The Answer To WWE’s Problems Is Staring Them In The Face
Few, if any, can escape the grind of the familiar. Everybody succumbs to WWE’s chronic normalisation process. It manifests in different ways, but largely, simply existing for too long in the WWE system is toxic to the growth of an act.
Take Daniel Bryan’s 2019 as an example. He started the year on fire as a motivated, intelligent heel character indebted to his real-life personality. The New Daniel Bryan was a sensation; he warped that personality to add credibility to his unique “each and every one of you” tirades, and rediscovered his legendary form as a profoundly intelligent technical master. The character soared so high that it elevated everything, resulting in the unforgettable, emotional core of WrestleMania 35.
Bryan suffered an undisclosed injury after his triumph of storytelling, which undermines the wider point, but he is the rule-proving exception. He returned a made man, which undid him, ironically. With nothing to squander, he was left to rot.
WWE then made him do Such Good Sh*t.
From unvarnished, emotional masterpieces to a dire, inadvertently hilarious programme with Roman Reigns, Bryan is on course to endure a reverse Jon Moxley run of a year because WWE is unable to maintain anything of significance across a significant period. The wider storytelling mentality is too silly (whodunnits), too fitful (Robert Roode’s entire year), and too indulgent (the mega-push of office favourite Lacey Evans) to preserve even the top stars.
Finn Bálor was just a guy for an eternity. He won and lost arbitrarily to Baron Corbin and Bobby Lashley in deeply basic underdog narratives that stigmatised him as just a WWE guy wrestling WWE matches with no purpose nor intrigue. He grew as weary as his fans, evidently; he has shaved his hair off, as if to cleanse himself of the experience, in a sobering image.
WWE’s careless hesitation about what to do with Bayley and Sasha Banks effectively killed them off in 2018. The unending requirement to do something with a feature character for three hours per week compelled WWE to do everything and nothing with them, all at the same time.
But things, slowly, might be changing.
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