10 Things Japanese Wrestling Does Better Than WWE
8. Working With A Shallow Roster And Keeping Long Feuds Exciting
A common complaint about WWE is that it has failed to make new stars. WWE’s main roster features 58 male stars, 15 female stars, and many other additional personalities. And yet out of this large number of talent, we see repetitive matches among a select few stars without making each match feel special or different.
This is where Japanese promotions excel. The booking in place in many of these companies, especially AJPW during the 1980s and 1990s, led to many repetitive matches over the years. But instead of fans getting bored from the same match-ups, fantastic booking and deep, complex storylines, led to a series of matches that are praised to this day.
There’s a reason why many people on wrestling forums worldwide continue to sing the praises of ‘the Three Musketeers’ of NJPW or ‘the Four Pillars of Heaven’ of AJPW; their singles and tag team matches over the decades were booked so well and their matches were so riveting that they’ve withstood the test of time in ways that few non-WWE promotions could ever hope of achieving.
That's what WWE needs to do to keep fans invested in a storyline: book things longer-term, add particular storytelling elements to each match, and give fans a reason to care about the contest they’re watching; instead of throwing wrestlers together at the last minute.