10 Ways WWE Are Destroying Their Own Roster
4. Scripted Promos
WWE's steadfast insistence on controlling every single aspect of their wrestlers' performances manifests in a number of ways, but none are more harmful than heavy scripting.
Great wrestling promos are a dying art. Guys like The Miz and Paul Heyman still shine, but they're exceptions to the rule. For the most part, WWE Superstars sound like bland, unconvincing robots with little differentiation in personality. It's impossible to buy into what they're saying as they stand on their podium, spitting endless streams of catchphrases, marketing sloguns, and sentences that regular human beings just wouldn't say.
This is largely because their words aren't their own. They were concocted by an untold number of writers somewhere in a Connecticut meeting room, and there's a clear disconnect.
Would AJ Styles refer to Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens as "Kami" or make fat jokes if he spoke from the heart? Would Roman Reigns talk of "snivelling little sellouts full of sufferin' succotash, son," if he wrote his own material? Of course not.
It's not impossible to sound convincing when every line is meticulously scripted by someone else, but it's exceedingly difficult, and this problem hampers even WWE's strongest talkers.