- 4 minutes ago
The WhatCulture Wrestling team give their thoughts on WWE moments that seemed DUMB at the time, but turned out to be genius...
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Murray, what was a dumb WWE moment that you didn't want to admit was genius?
00:04Stephanie McMahon's wrestling character is a piece of f**k, one of the worst of all time, one of the least
00:10effective and most damaging wrestling characters of all time.
00:15During her reign of tyranny, when she was a regular TV character, she would regularly demean people, she would regularly
00:21get over people on the microphone or when she occasionally stepped in the ring,
00:25she would make people look lesser than when they started working with her, she was the ultimate Nepo baby in
00:31so many ways.
00:32She was a very expressive TV performer and she had the abilities and she could talk and she could emote
00:39and stuff like this,
00:40but she used these for forces of evil. The list of people that she demeaned, undermined and emasculated without ever
00:47receiving any comeback,
00:48by slapping them in the face or just burying them on the microphone, is almost endless.
00:54So naturally, that's the last person in the world I wanted when WWE had signed this hot new free agent,
01:00this exciting MMA prospect who had changed the game over there
01:04and was now coming over here to do the same. The last person I wanted Ronda Rousey to be involved
01:09with in her very first match
01:11was that person with the history of burials and emasculations and making people look like crap because it was like,
01:18oh no, here comes Stephanie McMahon
01:20and she's not going to sell for Ronda Rousey, she's not going to be giving at all, she's not going
01:25to do anything to put her over,
01:27she might even pin her, who the heck knows. So when this match was put together, Kurt Angle and Ronda
01:33Rousey versus Stephanie McMahon,
01:34and to make matters worse, Triple H, not exactly known for being the most giving guy of all time either,
01:41I thought it was an absolute disaster waiting to happen. Turned out to be the greatest debut match in wrestling
01:47history.
01:48Partly because Stephanie McMahon entered the best performance of her entire career.
01:53Now, a lot of this match's success I think was to do with the layout and the way it was
01:56structured to build to Ronda Rousey's actions and her tags
01:59and Stephanie getting out of the ring as soon as Ronda was coming in until you finally pay it off
02:03and Stephanie gets her comeuppance, right?
02:05It's like the classic pro wrestling layout for the babyface side. But Stephanie was absolutely incredible in this.
02:11The work she put in to make herself look like a complete piece of trash throughout the whole thing, the
02:16work she put in from running away,
02:18scarpering away, stooging off, begging off, facial expressions, cowering in the corner, all of this stuff,
02:23getting out of the ring and gloating when she was in control and things like that.
02:27It was this picture-perfect, a chicken heel, I don't know why I censored myself there, I didn't do it
02:31earlier,
02:32chicken shit heel performance as you will ever see and it came from the most selfish person in the world
02:38who delivered the most selfless performance of all time. It's an absolute miracle and actually probably one of my favourite
02:44WWE things ever.
02:47I'm not entirely sure that I wasn't ready to admit it or didn't want to admit it,
02:50I'm sure if you watched my videos at the time I went crazy about it, but broke Corbin, sad Corbin,
02:55down on his luck Corbin,
02:57it's one of the moments that make me realise I, well, there's issues with new WWE in terms of storytelling,
03:02that I prefer new WWE because old WWE. Here we had this character that organically got over,
03:07people were literally giving Baron Corbin money as he walked to the ring, he was funny about it, he was
03:11dedicated to it,
03:12he'd grow out his hair, he'd grow out his beard, he would wear shirts with stains on it, which makes
03:15no sense,
03:16you're broke, you shouldn't be able to eat, I should say, but it made it funnier.
03:20And then, because Vince McMahon realised he was getting babyface reactions, we just killed it, it made him rich again,
03:25because we didn't want to have him cheered. Why on earth would you do that?
03:28If that's the way the fans are going, just go with it, it's going to be controversial now,
03:31that's why I like the whole Jey Uso stuff, because he was never meant to be in this position a
03:35couple of years ago,
03:35but then for whatever reason, don't care what it was, he did have that connection,
03:39and we pulled the trigger, and we went all the way, and now I think he's totally great.
03:42But, I just loved it. I remember thinking it was funny,
03:46I also remember thinking that Baron Corbin had been through so many iterations of Baron Corbin,
03:51normal Baron Corbin, Constable Corbin, obviously sort of biker Corbin,
03:54and finally from nowhere we'd come across this one that nobody ever had on their bingo card,
03:59and rather than try and be creative with it, we flushed it down the toilet.
04:02Maybe that's why now, I don't want to give it, I don't talk about it so openly,
04:06because it makes me sad.
04:07It's like Bad News Barrett, Bad News Barrett, a terrible gimmick on paper,
04:10you're going to come out and say, I've got some bad news,
04:13and you're just going to say something that's like, eh, it's pretty sucky I guess,
04:15but it worked, because Wade Barrett understood what to do,
04:18and we just got rid of that one as well.
04:20We could do this all day, Rusev Day for example.
04:22I'm not even talking about the topic now, I'm just going off.
04:24Rusev Day should still be a thing today, ironically,
04:27because we went all in with it, with Rusev Day calendars, a Rusev Day t-shirt,
04:30Aiden English, Alana should still be there,
04:32but we stopped because Vince McMahon thought they were cheering,
04:35out of some disrespect, or they thought it was a joke.
04:38Like when AJ Styles joined.
04:40Why am I on this tangent?
04:41Like when AJ Styles joined.
04:43It was a one-off, they cheered you,
04:45and everyone cheered him forever, because he's not the best wrestler ever.
04:48Point is, my answer on some level is sad Corbin,
04:52so don't bring it back, but if it happens again, make it work.
04:55Also, this is one of the reasons why Baron Corbin got released, right?
04:58He's got to go back to NXT to re-find himself.
04:59Wasn't even his fault. Stupid.
05:02What was a dumb WWE moment you didn't want to admit was genius?
05:06I sense a lot of people are going to be talking about sort of long-term ideas on this video.
05:10I am going to talk about something that was sort of a microcosm of this thing.
05:14I'm talking about I show speed in the Royal Rumble,
05:17because in a matter of five minutes, it went from one of the dumbest things WWE could have done
05:21to one of the best things.
05:23Because we all remember the moment, I think it was Akira Tuzar who gets taken out,
05:26and we saw it on Unreal.
05:28They're like, oh my God, who can step in?
05:29We've got a locker room full of wrestlers that deserve a spot on this card.
05:33Let's pick the social media influencer who just so happens to be backstage.
05:35And everyone kind of collectively, I think, even if you're a speed fan,
05:40we're a bit like, oh God, what are we doing here?
05:42And he does the whole thing, and he comes out, and it's like,
05:44okay, you're getting yourselves a viral moment, very nice.
05:47And he gets in there, and he's a bit crap, and I think he gets an elimination.
05:52And then magic happens.
05:54Yeah.
05:54He turns around.
05:56We've all seen it.
05:56He's playing in your mind as I say this.
05:58He does the,
05:59and he's barely got to the end of saying that,
06:01when he is speared out of his goddamn shoes by Brombreaker.
06:05I don't really care about speed, to be perfectly honest.
06:08But for me, that is now, I think, one of my favourite ever Royal Rumble moments.
06:14Like, it replays in my mind whenever people talk about the Royal Rumble,
06:17because it was just so amazing how they played with,
06:20sort of, our expectations.
06:22We all went, oh God, here we go again.
06:24They love getting celebrities in and giving them moments
06:27at the expense of other wrestlers that we just think deserve the spot.
06:30And instead, it's Brombreaker destroying iShowSpeed,
06:34chucking him out of the ring.
06:35We all saw what happened to his leg as well.
06:37It was amazing.
06:38Genuinely, at next year's Royal Rumble,
06:41as that thing counts down for number 30,
06:43I want it to be iShowSpeed again.
06:45Well, I tend not to like to admit too many WWE things of genius,
06:48right out the gate.
06:49But I was particularly cynical about the Fed in the summer and autumn of 2013,
06:55when WWE kept putting their thumb on Daniel Bryan's head
06:58in the form of the authority.
06:59Squashed him and squashed him and squashed him.
07:01To the extent where I'd not actually been that fussed
07:04about tuning next week's Raw when I...
07:07That never happened.
07:08Exactly.
07:08When I discovered that the plan was for him to join the Wyatt family,
07:11I was appalled with his development.
07:13Not least because he didn't really fit with those characters,
07:15but also because it was confirmation that he was leaving the WWE title picture
07:19and it was time to get to Big Show, like we wanted all along, you know?
07:23The originator of the Yes chant, of course.
07:25So I was furious.
07:26I think a lot of people were with the treatment of the character,
07:28but that was beyond the pale for me,
07:29because it was like, not only have you done this burial project,
07:32it's worked and you've just been able to other him in this,
07:35at this point, mid-table stable,
07:37and send him out there dressed like a school janitor
07:39and his white overalls and stuff like that.
07:41I was wrong, because I should have remembered in 2013 WWE,
07:44nothing matters, mate!
07:45Yeah!
07:46So by like two weeks later,
07:47it was all in service of just this massive moment
07:49where they realised we've made a terrible mistake here.
07:52And you had the steel cage pay off,
07:54like he was barely in the group, I think a month,
07:56and then you had that iconic moment on Raw
07:57where he sat atop the steel cage and he's doing the Yes
08:00and he's timing it all out so he beats Bray Wyatt up in the cage
08:03and he rips the overalls off, he's back in his gear
08:05and then everybody in the building is going,
08:06Yes! Yes!
08:08And we all know at that moment, for definite,
08:10Daniel Bryan is going to win the 2014 Royal Rumble!
08:14Yeah!
08:15And this is it, like, it was a good and bad moment in that respect
08:19because we did get to WrestleMania
08:21and we did get Yeselmania
08:22and everything worked out for the best.
08:24And then we would find out that Bryan was being told on that show,
08:26Yeah, you're winning, but Roman Reigns is the guy, mate.
08:28Don't get excited.
08:29We'll get you back in the overalls if we want.
08:31So, like, what it taught me, if nothing else was,
08:33for the longest period going forth after that was
08:36even if, like, you feel angry because something's dumb,
08:39like, don't care about it because they don't either.
08:42Like, then 2022 came along.
08:43But, like, before that, it was a good seven year period
08:45where it was like a good learning experience to realise
08:47that even the genius won't matter two weeks after it's happened.
08:50So don't worry too much about the dumb.
08:53So a key thing that WWE have had a bit of a bad habit of not knowing when to do
08:58is pulling the trigger of late.
09:00And that's things like the Cody, Randy Orton stuff, the CM Punk being world champion.
09:06And even, like, a couple of years ago, you could say, like, Ronda Rousey against Becky Lynch.
09:10They just didn't know when to pull the trigger.
09:12They backed off. They didn't do it.
09:14And then, like, by the time they did do it, it was too late.
09:17Or they just never did it, and it was frustrating.
09:19Something that falls into that category for me is the Judgment Day,
09:22or to be more specific, the breaking up of the Judgment Day.
09:26It's something that I think around maybe WrestleMania 40 season,
09:30a lot of people were like, yeah, okay, we've had a good run.
09:32We've had a couple of years out of this. Now is the time. Let's break them up.
09:35Let's get them to do their own different thing going forward.
09:37We've made some stars out of the group. That's what a faction is for.
09:40And now let them spread their wings.
09:42I think Damien Priest was a world champion. Rhea was a world champion.
09:44And, yeah, I think, like, at that point, it would have felt fine to do.
09:49I think you had that lovely moment at Mania 40 when they were all together with the belts,
09:52and then let's just break it up.
09:54But they didn't. They kept on it for a little bit longer.
09:56And then when they did eventually have, like, something of a split,
10:00like when Damien Priest and Rhea went off and did their thing,
10:02and then Finn carried on with J.D. McDonough and Dom and all that,
10:07they didn't completely break up the Judgment Day.
10:09Again, at that point, people were like, yep, we're done. Let's go for something new.
10:12Nope, they didn't. They just did, like, a spin-off version of the Judgment Day.
10:16And a lot of people were sat there at that point thinking this is a bit dumb now.
10:19The faction feels like it's run its course.
10:22What more juice can you squeeze from the Judgment Day just as a property?
10:26Well, the answer to that is actually quite a lot, because from this spin-off,
10:32we suddenly had Liv Morgan, like, having her, like, dynamic with Dom Dom.
10:37Like, that became this power couple that worked a lot better than what a lot of people thought it was
10:41gonna.
10:42It really did. It's clicked.
10:43And, obviously, she's been on the shelf or on the sidelines for a little bit,
10:47like with Indri and everything else.
10:48But when they were together, they were cooking. There was something really there.
10:51And then, just looking a little bit deeper into the faction in this latest version of it,
10:56JD McDonough seems to have found himself as an in-ring worker when he is actually allowed to wrestle a
11:00match.
11:01Finn Balor seems to be having the time of his life playing this cartoonish villain-type figure that always doubts
11:06Dominic.
11:06And Dom has become just super over personality in his own right.
11:11Raquel Rodriguez seems like she's rediscovering her NXT form of old in the ring.
11:16And even Roxanne Perez seems to have used this faction as a way of just finding a feat a little
11:21bit on the main roster.
11:22So, against all the odds, when it seemed like it was really dumb to carry on with the Judgment Day,
11:27it's actually turned into a pretty genius move.
11:29Because, yeah, it's not as compelling as it was a couple of years ago,
11:33but it's still serving a purpose.
11:34And it's still anchoring Raw week to week, somehow.
11:39It's baffling to me.
11:40But, yeah, it seemed dumb to not split up that team.
11:43But I've been proven wrong.
11:45Long live the Judgment Day at this point.
11:46Never break it up.
11:47I think it should be the first ever, like, 50-year run faction thing.
11:51Just keep it going.
11:52Let the good times roll.
11:55I was one of the many fans at the time.
11:57We're talking 2011, 2012, where I was, like, furious with WWE for not pushing my favorites.
12:05CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were my two favorite wrestlers.
12:08And the amount of work they had to do to force WWE into pushing them as major stars,
12:15I just found to be absolutely stupid, ridiculous, ultimately, like, really dispiriting.
12:21In the medium term, this actually was a dumb idea because you could argue that this treatment of those two
12:27wrestlers in particular,
12:28like, created the foundation for the movement that eventually led to All Elite Wrestling.
12:34And WWE, like, undermined its monopoly.
12:38And I'm not saying AEW ever had a chance of really sort of challenging it.
12:41But, you know, it did shake things up.
12:44It did give WWE a little bit of a fright.
12:47They've ended up paying talent more than they would like, I would argue, because of all of that.
12:53But in the long, long, long term, it is worked to quite incredible effect.
12:57WWE was adamant.
12:58I mean, they kind of had to for, like, to save face from, like, the hijacking that might have happened
13:05at WrestleMania 30, for example.
13:06They did, like, have to relent and do it.
13:09But the overall messaging was clear.
13:11You will like who we tell you to like.
13:14And, again, the AEW thing, from WWE's perspective, is less than ideal.
13:18They are still trying to thwart them and undermine them at every opportunity with the counter-programming.
13:24But, ultimately, WWE has now arrived at a point with a thriving, massive core audience that has received this messaging,
13:34which has happened, like, well before Bryan and Punk were on the scene, but it intensified after that.
13:40They have broadly interpreted the message, which I thought was so stupid at the time.
13:44Just give the people what they want.
13:45Put smiles on people's faces.
13:47This is your company motto.
13:49But we've now arrived at a point where this tribalistic WWE audience is so passionate about the initials
13:58that a wrestler that they've loved in the past will jump ship to AEW and are automatically bad, not good
14:07anymore, don't fancy you anyway.
14:10We've now arrived where the absolute inverse of that is true, where a wrestler that they would have deemed awful,
14:17spot monkey, gymnast, no psychology, everything else, right?
14:23It's now a win for them because that wrestler, who they previously would have written off terrible,
14:28one of these derbers that work for AEW, is now someone who had great talent, great potential, great skills all
14:36along,
14:36that idiot Tony Khan just happened to fumble them.
14:40This, like, relentless, years, decades long campaign of the brand is the star, WWE matters above all else.
14:48Stupid at the time, medium term, even dumber, long term.
14:52Like, they could call up anyone from NXT at this point and think, well, they're a future superstar
14:56because they happen to work for a company with the initials WWE.
15:02I cannot believe this worked.
15:04And I cannot believe the shift in the audience.
15:06I never saw it coming.
15:09It worked.
15:10Dumb as hell.
15:11And it works on people like you, Will Bourne, and you're kind of responsible.
15:15Fair.
15:15But it worked.
15:17Dumb as hell.
15:17And it's the most successful ploy ever.
15:20Ridiculous, but it worked.
15:22It worked.
15:22All right.
15:22Spak, at least 30 minutes.