10 Staples From Wrestling's Past WWE Must Bring Back
4. Slow Burn Storylines
Perspective be damned: we shouldn't just be grateful that Finn Balor was suddenly entered into title contention at the onset of the Brand Extension purely because it was a brave and novel approach to booking.
From a storyline perspective, his promotion wasn't incongruous. There's very little separating NXT from the main roster in terms of kayfabe achievement, but we were still denied the kind of storied championship chase which would have made resonated far better.
If Balor's arc was booked as a slow burn, which ebbed and flowed to an extent that at various points it would appear that it wasn't going to happen, it's likely that fans wouldn't have cared one jot what the title belt itself looked like. They would have simply burned to see the Demon King win it at all.
WWE has so much television time, and so little ideas for how to fill it.
Ironically, given that it was fought between two undead half-brothers disputing which of them incinerated their parents, the best example of this abandoned restraint was the Undertaker Vs. Kane feud of 1997/1998.
It took months for the WWF to reveal the source of the animosity between 'Taker and Paul Bearer, and once Bearer revealed the secret and unleashed Kane upon the world, it took just as long for the future Brothers of Destruction to settle their discord in the ring.
It was a masterclass of patience, one which many lapsed fans still recall fondly.