In Defence Of WWE Creative
Tempted by sin.
The creative infrastructure of WWE is an irreconcilable shambles that invites only fury and apathy.
Nothing that occurs onscreen - RAW in particular - matters. Nothing. There are no stakes. Winners don’t advance up the card; losers do not descend. They simply meet again, with little storyline rationale, and exchange roles. To use a real sports analogy, WWE feels like a friendly football competition.
WWE promotes so many back-and-forth matches structured to flatter both performers, a requirement to fill the relentless TV schedule, that the pendulum just swings from one to the other. There is no consistent focus even on an elite few. There is no real hierarchy.
The rank-and-file are too often presented as threats to the true stars, those presented or actually received as such, with short-term convenience betraying long-term integrity - hence why Alicia Fox was portrayed as a match for Ronda Rousey on the July 30 RAW. WWE does this, presumably, to cast the illusion of unpredictability. It is an ironic self-own.
Virtually all performers, from the Champions to the jobbers, recite duplicate, jocose promos. The heels are ribbed for their fashion choices. The babyfaces are sneered at like they are geeks in teen movies.
We could go on.
All of this has contrived to shape a landscape in which so much of the roster is, in terms of star power, integrity, aura - everything - indistinguishable. They are nothing, stand for nothing, and fight for nothing.
Obviously, the writing itself is often appalling; as incoherent as it is stilted, pitched as comedy but laughable in translation. But the text isn’t the real problem - performers can get over, "Sparklecrotch" and all - the framework is. We compare NXT to the main roster, aghast at how superior the latter is. What separates NXT from WWE is the former’s shifting roster to the latter’s static set of dimmed stars.
CONT'D...