WWE has no balls

[Str8Shooter]

Pretty self explanatory title . Maybe their biggest problem right now is their lack of courage to think outside the box and try something different or new, even in spite of weekly declining ratings. A couple recent examples of things that could easily have breathed some life into the product that were squandered.

1) The WWE Title Tournament: With a horrible injury to Rollins, it shakes things up naturally and has everyone speculating on potential ideas for the tournament they announce. There's a buzz about things. Their response, to put together a paint by numbers tournament with the all the usual suspects, a few people who probably have no business being in the thing based on recent booking, and incredible predictability. Pretty much everyone sees Roman winning and likely against Ambrose, maybe Owens.

2) Taker & Kane vs Wyatts: Everybody thinks a 4 on 4 Survivor Series match is coming and wonders about who could possibly be Taker and Kane's partners. Teaming with two longtime veterans is a big deal and could be a great opportunity for two guys. Maybe a new NXT callup? Maybe someone on the roster you want to push? Nope, instead they decide a simple tag team match would be more fun. Hell it wouldn't surprise me if it's Harper and Rowan and they lose to continue the feud. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff.

3) Del Rio's Return: I'm not a huge Del Rio fan, but they bring him back for big money with their usual desperate need for a big Latino star. He beats John Cena clean for the US title in 8 minutes. Then he's thrown into a partnership with Zeb, ranting about something called "MexAmerica", which the crowd doesn't seem to understand or care about, and quite frankly It looks like Zeb and Alberto don't know what to make of it either.

[KaiserGlider]

The last big risk they took was with The Network. From a creative standpoint this has been one of the worst years in a long time. The job of the writers isn't to be creative anymore, it's to fill up time.

[Hanley!]

This company sucks.

You're completely right on all counts, Brett. They're doing nothing right on the main roster at the moment, but those are probably the three worst examples of how uncreative they are right now. It just boggles the mind how they could have let their product get this bad. With the amount of experience and expertise they have in this industry, you'd think that even if they were coasting completely they'd be able to put out a product substantially better than this one. They've got no instincts for what works or what people will like anymore. It's really sad.

The title tournament is funny. As various people have gotten injured or gone on hiatus over the last month, I keep hearing people (including the Wrestling Observer guys) saying that WWE is fucked in the short term, but that it might be a blessing in disguise, as it'll force them to push someone else or do something new. And each time, they've been wrong. Rollins going down injured was a harsh blow, but a great excuse to shake things up. Instead they're going with the dullest, most formulaic, and least exciting approach possible. Rather than introducing some intrigue, excitement and chaos to the show, the only thing Rollins' injury means for the fans is that they don't get to see Rollins anymore. No attempt to turn a negative into a positive here at all.

The Undertaker vs Kane thing is just bizarre. Undertaker debuted in a Survivor Series elimination match, but they're not going with that for the anniversary match? Just a dumb tag team match against two of the Wyatts? Which hurts the Wyatts ability to generate excitement for the match, because they work best as a group. They're not even bothered putting on a Survivor Series match at Survivor Series, apparently even that much would take too much effort. What's more, this feud has sucked and been completely illogical. Wyatt kidnaps both Undertaker and Kane, and then ... what? Drops them outside the arena? Does anyone on creative ever think anything through?

The Del Rio stuff is so shit that I'm convinced he can't really have a $1.4 million downside guarantee. Why would they pay him so much and then treat him like such a nobody/twat? Unless they actually think they're booking him strong right now, which would be substantially more worrying. The Mex America thing means nothing, and achieves nothing. It's clear that the writers don't know where any of this is going, and neither do Zeb or Del Rio. It's like they just farted the first tiny fragment of a fraction of a thought onto the screen, and have done nothing to explain it or elaborate on it or justify it since. It's about 1% of an idea, and probably a bad idea at that.

As a freelance writer, it just baffles me that an entire team of full-time paid writers consistently do so little writing. There are no ideas on this show, there are no stories, there are no angles. It's all just stuff happening. Not very entertaining stuff either. And it's stuff that has no real connection to anything that happened before or will happen again in the future.

It's freaking crazy. What we're seeing on television requires so little work, that I'm convinced Vince is writing most of these episodes entirely on his own about an hour before the show goes live, after throwing out everything suggested by anybody else.

[Str8Shooter]

The even tougher pill to swallow is you look the level of talent on the roster, at least from an in-ring standpoint, and it might be the best it's ever been. And the creative is holding everyone back and wasting prime years of some of very talented guys.

Can you imagine if you had a creative team that was stocked with people with fresh ideas who were allowed the freedom to create and use the characters to their best without being handcuffed by higher ups?

[Everlong]

Really good posts in here.

It blows. Once again we're in a position where they're wasting an incredibly talented roster. They're not even doing it to feed people to Cena before, which was their problem in years past. I'm now not so much convinced they're overly concerned about protecting guys... I just think they're really, really incompetent. They seem to have lost any clue of how to develop (or even begin) a storyline or create any form of excitement. Interesting characters are completely a thing of the past. All matches are meaningless. No PPVs really seem to have any more meaning than your average RAW. Even WrestleMania doesn't really mean much any more. It used to be the end of all feuds, the grandaddy of them all. Now basically all Mania matches have rematches, and the show has become even more reliant on hype than substance, moreso than ever before.

I want to be a wrestling fan again. I want them to give me something interesting to watch. When wrestling is great, hell even when it's somewhat decent, it's so much fun. But WWE is doing worse than giving us a bad product... it's giving us a bland, boring, lifeless one. There's nothing straight up *bad* about what shows up on TV, but there's no imagination and no reason to care.

It's so fucking depressing and the fans are powerless to do anything about it other than complain on the internet or stop giving them their money.

[Everlong]

Also, Brett, you should write a letter to Vince and ask him what happened to his "testicular fortitude"

[Str8Shooter]

Also, Brett, you should write a letter to Vince and ask him what happened to his "testicular fortitude"

He used to always say he had balls the size of grapefruits. It's weird because he got his company to where it is today by taking big risks but somewhere along the line he seems to have lost that.

[Everlong]

Also, Brett, you should write a letter to Vince and ask him what happened to his "testicular fortitude"

He used to always say he had balls the size of grapefruits. It's weird because he got his company to where it is today by taking big risks but somewhere along the line he seems to have lost that.

That's what happens when you have zero competition and no need to take any risks at all. You rest on your laurels.

Vince has been lounging back for almost 15 years now after squashing the last of his real competition. Plus, he's getting old. All of that means no more big risks, no more envelope pushing.

That's really why I don't see things changing after VInce dies, which is what people always say will happen. Not unless any real competition springs up.

[Str8Shooter]

I think his lack of risks is due to the fact that the company still manages to make money and financially I believe they are still doing well. It looks like he's scared to try anything for fear of screwing up the "sure thing" that he has.

I think the big thing is the fanbase has changed and Vince hasn't. He used to always get credit from people close to him and who worked for him that he had his "finger on the pulse" of the fans of WWF/E. Clearly now he doesn't have anything close to that. He's hell bent on shoving the guy he wants at us, and the fans are just as eager to shove it in his face that they don't want that person.

[The Legend]

I think there's some other factors when it comes to risk taking vs not risk taking other than just being comfortable.

One thing that has to be factored into this discussion is the simple fact that the world 15-20 years ago is a very different one than that in which we live in today. In the 90's the world was pretty much a complete and total free for all where nothing was off-limits and everything under the sun was open to being explored, mocked, played with and investigated compared to today's world that is much more about walking a tight rope in the middle and being safe because the political correctness police hammers everyone that ventures to be bold and possibly offend someone. Now, that's not to say that every risk the WWE could take would have to do with political correctness or anything of the sort, but the environment that the 90's fostered for the WWE gave the company a lot more freedom to take risks in every phase of their game. In total, the 90's were just a much more creative time in our society than today is when you look across the entertainment spectrum. Hell, look at movies and all the re-makes, re-brands, sequels, prequels, it's like nobody in Hollywood wants to have an original thought.

The WWE has done a few things in the last decade that were a matter of taking some risks and pretty much all of them resulted in the WWE being slammed from this group or that group endlessly. Hell, look at how limited promos have become so as to not hurt anyone's feelings. The WWE tried to increase heat in one of their biggest storylines of the year one year by having two guys hate each other and mock each other and try to get after each other and what was the result? Their top star was called a horrible, evil bully and the WWE was forced by public pressure to go into ongoing years later anti-bullying campaigns. News flash, "bullying" is good for wrestling.

If you look across the spectrum, if the WWE were to try and do what they did in the Attitude Era, they likely would have been driven out of business instead of being driven to their greatest business period in the company's history. Let's take the easiest example, do you think MADD would let a guy that constantly drinks on the job and in front of everyone become the top star of the company? Do you think any number of special interest groups, advertisers or anyone else would let a guy that's constantly flipping off the audience become the top star of the company? Hell, let's go to the big one, do you think any number of special interest groups would let a guy with Steve Austin's history of domestic violence rise to being the top star of the company if he was a young guy just starting out?

That is nothing to talk of the any number of stories that while we groan and roll our eyes at in remembering, would probably result in the WWE being sued into bankruptcy (Katie Vick, Mark Henry with the transvestite, Mark Henry with PMS, a group called PMS, Big Boss Man being hung in the middle of the ring at the company's biggest show of the year, almost anything involving DX, the list goes on).

While there's certainly things the WWE do wrong, very wrong, namely knowing who to push, who to promote and who the fans want to see and who the fans would really get behind to make them into stars. When it comes to being a company that takes less risks than they used to I think it has as much or more about factors and environments outside of their control as it does what's in their control.

[Str8Shooter]

@The Legend

I agree it's a different time. But we're not saying they need to scrap PG or start doing wild stuff with bloody messes and half naked women like the Attitude Era. They just need to listen to their fans, and put together some compelling stories to go along with their talent. That shouldn't be that difficult to pull off.

Steve's best line in his big post to me was this "There are no ideas on this show, there are no stories, there are no angles. It's all just stuff happening.". And this is true, it just feels like Raw is a big circle that goes around and around with nothing of consequence ever happening to change things.

And WWE did get pressure and heat from people during the Attitide Era, they got a ton of heat from the PTC and others criticizing them. In fact they may have gotten more then because the product was more high profile and was on magazine covers with ratings in the 6's.

[The Legend]

@The Legend

I agree it's a different time. But we're not saying they need to scrap PG or start doing wild stuff with bloody messes and half naked women like the Attitude Era. They just need to listen to their fans, and put together some compelling stories to go along with their talent. That shouldn't be that difficult to pull off.

Steve's best line in his big post to me was this "There are no ideas on this show, there are no stories, there are no angles. It's all just stuff happening.". And this is true, it just feels like Raw is a big circle that goes around and around with nothing of consequence ever happening to change things.

And WWE did get pressure and heat from people during the Attitide Era, they got a ton of heat from the PTC and others criticizing them. In fact they may have gotten more then because the product was more high profile and was on magazine covers with ratings in the 6's.

I'm going to address these issues in reverse order, because I think you are missing some of my points. First, they did receive pressure from certain groups, but here's the difference, they were fringe groups that everyone laughed at and nobody listened to. Fast forward to today and these groups are the one's with the biggest microphones and the biggest crowds following and believing what they are saying. In the 90's the WWE had a bigger, more passionate following and therefore the power. Today, those groups are the ones with a bigger, more passionate following and therefore the power.

Steve's line is right in that there aren't a lot of ideas, or there aren't a lot of executed ideas anyhow. And that all goes back to how the culture has changed in more than just a PC way. The PC over-correct that is going on now as a result of the 90's has created this scenario where the WWE and people in general have a greater fear of failure, offending someone, or in the WWE's case losing corporate sponsorships by drifting off the mainline. A lot of their stories and angles they run now and a lot of the characters they have now, have promise and there's lots of things they could do with them if they got into the devil of the details, but getting into the details, specifics and story elements that smack you in the face with bluntness opens you up for that criticism. So the response to that is to poke a toe in a direction with a story, but keep it vague and not aggressive at all in storytelling so as to let things just fly by those that could be offended or turned off by something. I believe it's the biggest reason they've resorted to having Bray Wyatt speak in tongues, because the religious people would be up in arms if the WWE dove in with both feet of having him be a religious cult leading nutjob.

[Messiah]

I'm really confused as to how coming up with creative ideas has anything to do with potentially pissing off sponsors. It's not like we're asking the WWE to have Cena and Nikki have sex on television.

I mean, is it really that difficult to push character A in a straight-forward, interesting storyline with a logical beginning and endpoint? TV Shows and Movies have been doing this for decades, 90s or not. Hell, NXT does it. It's not that difficult. WWE either just chooses not to or is incapable of doing so. It has nothing to do with society or corporate sponsors.

[Str8Shooter]

Yeah I don't see the correlation either. WWE is not really on all these rights groups radars. I mean look at all the racial stereotypes WWE have done, it would be easy pickings for rights groups to go after but they really haven't. They don't because WWE isn't mainstream or high profile enough right now, these groups want the publicity of going after big fish.

Look at all the wrestling deaths, on rare occasions it gets brought up in the mainstream but disappears just as quickly.

I don't believe that WWE is scared of offending rights groups. That doesn't seem Vince's style. If Bray Wyatt was more of a crazy cult leader I highly doubt any groups would care enough.

[The Legend]

I'm really confused as to how coming up with creative ideas has anything to do with potentially pissing off sponsors. It's not like we're asking the WWE to have Cena and Nikki have sex on television.

I mean, is it really that difficult to push character A in a straight-forward, interesting storyline with a logical beginning and endpoint? TV Shows and Movies have been doing this for decades, 90s or not. Hell, NXT does it. It's not that difficult. WWE either just chooses not to or is incapable of doing so. It has nothing to do with society or corporate sponsors.

We are talking about different things. Brett said they have no balls, as in they are afraid to take risks any more. I was just pointing out that the cultural climate that an entertainment company operates in has a ton to do with how many and what kinds of risks a company feels free to take.

I said, they have a lot of work to do in terms of knowing who to push and what characters to develop. I said that much in my first response. Doing that isn't taking a risk. Doing that isn't a matter of having balls.

[Everlong]

It's not like we're asking the WWE to have Cena and Nikki have sex on television.

Speak for yourself

[Hanley!]

I think there's something to what John's saying. Not wanting to offend anyone, might be their reason or even their excuse for not doing more with certain angles. It's a kind of logic that I could see them using.

Though I'd rush to clarify that it's not a good excuse. There are absolutely ways to create interesting stories without offending anybody. Look at the NXT model at the moment. It's completely PG, and is running with what is essentially a very 80s take on pro-wrestling ... but it's working. Because there are logical storylines, which are given time to build and grow, and every feud has a real winner and a real loser.

The Wyatt example is a good one. Those characters don't work at all without there being some kind of weird, perverse message that Wyatt stands for. He's a cult leader and that doesn't work as a gimmick unless he has some kind of belief system. However, as soon as he makes it clear what that is, it's bound to be offensive to somebody. Whereas his random jibberish promos aren't exactly offensive to anyone, except fans of decent television. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if that really was WWE's reason for keeping his stuff so ridiculously vague. That being said, if done smartly and within the confines of a PG environment, the Wyatt stuff isn't going to be offensive enough to anybody to really register as bad publicity at all.

I could see WWE being worried about some of this stuff, but it's really bordering on paranoia if that's the case. They're letting themselves be controlled by hugely exaggerated fears.

[The Legend]

I'm going to get a little more general, a little more philosophical and a lot less centered on WWE. Right now we have a quasi, borderline self-policing society that censors itself. Throughout history whenever censorship begins to get involved or happen whether through government or societal control whatever culture or society is involved generally sees their creativity and ability to express themselves go down not just in the areas being censored but all areas.

[Hanley!]

It's unfair to suggest that entertainment is just worse now than it was ten to twenty years ago though. Wrestling is certainly worse, but that doesn't apply across the board. Blockbuster movies are arguably a lot less creative and risk-taking than they were a decade ago too. But for the most part television has actually improved in that period of time. People in that field have been taking more risks, and reaping the benefits of those risks.

[The Legend]

It's unfair to suggest that entertainment is just worse now than it was ten to twenty years ago though. Wrestling is certainly worse, but that doesn't apply across the board. Blockbuster movies are arguably a lot less creative and risk-taking than they were a decade ago too. But for the most part television has actually improved in that period of time. People in that field have been taking more risks, and reaping the benefits of those risks.

Would you say television has improved at the network level? Because I wouldn't. NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX were churning out much more creative and better quality television 10-20 years ago. Any growth that has come in the TV industry has come from the rise of cable television and the less strict bonds of rules and regulations applied to that medium than network television and the greater creative freedom that has come with it.