What WWE Don’t Want You To See On TV
Despite the image it projects, there are plentiful things WWE doesn't want its TV audience seeing!
The curtain has well and truly been pulled back on the wrestling business, with many citing the Montreal Screwjob - and the subsequent fallout of that infamous night - as being the precise moment that fans were fully welcomed into the inner workings of the pro wrestling industry.
Despite how much of wrestling history is now laid bare at our fingertips for all to see, there are still certain elements of the business that you can't be fully aware of until you attend a wrestling show in person. And for the purpose of this article, 'wrestling show' means 'WWE show'.
It's one thing to watch Raw, SmackDown or a WWE PPV on TV or the WWE Network, yet it's a totally different beast getting to watch the antics of Vince McMahon's sports entertainment powerhouse play out live and in person.
Right now it's clearly a fair while until fans can be in attendance for WWE events on even a semi-regular basis, yet the memories are still strong of things that you see during a live event that WWE ultimately does its best to paper over by the time a show is beamed out to the TV masses.
Keeping all of this in mind, then, here are a whole host of things that WWE doesn't want its TV audiences to be privy to.
9. The Extremely Obvious Loose Offense
When watching WWE programming from the comfort of your own home, the majority of offense on show tends to look good, solid or at least passable.
Sure, there are those clear instances where a move or a strike doesn't land during a TV broadcast or PPV, but those moments are relatively few and far between when looking at the larger picture of what's seen on WWE programming.
If a three-hour Raw features one botched spot or one 'strike' that whiffles wide of the mark, that stands out like a sore thumb. But if you're there in person for that same Raw, chances are you'll pick up on a whole lot more offense that ends up looking a tad loose around the edges.
While the WWE television product can rightly be criticised for so many reasons these days, there has to be praise about how the promotion covers up certain slack offense and uses camera cuts to maximise the impact of any move served up by its talent.
Granted, WWE's camera cuts can be jarring in their frequency or poor timing - see: the first Spear of Edge's big 2020 return - but the company does manage to frame the majority of its action in a smart way that minimalizes just how much slack or wayward offense the TV audience sees.