10 Things WWE Are Struggling To Get Over Right Now
Bland characters, bad champions, and the most pointless weekly brand in WWE history.
In creative terms, WWE aren't in a bad place at the moment. Raw's main event scene is hotter than it has been in years, thanks primarily to Messrs Strowman and Lesnar. NXT is on fire through a sharp upturn in weekly TV quality. The arrival of Bobby Roode promises to shake SmackDown up, and we're probably going to see Shinsuke Nakamura crowned WWE Champion sometime soon.
If you were to cut these highlights out and paste them into 2-3 hours of weekly content, people would rave about the product, but WWE's lows can't be ignored. There's never a shortage of dross to counterbalance every hot angle they stumble upon, and in trying to produce a sports entertainment variety show that appeals to as many fans as possible, WWE often end up appealing to nobody at all.
The company love to say they're "super-serving" their audience, but their disconnect with the fans' needs and wants, tendency to do things to death, and unrelenting stubbornness has led to dozens of acts and angles not getting over, with plenty of examples within the current product.
Their quality levels vary, but WWE just aren't succeeding in making the audience care about any of these things.
10. Lana & Tamina
Everything that WWE have done with Lana since transferring her and Rusev to SmackDown as part of the Superstar Shake-Up has stunk. Her sudden elevation as a Women's Championship contender not only devalued the belt, but saw 'The Ravishing Russian' buried through her ever-shortening series of one-sided losses to Naomi, destroying her singles run before it truly began.
Lana has now reverted to her old role as a manager, which would've been a smart idea if WWE hadn't paired her with the women's division's least exciting wrestler: Tamina.
She comes from a celebrated lineage, but Tamina hasn't ever connected with the audience. She has never been able to talk, her ring work has always been clunky and awkward, and her personality is non-existent. There's no reason to care about her, and thus, she has been a bit part player for the bulk of her run.
Perhaps WWE are hoping that some of Lana's popularity will rub off on Tamina, but the association isn't working. Lana is close to an all-time low at the moment, nobody's buying into this act, and that doesn't look like changing any time soon.