KB’s Review: Some Of You May Notice A Pattern Emerging

You might not have noticed it, but we are less than two weeks away from WrestleMania 37. That means it is time for WWE to really get things in a big way as the card should have been set six weeks ago. Of course that is not the case because WWE, but now that at least most of the matches are set, it is time to start pushing things forward. Given WWE’s crazy deep writing staff, it shouldn’t be a problem to put together a nice build to the show. I think you know where this is going.

Another nice aspect of the build to the show is the amount of time that WWE has to put things together. They have a ridiculous seven hours of television from their three main shows, which should give them all the time they need (and far more than that). However, it seems that WWE has managed to hit yet another creative wall, which has created a rather tired idea that is going to continue making the television rounds during next week’s Monday Night Raw.

Back on February 21 at Elimination Chamber, women’s Royal Rumble winner Bianca Belair and SmackDown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks teamed up to challenge Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for the Women’s Tag Team Titles. Belair was teasing a challenge to Banks’ title and, after losing the Tag Team Title shot, officially challenged Banks for the WrestleMania title shot less than a week later.

Back on March 17, NXT Champion Finn Balor and #1 contender Karrion Kross teamed up to challenge Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch for the NXT Tag Team Titles. Ultimately Kross turned on Balor for accidentally knocking down Kross’ girlfriend Scarlett, costing them their title match. Lorcan pinned the destroyed Balor, who will be defending the title against Kross at Takeover: Stand & Deliver.

Back on March 21 at Fastlane, women’s Royal Rumble winner Bianca Belair and SmackDown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks teamed up to challenge Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for the Women’s Tag Team Titles. Belair was officially challenging Banks’ title at Wrestlemania but the two lost the Tag Team Title shot when they got in an argument. The title shot is still on for WrestleMania.

Back on March 29, Rhea Ripley, the #1 contend for Raw Women’s Champion Asuka’s title, was challenged to a tag match by Jax and Baszler for the April 5 edition of Monday Night Raw. Ripley accepted, as she had already attacked Asuka with a table and left her unconscious. While I can’t guarantee it, I have a feeling this is going to end with a fight between Rhea and Asuka and Jax and Baszler winning, leaving them with virtually no time to set up their own WrestleMania title match.

For those of you who can’t count, that is four different instances of the same story over the course of 43 days (February 21 – April 5). As in they are using this idea once about every week and a half on average. Let me repeat that in terms that more accurately explain the situation.

THEY DID THE SAME THING FOUR TIMES IN A MONTH AND A HALF!!! AND TWO OF THOSE FOUR WERE IN THE SAME FEUD!!! THEN A THIRD ONE HAD THE SAME WOMEN’S TEAM ALL OVER AGAIN!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO BE THAT REPETITIVE IN BOOKING WRESTLING SHOWS???

This is the biggest wrestling company in the world and somehow the best that they can do is redoing the same story the literally did weeks ago. There is a difference between being creatively strained and just not having another good idea. I know they are on different shows, but no one in the entire company is paying attention to the other show and might say “NXT just did that”. Better yet, no one on SMACKDOWN could say that they just did that the previous month?

Jim Cornette (yeah I know) once said that the time between using the same angle should be seven years. While that might be a little extreme in modern days with so much time to fill every single week, I don’t think the expiration date has been dropped down to just over seven weeks. How in the world is there not one more idea that could be used for three different stories?

Assuming it isn’t that WWE really loves the idea of Jax and Baszler (ok so they do), I have no idea who in the world this is supposed to appeal to/fool. Jax and Baszler can jump from show to show with their titles and no one is supposed to notice that we are getting the exact same story? That isn’t something that is just going to hurt the singles feuds, but other wrestlers are affected as well.

How much damage is done to the women’s tag division by having Jax and Baszler being used to prop up other feuds? They could be facing other teams who could get a rub out of the thing (if not the titles themselves) but those teams get to sit around, letting their feuds go cold, while Jax and Baszler are plot points elsewhere. As of this writing, the Women’s Tag Team Titles are not scheduled in a match for WrestleMania. While it is pretty easy to guess where things are going, it might be nice to put in some effort for the match, as the division is hardly great on its own.

WWE really needs some form of fresh ideas, or at least something that hasn’t been do this often in such a short span of time. Remember back in the day when you had people yell at each other, get physical with each other, or fought other people so they would never be in the same match as the other most of the time? As in when they had something other than the same handful of booking ideas that have been beaten into the ground for so many years on end. There are so many ways to present a wrestling company and they are just doing the same thing for three stories across three shows, plus going back to do another one again.

Is this really supposed to be the best that they can do? WWE currently has Daniel Bryan, Edge, Michael Hayes, Shawn Michaels, Triple H and more working in the creative/management departments on their television shows. Is there really no one who can come up with a fresh idea? No one remembers anything at all from their careers? Heck if WWE insists on having Ric Flair do something every so often, just have some intern ask him for a few angles that he remembers from his career, write them down, drop Flair a grand and then have him do it again when those angles are used.

WrestleMania is supposed to be the be all and end all of wrestling events and WWE has built the week around it up as a huge deal as well, often including an NXT Takeover event. The fact that WWE seems to be so creatively bankrupt on the way to the show that they are willing to use an idea this many times in the span of a few weeks says that they are either not very good at their jobs or do not care much about their fans. If they don’t come up with something a bit better, there is a good chance of the fans leaving even more often in a repeat performance of their own.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books.

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