5 Storytelling Crutches WWE Needs To Ditch Right Now
WWE claims they tell stories. Once upon a time, they didn't resort to crap like this.
Boring. Repetitive. Nonsensical. These are just some of the words that are commonly used to describe WWE storytelling these days.
In an era of 50/50 booking and two pay-per-views a month, WWE spends as much time dragging out feuds and programs far past their expiration date as they do burning through new match-ups, stipulations, and marquee-worthy bouts.
Granted, with five hours of programming every week -- eight or more when there's a pay-per-view -- you're going to use up ideas faster than you would in the days of four pay-per-views a year and one hour Monday Night Raws. The era of slow-burn storylines like the first Kane and Undertaker showdown, or Bret Vs. Owen is over. The closest we get to that these days is Randy Orton and the Wyatt Family.
Still, with the vaunted WWE writer's room available to them, you'd think WWE would stop going to the well so damn often and work a little harder to come up with interesting finishes or ways to prolong a program without resorting to ill-conceived ref bumps and other stupidity.
Shenanigans are all well and good, but let's put a little more effort into the entertainment side of Sports Entertainment, shall we? Let's ditch these five tropes and see if the product still stands.
5. Heel Authority Figures
Yes, for the moment, we seem to be blissfully free of the dreaded heel authority figure. Kurt Angle runs Raw, Shane McMahon, and Daniel Bryan run SmackDown, and William Regal runs NXT. The only reason this crutch is as low as #5 is that it's been a while.
But you know it's coming.
Stephanie browbeating and emasculating Mick Foley as GM wasn't all that long ago, and she'll be back for Kurt Angle at some point. (Many of us thought that would be part of the secret texts storyline, before Hornswoggle, I mean, Jason Jordan was revealed as his son.)
And Shane won't remain the affable SmackDown figurehead forever. He's a McMahon. They just don't DO babyface for long periods of time.
But the company should hold off on this for as long as possible. The foul taste of the Authority is still in a LOT of fans' mouths, and will be for quite some time to come.