Phoning It In?

Before you dive into this post, please let me make one thing clear. I am a diehard fan of World Wrestling Entertainment. I fell in love with the world of professional wrestling when I was kid during the Attitude Era. Guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock ran wild in WWE and factions like the New World Order dominated World Championship Wrestling. It was a great time to be a wrestling fan. As I watch the product now though, I can’t help but feel somewhat disappointed with what WWE has become. The lack of creativity in storytelling by WWE officials is appalling. It sometimes feels as if WWE is phoning it in until Wrestlemania season. In this post I will discuss why I feel WWE is in need of a major shakeup to make it must see television again.

A major shakeup can come very easily in two different ways. Creating better characters is probably the most obvious way of doing that. Guys like Wade Barrett, Alberto Del Rio, and Sheamus are stagnant to me. They are all fine when it comes to in ring ability, but their characters are just too boring. Much like John Cena’s babyface persona is in major need of a heel turn to make him refreshing and add depth to his character, these guys need more character development in order for me to care that they are heels. Personally, I find them pretty boring and until WWE can find a way to make me invest in them and give me a reason to truly despise these heels, I, like much of the WWE universe, will continue to see them as boring.

Another way to shake tings up is with better storylines. Team ECW versus the Wyatt Family was just thrown together, and Tyler Breeze versus Dolph Ziggler has become very bland. These wrestlers are all very talented, but poor storytelling on WWE’s part has made me care very little about them. The stories are repetitive and a bit lazy in the creative department, and WWE needs to fix this immediately.

I am not a WWE hater or a “smark.” I am a fan of WWE and while a lot of WWE programming has been bad as of late, there are some good. Guys like Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, and the New Day have well developed characters and are masters at capturing the attention of the audience. The Dean Ambrose versus Seth Rollins rivalry and the Daniel Bryan versus the Authority feud were two of the best pieces of storytelling that WWE has produced in the past few years. This proves that WWE is capable of producing intriguing stories with captivating characters that make the audience invest in them. Wrestlemania season and the “Attitude Era” are prime examples of that. If WWE could do this on a weekly basis, then perhaps its rating for Raw and Smackdown might reverse its current downward trend.

I really hope WWE smells the coffee and wakes up to the fact that its product is in a state of staleness. Something needs to be done to make it interesting again. Shake things up ,WWE. I am begging you to stop phoning it in until Wrestlemania season. Make wrestling fun again.