Michael Dworkis: I thought about using a few clichés, such as “Back to the Drawing Board” or “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it?” How about “leave sleeping dogs lie” or “if you keep throwing darts at a dart board, eventually you’ll hit a bullseye.”
Truthfully, the latter feels like what WWE is doing right now. Even with the Women’s Division.
Don’t give me that glare. Yes, it’s pretty obvious. Becky Lynch gets injured, Charlotte takes her spot against Ronda Rousey, and then acts exactly like Lynch by going bat-nut crazy. Except Lynch is back, and you can’t have two “Stone-Cold Beckys” running around. Oops WWE, didn’t think that one through now did you?
Nia Jax. She broke Lynch’s face, now you make her uber-bully-heel with Tamina of all people, who hasn’t had a goddamn career since joining WWE over a decade ago.
I can’t even begin with the main roster, because there have been more face/heel turns than TNA Impact changing TV networks.
How can this all be fixed? A big Noah-like flood where somehow things go back to normal? Nope, this would be how WCW shot themselves in the foot and wound up having their whole leg amputated. You make your bed, sleep in it, get up in the morning, and figure out how to straighten the mess.
Step 1: Stop these dumb ass Dean Ambrose “vaccination” promos. They can learn from NXT. You build a feud with two characters, then you tease some confrontations, maybe have some six-man matches where they are about to collide, but something happens to prevent it. You build the anger, then one day, the lights go out, and BOOM, both standing in the ring eye-to-eye. Crowd loses their minds, the brawl, the big PPV match gets booked and your buyrate skyrockets.
Why this won’t work: WWE forgot how to build feuds unless it revolved around Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, or John Cena. They could have built a feud with Braun Strowman, but they chose to drop the ball and walk away from it. Feuds are meant to be drawn out in an exciting way. Everything has to have a formula now. Notice how we could watch Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins on nearly every episode of RAW without a complaint? This could have been a legit feud, except WWE never considered to make it one for more than two weeks. We got some feuds which lasted a few months, but they weren’t good, some outright unwatchable.
Step 2: Announce team is starting to go all Cole/Lawler feud pre-Lawler Heart Attack – This must stop. I get having Renee Young and Corey Graves pick sides while Cole plays straight is supposed to add some “color” on commentary. But it’s not coming off well at all. So badly, it reminds me of when Jonathan Coachman was heel on commentary and it was OH MY GAWD AWFUL. I liked it better when Graves picked those he liked, which could have been either face or heel, but now it’s all heels, and now he’s picking on Young about Ambrose’s behavior. NO NO NO DON’T DO THAT. Not good TV.
Why this won’t work either: Commentary has been talking about anything EXCEPT the match current on the program. For some reason, SmackDown sounds like a different show and everyone acts differently. Well, this is just gosh-darned inconsistent now, is it? Take a cue from NXT… BE CONSISTENT.
Step 3: WWE Creative needs to LOOK AT THEIR GODDAMNED ROSTER and stop burying NXT call-ups.
Why this will NEVER happen either: Somehow Seth Rollins dodged a bullet. Somehow. Because everyone else 250 pounds or less has been overlooked. Kevin Owens got the championship nod, thank Primus, but once Ol’ Brocky showed up, everyone got buried. Bobby Roode is teaming with Chad Gable. This makes no sense in the slightest. Both talented, both being buried. Why are they not having a best of seven to challenge for the Intercontinental Championship?
This is what happens when the “main” title of a show is non-existent. The existing champ is embroiled in a feud, leaving no one else to be a contender. Elias, Roode, Gable, Ziggler, McIntyre, and another mid-tier could be thrown in for rotating contenders. Nope. WWE wants storyline based everything while everyone else flounders around. I don’t think anyone cares about Bacon Rorbin. WWE had opportunity after opportunity to make Braun Strowman the champ, and failed again and again. Miserably. It’s as though they forgot anyone else had talent and just gave up.
In order for WWE to pick up RAW, they simply need to take a look at the roster and shuffle a few guys around, make some multi-man matches, and make it exciting.
Put Apollo Crews and Bobby Lashley together as a tag team have them steamroll over the roster. Harlem Heat did it for a decade. They broke barriers, they broke records. Give Lashley and Crews a fresh start and they could be great. Heels, faces, it won’t matter. SmackDown’s tag team division is on fire. RAW is a smoldering mess.
Someone back there needs to stop writing what they want to watch and start scripting what should be watchable.
