I think I will be taking an extended hiatus from Rasslin' again after this year's Mania. I've watched it off & on again since Mania 25, which in and of itself was the first WWE product I had watched in over 6 years if I'm being honest.
It's not due to Super-Cena or my favorite Punk-er leaving to try different things. I can't take anymore how blatantly out of touch Vince is with what people want to see, and the history of this product.
I'll address the second part first. In it's heyday (mainly the attitude era widely regarded as the most profitable time in the business) WWE was more about SPORTS entertainment than sports ENTERTAINMENT. Yeah it was a bunch of guys in speedos pretending to fight one another, but it was presented as a traditional sport with match ups that were made because they were "earned", hype videos were produced, and the matches themselves were presented as being important. That is what hooked me, and it has been a model of success for Dana White at the UFC. Now, VKM has returned to over-the-top circus acts with very little in the way of in-ring work. Good technicians are labeled as "boring", or pushed and then blamed for the company's success even when they didn't get the full creative effort behind them.
A lot of "the fall of WCW" was blamed on talent having guaranteed contracts and that marginalized the creative efforts of Eric Bischoff, Ed Ferrara, Vince Russo, and others. If we are looking at the "fall of WWE"; however, with no guaranteed contracts and creative control the shows are still being hastily rebooked at the last minute because despite having a room full of writers for each show Vince still feels that they are not getting the job done. In 30 years of business it's hard to believe that the man has never learned that sometimes you have to be accountable for your faults when failures occur. It's much too easy for Vince to write it off as "an apathetic crowd" or "a talent not getting over the gimmick" and so on. Instead of looking at what worked in the past to help provide a template for the future.
I use "fall of WWE" loosely because the truth is that the company will probably succeed in spite of itself, because it's the only widely accessible game in town.
When I say Vince is out of touch you can see it in the programming. A ready-made destruction machine like Roman Reigns has been reduced to cutting promos about how he is like Superman, or telling fairy tales to the audience. PAC made a name for himself on the indy circuit with his incredible in ring ability and no benefit of the WWE hype machine, yet Vince is set on making him a "mighty mouse" superhero character when he comes up to the main roster. Mighty Mouse? I am pretty sure some of the parents in the audience may only partially get that reference. We keep on going down the line and look at Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose, who has been booked into oblivion with inane comedy and shenanigans finishes to his main event matches. Tyler Black/Seth Rollins has been handled well so far, but give it time. Sheamus went from a powerhouse heel to a one-note ethnic joke that wasn't funny the first time. Bray Wyatt was absolutely killed by booking, and the powers that be decided that they can rebuild his character by having him beat Ambrose multiple times on free tv and ppv. There are many more, but this was just to make my point.
The booking decisions alone show what kind of chaos reigns in the backstage of the WWE right now. It's not something I can willingly support any longer, and part of me hopes that they fail. This was something that I enjoyed as a kid, but they have stripped away anything enjoyable about it.
Being home with my son meant I had time to kill while he napped on me so I had gotten in the habit of watching the 90-min Raw on HULU, and even that has gotten insufferable.
So after Mania I'm done & this is my last post at this site.
As Edward R. Murrow would say "Good Night and Good Luck"
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