10 Things WWE Actually Got Right In 2019
Because even a stopped clock could book Survivor Series with a roster this stacked.
It’s easy to be critical. It’s especially easy if you want to criticise WWE in 2019. It is, after all, a company run by a mad, old billionaire (who ought to be a trillionaire), who ignores his product’s own fans but sucks up, biannually, to a morally decrepit Saudi Arabian political regime.
A company that won’t provide their “independent contractors” with insurance, pay for their travel or, until very recently, allow them to leave - but will endanger said “independent contractors” by leaving them stranded in Saudi Arabia under mysterious circumstances after a dispute with the aforementioned morally bankrupt regime.
A company that responded to big league competition by getting worse, that ruined The Fiend and Seth Rollins in one match, that instigated the godforsaken Wildcard Rule!
So yes, it’s easy to criticise but it’s also easy to overlook the things WWE have actually got right this year. This being WWE, this list comes with a fair amount of caveats but Christmas is a time for forgiveness, so let’s take a deep dive into some of WWE’s best decisions of 2019.
10. New Stages
Both SmackDown and Raw had long been in need of freshening up, having looked the same, and interchangeable with each other, for years now (minus the colour, obviously).
Change was all the more necessary with the arrival of AEW and the gorgeous, futuristic looking duel portals Jon Moxley is apparently so scared of.
This autumn’s, “season premieres,” with SmackDown in a new home and time slot and Raw, well, rolling on but in a, “season premiere,” way, was the perfect opportunity to introduce a new look and WWE’s production teams seized it.
Both Raw’s skate ramp and SmackDown’s giant brackets looked beautiful and were further enhanced by the re-introduction of pyro. It’s good, you know, pyro. Fans probably should have been calling for it for years.
Of course, a wrestling show stands and falls not on the splendour of its set but the strength of the show it presents on that set. Unsurprisingly then, these new sets didn’t usher in a new era of critical acclaim and massive ratings. Still, WWE’s television product briefly looked and felt like the big deal it purports itself to be.