How WWE Grew To Hate Itself
The Boneyard Match and The Firefly Fun House were the highlights of the 'Show Of Shows', with the praise so effusive in places that it surely inadvertently enabled WWE to keep at it.
Your writer was one of many head over heels with the incredible John Cena character study that was his loss to The Fiend, if only because it provided an actual escape compared to the performative one the rest of the wrestling has proffered. Others adored Undertaker's burying of AJ Styles in the same way, and the wheels were clearly set into motion for the Money In The Bank Main events.
Lord knows what horrors they'll concoct to make this year's Extreme Rules "More Extreme Than Ever" Before or if all of this is still going on in October and they need to find somewhere more captivating than an empty gym to erect the Hell In A Cell structure. Climbing the corporate ladder was WWE's chosen lingo for this month's show, revealed just days removed from the company pulling that very same item out from underneath enough members of the roster to label a firing/furloughing session "Black Wednesday".
This company is incredibly deft at making its hardcore supporters defend any and every decision, but even some of the usual suspects couldn't rise above hate. Many of the wrestlers remaining were crestfallen at the loss of colleagues and friends, while others daring to try and explain things from a business standpoint were loudly shouted down and forcibly pushed back. And now this isn't the first time Seth Rollins has been compared to Toby Flenderson.
It was staggering. Repulsive even. Then Drake Maverick's participation in the NXT Interim Cruiserweight Championship became about him keeping his job, just to drag Wednesdays into this. The location that was once a place of celebration was just further confirmation, AEW more than included, that the industry sometimes doesn't deserve the support - it simply feeds off it.
It's gross. It's also WWE's safest current star-making device.
CONT'D...