PWP Nation’s Bruce Hart talks about the fallout from WWE Payback and the sibling rivalry from hell.
Greetings.
We were given to believe that at this past weekend’s Payback pay-per-view that, at long last, embattled WWE CEO Vince McMahon was finally going to announce, once and for all, who was in charge of RAW – his son Shane, or his daughter Stephanie. Rather than simply appointing Shane – which would have, obviously, been the most popular and plausible decision, Vince, instead, came up with this lame, anti-climactic compromise that decreed both would be jointly running the show together – which elicited a justifiably flat reaction from the audience.
In case anyone (such as VINCE) has forgotten, the main reason why Shane had returned in the first place was because he was disenchanted with the state of affairs in the WWE, including public dissatisfaction with the product, declining ratings, publicly traded WWE shares taking a nosedive, most of which he attributed to the arrogance and incompetence of the so-called Authority (Stephanie and Hunter).
Even though Shane’s pointed putdown of his sister and brother-in-law and his advocacy for change in the WWE was, no doubt, a “work”, it, nonetheless, was met with overwhelming approval by the fans – because it was true. If nothing else, that should have served as a wake up call for Vince and company that what Shane was saying resonated with the fans and that, as Hunter is so fond of saying, letting him deliver on his promises might be what’s “best for business.”
That, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to have been the case though, and we now appear to be back to square one, as far as reforming the WWE goes, with Shane and Stephanie seemingly locked in this counter-productive stalemate.
The folly of the whole convoluted charade was evidenced shortly thereafter, during the the world title match on the Payback pay-per-view, between Roman Reigns and AJ Styles, which had Shane and Steph, while the match was in progress, taking turns, changing the rules on the fly.
Initially, AJ appeared to have won on a count out, after he put Roman through the table, but Shane ruled that count outs don’t count and, later, Reigns (the face) gave AJ a nut shot and was disqualified, but Stephanie decreed that the match was now a no DQ match – all of which, made it hard to take any aspect of the whole charade seriously.
I can’t imagine, say, during a Super Bowl game, two rival owners, such as the Patriots’ Robert Kraft and the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones, being allowed to change the rules on the fly. If such was the case, the NFL would rightfully cease to be taken seriously, and, unfortunately, that’s becoming the case with the WWE.
In any case, the match, which had the potential to be pretty compelling, given that both Roman and A. J. are decent workers and seemed to be working their asses off to get over, ended up becoming an orgy of wanton and pointless rule breaking, outside interference (from Gallows and Anderson, on behalf of AJ and the Usos, on behalf of Roman) and assorted other contrived crap. Ultimately, it ended with Roman eventually going over, but, sad to say, nobody really got over – which is too bad.
After all the smoke had cleared, it was announced that Roman and A.J would be meeting again in the upcoming Extreme Rules pay per view, two weeks hence, in another no disqualification match. I don’t know about you, but after having endured the previous no dis-qualification fiasco – I see no reason to get excited about what will likely be an orgy of excess again, with weapons, interference, nut shots and all of that, but probably little or no wrestling and undoubtedly some kind of swerve finish.
Not to digress, but when I was booking my dad’s Stampede Wrestling promotion, very rarely did we ever have no DQ matches because, if everything’s legal and nothing’s illegal, it stands to reason that it’s pretty damn hard to get any heat, by that token, to propagate any storylines.
Making matters worse, even though he’s been cast as the heel, AJ mostly just wrestles, doesn’t seem too arrogant or dislikable and, as such, seems to be far more over as a face than as a heel. Roman, on the other hand, even though the WWE continues to try to shove him down the fans’ throats as a face, seems to do little or no wrestling – and mostly punches, kicks and other heel tactics – which, to no one’s surprise, elicits more boos than cheers – which seems, for want of a better term, kind of “ass backward” – correct me, if I’m wrong or off base in that assessment.
Far be it from me to be imparting the basics of booking and matchmaking to enlightened supposed authorities, like the people pulling the strings in WWE headquarters, but one of the secrets of success as far as booking matches and whatnot goes is to have an innate sense of what the fans are into or not into and then responding accordingly.
At this point, for whatever reason, they seem somewhat detached from public sentiment – which, in our business, is a recipe for disaster. I’m not sure if that’s due to ignorance or arrogance on their part, but whichever, they need to be far more in touch with what the hell the fans want.
While the string pullers in the WWE creative department have Shane and Stephanie engaged in this pronounced sibling rivalry over who’s calling the shots on RAW, it seems that nobody wants anything to do with SmackDown anymore – which doesn’t say a whole hell of a lot for that brand.
Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic or naive, or missing something here, but would it not make more sense, rather than having both Shane and Stephanie preoccupied with trying to undermine each other over what’s transpiring on RAW, would it not make more sense for Shane to be running RAW and Stephanie to be running SmackDown?
From there, they could propagate their respective agendas, fan the flames of discord and whatever else – kind of like the American League and the National League, in baseball, which continues to work quite well, the last time I looked. To my way of thinking, that seems to have a hell of a lot more potential – what do you think? As always, I welcome your input and feedback on that or any of the other issues I’ve been addressing.
In closing, I’d like to reiterate that I derive no particular intrinsic satisfaction from criticizing and casting aspersions upon the WWE. Truth be known, having grown up in the wrestling business, I would derive a hell of a lot more intrinsic satisfaction to see them restore some pride, respectability and legitimacy to the wrestling business – which people like my dad, my brothers and so many of my wrestling brothers dedicated their hearts and should to. The gauntlet, as they say, has been thrown down – hopefully they will see fit to pick the damn thing up. We’
On that note, I’ll call this a wrap, but will look forward to catching up with you next time.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
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