Dolph Ziggler BERRIED / Drawing (split)

[Guest The Beltster]

No, but he also had an awesome character and the advantage of being from the late 80s where they actually pushed people and stuff.

 

And Perfect never won the WWE Title or really became a main eventer, if you think about it. There was a ceiling, and I think the fact that he was a small pinballing heel was definitely relevant.

Yeah but WWF in the 80's wasnt like WWE now, not everybody gets turn with the belt and in the main event unless they were either really good or could draw. And Perfect did get a run with Hogan and he was pegged for PPV main events with him, but they didnt do well at the box office. Its not like Perfect wasnt going to get his shot, he did and it didnt work out. But all of that is irrelevant, you said over selling or whatever will doom him to be a jobber, it didnt with Perfect and it wont with Ziggler, he's already a 2-time world champ so he hasnt done bad and thats without the office really giving a shit about him. He will get another go no doubt.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

Yeah but WWF in the 80's wasnt like WWE now, not everybody gets turn with the belt and in the main event unless they were either really good or could draw. And Perfect did get a run with Hogan and he was pegged for PPV main events with him, but they didnt do well at the box office. Its not like Perfect wasnt going to get his shot, he did and it didnt work out. But all of that is irrelevant, you said over selling or whatever will doom him to be a jobber, it didnt with Perfect and it wont with Ziggler, he's already a 2-time world champ so he hasnt done bad and thats without the office really giving a shit about him. He will get another go no doubt.

 

Why was that do you think?

 

Seriously. I'm not arguing that he'll never get a main event push ever again, but I am arguing that there is a ceiling for someone who bumps as much and as often as Dolph because he will have credibility issues as someone who does nothing but eat other people's offense and ragdoll. Why was Perfect seemingly not credible (or at least not working) on top? I definitely think in part it was because of that reason.

 

When my mother reacts to Dolph it's always "He always looks like he's dying" and "He never wins." He isn't presented as a guy who can actually beat other people, however much that matters in current-day presentation. And the jobbing can be fixed with a push and not jobbing anymore, I agree, but it has to be matched with a change in his presentation to give him some credibility, or else it's never going to work.

[dsrchris 190]

It'd probably help if they gave him a solid finisher to end his opponents with. I really think just giving him a superkick as a finish to come out of nowhere would do wonders for Dolph. He can still pinball around, he's just got a devastator of a finisher he can hit from anywhere at any time. Kinda like how Shawn used to be back in the early 90s. He got knocked from pillar to post in his matches, but managed to use his finisher to get him out of trouble more often than not.

[Guest John Hancock]

That's a big problem with finishing moves not meaning shit anymore. Back in the late 90's Austin would get battered for a whole match, and then hit three moves and you'd completely believe he'd just killed a man, it's sympathetic babyface 101, but it only works if those three moves basically always work. As soon as you have people kicking out of finishers, or constantly changing finishers, or five different finishing moves, it doesn't work, and that's a huge issue now, because I'd estimate the average 2010s gimmick development meeting takes roughly three seconds, with no long term idea of what's coming next, and in that atmosphere, nothing's ever going to stay devastating, because they'll eventually convince themselves they need to f*ck it up for some self-deluding pay-off, because the WWE writer's attention span seems to be about 10% the length of the fan's attention spans. Outside of the odd miracle like the Corporation 3.0, which is awesome, and The Shield, who miraculously still matter, it's either all giving up on ideas too fast, or having absolutely no second act to any introduction or big turn, like Ziggler. It's like the Wyatt Family; "What about Robert de Niro playing Charles Manson?"

"Bad-ass, do it"

"Okay, that worked, what now?"

"Pfft"

Edited September 29, 2013 by John Hancock

[Guest The Beltster]

Why was that do you think?

 

Seriously. I'm not arguing that he'll never get a main event push ever again, but I am arguing that there is a ceiling for someone who bumps as much and as often as Dolph because he will have credibility issues as someone who does nothing but eat other people's offense and ragdoll. Why was Perfect seemingly not credible (or at least not working) on top? I definitely think in part it was because of that reason.

 

When my mother reacts to Dolph it's always "He always looks like he's dying" and "He never wins." He isn't presented as a guy who can actually beat other people, however much that matters in current-day presentation. And the jobbing can be fixed with a push and not jobbing anymore, I agree, but it has to be matched with a change in his presentation to give him some credibility, or else it's never going to work.

If you think its because Perfect bumped too much for Hogan and made Hogan look good in the ring by doing so, then you've lost your mind. It didnt work out because the general rule of thumb for guys to go against Hogan and draw were huge guys who the fans believed might beat him or really tough guys. Perfect was already booked way too much in the midcard before getting to Hogan, if he came right in from the AWA as a legit challenger, no matter how much he bumped for Hogan, he would have drawn better against him.

 

Ziggler obviously needs to have more offence, but that doesnt mean he has to bump less because he is so good at it. There is a balance sure, but him bumping for guys alot I dont think has anything to do with his position on the card, his mouth and the way he lets it get away with itself on outside interviews is his problem.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

If you think its because Perfect bumped too much for Hogan and made Hogan look good in the ring by doing so, then you've lost your mind. It didnt work out because the general rule of thumb for guys to go against Hogan and draw were huge guys who the fans believed might beat him or really tough guys. Perfect was already booked way too much in the midcard before getting to Hogan, if he came right in from the AWA as a legit challenger, no matter how much he bumped for Hogan, he would have drawn better against him.

 

You don't think there's a chance that a part of people not believing that he could beat Hogan was because of the way he was presented, as a small guy who bumped and stooged a lot?

 

Because I dunno. You watch the SNME match with the Genius, it's 2 vs 1 and still neither guy barely got an offensive move in for most of it, Hogan whipped them from pillar to post. I have no difficulty in believing that the feud didn't draw because it seemed so very one-sided compared to the ones that did.

 

I'm not saying it's the only reason, or it couldn't be overcome with better booking (in either case), but I do believe there is an intrinsic, psychological thing where people can't completely buy into a guy on the very top level unless they are actually convinced they can win matches. And a guy who bumps around that much without much offense to counteract it will have problems there.

 

The Miz had the same issue with credibility on top, but for a different reason, since he's just a guy who can never ever come off as tough or legit. Dolph can look tough, but just ultimately a bit useless with the way he's portrayed.

[Guest The Beltster]

You don't think there's a chance that a part of people not believing that he could beat Hogan was because of the way he was presented, as a small guy who bumped and stooged a lot?

 

Because I dunno. You watch the SNME match with the Genius, it's 2 vs 1 and still neither guy barely got an offensive move in for most of it, Hogan whipped them from pillar to post. I have no difficulty in believing that the feud didn't draw because it seemed so very one-sided compared to the ones that did.

 

I'm not saying it's the only reason, or it couldn't be overcome with better booking (in either case), but I do believe there is an intrinsic, psychological thing where people can't completely buy into a guy on the very top level unless they are actually convinced they can win matches. And a guy who bumps around that much without much offense to counteract it will have problems there.

 

The Miz had the same issue with credibility on top, but for a different reason, since he's just a guy who can never ever come off as tough or legit. Dolph can look tough, but just ultimately a bit useless with the way he's portrayed.

Honestly, no I dont. Because nobody had a problem believing he could beat the Warrior when they had a very well drawing house show run, the best houses Warrior ever drew as champion no-less, and nobody had a problem believing DiBase was a threat to Hogan when they went around the horn drawing great in 1988, and that was without the WWF title on the line and in matches where Hogan literally beat the piss out of DiBiase and Virgil (and sometimes even Andre) at the same time.

 

I really dont think Perfect's selling for Hogan was an issue, I think it was the fact he was in a nothing feud with Red Rooster and the Blue Blazer forever, lost to Beefcake and was then thrown in with Hogan, the booking sucked and he was seen as a midcarder. Hogan was going around beating Andre, Savage, Orndorff, Bundy etc, nobody was going to believe Perfect was a threat the way he was used and he was undefeated for ages.

 

Look, I agree Ziggler needs more offence, no question, and he needs to stop making it look like his only hits his finish on a fluke, but I dont think his crazy over selling is any part of the reason why WWE might not see money in him, because they have made him world champion twice and really, nobody is money in WWE outside of Cena. I mean, Punk's reign wasnt well drawing and they left the belt on him for ages, Bryan hasnt done anything and he's still main eventing.

 

I am certain its because he talked shit in those interviews.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

Oh no, I'm not saying that WWE allegedly don't see anything in him because of his wrestling style. I'm not talking about the politics here.

 

I'm saying in general, I personally see a credibility issue in Dolph because of his wrestling style, independently my mother does too so I'm wondering if it is a real thing in the back of people's minds. Not very many guys who bump and stooge to THAT extent make it to main event level and succeed. I'm genuinely asking why.

[Guest The Beltster]

Oh I thought we were talking about why WWE dont seem to want to push him.

 

Um, I dunno, maybe he does sell too much for fans to buy him as a main eventer. I could never buy Bret or Shawn as main eventers because they were mid card tag guys for the first 7-8 years of my fan-dom. So I could never believe that that dude from the Rockers who would do jobs at shows to guys like Akeem and Haku could be the guy holding Hogans belt etc.

[Guest Drake]

I agree with the credibility part. It happened to me with JBL. When I first started watching the WWF in 1999 and throughout the years, JBL was freaking Bradshaw. Then, out of nowhere, WWE re-packages him as JBL and have him beat every single person while becoming a dominant WWE champion. WWE stuck by him, even though he had been a mid carder throughout his whole career. At first I didn't bye it at all, but due to WWE's stubbornness, I eventually started seeing him as a Main Eventer.

 

Basicaly, if Vince and company wanna push you to the moon, it doesn't matter who the **** you are. So if the WWE were REALLY sold on Dolph, they could easily switch him back to heel, have him contain his over the top selling, give him some good offense to balance his awesome selling and everything would be fine. Give him some good wins with a Super kick finishing move and have him be a "Shawn Michaels-esque" kinda Main Eventer.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Drake

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

Dolph seriously needs to watch some Shawn Michaels tapes. Dude perfected the art of being a small guy who looked like he could beat anyone during a match with how he worked.

[Guest Drake]

Hell, even look at some Daniel Bryan tapes! Right now, Daniel, with that running knee, looks like he could beat anyone in the freaking world. If Daniel can look like a real threat to every single Main Eventer, then so can Dolph. #Yes #YES #YES #YES :lol

[Guest Ciaran The King]

Dolph seriously needs to watch some Shawn Michaels tapes. Dude perfected the art of being a small guy who looked like he could beat anyone during a match with how he worked.

 

But HBK was HBK and he's a legend

[Guest Edgehead]

All the more reason for Dolph to watch some tapes, who better to learn from than a legend

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

But HBK was HBK and he's a legend

 

That's not the point. He wasn't always a legend.

 

Shawn understood the importance of shine. He always did, I guess it comes with the territory coming up in 80s WWF tag team wrestling, but if you look at practically any Rockers match or any Shawn match, he always got a substantial shine and proved that he could hang with the other guy, even if he was bigger. THEN he started bumping around like a motherf*cker, after he'd already demonstrated that he wasn't useless.

 

You look at a lot of matches now and some people have lost the art of the shine altogether. The bell rings, they move in, the heel boots the face and goes immediately on offense. In the space of 10 seconds they've shown you that the face is a goof who isn't even competitive at the start of the match, before he's even been hit once. And in the case of someone like Dolph, when he gets no shine and then flops around like a fish for all of the heel's offense...he just looks like a guy who is getting completely destroyed.

 

The thing we all forgot to mention talking about Dolph and Perfect is that Dolph is a face now. It's alright to be a stooging, pinballing heel when you're a heel, but as a babyface, it just makes him look completely incompetent. He still hasn't realised that his role in the ring has changed and he can't bump around the same way he used to. Bump around, yes, but at the right time and for the right reasons.

[Guest John Hancock]

That's a really great point that I'm ashamed for not having noticed earlier, there really isn't a first act to a lot of matches anymore, it's straight into act two, and when you start any three act storytelling thingy in act two, you end up with the good guys looking really shit.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

That's a really good way of putting it.

 

It's not all the time, by any means. A lot of guys seem to know what they're doing as faces; guys who will work a shine, guys with recognisable Five Moves of Doom sequences, guys who can get those really tight nearfalls because they have put the work into getting their offense over. Guys like Bryan, Kofi, the Usos, etc. But you do get some matches where nobody is thinking (or alternatively, they don't have time) and the result is something fundamentally flawed. And subsequently you get guys, like Dolph, who have no credibility in-ring as faces because they don't do these things.

[dsrchris 190]

Don't even get me started on the "death of the shine" in modern wrestling. It genuinely infuriates me no end. I don't know who decided it was a good idea, but a helluva lot of Indie trainers are now teaching how you can usually skip the shine because "it's the comeback that really matters".

 

No. No it's not. Nobody will buy into your comeback if you've looked like an a*sclown from the opening bell right up until you nip up and start throwing indyriffic comeback offence (usually in kickpads to make you look LEGIT). In fact, missing the shine out and skipping straight to the heel beatdown is just plain lazy. Hell, you don't even have to have a full shine, just something that shows you're able to deal with the opponent in front of you.

 

It's like nobody bothers with the 7 rules of wrestling anymore. It's really frigging simple, yet woefully neglected. The whole point of the shine is to show you can outwrestle your opponent, which then means your opponent has to resort to cheating/unsavoury tactics to get the upper hand on you to lead into the beatdown and heat. Why they think they can just skip that altogether is completely beyond me.

[Guest John Hancock]

It's all the ultra-basic three act arch. You've got act one, the shine, where you introduce the characters and get people to like and support the good guys and think they're at least morally superior, then act two, the beat down, where the problem becomes almost unbeatably big, usually unfairly, then act three, the comeback, where the good guy overcomes the unfairness of the problem by just being so f*cking great. It's in the laziest of screenwriting beat sheets, yet so many people in wrestling seem to think you can use the same formula, but take short cuts to be lazy.

 

Wrestling without the shine is like starting Star Wars from Empire Strikes Back.

[dsrchris 190]

Wrestling without the shine is like starting Star Wars from Empire Strikes Back.

 

:lol

 

I was taught to plan around 7 specific phases of a match:

 

1. Entrance - The fans should be able to tell everything they need to know about whether to cheer or boo you from your entrance

2. Shine - Show that the face is "better" than the heel in some way (quicker, more technically proficient, stronger)

3. Heat - The bad guy takes control through nefarious means

4. Hope spot(s) - The good guy tries to fight back and get the crowd behind them.

5. Heat 2 - Bad guy cuts the good guy off again and continues to work them over

6. Comeback - Good guys gets p*ssed, fires up and unloads to get back into the match

7. Falls and finishes - You head into the end of the match

 

I can honestly say that working around that format has never seen me wrong before. The only matches I've had that have been the drizzles have been when I've let someone talk me into deviating from that kind of layout.

[Guest The Beltster]

Man, I dunno whats worse, the death of shine, or the fact that all us sad marks on online using terms like shine, hope spot, heat, MARKS!

 

Wrestling is officially f*cking wretched and the fans are even worse.

 

Fans of what? THE BUSINESS!!!

 

Arrrgghhhhh.

 

If some prat said to me, at the peak of my fandom "Man, Shawn Michaels is really getting shine!" I'd have looked at him like he had dog shit on his face and said "Nah mate, thats a clothesline".

 

People say the internet ruined wrestling, no way, its us! The fans who like to talk like we are on the inside. Its so beyond lame. Have you ever been stood in the que outside a WWE show, for example, and listened to all the ultra-marks using all the insider terms? Its so cringe-worthy and shameful, makes me embarrassed to even be there.

Edited October 1, 2013 by The Beltster

[dsrchris 190]

I'm allowed a bye for that seeing as how I've actually been taught officially what all that means by actual wrestlers, not just read about it on the net! :P

 

I'm not a mark, I'm a worker! :lol

 

(that is entirely sarcastic by the way, I am nowhere near a "worker". I'm a "green a*s n00b" at best!)

[Guest John Hancock]

My thin-skinned excuse that I tend to see plot everywhere, it's just how my brain works. Films, wrestling, T.V., comics, whatever, I like plots, so when it's done poorly, especially when I know enough fancy words to express why it's being done poorly on a structural level, it's a good way of expressing myself beyond screaming "THIS DOESN'T FEEL GOOD IN MY EYEBALLS", which would otherwise be my reaction to 75% of RAW each week.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

Yeah. I cringed when I said the word, but really...I was describing something and that is what the word means. We all know what it means, and it was the easiest way of explaining what I meant. I'll eat the doucheiness in order to get my point across succinctly.

 

The cat is pretty much out of the bag with people on the internet using insider terms.

[Guest The Beltster]

Oh I know, I'm not directly bashing you or Chris, I'm saying we all sound like sad w@nkers :lol