WWE is the reigning king of professional wrestling, even if they insist on calling it "sports entertainment." The thing is, for hardcore wrestling lovers, it's been on a rapid down turn. Some people say it's been that way since the PG era begin, some say the "reality era" some say since Brock Lesnar defeated The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. The point is, a lot of people are turning their backs on WWE for one reason or another these days. Inspired by the guys at Nerd Corp and Kwame Shakir I thought I'd put together my own list of reasons I gave up on WWE.
5. There's No More Good Guys and Bad Guys
I mean, the whole CM Punk shades of grey thing worked out well for him. WWE decided that they would just do it for everyone. Sure, occasionally you get The Miz or Undisputed Era who are 100% bad guys but beyond that, nobody is really a good guy or a bad guy. Sure, two heels or two faces can feud, that's nothing new. But is Brock Lesnar really a bad guy? Is fighting for the money bad? Are Kevin Owens and Sammy Zayn really bad guys? They're 100% right, general managers and authority figures in WWE do play favorites. Is Braun Strowman really a good guy? He went from throwing Kalisto into a dumpster every week to flipping ambulances, neither of those screams good guy. Is Apollo Crews a face, or does he just have an eternal smile on his face? Obviously it doesn't work with the biggest indicators being Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler.
4. Championships Mean Nothing
Seth Rollins is Intercontinental Champion, AJ Styles is WWE Champion, and Brock Lesnar is Universal Champion. I can't tell you who the other champions are. I know Seth because he has great matches, same for AJ. I know Brock because just like the championship, he's never there. I can't tell you who the tag team champions on any brand are and if you listen to Powerbomb Jutsu you know I love tag team wrestling more than most people, so that's wild. There's no real importance placed on the championships, and often the most entertaining people aren't anywhere near the belt. The Usos are great, we don't see them near those belts anymore. The New Day is great, they're just doing random filler segments right now. The Miz, can't sniff the WWE Championship again. The Women's Championships have another issue. Whatever brand Charlotte is on, the entire Women's Division revolves entirely around her and her feud so if she's not chasing the championship, the championship is irrelevant. The Women's Division on the alternate brand typically has the championship placed on the weakest performer as they attempt to destroy any momentum that popular wrestlers like Bayley and Sasha Banks had built. Then there's the fact that the Universal Championship is NEVER FUCKING THERE and they can't fill 3 hours with meaningful content so it will never fucking matter. I don't care when Brock shows up because there's a 50% chance they're going to send Roman out there to be murdered by him at the next PPV 50% chance someone else will be sent to slaughter and a snowball's chance in hell that someone will actually defeat him because they're so damn jaded they need to push the fact that his reign is now longer than CM Punk's. Majority of the belts look alike and take any interest from them. They mean nothing. When someone loses, that's it, they go away. Austin Aires is obsessed with winning back the Impact World Championship, Omega didn't stop until he finally beat Okada and most
3. Over Reliance on Part Timers
I don't mind part timers, John Cena has earned a break. It's good to see Rey Mysterio every now and then. Sometimes you don't have things for guys like Big Show to do so it's cool to give them a break. But, we're in a situation where it's been damn near a decade since a full time superstar has main evented Wrestlemania. If that doesn't tell you there's too much emphasis and reliance on part timers I don't know what does. Part timers are 100% cool, but when they're the main focus it just sucks.
2. Attempted Indy Murders
I've been saying it for years and nobody believes me, but WWE is actively trying to kill Indy Wrestling. They're essentially creating relationships with major indy companies and then telling wrestlers to sign or get out and don't come back. There's a lot of Indy guys working only WWE approved indies now. They let some of the NXT guys work indys, but only the WWE approved ones. Meanwhile guys like Fenix are doing Impact tapings, AAA, CMLL, and multiple indies all in the same week all through North America. That guy works his ass off. Anyway, WWE is only signing a lot of the big name indy guys so nobody else can. WWE would rather pay them money to make sure nobody else can make money with them. I don't fault them for signing with WWE, secure the bag. I do fault WWE for actively trying to sabotage companies with that. Then they refuse to let people out of their contracts. Free Neville or see him in court like you did Rey Mysterio.
1. Too Much Meaningless Content
Raw, SmackDown, Main Event, 205 Live, NXT, that's 8 hours of weekly content, with an additional 4-7 hours for the monthly PPV. If you're really hardcore, you've gotta watch Total Divas otherwise half the women's feuds will make no sense to you, Ride Along, Table For Three, Camp WWE and all the other stuff on the Network, plus YouTube exclusives like Rewind and UpUpDownDown. It's too much damn content. With all that damn content they can't put together cohesive stories. There's a ton of filler content or Raw and Smackdown that never comes up again. Due to 50/50 booking there's never any real winners or losers to the feuds and everyone is constantly on equal footing, except Curt Hawkins. Despite that, we can't do anything with 8 hours of weekly content? Well, fuck that, I'll take my 2 hours of Impact, maybe an hour of Lucha Underground, but I know it won't be 8 hours of WWE.
Bonus: You're Not Good People
Yep, this one is just me on my high horse. I never create illusions of me being a good person or non problematic. Fuck that, I'm a problem and you better call the law. WWE makes a big deal about how good they are to people. Darren Young came out and they said "we love the LGBTQ+ community," then they cut him from a tour of the Middle East and eventually fired him. They're all about "The Women's Revolution," right now, as if they're doing something unheard of. Most of these historic first in WWE have already happened other places. A Women's Steel Cage Match in WWE, this is ground breaking, the first of it's kind, but only in WWE. It's been done regularly everywhere else for a long time. I maintain the fact that Impact (the company formerly known as TNA) is at the forefront of Women's wrestling and has been for a long time. It's the reason Gail Kim walked right out of a match on live TV, out of WWE, straight to Impact and never went back. Other companies actually respected women as competitors before 2016. On top of that they sure made sure the women didn't even get on the flight for the first of many Saudi Arabia shows. They make a big deal about helping children suffering from illness, but it's just for TV. Have you read Justin Robert's story about Connor? He spent over a year introducing him to wrestlers backstage sending tickets and WWE ignored him until they could get a photo opp. You could say he's a disgruntled employee, but he's got plenty of evidence. Don't even get me started on a rant about how racist the company is. We still haven't had a black WWE champ? Don't even look at me and say "What about The Rock" because he's still my favorite wrestler of all time, but he didn't give a damn about being black between Nation of Domination and when he made up with his father, he always presented himself as nothing but Samoan. He was OJ Simpsoning it "I'm not black, I'm the Rock," okay, I still love you, but okay. Then they're considering bringing back Hulk Hogan, Hulk "fucking niggers" Hogan? That's one way to make sure I never watch again. I'm just working on a really long break.
You should buy Darrell's Book, watch him on the Blerds Online YouTube Channel or The CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts.
