The Disturbing Truth Behind WWE’s New Monopoly

In WWE, babyfaces sell, and sell, and sell—to such an extent that the desperation has come to undermine what was once a lucrative pitch. It’s sort of anti-premium. Just look at the absolute state of torture porn protagonist Finn Bálor: in a grim metaphor for all of this, he exists now as a neutered, literal fall guy.

AJ Styles and Samoa Joe resumed their old TNA rivalry in a WWE ring over the summer. The first two matches were stiff and engaging, but far less lively. Maybe it’s an age thing—or maybe they’d have performed like this had WWE signed them a decade prior.

Ronda Rousey sold for Alexa Bliss, for minutes on end, at Hell In A Cell. Ronda Rousey. Stretches of that match were absurd. Irreconcilable. But that’s just the way WWE does things. It’s all an echo of Hulk Hogan, of John Cena, something the mass-produced and very successful model will not deviate from. Why put the hard work in, when there is easy money on the table?

It’s all deeply, disturbingly ironic. With the global localisation policy, WWE does not want to cater for region-specific tastes. They just want to maintain their stranglehold over the world, and continue to shape it in its own image.

History supports this cynicism—but what of the present day?

NXT UK is, in a word, indistinct. Though it bears the same name, it hasn’t yet resonated as the passion project of Orlando. It resonates as, and very much is, a cynical, hastily cobbled together wrestling brand with no real selling point. There’s no ICW-level camp or ultra violence, no state-of-the-art PROGRESS technicality. It is WWE wrestling, only in Great Britain. What’s troubling is that the crowd receives the uneven, basic and formulaic undercard action with all the enthusiasm of the spoiled Full Sail faithful—and yet, the UK crowd hasn’t been spoiled over the course of six years. The TV show is this new, yet oddly familiar beast. Wrestlers make their entrances without acknowledging the pulse of the crowd. Eyes fixed on the ring, they play only to the hard camera once inside of it. They barely interact with the fans in the crowd, nor do anything beyond their signature pose for the benefit of those at home. It’s not in the WWE playbook.

The main events are cracking—but then, those who perform in them honed their craft, for years, across the globe. On this evidence, NXT Germany will be WWE wrestling, only in Germany. WWE Japan will be WWE wrestling, only in Japan. Ask yourself this: what was the impetus behind NXT UK in the first instance? There’s nothing benevolent about any of this, nor, you have to forecast, anything beneficial.

That quote, at the top of the piece, saw the Second City Saint cut his own version of the old “Iron sharpens iron” proverb. Would Punk become the performer he did, had Eddie not pushed him to his absolute limit and demanded he exceeded it? Now that NXT UK performers (and any prospective NXT Germany performers etc.) are contractually unable to wrestle the experienced, immensely talented hands of NJPW and ROH, and wrestle instead the same old faces, many of them as inexperienced, how can we expect them to truly develop?

If the WWE Universe expands, the art of pro wrestling shrinks. It has happened before, and if there is one constant in this year of utter chaos, it is that WWE always goes back to that they know.