10 Very Bad WWE Ideas That Lasted For Years
1. Scripted Promos
WWE started scripting promos to death in late 2000.
WWE has never again approached the popularity it experienced in that period.
These developments are not unrelated.
John Cena was a star, and a massive one. He enjoyed a degree of creative latitude. He was permitted to riff beyond the script and got over with his unique approach. He grabbed the fabled brass ring on a tour bus with Stephanie McMahon in earshot. She was astonished by his ability to improvise. This is worth reiterating for how f*cked it is: Stephanie McMahon, the daughter of a wrestling promoter, was stunned by somebody's ability to think on the fly.
WWE winning everything really was the end. The sheer arrogance within the bubble intensified to such a ludicrous degree that they didn't think the toned, telegenic objects they hired so benevolently were actually sentient. They literally didn't think them capable of stringing together and articulating their own thoughts.
If the words they tattooed on their eyeballs weren't so sh*tty, this would still be a chronically wrong thing to do. Artifice is the death of wrestling. Wrestling has functioned for years in a bid to obscure its own artifice.
But WWE has instructed its talents to say the lamest sh*t imaginable for so long that they created their own competition despite holding an unprecedented monopoly.