7 Ups And 4 Downs From Evolve 10th Anniversary

3. Production Values Lacking

Akira Tozawa Evolve
WWE.com

Say what you will about WWE, but one thing they typically nail is the production values throughout their shows. Videos, camera angles and audio are all usually pretty well done, with transitions running smoothly. Mistakes happen, but they’re the exception, not the rule.

Saturday’s Evolve 10th Anniversary show was notable production-wise, for how minor league it felt. They used promotion videos that clearly were used to plug the show in the weeks leading up to Saturday (which is perfectly fine) – except for the fact that the first one left in the card announcing the show that we already were watching. Afterward, other video packages seemingly ended abruptly, possibly to avoid showing the promotion screen again.

The cuts back to the ring were abrupt, as were the changes in theme music between wrestlers. Even turning off someone’s music was sudden; rather than fade out, it just stopped.

These aren’t huge, awful issues, but it just felt very bush league when you consider everything. There are little things that can make a huge difference in how you’re perceived, and these certainly didn’t help.

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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.