He Was Ripping Off The Rock... Now He's Taking Over The World
Bryan Alvarez recently made an excellent point on Wrestling Observer Radio. He disagreed with the WWE stars when they say "These people didn't come to see us talk: they came to see us fight!"
Alvarez said that the exact opposite is true, if anything, and he's right. WWE fans still make noise on PPV, but listen to the difference in reactions when the Bloodline do theatre compared to when even someone as talented as GUNTHER does wrestling on Mondays. GUNTHER gets the place rocking, but for only the last third of the match.
The paradigm had shifted well before Alvarez caught the inherent irony in the biggest WWE scripted promo cliché, but it is especially true now. People have seen a lot of great wrestling over the last however many years. It's no longer enough. It's no longer spcial. The vast majority of WWE crowds in the States, when watching a TV taping, sit there politely. It is a wild and bleak experience, provided you're a wrestling fan first and a WWE fan second. If you're a WWE fan first and a wrestling fan second, that is how live wrestling is consumed.
It doesn't matter that Knight isn't explosive, or can't perform intricate limb work chess. He's solid, safe, in great condition, and the WWE main event style isn't particularly ambitious. The road agents play the hits - long heat sequence, finisher kick-outs, ref bumps - and the fans, at least on the weekend, lap it up.
Knight need not work a Match of the Year contender. This version of the character could work a monster of a match with Roman Reigns, say "Yeah-uh" just after completing his comeback, and it would be the loudest thing you'll hear in wrestling all year.
As Knight has proven throughout a remarkable 2023, his star power is no longer in dispute: it's a fact of life.