I don't understand the obsession with having One Guy. I know that's how McMahon likes it, but fuck what he likes.
That's one of the few good things about the Attitude Era. You fucking had OPTIONS. Rock, Austin, HHH, Taker, Foley, Jericho and a few others that would pop up and go back to mid-card. But most of those guys could main event a PPV and you wouldn't bat an eye.
Why wouldn't you want to have everyone being over as fuck and being huge merch monsters? Sell all those Rocky shirts, sell all those have a nice day shirts, sell those Austin 3:16's etc; Nowadays? "Someone is selling as much or is close to Cena in sales? Punish him".
They don't listen to their audience. They don't care what you want. If anyone hasn't realized this for 10 years, then I don't know what more you want to prove to you that nothing is going to ever change until they're on the ropes. Listening to the fans is a backup plan. Giving us the least possible to get by and make profit is what they're going to do till they can't do that anymore. Plain and simple.
HHH is doing a great Job running NXT and I hope when Vince is gone, that carries over to the main product. Because the audience isn't fucking stupid. We shouldn't be fucking embarrassed to tell people we follow your product. Wrestling has shown it can be something captivating and can tell stories in ways many other forms of media and entertainment can't.
You should fucking WANT your whole roster to get over "oh but if everyone is over, then nobody will be boo'd" Yes they will, because you'll have some fucking character loyalty. I dont want MY favorite to lose to yours, even though I like him. That's how it was growing up.
The product is far too stale and predictable. And they have ZERO fear of competition. The own the market that they're in. They don't HAVE to try, and people are still going to eat it up. People are still going to tune in with hopes that it MIGHT change. And that's what was so fucking compelling about the CM Punk pipe bomb angle. It came right in such a stale period of time. Cena had gone through so many people that he was main eventing with motherfuckin' R-TRUTH FOR FUCKSAKES. It pulled in a ton of people and made them pay attention to the product. I remember how RAW was excruciating to wait for week after week. Now I just watch it because I feel obligated to.
I liken my relationship to wrestling, more specifically WWE because sadly, being Canadian, and lacking a credit card and what disposable income I have goes to shit more satisfying than a shitty PPV or ugly merch-- I liken it to an abusive relationship. I love WWE. I love pro-wrestling. Growing up I ADORED the fuck out of it. I made a lot of my friends in grade school because of it. I made a lot of friends in middle and high school because of it. Tons of fun buying the games, watching matches, having our own matches when we were kids, creating our own characters in No Mercy all that shit. I have so much fond memories of it. When it's good, it's great. But it's turned into this terrible, stale and just boring product that I'm so fucking sick and tired of, and I'll keep coming back no matter how poorly it treats me (the fans), in hopes that it'll change. That it'll go back to the way it once was when we first met.
I seriously don't know how much longer I can seriously last when they're priming Roman to just step into Cena's sneakers. I really don't think I can take another ten years of one dude just fucking killing everyone. They have so much talent, so many others with POTENTIAL, but they can't capitalize on it because they don't get any time to improve on the mic, they can't grow their character for us to be attached to them because they aren't on TV and since they're bad on the stick, they can't convey their character and their motives properly, so it falls flat.
You can't throw some seeds on cement during the winter and tell it to grow, then when they try to make some effort to do so, you cut off anything it grew. You punish it for it trying to do what it's told.
Not even to mention what the women have to go through. They're seen as a piss break. They get just as less time. They're only allowed one segment unless a woman is involved in another storyline, but she can only be a love interest in that male storyline. They're given five minutes tops to tell a story, they botch a lot because they're quickly running through a match. Like the mid-card and under men, but with FAR less time. And I can't imagine how insulting it is for you to bust your fucking ass off, to try and be a WRESTLER, but to be relegated to a love interest, a slutty halloween costume battle royale, or if you're lucky, you get to carry around this girly trinket called a CHAMPIONSHIP BELT. And why the fuck is it a Diva? Why not Women's? Why can't they get just as much respect as the men..?
Fuck. This isn't even scratching the surface on all the backstage politics, the racism, homophobia and just straight up toxic backstage environment these people have to work in. Not to mention they don't even have a union.
