10 Reasons WWE Feels UNDERWHELMING in 2026
5. Too Much Inside Baseball
Kayfabe - the act of pretending wrestling is a legitimate sport - hasn't existed for decades, but WWE have been really hammering the point home the past couple of years. If Vince McMahon's 1989 testimony that wrestling is scripted told people how the sausage is made, then shows like WWE Unreal and Cody Rhodes' podcast are the equivalent of watching the butcher splay open the pig's guts and try to mold them into something palatable. No matter the end result, by the end, you're never going to look at at sausage the same way again.
Putting some distance between your audience and your product is a vital part of keeping the latter's appeal, but WWE have been determined to close the gap to their own detriment. Reality shows like WWE Unreal offer little that hardcore fans didn't know already, and simply make casual fans raise their eyebrows at how screwed up the company is behind the scene (Bruce Pritchard being needlessy cruel to Chris Park being an especially galling example).
Add to that the proliferation of podcasts, which reveal golden gods like Cody to be total goofballs while menacing heels like Kevin Owens come across as positively avuncular, and WWE's mystique has been all but erased. Sometimes its good to keep the curtain shut, even if it's just so no-one can see the mess you're making in the kitchen.