How WWE Became So Terrible It Altered The Way We Watch It
A wrestling fan - a fan of any entertainment medium - is meant to approach the show with anticipation. Instead, we approach it with either dread or apathy - cautious optimism at best, depending on whether or not the biggest show of the year is imminent. Looking ahead is all we really do, in the fading hope that things will get better.
This is a problem almost exclusive to the WWE main roster. On Big 5 PPV weekends, wrestling feels alive on Sunday morning. On Monday mornings, that buzz dissipates.
Nobody asks who writes NXT TV, except those with one hopeful eye on the future of the main roster. Where Johnny Gargano goes after his feud with Tommaso Ciampa reaches its conclusion isn’t of much concern, quite the opposite; instead, because the meticulous plotting is so immaculate, their New Orleans match somehow even better, we don’t wish to see it draw to a close. We cherish the present. We react to it, with so much enthusiasm, in the moment, as fans. This is because we trust NXT to deliver on Saturdays. We have been conditioned to expect consequential brilliance through the near constant delivery of it. We watch this passion project with the optimism that reassurance breeds.
There is no such trust with the main roster regime. We are more interested in where Daniel Bryan goes after his worthless, wasteful feud with Big Cass concludes. We are more interested in where Shinsuke Nakamura goes once his drawn-out programme with AJ Styles eventually delivers a victor. Whomever wins is no longer the intrigue. That it hopefully ends imminently is. There is no daydreaming over the Dream Match. We’ve bore witness to the harsh reality of it.
The we-know-better wave of fantasy booking does get tiresome, for industry veterans and fans alike - but at least we’re trying. That’s more than can be said for WWE and its stumbling week-to-week approach, and why approaching it as a fan is, for those actually super-served the content, an antiquated mentality.
Much like the manager, the valet, the integrity of the finisher, the blade… the true WWE fan is almost lost to time, defeated by a pointless product and usurped by the immense corporate financing that allows it to be pointless.