and Daniel Bryan's injury, would probably have gone the way of Lex.