Antonio Cesaro lost a match tonight. That's not new. The man hasn't won a match since 19-dickety-2. See, we had to say "dickety" because the Kaiser stole our word for "twenty." Anyway, this time, it was at least for the title, so the magic of the Champion keeping the belt when it was on the line didn't have to be explained. But Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler, and Kaitlyn all had to lose their matches. Are there no more stories to tell? Did WWE forget that they have a roster 60 deep and could, I don't know, tell contendership stories and have guys fight through the ranks?
I don't want my wrestling to be all sports, all the time, but I do want the stories to make sense. For better or worse, it's rooted in sport. Then again, in a sporting world where the Super Bowl Champion is more often a wild card team than one that earns homefield advantage anymore, or where a guy such as Chael Sonnen gets a title shot because he's a good smack talker and not a good fighter, maybe that's less and less the case. Oh, and it worked with Ric Flair as a touring Champ back in the day, right? All of those are good points on the surface until you realize even in real sport, excellent teams win more often than fluky ones, at least historically still. Even so, WWE is not bound by the laws of sport in that they control the outcomes. They can make sure they build guys up.
With the other examples, MMA companies all haven't completely lifted WWE's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ style of naming contenders, and that Flair's time was totally different. One, he jobbed to guys in front of house show crowds that didn't see other house shows where he'd lose, and two, a lot of those were time-limit draws. WWE wouldn't know what to do with a time-limit draw if it snuck up on them and did the Joker's pencil trick.
It's all just lazy booking in and out. They only want to tell one story at a given time, so the rest of the show suffers because they don't wanna do work, or they're incapable of doing it, or whatever. It's a shame too, because there were strands of show that I thought were great. Brock Lesnar killifying 3MB was amazing as a visual. Mark Henry bulldozed Sheamus, and the Great Hoss Feud of Aught-Eleven was rekindled much to my delight at least. Ryback's revenge narrative was at least well-spoken and logical, and the final segment with him, John Cena, and the Shield to me would have been powerful if not for some contextual issues. CM Punk didn't have to say a word (even though he did speak a few of them, superfluous, really) to get his point across. And hey, Cesaro at least dragged a halfway decent match out of Kofi Kingston before depositing the title to him.
But much like the "CHAMPION HAZ 2 LOOZ" annoyance of their booking patterns, the fact that WWE only seems to have one kind of heel anymore is another sign to me that they just don't give a flying fuck. In a vacuum, Ryback bailing on the ring right before The Shield showed up at least would have raised an eyebrow whether he was tipped off to their presence at least or even hired them at worst. It would have shown a different side of him, but when EVERY FUCKING BAD GUY TURNS TAIL AND LEAVES, whether appropriately like a Punk or totally out-of-character like a Henry, it becomes yet another thing WWE does all the time.
I understand that WWE doesn't need to worry about the show week to week, especially if they do a great Mania number and have no competition. I'm fine with that if we get two-to-three good-to-great matches a week, virtuoso promos, subtle character work, and the requisite kitsch (by the way, they failed in both attempts this week with Cesaro's yodeling and their Cool-Dadding of the Fandango phenomenon). But even when the show's good, the bad booking habits rear their ugly head, and it can be frustrating, especially when they come so close to having an excellent program week in and week out.
On a week where the content of the show lacked a bit, the awful booking - moreover, the spamming of their worst traits - stuck out like a sore thumb. Vince McMahon is supposed to be this reverent figure when it comes to the history of the business. The respect he supposedly shows old wrestlers and the stuff that came before him borders on creepy religion. But if the other rumors I hear are true, and he really is the straw that stirs the drink, there's a cognitive dissonance that lives inside him, because there's now way the Champions of yore would have been treated as if the leather and gold were anchors around their waists.
As of right now, the only quick fix would be to go back in time, dissuade Vince Russo from going into wrestling, and replacing him with a guy who had similar ideas to his "hey, be different and push these guys" plan, and less of his "BELTS ARE WORTHLESS PROPS and everyone has the attention span of half-a-goldfish" ones. For now, maybe WWE should step back, look at why a crowd that isn't littered with intense hardcore fans akin to myself and some readers of the blog might react as sleepily as Greenville seemed to do tonight. If they looked at it from the correct angle, they'd see they're the problem, not the fans.
I don't want my wrestling to be all sports, all the time, but I do want the stories to make sense. For better or worse, it's rooted in sport. Then again, in a sporting world where the Super Bowl Champion is more often a wild card team than one that earns homefield advantage anymore, or where a guy such as Chael Sonnen gets a title shot because he's a good smack talker and not a good fighter, maybe that's less and less the case. Oh, and it worked with Ric Flair as a touring Champ back in the day, right? All of those are good points on the surface until you realize even in real sport, excellent teams win more often than fluky ones, at least historically still. Even so, WWE is not bound by the laws of sport in that they control the outcomes. They can make sure they build guys up.
With the other examples, MMA companies all haven't completely lifted WWE's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ style of naming contenders, and that Flair's time was totally different. One, he jobbed to guys in front of house show crowds that didn't see other house shows where he'd lose, and two, a lot of those were time-limit draws. WWE wouldn't know what to do with a time-limit draw if it snuck up on them and did the Joker's pencil trick.
It's all just lazy booking in and out. They only want to tell one story at a given time, so the rest of the show suffers because they don't wanna do work, or they're incapable of doing it, or whatever. It's a shame too, because there were strands of show that I thought were great. Brock Lesnar killifying 3MB was amazing as a visual. Mark Henry bulldozed Sheamus, and the Great Hoss Feud of Aught-Eleven was rekindled much to my delight at least. Ryback's revenge narrative was at least well-spoken and logical, and the final segment with him, John Cena, and the Shield to me would have been powerful if not for some contextual issues. CM Punk didn't have to say a word (even though he did speak a few of them, superfluous, really) to get his point across. And hey, Cesaro at least dragged a halfway decent match out of Kofi Kingston before depositing the title to him.
But much like the "CHAMPION HAZ 2 LOOZ" annoyance of their booking patterns, the fact that WWE only seems to have one kind of heel anymore is another sign to me that they just don't give a flying fuck. In a vacuum, Ryback bailing on the ring right before The Shield showed up at least would have raised an eyebrow whether he was tipped off to their presence at least or even hired them at worst. It would have shown a different side of him, but when EVERY FUCKING BAD GUY TURNS TAIL AND LEAVES, whether appropriately like a Punk or totally out-of-character like a Henry, it becomes yet another thing WWE does all the time.
I understand that WWE doesn't need to worry about the show week to week, especially if they do a great Mania number and have no competition. I'm fine with that if we get two-to-three good-to-great matches a week, virtuoso promos, subtle character work, and the requisite kitsch (by the way, they failed in both attempts this week with Cesaro's yodeling and their Cool-Dadding of the Fandango phenomenon). But even when the show's good, the bad booking habits rear their ugly head, and it can be frustrating, especially when they come so close to having an excellent program week in and week out.
On a week where the content of the show lacked a bit, the awful booking - moreover, the spamming of their worst traits - stuck out like a sore thumb. Vince McMahon is supposed to be this reverent figure when it comes to the history of the business. The respect he supposedly shows old wrestlers and the stuff that came before him borders on creepy religion. But if the other rumors I hear are true, and he really is the straw that stirs the drink, there's a cognitive dissonance that lives inside him, because there's now way the Champions of yore would have been treated as if the leather and gold were anchors around their waists.
As of right now, the only quick fix would be to go back in time, dissuade Vince Russo from going into wrestling, and replacing him with a guy who had similar ideas to his "hey, be different and push these guys" plan, and less of his "BELTS ARE WORTHLESS PROPS and everyone has the attention span of half-a-goldfish" ones. For now, maybe WWE should step back, look at why a crowd that isn't littered with intense hardcore fans akin to myself and some readers of the blog might react as sleepily as Greenville seemed to do tonight. If they looked at it from the correct angle, they'd see they're the problem, not the fans.