The Lack of Feuds is Killing Wrestling

Roman Reigns, if he were in ECW in the mid-90s, would be a monster star. In WWE, in 2015, he is unbearably dull. What made ECW great is the same thing that makes modern day wrestling so boring...and it has little to do with hardcore.

When a wrestler is being true to himself, a hyped up version of a desire that already exists inside him, and that wrestler comes across a completely different wrestler, who is also being true to himself, and they are both fighting for the same spot, THAT is what makes wrestling compelling. Raven and Tommy Dreamer were completely different people but it was in what drew them together that made their feud so enthralling to watch. There didn't need to be an obvious reason why these guys were fighting, they created one based on things that made sense for each character.

Very few wrestlers today have solid characters and, even those that do, they seem to turn into a generic, sterile mess when they reach television. I think this is part of what makes NXT so great, there isn't the same pressure there to be a certain way in order to not offend the "powers that be". What happened to wrestling being able to tackle issues of divisiveness in an over the top parody of reality? I'm not sure wrestling is dying so much as political correctness is killing it.

Regardless, even in the most constrained of circumstances, if there are no heated feuds over issues people can relate to then there is no reason to watch. You can break all the tables, do all the high spots, put the biggest stars available against each other, but it all becomes boring when there is nothing to get invested in. As much as I love Sheamus, the WWE has done an atrocious job of letting him be the badass warrior that made him a standout to begin with. In FCW Sheamus had an awesome gimmick that easily could have worked in the mainstream but the WWE is so obsessed with reinventing people to their own liking that they stripped him of everything that made him special to begin with.

Wrestling with handcuffs on has to be difficult. Sheamus the badass vs. Roman Reigns the badass would sell. Sheamus the confusing goof vs. Roman Reigns the unwanted hero with no defining qualities is what doesn't sell. Storylines should move based on characters, not based on the story. In other words, if you want to tell a love story that ends in the lovers hating one another you could paste any people into a generic story if you don't give a damn about who those people are. If you build that story around the characters that already exist then it can be a lot more natural and provide a lot more surprises because even the person telling the story doesn't necessarily know what is going to happen beforehand.

Feuds are what make wrestling great. Throwing a few guys together for a few months and calling it a feud is nonsense. Paige and Charlotte are trying to add realism into a feud between two completely undefined characters; it is hard to feel emotionally invested in two people you have no way of investing in to begin with. They may be great athletes but there is no defining characteristic that they stick to that fans can relate with. Dreamer was an underdog that didn't give up, Raven was a misanthrope taking out his aggression on people who thought they were better than him, Rock was the guy everyone wanted to be, Stone Cold had a no nonsense attitude everyone wishes they could have, Cena does the right thing even when it isn't popular...but how many other characters can be broken down in this way? Who have a trait that remains regardless of who they are feuding with?

The lost art of the feud is what is killing wrestling and it is what they need to bring it back.

The big problem isn't really that there are no feuds, it that there is one feud that really matters - The Authority vs. Whoever the top babyface is. Think about it, for going on 3 years now, the top angle for the title has been HHH/Steph/Orton vs. Bryan and then HHH/Steph/Seth vs. either Cena, Lesnar or Roman. This is always the feud on top, even when it makes no sense.

One of the reasons this is so terrible, other than being beyond stale, is the wrestlers are all interchangeable to the story - the only central people to the plot are HHH and Steph. Like oh no Seth is hurt, guess The Authority will just hate Reigns for no reason now and align with Sheamus and all is saved. This also causes all the heels to have the same generic "respect the authority, hhh is cool" attitude, and all the babyfaces to have this super lame "i'm a teenager authority is lame dude" gimmick. Like it's so clear that Roman reigns is just being given Cena's material because he has to be a "cool" anti-authority babyface, it's literally the only role the top babyface is allowed to have.

Not to mention that any wrestler not involved in the authority angle (minus your megastars like brock and undertaker) may as well not exist. Everyone outside of that story is a complete and total after thought, and they just randomly trade wins and belts. None of it matters since they aren't in the only thing of importance on the show.

I realize I'm just agreeing with you in a really long winded manner, but I just needed to vent about how this angle is terrible and kills both the wrestlers involved in it, and the wrestlers not involved in it.

tl;dr the authority angle is real bad, guys.

You make an excellent point though. When they talk about people "carrying the ball" and doing something new/exciting, it is hard to do that when your top storyline has been the same for 3 years. Yes, sure, they are lacking in star power but that is because everyone is interchangeable. "We have a story idea, we need a good guy and a bad guy...hmm, Randy Orton and Sheamus. Oh, Orton is injured? Roman Reigns and Sheamus. Perfect!"

It's so counter productive to what the territories proved works. Characters get over, individual people are what the crowd connects to, not meaningless soap opera drivel. I think this is part of why I like Rusev right now, he is playing up the paranoid, possessive, scary man angle and seems to be sticking to it. It's a great character trait to have for a villain...until they randomly decide to make him stop doing it.

3 years? The "heel authority figure holding down a top face" has been going on in one form or another almost non stop since 98

TeeBeeKay wrote:3 years? The "heel authority figure holding down a top face" has been going on in one form or another almost non stop since 98

I mean I wanted to talk about this one specific storyline, since it has literally been going nonstop for 3 years. But yea, the evil authority figure has been there go to top angle for yearsssss

Yeah I understand, I'm just so bored of that played out archetype

Everything is just stale, the format has been the same since 98, the stage has been the same since what 2007?

They really need a totally fresh approach to everything, but we're not going ro get that

I think part of what makes William Regal so fun and fresh on NXT is that it is the total opposite, he's a face authority figure that doesn't show up every week. But you know when he's on camera, it's because something important is happening. The whole Heel Authority Figure(s) is so beyond played out it's pathetic.

The other thing I love about Regal is that he seems to be a really good GM, like one time I think Breeze was asking for a match that night, and Regal told him off because he had already booked a full show like a real person would do instead of waiting for the opening segment of a show to try and book a main event

And then there was the time Sasha and Bayley were in the ring after Brooklyn and Regal came out to make the Ironman Match and he just seemed so happy as a GM that he could present this match to the world

Regal's just the best

It's a WWE problem mostly. There are no characters. There are no feuds. There is no progress. There is only the endless McMahon circlejerk.

It has been so refreshing watching Progress and seeing the whole Havoc/Ospreay feud unfold. It's just so much better than anything 'E has done this year. This has been the year that I've pretty much stopped watching the weeklys and just stuck with indies, ppvs and watching some older stuff while getting a friend into wrestling.

/rant

TeeBeeKay wrote:The other thing I love about Regal is that he seems to be a really good GM, like one time I think Breeze was asking for a match that night, and Regal told him off because he had already booked a full show like a real person would do instead of waiting for the opening segment of a show to try and book a main event

And then there was the time Sasha and Bayley were in the ring after Brooklyn and Regal came out to make the Ironman Match and he just seemed so happy as a GM that he could present this match to the world

Regal's just the best

I agree with all the "WWE doesn't know how to book a feud or make compelling characters" points, but I just mainly wanted to emphasize this point in particular. All praise be to the Regal.

I haven't read anything in this thread yet I'm saving it for later but God damn I'm so excited there is a long BBB article to read.

Missed you bro!

Ok guys so now that the Big Dog is a badass over champion what do you think is going to happen from here.

Clearly, I think they're gonna go with Roman vs HHH for the title at Mania.

Gets stripped of the title on Monday. Title is on the line in the Rumble. Roman wins, defends vs. HHH.

Its a sad state of affairs when a halfway-to-decent Raw gets as much praise as we gave it on Monday. That shouldn't be the exception but the norm.