Let me preface this thread by saying this isn't going to be like the other threads. It's just me ranting 
I've been watching wrestling for close to 30 years, and I've never been more disinterested in the industry than I am right now. Over the past couple of years, I've only really watched RAW and mostly the shows on the WWE Network. But within the last 6 months, even that's been a struggle. I'll catch RAW for about 60-90 minutes and don't even bother with the PPVs outside of the Big 4 (Rumble, Mania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series). It's gotten to the point where I'm questioning whether I'll regularly watch the WWE/wrestling again like I use to. This led me to question why I don't really care anymore.
Mediocre Developmental System
You can't build a great structure with a weak foundation. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but WWE developmental is an absolute joke. NXT is the developmental brand, and Triple H takes all of the credit when the Takeover shows get great reviews. Now, I don't disagree with the Takeover shows being entertaining & putting on great matches. The problem with NXT is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it developmental? Is it a third brand for lesser stars?
The WWE has raided the Indy's for the last 5 years and signed guys/girls who are talented enough and/or have a big enough following to be on the main roster from the jump. They've had no room for them so they put them in NXT. I'm talking about guys like Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura and Neville. Of course these guys are going to look like absolute mega stars playing in the minor leagues. Crediting NXT for making these guys successes on the main roster is an absolute joke.
NXT has also put out duds who either weren't ready for the bright lights, couldn't wrestle or couldn't cut a promo to save their lives. The whole point of developmental is for that NOT to happen. Guys like the Ascension, Adam Rose, Apollo Crews, Authors of Pain, Tyler Breeze, Bo Dallas, Mojo Rawley and almost every member of Nexus sans Wade Barrett/Daniel Bryan. Maybe WWE saw the writing on the wall, so now the homegrown NXT guys are playing second fiddle to the Indy darlings. When was the last time Velveteen Dream even won a feud? Outside of the already established Indy stars, who has the WWE actually developed into something worth watching on the main roster? Only a few names jump out to me: Roman Reigns, Big E, Rusev, Sheamus and Braun Strowman (no, Bray Wyatt does not deserve to be included). 5 top tier male wrestlers over an 8 year average, and that's soooo laaaaame
Back in 2002, Ohio Valley Wrestling developed four future WWE champions in a single year. The famous OVW 2002 class included guys like John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar. Shelton Benjamin was also part of that class. Between Cornette and Heyman running OVW in the early-to-mid 2000's, they pumped out guys/girls who were main roster ready like Cena, Orton, Batista, Lesnar, Shelton, Bobby Lashley, Mr. Kennedy, Kofi, Cody Rhodes, Miz, Wade Barrett, Zack Ryder, Beth Phoenix and Mickie James. I'm going to give credit to OVW for turning around Big Show and Mark Henry too.
NXT has done some things right though - developing the women wrestlers. Between Norman Smiley and Sara Del Rey, they've done an excellent job making sure the women wrestlers are capable in the ring & mostly main roster ready.
Another thing that bothers me is that the WWE gives WCW so much shyt for losing the "war", but they never acknowledge things that WCW innovated. The WWE likes to showcase their Performance Center as being the first of its kind, but WCW did have the Power Plant first. In terms of money spent on equipment and training, it's no comparison. The Performance Center blows the Power Plant out of the water. But think about it. WCW had the idea for guys to come back from their injuries to work out ring rust and find new wrestlers to try out all the way back to the mid-90's. Look how long it took the WWE to take that idea and build on it...almost 20 years later.
Poor Booking with Women's Wrestling
I've talked a lot about this over numerous threads, so I'm not going to dwell too much on this. The WWE wants a pat on the back for seriously booking women's wrestling again like they weren't the ones who killed it in the first place. Absolutely ridiculous.
I talked in the Moolah thread how she single handedly ruined women's wrestling over a 20+ year span, and it's only now that women's wrestling is back where it was in the mid-80's. That's mostly because of what I said earlier with Sara Del Rey & Norman Smiley actually developing the women into talent that's worth watching on the main roster. Although the likes of Sasha, Charlotte, Becky, Bayley, Ember Moon, Asuka, Naomi, Natalya, Mickie James and Ruby Riot are talented in the ring, their booking in feuds/storylines has been absolutely TERRIBLE.
Let's just take Bayley as an example. Bayley's character should basically be the female John Cena/early-90's babyface Macho Man, never give up, fight the odds to persevere and help out the babyfaces when they need help at all costs. Bayley's character is actually a 14 year old girl who's an outcast because she likes wrestling and hangs out with the dorks after school. (Note - I literally wrote this just before Sasha said the exact same thing on RAW tonight
) Her feud with Alexa Bliss was absolutely cringeworthy. Actually, every feud Alexa Bliss has had outside of the initial feud with Becky on Smackdown have been cringeworthy. Speaking of Becky, she's taken a backseat for almost 2 years while being the most consistent women's performer on the Smackdown roster. She's also one of the most over acts on the live shows AND social media. But you gotta push those Total Divas, right?
The writers are basically treating the women's storylines as bad episodes of Saved by the Bell. We have grown women in their late 20's/early 30's bullying each other. Are the men being booked like this? Is Miz outchea making fun of Daniel Bryan for enjoying wrestling? Is Seth Rollins outchea body shaming Kevin Owens for being fat? Why can't the women have storylines about chasing the title, about how one woman isn't deserving of their spot over another (without making a sexual reference) or some convoluted backstory of how one woman cost another woman her chance of being in the WWE sooner than she was?
The WWE claims to have brought women's wrestling back to the forefront. But let's take a look at who the two champions are - Carmella on Smackdown and Alexa Bliss on RAW. With a roster of the likes I listed before, two of the worst in-ring performers are the champions. Why? Total Divas ratings the on E! Network. With the storylines and promos being as bad as they are, they have no business putting BOTH titles on some of the least talented wrestlers on the roster.
Also, what's the story of these stupid three women stables like the Riot Squad and Absolution? They have no goals or clear intentions. They just come out and go over without really any story behind it. Why are they pushed so strongly with the greenest women on the roster? No explanation whatsoever.
The women's revolution, y'all
Apprehension of Pushing New Talent
This is what really killed me from watching RAW recently. Seth Rollins is the hottest act in the company right now, but they're afraid to strap the rocket on him for some reason. For whatever reason, they're hesitating by sticking him in a feud with Dolph Ziggler. The WWE always shows a pattern of this bullshyt whenever someone gets hot when they weren't expecting it to happen. The WWE sticks them in a feud with the "established veteran" to give them something to do before they blow the push later. The WWE always circles around to putting over the "established veteran" in the feud too. This could also be the "established veteran" politicking their way into relevance with the guy on fire too though. You all know who I'm talking about...Triple H, John Cena, Randy Orton, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, Kane, Big Show and now Dolph Ziggler.
I can list example after example of this happening:
Some of the matches I listed above may have been good, but the feuds were far from it. They basically killed any of the momentum the "hotter" guys had before facing the "established veteran." When Cokeboy/The McMahons are set on who they want to push, no one else will even be considered. Can we add Roman to that list? Maybe. I don't understand how this mentality became the only mentality because it didn't use to be like this. Could you imagine Austin or Rock being stuck in feuds in the mid-90's with Tatanka, Marty Jannetty or Mabel because Shawn Michaels was established to be the guy in the main event & there were no other possibilities?
Emphasis on Part-Timers
Grass is green, and the sky is blue. I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of what the WWE does with it's part-time performers. What makes this frustrating is the section I talked about above - the apprehension of pushing new talent. The WWE is so stuck on the nostalgia acts that it absolutely ruins the current product.
There's absolutely no reason for the old-timers to be champions in the this current era. I'm talking about Bret Hart winning the United States championship, The Rock being WWE champion, New Age Outlaws being the tag-team champions, Batista winning the Royal Rumble and Goldberg being Universal Champion. How exactly did it benefit the product? The ratings didn't sky rocket. Buy rates didn't dramatically increase. Almost all of their runs were forgettable. Going back to an earlier point, the WWE always bashes WCW for pushing all the "old" guys like Hogan, Macho Man and Flair in the mid-to-late 90's. Yet, here we are and the WWE is making the same mistakes they criticized WCW for making.
The thing about the WWF Attitude era is that that they didn't have the "old timers" preventing them from main eventing Wrestlemania or being the headline act. Again, this is something that Cokeboy has started doing more recently. Hogan didn't have to look over his shoulder for Backlund or Bruno coming for his spot. Austin & Rock didn't have to look over their shoulders for Hogan, Macho Man, Flair, Bret or Shawn coming for their spot. Cena & Batista didn't have to look over their shoulders for Bret, Shawn, Austin or Rock coming for their spot. So, why do the guys of today have to worry about ALL of these mufukkas coming for their spots? I've seen people use the argument that the current roster aren't over so they need these guys to come in. How the hell can they get any momentum when they get it stripped away from them by having to carry these old guys throughout the feud since they can't bother to show up during most of it? Look at Rollins right now. That's how over these guys can get once their booking goes unimpeded.
Let's get to the elephant in the room. Brock Lesnar's embarrassing reign as the Universal Champion. He's gone over guys like Roman, Joe, Braun, Kevin Owens and AJ Styles throughout this reign. All of these guys were red hot when they ran into Lesnar. Instead of creating a new star for the future, the WWE is dead set on giving the fans the EXACT same match with Lesnar going over all of these guys. Cokeboy is backing up the Brinks truck to Lesnar's cabin in the woods, but for what reasons? Ratings and buyrates aren't up. What benefit is Lesnar not defending the title actually bringing? They've booked Lesnar to the point where NO ONE can beat him clean. He's ran through everyone except for Rollins and Balor. I highly doubt they'll have Rollins beat Lesnar clean and no way Balor beating him clean will work either. I understand the novelty act of Lesnar, but why does he need the title? His schtick has run its course, and it's time to move on.
I really think they're going to take this same approach with Ronda Rousey. Who's going to beat Ronda once she gets the title off Alexa Bliss? Alexa Bliss has chumped out Sasha, Bayley and Nia Jax. Carmella has chumped out Asuka and Charlotte on Smackdown. At this point, Shayna Baszler might be the only credible threat to beat her clean. Once again, this ties back to the horrible booking of the women's division.
Other Problems
That's not all that's wrong with the WWE. There are other problems that I won't really dive into since this thread is already long enough. The other problems are the commentary (Coach might actually be the WORST color commentator in WWF/WWE history), production value (too many shaky camera shots and camera cuts) and the McMahons always putting themselves front and center. Why does Shane NEED to wrestle at every major ppv taking a spot of an active wrestler? Why did Triple H come back and go over at Survivor Series? Why does Stephanie have to emasculate someone without any repercussion when she comes back?
There's also a problem of too much content being available. They've over-saturated their product, so there's no anticipation of wanting to see what happens next. The NFL is going through the same problem. Too much coverage burns fans out. It's a real problem even though it may not really sound like one. At this point, they can't really scale it back either so they're stuck.
I've been watching wrestling for close to 30 years, and I've never been more disinterested in the industry than I am right now. Over the past couple of years, I've only really watched RAW and mostly the shows on the WWE Network. But within the last 6 months, even that's been a struggle. I'll catch RAW for about 60-90 minutes and don't even bother with the PPVs outside of the Big 4 (Rumble, Mania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series). It's gotten to the point where I'm questioning whether I'll regularly watch the WWE/wrestling again like I use to. This led me to question why I don't really care anymore.
Mediocre Developmental System
You can't build a great structure with a weak foundation. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but WWE developmental is an absolute joke. NXT is the developmental brand, and Triple H takes all of the credit when the Takeover shows get great reviews. Now, I don't disagree with the Takeover shows being entertaining & putting on great matches. The problem with NXT is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it developmental? Is it a third brand for lesser stars?
The WWE has raided the Indy's for the last 5 years and signed guys/girls who are talented enough and/or have a big enough following to be on the main roster from the jump. They've had no room for them so they put them in NXT. I'm talking about guys like Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Shinsuke Nakamura and Neville. Of course these guys are going to look like absolute mega stars playing in the minor leagues. Crediting NXT for making these guys successes on the main roster is an absolute joke.
NXT has also put out duds who either weren't ready for the bright lights, couldn't wrestle or couldn't cut a promo to save their lives. The whole point of developmental is for that NOT to happen. Guys like the Ascension, Adam Rose, Apollo Crews, Authors of Pain, Tyler Breeze, Bo Dallas, Mojo Rawley and almost every member of Nexus sans Wade Barrett/Daniel Bryan. Maybe WWE saw the writing on the wall, so now the homegrown NXT guys are playing second fiddle to the Indy darlings. When was the last time Velveteen Dream even won a feud? Outside of the already established Indy stars, who has the WWE actually developed into something worth watching on the main roster? Only a few names jump out to me: Roman Reigns, Big E, Rusev, Sheamus and Braun Strowman (no, Bray Wyatt does not deserve to be included). 5 top tier male wrestlers over an 8 year average, and that's soooo laaaaame
Back in 2002, Ohio Valley Wrestling developed four future WWE champions in a single year. The famous OVW 2002 class included guys like John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar. Shelton Benjamin was also part of that class. Between Cornette and Heyman running OVW in the early-to-mid 2000's, they pumped out guys/girls who were main roster ready like Cena, Orton, Batista, Lesnar, Shelton, Bobby Lashley, Mr. Kennedy, Kofi, Cody Rhodes, Miz, Wade Barrett, Zack Ryder, Beth Phoenix and Mickie James. I'm going to give credit to OVW for turning around Big Show and Mark Henry too.
NXT has done some things right though - developing the women wrestlers. Between Norman Smiley and Sara Del Rey, they've done an excellent job making sure the women wrestlers are capable in the ring & mostly main roster ready.
Another thing that bothers me is that the WWE gives WCW so much shyt for losing the "war", but they never acknowledge things that WCW innovated. The WWE likes to showcase their Performance Center as being the first of its kind, but WCW did have the Power Plant first. In terms of money spent on equipment and training, it's no comparison. The Performance Center blows the Power Plant out of the water. But think about it. WCW had the idea for guys to come back from their injuries to work out ring rust and find new wrestlers to try out all the way back to the mid-90's. Look how long it took the WWE to take that idea and build on it...almost 20 years later.
Poor Booking with Women's Wrestling
I've talked a lot about this over numerous threads, so I'm not going to dwell too much on this. The WWE wants a pat on the back for seriously booking women's wrestling again like they weren't the ones who killed it in the first place. Absolutely ridiculous.
I talked in the Moolah thread how she single handedly ruined women's wrestling over a 20+ year span, and it's only now that women's wrestling is back where it was in the mid-80's. That's mostly because of what I said earlier with Sara Del Rey & Norman Smiley actually developing the women into talent that's worth watching on the main roster. Although the likes of Sasha, Charlotte, Becky, Bayley, Ember Moon, Asuka, Naomi, Natalya, Mickie James and Ruby Riot are talented in the ring, their booking in feuds/storylines has been absolutely TERRIBLE.
Let's just take Bayley as an example. Bayley's character should basically be the female John Cena/early-90's babyface Macho Man, never give up, fight the odds to persevere and help out the babyfaces when they need help at all costs. Bayley's character is actually a 14 year old girl who's an outcast because she likes wrestling and hangs out with the dorks after school. (Note - I literally wrote this just before Sasha said the exact same thing on RAW tonight
) Her feud with Alexa Bliss was absolutely cringeworthy. Actually, every feud Alexa Bliss has had outside of the initial feud with Becky on Smackdown have been cringeworthy. Speaking of Becky, she's taken a backseat for almost 2 years while being the most consistent women's performer on the Smackdown roster. She's also one of the most over acts on the live shows AND social media. But you gotta push those Total Divas, right?The writers are basically treating the women's storylines as bad episodes of Saved by the Bell. We have grown women in their late 20's/early 30's bullying each other. Are the men being booked like this? Is Miz outchea making fun of Daniel Bryan for enjoying wrestling? Is Seth Rollins outchea body shaming Kevin Owens for being fat? Why can't the women have storylines about chasing the title, about how one woman isn't deserving of their spot over another (without making a sexual reference) or some convoluted backstory of how one woman cost another woman her chance of being in the WWE sooner than she was?
The WWE claims to have brought women's wrestling back to the forefront. But let's take a look at who the two champions are - Carmella on Smackdown and Alexa Bliss on RAW. With a roster of the likes I listed before, two of the worst in-ring performers are the champions. Why? Total Divas ratings the on E! Network. With the storylines and promos being as bad as they are, they have no business putting BOTH titles on some of the least talented wrestlers on the roster.
Also, what's the story of these stupid three women stables like the Riot Squad and Absolution? They have no goals or clear intentions. They just come out and go over without really any story behind it. Why are they pushed so strongly with the greenest women on the roster? No explanation whatsoever.
The women's revolution, y'all
Apprehension of Pushing New Talent
This is what really killed me from watching RAW recently. Seth Rollins is the hottest act in the company right now, but they're afraid to strap the rocket on him for some reason. For whatever reason, they're hesitating by sticking him in a feud with Dolph Ziggler. The WWE always shows a pattern of this bullshyt whenever someone gets hot when they weren't expecting it to happen. The WWE sticks them in a feud with the "established veteran" to give them something to do before they blow the push later. The WWE always circles around to putting over the "established veteran" in the feud too. This could also be the "established veteran" politicking their way into relevance with the guy on fire too though. You all know who I'm talking about...Triple H, John Cena, Randy Orton, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, Kane, Big Show and now Dolph Ziggler.
I can list example after example of this happening:
- CM Punk's straight edge run with the Undertaker
- Wade Barrett's debut on the main roster with John Cena
- Summer of Punk with Triple H and Kevin Nash
- They doubled down with Zack Ryder and put him with Cena AND Kane
- Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton/Triple H
- Literally any one (Rollins/Reigns/Braun/Balor) vs. Kane or Big Show
- CM Punk/AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho
Some of the matches I listed above may have been good, but the feuds were far from it. They basically killed any of the momentum the "hotter" guys had before facing the "established veteran." When Cokeboy/The McMahons are set on who they want to push, no one else will even be considered. Can we add Roman to that list? Maybe. I don't understand how this mentality became the only mentality because it didn't use to be like this. Could you imagine Austin or Rock being stuck in feuds in the mid-90's with Tatanka, Marty Jannetty or Mabel because Shawn Michaels was established to be the guy in the main event & there were no other possibilities?
Emphasis on Part-Timers
Grass is green, and the sky is blue. I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of what the WWE does with it's part-time performers. What makes this frustrating is the section I talked about above - the apprehension of pushing new talent. The WWE is so stuck on the nostalgia acts that it absolutely ruins the current product.
There's absolutely no reason for the old-timers to be champions in the this current era. I'm talking about Bret Hart winning the United States championship, The Rock being WWE champion, New Age Outlaws being the tag-team champions, Batista winning the Royal Rumble and Goldberg being Universal Champion. How exactly did it benefit the product? The ratings didn't sky rocket. Buy rates didn't dramatically increase. Almost all of their runs were forgettable. Going back to an earlier point, the WWE always bashes WCW for pushing all the "old" guys like Hogan, Macho Man and Flair in the mid-to-late 90's. Yet, here we are and the WWE is making the same mistakes they criticized WCW for making.
The thing about the WWF Attitude era is that that they didn't have the "old timers" preventing them from main eventing Wrestlemania or being the headline act. Again, this is something that Cokeboy has started doing more recently. Hogan didn't have to look over his shoulder for Backlund or Bruno coming for his spot. Austin & Rock didn't have to look over their shoulders for Hogan, Macho Man, Flair, Bret or Shawn coming for their spot. Cena & Batista didn't have to look over their shoulders for Bret, Shawn, Austin or Rock coming for their spot. So, why do the guys of today have to worry about ALL of these mufukkas coming for their spots? I've seen people use the argument that the current roster aren't over so they need these guys to come in. How the hell can they get any momentum when they get it stripped away from them by having to carry these old guys throughout the feud since they can't bother to show up during most of it? Look at Rollins right now. That's how over these guys can get once their booking goes unimpeded.
Let's get to the elephant in the room. Brock Lesnar's embarrassing reign as the Universal Champion. He's gone over guys like Roman, Joe, Braun, Kevin Owens and AJ Styles throughout this reign. All of these guys were red hot when they ran into Lesnar. Instead of creating a new star for the future, the WWE is dead set on giving the fans the EXACT same match with Lesnar going over all of these guys. Cokeboy is backing up the Brinks truck to Lesnar's cabin in the woods, but for what reasons? Ratings and buyrates aren't up. What benefit is Lesnar not defending the title actually bringing? They've booked Lesnar to the point where NO ONE can beat him clean. He's ran through everyone except for Rollins and Balor. I highly doubt they'll have Rollins beat Lesnar clean and no way Balor beating him clean will work either. I understand the novelty act of Lesnar, but why does he need the title? His schtick has run its course, and it's time to move on.
I really think they're going to take this same approach with Ronda Rousey. Who's going to beat Ronda once she gets the title off Alexa Bliss? Alexa Bliss has chumped out Sasha, Bayley and Nia Jax. Carmella has chumped out Asuka and Charlotte on Smackdown. At this point, Shayna Baszler might be the only credible threat to beat her clean. Once again, this ties back to the horrible booking of the women's division.
Other Problems
That's not all that's wrong with the WWE. There are other problems that I won't really dive into since this thread is already long enough. The other problems are the commentary (Coach might actually be the WORST color commentator in WWF/WWE history), production value (too many shaky camera shots and camera cuts) and the McMahons always putting themselves front and center. Why does Shane NEED to wrestle at every major ppv taking a spot of an active wrestler? Why did Triple H come back and go over at Survivor Series? Why does Stephanie have to emasculate someone without any repercussion when she comes back?
There's also a problem of too much content being available. They've over-saturated their product, so there's no anticipation of wanting to see what happens next. The NFL is going through the same problem. Too much coverage burns fans out. It's a real problem even though it may not really sound like one. At this point, they can't really scale it back either so they're stuck.
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He was fluent in English before even coming to the WWE. He knew the rules of TV and how to engage the American audience because his gimmick was entirely built on that. He had no business being in NXT and no business being in NXT for as long as he was.
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watcher. If the nikkas at the top barely want to be there for this trash why should we watch it?