The Problem With Keith Lee That No One Wants To Talk About
Keith Lee d. Randy Orton (6:40)? That's booking with balls.
Four of his first seven main roster matches ending via disqualification or countout? That, most certainly, is not.
Payback aside, each of Lee's singles clashes with Orton and McIntyre has ended in shenanigans. A common rebuttal to this is "neither man can afford to lose," but if that's the case, why book the match in the first place? If you don't want to have the former NXT Champion score more than one clear, decisive victory, then find somebody else for him to defeat. To date, his only clean wins have come over a squashed Andrade and the weird 2020 version of Dolph Ziggler.
Dirty finishes are a company-wide problem, of course. Rather than keeping the loser "protected," they inspire fatigue in a jaded audience that grew tired of them many moons ago, particularly amongst fans who remember what the artform was like before such things became the norm. It is a lame, raisin-balled booked practice and a total cop-out, putting heat on the writers and detracting attention from the people who are supposed to be getting a "rub."
Like Keith Lee.
A gutsier booking team would have used Lee's victory over Orton to launch him towards the WWE Title feud, making it a Triple Threat. This would have freshened up the already-strong McIntyre feud and given Keith an actual rub: he would have become a joint protagonist in the story, not a secondary character killed off in the second act, even if he failed to win (and realistically, he probably shouldn't have become WWE Champion so quickly).
Still, it feels increasingly like those penning this "push" are asleep at the wheel.
CONT'd...