>>16931919It's a question of investment in the characters. You just have no reason to care about them, in kayfabe or as a shoot, nor do you care about what happens on the shows. Probably because you already realize that it's all eventually going to be inconsequential. And there's very little chance of anything truly explosive and surprising happening on neither WWE or AEW, because the guys are simply more chill and more liable to take on the chin than they used to. The most that they're going to do is complain on twatter.
That's why the CM Punk meltdown was so rad. It finally felt like something volatile was happening again. And then it just devolved into bitchmade NDAs and passive aggressive remarks. Things should be bubbling up at all times, but they aren't. You don't even get high quality writing as compensation, in the same way that Lucha Underground was a well-written TV show. The current pauletty-led WWE style of long-term booking means that if you aren't already invested in the guys that are currently on-screen, you're probably not going to want to watch the shows for the next 6 months.
NXT is the most exciting wrestling show around, but it's not consistent, and it's still ultimately liable to spin around in circles every once in a while due to its nature as a wrestling school. Still, Oba Femi is more interesting to follow than Seethe Tarpins or Owensetty.
>>16931953Even NJPW feels like it's struggling to maintain people's attention, because its newer guard is failing to develop a proper connection with the audience. As far as gaijins go, Gabe Kidd, for all his talents as a wrestler, is too much of a tryhard. Boltin and Newman are still too new. Henare is settled into his role as gaijin mirror to Ishii. Coughlin retired.
Uemura and Tsuji are neat, so I've got my fingers crossed for them.
