VIBE
Welcome to the New Era
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As a person who runs a website dedicated to pro wrestling coverage, I can tell you that, yes, WWE is both the bread and the butter. What you certainly don’t need me to tell you is that negativity sells. You’re on the Internet, you see enough of it to have figured that out.
It’s easy, then, to pass off every critical article you see as a take that is simply trading in that. Some of them undoubtedly are, but there are times when the reality of the situation is such that one has nothing to do with the other.
That’s WWE right now.
It all just looks so bad.
The company just recently did an earnings call where the Chairman of the Board blamed injuries for the continued decline of key business indicators. This is bullshit, of course, but Vince McMahon had to offer some sort of explanation for, as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter put it, “far less interest across the board than any year in recent memory” in the lead up to WrestleMania 35.
Even more:
The key is the biggest time period of the year, the lead to WrestleMania, resulted in far less interest across the board than any year in recent memory. Even some artificial things, such as running a stadium instead of an arena for Royal Rumble, and doing less house shows, so the better attended television should make for a higher average, still couldn’t come close to camouflaging the decline. The declines were such that the company had to address it. The previous story was that they were down, but they were going to redo the arena business, knew the problems and knew the solutions. Here we are, and the arena business hasn’t improved, even its most favorable time of the year, and the declines in all aspects were the most significant to date.
Put simply, WWE can no longer make stars. Hell, they can’t even keep morale up among the wrestlers they have under contract.
Dean Ambrose left when his contract was up because he was tired of what was being done to his character. Others have reportedly pledged to do the same, like The Revival, who turned down a large contract offer and were booked to lose the tag team titles to the two biggest losers in the company. They’re in the middle of being embarrassed and humiliated on television each week.
Then you have the cases of Luke Harper and Sasha Banks, who are both sick of how they’re being treated and have asked to be let go. They won’t be let go, however, because WWE fears they will simply go to its newest competitor, AEW. They are, then, essentially trapping unhappy folks and holding them hostage -- folks who are, by the way, not even actual employees of the company.
To top it all off, WWE just announced that, yes, the Saudi Arabia money is too good to pass up again and they will be sending the wrestlers they have left back over there so they can cash a fat check, all else be damned. They’re also paying Goldberg, Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar a lot of money to return for it because, again, there are no real stars on the roster anymore.
As if the rapidly declining ratings for Raw and SmackDown didn’t already make that clear.
It just all looks so bad. What’s worse is it doesn’t look like there is any hope of it turning around any time soon.
The thing is, I sincerely hope it does. WWE sucks right now and while it may be profitable to point that out, it’s also a miserable existence to maintain. I’d much rather be writing about how great everything looks.
It just doesn’t.
So while you should definitely be wary of those who traffic in negativity, you should also be wary of those who are eager to act like everything is just fine when it so clearly is not. Let’s just call it like it is and hope it gets better.
As a person who runs a website dedicated to pro wrestling coverage, I can tell you that, yes, WWE is both the bread and the butter. What you certainly don’t need me to tell you is that negativity sells. You’re on the Internet, you see enough of it to have figured that out.
It’s easy, then, to pass off every critical article you see as a take that is simply trading in that. Some of them undoubtedly are, but there are times when the reality of the situation is such that one has nothing to do with the other.
That’s WWE right now.
It all just looks so bad.
The company just recently did an earnings call where the Chairman of the Board blamed injuries for the continued decline of key business indicators. This is bullshit, of course, but Vince McMahon had to offer some sort of explanation for, as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter put it, “far less interest across the board than any year in recent memory” in the lead up to WrestleMania 35.
Even more:
The key is the biggest time period of the year, the lead to WrestleMania, resulted in far less interest across the board than any year in recent memory. Even some artificial things, such as running a stadium instead of an arena for Royal Rumble, and doing less house shows, so the better attended television should make for a higher average, still couldn’t come close to camouflaging the decline. The declines were such that the company had to address it. The previous story was that they were down, but they were going to redo the arena business, knew the problems and knew the solutions. Here we are, and the arena business hasn’t improved, even its most favorable time of the year, and the declines in all aspects were the most significant to date.
Put simply, WWE can no longer make stars. Hell, they can’t even keep morale up among the wrestlers they have under contract.
Dean Ambrose left when his contract was up because he was tired of what was being done to his character. Others have reportedly pledged to do the same, like The Revival, who turned down a large contract offer and were booked to lose the tag team titles to the two biggest losers in the company. They’re in the middle of being embarrassed and humiliated on television each week.
Then you have the cases of Luke Harper and Sasha Banks, who are both sick of how they’re being treated and have asked to be let go. They won’t be let go, however, because WWE fears they will simply go to its newest competitor, AEW. They are, then, essentially trapping unhappy folks and holding them hostage -- folks who are, by the way, not even actual employees of the company.
To top it all off, WWE just announced that, yes, the Saudi Arabia money is too good to pass up again and they will be sending the wrestlers they have left back over there so they can cash a fat check, all else be damned. They’re also paying Goldberg, Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar a lot of money to return for it because, again, there are no real stars on the roster anymore.
As if the rapidly declining ratings for Raw and SmackDown didn’t already make that clear.
It just all looks so bad. What’s worse is it doesn’t look like there is any hope of it turning around any time soon.
The thing is, I sincerely hope it does. WWE sucks right now and while it may be profitable to point that out, it’s also a miserable existence to maintain. I’d much rather be writing about how great everything looks.
It just doesn’t.
So while you should definitely be wary of those who traffic in negativity, you should also be wary of those who are eager to act like everything is just fine when it so clearly is not. Let’s just call it like it is and hope it gets better.
