7 Ways WWE Get Their Best Characters All Wrong
When Prizefighters turn to cowards.
WWE's character creation system, like most aspects of their dysfunctional creative department, is broken, with only a handful of main roster personalities hitting the right notes.
Raw and SmackDown are largely populated by empty vessels. Flimsy "characters" like Finn Balor (whose gimmick is literally "tiny, smiling Irishman") and Bobby Roode (if he's even "Glorious" anymore...) are one-dimensional. They're incapable of exhibiting more than a handful of discernible traits at any given time, and this is entirely down to the writers, as we know from their past work that such performers are more than capable of showing personality.
The worst part of all this? Aside from a select few, nobody is getting over.
Cast your mind back to the Attitude Era. Guys like Gangrel and The Godfather were lightyears behind today's in-ring standards, but they were over as hell, and you can't genuinely say that about many main roster stars in 2018. The difference in crowd reactions between then and now is night and day.
Much of this is down to the bland troop of one-note warriors that populate WWE's kayfabe world, themselves mere products of a deeply flawed assembly line...
7. Branding, Branding, Branding
If it feels like everything WWE do these days is designed to sell t-shirts and drive Network subscriptions above all else, it's because it is, with the company freely admitting it during quarterly earnings calls.
This approach has left countless characters feeling empty. Seth Rollins is an affable personality and a tremendous wrestler, but he, like many of his peers, is a victim of over-the-top branding. What does "BURN IT DOWN!" even mean? How many times do we need to hear the commentators blurt out "Mr. Monster In The Bank" every Monday night? Can Sasha Banks please, just once, walk out without Michael Cole screaming "it's Boss time"?!
These aren't human beings, but walking advertisement boards. That's why Braun Strowman's every second sentence relates him being a monster or his opponents "getting these hands." That's why Dean Ambrose walked out with the latest in a long line of terrible t-shirt designs when he returned at Raw. That's why Cole, a tremendous announcer when Vince McMahon isn't screaming through his earpiece, speaks almost exclusively in taglines.
Sadly, the exorbitant amount of money this cynical practice generates means it's never going away.