One of the biggest issues that plagues The WWE today is the concept of 50/50 booking which is harmful is numerous ways. I am personally not a fan of the concept of 50/50 booking in The WWE.
Here are the top 5 Issues with 50/50 booking in today’s WWE.
1. Wrestlers Getting Their Wins Back - One of the most recent examples of this was between Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley where at this year’s Not-So Extreme Rules PPV, Lashley got the win over Reigns and then the next night Reigns got his win back on Raw, but the problem with that was nobody had truly gotten over because of the exchange of wins during this brief feud. Another example was last year ago when Sasha Banks won the Raw Women’s Title by defeating Alexa Bliss at Summerslam only to drop the belt to Alexa Bliss the next night on Raw. This type of 50/50 booking often stifles wrestler’s pushes and relegated them to either jobbers, dark matches, or not being featured on the card at all. This is the reason why wins and losses don’t matter anymore nowadays in The WWE.
2. The Face/Heel System Is So Messed Up - I have seen several instances this year of the face/heel system is so messed up when Bayley attacked Sasha Banks after their 1,000th match against The Riott Squad, the crowd actually cheered this heel style attack from Bayley. Another example of the face/heel system being so messed up is recently when Becky Lynch attacked Charlotte Flair in a heelish way after the Smackdown Women’s Title Triple Threat Match at this year’s Summerslam, the crowd cheered. Then on Smackdown Live, when Becky cut a heel promo, the crowd still cheered her on. Most of the heels on the main roster like Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal are booked like cowards and jobbers nowadays and I hate that. The heels more often than not get cheered moreso than the faces on the main roster.
3. Stifles Character Development - One of the biggest problems with 50/50 booking is that it stifles character development on the main roster. One of the biggest examples of this is Bobby Roode because he was a big star in Impact Wrestling and then he was shipped to NXT where he was a serious heel character that was an NXT Champion, but then when he’s called up to the main roster however, they turned his serious heel character from NXT into a face that’s bad comedy act called “The Glorious One”. The lack of character development for Bobby Roode on the main roster is one of the main casualties of 50/50 booking.
4. No Cohesiveness In Storylines - I’ve been very critical of the “knows nothing about wrestling” writers on the main roster because they more often than not come up with the same concepts like The Shield coming out of the police van to the locker room emptying angles. One example of the lack of cohesiveness in storylines is between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens where at Summerslam, Owens was squashed in less than five minutes, but then the storyline abruptly ended last Monday when Kevin Owens led the locker room heels in a vicious assault against The Shield on Raw.
5. Creates Feuds That Go On For Far Too Long - Another one of the biggest problems with 50/50 booking in WWE today is that you constantly see the same old predicable feuds on WWE programming almost every week. Examples of this are Bayley/Sasha vs The Riott Squad, Lashley/Reigns vs The Revival, Ember Moon vs Liv Morgan, Finn Balor vs Baron Corbin just to name a few. This is also one of the reasons why the show’s ratings for Raw are decreasing week after week and year after year.
The Conclusion - If WWE wants their product to be more fresh and better than the current garbage product they constantly shove down the fans throats every week, month, and year, then one of the ways that they can do that is to end the concept of 50/50 booking.
By Kwame Shakir
Here are the top 5 Issues with 50/50 booking in today’s WWE.
1. Wrestlers Getting Their Wins Back - One of the most recent examples of this was between Roman Reigns and Bobby Lashley where at this year’s Not-So Extreme Rules PPV, Lashley got the win over Reigns and then the next night Reigns got his win back on Raw, but the problem with that was nobody had truly gotten over because of the exchange of wins during this brief feud. Another example was last year ago when Sasha Banks won the Raw Women’s Title by defeating Alexa Bliss at Summerslam only to drop the belt to Alexa Bliss the next night on Raw. This type of 50/50 booking often stifles wrestler’s pushes and relegated them to either jobbers, dark matches, or not being featured on the card at all. This is the reason why wins and losses don’t matter anymore nowadays in The WWE.
2. The Face/Heel System Is So Messed Up - I have seen several instances this year of the face/heel system is so messed up when Bayley attacked Sasha Banks after their 1,000th match against The Riott Squad, the crowd actually cheered this heel style attack from Bayley. Another example of the face/heel system being so messed up is recently when Becky Lynch attacked Charlotte Flair in a heelish way after the Smackdown Women’s Title Triple Threat Match at this year’s Summerslam, the crowd cheered. Then on Smackdown Live, when Becky cut a heel promo, the crowd still cheered her on. Most of the heels on the main roster like Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal are booked like cowards and jobbers nowadays and I hate that. The heels more often than not get cheered moreso than the faces on the main roster.
3. Stifles Character Development - One of the biggest problems with 50/50 booking is that it stifles character development on the main roster. One of the biggest examples of this is Bobby Roode because he was a big star in Impact Wrestling and then he was shipped to NXT where he was a serious heel character that was an NXT Champion, but then when he’s called up to the main roster however, they turned his serious heel character from NXT into a face that’s bad comedy act called “The Glorious One”. The lack of character development for Bobby Roode on the main roster is one of the main casualties of 50/50 booking.
4. No Cohesiveness In Storylines - I’ve been very critical of the “knows nothing about wrestling” writers on the main roster because they more often than not come up with the same concepts like The Shield coming out of the police van to the locker room emptying angles. One example of the lack of cohesiveness in storylines is between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens where at Summerslam, Owens was squashed in less than five minutes, but then the storyline abruptly ended last Monday when Kevin Owens led the locker room heels in a vicious assault against The Shield on Raw.
5. Creates Feuds That Go On For Far Too Long - Another one of the biggest problems with 50/50 booking in WWE today is that you constantly see the same old predicable feuds on WWE programming almost every week. Examples of this are Bayley/Sasha vs The Riott Squad, Lashley/Reigns vs The Revival, Ember Moon vs Liv Morgan, Finn Balor vs Baron Corbin just to name a few. This is also one of the reasons why the show’s ratings for Raw are decreasing week after week and year after year.
The Conclusion - If WWE wants their product to be more fresh and better than the current garbage product they constantly shove down the fans throats every week, month, and year, then one of the ways that they can do that is to end the concept of 50/50 booking.
By Kwame Shakir
