How WWE Could Get Much Better (By Removing One DISASTROUS Flaw)
When he eventually enters the ring, adorned once more in his gold and purple colour scheme, it will make for an iconic moment. That moment is still to come. For now, he must complete his long, strange trip.
Okada is lost in the sea of his mind because he is literally adrift from the accomplishment that defined him. There would be no heft to any of this, no fascinating character development, were he able to simply compete for it a mere month later.
Say AJ Styles loses the WWE Heavyweight Championship to Samoa Joe at SummerSlam. He may sell shock, disappointment, even anger, if Joe wins through underhanded means. But how hard is all that to buy, equipped with the knowledge that he can simply challenge for it once more at Hell In A Cell less than a month later? Okada’s loss has shattered his psyche. For AJ, any loss would represent an inconvenience he can recover from at his convenience.
Convenience is the word. The automatic title rematch clause is a convenient staple of WWE programming the Network model has exacerbated to numbing effect.
The storytelling device breeds repetition in a literal sense. We are presented with the same old matches on an habitual basis because, under the new model, it is no longer incumbent on WWE to present fresh matches to drive pay-per-view revenue. And, while WWE dresses windows with “Extreme” stipulations, the reckless regard shown to continuity and the rules means they aren’t often enforced. They are only enforced if it is convenient - if, following Backlash 2018 for example, the company intends to prolong, yet again, a featured rivalry - Styles Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, in this case.
WWE does this to pad out the bloated TV schedule. Episodic TV is a strange paradox, in how it sustains WWE commercially, but kills it creatively. Adding to the monotony, this trope is in full effect across both RAW and SmackDown.
Everything feels the same all of the time.
Consider this eye-bleeding statistic...
CONT'D...