Credit: WWE.com
For years I have said to people "The Attitude Era was overrated" because at some point I got smartened up and learned that era was protracted hotshotting. I learned from listening to Jim Cornette that in the territory days you would hotshot when business was down to make business pick up. Then you would stop hotshotting because if you immuned the audience to everything you could possibly do, it would kill the town. WWE has been making everything mean nothing for over 20 years now and now those chickens are coming home to roost.
There was a time where you would do a gimmick match because the storyline called for it. Now, we get tables ladders and chairs, Hell in a Cell and Elimination Chamber because it's that month where they decided those matches have to be on the card. There was a time where you only got a championship belt because you were a proven draw. Ticket sales, ratings and merch go up because you are present. That championship is representative of you being one of the best in the world. Now the belts are participation trophies that get passed around like some of the women wrestlers. There was a time where wrestlers would be face or heel their entire career. It was rare. It was a thing. Now, it's rare for a talent to not turn four times in a year.
Another thing I have been complaining about for almost a decade now: WWE has been teaching its audience that the full time talent are jabronis. When I was a kid it was a novelty thing that Bob Backlund came back and won the WWF championship. He was full time though. The only reason you would ever bring back old dudes to work the top matches on cards is because you are hurting for stars. We are in an era where even with AEW coming, WWE is going to sign most wrestlers that make a name for themselves. And then, instead of pushing those talents as the present and future of the company, 50 year old men will be given all the opportunities on the biggest shows. It is a form of hotshotting. Something you would do out of desperation.
This past week, in response to record low ratings, they booked top names on Raw and SmackDown to jump between both shows. The ratings went up this week. It's not going to last. The real problems are that everyone is a star but nobody is really a star. They do not come up with plans to elevate talent and tell compelling stories and stick to the plan. There are no real stakes or consequences to anything that happens which means nothing matters. How many times do wrestlers get fired and then not miss any TV? Vince didn't want Kofi to win the belt and then after he won he just left him alone?
I remember when The Rock, HHH and Stone Cold would have bloodbaths on ppv then come out for Raw the next night bandaged up and selling like they had near death experiences. The announcers call every gimmick match a demonic structure or something like that and then they are on TV the next day like nothing happened. Which tells me, what happened was nothing.
WWE tries to put together all these soap opera storylines when wrestling is simple. You put together two people or two teams and give us reason to root for one side over the other. The underdog thing is overdone to death. You know what happens to the underdog most of the time in real sports? They lose. You can tell WWE doesn't have any real plan for Kofi Kingston as champion. The announcers literally talk about him like him being champ is some fluke that will end any day now. I pray for the days of wrestling gods to return.
The ratings and attendance numbers are indicative of how the populace feels about mere mortals.