A love/hate relationship.
by Rudi Kinsella.
The WWE is win-win programming. At its best its athleticism and drama rolled into one, and at its worst its just laughably entertaining — bad acting and soap opera plotlines. The writers occasionally have moments of genius that shock even the most die-hard of fans, and the wrestlers (or “sports entertainers,” as Vince McMahon would rather you call them) are extremely talented.
That being said, the WWE definitely has its flaws, and it is the fans that have to deal with them.
1) “You know it’s fake right?”
Yes. We do. Of course we do. The same way Prison Break, LOST, Breaking Bad and every other television show is “fake.” What the hell does fake mean anyway? The wrestlers are genuinely performing the moves, and although some of the “punches” can look a bit ridiculous, most of the moves are executed to perfection, so that they look as real as possible.
Also, the results being pre-determined and most of the wrestlers having scripts doesn’t make the actual wrestling fake. If you’ve ever seen Shane McMahon jump off the top of the Hell in a Cell, you’ll know just how “real” it can get.
2) The predictability
The WWE are often criticised for their lazy booking of storylines, resulting in the most die hard of fans being able to see which way a match or a storyline will go. A regular complaint among WWE fans is what is known as 50/50 booking, where the writers are too lazy to come up with a genuine storyline, so they let one person win the first match, and the other win a rematch the following week.
This is a safe option from the writers point of view, as neither wrestler’s stock has dropped, but it is a waste of the wrestler’s time, and a waste of the fans time as well.
3) How uncool it is
15 years ago, wrestling was cool. You could walk outside, proudly showing off your “Austin 3:16” confident in the fact that you were representing a cool establishment. With characters like The Rock, Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold, the target audience was teenagers and fully grown men. This has shifted in recent years, with WWE material all being PG.
The fact that the material is PG itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when the product is targeted towards children, it will be less cool by its very nature. After all, nobody wants to go out on the pull in a John Cena “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect” t-shirt. Not that it stops some people.
4) The effort it requires
Monday Night Raw lasts for three hours, and for the Irish and UK viewers, it takes place at 1 a.m. It’s a tough job, but WWE fans have to do it. The following night Smackdown is on for 2 hours, also on in the early hours of the morning. Add that to the PPV’s, which take place once every 2 weeks since the brand split, and it is almost like having a part-time job.
The worst thing about it is that, if for whatever reason you miss an episode, the storyline could have changed massively since the week before. The person who was a good guy last week has just smashed who you thought was his best friend with a chair.
5) The continuity errors
This is the most frustrating one, as there is absolutely no need for it, but it happens nonetheless. Wrestlers can go from being good guys to bad guys regularly, and nobody questions it. Nobody questions the fact that a man who committed attempted murder last week is now a good guy.
There is a pretty easy way of solving this: Have the good guys be good guys, and the bad guys be bad guys. And like all TV shows, there will be twists and turns, characters will change, but all you have to do there is acknowledge it. Reference the fact that someone who used to be good and pure is now evil, and give a reason why. It shouldn’t just happen because you need to spice up the roster.
6) The terrible acting
This one is a little more understandable, as it can often be hard to find someone who is a world class wrestler that also just so happens to be an amazing actor. Sometimes you strike gold (see: CM Punk) but it is not very common. This means, to see excellent wrestling spectacles, you have to put up with some primary school Christmas play levels of acting.
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