For How Long Can WWE Be This Bad?
Will the hardcores ever soften their stance?
WWE Battleground has already entered the garbage echelon of infamous pay-per-views.
The Usos Vs. New Day opener was fantastic. Everything else veered from underwhelming to conclusively awful. Baron Corbin Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura diluted the aura of the latter, again, and did nothing for the former. It just reinforced overarching fan opinion of Corbin; even against one of the finest talents in the word, he only managed a generous “not bad”. Is it even accurate to praise Nakamura as one of the best in the world anymore? The process of normalisation has devalued his stock. If WWE was just going to forbid him from wrestling his awesome, idiosyncratic matches and cast him in the mould of the trademark underdog, why did they even sign him in the first place? Spite? The arrogant belief that there is one strict way of doing things?
AJ Styles Vs. Kevin Owens was as tedious as it was nonsensical. The multiple chin lock spots generated apathy, not heel heat. The ref bump made no sense; Styles didn’t score a visual win over Owens, who didn’t tap to the Calf Crusher. Owens appeared weak and strong in the span of about twenty seconds. What was the point? Why didn’t the referee throw the match out after Owens threw Styles at him?
The carny finish - for a company repulsed by old school wrasslin’, it sure borrows its old tricks - made no sense, either. It was yet another cheap and contrived means of initiating a rematch for the next PPV - WWE’s principal method of padding out the calendar in an era in which it doesn’t need your money and thus no longer needs to try. The punchline yammered by WWE apologists is that, if AJ Styles Vs. Kevin Owens took place at the Tokyo Dome, Dave Meltzer would have rated it five stars. The irony is that the side levelling accusations of bias has been conditioned by WWE to blindly accept no substitutes - better or otherwise.
The perception of match quality is subjective - but it’s hard to argue that New Japan would betray character and logic like WWE did on Sunday. That company doesn’t impose these restrictions on their performers. The irony deepens when you consider that WWE exhausts audience goodwill in an attempt to generate it. At which point will people stand up and refuse to take it?
New Japan haven’t booked a match that stupidly in years. WWE, meanwhile, is digging plot holes on a fortnightly basis.
WWE’s storytelling mechanism is broken - so much so that you can’t help but speculate that match layout genius Pat Patterson must be on gardening leave. The John Cena Vs. Rusev Flag Match was as illogical in execution as it was in premise. Neither man has developed their character in the two years since they were last programmed together, creating very little anticipation for a match that ultimately made little sense.
What followed was another nonsensical jingoistic running race, this time fought in a structure, the Punjabi Prison, that literally prohibits excitement and coherence - even the capacity to see what’s going on. For the third consecutive pay-per-view, WWE repeated the same story beats. Randy Orton was positioned as the superior wrestler. Jinder Mahal relied on outside interference to emerge with the WWE Championship. Shouldn’t he have been fined at some point, if only to deter someone like Aiden English from doing the same thing?
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