It's Official: WWE Has Debuted A New Era
If WWE and Vince McMahon in particular didn't suffer from such a chronic lack of self-awareness, you'd be forgiven for thinking that some sort of crisis meeting took place inside of Titan Towers, in which it was decided that the promotion simply must stop ritually embarrassing itself.
WWE is almost inoffensive in 2022, as if by design. It is as if the product is precision-engineered to elicit a response like "That was actually solid". SmackDown is dire most weeks, but the days of Shayna Baszler being murdered by a sentient doll are all but over. You have to forget about the existence of NXT 2.0 for this hypothesis to work, but the WWE of 2022 is a far more drab and less perversely amusing animal than it was a couple of years ago. It's still very easy to rip apart from a simple, logical standpoint most weeks, but it isn't stunningly awful. When Roman Reigns is actually on the show, he's one of the best, coolest and most credible characters WWE has developed this century.
WWE had quietly developed a fairly strong tag team division highlighted by genuinely excellent action at its peak before Randy Orton's injury forced him off television. The Cody Vs. Seth Rollins programme wasn't revolutionary or even that compelling week-to-week, but in crafting an excellent signature PPV trilogy, WWE - and this isn't snark, it was great - did what it does best.
Chad Gable best illustrates this shift.
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