10 Things Modern WWE Could Learn From Its Golden Era
4. Non-Wrestling Personalities
In the Golden Era, a wrestler could be announced by Howard Finkel, in a match refereed by Earl Hebner, and then be interviewed by 'Mean' Gene Okerlund afterwards. That's three famous characters and none of them were wrestlers.
Compare that to today's product, where announcers are there solely to announce, referees are nameless officials, and backstage interviewers show about as much personality as a plate of raw fish. Nothing against them as people, that's just how WWE tells them to act.
Characters like Gene, Earl, and The Fink helped to flesh out the WWF landscape and make the show feel like a living, breathing world. One of the reasons shows like The Simpsons are so popular is because of their large cast of secondary characters and wrestling is no different.
Fans get behind and support these characters in very different ways than they do with wrestlers. The outpouring of grief and love when Gene Okerlund recently passed away shows just how well he was able to connect with fans. This is severely lacking in current WWE.
The company should definitely start letting their non-wrestling talent show a bit more character, because at this point, they may as well just replace them with robots. Oh no. We've given them an idea, haven't we...