If It Don't Make Sense, It Won't Make Dollars

I’ve started watching the WWE again for the last 2 and a half years ago after being away from the product for about 10 years.

There’s been so much of talk about how WWE needs to build new stars for the future. However, this type of banter isn't far from new.

People in the IWC (Internet Wrestling Community) have been spewing this same talking point for the past 20 plus years and they have it all wrong.

You see, the WWE has never really built stars. They just simply stole them from other territories.

All they would do is simply wait until the performers became more polished and signed them away from other promotions by throwing a boat load of money at them.

It was the wrestlers themselves that built themselves up or in wrestling terms, “got themselves over” with the people.

Also, the WWE wouldn’t have any clue on how to build a star in the first place. Hence is why they used to poach talent away from other promotions back in the territory era.

Trust me, you don’t want WWE brass anywhere near a top-tier talent if you want to them to be creative. Those folks couldn’t come up with good creative if the police came knocking on their door with a warrant for it.

Just look at Roman Reigns’ early start of his career.

Go back and check out his scripted promos on Youtube and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking.

Take a look at the “sufferin’ succotash” promo. Or the “magic beans” promo. Those are just a few examples of how bad things got for the young superstar.

Eventually, Reigns was able to negotiate and gain more creative freedom along with some better writers with Paul Heyman included and turned things around for the better.

Just look at the results.

You know have “the Tribal Chief” with one of the hottest angles that the WWE has had in ages.

Now the issues with Reigns was that he was constantly overbooked and was shoved down the fans’ throats before he was really over as a singles star.

The WWE brass had Roman Reigns tapped to be their number one guy since the first time they laid eyes on him some 13 years ago. Even in his “Shield” days, opponents were told to make Roman “look strong.”

CM Punk talked about that in his infamous interview with his then-comrade Colt Cabana on his podcast several years ago.

He was working a program with The Shield at the time and he was constantly reminded during the day to be sure to “make Roman look strong” which I’m pretty sure Punk loved hearing.

Reigns was pretty much John Cena part 2 at the beginning stage of his career. Cena was also a wrestler that was forced down the fans’ throats in hopes of turning their hate for him into love.

Now hate and love are strong words and I don’t think fans necessarily hated Reigns as a wrestler. I believe they really had hate for the “powers that be” in the back that was pushing the wrestler.

WWE has had a habit of doing this even back in the 1980’s golden age wrestling boom period.

I remember hearing a shoot interview of one of the wrestlers of the 80’s about how the WWF, as it was known back then, did a finish in the The Ultimate Warrior vs. Andre the Giant match that the fans, “absolutely hated.”

The wrestler in the interview recounted WWF’s response to the fans at time,

Forget them! We’re going to keep shoving it down their throats until they love it.

Now as we look at modern day wrestling and you can see that they have completely stuck to that mantra.

Reigns is a heck of a talent. He can do it in the ring, he has the look and his mic skills are not too shabby as well.

He may not be CM Punk, MJF, or a Stone Cold Steve Austin but I believe he’s done a heck of a job with “the Tribal Chief” character.

He’s embodied the role as a narcissist that’s all about keeping himself on top and couldn’t give two cents about his actual bloodline.

Now as great as Reign’s character has been, the WWE just hasn’t always booked him correctly.

One way they overbooked him is by having him win all the time. I mean, the man hardly loses.

I’ve went back and looked at around 15–20 wrestlers across various eras and looked at their win-loss records and he has the second highest winning percentage of all of them.

He’s only second to Bill Goldberg who won over 90 percent of his one-on-one matches while Reigns has won just over 88 percent of his. Typically, heels lose more then faces but not in Reigns case though.

Reigns has been even more dominant since turning heel in 2020. Since that period of time, he’s only lossed two matches, one by pinfall and the other by DQ and he’s had one draw according to this website right here.

You never see heels booked this dominant unless you’re dealing with a newcomer they’re trying to build up on the card with the eventual vision of turning him face like a Brock Lesnar circa 2002.

Undoubtedly, Reigns has been the guy since he embarked upon a solo career. He became only the second wrestler to defeat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania.

The question now is how can WWE correct this problem.

To be honest, I’m not sure if they could even if they wanted to because they’ve dropped the ball so many times in their history that I’ve lost count.

Even when they announced that there would be a tournament for a new WWE Heavyweight title a few months ago, it just seemed that neither Reigns or Heyman could care less.

You would think a narcissist such as Roman Reigns would be heated at knowing that they just created another belt out of nowhere.

I mean, think about it. Here he is the Undisputed Champion with both titles who has taken on and defeated allcomers in all types of matches only for them to create a another title out of thin air.

He should be livid and so should Paul Heyman. After all, he is the Wise Man to the Tribal Chief along with being his mouthpiece because Reigns is a part-timer these days but still, these guys should be fuming.

They should be calling that new title a participation ribbon and that all the title means is that you’re a second place champion who couldnt beat the real champion.

It was also interesting when HHH announced that both Raw and Smackdown wrestlers can compete for the title but Heyman said that Reigns was inelligible to challenge for the new title for unspecified reasons.

Another thing is when they had the WWE Draft a few months ago, it was announced that Brock Lesnar, Omos and Alicia Fox were all able to negotiate their own contracts so that they can appear on both shows.

Now if all those people can do that shouldn’t the Tribal Chief be able to do that too?!

After all, he’s the Undisputed Champion. Omos hasn’t really done much in the WWE at this point and Alicia Fox is…..Alicia Fox. As far as Lesnar goes, Reigns has beaten him on multiple occasions so if anybody deserves carte blanche on that end then it should be him.

Unfortunately, none of this was ever addressed on any of the future Raws. You even had HHH, not only introducing Paul Heyman but shaking his hand and telling him, “he wants to show him something” which is the new championship belt.

The shaking the hand thing doesn’t make sense since Heyman is part of a heel faction but okay.

Then you get Heyman on the microphone, which he is excellent at but you don’t sense any anger whatsoever about the newest championship.

Instead, he’s there to call out another wrestler, Seth Rollins who is a known nemesis of Reigns, just so they can set up a match between Rollins and Solo Sikoa.

Of course, per WWE, there’s no follow-up. Just a basic match on Raw that leads to nothing else. WWE has long shown a lack of consistency which I believe is what’s led to lack of interest in the product.

Speaking of a lack of follow-up, take a look at the whole Cody Rhodes-Roman Reigns Wrestlemania 39 debacle which is the only reason why they introuduced the new title in the first place.

The WWE knew they messed up royally so they introduced this sham of a title to appease the fans but all it did was bring forth more confusion as you can see with the whole Rhodes-Lesnar feud.

Their whole feud is based on……..Well, nobody knows why they’re feuding about in the first place. To this day, some 4 months later, there has never been a reason given why Lesnar attacked Rhodes.

Even with the lack of cohesiveness in their storylines, the WWE has reported record revenue this year but that’s only because they’re charging a whole lot more for their merchandise today then they did 25 years ago.

The WWE, and in particularly Vince McMahon, has to check their egos at the door and give the fans what they want not what they want the fans to have.

Until they fix that, they will never produce anything resembling the Rock N’ Wrestling era of the 1980’s or the Attitude era of the 1990’s ever again.