How WWE Can Win The New Wrestling War
"Let the wrestlers wrestle" is a popular argument when certain types of wrestling fans debate what WWE must do to improve their product. It's easy to point to lauded matches like Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada or Kota Ibushi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and say "just do that," particularly when you consider how talented WWE's stacked roster is. Indeed, put a Cesaro, Daniel Bryan, or Johnny Gargano in the G1 Climax and they'd draw similar acclaim to the Okadas and Omegas, so why not let them do it on Raw and SmackDown?
Because it's akin to asking Michael Bay to go arthouse. It wouldn't work.
Yes, guys like Ricochet are, on their day, among the most attention-grabbing wrestlers in the world, but WWE's main roster platform isn't for the kind of matches 'The One and Only' used to wrestle in Best of the Super Juniors. Broadly speaking, this audience doesn't want the long, drawn-out epics. They want the WWE sugar rush. They want explosions and well-crafted set pieces over nuance-filled 20-minute grappling exchanges.
They also don't want wrestlers working at something close to the most boring versions of themselves. This is what happened with Ricochet at Extreme Rules, as the slow, methodical plod that is WWE's in-house style rendered his "dream match" with AJ Styles mediocre. Moving away from this outdated approach is as important as not trying to replicate bouts like Omega vs. PAC...
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