10 WWE Storylines We'd Like To See In 2019
2. The Guarantee Of A Promise
"The whole automatic rematch thing is antiquated," said Shane McMahon a few weeks back, seemingly addressing a fundamental problem with WWE's increasingly unpopular storytelling mechanisms.
To actually address this, WWE has taken a very cheeky backdoor route: instead of automatically granting AJ Styles a rematch at the Royal Rumble, he simply won a number one contender's match, prolonging the usual tedium by a week, and obscuring the real crux of the problem. By rehashing the match, irrespective of how fantastic it was, WWE has overloaded an event, the Rumble, that virtually sells itself - while leaving little if anything to revisit during the typically dire post-WrestleMania season. Had AJ removed himself from the title picture, proven himself in a personal war with Randy Orton, and then re-entered it with a tangible storyline claim driven by real character progression, familiarity may not have bred contempt. Or, more accurately, apathy - which is the key problem WWE faces right now.
WWE must implement a "one shot" policy to its various title scenes - in which challengers aren't permitted to contend for rematches, much less be automatically granted them, for three months - to both freshen them up and inject actual stakes into B-level pay-per-views, which are increasingly defined by f*ck finishes.