Stumbling on the Road to Wrestlemania
Stumbling on the Road to Wrestlemania
Wrestling fans are embarking on one of the most intriguing builds to Wrestlemania in years, but for all the wrong reasons.
Wrestling fans are embarking on one of the most intriguing builds to Wrestlemania in years, but for all the wrong reasons. We are seemingly heading towards one of the most redundant and unwanted main events since sports entertainment’s equivalent to the Super Bowl began in 1985, which is a considerable achievement in light of the less than illustrious company that the Batista/Orton confrontation will have from the event’s turbulent 30 year history. Even as Batista tweaks his character to take advantage of the fans’ overwhelming rejection of his return and even if the WWE were to move the match down the card or insert CM Punk into the title fight, Wrestlemania 30 as a whole just feels unnecessary and its build devoid of any progression or star power. Wrestlemania 30 is just going to ‘happen’ and although it will be the most lucrative of its past incarnations it has done so despite itself.
Heading towards New Orleans you can’t help but wonder how did we get here? How did the WWE get to its biggest event of the year without any major matches that fans are actually excited to see?
Bringing in Batista to headline Wrestlemania isn’t the problem, the problem is WWE’s unhealthy lack of foresight and its reliance on outside stars for the previous three years. The biggest news to come out of February’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view was not only that the fans were still rejecting Batista as a good guy but that the WWE was persisting with marketing him as a conquering babyface. Even with Alberto Del Rio pulling out every dastardly trick from the villain playbook the crowd still cheered for him and heckled Batista with an intensity that the WWE had not foreseen. In WWE’s race to lock in a main event for Wrestlemania, it may have terminally damaged wrestling’s biggest night as the closing match looks like fans will take twisted pleasure in universally condemning the match and ensuring it goes down in wrestling infamy as the moment when the crowd destroyed Wrestlemania. Nevertheless, there is still time to save the sinking ship by injecting someone else into the storyline. But with Bryan headed for HHH at Mania, the only real possibility is for Punk to make a dramatic return which would have fantasy bookers delirious with joy but seems unlikely at this stage.
The real problem though isn’t simply with the return of Batista and bad booking. The issue is the WWE’s lack of credible main eventers and foresight for their product. Batista left on a high note, he had perfected his character and was doing some of the best work of his career when he left but the wrestling world has evolved in the years since. Bringing Batista back to headline Wrestlemania as a straight-laced babyface in a climate where the fans are rejecting John Cena and Randy Orton, Batista’s era cohorts, reflects a horrible understanding on the part of WWE and its creative directors for the direction of their product and the tastes of the audience. The fans that are relentlessly booing Batista don’t necessarily hate him, they hate the fact that he was brought in and inserted straight into the main event of Wrestlemania with no consideration of what they, as the paying customers, actually want from the WWE.
The WWE has boxed itself into a corner after three years of short-term booking and continual reliance on outside people to get a casual audience invested. Bringing in Batista with no build continues an unhealthy trend of looking outside the company come Mania time. The logic is sound- it’s the company’s biggest event of the year and they need to get as many eyes on the product as possible. CM Punk, while great, won’t bring any new fans to the table but someone in a hot Hollywood movie might. The problem with this approach is that in doing so the WWE have not managed to build any new homegrown stars that could main event Wrestlemania and looking forward to Wrestlemania 31 the situation seems even more desperate. This year’s confirmed Mania card just doesn’t have any feeling of consequence or significance; the wrestlers and the storylines seem to just be window dressing for an app and a network and no feud seems to make any kind of sense.
John Cena officially entering into a Mania program with The Wyatt Family is perhaps the strangest development heading into March. Cena is undoubtedly the face of not only the WWE (at least to the company itself) but of professional wrestling outside of Mexico and Japan. He is sports entertainment’s most marketable star and continues to be head and shoulders above the rest of the WWE roster in merchandise sales. Although The Wyatt Family are hot at the moment, Bray Wyatt against John Cena just doesn’t feel right at this year’s Wrestlemania. It’s hard to imagine where it might fit on the card let alone how they will get Cena cheered against such a hot, likeable bad guy in Wyatt. In any case this is a notable step into the background for the superstar that has headlined the previous three Wrestlemanias and perhaps an overdue acceptance by the WWE of fan exhaustion with Cena and his position as perennial alpha dog.
It was speculated earlier this year that the WWE was planning on giving Cena a more relaxed schedule to try and lengthen his career. It’s always difficult to separate fact and fiction with any wrestling news stories that are circulated but this would appear to be a step into not only minimising his workload but also giving others more of an opportunity to grow into bonafide stars. On the other hand Cena has always had the knack of knowing what the fans want and then associating himself with it. Regardless, his beating at the hands of the Wyatts for the second PPV in a row culminated at a really weird time in Cena’s career. For someone who has been involved in the main event storyline for four months he still feels like he has been treading water with no direction, which is symbolic of the entire WWE in 2014 as they perpetually run through the motions, unsure of where they’re headed or who they’re going to hitch their wagon to.
CM Punk became so worn out by this lack of direction he walked out on the company the day after the Royal Rumble PPV. He was candidly gobsmacked by the indecision of the Wrestlemania card and the inability of the WWE to develop any kind of plan for their characters. Something that sounds all too appropriate when talking about the vague air surrounding the direction of the WWE’s current and future main event stars. In Punk’s mind, the uncertainty was because the WWE literally had no idea where it was going and always needed to keep its options open. His absence from the Elimination Chamber and Raw has been notable but not excessive, while the crowd has chanted for his return Daniel Bryan has been shoehorned perfectly into his anti-establishment spot and match with HHH at Mania.
Even so, Vince McMahon must still be very anxious about the number 2 merchandise seller’s absence from his product, evident by his amiable handling of the situation. Where in the past he threw Stone Cold under the bus for walking out, this time around McMahon has been cautious about protecting one of the major characters in his company. Because without a doubt Punk, although disenfranchised, is still one of only four viable top tier full time performers the WWE has right now. Those four being Cena, Orton, Punk and Bryan. Some might argue Sheamus and Batista should be there too but they both don’t fit in the category at this stage (It’s doubtful either will ever reach the level of the mentioned four). A grim reality which has seemingly hit the WWE like a ton of bricks as it scrambles to create new top level talent and fast track new stars.
So at Elimination Chamber fans were confronted with another intriguing mini storyline in the real life WWE machine. As The Wyatt Family battled The Shield or more specifically Bray Wyatt battled Roman Reigns- two fresh characters that WWE have gone a long way to protect and make strong and with good reason. Wyatt has a distinct look and character that has the fans invested and eating out of his hand while Reigns has the look and presence of a star. The Shield are all potential future World Title holders but there isn’t any doubt Reigns is the one with a rocket strapped to him shooting him straight up the WWE pecking order. The Shield and Wyatt match at Elimination Chamber was red hot, perhaps the hottest the crowd has been for anyone not named Daniel Bryan. The Shield, even after more than a year of making their entrance through the crowd, interrupting matches and having six man tags is still as popular as ever with the audience. As a viewer and fan there is no reason to break up The Shield at this point or end their rivalry with The Wyatt family so abruptly but the company is looking to the bigger picture.
The WWE needs new stars quickly, and not just new superstars, they need new top level guys for the company. The handling of Reigns has been quite heavy handed to say the least, especially for someone unproven as a singles competitor. Although he already looks like a main event character and his presence in the ring oozes stardom, the fans have only had to rally behind him in short bursts and that’s after his two stable mates have built the tension leading to his entrance into a match or situation. It harkens back to Punk’s frustration at the WWE’s inability to have foresight and their failure to create new faces because even though Reign’s rise as a competitor has been perfect, the rush to get he and Wyatt further up the card feels like a quick fix solution, not unlike Ryback before them. However, it is no wonder they are looking for quick fixes, their audience is exhausted of Cena and Orton at the top and with Punk gone that leaves only Daniel Bryan as the face of the WWE.
And what about Bryan? The WWE have been continuously hesitant to pull the trigger with him. Storyline wise it’s because The Authority doesn’t have faith in his ability as the face of the WWE and you can’t help but feel there is truth to that belief from the actual WWE powers that be. It’s hard to imagine the thought process the WWE must be having about Bryan right now, it’s easy to see them purposefully using him at specific stages throughout the 3-hour Raw to not only build interest in the program but also limit the live crowds obsession with him. He might not be Vince McMahon’s idea of a face of the WWE but he certainly is the face for the die-hard fans. And with Punk gone the fans are clinging on to Bryan even harder as their anti establishment hero. He personifies what the fans want and that’s change, something that the WWE has struggled with throughout its entire history. After this week’s RAW it has become even more likely that the Bryan/HHH match may indeed headline Wrestlemania after all, which is funny on a few different levels. But it’s not the match fans wanted to end Bryan’s year long search for the WWE Championship and it has come completely out of desperate necessity for the WWE.
For a company that always spouts out how innovative it is away from the screen, it has always been its stars that force the company to change the on screen product. WWE continue to rely on things that have worked for them in the past and repeatedly go back to the well the instant something doesn’t look to be working. Then when spots need to be filled, Creative rush characters to the top that aren’t ready causing them to be rejected by the crowd; a cycle that has been on repeat for the last few years. It’s a cycle that has existed well and truly since the Hogan era and continues to leave bad tastes in mouths of fans that have been passionate for the product their entire lives. As Triple H and Stephanie McMahon berate Randy Orton for his missteps as their chosen face of the WWE, it’s hard not to imagine the real WWE authority panicking behind the scenes about their top level talent in this current climate. With fans bored of Cena and Orton, Punk seemingly gone and Bryan being incredibly successful as the underdog who is ‘buried’ by The Authority, the WWE has to consider who will market their product for the next year let alone main event their PPVs.
As Wrestlemania 30 fast approaches in a confusing air of last minute match making and an apparent lack of intrigue and card shuffling, the WWE has somehow bumbled into making it the most engaging PPV it has had for the last few years. Outside the matches themselves, the biggest event of the year is proving to be a cauldron of critical debate about the direction of the business and what wrestlers will lead it into the next generation. Regardless of what headlines Mania, the build up has been nothing short of embarrassing for the company outside the ring and the lack of main event wrestlers, never more glaring. By the time Wrestlemania 30 comes and goes, whether we see the spectacle of 80,000 people reject Batista and Orton or scream ‘yes’ alongside Daniel Bryan it’s what happens after the event that is truly the most intriguing.
Will the WWE machine continue to move forward with the lack of foresight that has led them to this near disaster? Will they continue to disregard their audience’s desires and dictate the story rather than let it evolve? And most importantly who in the hell is going to headline Wrestlemania 31?