How WWE Can Fix Itself

[Big Red Machine]

Over the past few years, WWE has not been as good as a it once was. Not by a long shot. And no, PG is not the problem. If you think it is, go watch some CHIKARA. That is a great PG wrestling promotion.

Unsurprisingly, since i am writing this, I am going to be focusing on the booking. Many people disliked Wrestlemania 27 (or at least large parts of it), and many people were not as excited going into the PPV as you would think that a wrestling fan should be, going in to Wrestle-freakin'-mania.

On that show, as well as the next night on Raw, WWE made a whole bunch of HUGE mistakes that have really opened my eyes as to exactly what WWE's problems are, and the faulty mindset that WWE is in that allows them to make such huge mistakes.

They don't know when enough is enough
A good booker always kills an angle before the people do it for him (no, Russo, not kills as in mutilates, but kills as in aborts). WWE, on the other hand, books what is hot. While in most cases, this is the right way to play it, WWE forgets that part of this is knowing when to stop (see: nWo).
Look at the Nexus: Their first attack, back in May, made sense. Their assault on Bret Hart made sense (since they wanted a job, and Bret wouldn't give them jobs, they took him out as intimidation). Those got great heat, so after that WWE just kept booking them to do the same exact assault on people. The attacks on Vince, the legends... didn't do anything. They were only booked because that same stuff got heat the previous week.

Fast forward a few months. We now have the Corre doing the same thing on Smackdown. And on Raw, they randomly showed up in order to try it on Rock and Cena, only to get their asses kicked. WWE doesn't know when enough is enough, and as a result, it kills things.

How about Punk vs. Orton? Randy beat Punk and took out his minions (much like Cena did to Barrett)... why is he still dealing with Punk? Or on a smaller scale, look at this year's Royal Rumble. Cena and Hornswoggle teaming up for one elimination was cute. The second one was boring. After that, it got just plain obnoxious. WWE simply doesn't know when to stop.

Even worse, take the Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole feud. This is a feud between an announcer and a retired wrestler who hasn't wrestled regularly in 20 years. The feud was booked perfectly (with one or two glitches, which I will get to in a minute)... until the Raw after Mania. Why? Because this feud shouldn't have extended past Wrestlemania. This is the type of feud that is build for ONE match. Lawler should have gone over cleanly, and that should have been it. The GM reversing the decision was stupid. We already saw Lawler kick Cole's ass. We don't care if he won the match or not! That isn't important! If Lawler cared about winning the match, he wouldn't have agreed to a match with such lopsided stips (remember, it was Cole who got to pick the special guest referee). He just wanted to gets his hands on Cole, which he did.

So why did WWE do this? Because, when Mania came around, they stopped booking this for the sake of the angle, and started booking it for the sake of the pops.

Booking for the sake of the pops
Why was Stone Cold the special guest referee for Lawler vs. Cole? The same reason that he does anything at Mania anymore: so he can give a few Stunners and have a beer bash. Ignoring the kayfabe issues involved with Austin signing the contract (i.e. that it shouldn't have been relevant, because the stip was that the referee would be Cole's choice, not "whoever signs this contract first"), this was just dumb. All it did was hurt the angle. We want to find out whether or not Lawler will be able to get his hands on Cole. We know that Lawler will kill him in a fair fight, so a good booker stacks the deck against Lawler, to put doubt in our minds. If we have a referee who is BIASED TOWARDS LAWLER, it takes the excitement out of it. So why did they book Austin here? So he could Stunner people. Yes, Austin hitting the Stunner gets a pop... but that's not the pop that is right for this angle. This angle needed a pop from Lawler kicking Cole's ass. Not Austin. This is Lawler's moment of glory; not Stone Cold's.

This principle can also be applied on a smaller scale. Why the hell did Josh Matthews and Booker T need to eat Stunners? There was no reason. All it did was get a pop, which took away from Lawler's moment of glory. We shouldn't be popping for Austin at all. We should be popping for Lawler.

Another example of this was Edge and Christian destroying Alberto Del Rio's car. WHY? Edge just beat him clean to retain the World Heavyweight Title. He and Christian are the babyfaces. What possible reason could they have for destroying Del Rio's car? None! The only reason it was booked was because it got a pop... which was completely unnecessary because Edge already won the match!

They don't follow up on things
During the just-for-the-sake-of-the-pop beer bash, Stone Cold gave Booker T a Stunner for no reason. Last night on Raw, Booker T was acting like he deserved the Stunner. Like he did something wrong. Really? Knowing Booker T as we do, can anyone see him acting like this? Not at all! Austin and Booker T are fellow trainers on Tough Enough. WWE had the perfect opportunity to set up a Team Austin vs. Team Booker type scenario here and actually make Tough Enough interesting... but they squandered it!

How about Nexus attacking Vince and putting him in a coma? Are we really supposed to believe that Mr. McMahon would come out of his coma and not immediately seek revenge? He's Vincent Kennedy McMahon, damn it!

Bad payoffs in bad places
A "payoff" is called a "payoff" because it is just that: where all of the time and work you have put into the angle in question "pays off" and you get paid via ticket sales and DVD/PPV buys! Look at some recent WWE feuds:
Del Rio vs. Rey Mysterio: the blow-off match was on FREE TV... where they couldn't make money off of it!
Edge vs. Kane: FREE TV.
Nattie Neidhart vs. Melina: free TV
Edge vs. Dolph & Vickie: also on free TV.
Kelly Kelly vs. Vickie Guerrero: yet another payoff on live TV.
Cena vs. Punk: The blow-off was in the middle of the Royal Rumble! The feud wasn't build around the Royal Rumble match, so the blow-off should not be there, lost in the shuffle with everything else.
Orton vs. Miz: no real blow-off yet, since Miz never won cleanly. Any intelligent booker would realize that Orton still deserves a title shot! Mania was a continuation of this. It didn't feel like Mania because there were no payoffs, aside from Taker vs. Triple H. Orton vs. Punk, Rhodes vs. Mysterio, Cena vs. Rock, Edge vs. Del Rio, Morrison & Trish vs. Vickie & Dolph, and even Cole vs. Lawler all continued on Raw!

WWE also has a very bad habit of building things up and not doing anything with them. You can't start an angle and then drop it without a payoff!

Not finishing what you started
Why isn't Orton focused on Miz? He never lost to him cleanly. As far as Randy is concerned, Miz still has his title. How about Kane vs. Taker? Or even Nexus vs. Taker. Barrett said that they took Taker out "to make a statement," but Otunga said that wasn't the real reason... so what was the real reason? How about the whole McIntyre-Kelly Kelly angle? Anyone remember McIntyre's promise to Edge that he would make his life hell because he blamed Edge for Kelly getting fired? Where did all of that go?

In order to be good again, WWE needs to stop making these mistakes. What happens with the various titles doesn't matter. They need to not make basic mistakes first.