Credit: WWE.com
Seth Rollins is a liar. I am so sad. Disgusted even. He took to Twitter to tell us about how WWE is the best wrestling company in the world. Something about how hard everyone worked to make a show that drew very poorly great. By all accounts the show wasn't bad. But. On a night where you couldn't even halfway sell out an arena that is the home state of one of your most popular talents... How DARE you. I'm sick.
WWE is not getting such low ratings and poor attendance despite actually being good. If it was I would say that because I am a very forthright individual. The product stinks. That's why I don't actually watch it. I love wrestling so I keep up with the happenings so I can help my friend's wrestling site by constantly complaining about how much WWE sucks. And interspersed in there, my wishes that AEW is actually good so Vince will get desperate and improve his trash product. If Seth Rollins said "the talent roster is as deep and talented as it's ever been" he'd get no arguments from me. Right now, WWE is not better than NJPW. And I sincerely hope AEW is better. Again. Many people who are reading this can relate to the next sentence: Just because you are good at your job and work hard doesn't mean your place of employment is a good place to work that knows what to do with good workers.
As much as I've been seeing people complain about Dolph Ziggler getting title shots, it is inarguable that Kofi Kingston has actually been booked strongly as champion and I'm happy to see that. I thought that Rollins would be presented as the more credible champion, and it looked as though he would wash Kofi for the belt the night after Mania. I will now go ahead and complain that a big problem you see company wide is that challengers to top championships are not properly built up as credible threats. Baron Corbin has done lots of jobs on TV getting multiple championship matches. Ziggler cuts long whiny promos but hasn't done much to show himself to be at a top level. Lacey Evans has been contending for Becky's belt since Mania and she literally wasn't even wrestling in matches before that. When you don't make title contenders look good, the champion doesn't look like much for beating them. Fans don't feel compelled to watch the television. Fans don't feel compelled to go to the arena to see the show when it's in town.
I feel bad for Drew McIntyre. I'm not claiming he has been buried because he has lost twice on pay per views to THE BIG DOG. I'm saying Shane McMahon has a win over Roman. So, we are living in a world where someone that looks like that isn't being presented as a credible threat that can beat top talent. The guy that blows up, turns purple and sweats profusely DURING HIS ENTRANCE is presented as the top credible heel on Raw AND SmackDown. When I was saying what I thought would happen and what I thought should happen at Mania I was saying that I think Drew should go over on Roman and prepare him to take the belt from Rollins. As it stands, Drew doesn't look like someone who deserves a future championship match. Shane McMahon does. AND THIS IS WHY THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL WWE IS THE BEST WRESTLING IN THE WORLD.
Remember when you people were trying to tell me Braun Strowman was the true face of WWE? HE MIGHT BE. If you consider irrelevance and mediocrity and poor planning to be representative of WWE. Which I do. So yeah. I guess Braun is THE GUY now. I'm not trying to say that every big guy like him, Lashley, McIntyre and Reigns should be main eventing every show and holding all the belts buuuuuut the look is credible in and of itself. At least Drew and Roman are involved in the top storyline in the company. Strowman is in a feud no one cares about with Lashley. They keep having Strowman win title shots they don't want him to have. I recently rewatched his match with Roman at Fast Lane 2 years back. He hadn't been pinned back then. It's unfortunate they had no real plans for that dude after basically building him to be Roman's TV and PPV feud sandwiching Roman "retiring" Undertaker. And he won that feud. So......... he could repeatedly fail to beat Brock. But then because the booking and storytelling is so great, Roman would also fail repeatedly.
One of the saddest things about WWE is that Brock Lesnar is the strongest booked character in the company. Everytime they go to Saudi Arabia and it's one of the big four shows they shell out big bucks to old men to carry the company. We saw what that looked like when they trotted out two 50 year olds at Saudi Money 3. What if they presented Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin at that level of credibility? Then they wouldn't have to put up curtains on half an arena and still paper the other half for one of their b shows.
Something I think about often is how WWE booking would naturally improve if they ran less big shows. Instead of needing to force someone into a main event spot that may not be ready for that spot OR repeatedly beating guys who are at that level because you don't play for them to get the strap... You could focus on long term storytelling and planning. Let's say there was no big show between the Rumble and Mania. That means that you could spend roughly four months building the top of the Mania card instead of forcing someone else to job at Elimination Chamber and FastLane. What if WWE cut down its schedule to have only 6 big shows? Saudi Money is a given, but what if you rotated MITB and KOTR and used the gimmick matches as storylines called for them, as opposed to forcing HIAC and TLC because it's that month? Instead of getting several Baron Corbin main events those spots only go to the top top superstars!?! Imagine that.