17 Ways WWE Has Changed Since It Was The WWF
7. 50/50
50/50 booking-esque bad habits had crept into the company shortly before the 2002 name change, but few could have predicted how the once-risky approach would become the norm and hamper star creation and genuine storyline satisfaction after 17 years of turgid trades.
In the era before creative higher-up Road Dogg espoused the view that wins and losses don't even matter, the wins and losses actually f*cking mattered. Few performers ever went legitimately undefeated, but results absolutely had ramifications and signposted if a talent was being pushed and protected or cast off and cut adrift.
Crucially, the practice created the semblance of an actual pecking order, which in turn established a sense of competition about a product that was rooted in the idea of one wrestler defeating another. The systemic damage it was destined to do has, by 2019, been fully realised - never have WWE been so talent-heavy yet shorter on actual individual stars.
There is no quick fix - though the banning of automatic title rematches in 2018 was a great start until they later ignored it - but only when there are actual winners again will fans not receive so many rank-and-files as total losers.