Dear WWE, Every Storyline Should Be Important

This week, Raw was more about the Money In the Bank Ladder match than any other match or feud. Considering that the Money In the Bank Pay Per view is just around the corner, that seems to be a valid move. It has built a discussion around who will grab the titles from atop the ladder and who will be the next MITB contract winner. But all this attention on these two matches led to a very lackluster Raw which was high on filler matches and if they were trying to form new matches or new feuds, nothing was achieved.

Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins look set to feud each other and that seems to be looking like a long affair and Roman Reigns has been catapulted to the main event and that status looks to be undiminished for a while. And this seems to be indicating that the Shield has gone their separate ways. While it seemed like Rollins and Ambrose will have separate match, Rollins inclusion in the second ladder match for the contract seems to be a good tease for his eventual one on one battle with Dean Ambrose. Rollins can win and defend the briefcase in a future match with his former brother or lose and start a full-fledged feud. To me, the latter seems to be a much better option. But to get to the point, apart from these two matches no new match seems to be getting much notice by the audience or Creative.

Even if Summer Rae does a good job with her on screen persona, she seems to be stuck in a feud that nobody really cares about. And even though Paige is doing better than most divas who’ve held that championship title, her reign is making people anticipating for AJ Lee’s return so that things could pick up more steam. That is because the WWE is refusing to give Paige some mic time or work on her character sketch. She seems to be heading for a feud with Cameron and that hasn’t got anyone’s curiosity or attention.

So, in short the next few weeks will focus more on the candidates set to face each other for the MITB contract and the titles. And in between all of that Triple H and Stephanie will make sure that they don’t miss out on their weekly epiphanies on Daniel Bryan’s appearances. By the way, the epiphanies have been dragged on and on and on.

While the WWE has the scope and time to focus on the dynamics that each wrestler, involved in those ladder matches, shares with one another but that alone won’t cover the three hour running time of the Pay Per View. The tag team feud and the divas feud have been kept aside, undoubtedly.

This is one of the many reasons why the WWE product has an erratic following- because of its erratic focus on storylines and the wrestlers that it employs. If the product has to expand so has the creative force. Why should only some parts of an entire show be fun? Why can’t most of the show be fun?

This reminds me one of Punk and Triple H’s interaction early on during what was called as the Summer Of Punk. Triple H said, “Some of these people actually like the show.” To which Punk replied, “ You say half the people tuning in and like what they see and the other half not liking what they see? I want everybody to like what they see. . .” That’s an ubiquitous idea but the point of having a three hour show is that you invest the time and money on some storylines that have potential to entertain. Sme people will actually like Ambrose VS Rollins more. Some will like Reigns VS Triple H more. The fact is that different storylines will have a different following and that can lead to a better consumption of the product if the storylines and the performers in it are used to their full potential. But no, some are just comic reliefs. Some, like the divas and Tag division, are overlooked and some superstars like Kofi Kingston will only have a career high in Battle Royal matches.

The WWE’s undergoing losses? Oh how am I not surprised!