Why is it so bad?

PG era, breaking kayfabe, too cartoonish, mediocre stars and storylines or did we just get too old?

Would like to hear your opinions.

Public stock, corporate sponsers, aging owner, more sensitive world, no opposition.

Vince is out of touch with what people want or how to run a television show...

It's fine to have a storyline of a wedding ruined over the 24/7 title because it's a joke belt and some comedy in wrestling's fine. It's not ok to have Drake hesitate to say "consummation" and have R-Truth hear "constipation" because that makes me embarrassed to even be watching.

Vince's new edict is "no wrestling during commercial breaks". Why? So we don't miss stuff? So we get stupid **** like that run-in last week during the Seth/Bryan match only to restart after a commercial, we get 2/3 falls matches, that tag elimination last night, AJ tossing The Club from ringside mid-match so we can have a commercial but they don't start again until back from commercial. I didn't enjoy suicide dive > commercial every week but there has to be a way that isn't so extreme to curb (stomp) that.

Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans are in the main event of the next ppv. This is a huge problem. Baron Corbin's just like Roman. He's one of Vince's guys and we have to put up with him.

They guaranteed Lesnar cashing in for 3 straight RAWs plus the Saudi show and didn't deliver. After doing this, he wasn't even once mentioned last night afair.

Why couldn't Roman eat a loss last night in a 2-on-1 match to pump up Drew and Shane for their next match? They could've beaten him up post match and had Take save him then. Having Roman never lose just kills it for me. I don't care about him and they seemingly don't want me to.

Possibly minor nitpicks:
- why are Nicki and Alexa (and other multi character segments) facing the camera and talking away from each other? I know why but it's unnatural and dumb.

- why are we getting promos from people like Seth and especially Ricochet who can't talk and can do their talking in the ring? Seth's a main eventer so whatever, but Ricochet isn't, just have him wrestle and get him over.

- why could Miz make a match for the 24/7 title?

- Kofi's reign needs to end. Why? I saw him shoving pancakes in the open space of the wwe title last night. In other words, he's a ****ing joke.

Bottom line: there's so little that's good on the show and if the main event scene isn't at least good, the rest of the show really doesn't matter. Now, even the way it's presented sucks and this wasn't that much of a problem in the past as production has always been a strong point for WWE. Finally, as a shocking complaint, it comes off as a fake show being fake instead of a fake show where you can suspend disbelief.

My biggest problem with the current product is that babyface and heel are no longer defined by the ethics of the characters, where heels cheat to win and babyfaces overcome cheating. There's still a little bit of that, but far more important now is whether a character loves or hates the "WWE Universe". Most feuds now are about the fans. They think this will make the fans more invested and interested, but instead it makes the characters look needy and weak.

Oh, that last post reminds me of the go home show to Stomping Grounds. Every single face was standing tall at the end of their segment except for the main event segment. Ricochet got the better of Joe (and beat him at the ppv), Roman whipped Shane, Drew, The Revival's asses (and beat Drew at the ppv), and a couple of others. It was ridiculous. Why can't the faces just get beat down on a go home show like Kofi did last night? That's logic. It's not hard.

They refuse to tell compelling stories and opt to take safe by the numbers feuds with the same handful of guys that never really elevate anyone

When it was good they would tell stories that let you get invested in characters and then the big moments were payoffs to your investment.

Now they just focus on big moments without doing the groundwork of having stories that get you invested in characters. The big moments aren't payoffs to investment. They are just random incidents that have zero weight.

Three-hour Raws.

Scripted promos.

The almost total death of titles as a meaningful device.

Great insights.

What about ‘too much’ wrestling, like I remember back in the day I was sitting in front of my TV at 7:55 (to see who pops out the limo on Nitro lol), now there’s so much going on that’s it’s the SOS over and over again?

Another thing, why is WrestleMania the end of many storylines? And most of the time it’s the overwhelming underdog rising to the top story, I liked good story lines that dragged, except this Lesnar crap with the briefcase.
Austin vs the McMahon’s for example.

I'm tempted to say that's just part of being a kid. However, I'm pretty sure a lot of us were that way for the SD or RAW after Punk's pipebomb and during the MitB ppv itself and even during the aftermath of MitB.

It's like a season finale for wrestling. The two storylines that still exist from this years WM: Shane as BitW and Roman vs. Drew. I'm not sure many would want those to continue.

It's complicated to answer for me. I think a lot of it is just WWE not having real competition for so long which caused them to fall into bad habits with the booking. They spent so much time pushing Reigns, it largely backfired, and so Cena didn't really pass the torch to anyone. They damaged a huge amount of the roster with their incessant Reigns push and there were a lot of blown opportunities there.

One of my more contentious takes on this is that WWE and everyone else has gotten too focused on workrate guys who can put on "great matches" but lack the charisma of previous top stars, which leads to a lack of investment in their matches. I think WWE should be looking for more Velveteen Dream types -- guys with obvious charisma and athleticism who you can teach the finer points of wrestling. Instead, NXT mostly plucks guys from the indies because of their workrate then tries to teach them character/charisma which I think is a losing battle to an extent. Then that feeds the main roster and you get a bunch of Finn Balor types who can wrestle and fill time but don't really create a meaningful connection with the audience.

FWIW, I think wrestling atm is generally better than it gets credit for and there is a lot of nostalgia goggles with hardcore fans who forget the crappy stuff over time.

The nostalgia goggles thing is true (as it is with all things nostalgia, wrestling and otherwise), but I do feel pretty confident in saying that we wait a lot more time in between truly great moments or angles than we did in the past. "Decent a lot of the time, bad some of the time, rarely great" is a pretty rough mix IMO.

I'm not sure how many of those great moments would actually be perceived as such if we witnessed them in the moment today. If you did the Austin beer truck thing today, for example, people would probably complain about how silly it was and how they were overpushing Austin, the corporation is overexposed, etc etc.

I dunno, this is stuff I've been thinking about a lot. I get that there are a lot of valid complaints about the product, but I also think there is an entitlement and culture of complaining in today's audience that prevents them from enjoying a lot of worthwhile stuff.

We actually had this discussion four years ago

The main roster is even worse now by a significant margin.

I still like NXT, NXT UK and 205 Live.

So I really think the answer is simply Vince.

I'm a rare dissenter who really never felt like the Austin beer truck moment was anything special. I realize you're just plucking a famous example that most people absolutely love, but I can't really defend that one specific instance for how it would come off today. I shrugged at it then.

To the second paragraph, I actually am a bit puzzled at what feels like a contradiction to me in your stance: that the "OMG workrate" stuff isn't that special (which I agree with), and that things are actually pretty good today. To me, the athleticism being at an all-time high is the one legitimate point of a defense of today's product, and since you're like me in feeling that high spots are not the be all and end all of wrestling, I'm not sure where you're finding your inspiration to defend the product. Do you not see the majority of storylines today as lazy and uninspired? I know you're big into Becky Lynch, but I struggle to credit creative with her rise.

First thing that comes to mind. Who was champion 4 years ago when thread was created? Seth Rollings. Champ today? Seth Rollings.

I'm having a hard time responding to this so you might be right that I'm defending it semi-irrationally. A lot of it just comes down to me still enjoying the show, but it's not that easy to explain why I guess.

Basically, I feel that a lot of the creative issues that exist today always existed. I don't feel like WWE has ever really had these incredible, flawless storylines. I watched more of the John Cena years than I care to admit and they were dreadful. A lot of the Attitude Era "shock TV" stuff was hot trash. The CM Punk pipe bomb led to a match with Triple H and Kevin Nash. The difference is right now there isn't The Rock, Stone Cold, and all these other larger than life characters elevating the material. So simultaneously I enjoy the general increased match quality across the board, but also wonder if they're focusing on it too much instead of recruiting people with that kind of charisma.

Part of why I like Becky is I think she has that larger than life charisma that just draws you into what she's doing. And that's the classic recent case of a performer getting over with that ability instead of pure wrestling skill (I think creative did help a little bit, even if some of it was unintentional). In general, the women's division is way more character-centric than the men and all of the performers feel distinct. So that's a lot of why I enjoy the show more than others, especially on this forum which doesn't seem that keen on women's wrestling. None of my defenses of the show are really defenses of creative or Vince -- I think the storylines could and should be way better. But I also don't think this is some rock bottom era for WWE from a quality standpoint. Obviously the ratings and recent attendance show this is a minority opinion, but meh.

I will always say that if a person enjoys what they're putting out today, then that's cool. You don't have to rationalize enjoying something. That said, you are taking up the mantle for the position that other people are being unduly critical, which obviously does require a bit more defense.

I'm with you in enjoying the women's wrestling, though we part company when you talk down Charlotte since I think she's an all-time talent in WWE women's wrestling. Obviously women's wrestling today is vastly better than the days of Kelly Kelly vs. Eve (even if nobody has an entrance theme as good as Eve's).

I likely agree with you a lot about the Attitude Era too. The AE featured a midcard full of wrestlers who absolutely sucked, and the booking model was absolutely earth-scorching; today's awful booking model actually can be reasonably blamed on the Attitude Era, because that, at least for one, was the era that obliterated the value of belts. It's true that a major difference between then and now is that the AE had historic talents in Austin and Rocky that nobody on the roster today - even booked really well - could likely reach. But the existence of those two is a defense of the era, not an indictment. They were so damn good that they carried the show and created a tide that lifted all boats, even when the boat was the ****ing Godfather.

I agree that nostalgia has caused people to generously filter out the bad things about the AE. Regardless, I firmly believe that everyone who still hangs around this forum today desperately wishes that they felt that today's product was awesome, so I think most or all of people criticizing the product here are doing so in good faith, and doing so out of genuine disappointment.

All true. I've stopped posting a bunch the last month because it's just nothing. I'm not even comparing the AE or good wrestling to what I watch now. I just know that what I watch now is bad with no optimism for the future.

This last bit made me wonder if I enjoyed anything from RAW and I couldn't think of anything off hand.

Honestly, I'm just holding out for AEW at this point. Having rematch-a-mania at ER isn't doing WWE (or this forum) any favors.

Yeah, I think this forum is very reasonable compared to fan discussion elsewhere. I didn't mean to imply that people are performing their dislike of the show or anything... just wanted to supply the reasons I don't think it's too bad.

It's funny because I'm like the furthest thing from a "just be positive" guy and can be a huge snob about music, TV, etc. But for some reason I still like this dumb wrestling stuff.

By wrestling you mean WWE right? Otherwise I disagree quite strongly. At the same time though I really don't have the nostaliga you guys do. When I look back at older stuff it tends to be pretty ass in general.

This is something I think needs changing, no need for a million titles.

There should be (between both brands)

1 top belt
1 work rate heavy belt (i.e. IC)
1 tag
1 woman

and at an absolute stretch one gimmick belt i.e. hardcore 24/7 type thing.

That would be one part of the puzzle. The other would be to significantly reduce the number of title changes so that a title change can feel like a big deal again.

But I just don’t think there’s basically any chance they ever fix the title situation, at least during Vince’s life.

247 title is a breath of fresh air.

I remember when a finishing maneuver was just that.

The bookers suck.

In ring skill level way down.

Directionless.

When does the XFL launch?

The problem with wrestling is that Vince doesn’t want a wrestling company. Everything he’s done in the past 15-20 years follows from that.