Moments

I really liked the 2012 Royal Rumble.

When I woke up the next morning, I liked it a little less.

Five days later, I’m not sure I liked it at all.

The Rumble match was endemic of WWE booking in the last year or so. It epitomised the same mindset that stops talented newer wrestlers from becoming as valuable to the company as they should be. Those talented wrestlers include the World champion, the WWE champion, the man who won the main event of last year’s Wrestlemania, and the Rumble winner himself.

WWE has become obsessed with “moments”.

Moments like Road Dogg and Hacksaw Duggan making surprise appearances in the match (and by the way, there were multiple layers of irony in the supposed smart fans telling Road Dogg he’s “still got it”), moments like the three commentators taking it in turns to get involved, moments like Kharma’s return, moments like Ricardo Rodriguez’s cameo. Moments that often put smiles on faces, that produce a short burst of excitement, that may trend on Twitter, but moments which don’t help the company draw any money.

There were only thirty spots in the match, and seven of them were sacrificed for the sake of moments. And that isn’t counting Mick Foley’s appearance either.

But that’s not my complaint. To be fair to WWE, the Rumble always has a small number of plausible winners. Instead of a parade of lower card talent that the crowd didn’t care about (although there were plenty of those, too), the company at least kept things interesting by including wrestlers who were guaranteed to get the audience’s attention. Did they overdo it? Absolutely. Did it make a mockery of the fact that the winner gets a world title shot at Wrestlemania? Yes and no, in that Rodriguez and Michael Cole are no less likely to win than Hunico or Jey Uso, from a storyline perspective.

My real problem is that the major moments, the ones that are designed to draw money, have no context. WWE is so busy trying to create moments that they forget to tell any kind of story. Sheamus’ victory in the Rumble match had no context to it whatsoever, because there has been so little focus on him for a year and a half. WWE hasn’t told the story of his rise. In fact, they barely told the story of his face turn. Instead, it seems more time has been spent trying to give the character a comedic side than anything else. The long-term drawing power of Sheamus has been hampered – perhaps permanently – in order to give the fans short-term laughs. Fair enough, he hasn’t been booked to be a loser recently, but he has without doubt been an afterthought; there have been 10-15 other wrestlers receiving far greater focus than him at any point in the past year or so.

It was no surprise to hear this week that WWE was still undecided on the Rumble winner going into the weekend itself! Just think about that for a moment. They don’t know themselves what is actually going to happen, so how can there be any context to anything they book? And, as talented as Sheamus is, I can’t help but feel like his victory was booked purely for the sake of surprising people.

WWE doesn’t tell stories any more, and therein lies the problem. Because a moment is only memorable in the right context. You might not remember every kiss you ever had, but you remember your first. You might not remember every football match you’ve ever seen, but you remember the ones that sealed a promotion or won an important cup tie. When there is no coherent story being told, and nothing to get invested in, the moments mean nothing. WWE doesn’t realise this because it is too busy booking a comedy segment that will be forgotten five minutes later, or indeed a Royal Rumble appearance by a name from the past who will get a nostalgia pop from the crowd.

When the company does try to tell a story, it invariably ends up being a mess, or they book themselves into a corner where they cannot resolve it and have to pretend nothing ever happened. But most of the time, there is no story at all. What WWE fails to understand is that the reason we remember great moments from the past is because they were part of a wider picture, and involved characters and storylines in which the audience had an emotional investment.

There is no journey, no feeling that anything that happened previously has built to each point. WWE storytelling is like a map with no roads.

Too much time is spent trying to create moments than telling stories. And that’s the irony. If you just tell a good story, memorable moments will happen organically. It’s certainly not the case that Sheamus, or The Miz, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and Daniel Bryan are not talented, or are incapable of drawing money if presented correctly. They are merely part of process that is doomed to failure. A process where the writers are more concerned with surprising the fans or writing a funny line or killer insult– often drawing attention to those very wrestlers’ weaknesses and undercutting their drawing power – than telling any kind of story about them. WWE’s creative flaws ensure that Sheamus’ Rumble vicory was prevented from being the very moment it was booked to be.

Really enjoyed reading that Crips, and I completely agree with you on what you have written.

The WWE does seem obsessed with being socially accepted, and in attempt to do this they are pushing for those moments that will get the fans on Twitter going crazy in the hope that the more casual fan will tune in. In doing this, they have like you said completely forgotten how to tell a story or to build a character.

I used to remember watching Rumbles and marking out when the likes of SCSA or the Undertaker won the match because they had background but with Sheamus, I didn't even cheer when he won. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of the lad but him winning the Rumble made no sense. Chris Jericho, for example, who has only been back in the company for a few weeks would have made better sense and brought more enjoyment with winning because he has a little history and there was a story behind him going into the Rumble.

But I suppose we will have to get used to this as it doesn't look like the WWE will be changing anytime soon..

Very interesting article. It's true, WWE has been a real disorganised mish-mash at times, and that's not to say that it hasn't had enjoyable moments (pardon the pun), but, most of the time, there has been no long term goal or story, with Taker-HBK and Cena-Punk the honourable exceptions. The rise of social media, as alluded to in the article, is majorly responsible for this as well, trending on Twitter has become more important than an engaging and well-booked storyline.

I think along with moments, the WWE has become increasingly aware of spoilers and rumour websites, and go out of their way to surprise and shock people. Although I did accurately predict Sheamus winning the Royal Rumble, I know a lot of people were shocked by his win, and I think WWE definitely went out to shock. It's the same reason we've seen unnecessarily short title reigns over the past five years and beyond, it's the reason the return of Christian was so shoddily booked, it's the reason that the Money in the Bank has started to become such a waste because WWE think that the viewers are only out to get a cheap shock, a cheap laugh, rather than a satisfying and long-term storyline.

The WWE messed up in the second half of 2011 in my opinion, the summer of 2011 will always go down in memory as unfulfilled potential. From CM Punk's promo, the WWE could have done so much better. Punk's storyline following winning the world title at Money in the Bank was good, but it could have been great. The buzz after the promo was excellent, the buzz after he won the world title should have been exploited because it was massive. WWE jumped the gun and rushed it, poorly booked the angle with Triple H, and CM Punk still isn't quite 'there' yet.

It wasn't just the CM Punk angle that was unsatisfying. Mark Henry actually became relevant, interesting and entertaining. His Hall of Pain was really compelling, and considering how much of a footnote he had become, it took good booking to get him there, again WWE jumped the gun, it looked like it was going to be booked well, Sheamus turns face to stop him, doesn't quite take him down at first (Summerslam) but presumably he will come back later and have a satisfying end to the big, bad heel and put over a badass Sheamus. Instead Mark Henry is fed to the Big Show, who then makes Daniel Bryan a really cheap champion, Sheamus is stuck squashing Jinder Mahal every week and Mark Henry is injured and nobody has gained anything.

Daniel Bryan winning the Money in the Bank should have been booked so much better, WWE actually had the potential, and set it out. Bryan saying he will wait to Wrestlemania, be a real fighting guy, which fits into his wrestling style. Instead WWE needs the cheap surprise of the cash in, which although it clearly meant a lot to Bryan, it wasn't exactly a huge moment, because he hadn't even been relevant since he won the briefcase, and he beat the Big Show, who the fans simply don't care about.

One of the main reasons the booking is based around surprises, is because many of the decisions are surprises to the booking team's themselves, coming up with angles literally while the show is still going on. How the WWE can kid themselves into thinking that is a sustainable method of booking is baffling.

Top class, my feelings exactly, the whole creating a moment thing is spot on, when it's presented like this it shows how fickle the booking logic within the WWE truly is, how hard can it be for professional script writers to come up with long term booking plans that like you say would see these "moments" happen organically

The problem lies here in my opinion, Vince relies on writers who are more used to writing individual 'episodic drama' episodes that rely on those "moments" instead of writers who have a natural understanding of Professional Wrestling, fans despite how we may be portrayed aren't idiots, we might jump the gun at times, like different guys and place a reality on something that lacks realism at the best of times, at the end of the day though whether our guy is the flavour of the month or not, all we really want is methodical, consistant booking that allows us to suspend our disbelief long enough and we get organic storyline progressions

The Sheamus/Mark Henry thing bugged the crap out of me, I liked how Henry got past him at SummerSlam, it did Sheamus no harm at all and Henry's push was excellent, I loved the spot through the cage with Big Show, Henry putting out Kane, Show, Khali, Kozlov and anyone else was good and his fued with Orton was nice too, all the whie keeping him away from Sheamus

Sheamus should have been the guy to cost Henry his WHC to Daniel Bryann, after Henry got a clause that stopped Sheamus from competting for it, to start his heel run Bryan could be outed as keeping the 'No Sheamus Title Shot' clause, this then gives Sheamus a reason, drive and focus to win the Royal Rumble as it's the only he could potentially earn a title shot

Really enjoyed this article and can't disagree with any of it, you've managed to articulate exactly what I have been thinking for some time now. There is no logic to the booking, there is no long term plan for any of the superstars, take brodus clay for example, the universe, twitter, the iwc all expected the moster heel to come out and destroy the roster and what do we get...! This was all about the shock factor all about the moment of reveal, but someone please tell me where do they go next with him. I have banged on for a while now that the wwe especially when it comes to tittle runs are far to concerned with instant gratification, if doesn't work straight away change it has been the game plan for far to long and its seriously starting to hinder my enjoying of wrestling.

http://v2journal.com/moments.html

Excellent posts crips and Crimey.

I enjoyed the Royal Rumble as well, however even though I like Sheamus, I couldn't really understand him winning it and I think the WWE have booked themselves into a little hole as to one of their main events at mania. Is Sheamus big enough yet to be in a main event? I don't think so.

The booking for moments issue has been around for a long time now, and it makes it very difficult to connect with the WWE. I find it very easy to skip a few episdoes of RAW and still not be lost to what's going on. There's very little progression on a week to week basis, bar maybe the top fueds on the cards and so I don't find myself compelled to watch it every week. Basically, there;s nothing to miss.

I think the WWE got 2 things right last year. But the momentum from both of those things has almost diminished now. The first was CM Punk and 'that promo' and the second was Mark Henry's push. With CM Punk, they blew their load way too quick. They should have kept him off TV for longer and kept the intruige up. He promised to take the WWE title and go home, yet 2 weeks later he's back on TV with a new contract, why? He then has the hottest match in recent memory, only to be booted in the face by someone who couldn't draw 15 years ago, and then beaten by someone who was relevant 10 years ago - and all this for the benefit of progressing a fued between these 2 has-beens and to the detriment of CM Punk. Then when they try and make it look a big deal for Ziggler to go over Punk 3/4 times in succession, it fails. Going over CM Punk is not a big deal, because if part-time has-beens can do it, anyone can.

As for Henry, why did they take the title off him and decide to keep him on TV. They turned a character that no one really cared about into an unbeatable monster who rammed through all comers with some old-school simple booking and within a few weeks sucked all the steam out of the train - they even had the recently untouchable Randy Orton really put him over in promos and their matches. Why didn't they have Sheamus take Mark Henry's spot? Have him take adavantage of the injury and put Henry on the shelf for months, turning him into a serious heel instead of the half comedic half insane character he is now. Then there's a ready made fued whenever Mark Henry returns fully healed with the crowd waiting for Sheamus to get his comeuppance.

With all that being said, I do wonder if the WWE know perfectly well how to write a good wrestling programme with storyline progression and character elevation, it's they just don't want to. The see the shocks, surprises and injecting itself into the social circulation as being more important That is a real worry if it is in fact the case, because they'll never see the error of their ways if they don't see that they're doing wrong in the first place.

Great article Crips. And one that I agree with mostly. Even though I think there is nothing wrong with the false creation of moments. Especially if you're trying to fill 4 hours of TV time a week (7 hours in a PPV week). You need that false creation of moments to make a weekly episodic TV programme addictive enough to keep it's viewers. I think if those 4 hours were full of simply organically developing stroylines, then it would be a little too slow paced to retain some viewers (and I think I include myself in that).

In my opinion it's all about achieving the right balance of falsely created moments and organically developed ones - a balance that they missed at the Royal Rumble, I completely agree. It got to the stage where a stupid entrant wasn't even surprising (Michael Cole) because so many had already gone before him that it had become the norm.

Just on Sheamus - I think the storyline is going to develop after the Rumble (I suppose it has to ) And it will be based around him and Bryan wanting to prove themselves because last year their match was pulled from Wrestlemania fairly late in the planning. I think that will be Sheamus' reason for selecting Bryan. Sheamus went all out to win the Rumble so there was no chance of being pulled from Wrestlemania this time around. Jericho and Punk will have enough fuel to work with without the match being made via the Royal Rumble - so it would be a wasted victory.

Basically, wrestling is s**t.

Mr H wrote:Basically, wrestling is s**t.

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