Posted in: Mr. Tito
MR. TITO STRIKES BACK - The Main Reason for WWE's Struggles since Wrestlemania 31 - RAW is BORE
By Mr. Tito
Apr 27, 2015 - 11:16:54 PM

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Following Wrestlemania 31, I had such enthusiasm for the WWE. I was satisfied with the finish of Wrestlemania 31 where the WWE crowned Seth Rollins as WWE Champion and not pushing the inexperienced Roman Reigns. Then, the night after Wrestlemania 31, Monday Night RAW was amazing. In addition to Brock Lesnar destroying the WWE announcing team, the card was stacked with great wrestling matches. I even hinted that I would finally pull the trigger on buying the WWE Network...

But then, WWE lost its way. RAW after RAW was awful and most reviews of Extreme Rules 2015 have indicated an average WWE show at best.

What happened?

I know exactly what happened and the same thing occurred during 2014 as well. The long-term WWE plan was to crown Roman Reigns as WWE Champion at Wrestlemania 31 and give him a title reign that lasts at least through SummerSlam 2015. Through early 2015, it was expected that Brock Lesnar would be returning to UFC or fighting for another MMA organization. The early thought was to utilize the "Lesnar Rub" to get Roman Reigns over as a main eventer. WWE officials (Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, and Triple H) were high on the guy collectively and felt the plan of winning the "Wrestler of the Year" Slammy Award, winning the Rumble match, and then winning the WWE Title at Wrestlemania would make Reigns a mega-superstar. WWE even effectively depushed his biggest threat, Dean Ambrose, in order to set the stage for Reigns's big babyface championship push.

Then, something happened... Roman Reigns had to talk. Roman Reigns had to wrestle. After all, "WWE" stands for World WRESTLING Entertainment (or at least it did). But even if the WWE is purely an "entertainment" company, the guy struggles on the microphone and has no charismatic personality that fans are fascinated by. His matches have been very subpar, too, despite many decent opponents thrown his way. Reigns seriously looks lost out there and relies too much on his opponent calling the matches. Doubt was creeping in, even among Vince, Dunn, and Triple H who pushed Reigns hard dating back to the end of the Evolution vs. Shield feud. There were some rumors that Daniel Bryan might join the Wrestlemania 31 match but Vince McMahon probably expressed durability issues and remembered what happened during 2014.

Brock Lesnar then re-signed with the WWE during the week of Wrestlemania 31. Plans reportedly changed immediately going from a sure-thing Roman Reigns win to Brock Lesnar possibly retaining to the day of Wrestlemania 31 making Seth Rollins the new winner. To WWE's credit, the Reigns vs. Lesnar match was EXCELLENT and the booking made all 3 participants (Reigns, Lesnar, and later Rollins) look great.

So... What next?

Well, WWE Management spent much of the first 3 months of 2015 building up Roman Reigns as strong as possible and were assuming that Brock Lesnar wouldn't return. Reportedly, WWE had plans for Reigns to be WWE Champion through at least SummerSlam 2015 with a big headlining match of some sort.

Erased...

Reminds me of 2014 all over again... WWE signed Batista to return to the WWE during late 2013 and had plans for Batista to (a) win the 2014 Royal Rumble match and (b) defeat Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 30. Then, Batista would hold onto the WWE Title until SummerSlam 2014 to coincide with his Guardians of the Galaxy movie debuting in August 2014. That was the plan... Then, fans quickly realized that Batista was not in cardio shape and was quickly winded during matches (but he did improve greatly for the Evolution vs. Shield matches). Furthermore, WWE fans were upset at how Daniel Bryan was being depushed since SummerSlam 2013. Despite the WWE's desires to use Bryan to put over Randy Orton and the Wyatt family, fans rebelled and forced a rewrite of Wrestlemania 30. Suddenly, Daniel Bryan had a Wrestlemania 30 match where he'd join the Orton/Batista MAIN EVENT if he beat Triple H. Bryan beat HHH and then became WWE Champion.

What happened after Wrestlemania 30 for Daniel Bryan? You would think that he'd immediately feud with Randy Orton to (a) avenge the antics of late 2013 and (b) for the fact that Bryan did not defeat Orton in that Wrestlemania 30 match... Nope. Daniel Bryan wrestled KANE. KANE! All 45+ years of him...

So what does Seth Rollins get now? Sure, I understand the Randy Orton feud for him but it has gone no where. WWE isn't helping matters by removing the Curb Stomp as Seth Rollins's finisher, but they are having him argue with the "Director of Operations" Kane (there he is again, the walking glass ceiling!) and now he has a Pay Per View MAIN EVENT WWE Title match determined by how wrestling fans vote on an App. Seriously, people using Smartphones and voting books your World Title matches. What a booking mess... Funny thing is that WWE just randomly brings about this App vote for the Main Event. No hype, no reason for Seth Rollins to question how ridiculous this is for him as WWE Champion, and because we have no real alternative to watch as wrestling fans, we'll endure...

Just look at that hot mess of a King of the Ring tournament. WWE announces this tournament's return on its Pay Per View, Extreme Rules 2015, holds the first round of it on Monday for RAW, and then will have the final rounds on Tuesday for the WWE Network. Seriously, they announced the tournament's official return one day and it's over 2 days later. Meanwhile, the participating wrestlers are randomly selected without any "sense of urgency" to want to actually be in this King of the Ring "tournament". Which wrestler woke up today and said "I really need to get to the arena and beg Vince McMahon to get into that King of the Ring tournament". NOBODY! That's the whole point... This is LAZY booking as my pal Chrissssssss puts it.

King of the Ring used to mean something back in the day. As bad as Wrestlemania 4 gets ripped by the Internet Wrestling Community as being "boring", I enjoy the show because it's a one night tournament where wrestlers had to prove their might by wrestling multiple times. In the case of Wrestlemania 4, the "sense of urgency" was to become WWE Champion. For the King of the Ring event, it was simple bragging rights of enduring multiple matches during one night and celebrating by becoming "king". Later, the show would grant the #1 contendership for the SummerSlam WWE Title match. "Sense of urgency". King of the Ring was added to the "Big 4" Pay Per View list (Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series) as the 5th member of that club. It was a very important show.

Don't believe me? Let's chart the 1993 to 2002 winners, shall we? Those were Pay Per Views, by the way, before the WWE ceased the show after 2002 (I'm guessing due to the Brand Split):

1993 - Bret "the Hitman" Hart
1994 - Owen Hart, who became the "King of Harts"
1995 - Mabel (ok, you got me there)
1996 - "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and afterward, he made his famous "Austin 3:16" speech
1997 - Triple H
1998 - Ken Shamrock (ok, you got me there)
1999 - Billy Gunn (ok, you got me there)
2000 - Kurt Angle
2001 - Edge
2002 - Brock Lesnar

Aside from Bret Hart, bigtime wrestlers like Steve Austin, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Edge, and Brock Lesnar won the King of the Ring tournament BEFORE they became World Champion. Think about that, folks... It was a major stepping stone in their careers before they could taste gold. In my opinion, too, it was a big deal when Booker T won the returning King of the Ring tournament and helped revitalized his dismal WWE career.

Now? King of the Ring is a 3 day thing. Announced 1 day, tournament decided 2 days later.

What we're seeing with the WWE now is just a matter of LONG TERM plans being shredded. WWE boxed themselves in by wanting to push Roman Reigns to become the next big babyface wrestler. Yet, they foolishly didn't see the lack of fan reaction and in-ring performances that Roman Reigns put on at Money in the Bank 2014 and Battleground 2014 where Reigns was involved with both WWE Title matches. Why didn't the WWE see it then when most fans were scratching their heads on how Reigns event appeared in those matches. Then, Reigns had a hernia which many thought would derail his mega-push. Nope... WWE Management doubled down and gave him that Slammy, Rumble win, and the Main Event spot at Wrestlemania.

Now that Vince McMahon's long-term plans have been disrupted, he's probably not as motivated creatively and is probably hostile towards the creative team right now. All of these ideas such as determining a #1 contender from a Smartphone App or quickly booking a King of the Ring tournament suggest that Vince is shredding many RAW scripts that are presented to him. Bringing back an old King of the Ring tournament reeks of LAZY booking because some idea presented to Vince was rejected and this is a quick fix. Vince is probably reminding his son-in-law Triple H about how Roman Reigns's "moment" was ruined at Wrestlemania 31 and I wonder if Vince is losing confidence in Seth Rollins with the less-than-4-million viewers seen on RAW recently. If you haven't noticed, Vince is already pushing John Cena to be super strong again, his comfort blanket... Don't doubt that Cena trades that US Title for the WWE Title soon.

Because WWE Management (Vince, Dunn, HHH) decided to push Reigns too early and too fast, it forced them to rewrite their long-term plans. Now, we're stuck with a very marginal WWE product that we're all just watching because we cannot wait for Brock Lesnar to return. It is not easy to replace months of preparation in just a few weeks.

I went from being a happy WWE fan following Wrestlemania 31 to just sleepwalking through the WWE product until Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman return.

SO JUST CHILL... 'TIL THE NEXT EPISODE!

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