10 Solutions To The Hot Mess That Is WWE Creative
3. Divorce Us From The McMahon Family
The fandom tired of McMahon family drama during the Attitude Era. It got boring then. It is mind-numbing now.
The events of Survivor Series confirmed that we're meant to care about them above the actual full-time wrestlers. Almost as daft was this week's SmackDown. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were blamed for costing their team the loss, even though their interference was ineffective. They were chased off by a chair-wielding Shane, and Owens ran into an RKO. It did lead to Orton's elimination, but only in a roundabout way. He was selling the effects of the prior sequence more than Zayn and Owens, who neither distracted nor laid a finger on him. When Owens and Zayn approached Bobby Roode backstage for help with their lumberjack match, Roode wanted none of it.
"Are you guys out of your minds? You ruined it for the entire SmackDown locker room!" he said. They didn't; Team RAW already held the numbers advantage.
Essentially, in having to pretend the whole thing wasn't orchestrated as a rampant McMahon ego trip, Roode had to make himself look like an idiot. That's the problem; Shane's hard man routine isn't just really irritating in itself, it infects all those below him as weaker worshippers.
"Shin" is no longer the "King". Roode is no longer "Glorious". Shane McMahon is the top star on SmackDown.