10 Biggest Fan Complaints WWE Don’t Actually Want To Fix
Sit Down & Shut Up
A Monday Night Raw segment in which the entire tag division were made to look like f*cking losers to placate two more losers that have actually recently won their matches was, remarkably, not even the worst moment in the show's last few weeks. Sami Zayn and Bobby Lashley's 'sisters' running down the recent returnee was a hernia on yet another laboured three hour glut of anti-content.
The post-WrestleMania lull has hit harder than usual in 2018 thanks to the atypical delayed reaction to the 'Show Of Shows'. Greatest Royal Rumble provided problematic hair of the dog in the wake of the New Orleans supershow, but it served itself as a major axe through booking plans en route to May's Backlash.
Not like it mattered much to WWE. The company were paid a not-that-small fortune to run the Saudi Arabia show - continuity be damned - just as they will be to go back later this year and again (and again) for at least the duration of a decade-long arrangement between the company and the country. And just as they will be for supplying Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live! for the foreseeable future too based on projected figures for the flagship show and the new Fox golden egg.
There are seemingly more gripes than ever being hurled towards WWE, and yet the stock price has never been higher. Fans can be heard hating the world over (when they remain in the building), but are those heckles becoming a literal waste of breath?
10. "The Shows Are Too Long!"
Money.
The top line in this entire article, but predictably the bottom one for most decisions being made about quantity (and to a much lesser extent, quality) that impact every entry.
WWE have found ways to monetise most of the things fans loathe with arguably slicker skill than those they love. Want another Royal Rumble? Have a 50-man one at the back end of a five hour show! Really into what John Cena might do at WrestleMania? Expect multiple failed attempts (and a failed execution on the night itself) of working an angle that had neither the physical nor creative emphasis to survive the weight of expectation despite weeks and months of storyline. A big Seth Rollins guy? Get ready for 65 minutes of him on one episode of Monday Night Raw!
Time is money for WWE though. Literally so - the company were dishing out bonuses to staff and big numbers to stockholders for the 'minutes watched' stats they were able to deliver for April 2018. It was, for fans at least, the most bloated period in recent memory. More was more for Vince McMahon as usual, and his vault of billions still shouts louder than the once-labelled collection 'millions' that somehow still buy tickets to his one ring circus.