Wrestling Observer recently reported that WWE is over-relying on multi-person tag matches due to lack of ideas. The company is reportedly saving their ideas for the road to Summerslam, which will begin 2 months from now.
It very much well appears that WWE has no interest in fixing something that is clearly broken, and this is also far from something new. WWE has been in automatic pilot for years now, cruising by because of its name value, former stars, and recycled ideas.
Sure, WWE makes money. Even with its slippage in all facets of its company, WWE still highly successful company. I am not trying to dispute that; however, I could sit here and name off companies that were highly successful at one time and now are out of business. In business, it does not matter how much money you’re making now compared to how much money you will be making in the future. Due to the way WWE is slipping across the board, it would not be a hot take to conclude that the company will not be making money at some point down the line unless they do something about it.
Unless you are a wrestling fan, you will not watch WWE. I know that sounds like common sense, but think about it deeper. In no way is WWE in its current state a highly acclaimed wrestling company. It is the red headed stepsister in the entertainment world, and it is considered an insult to real sports. Surely, the shift to a more family-friendly and more politically correct product has helped its image, though it is far from a worldwide-accepted source of entertainment and remains to most a guilty pleasure.
The point is I would recommend no one to watch WWE’s current product, and I doubt many others would either. Even judged by wrestling columnists, the consensus for WWE shows usually ranges from solid, at best, to terrible. Monday Night Raw’s episodes are usually described as tedious and uneventful. Smackdown was highly acclaimed when former NXT writer, Ryan Ward, was writing the show and building and developing characters and stories in a logical manner. However, ever since Road Dogg has taken over head of creative, Smackdown episodes are described as passable.
The same can be said about the PPVs. Few people have enjoyed a Raw-exclusive PPV and, like Smackdown’s weekly episode, their PPVs have recently been fairly mediocre. The big PPVs haven’t rocked many people’s socks off either. Long and hit-and-miss best describes their recent track record for big PPVs. Most WWE PPVs feel like extensions of Raw and Smackdown. Aside from PPVs being more match oriented, there is very little difference. PPVS no longer have a special feel to them. They no longer feel must-see. They no longer feel important.
It is hard to deny Vince McMahon’s unparalleled track record. He is undoubtedly the most successful person in wrestling’s history. That is what makes it so baffling that he does not recognize a creative problem with his company. You can say many things about McMahon and a lot of them would be true, but it used to be hard to challenge his grapefruits. His admirable trait was always his willingness to throw the dice and see where they land. Sometimes his rolls would work. Sometimes they would not. It is very hard to say that he would be in the situation he is now if his important gambles did not pay off, though.
Somewhere and somehow, Vince McMahon has lost his balls. It could not be more evident just by watching his product. It is cautious, conservative, and timid. It is afraid to open the box and try different things. It is afraid to change its formats for its TV shows up. It is afraid to come up with new ideas. It is afraid to create a little controversy. The company is consequently static, unimaginative, and jejune.
Worse of all, Vince McMahon has completely lost his self-awareness. He is now a man who is fully pigheaded and insecure than ever before. He cannot acknowledge that his creative team is flawed nor can he realize that he is a big reason why.
Yet, people say he always put his company first and does anything best for business. Does he, though?
Once he had WCW in a stranglehold, he demoted Chris Kreski, the mastermind behind the biggest year (2000) in WWE’s history absent of their biggest star ever (Stone Cold Steve Austin) in favor of nepotism. He made his unqualified daughter, Stephanie McMahon, in charge of creative and in spite the dip of ratings and PPV buyrates, he never made a change.
He allowed his son-in-law, Triple H, to dominant in an era where WWE was losing fans left and right compared to before. I am not putting all the blame on Triple H, who I think is talented, although it was the weakest he ever was in his career as a main event (just coming off a surgery), and WWE was not just losing its former audience — it also could not even gain the 3 million-ish viewers WCW still drew on its deathbed.
Vince McMahon has tried sabotaging Paul Heyman any chance he has gotten. Sure, Heyman is not the best guy to be around on a day to day basis. However, his mind is surely worth the headaches. Yet, McMahon could not stand that Heyman’s Smackdown was doing better than Raw and instead of moving him to Raw, he just found a reason to fire him.
McMahon also fired Jim Ross, the man who scouted the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Rock, Mankind, etc., in favor of John Laurinaitis, and despite being totally incompetent and an absolute failure at his job, he outlasted Ross doing the job simply because he was a sycophant.
McMahon has hung onto Kevin Dunn and listens to his ideas even though his own daughter and son-in-law (among former people in the company) despise him and his ideas. He has also made viewing WWE as a fan a nightmare. From his “do everything in front of the camera” philosophy (cutting the ring in half, basically), his shaky camera nonsense, his stupid camera tricks (to make things look like they come out of nowhere), stupid fan reactions (and now replays of fan reactions), and missing moves and important things left and right, Dunn’s production is nauseating.
There was a discussion in the comment section on the last column I wrote, stating fans complain too much. Those people are entitled to their opinions, and while I agree fans can be overcritical at times, I believe fans accept mediocrity too much. I think WWE jams too much drivel down fan’s throats, and they accept it too many times. This is the same company who keeps pushing Roman Reigns in spite of a massive outcry. The same company who ignores success because they are not ready to push someone. The same company who has Brock Lesnar as their Raw champion and Jinder Mahal as their Smackdown champion. Lesnar hardly works, and he has been phoning it in after the Undertaker feud. Mahal has been a jobber in WWE for 99 percent of his career, and his character is trite xenophobia garbage.
Enough said.
