10 Totally Dumb Booking Tropes Wrestling Is OBSESSED With
When Kevin Owens hates WWE more than Dave Meltzer...
Is wrestling inherently and irredeemably stupid?
Advertisers certainly seem to think so. If you ever wondered why it took so long for an alternative to air on major cable - despite WWE's concurrent impressive viewership and savage critical reception, which indicated that there was a market for it - it is because advertisers, for decades, even during WWE's mainstream visibility, deemed wrestling fans too stupid and poor. And, because they were apparently too stupid and poor, it was pointless selling ads in the slot.
Why sell cars to people too uneducated to get a good enough job to afford one?
This is how the advertising industry perceived you, the reader. They probably still would, if you weren't among the only people left actually watching television shows in 2023.
After all, you'd have to be as thick as hell to watch wrestling, with its puerile humour, unrealistic combat, and dire melodramatic acting. Do you even know it's fake? Of course you do, but advertisers thought you were that stupid (which they conflate with being poor).
Wrestling is tremendous at its best. Kenny Omega's dense storytelling. GUNTHER's ability to make his opponents struggle for everything. Kazuchika Okada's new pissed off veteran phase.
On the following evidence, however, the advertisers may have a point...
10. The Subplot In The Background
"And the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series goes to..."
"Wait!"
A member of the panel sprints towards the stage. They have just watched an entry submitted at the eleventh hour. They whisper in the celebrity presenter's ear before darting back to their seat.
"Breaking news, guys. The Emmy was going to be awarded to Succession, but I've just been informed that Nikki Cross has been lurking in the background of some interview segments with Candice LeRae, and as such, your winner is WWE Monday Night Raw!"
Triple H is besotted with this trope, which sometimes isn't too dumb in and of itself. The idea is to use TV time economically and tease a mystery.
It is however dumb for how clever he thinks it is. Triple H thinks it's a hard-to-spot easter egg, a subtle flex of his incredible booking prowess. The other unfortunate reality of the trope is that it never goes anywhere...ever.
Cross and LeRae barely appear on Raw at the time of writing. Additionally, Triple H teased a similar alignment between Finn Bálor and JD McDonagh recently. The idea that Finn was hiding in the background, already a stretch, was rendered all the more daft when he was bathed in the purple light of his Judgment Day stable. McDonagh went 50/50 on Main Event with Apollo Crews across July.
Hardly subtly brilliant storytelling, is it?