7 Huge Problems The WWE Wild Card Rule Has Created

4. Lazy Booking Crutch

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WWE.com

WWE has five hours of programming to fill each week. They have a plethora of superstars on each roster who are capable of filling that time in the ring or even on the mic.

But rather than use these tools to their advantage, WWE has fallen back lazily on “shocking” jumps between shows due to the Wild Card Rule. Need to pop the crowd? Don’t worry about writing smartly or having a wrestler get the segment over, just have someone from Raw show up to get the fans fired up for a couple minutes.

We’ve seen more and more throughout the weeks that Raw and SmackDown are being buoyed by these show-jumpers, as Wild Card appearances are now a significant part of each program. It has become a booking crutch for the writers, rather than improve the quality of each show and augment it with 1-2 surprises to add a little something extra.

It doesn’t look like that’s going to stop anytime soon.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.