When I was looking into the column I did last week on Raw and Smackdown Live particularly in regards to their ratings, there was one thought that was scratching at the back of my mind, and it made me angry to think that it was possible, but based on what we've seen over the last few weeks as far as the main roster ratings and the decline in interest from the viewers, it's time to really delve into that itchy thought.
Is it possible that WWE gave us too much of what we wanted at Wrestlemania?
I'd love to emphatically say no. But the truth might be different.
Six months ago, Becky Lynch was the hottest wrestler on the planet. It was a totally organic rise in popularity and it came out of a frustration of seeing the same old stars getting all the same old opportunities. When Becky slugged Charlotte in the face after Summerslam last year, it was the punch felt around the world. It was a sign that they wanted to try something different. In her relatively short time on the main roster, Charlotte has won more championships than any other superstar, so Becky's rise to domination was a shock to everyone except her fans. And the Raw before Survivor Series, she led an invasion against the Raw women's roster, and with one bad punch from Nia Jax, she gave us the most iconic image of all of pro wrestling in 2018, standing there, arms outstretched like The Night King and a bloodied face with a look that said, "I'll take on every fucking one of you and I'll leave you laid out". So a match between Becky and Raw Women's champ Ronda Rousey at Mania was now inevitable. From there on out, she kept growing in popularity and became not the next Steve Austin, but the first Becky Lynch. And then she became The Man. And then she became the biggest merch seller in all of WWE for nearly a full fiscal quarter.
Then there was the unlikely rise of Kofi Kingston, a rise that most fans say was long overdue. Taking the place of an injuredMustafa Ali, Kofi competed in a Gauntlet match that was essentially just a lead-in to Elimination Chamber, and he opened a lot of eyes during that match. And then when the Elimination Chamber PPV came along, it was clear that it was going to come down to Kofi and champ Daniel Bryan as the final two. They battled long and hard, but it was Bryan who retained, and the match between Kofi and D-Bry at Mania was just a formality. But the McMahons put Kofi and the rest of New Day through the ringer to prove that Kofi was more than a B-Plus player, and even kept him out of the title match at Fastlane in favor of a returning Kevin Owens. So that's two massively over babyfaces that got the biggest Mania matches because of an untimely injury.
And there was the really white whale of Brock Lesnar, who became one of the most hated champions in WWE history as he carried the Universal title into utter irrelevance. If the talent made the title, Lesnar was the most untalented man in all of WWE. And then came Seth Rollins, who won the Royal Rumble, and chose Lesnar as his opponent. So we had the supremely talented star that you could build a show around coming for the Universal champ at Mania.
At a (previously) historic low point in WWE's ratings, Vince, Steph and Triple H all came out and declared that the fans were now The Authority and we would be getting fresh matches and new faces. This, of course, was not the case for the remainder of the wrestling year because Vince would appear as an authority figure on both shows. Yes, we eventually got a match between Lesnar and Finn Balor for the Universal title at the Rumble, but that was it as far as things feeling "fresh".
But then came Wrestlemania XXXV. The landscape changed. We had a black man win the WWE Championship for the first time in a while, Seth wrest control of Raw out of the vice-like grip of Lesnar, and women headline Mania for the first time ever and that match gave us Becky Two Belts as she beat Rousey and Charlotte in a Winner Take All for both the Raw and Smackdown Women's titles.
So... now what happens next?
Apparently, not a whole lot.
Almost every title changed hands at Mania, and this has caused a lot of wheel-spinning. Since the Automatic Rematch Clause has been done away with, this has left a lot of the new champs directionless. Seth doesn't have a solid rivalry going into Money In The Bank despite the fact that he'll be facing A.J. Styles for the Universal title, Becky does have yet another rematch with Charlotte for the Smackdown Women's title, and has a "fresh" match-up against relative newcomer Lacey Evans for the Raw Women's title, and both of those are going to be at MITB. There's no rivalry for Samoa Joe and his US title. There's no real rivalry for Finn Balor's IC title. There's no rivalry for Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder for the Raw Tag titles. There's no rivalry for The IIconics for the Women's Tag titles. There's no rivalry yet for the Smackdown Tag titles since Matt and Jeff Hardy had to relinquish their titles due to Jeff's injury. The entire Women's division is in limbo, and the majority of matches are being given the same five to seven minute amount of time not seen since the end of the Divas Era. The only thing that's of any interest as far as a rivalry is Kofi vs Kevin Owens, because Owens can heat up just about any rivalry. Aside from that, the briefcase ladder matches are the only things of consequence at MITB, because that's what the show's all about. But the matches on Raw and Smackdown and the stories they're telling, or lack thereof, is nothing to write home about.
On Raw this week, frankly, I missed the first two hours, and the first thing I saw when I was able to watch was Scott Dawson scooting his ass across the ring and Dash Wilder doing the same thing with his crotch and I had no pretext to it (I didn't know it was "Ucey-Hot" until later), but all I wanted to do was stop watching right then and there. As things progressed, I found out about the new "Wild Card Rule" that Vince "invented" which allowedthree four stars from Smackdown to come to Raw on a weekly basis and vice versa, and this is obviously a response to how their ratings are at their lowest point on USA, and NBC/Universal and Fox need some damage control to be done. Fox is not looking forward to inheriting a show that is at one of its lowest points ever. To be fair, the rematch between Kofi and the returning Daniel Bryan was really good, but why in the living fuck was this rematch between two Smackdown roster members the main event on an episode of Raw? Well, the answer to that would come the following night when Shane McMahon was about to hand the relinquished Smackdown Tag titles to Daniel Bryan and Rowan and then The Usos came on down (and from Raw) and said that they didn't deserve to just be handed those titles and they should have to fight for them. And fought they did and Bryan and Rowan ended up on top, because why would a team that had just lost the titles on Smackdown to be slotted to Raw so they can do ass-scooting jokes with The Revival come back to Smackdown only to win them back? I don't know why they couldn't have taken on an actual Smackdown tag team, but are there any babyface tag teams on Smackdown right now, other than the Hardys? For me, it would have worked better to have Rusev and Nakamura challenge them, because that would have been a more interesting dynamic between the two teams, but I guess they had to go over the big babyface team that is also one of the best tag teams on the main roster. To be honest, I'm super psyched to see Bryan with a title again, because he can continue his "Planet's Champion" gimmick, because I pop like mad for that.
As far as Raw, well, I'm going to be completely honest. I have the whole thing on my DVR, but I haven't watched the rest of it and I don't plan to. All anyone I've talked to or read or watched have called it one of the worst episodes of Raw ever, so I just don't need to put myself through that. Nothing story-wise really got advanced. Sami Zayn got thrown into a dumpster by Braun Strowman but appeared alongside A.J. Styles and Kofi Kingston the next night on Smackdown to find himself in a triple threat for the WWE Championship. Since I've been watching, I can recall exactly one time that Sami found himself in a title match, and that was at Mania 32 in the multi-man ladder match for the IC title that Zack Ryder won and held for 24 hours before losing it right back to The Miz. I think that maybe he might have had a match for a US title, but don't quote me on that. That was the last four years. But since returning from injury, his first night back got him a match for the IC title against Finn Balor and just four weeks later, he's in a match for the WWE title. This could hopefully mean big things for Sami coming up. And that triple threat was bonkers good. Now, as much as I want Kofi to hold the title for at least until Summerslam, I desperately wanted to see Sami win the title here. I knew that he was there to eat the pin, but goddamn, when Kevin Owens came out to wreck Xavier Woods, I was absolutely caught up in the idea that Sami might win, and that's how you should book these types of matches.
Now the common complaint about this week of main roster programming is pretty understandable. Raw not only leaned way too hard into Vince's stupid prepubescent sense of humor, but it had two huge Mania rematches that, if had been hyped, might have caused some of those lapsed fans to tune in to see. And that's a big problem in and of itself: the lack of anything currently having that "big match feel" getting that hype machine behind it. When a new episode of Raw or Smackdown comes up, they need main event matches that people will want to tune in for, and we got two of those this week, but no one knew we were getting them. And having this "Wild Card" bullshit feels like a solution to that because, as commentary couldn't say enough, anyone might show up between shows and that could lead to these big matches that we got this week. This element of "surprise" is supposed to make you want to tune in to see who might be coming between shows. If it's one of your favorites in what could be a cool match, then great. But if it's a talent that just isn't up to snuff and it's a big nothing match, then it feels like a waste of their time and yours.
Honestly with segments like the "Ucey Hot" bit, it's also starting to feel like Vince is trolling us. He's seeing the ratings decline, and Vince is the kind of guy that would totally cut off his nose to spite his face. There are aspects of what happened at Mania that I can totally see getting undone because Vince thinks that just because he gave us what we wanted once, he doesn't have to worry about it again. There have also been serious issues in regards to the talent themselves as well as a lot of backstage problems that have been discussed in the dirt sheets. The discussions about Vince wanting to extend everyone's contract out of fear he's going to lose them to Tony Khan and AEW is becoming more and more legitimate. It's more than just a "pissant" company, and it's going to cut into Vince's stranglehold. New Japan is its own thing, and it has very limited airtime in the US, but depending upon where and when AEW ends up on the TV dial (televisions used to have dials, kids... Google it), it's likely to be on a USA-like "superstation" that anyone who has basic cable can watch. And with the kind of freedom that AEW is apparently offering to their talent (greater creative input, better working conditions, working with other promotions), the only reason that anyone would really want to stay with WWE is because of the money. Don't get me wrong: WWE is pretty much guaranteed to be the biggest promotion in the world from now until the end of time. But if AEW gets some of the big name talent they need to be truly competitive, and if the marks are going to continue to give up on WWE's main roster shows, AEW could end up being the little engine that could.
So where does that leave WWE? There are people I know that have been mega fans for decades who are literally only watching the poor-quality recaps on YouTube, or reading the dirt sheets to find out what happened rather than spend 5 hours per week watching shows that don't end up amounting to much of anything. Hell, you could see ENDGAME again on Monday nights and get a billion times more enjoyment out of that than another drawn out, tired, and mostly boring night of Raw. And maybe that's the answer: WWE needs more comic book writers. That's what pro wrestling is anyway. These are superheroes and supervillains. The more they lean into a over-arching style of storytelling, the better the results could be. It's worth a shot, anyway. It's a lot better than the staff they have now that's filled with soap opera and reality show veterans.
That's it for this week, kids! You'll get more out of me this week as I get to my NXT recap that will finally also include a recap of NXT UK! So keep an eye out for that in the next few days! I'm still toying with the format of the Raw and Smackdown live recaps, so there might be something completely different next week rather than ranting about the issues that WWE is having with these shows. But since we have go-home shows next week, I kinda doubt it. We'll see!
Until next time, kids...
Is it possible that WWE gave us too much of what we wanted at Wrestlemania?
I'd love to emphatically say no. But the truth might be different.
Six months ago, Becky Lynch was the hottest wrestler on the planet. It was a totally organic rise in popularity and it came out of a frustration of seeing the same old stars getting all the same old opportunities. When Becky slugged Charlotte in the face after Summerslam last year, it was the punch felt around the world. It was a sign that they wanted to try something different. In her relatively short time on the main roster, Charlotte has won more championships than any other superstar, so Becky's rise to domination was a shock to everyone except her fans. And the Raw before Survivor Series, she led an invasion against the Raw women's roster, and with one bad punch from Nia Jax, she gave us the most iconic image of all of pro wrestling in 2018, standing there, arms outstretched like The Night King and a bloodied face with a look that said, "I'll take on every fucking one of you and I'll leave you laid out". So a match between Becky and Raw Women's champ Ronda Rousey at Mania was now inevitable. From there on out, she kept growing in popularity and became not the next Steve Austin, but the first Becky Lynch. And then she became The Man. And then she became the biggest merch seller in all of WWE for nearly a full fiscal quarter.
Then there was the unlikely rise of Kofi Kingston, a rise that most fans say was long overdue. Taking the place of an injured
And there was the really white whale of Brock Lesnar, who became one of the most hated champions in WWE history as he carried the Universal title into utter irrelevance. If the talent made the title, Lesnar was the most untalented man in all of WWE. And then came Seth Rollins, who won the Royal Rumble, and chose Lesnar as his opponent. So we had the supremely talented star that you could build a show around coming for the Universal champ at Mania.
At a (previously) historic low point in WWE's ratings, Vince, Steph and Triple H all came out and declared that the fans were now The Authority and we would be getting fresh matches and new faces. This, of course, was not the case for the remainder of the wrestling year because Vince would appear as an authority figure on both shows. Yes, we eventually got a match between Lesnar and Finn Balor for the Universal title at the Rumble, but that was it as far as things feeling "fresh".
But then came Wrestlemania XXXV. The landscape changed. We had a black man win the WWE Championship for the first time in a while, Seth wrest control of Raw out of the vice-like grip of Lesnar, and women headline Mania for the first time ever and that match gave us Becky Two Belts as she beat Rousey and Charlotte in a Winner Take All for both the Raw and Smackdown Women's titles.
So... now what happens next?
Apparently, not a whole lot.
Almost every title changed hands at Mania, and this has caused a lot of wheel-spinning. Since the Automatic Rematch Clause has been done away with, this has left a lot of the new champs directionless. Seth doesn't have a solid rivalry going into Money In The Bank despite the fact that he'll be facing A.J. Styles for the Universal title, Becky does have yet another rematch with Charlotte for the Smackdown Women's title, and has a "fresh" match-up against relative newcomer Lacey Evans for the Raw Women's title, and both of those are going to be at MITB. There's no rivalry for Samoa Joe and his US title. There's no real rivalry for Finn Balor's IC title. There's no rivalry for Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder for the Raw Tag titles. There's no rivalry for The IIconics for the Women's Tag titles. There's no rivalry yet for the Smackdown Tag titles since Matt and Jeff Hardy had to relinquish their titles due to Jeff's injury. The entire Women's division is in limbo, and the majority of matches are being given the same five to seven minute amount of time not seen since the end of the Divas Era. The only thing that's of any interest as far as a rivalry is Kofi vs Kevin Owens, because Owens can heat up just about any rivalry. Aside from that, the briefcase ladder matches are the only things of consequence at MITB, because that's what the show's all about. But the matches on Raw and Smackdown and the stories they're telling, or lack thereof, is nothing to write home about.
On Raw this week, frankly, I missed the first two hours, and the first thing I saw when I was able to watch was Scott Dawson scooting his ass across the ring and Dash Wilder doing the same thing with his crotch and I had no pretext to it (I didn't know it was "Ucey-Hot" until later), but all I wanted to do was stop watching right then and there. As things progressed, I found out about the new "Wild Card Rule" that Vince "invented" which allowed
As far as Raw, well, I'm going to be completely honest. I have the whole thing on my DVR, but I haven't watched the rest of it and I don't plan to. All anyone I've talked to or read or watched have called it one of the worst episodes of Raw ever, so I just don't need to put myself through that. Nothing story-wise really got advanced. Sami Zayn got thrown into a dumpster by Braun Strowman but appeared alongside A.J. Styles and Kofi Kingston the next night on Smackdown to find himself in a triple threat for the WWE Championship. Since I've been watching, I can recall exactly one time that Sami found himself in a title match, and that was at Mania 32 in the multi-man ladder match for the IC title that Zack Ryder won and held for 24 hours before losing it right back to The Miz. I think that maybe he might have had a match for a US title, but don't quote me on that. That was the last four years. But since returning from injury, his first night back got him a match for the IC title against Finn Balor and just four weeks later, he's in a match for the WWE title. This could hopefully mean big things for Sami coming up. And that triple threat was bonkers good. Now, as much as I want Kofi to hold the title for at least until Summerslam, I desperately wanted to see Sami win the title here. I knew that he was there to eat the pin, but goddamn, when Kevin Owens came out to wreck Xavier Woods, I was absolutely caught up in the idea that Sami might win, and that's how you should book these types of matches.
Now the common complaint about this week of main roster programming is pretty understandable. Raw not only leaned way too hard into Vince's stupid prepubescent sense of humor, but it had two huge Mania rematches that, if had been hyped, might have caused some of those lapsed fans to tune in to see. And that's a big problem in and of itself: the lack of anything currently having that "big match feel" getting that hype machine behind it. When a new episode of Raw or Smackdown comes up, they need main event matches that people will want to tune in for, and we got two of those this week, but no one knew we were getting them. And having this "Wild Card" bullshit feels like a solution to that because, as commentary couldn't say enough, anyone might show up between shows and that could lead to these big matches that we got this week. This element of "surprise" is supposed to make you want to tune in to see who might be coming between shows. If it's one of your favorites in what could be a cool match, then great. But if it's a talent that just isn't up to snuff and it's a big nothing match, then it feels like a waste of their time and yours.
Honestly with segments like the "Ucey Hot" bit, it's also starting to feel like Vince is trolling us. He's seeing the ratings decline, and Vince is the kind of guy that would totally cut off his nose to spite his face. There are aspects of what happened at Mania that I can totally see getting undone because Vince thinks that just because he gave us what we wanted once, he doesn't have to worry about it again. There have also been serious issues in regards to the talent themselves as well as a lot of backstage problems that have been discussed in the dirt sheets. The discussions about Vince wanting to extend everyone's contract out of fear he's going to lose them to Tony Khan and AEW is becoming more and more legitimate. It's more than just a "pissant" company, and it's going to cut into Vince's stranglehold. New Japan is its own thing, and it has very limited airtime in the US, but depending upon where and when AEW ends up on the TV dial (televisions used to have dials, kids... Google it), it's likely to be on a USA-like "superstation" that anyone who has basic cable can watch. And with the kind of freedom that AEW is apparently offering to their talent (greater creative input, better working conditions, working with other promotions), the only reason that anyone would really want to stay with WWE is because of the money. Don't get me wrong: WWE is pretty much guaranteed to be the biggest promotion in the world from now until the end of time. But if AEW gets some of the big name talent they need to be truly competitive, and if the marks are going to continue to give up on WWE's main roster shows, AEW could end up being the little engine that could.
So where does that leave WWE? There are people I know that have been mega fans for decades who are literally only watching the poor-quality recaps on YouTube, or reading the dirt sheets to find out what happened rather than spend 5 hours per week watching shows that don't end up amounting to much of anything. Hell, you could see ENDGAME again on Monday nights and get a billion times more enjoyment out of that than another drawn out, tired, and mostly boring night of Raw. And maybe that's the answer: WWE needs more comic book writers. That's what pro wrestling is anyway. These are superheroes and supervillains. The more they lean into a over-arching style of storytelling, the better the results could be. It's worth a shot, anyway. It's a lot better than the staff they have now that's filled with soap opera and reality show veterans.
That's it for this week, kids! You'll get more out of me this week as I get to my NXT recap that will finally also include a recap of NXT UK! So keep an eye out for that in the next few days! I'm still toying with the format of the Raw and Smackdown live recaps, so there might be something completely different next week rather than ranting about the issues that WWE is having with these shows. But since we have go-home shows next week, I kinda doubt it. We'll see!
Until next time, kids...
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