Looking at WWE’s Backwards Booking

Last Tuesday the WWE continued a very stupid trend when Jinder Mahal lost to Randy Orton, clean, in the middle of the ring. It’s this type of booking that can only be described as “backwards” which is also destructive, doesn’t make any sense and does little-to-nothing for anyone involved. More importantly, it hurts the very delicate WWE championship reign of Jinder Mahal.

I wrote about Jinder Mahal’s title run (here) a couple of weeks ago. Instead of putting a fresh foot forward with their surprise World champion; they’ve sent him out on TV to cut the same promos and same match finishes with the same opponent month after month. From all reports he has had good matches and has had heat from the live crowds at house shows. So there’s clearly just a problem when it comes to TV, it’s the same over and over again. I don’t even know who to blame for this either. The blame has to go somewhere and I refuse to put it on Mahal.

In the WWE, there’s four guys who seem to have long-term booking plans. You can figure out who they are, just turn on Monday night RAW, all the answers are there. When it comes to the rest of the roster, “close your eyes and throw the dart” seems to be the booking technique. There seems to be no planning outside of the current month they’re in. We are a week away from the second biggest show of the year and the WWE champion got his opponent nineteen days before the show. Not to mention how we got there, they put two guys against each other on a Tuesday and the winner is in. The booking isn’t only backwards, it’s tired.

Where’s the build? Where’s Shinsuke Nakamura’s rise to the title shot? He was just working Baron Corbin in quite possibly the worst matches of his career. Coming off the heels of the unbelievably uneventful program with Corbin, he’s thrown in a match with John Cena for a SummerSlam title shot. There’s no build, doesn’t spike the rating at all, and with the exception of the last minute, wasn’t great. There needs to be build to raise ratings, to get people invested to tune in. People tuned in to see the horrible payoff of the Kurt Angle storyline because it was built up over several weeks. The way they booked Nakamura into this match with Mahal is another example of how they’ve screwed up Mahal’s title run.

This past Tuesday, we had the pleasure of getting the Randy Orton vs Jinder Mahal “Grudge match”. The title wasn’t on the line, and they made the point to beat the “Singh brothers are not here” (THEY WERE THERE!) into our heads. It had disaster for Mahal written all over it. You could see it coming from a mile away. In the middle of the ring, in their best match yet, Orton beat Mahal. The WWE champion loses on TV. In what world does this seem like a good idea? I watched this match (hours after it aired) with a couple of longtime wrestling fans who couldn’t believe it either. I ranted on Twitter (tweet me) and some of the responses I got proved that the WWE backwards booking had poisoned the fans.

@RealCJLive: Yes because losing once out of the 4 times he’s faced Orton is a joke. Get over it.

Well, him beating Orton three times has done NOTHING, so losing to him in the “Grudge match” certainly will do NOTHING for the CHAMPION.

@JayAlletto: The entire point was to close the door definitively on that feud & launch Orton vs Rusev.

No. First of all, Orton and Mahal have both moved on already. Mahal has a new opponent at SummerSlam (they’ve had NO interaction), as does Orton. The Mahal/Orton match wasn’t done to launch the Rusev feud, Rusev kicking him as the show went off the air was. Which could’ve been done a million and one other ways. The champ didn’t need to lose on TV for that kick to happen.

@RealCJLive: I’ve never seen someone this mad over one loss lol

Then you must not pay attention to wrestling fans on Reddit or Twitter. The WWE champion, no matter who it is, should NOT lose on TV in a singles match unless he’s dropping the belt! I don’t even think he should get pinned in a tag match but that’s a lot better than a singles match. So this was more of the straw that broke the camel’s back as it pertains to this Mahal title run. The guy can’t even win on TV when his help isn’t there. Ugh.

Then I got a tweet from @mkurtz91 that gave me hope: I’m with you Brian. Building a credible champion whether they are heel or face is vital. Credibility makes for more money matches.

Did Randy Orton, a thirteen time WWE champion, need to beat Jinder Mahal? Absolutely not. Does beating Jinder Mahal do anything for Orton moving forward? Absolutely not. Shouldn’t these questions be asked before you make the decision to have your champion lose on TV? Absolutely yes. Wouldn’t Orton beating Mahal technically make him the number one contender now? Yes, yes it would. It’s just illogical that the guy who didn’t win the title, didn’t win the feud, gets the last win of the program. WHAT? If Orton absolutely, no way around it needed to pin Mahal in this program (which he didn’t), he should’ve done it before Mahal became champion. It’s backwards booking and it’s become the WWE way, the way it shouldn’t be. Vince McMahon Sr is rolling in his grave.

(Note: You can follow and tweet Brian @bdenny411, let him know what you think)