If youre one of those people who tunes in to RAW or SmackDown every week to see in-ring action and excitement, you might as well skip the first 15-20 minutes of every broadcast. Thats because every show opens with a long promo, instead of starting a wrestling program with, you know, a wrestling match. These long-winded promos always open the program, instead of taking place later in the broadcast (which might make them seem more important). What makes these segments even more useless is that they get repeated later in the broadcast, making it even more pointless actually watching them as they happen live. In his autobiography, Bret Hart discussed some of the things he learned during his tenure as Stampede Wrestlings booker. One of the most important things he learned was to keep things fresh and to never book the same things to the same audience (because that leads to boredom). Familiarity breeds contempt. Yet this is exactly what WWE insists on doing on a regular basis. Because of this, one of two conclusions can be drawn: either, A) the audience actually likes seeing the same things each week without any big changes; or, B) WWEs bookers are literally insane (doing the exact same things more than once and expecting different results).
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
