What Paige and Charlotte Did Wrong

Having been a wrestling fan for many years – as I’m sure many of you can relate to – I have seen my fair share of bad taste in terms of storytelling. I’ve long since believed that humor is subjective, and “good taste” isn’t something that is easily definable. With regards to wrestling, the divide is seemingly larger than in any other medium. Whereas most entertainment mediums share a common core of humor that is, to a majority, almost always funny, wrestling tends to differ greatly. For instance, I never found a diarrhea-suffering Big Show funny, even though Eddie Guerrero is my favorite wrestler. I didn’t even chuckle when someone pissed in Regal’s tea. I cringed at “Choppy choppy your peepee,” and found no redeemable quality in giving birth to a hand. Still, there are many that found these moments of wrestling lore hilarious, and there are many clip shows that dedicate time to said moments.

Then we move to more somber times, such as a Lawler heart attack, or Big Show’s dad’s casket being dragged through a cemetery. Jeff Hardy’s former demons being brought up. We get Randy Orton claiming that Eddie Guerrero is in hell, or the always loved Katie Vick storyline. We can take it back further to the Von Erich’s using untimely passings as motivation. With each of these moments, similar reports are pushed out almost immediately; such as those within the family giving permission to use the names of dead family members, or – in Katie Vick’s case – everyone simply being on board. Within this list of mentionables that I have just placed, I can really only pinpoint one that worked in terms of storytelling – Jeff Hardy. All the others were tasteless, not in the content, but in execution. Joining them in this horrible display of story-telling is Monday night’s contract signing between Paige and Charlotte.

Now, it’s obvious that the focal point of this column will be pointing towards Monday night, but I bring up history not only to display WWE’s track record in subpar humor, but also to compare yesteryear to today with regards to how, at one point, the WWE’s expectations were seemingly lower in terms of entertainment and humor quality. What I mean is that at one point, the WWE was rated TV-14, a rating where sophomoric humor was almost welcomed, and fart jokes were the epitome of gut-busting guffaws. This isn’t an excuse as much as it’s a reasoning. The end of RAW saw Charlotte bring up, almost haphazardly, her brother Reid Flair’s untimely passing, and – in a moment that perhaps belonged more in the Attitude Era than anywhere else, Paige took the opportunity to use such a dagger laid on the table and stab it right through Charlotte’s poor little Flair heart.

This closing segment of RAW bothered a lot of people for many reasons, but before some go out on a limb and say what we all know they are going to say, let’s dig a little deeper into why this go-home segment of Monday Night RAW not only did not belong in the spot, but didn’t belong on the show at all.

It Was Done in Bad Taste

This may be true, but this is wrestling we are talking about. To say that bringing up the death of Charlotte’s brother is bad taste may be true, but it isn’t a strong enough excuse to use as a reason not to display it. In fact, bringing the death up did nothing to me but make me roll my eyes. I wasn’t offended. I didn’t think of the Fliehr family at night, tossing and turning over their pain. My argument here isn’t so much that it was done in bad taste, but simply that it was done at all. Had Charlotte come up with vignettes and numerous mentions of her brother that nearly no one knows about, this “bad taste” may have worked much better. But this is not what happened. No, what happened was what the WWE tends to do far too frequently – I call it Convenient Courting. For whatever reason, they felt the storyline at present simply wasn’t strong enough (an argument I’ll get to in a minute), and had to add one more morsel of fiction to make the story jump over the edge. This is often done in a third act, or every M. Night Shyamalan film. It’s the final push for viewers and engaging an audience that otherwise would have been lackluster. What the WWE did was say “What would really bother Charlotte?” And by Charlotte’s design, the WWE’s, or both, they came up with this random mention of her brother and his untimely passing.

Truly, the only bad taste here wasn’t the mention of a dead person, or the insult of said dead person. No, the bad taste here was the fact that we were presented with yet another example of atrocious story-telling that is a near constant. I do not use atrocious as a hyperbole, either. This was simply bad. The delivery was forced, Charlotte’s crying face is essentially the same as her angry face, Paige had a horrible time setting up the insult, and it was all for seemingly no reason, since a pull-apart brawl would have been just as affective, if not moreso, than what we got on RAW.

This Shouldn’t Have Closed the Show

This may be a correct statement, but I see the wrong motivation behind the statement everywhere. Some have said that had this segment been in the middle of RAW, it would have been ok. We would have accepted it as is and simply moved on. Allow me to go a bit Connie on you all for a second, but I felt supremely sorry for the ladies on my television because – yet again – they were unable to display a simple competitive edge, a yearning for a title, a champion vs challenger feel. No, instead, we had to add elements of female vitriol – because that’s what women do, right? They can’t simply fight for a title, there must be some sort of emotional struggle betwixt every female in the locker room. It can’t be something as simple as “You have the title, I want it.” No, it must be an overly emotional, tear-filled Champion trying to one-up that Vixen-Haired, split-tongued evil-doer. I think moreso than a death being brought up on the show, it was the idea that these women couldn’t close the show with a face-to-face equality that circled more around the title they were fighting for than a pride that enveloped only 15 minutes ago at the mention of Reid Flair. I mean…come the fuck on!

This segment should not have closed the show, and it’s a damned shame that it did because they now have a scapegoat to prove that women simply shouldn’t be in the main event, while within the same company, under the same umbrella, we’ve had Bayley and Sasha main event, and numerous closing moments of NXT with women in the forefront. The storyline between Charlotte and Paige has been lackluster at best, and that’s where the problem is. No one cares about Paige’s turn (that happened two times). No one cares how many times Charlotte doesn’t want her father to be mentioned (or her brother) yet is the ONLY one that keeps bringing them up. No one cares. THAT’S THE PROBLEM! NO ONE CARES!

Ric Flair Didn’t Know

This just recently came out as of writing, and although minor, it seems to be yet another log to the fire that was ignited by the segment. And yet again, the problem I have doesn’t lie so much in the belly of Flair’s emotions as much as it does for the reasoning behind it. Simply put, it wasn’t a good idea. Whether Flair knew about the segment or not is seemingly irrelevant, because he knowing doesn’t make the segment any better. It adds nothing to the segment at all – which had horrible writing all over it. Take Charlotte claiming that her and Paige, with a seven to eight year difference in age, grew up watching their parents “on WWE television.” I’m no historian, but I’m pretty sure Paige did not watch her parents on WWE television, nor was she watching said programming at the same time Charlotte was. Or how about the whole idea that PCB was en route to be akin to The Four Horsemen or DX? Charlotte’s emotions were all over the place, from “What happened to you, Paige?” to “I wanted to be like you.” None of it made sense.

Let’s just say that Flair did know. Let’s assume he was backstage, watching his little girl that he’s been so proud of recently, and just chomping at the bit at the compelling moments on the monitor. Let’s pretend that the moment Paige threw that dart at Charlotte’s heart, he clutched his pearls and felt both shock and awe. What the hell does it matter? The segment was bad. Just bad.

Tell Em

As per usual, the WWE – and its fans – seem to find themselves in an argument internally, with no recourse. The reason isn’t a lack of direction so much as it’s a lack of trust. If there is anything I’ve noticed being around wrestling fans of all ages, it’s the fact that we all want to be entertained. Entertainment, of course, comes in many different ways, but for a show that considers itself “weekly episodic television,” there are expectations for the type of entertainment that is given. As a writer, story-telling is something very important to me. As a fan, it’s insulting to see the big dog of the yard show such weak, weak story-telling. Charlotte and Paige were given an opportunity that the story wasn’t ready for. I have no problem with two women closing the show. I have no problem with the trope known as “Contract Signing” ending RAW. I have a problem with the story repair they tried to do during the show (clips throughout), and the random insert of a death in the family for a shock value that was just…not needed.

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Tony Acero has been writing for 411wrestling.com for five years and takes himself about as seriously as you do. He likes whiskey, Mountain Dew, and Batman. He is a published author, currently working on his third book and questions almost daily why he spends more time on a hobby that doesn’t make him any money than the supposed career path his degree dictates. When he’s not writing for 411wrestling.com, you can find him wallowing in self-pity under a tree with no pants on.