I must admit, this has been a weird couple of past months. The WWE looked like they were clicking on all four cylinders from April to May, while TNA was doing what they have been for the last four years: sucking. Both companies have gone in different directions and now WWE’s become nonsensical comedy show, while TNA’s become a very serious wrestling show.
It seems if so the WWE is saving their best ideas for the big 1,000 Raw. That doesn’t mean the creative team should book the most uninteresting content possible, though. If any other TV show was having a milestone show, I wouldn’t care about it unless they hooked me with something to look forward to, and aside from Brock Lesnar and stars from the past showing up on Raw, there hasn’t been anything that’s convinced me I needed to watch this yet. While I’m no promoting genius, I do know the best way to get the most viewers to watch would be to create some momentum beforehand. Instead of doing that, the WWE has basically taken the past month off, and by doing so the WWE has pushed the fans’ patience as high as they can go. Now the question isn’t if they are going to get a huge rating for their big show. The question is how many people are going to continue to watch this show. If this trend continues, I can assure you not many.
Additionally, I think WWE forgot that their MITB PPV was this Sunday. The only two things that hyped up the RAW MITB match were John Cena’s promo and, of course, a lazy ass tag-match. Cena’s promo didn’t make me want to watch the PPV, neither did the 16 minute tag match with one of the worst finishes ever, or the post-match stuff that established Cena was the sheer favorite heading into the mat (as if we all didn’t know that already). They did another tag match to hype up the Daniel Bryan vs. Punk match (which I’ll talk more in-depth about later) for the WWE championship. Oh, how could I have ever forgotten the 1:34 seconds match to hype up the Smackdown MITB match and Sin Cara defeating Heath Slater in another minute and a few seconds match to qualify!? Well, actually I can tell you why. I forgot because the show wasn’t exactly built around being the go-home show. It was built around WWE being what it was 18 months ago. Not only did we have to endure another Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole match, but also the overdone to death anonymous GM angle, where they reveled Hornswoggle was the GM. Why him? Because WWE apparently finds it funny to do the worst idea possible. To sum up, the build for Money in the Bank felt like a show that was 2 or 3 weeks before the PPV, not one week. It left me with little desire to watch Money in the Bank. Even for free, I would be still a little skeptical.
Let’s go back to the CM Punk and Daniel Bryan feud……
I grew up as an Attitude Era fan, making me used to a title being overshadowed by other elements. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It all depends on how its booked, just like anything in wrestling. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan have the complete “it” factor when it comes to wrestling, as they can talk people into buying to their matches and give them their money’s worth. In other words, they don’t need it.
With little build behind their match at Over the Limit, they were still able to have a MOTYC match. Their match perfectly set up a submission match down the stretch, but they decided to insert Kane and AJ into the mix instead. And, once Kane dissolved from the feud, they made the feud all about AJ. Don’t get me wrong: I believe AJ fits in her role and pulls off these stupid segments WWE puts her in a lot better than most people in the company could, but her involvement is still overshadowing this feud. Hell, the match at MITB isn’t even about who’s the best between the two. It’s about who AJ will side with.This angle would actually work better if it was for the other title. Del Rio and Sheamus doesn’t sound appealing on paper and desperately needs something intriguing attached to their feud .
To sum up, Punk and Bryan don’t need soap-opera angle to make this feud work. All they need is a ring and microphones. WWE also desperately needs a feud that treats the title importantly instead of a prop. I mean just look at how much credibility the Roode vs. Aries feud put into the title just by simply making the most important part of it about winning the championship. This feud could have possibly done that as well.
In a nutshell, WWE has gone from can’t miss TV to I can’t wait to miss it TV. The show simply isn’t building. It doesn’t feel episodic. It feels like a show that repeats itself every week and one you can foreshadow before you even watch it. They are so focused around the things that have been detrimental or fans don’t care about at all. What’s trending on twitter? Who was on Jay Leno? Who owns the company? What does the board of directors think of all this? Who is going to be the GM? Will someone beat up Michael Cole? How can they make every wrestler make you want to laugh? How clichéd they can make John Cena’s promos? How can they make heels seem pointless? How many comedy segments they have to do to have someone else laugh except Cole? How many dancing segments can they have?
I understand why the product caters to kids: So they can grow up with the product. However, you never want to cater too much to one demographic. When a 20-year old like myself feels as if he’s way too old to be watching the product, there is a problem. According to some statistic I read, 33 percent of the fans were kids in the Attitude Era while only 30 percent of kids are fans now. I believe it makes sense, too. I don’t know what most kids like these days, but I know I hated wrestling back in 1995. The happy-go lucky, goofy booking wasn’t for me. It wasn’t until Stone Cold Steve Austin came where I realized that wrestling was for me . The PG product isn’t the problem, though, as almost every company besides a few were PG. The problem is the bad writing that goes along with the product and Vince McMahon’s inability to realize he’s about a decade out-of-touch or remember anything that has happened three weeks ago.
