For the 3rd week in a row I didn’t make it past the first hour of RAW, I ended up finding something else to watch or watched a baseball game. It’s starting to feel a lot (to me) like 2003 when I fell out of watching Pro Wrestling (Only to be brought back in by the Pipebomb promo in 2011). I even canceled my WWE Network subscription a month ago. I just don’t care about much going on in the WWE right now, which is sad because Daniel Bryan coming back gave me sincere hope to want to stick around.
There are a few things going on that I have enjoyed, like Seth Rollins lately, and the prospect of DB/Samoa Joe, but why the fuck throw Big Cass in there? I just don’t care about anything he does. The problem is that the stuff I enjoy is so few and far between that I can’t handle how bored I am of the rest of it.
Really the issue for me is that WWE programming is just boring me to tears. I’m one of those “hardcore” fans that would watch the product no matter what, and I’m about to become a lapsed fan (again).
Yup. WWE is super dull at the moment. I’d advise simply watching the monthly PPVs and avoiding the weekly shows, but then backlash was awful and Mania fell off a cliff halfway through.
WWE has a knack of taking guys who should be special stars and turning them into dull midcarders I have no interest in watching. They could sign Naito, Okada and Omega and I’d probably stop caring about them in two weeks.
I don’t blame you. The television isn’t captivating anymore. Raw and Smackdown have stopped being must see TV. It’s formulaic. Show opens with Wrestle A cutting a promo about Wrestler B. Wrestler B interrupts. GM comes out and makes a match between the two. Storylines are also dropped out of the blue, and the mid to lower card is floundering. There’s no reason to care or be invested.
Look at what WWE did to Matt Hardy. He was arguably one of the most over guys in wrestling, and WWE has taken the Broken gimmick and made it absolutely stale.
I hate to say it, but wrestling needs to bring more of its soap opera type elements back to weekly TV and have cliff hanger storyline endings to shows.
You could literally follow along with the product just watching the WWE Network/PPV events, as they show you all the video packages of the last months storylines on them anyway.
At least now its easy to pick and choose what to watch. NXT has been on fire recently. And the “i’m losing interest in wwe” threads always pop up like clockwork in the post mania lull.
I wont even watch the PPV anymore, that would require me giving WWE money and I am not doing that. They might think by the fact I was paying them monthly I approved of the crap they are putting out,
I agree, but this one is slightly different for me personally. I’ve had ebbs and flows in my interest in the WWE product, but since 2011 I have watched every RAW, and have watched every Smackdown (Since it went live).
I am a very routine oriented person, I may not watch every second of RAW or SD, but at the very least it has been on in the background while I participate on the reddit/r/sc thread about the shows, but the last few weeks, I can’t even be bothered to keep my TV on RAW or SD the entire duration of the show. I’m feeling a lot like I did back in 2003 when I just stopped watching or caring.
The problem is all of this is building to nothing. There’s no long term plan. Long, meaningless matches with no build has been the deal since after Mania.
Good wrestling is available everywhere, I want cohesive stories and WWE doesn’t seem to care to do that.
Why were all these NXT people brought up? It’s been two months and the only one being remotely used is Ember Moon. The booking and writing is just a mess and there’s zero anticipation. It’s a bad TV product right now.
Money I was spending on the network I am now spending and a little more to go to local independent show. Dallas Championship Wrestling. it is new and only run 5 shows and I have been to 4. biggest problem is they run once a month at different locations and days. They have had one long term story that has progressed from show to show, a few minor stories mixed in. It has been what I call good old fashion southern rastlin. My only problem I have is they are have started running mostly Thursday nights 70 some odd miles from my home. If it whee all Saturday night shows that wouldnt bother me but trying to get off work, fight traffic to show and then take my happy ass home it makes for a long day.
Tickets for Money in The Bank look to have sold out or are really close to selling out, as you can no longer get them on Ticketmaster. Last row bleacher seats are selling for around $150+ and floor seats going for $500-600 on StubHub. As long as they are selling tickets and getting large television bids from powerhouses like Fox, they don’t have much of a reason to change their product.
Surprised they did considering “All In” is there in a few months time, also Meltzer noted on the “All In” sell day that SummerSlam still had a lot of tickets on sale, I think it was about 5,000, but don’t quote me on it.
“Sitting and watching a three, three-and-a-half hour game is laborious sometimes.” - Vince McMahon, XFL press conference, January 25th 2018.
WWE’s television is boring, (99% of week could be summed up as “Paint by Numbers” episode).
No one is over to a “Superstar” level,. (Only part-timers Brock, Cena, Taker, Ronda, seem to get deafening loud a reactions).
This Brand Split 2.0 means less then nothing (only time seems important is SurvirorSeries)
Fired / I quit match results are pointless (Owens & Zany back in lest then 24-hours after WM34)
General Managers are made to look like fools every week. (Kurt Angle, every F-N week).
99% of RAW’s start with a 30 minuet in ring promo & still have over run of about 15 minuets.
99% of RAW’s seemed to be “booked on the fly”, eg two guy have stare down during opening segment then go one on one in main event.
Cruiserweights are made to wrestle a “heavyweight style match” while the Heavyweights are allowed to wrestle a “cruiserweight style match”.
WWE UK division only a priority again in 2018 because ITV are back with WOS Wrestling (During 2017 WWE UK Championship was relegated to NXT’s mid card).
WWE Raw commentary (Coach, “What does The Bar mean?”).
All “Important” clips from RAW, SD Live, 205 Live, & NXT are uploaded onto YouTube & social media every week.
Then theirs interviews /. backstage clips which are “exclusively online”, if you can’t fit it in a 3hr 15min TV program is it really worth viewing?
WWE 2018 is horrible, best watched on delay fast forwarding thru all the tripe and trying to find some “good” matches.
Honestly glad I stopped watching WWE TV, I’ll always continue to listen to and support POST Wrestling for watching the tripe that I don’t want to. I’m watching more NJPW & ROH & happier for it. (Also watching more local Aussie promotion “Melbourne City Wrestling”).
It’s been bad since 2010… I don’t know how the hell you got back into wrestling in 2011, that might’ve been the worst year… If you can handle that garbage, i don’t see the issue now… It’s a terrible show and it’s consistently bad every week… Just stop watching like a lot of people.
Honestly, everything in WWE is boring at the moment including NXT. They’re so much content and they feature the same guys every week which is becoming predictable because all they do is have long matches and feud between each other. For god sake, my favorite moments of raw this week was the battle royal and the Curt Hawkins match because at less it was different and it was with guys that barely have any airtime on raw so i was glad to see them on raw.
Same goes with smackdown, it’s the same guys feud with each other over and over again which leave a lot of talented wrestlers on the backburner doing nothing because you have to featured the stars.
I’ve stop watching NXT because they we’re starting to go in the same direction with only featuring the same guys over and over again plus i just can’T stand Mauro Ranallo as a play by play guy.
The fact is Raw is the biggest problem right now because they no excuse for them to have such a boring show every week. It’s not like they couldn’t just do short matches to advance storylines and make the Network special mean something. At the same time, you could use the segments that you use to use for for the longer matches to features some of the lower mid card guy. You have a guy like Mojo Rawley would that you’re just wasting on Main event because you don’t have time to put him on the main show. But if you cut time and just have smaller matches, you could showcase him on raw and it would be elevated because since turning heel, he’S been great but nobody knows it because he’s stuck on the live event circuit and the c-show.
In the end, you need a change of mentality within the company as far as creative is concern and it’s need somebody outside the Mcmahon family to bring it because both Vince and HHH vision of the product doesn’t work right now. It’s boring as hell and it’S losing some of the core audience they build up because of it.
Outstanding post that articulates a lot of what is wrong with the WWE in 2018. I think their biggest problems are boring television and the lack of characters over on a superstar level. They seem to have a hard time committing to anyone that is really over.
If this were the Attitude Era, Rusev would have been pushed to the moon a few months ago when his Rusev Day chants were at their peak. Instead, they kept him floundering in the mid-card where his popularity has slowly fizzled.
I also think they should have committed to making Braun their top star this past year. He’s still salvagable, but having him team with Nicholas at a big show like Wrestlemania was kind of stupid.
I’m losing some interest as well. There are still plenty of performers I enjoy( Bryan, Joe, AJ, Nakamaura, Sasha, Rollins, etc.) but the weekly television is almost impossible to get through at this point. There are an incredible amount of skippable segments and nothing feels really important.
From the record number of horrific segments lately (Lashley’s sisters, the dance off with Lana, the B-Team bbq) to the botched booking of Daniel Bryan on his return, I am finding it hard to find much of anything redeeming in WWE lately. Perhaps MITB will give them a chance to reset and start a strong build to Summer Slam, but I can’t say I am optimistic.