Wrestling with Logic: Shooting blanks

Courtesy: WWE

By Chad Smart

@chadsmart & @my123cents on Twitter
Listen to the podcast

Follow my blog with Bloglovin 

I didn’t have a Wrestling with Logic last week due to there not really being anything to nitpick. Those weeks are few and far between. This week’s topic goes back to something we’ve discussed her several times; the little details.

At the beginning of RAW, Seth Rollins took center ring to talk about the triple-threat match at Battleground. During his promo, Seth mentioned he wasn’t supposed to talk about Roman Reigns’ suspension but since it was live TV and he had a live microphone, he was going to talk about Roman embarrassing the WWE.

As soon as Seth started to talk about Roman’s suspension, the production team put Roman’s apology tweet up on the Titantron. If Seth wasn’t supposed to talk about Roman, why was there a graphic already made and ready to be displayed? So once again, WWE’s desire to plan out every aspect of their shows takes away from unpredictability or intrigue.

A lot of people like to talk about how shocking CM Punk’s “pipe bomb” promo was as to what it takes to be a good promo in WWE. While Punk’s promo was most likely just as pre-planned and approved beforehand just like Rollins’ promo, the difference is WWE allowed Punk’s promo to come off as spontaneous. Had WWE production put up images of people Punk talked about during his promo or shown highlights of John Cena, Vince McMahon or ice cream bars, the impact of Punk’s words would have been nullified.

Steve Austin recently talked about the lack of realism in WWE at the moment and I couldn’t agree with him more. Realism comes down to the little details. If WWE wants to continue overproducing their product, that’s their choice. They just have to accept that doing so makes their programming as edgy as a Leave it To Beaver rerun.