>>19808194I’m a baseball fan, so I’ll compare the current state of WWE to a team that knows it’s in transition/rebuilding with young prospects who need playing time to grow, but still has old expensive stars on the roster who casual gas station fans pay to see.
The older guys are “blocking” the younger guys, but simultaneously, the younger guys aren’t ready to draw dimes on their own yet either.
So the challenge is: how do we elevate the profiles of these young guys so they don’t get pegged as midcarders while still keeping our dime-drawing old veterans at the top of the card so we actually sell tickets?
And my take is they’re apparently finding it difficult to tell compelling stories in that environment.
Then on top of that, also like baseball, not every top prospect is going to work out. (After yesterday, I’m really wondering if they see Bron Breakker as a bust…or at least as a guy who isn’t ready. Because in theory, it SHOULD’VE been Bron having those “power” moments in the Rumble standing toe to toe with guys like Brock and Roman. But instead, they gave those moments to Oba.)
Point is, there’s a lot of moving pieces for the writer’s room to handle, lol. They’re clearly in a transition/rebuilding mode (literally symbolized by the steady drip of retirements by Goldberg, Cena, Styles, etc), and they aren’t yet successfully building storylines with the younger talent. They’re just kinda throwing them out there to see how the crowd reacts. They’re giving them playing time, but without a real story/plan.
Cody “finishing the story” at WMXL was the last great piece of storytelling. But everything since then has been a transitional slog. Roman is right, they haven’t successfully developed any of the young guys into stars during his absence. They’ve TRIED, but just haven’t been successful.
