The NEW Way WWE Draws Heat (And Why It Needs To Go Away)
This all feels like a petulant response to a post-NXT landscape paved by wider sentiment. You got your guys. Happy now? Now get unhappy. Our guys still win.
WWE is using their knowledge of the fanbase to abuse them, fostering constant discontent. The approach does literally nothing beyond filling out the television schedule, and the babyface performers just look more and more moronic the more they fall for the same old unimaginative horsesh*t.
This new “heat” is powering Brock Lesnar’s woefully ineffective character arc. WWE, again, is attuned to but at odds with its audience. The company is aware that we loathe Lesnar because he doesn’t show up physically, nor for too many of his matches. WWE is intentionally putting “X-Pac heat” on its most expensive investment in the hope that we will use this real-life trigger to aim our hatred towards him. Go away heat only manifests as the desire to see Lesnar actually go away, and there is zero chance of us supporting Roman Reigns in his quest to boot him out of the yard. The irony is infuriating: if WWE know their audience, they also know that Roman Reigns isn’t our guy. It is a calculated insult to the intelligence.
Infuriatingly, this meta method has also infected New Japan Pro Wrestling’s otherwise seminal G1 Climax tournament.
Tama Tonga is booked to perform as if he doesn’t give one sh*t. He does not even offer the pretence of engaging in actual competition; he relies on the interference of his Firing Squad teammates, with so little effort to cheat, that it ruins the integrity of the referees and causes all watching to question why they are watching. It is an approach as fatalistic as it is boring. It is designed to put “heat” on the antagonist, but fans don’t care because they are conditioned not to care. We don’t want to see a sequel to something awful, nor expect to see a worthy sequel to something awful. Kenny Omega Vs. Tama Tonga may yet result in a very good match, but we can only approach it with pessimism. This is the very opposite of effective promotion, and it is monumentally stupid of New Japan to adopt the philosophy. The settled and moneyed WWE can literally afford to indulge in its favoured modern pastime of p*ssing off the audience. The expanding New Japan cannot. It is becoming a pandemic.
CONT'D...