10 Ways WWE Can Finally Get Their Audience Back
7. Add Stakes To The Action
Do you give a sh*t about an inanimate object? One that does not impact your own life in any meaningful way?
No?
Then you likely don't give a sh*t about much of WWE's recent output which, yes, is based around inanimate objects.
The lore of Drew McIntyre's mam's sword has relegated the former top guy into the jobber realm, and if the sword is meant to symbolise his nice connection to his (genuinely admirable) mother, it's not getting over. Because it's a sword.
It's a sword that Drew McIntyre first started carrying around to make him jump off the screen a bit more and sell a few more action figures. In reality, it's so clichéd that it just makes him look like a parody of a scotsman. The man couldn't look more Scottish if they deep-fried Scotland's early exit from an international football tournament.
Over on SmackDown, Baron Corbin has plunged into a pit of despair upon losing his little crown. The Miz and John Morrison use water gun-like devices as foreign objects.
Perhaps things like "real-feeling animosity" and "the career-changing heft of winning and losing" are more important than "things" in generating intense emotional investment.