10 Biggest Mistakes Of WWE's New Era Thus Far
6. Not Doing Away With 50/50 Booking
50/50 booking has been a problem in WWE for years, and a big reason for the company’s continued inability to create new stars. It’s a simple concept: one week, wrestler A beats wrestler B. The next, wrestler B beats wrestler A, and so on, and so on. Both wrestlers are presented as equal throughout the storyline, and nobody comes-out stronger than when they went-in.
With 50/50 booking, it’s impossible to make a wrestler look good. The victor doesn’t come-out of the feud looking any stronger because he’s lost just as many matches as he’s won, and he goes absolutely nowhere was a result. Look at the Baron Corbin/Dolph Ziggler feud as a perfect example of two wrestlers who spent a few months trading wins and losses to neither man’s benefit.
This is why outside of 2-3 wrestlers on each brand, everyone in WWE feels like a midcarder. Nobody’s ever made to look dominant, underdogs are rarely working from beneath, and nobody’s allowed to move-up the card naturally. Wrestlers only more horizontally, never vertically, and nobody gets over.
WWE should have abandoned this practice a long time ago, and yet they persist. It’s one of the chief reasons for their product’s recent malaise, and if they don’t break the formula, it’s hard to imagine WWE ever reaching their heights of old.