Here's the Summerslam predictions, let me know if you have any questions. I will actually be there drinking a lot so I will update it whenever I roll out of bed on Monday. Also going to Takeover, this is gonna be a great weekend.

http://bit.ly/2wguGEU

also I should note that the preshow is probably starting at 6 Eastern. Haven't seen an official announcement but I believe that's the way it's been for 2 years now.

Not saying Nakamura is for sure gonna be great, but to go from Randy, to Jinder, to Baron would kill anything the title had going for it.



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<================== Learn the name now before everyone gets dunked on

>Not saying Nakamura is for sure gonna be great, but to go
>from Randy, to Jinder, to Baron would kill anything the title
>had going for it.
>
>
>
>____________________
>
><================== Learn the name now before everyone gets
>dunked on

Having an obvious heel foreign champ is actually a great call if they go straight into Nak. It's potentially solid mark reprogramming. Foreign = heel is an institution in rasslin.

>Having an obvious heel foreign champ is actually a great call
>if they go straight into Nak. It's potentially solid mark
>reprogramming. Foreign = heel is an institution in rasslin.


This^^^^

It's old school and it works if done right. So far, they have hit a mark....

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

>Here's the Summerslam predictions, let me know if you have
>any questions. I will actually be there drinking a lot so I
>will update it whenever I roll out of bed on Monday. Also
>going to Takeover, this is gonna be a great weekend.
>
>http://bit.ly/2wguGEU

Enjoy! I'm prolly gonna watch takeover and summerfest in one long session. At least that'll allow me to skip some of the commercials/rando stuff. During all of it, I'll be playing that damn WWE Champions game. I'm addicted to level-ups and bullshit!

is the booking the "thing" now? like thats the story worth discussing?

seems odd to me

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

>is the booking the "thing" now? like thats the story worth
>discussing?

>seems odd to me

That question seems odd to me. Pro wrestling is storytelling and psychology, and booking is essentially the script to said story.

Discussing booking= discussing the story=discussing pro wrestling.

Quality booking means letting guys ride on their strengths and not only listening to fan reactions but crafting a response to those reactions to maximize a return on that emotional investment.

It's pretty much the backbone of a successful promotion. Terrible booking contributed a great deal to the demise of WCW. Quality booking of characters in ways that accentuated their strengths instead of highlighting their weakness was a major factor in the rise of ECW.

None of the greats of yesteryear- yes, I said NONE- would be able to rise to their prior stature under this current culture without Vince making serious exceptions.

Modern WWE is quite literally the mostly tightly scripted and controlled product they've ever presented and it shows. 50/50 booking in WWE has lead to a general mediocre product that gets by in excellent ring work and brand loyalty. Everyone about even with everyone else and nobody is on any real journey. Yes, this stuff matters in creating an exciting and engaging product.

Booking isn't the thing "now", it is and always has been THE thing and is always worth discussing. Hulk Hogan very well might not happen if Vern Gagne stubbornly held fast to his initial booking of Hogan as a heel in the face of fans cheering him to the rafters.

Conversely, had Vince been savvy enough to listen and react to the incredibly negative fan reactions to the Roman Reigns project early on, Reigns would likely have come full circle by now as a considerably less polarizing baby face.

Vince today would have likely forced Steve Austin into his prefabricated Fang McFrost or Ice Dagger characters instead of letting him rock with the golden goose of a name Steve's wife picked out: Stone Cold, and booked him accordingly.

Asking if booking is worth discussing in a pro wrestling conversation is no different than Asking baseball fans What the point of discussing a manager's batter lineup and bullpen rotations. Even shoot combat sports like MMA and boxing rely heavily on Booking because that's how you sell a fight.

Booking is the creative direction that drives the story and the psychology behind it.

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE

>is the booking the "thing" now? like thats the story worth
>discussing?
>
>seems odd to me

I view it the same way as critiquing a TV show I like. The characters should achieve things/make decisions that make sense to them and the situation. Not to say that everything should be predictable. Surprises should happen fairly often but those can be good or bad too.

Austin/Hart. nWo in the beginning. Just about every great angle, you talk about how the performers connected and how great the matches were. It's when the booking seams are so visible (Women's MiTB, nWo/Sting blowoff, Dolph Ziggler's entire career, Bray Wyatt, Cena/Ryder/Kane) that you complain about how things should be booked.

Especially now in the era of 50/50 booking where you see the PPV match 5 different ways before the PPV, wins and losses get traded, and nothing seems to mean anything, it's like fresh water in the middle of the desert when you get anything like the WM30 Daniel Bryan angle. And even that was almost fucked up by WWE insisting on Batista having a big triumphant return.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

Whether or not people say the word "booking", that's what's being discussed.

Austin/Hart?

People talk about Steve passing out with that bloody face and not giving up. That was a fantastic booking decision that understood the things that made the character work. When we talk about how someone connects with the crowd, it's booking.

When we talk about how great that early NWO angle was, it was because it was booked so well with a slow, patient burn.

The pro wrestling media built that business on discussion heavily centered around booking.

Punk/Cena? Booking was front and center. Everyone was surprised at the booking decision to let Punk go off with his pipe bomb... And people wondered if they would actually let him go over on Cena, especially with his contract expiring, and particularly in light of Vince's penchant toward jobbing people in their hometown. Then when Punk left for the next month people spoke about the choice to have him running around with the strap off screen and when he returned we discussed the choice to put him with triple h.

A booking.

The booking of Daniel Bryan was a very hot topic throughout that run.

Pro wrestling discussion is, nearly by definition, booking discussion, with or without the buzz word itself.

1. that they let the pipe bomb happen

2. that they let cena get pinned clean by a fan favorite

>Austin/Hart. nWo in the beginning. Just about every great
>angle, you talk about how the performers connected and how
>great the matches were.

Somewhat disagree for the reasons CT listed, but also the discussion of booking has become much more prevalent in recent times because fans know more about the business than they ever did.

Like others have said, simply by dissecting if what happened was good or bad we are talking about the booking in the same way that we are talking about the writing when we discuss if we liked this week's Game of Thrones storyline.

When things are great you hear less complaining, but when we say, "that was so awesome the way this happened, I never saw it coming" That is complimenting the booking, even if we don't say the word.

Discussing the booking is how we analyze wrestling. We can also discuss someone's ability to carry out an interview/angle/match, but as for what actually happened- the story told and the end result- that is booking.

https://media.sticker.market/gif/neil-degrasse-tyson-589faf8bd74108533f6502d4-g.gif

Sorry, y'all.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

http://i1.wp.com/sportsgrumble.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pentagon-jr-break-mils-arm.gif

https://goo.gl/images/87kPhy

Fuckin Softball Sid, man.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

Suck it up, sweetheart. You'll survive.

About to check these out now

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

>About to check these out now

Glorious. So glorious. Saturday morning good times. Here I go.

In the main event of SummerSlam 1997 HBK, as special referee, tries to hit rival Bret Hart with a steel chair, but Bret ducks and Shawn drills Undertaker by accident. Bret covers Taker and Shawn apprehensively makes the 3 count, awarding Bret the win and title.

I'm looking at it as a set-up to a Shane/KO match though.

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>In the main event of SummerSlam 1997 HBK, as special referee,
>tries to hit rival Bret Hart with a steel chair, but Bret
>ducks and Shawn drills Undertaker by accident. Bret covers
>Taker and Shawn apprehensively makes the 3 count, awarding
>Bret the win and title.

That almost has to be the finish now that it is in my head.

I'm probably going to watch NXT and summerfest back to back Sunday.

SINGLES match was meant to disqualify the Fatal 4-way. I have realized in both my pools that this wasn't clear enough. Also...

great12k6: You skipped Bonus 3
Selassie: I have no idea what your last 4 answers mean and suspect that someone might have written over your stuff. You also have Bonus 3 blank.
Oak: You skipped Bonus 1
y2Flound: SD Tag team was already announced as preshow.

Actually how about everyone check over their answers. This is getting messy.

Hot crowd. Gonna be a fun one.

Great start until the cameraman fucked up and Kevin Dunn'd AB's backflip spot.

I hope it came across on screen cause I can't overstate the frenzy people were in at that point. This show is a great lesson in show structure. On paper 5 matches that weren't very personal feuds looks measly when compared to the previous 2 shows, but everything on the card just built the crowd up perfectly. Tremendous storytelling by everyone involved (Gargano/Almas especially). There was also a tag match with the UK guys that'll probably air this week and you guys should look out for that. Going in I was disappointed there wasn't a Bate-Dunne title rematch, so this was a pleasant surprise.

It's so confusing, that these NXT shows could be so well-balanced and these characters could be so fully realized while Raw is nearly unwatchable.

It's the same company. Same resources. Most of the top guys on TV now came from NXT!

How good would a Hunter/Regal-produced Raw and Smackdown show be?

i'm sure it's happened, but they usually keep it simple. WWE puts out SO much content that they're always trying to outsmart the audience and it usually just convolutes everything. It seems like every WWE ppv suffers from some overbooking. Like a ref gets knocked down and then it doesn't come into play or Great Khali interferes and then disappears again. If I was a casual fan I don't know how I'd keep track of it all when half of it is thrown away anyhow. NXT's attention-to-detail in the storytelling is partially a result of it's limited programing, but it still amazes me the big leagues can't take some notes.

All I know is that they're midgets next to McIntyre and the end of the show and the attack on Sanity was just kinda like...ok
____________________

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Roode is on his way out soon. Word is they want a faction of former ROH guys so my guess is they add either KO or Roderick Strong to the mix.

It's a good move to replenish the roster with Roode, Asuka and AOP likely on their way out.

They just have to juggle the stories.

The Brock shit, for the most part, works largely because Brock's not there every week to LOL CENA all over everyone. Then on the other hand, you see every other PPV match (especially the tag division) played out five different ways even in the runup to like a GABF.

They've done OK when they go to "local talent" to build ppl up (Braun's build worked perfectly for exactly that reason -- even if it did give us fuckin Ellsworth).

Basic problem is that they think they're building conflict by having most storylines include escalating interaction. The problem is that they're just exhausting that conflict until the majority of the viewing audience doesn't give a shit any more. Granted, the Summerslam main is the exception, because holy shit did the match pay off, but you're not going to be able to do pullapart-pullapart-pullapart-HOSS with every angle.

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"This (and every, actually) conversation needs more Chesterton and less Mike Francesa." - Walleye

I mean, the bar is pretty low to this point but still awesome.

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Him ripping up a beach ball being thrown around the crowd. Holy shit this PPV has been not good. NXT was pretty amazing from front to back.

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But there's been nothing terribly memorable either with the exception of New Day-Usos, which was on the pre-show.

The Shield vs. The Bar is probably match of the main show so far, followed by AJ-KO which got bogged down in the Shane stuff. Naomi-Natalya was a nice little surprise. Everything else has either been meh or a time filler seemingly designed to ensure this crowd is worn out by the time the main event happens.

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