In Defence Of WWE Creative
And, to quash the Independent uprising, WWE shows no signs of slowing down its scattergun signing spree. Per the latest whispers, the company is interested in lucha standouts Penta El 0M and Fénix. Conspicuously, both men have generated recent headlines by becoming the first in decades to appear in CMLL while working for the enemy AAA promotion. While both remain excellent talents, neither has improved drastically over the last few months. They are on WWE’s radar because they have generated buzz, and that’s what WWE wants: the interest of the audience in the talent, as opposed to the talents themselves. WWE is short on the former, and monumentally top-heavy in the latter department, and yet can not nor will not explore that relationship.
This new model mangles most performers through its skewed design, but a certain type of character in particular.
Consider the curious case of Bobby Roode. A gimmick of absurd arrogance - Roode, when waving his hands about, appears to get off on his very musk - only works, like it did in NXT, when this arrogance is justified. When it isn’t - when there are several acts pushed ahead of him - he projects himself as a deluded goofball. Bray Wyatt didn’t work in this post-NXT main roster environment because, with so many other Superstars around him requiring a degree of protection, even his magical supernatural powers were ineffective.
Omens look bleak already for EC3, and he’s nowhere near the main roster. His act is predicated on superiority. To draw heel heat, and serve his 1% character effectively, he must dominate, at a minimum, the midcard title picture. The very second he goes 50/50 on RAW, his boasts will become empty, and he will join the B Team in the ranks of deluded geeks.
With no long-term sporting framework in place, one that positions the various member of the roster in accordance with their win/loss records - the “momentum” they have “built” - WWE Creative must helplessly work towards Vince McMahon’s amorphous idea of whatever the “sports entertainment” framework is. This framework inevitably normalises the stars because there are far too many of them. It is virulently undisciplined.
Jim Cornette once said that, if you were to create a theoretical wrestling promotion and were allowed to pick 30 wrestlers, you would not pick the best 30 wrestlers in the world. Where would you go from there? The 30th best wrestler on the planet becomes the jobber.
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