10 Traditions WWE Needs To Embrace In Order To Turn Things Around
7. Present Sports Entertainment As "Wrestling"
Funnily enough, WWE is a pro wrestling company that's doing pretty much every other thing well except, well, WRESTLING. WWE does branded content creation, social outreach and social media incredibly well. However, at some point, those aims superseded those of getting the actual WRESTLING right, and it's in that issue that WWE is having huge issues. When you tell anyone who's a content consumer that you're watching wrestling, they're at minimum, wanting to see some sort of structured grappling contest moreso than backstage segments, scripted promos and whatever other hootenanny WWE's putting on TV these days. As well, when they see the matches, they're not wanting ref bumps, DQs and foreign objects. They're wanting suplexes and competency, something that's actually lacking by comparison to other things WWE is doing. Maybe "wrestling" is what sports entertainment needs these days.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
