5 Ways WWE Is Outclassing The Competition Right Now
Is there anything good about the world's biggest promotion right now? Roman Reigns, for one...
As the world's biggest promotion, WWE often gets a lot of flak from both fans and critics. Their relationship with Saudi Arabia and their treatment of talent are questionable, to say the least, and the TV product they produce is borderline unwatchable at times. Stop/start pushes, contrived finishes and lacklustre matches have plagued the main Rrster throughout 2020/21.
That being said, WWE has never been more successful on the balance sheet. Surely there must be some things that the company gets right?
Of course there are. Despite all the criticism and hate, WWE are competent at various aspects of the business.
Vince McMahon has always said WWE makes "movies" and throughout the years WWE have created a company that is the industry standard in production. Similarly, in recent weeks, WWE have proved they know how to do storytelling as well.
It's unfair to call McMahon's empire a complete shamble while there are a few diamonds in the rough lying around Titan Towers. WWE could be the best promotion in the world if they focused on those diamonds instead of the clutter surrounding them, and the fans would be treated to some great wrestling every night of the week...
5. The NXT TakeOver PPV Format
The pay-per-view format is something that is very hard to get right. There needs to be enough content to make it feel like a justified event while also not burning out a capacity crowd. AEW tends to lean heavily on longer format shows, as does New Japan Pro Wrestling.
It can be argued that these shows are too long to maintain audience attention. Double Or Nothing 2021 for example could have easily shaved off 20 minutes by removing at least one of its lagging matches. NXT have steered away from this format, instead leaning on shorter events that deliver incredible match after incredible match.
Each TakeOver features roughly five matches and each event often run to about two hours and a half hours. This is the perfect amount of time to keep the audiences engaged and can often result in a molten hot crowd.
NXT has shown that modern PPVs don't always need to be crammed with matches to be worthwhile. Instead, all that is needed is a handful of key matches and a great story leading into the show.