I don’t care how you’re treating the World Heavyweight Championship now – it still has the word “World” in it and it’s still a Big Gold Belt. It is still a main event match for a main event championship, despite really being in the upper midcard; the company still attempts to put it over as one of the company’s top accomplishments, second only to the WWE Championship. It should still be treated as something for which your audience must wait a little longer to witness.
One of the overarching problems with this show was – once again – WWE’s terrible match sequencing, which was clearly done to make up for their terrible writing for most of the players on the card. The only reason the World Heavyweight Championship match was on first is because the company (rightfully) trusted the in-ring chemistry between challenger Rob Van Dam and champion Alberto del Rio – but other than that, the match that should be de facto important was really of little consequence. It was a title match held for the sake of having one every month; the challenger was treated like the third party to the real story between del Rio and his former associate, Ricardo Rodriguez.
Given the matches on the main card, this is how I would’ve ordered the event’s flow:
- Kofi Kingston vs. Bray Wyatt
- R-Truth vs. Curtis Axel for the Intercontinental Championship
- CM Punk vs. Ryback
- Great Khali and Santino vs. the Real Americans
- Rob van Dam vs. Alberto del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship
- Brie Bella vs. AJ Lee for the Divas Championship
- The Rhodes Family vs. the Shield
- Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship
As for why I’ve placed some of these matches the way I have (especially Punk/Ryback), I’ll get to that in a bit.
4. Do not throw matchups out there expecting that we could care about them on our own.
I count at least three matches in the card that didn’t get optimum crowd investment, and to be quite honest, there might be more than that given the laziness of Creative and whoever’s in charge. (You know who you are.)
Nobody cares about the Real Americans all that much if they’re not demolishing quality tag team competition the way they’re meant to. Curtis Axel, who hasn’t really won that many fans over, isn’t being written compellingly since he lost steam after his rebranding, and his challenger R-Truth hasn’t been relevant since the company de-fanged his most interesting incarnation, Crazy R-Truth. The most potentially compelling character in the undercard right now, Bray Wyatt, is slowly losing steam because his supernatural elements, while mysterious enough to be interesting, isn’t translating well without a concrete focus on another player; the feud that caused the match with Kofi Kingston was just slapped together too haphazardly.
And the answer is simple, really: give the crowd feelings they can relate to, and draw from them the strongest of emotions. The reason why the match between the Rhodes Family and the Shield garnered the strongest reactions of the show is because everyone has been there: if they could only fight for a job they’ve lost, someone they’ve lost, an opportunity or a dream they’ve lost, they absolutely would without question.
It’s a better “bully” storyline than CM Punk vs. Ryback and Paul Heyman because the ramifications – on the part of the Rhodeses – were real. They were concrete. That’s what makes people care. That’s what made Cody Rhodes’s powerful Cross Rhodes for the pin and win taste a thousand times sweeter than Punk’s wily comeuppance against Ryback.
Speaking of which.
3. Do not treat your big guys like chumps.
It’s a lesson they’ve learned a little late for Big Show, but it’s a lesson they haven’t yet learned for Ryback. In the first couple of minutes of the Punk match, Ryback rolls out of the ring, saunters over to Paul Heyman, and asks him WHAT HE HAS TO DO. Against CM Punk. A guy Ryback has around 50 pounds on.
Why, then, should I expect Ryback to have any chance of winning whatsoever against the Best in the World?
They have had him fall so far for reasons that continue to baffle me. The man who had once impressed crowds by throwing one (sometimes even two, or three guys at a time) around like rag dolls is now looking like a whiny, incompetent oaf. Now, if I can’t even believe that one of the biggest guys in the WWE roster looks competent, why should I be intrigued at all with the possible outcomes of this matchup? What should make me tune in about it?
This is why I placed it earlier on the card – it’s not a match I’m looking forward to. I just want it out of the way as fast as possible, so Punk can get his hands on Heyman as fast as possible, so he can move on to his next feud as fast as possible.
And this lack of interest is the same problem which plagued Punk’s matchup last month at Night of Champions against Curtis Axel and Paul Heyman, but at least the handicap stipulation (and the fact that they tried to make Axel look competitive at the last minute) threw a little bit of intrigue into the mix. The addition of Ryback should have been a step up, but at this point, Punk is now being protected too much for his own good. The character has become too vigilant and reckless to believe that anyone below Brock Lesnar’s level is a legitimate threat to him.
2. Do not treat your little guys like chumps, either.
AJ could’ve won the title match on her own, as she really was outwrestling Brie Bella in a match that was steadily building to be something a bit underrated. She, however, won by capitalizing on a distraction Tamina (her new Big E) caused.
While that is typical heel behavior that is a tried-and-true formula for building quick heel heat, it doesn’t work for the story they’re trying to tell – that AJ is the best Diva in the divison. Perhaps the Best in the World, too.
And Punk didn’t really need that kind of ace up his sleeve when he was out and about trying to beat John Cena, the same way AJ didn’t need that it when she is trying to beat Brie Bella. This is even without Twin Magic. Maybe if higher odds were stacked against her. But not here, not in this match.
1. Do not leave questions unanswered for too long.
In this case, the question is: when is Daniel Bryan finally going to be WWE Champion, for reals?
You know it’s only a matter of when, not if, when they’re spending so much time seemingly trying to break him down, but it’s actually an effort toward building up his legend in disguise. However, this isn’t the days of old, and this is no longer a generation that can wait forever for a payoff. As much as I would love a slow-burning narrative, this is no longer the century where it can burn for this long. It can burn, but not for this long.
Again, the WWE is partly to blame. When you produce five hours of storyline-driven material for television every week, and eight hours on a PPV week like the one that just went by, you are expected to move things along, someway, somehow, or risk stagnating the plot. But on the other hand, it also happens that what’s filled in might also be too subpar that it also stagnates, or worse, brings down the entire thing.
This is what’s happening now: because RAW is going for three hours, because the absence of a brand split means the people who matter are going to need screen time twice a week, both the narratives and the viewers can no longer work at a relatively glacial pace. Grantland’s Masked Man wrote about the nuances of the chase and delayed gratification, and I’m here to say that it no longer works as well as it used to until the WWE slows down and/or reverts back to their old, pre-August 2011 system.
Of course, I realistically don’t see it happening like that. As long as there are enough asses in seats, this system will continue to operate as is. Ratings will fall and eventually rise back up, as such is the cycle of the industry. It just amuses me – in a sad, disappointing way – that despite being the pioneers of growth and evolution in the business, the WWE is still the one majorly responsible for their own big problems.
And while there is always a scramble to recoup losses after something goes wrong onscreen, we can no longer shake the feeling that there is still an inertial force causing some sense of hair-pulling complacency within the organization: an abundance of money and influence, and a lack of actual quality competition. C’est la vie.
But if anyone important is listening, I really would just like to leave them this: you can’t force-feed the masses and expect them to like it when you suddenly pull the spoon back. That’s just not the way it works.
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