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WHAT I WOULD CHANGE ABOUT WWE IF I COULD, GOLDBERG'S TIME IN THE RING AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2018-08-11 10:00:00

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If you could change one thing about WWE today, what would it be?

There are a few things, so I can't pick just one.  So, in no particular order:

*Eliminate wasted TV time.  We have far too many episodes of Raw, Smackdown, etc. where nothing happens that advances storylines or adds new understanding of the characters.  It's just a wasted variety show where everyone pretty much ends up back where they started.  There's no other TV show that does that.  There's too much bloat on so many of the shows, whether it be 20 minute talking segments that take way too long to get to the matches they are setting up or matches that have been repeated ad nauseam week after week with no sort of direction beyond doing it to fill time, again.

*Change the scripting of the verbiage.  No one in real life speaks the way most WWE performers do when they are giving their promos.  Even the interviewers use words that don't come off like realistic dialogue.  It comes off clunky.  It takes you out of the moment watching the show and more importantly, takes you out of any chance where you can "lose" yourself in terms of watching and enjoying by suspending your disbelief.  Keep it simple so everyone can follow along.  

*Continuity.  All too often, there are ridiculous lapses in continuity.  Alexa Bliss and Mickie James are pals again, despite their past issues, which not only are ignored, but James turns heel to reunite with Bliss, apparently off-camera, and it's never addressed.  Deciding to push talents who have been pretty much booked to lose for an infinite amount of time until the one week when suddenly, they are treated like actual competitive talents who have a chance also makes the audience just shrug.  If Bobby Roode has lost for weeks on end, no matter how great his theme song is, the audience isn't going to buy him as a top star with two weeks' time.  Things like that only make the audience shrug and not care.  The continuity has to be stronger.

*Wins and losses don't matter on the undercard.  One week, it's the Authors of Pain losing.  Then they beat Titus Worldwide.  Rinse.  Repeat.  No character development.  Nothing to make the storyline a "hotter" issue.  No heat on the villains.  No major strong comeback from the babyfaces that the audience gets behind because they want to see them get revenge.  Everyone floats aimlessly in a mid-card pool in many cases until they are plucked out of the pool for some sort of push and if it doesn't take off, SPLASH, back into the pool they go.

*Give everyone an actual goal.  If you are a pro wrestler, from a storyline standpoint, you are stepping in the ring for one of very few reasons - to win, to make money, to win gold, to be a piece of sh** to someone (if you are a heel) or to get revenge (if you are a babyface.)  We need reasons for everyone to want to wrestle.  They can't just want to "entertain" because if they are here to entertain, they don't care about winning and if they don't care about winning or one of the other goals, why should the audience care to watch them, you know, compete in the ring?  Even James Ellsworth should want to win his matches!  He may not have a legitimate chance, but he should want to win, from a storyline sense.

*So many elements are passe but are still well overused on the show.  Authority figures are so over-done.  Backstage segments where no one seems to know where the cameras are.  Promos where one talent monologues in the ring while another is on the Titantron.  It's been done to death.  They should try to come up with a different way to present such segments or use them far more sparingly.    There was a point in time where handicap matches were used so often on TV that to this day, if they use one as a storyline device, I immediately want to change the channel.  I am sure others feel similar about the examples I used earlier as well.

Different combinations of all of these things make the weekly TV shows harder to watch and they could be fixed with just a little tweaking and attention to detail.  NXT is a great example of how those tweaks CAN work to assist the product in being more viable for viewers.

60 one-minute matches is one hour. So, 120 would be two hours. Add in a couple longer WWE matches with Jericho and HHH and such... Goldberg’s entire wrestling career, maybe three hours? There’s no way it was longer than four. Do we have an official time?

No, but no matter how much time it took, he made great money in comparison to the minutes spent in the ring!

Thoughts on Jordynne Grace? Young, athletic, easy on the eyes, entertaining twitter feed. Do you see a bright future?

Thus far, I like everything about her.  She's obviously working hard and has improved quite a ton in the last several years and has a fun charisma to her.  I'd be shocked if she's not signed somewhere within the next 365 days.

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