On Quora someone posed the question why the ratings for the WWE are so terrible...
This was the response:
Why has WWE ratings been so bad?
Mike Specian, Lifelong professional wrestling fan, creator of The Summer of Punk at
http://******/SwyPbz
Answered May 12
Gosh, where do we begin…
The biggest problem, in my view, is that creative has been really bad. Here are some reasons why:
- There is no long-term storytelling. WWE doesn’t book wrestlers to start at the bottom of the ladder, lose a lot, then win a little, then win a lot. They used to do this (e.g. Bret, HBK, HHH), but these days where you are slotted initially is pretty much where you end up unless the audience really demands otherwise (e.g. Becky Lynch, Daniel Bryan). As a result, there is nothing that rewards viewing for years at a time. (As a counterexample, New Japan Pro Wrestling seems to book years in advance. It’s far more satisfying to know there’s actually a plan underneath.)
- There is no consistency. Six days ago (as of this writing), Vince McMahon said that there would be a “wildcard rule” in which 3 wrestlers from one brand would be allowed to appear on the other brand. Any others would be fired. Then 5 show up on the show, and no one gets fired. On that same show, Roman Reigns shows up because he has “unfinished business”, then we never get to learn what that business is. Vince says this is going to be one of the greatest Raws of all time, then makes matches based on unexpected interruptions. There is no explanation given as to what was originally planned to justify that claim. And that was just this week.
- Storylines don’t make sense. Often wrestlers will get jumped, yet their friends will be nowhere to be found. People lose championships, then come out the next week with an emotional reaction that doesn’t match their loss. Police officers will enforce the law seemingly at random. They’ll throw two people trying to kill each other into the same cop car. The examples are endless.
- The show lacks originality. Vince McMahon has been booking essentially the same type of show since the Attitude Era. The show is formulaic and has no feeling of spontaneity. The act has just gotten old.
- There are no cliffhangers. It’s hard to remember the last time when something genuinely interesting happened at the end of a Raw or Smackdown that made you anxious to see what would happen the next week. The arrival of the Nexus is the closest thing I can recall.
- No one is cool. Back in the day you have guys like Rock, Austin, Savage, Punk and others who came off as charismatic guys you wanted to get behind. There is literally no one in WWE right now I would characterize as cool in the way they are portrayed.
- Wins and losses don’t matter. Because there is no gradual ladder of ascension, guys just trade wins back and forth and nothing really matters. This kind of 50/50 booking takes all meaning out of matches, making them easy to miss.
- Everything is overscripted. Instead of letting wrestlers speak in their own voices, writers script all the verbiage, meaning everything is in the same voice. This makes the wrestlers essentially interchangable. The verbiage is also stilted and unrealistic. By forcing the wrestlers to spell out the storyline is detail you get language like, “This weekend at the Royal Rumble, I am going to exact my revenge on you, and the rest of your perros.” Nobody talks like that.
- Things are thrown together at the last minute. This is a corollary of the long-term booking point, but there are episodes of Raw that aren’t finished until minutes before the show goes on the air. Under that kind of pressure, quality is bound to suffer.
- Talented wrestlers are just flat-out wasted. There is zero reason someone like Shinsuke Nakamura should appear on Smackdown once every three weeks. Before WWE he was having matches of the year in Japan and was arguably the best wrestler on the planet. Samoa Joe is legit, great on a mic, and a hell of a worker. He never gets a real push. Wrestlers are brought up from NXT (e.g., Killian Dayne, EC3, Nikki Cross, Tye Dillenger, etc.) and then just completely forgotten about. What’s the point?
There are also some non-creative-related reasons:
- Three hours is a long time to spend watching a wrestling product. It’s easy to lose people over that period of time, especially when the product isn’t very good.
- There are more options for viewers to turn to than ever before. The competition has gotten more varied.
- WWE already posts a lot of its content online, which means you can skip over the shows and watch clips. Alternatively you can listen to podcasts that summarize what’s happening without enduring the pain of actually watching it.
Ultimately, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Vince McMahon. As the head of creative he has the responsibility to create an engaging product, but at 73 years of age, he’s no longer up to the task (and arguably hasn’t been for some time). The fact that NXT is able to create great stories and events indicates that the company has the right people on staff to get the job done. They’re just not allowed to do that job on the main roster.
