wrestling / Columns

The Magnificent Seven: 7 Things WWE Should Stop Doing

December 19, 2016 | Posted by Mike Chin

Call me a pessimist or disloyal, but, particularly as a columnist, I’m in the camp that feels criticism is a form of expressing love—if you love something you should want for it to be the best version of itself, and want to capitalize on what is good to make something great. While I enjoy the indies, at my core, I love WWE. I’ve followed it for about thirty years, and while there have been several periods when I haven’t had time to watch Raw or Smackdown week to week, I have made time to read the results, follow the stories, and speculate about what will happen next.

So, I want to be clear that this column comes from a place of love. I don’t hate WWE. I wish the company all the success, and hope that it survives for me to share it with the next generation in my family, and provide me with joy for the next thirty years of my life. But because I love it, I do want for it to be as good as it can be.

This week, I’m looking at seven key areas in which I feel WWE could realistically improve. I’m not so much fantasy booking or talking about dream signings as I am looking at matters that are fully under WWE’s control, that from my perspective would result in a better product. This list is not definitive, and is rooted solely in my opinion. While the countdown format of this column dictates some level of ranking or hierarchy, and there are varying degrees of importance between entries, I’m nonetheless looking at this column as less about priorities and one item being more essential than another, but rather as a collection of seven key factors I’d like to see WWE consider.

#7. Multi-Man Matches as a Crutch

There are appropriate times and places for more than two-sided matches. When Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels simultaneously challenged Triple H at WrestleMania 20, for example, the story was nicely nuanced for having two very different faces with different motivations gunning for (and potentially detracting from each other in the pursuit of) the long-time heel champ. I’m also a fan of Money in the Bank Ladder Matches, the Royal Rumble, and the occasional Fatal Fourway to provide an off-beat main event match or placeholder en route to a title change. Heck, I’m even a sucker for ten-man Survivor Series matches, out of tradition.

I object, however, to those multi-man matches that feel less like organic storytelling or like they’re setting up a classic match, but rather that are giving stars something to do without making the effort to book a proper feud. Take WrestleMania 23. Edge and Randy Orton had been partners for months, and then went through a slow burn break up that led to them working a little with, but mostly against each other in a triple threat to crown a number one contender going into ‘Mania. So did we get the ‘Mania showdown between these two marquee stars of their generation? No, instead the two were plugged into the Money in the Bank Ladder Match that opened the show where they did come to blows, and then more or less blew off their issue on Raw weeks later. Time constraints are what they are, and I get that heel vs. heel matches can be unappealing, but for me, this match had WrestleMania written all over it in terms of star power and the caliber of performance each man was capable of that time.

This issue has carried forward in Money in the Bank matches, and the Intercontinental Championship Ladder Matches at ‘Mania in recent years. The build to these matches typically plays out the same way—different permutations of the guys involved in these matches go one-on-one and trade victories for a month leading up to them, to sell the idea that anyone might win. On isolated occasions, that can be fine, but when a guy with the longevity and talent of Dolph Ziggler has never had a proper WrestleMania program or one-on-one match (the closest you could argue was teaming with Big E against Team Hell No at WrestleMania 29) there is a problem and the talent is being underserved.

#6. Feeding Secondary Champions to Main Event Players

This may be the least original entry on the countdown, but it’s a classic, and, to WWE’s credit, we have seen progress in recent months with at least The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, and Roman Reigns getting more serious, meaningful runs as secondary champions.

The issue at hand, though, is Intercontinental, US, or Tag Team Champions acting as cannon fodder for the world champ or number one contender. Perhaps the worst scenario of all is those bigger stars who aren’t even in the main event picture, who win non-title matches over secondary champs not to build to a larger program, but rather just for a placeholder win, sending the message that the secondary title is beneath them.

When booked properly, secondary titles can mean a lot. While we could go as far back as Magnum TA and Tully Blanchard’s I Quit match, for more recent and immediately applicable scenarios on the WWE landscape, we have Ziggler’s emotional win over Miz at this year’s No Mercy, John Cena’s US Open Challenge, or Cena’s first US title run that kicked off at a WrestleMania and was in many ways a launching pad for his main event run that would last the better part of the decade to follow. Such potential is squandered when WWE doesn’t take its secondary champs seriously.

#5. Legends Handing Wins to Current Stars

As I mentioned at the top of the column, I’m a long-time fan. So, when a legend we haven’t seen in twenty-some-odd years shows up unannounced on PPV or makes his or her return to Raw, I’m as excited as anyone. Heck, I’m even a sucker for one more match if it’s properly situated and properly booked to get the most bang for my nostalgic buck without disrupting the contemporary booking.

It would be easy to make an entry on this countdown about not having legends—particularly part-time, one-shot, old timers—beat full-time talents. I do get the arguments about that, and agree that if today’s stars can’t get over the stars of yesteryear, then we won’t have any bona fide legends left ten, twenty years from now. But I do feel that legends picking up victories here and there has its proper place as a booking strategy to deliver a feel-good moment or give way to a longer journey (like Rock beating Cena at WrestleMania 28), and I also feel that WWE does this sparingly enough (see Sting losing both of his PPV matches under the WWE banner) that it’s not appropriate to note on a list of things WWE should change.

I am more irked by those times when a legend hands a victory to a current performer. To go back to Sting, let’s look at his WWE arrival at Survivor Series 2014. The moment his video appeared on the tron, watching him walk down the WWE ramp, and seeing him engage with Triple H was all awesome. Moreover, seeing Ziggler survive to the end of the match and ultimately pick up the final pin for his team was terrific. But that moment could have meant so much more for Ziggler and not taken a thing away from Sting, if Sting had only taken out Triple H and paved the way for Ziggler to hit one last Zig-Zag for the win. Instead, Sting draped Ziggler’s lifeless body over Seth Rollins’s prone carcass to hand him the win. Not so dissimilarly, I marked out for Kevin Owens winning the Universal Championship on Raw, and totally get Triple H interfering on his behalf to give Owens a heelish victory and facilitate the Rollins face turn. But how did Owens win? After a pop-up or apron powerbomb? After pummeling a weakened Rollins into unconsciousness? Poetically hitting a Pedigree of his own? None of the above. He watched in awe as the mighty Triple H Pedigreed Rollins and then stole the pin.

This dynamic of a legend handing someone the win works better for heels, but nonetheless gets the legend over more than the current star. Everyone can use the rub, but this tantamount to The Rock not only evening the odds for Roman Reigns at Royal Rumble 2015, but actively throwing Big Show, Kane, and Rusev out of the ring for him. While that Rumble was horribly mismanaged, top to bottom, the ending was at least right in theory. Rock makes surprise run in to give Reigns the rub after Reigns had already overcome the odds against The Authority’s giants, then cleared out for Reigns to take care of his own business and earn the win by tossing Rusev.

#4. Forcing Comedy

Comedy in pro wrestling can be good, or even great. Listening to The Rock riff off of Mick Foley, Chris Jericho poke fun at Stephanie McMahon, or Steve Austin smack Vince McMahon upside the head with a bedpan were genuinely funny moments within their context that entertained while moving forward meaningful storylines. On a lower level, I was on board with The Muppets visiting Raw for some hijinx whilst promoting their movie.

Comedy—when it’s organic to the situation or delivered by a performer naturally predisposed to do comedy—can enhance the pro wrestling product. Heck, I’ll even cede that some of the Hornswoggle or Santino Marella-style comedy of the last decade were fair in order to appeal to kids. I get that the entire WWE program can’t be geared toward the adult fan base.

The problem comes in when the attempted humor imposes upon talents not equipped to do comedy, or infringes upon a situation that ought to be serious. John Cena rapping dick jokes in that era between Attitude and PG largely worked; John Cena making poop jokes while trying to sell a main event feud is not as successful. Worse yet is Sheamus, the face, heelishly stealing Alberto Del Rio’s car to eat burritos and fart in, Dean Ambrose dumping wacky slime on his opponent, or Seth Rollins repeating the only marginally funny “sparkle crotch” taunt at Chris Jericho until it’s both annoying and very obviously forced.

Bad comedy distracts, and keeps fans from getting lost in the dream of wrestling, but rather calling our attention to the fact that it’s all an act, and an act that isn’t always well scripted.

#3. Single Challenger Booking

While I’ve followed a number of promotions over the years, WWE has always been my bread and butter, and so there are a lot of elements of pro wrestling that I take for granted simply because that’s how WWE does business. This past summer, I binge watched Lucha Underground. There were parts of LU that I loved, parts that I was lukewarm on, but one element that really stuck out was how, in particular from season one up to the arrival of the Monster Matanza Cueto, so many people were in the world title picture, and arguably main event level stars. Prince Puma, Mil Muertes, Cage, Pentagon Jr/Dark, Fenix, Johnny Mundo, and Alberto El Patron could all make a legit case, with performers like King Cuerno and Drago each seemingly a win away from rising to that status, and even the next tier of performers like Son of Havoc, The Mack, Sexy Star, and Texano one solid push away from knocking on the main event door themselves. Each of these performers had a clearly defined character and each had memorable moments and victories to his or her name.

On the surface, it might seem as though the 50-50 booking that WWE employs to further rivalries would have a similar effect of leveling the playing field for multiple top stars, and I think part of the diference is who is beating whom and when. In LU, Fenix holds a victory over Mil Muertes, who holds a victory over Prince Puma who holds a victory over Cage who holds a victory over Johnny Mundo who holds a victory over Alberto El Patron who holds a victory over Texano who holds a victory over Cage who holds a victory over Prince Puma who holds a victory over Mil Muertes—while some of this is back and forth, split booking, the broader suggestion is that most of the roster is great and can make a legit case for a shot at the main event. Compare this to Rusev going on a monster run only for John Cena to beat him three straight, or guys like The Miz, Kofi Kingston, and Dolph Ziggler trading countless wins between them over the years to the point that none could reasonably make a case (in kayfabe) he’s better than the others, but we can all agree that none of them belongs in the same conversation as a John Cena or Randy Orton (side note: I don’t mean to take anything away from the Ziggler-Miz feud from this fall, which I actually did feel was pretty great).

WWE tends to rely on single challenger booking, and particularly so at the world title and Women’s Championship levels, wherein the monster or hero steps up to the plate for one or two title shots only to get beaten back and sent back to the mid-card while the next challenger is elevated. While there are exceptions—particularly in the Attitude Era when there were frequently four-to-six serious contenders for the top spot—generally speaking this leaves a select one or two guys on top with a rotating door of other guys we’re supposed to take seriously for the duration of their main event program.

I’d love to see WWE get more invested in more stars. While I don’t imagine it’s possible to replicate the percentage of top-middle-lower card acts represented in a smaller promotion like LU, I do feel there’s plenty of room to have not just one-to-three top full-time stars, but rather a solid four-to-six per brand.

#2. Celebrities Affecting the Outcomes of Important Matches

Let’s call this the Jon Stewart effect.

Look, I get why WWE wants celebrities involved in its shows. It helps make the case WWE is big and mainstream; it helps draw some extra attention from media outlets that wouldn’t ordinarily give pro wrestling the time of day. I’m even on board with the aforementioned involvement of the Muppets on a one-off Raw (particularly Beaker giving Santino Marella the assist over Jack Swagger) and Shaq making a cameo in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. These appearances were unpredictable, fun, and didn’t really affect wrestling history.

Then there’s Jon Stewart.

I’m actually a pretty big fan of Stewart, but his work at SummerSlams 2015 and 2016 was an abomination, first hitting John Cena with a steel chair to hand Seth Rolins the win in a WWE and US Championshp match, then proving instrumental in The New Day’s tag title defense against Gallows and Anderson. In the former case, Stewart’s involvement was largely nonsensical, tacked on with the non-sequitur explanation that Stewart wanted to protect Ric Flair’s status as wrestling’s only sixteen-time world champ. The second time, while the stakes were lower, Stewart’s participation nonetheless made a mockery of Gallows and Anderson, interrupting the match and getting them to pause their attack on him so he could tuck in his shirt before they beat him down. Worse yet, Stewart’s participation—as a substitute New Day member because Big E was kayfabe injured—was even rendered completely illogical because Big E made his return at the end of the same match to save Stewart. I know we’re not supposed to care about such plotholes in a comedic scenario, but for me, this brand of ill-placed comedy deserves extra scrutiny in order to try to justify itself, and when WWE completely discards its own mythology in the process, the results are even worse.

Celebrities can appear in the crowd, cut a short promo, or even get physically involved in stake-less TV bout (particularly at the lower end of the card), but when they impact important matches, the results tend to be just plain awful.

#1. Supersized PPVs

Before the WWE Network, I only paid for the occasional PPV. WrestleMania every year, for sure. The Royal Rumble as often than not. Other PPVs if the card was shaping up particularly well, or there were a main event I was especially excited about. And since the Network launched? I haven’t missed one. Sure, sometimes real-life obligations mean that I have to play catch up over the week to follow, but I do always catch up. Most months, even when the shows aren’t great, I look at PPVs as a treat. They’re an excuse to zone out and watch the screen for three hours, and even a bad show typically has at least one match that delivers, or at least a handful of entertaining moments.

If you told me years back that I would get bored or tired or need a break amidst watching a SummerSlam, let alone a WrestleMania, I’d tell you you were crazy. Fast forward to 2016. Despite its huge attendance numbers, I think there’s a real argument to be made WrestleMania 32 was one of the worst WrestleManias ever—not for poor wrestling (though it wasn’t a standout in that regard) but because, not counting any of the (substantial) pre-show content, the show still ran just shy of five hours. SummerSlam and Survivor Series, too, ran for four hours, not counting pre-shows.

Give me a three-hour show, and I will watch it happily. Heck, if WWE wants to go for four hours once a year for ‘Mania, I’m on board for that, too, as long as the show is shrewdly booked.

The trouble is, these supersized shows do not feel carefully planned. On the contrary, the logic seems to be that with the WWE Network, WWE no longer needs to manage time, so if a show runs really, really long that’s fine. Meanwhile, from the comfort of my own living room, I burn out. While particular matches reignite my interest, by the fourth hour I just don’t have patience for anything but a four-star-plus barnburner that features one or more of my favorite performers. A half hour of Triple H chinlocking Roman Reigns? A not-particularly-inspired Brock Lesnar-Randy Orton match with a foregone conclusion? These matches simply didn’t do it for me.

But beyond my personal preference, there’s the far more important issue of the fans in live attendance for these shows. With each hour that passes past the three-hour mark, WWE tends to see diminishing returns. A lot of these fans got to the stadium or arena early and sat through the preshow (besides the fact that a number of these fans attended the NXT show or other wrestling events in the weekends leading up to marathon show). Four-hour-plus shows are simply overkill that test anyone’s attention, and when the live crowd gets bored and distracted, that crowd becomes heatless, diminishing the chance for any match—even a very good one—to succeed in front of crowd that is doing the performers no favors.

Pare any marathon show down to its strongest three hours, and it would, frankly, be a much better show. I’d love to see WWE exercise more restraint and move in this direction.

What would you add to the list? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.

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The Magnificent Seven, WWE, Mike Chin