411 Fact or Fiction Wrestling: Did WWE Waste Monday’s Shield Reunion?

Welcome back to the latest edition of 411 Fact or Fiction, Wrestling Edition! Stuff happened, people loved/hated it and let everyone else know. I pick through the interesting/not so interesting tidbits and then make 411 staff members discuss them for your pleasure. Battling this week are 411’s Mathew Sforcina and Steve Cook!

Questions were sent out Monday.

Participants were told to expect wrestling-related content, as well as possible statements on quantum physics, homemade pharmaceuticals, the Turtle Total Trip Theorem, pizza and hydroponics.

1. ESPN’s new relationship with the WWE will eventually lead to a conflict in interest when they have to report on a serious issue or tragedy within the company.

Mathew Sforcina: FICTION – I’m giving ESPN the benefit of the doubt here, in that I’m assuming that ESPN’s relationship with WWE is not a straight up commercial one. ESPN is losing viewers due to the changing landscape of media engagement, and the WWE thing is not so much Vince paying them to give WWE airtime but instead ESPN trying to broaden their appeal. Now obviously WWE is going out of their way to assist that and is bending backwards to accommodate them, obviously there’s mutual working here, but I think if/when WWE gets into trouble, I’m guessing that ESPN’s bosses won’t let them go soft, if only to avoid the invariable backlash from other news organizations. At least, until Disney makes a play for WWE to try and own all the childhoods…

Steve Cook: FICTION – ESPN doesn’t have to report on anything they don’t want to report on. The recent firestorm surrounding daily fantasy sports has shown that. ESPN treads lightly because they have a financial stake in a DFS company and they print articles defending the companies involved while all the actual news on the issue appears on other media platforms. DFS & WWE can be easily compared. They’re both forms of entertainment that ESPN has been foisting on their viewers of late, and most of their viewers don’t appear all that interested in either one. That kind of works to WWE’s benefit…should something happen that would warrant an OUTSIDE THE LINES INVESTIGATION, it’s not like viewers are going to be clamoring for it. We all love NFL scandal. MLB scandal is cool. Don’t get me started on recruiting scandals. WWE? Eh. They can just have Jonathan Coachman interview Random WWE Guy on the ESPNNews edition of SportsCenter, touch on it for a second, and nobody will think anything of it. Because nobody cares. Non-wrestling fans don’t care about the business, and wrestling fans don’t want to hear anything negative about the business. So really, who would ESPN be catering to by investigating anything? Nobody. Yeah it could be considered a conflict of interest, but it’s a conflict of interest that is completely irrelevant and won’t give ESPN any problems.

2. WWE signing several members of the recent cast of Tough Enough sends the message that the show and who wins really doesn’t matter.

Mathew Sforcina: FICTION – The winner, yes, but if anything it makes the show more important. WWE, currently, only wants two type of people to get developmental deals. Either you have to be the 1% of the Indy scene and be really REALLY good, or you’ve not had a day’s training in your life but you’re a good athlete. And the first one is by necessity only. So, in WWE’s world, they don’t want you to dedicate ten years of your life traveling the globe and honing your craft. They want you when you’re young to just come to a TV show and get in that way. Signing multiple people from the show makes the show the golden ticket, and WWE wants people to think they either win the golden ticket or they just shouldn’t bother. Which is pretty mean to the industry as a whole, but good for WWE, so of course that’s what they’ll do.

Steve Cook: FICTION – I agree with half of the statement. Wins and losses don’t matter in WWE. But making it onto the show in the first place absolutely does. Was WWE going to notice these people if they didn’t go through the Tough Enough audition process? Probably not. The show is a chance for people to get noticed by WWE. So was the Diva Search. We can argue whether or not the people that came to WWE via Tough Enough or Diva Search mattered and whether it’s right that the losers can get contracts too, but it’s not like this is a new thing.

3. The WWE should have made one of the Mexico house shows a Network special, especially considering they ran Brothers of Destruction matches.

Mathew Sforcina: FACT – But I completely understand why they didn’t. WWE doesn’t want to go overboard with the Network specials, plus they are wedded to the ‘All Shows Must Look Alike’ concept. So given they already ran MSG (a venue they know well and know how to set up and which they can get to easily with all their stuff) recently, and Mexico shows will look too different, I totally get why they chose not to run them. They should have, because different is actually really really good, but I get why they chose not to. Although maybe they didn’t want to be showing Demon Kane getting along with someone…

Steve Cook: FACT – Any chance WWE gets to put something special on the Network, they should be doing. I’ll admit that I’m saying this as a greedy Network subscriber that wants more out of his subscription, but it’s not like taping one of the shows in Mexico would have put WWE in the poorhouse. A bare bones crew with commentators calling the action in the network studio would have sufficed. I don’t really blame them for not doing it and it doesn’t make a difference at the end of the day, but I would have enjoyed seeing it and maybe just maybe more house shows on the Network would increase subscription numbers. “BUT STEVE THE SUBSCRIBER NUMBERS ARE ALREADY GOOD AND WWE NETWORK IS A HUGE SUCCESS STOP COMPLAINING.” Well they can always be better, right?

SWITCH!

4. The WWE wasted a cool angle by doing a “Shield Reunion” match on Raw with no build.

Steve Cook: FACT – People still care about the Shield. One of the coolest moments in 2015 was when Rollins, Reigns & Ambrose did their assisted powerbomb through the table on Randy Orton during their 4-way match at Payback. Rollins put his fist out for their salute, the others had none of it, it was great stuff. So any time you tease a Shield reunion, people are going to get excited. If you do it too often, people will begin to lose interest. I don’t really have a problem with the “unannounced” part of it. WWE does most of their advertising on Twitter these days & advertises during the show itself. People following WWE on Twitter that didn’t have Raw on for whatever reason (I didn’t have it on, and I follow WWE) could see that Rollins, Reigns and Ambrose were going to team together, and maybe that would compel them to flip the channel for a few minutes. I get what they were going for. But yeah it was a total waste of time. Ratings for the last hour tanked as usual. People were more interested in the return of Star Wars than the return of the Shield. It happens.

Mathew Sforcina: FICTION – Build? Build? WWE doesn’t run like that anymore, given that nothing will move the needle to make the build worth it. This is due to WWE not doing build anymore obviously, but the fact is that this was a test to see if the tease of the reunited Shield would move the needle at all, and given that they didn’t actually reunite, they (hopefully) get a one night boost that tells them if they can rely on a proper reunion when their backs are against the wall. Well, more so at least. This was market testing, and it doesn’t ruin the true reunion they’ll do after WM out of desperation. Doesn’t help it, obviously, but still…

5. Cesaro is the most underutilized member of the WWE roster.

Steve Cook: FACT – I’m sure if I looked over WWE’s roster I could find somebody I would consider more underutilized than Cesaro. Instead of doing that, I choose to talk about Cesaro. If this guy isn’t the best pro wrestler in the world today, he’s at least in the top five. Guy is a marvel in the ring. People want to knock his charisma, and it’s certainly not his strong point, but in the right role with the right character he can deliver. I liked him in a tag team with Tyson Kidd because they were awesome together, but if Tyson’s out of the picture he needs to be doing something other than wrestling Adam Rose & getting buried in Adam Rose promos on shows that nobody watches. He’s too damn good to sit on the sidelines…at least he’s teaming with Neville & Dolph Ziggler in an IWC wet dream team this week so maybe they’ll at least let him have matches that don’t mean anything going forward.

Mathew Sforcina: FICTION – He’s on TV every week. He’s not used well on those appearances, yes, but he’s still getting TV time every week. He should absolutely be near the top of the card, he should be pushed hard and be a center-point of the company, absolutely. But in my mind, the drop off between ‘main eventing’ and ‘gets on TV every week’ is smaller than the drop off between ‘solid upper mid carder’ and ‘not on the damn TV show’. Damien Sandow, Christian and even Zack Ryder (yes, still) should be on TV every week, and them not being there is a worse crime, in my mind. But I get why people will focus on Cesaro, but again, you get to see him at least.

6. You have no desire to see Alberto Del Rio back in the WWE.

Steve Cook: FACT – Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a big fan of Alberto’s and have been since he started appearing with WWE. That’s exactly why I have no desire to see him back with that company. He’s been doing fun stuff in Lucha Underground, was great in his limited run with Ring of Honor, and is pretty much perfect in AAA or any other place I’ve seen him work in Mexico. But we remember what happened in his first WWE run, right? He was fun for awhile, but then they ran out of things to do and he was wrestling the same guys over and over again and it was boring. The same exact thing will happen if he goes back, except at a faster rate. He’ll return, get a pop, then by the next week he’d be in a never-ending feud with Sheamus or somebody else that doesn’t get either guy any more over. Yawn. If he makes more money with WWE he should sign because it’s a business, but from a fan perspective I’d rather see him in other places.

Mathew Sforcina: FICTION – Not so much in terms of the on air product, Del Rio’s work was OK for the most part, but more for what a return would mean in terms of the backstage stuff. If Del Rio comes back, assuming it’s not strictly due to a paycheck so large he’d be doing himself a disservice not to take (a.k.a a ‘Gail Kim’), it means that he feels that WWE has improved their backstage practices and situation in regards to racism. That I believe would be a good thing, and thus I’d like to see Del Rio back for that reason. Wouldn’t mind him on WWE TV, don’t mind he’s not there, but a return from him would be a good sign of other things.

7. What is your excitement level for Sunday’s Hell in a Cell PPV.

Steve Cook: 2 out of 10 – Let’s go through the card…

– Kickoff match: Already saw it on Raw.
– Kevin Owens vs. Ryback: I like Owens & Ryback is better than he’s given credit for, but them together isn’t too exciting.
– New Day vs. Dudleys: I like the New Day & the Dudleys were fun for a return, but they’re spinning their wheels here.
– Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella: I hate to say it because I love the idea of a Divas Revolution, but it’s falling flat in storyline and in the ring. Get Sasha Banks in here and let her do something.
– John Cena vs. TBD: OK, that could be interesting depending on who it is.
– Seth Rollins vs. Kane: Child please.
– Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt: You gotta be kidding me.
– Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar: They haven’t had a good match together since the last time they were in Hell in a Cell. Things have changed a lot since then, but there should be enough of a big match feel & bells & whistles to make things fun.

There are two matches that interest me. Hence, my excitement level of 2.

Mathew Sforcina: 2.5 out of 10 – I’m vaguely interested to see how WWE tries to run the Kane thing, given that they probably can’t run the logical storytelling outcome (Demon Kane and Citizen Kane really are different people, CK helps DK win title) and thus I’m left wondering what BS they’re going to pull out to maintain the status quo. Rollins wins, CK somehow restarts match and Rollins is counted out when he runs away or something? That, and the sinking feeling that Cena’s open challenge is going to be answered by Strowman… A guy can hope against hope…