It seems that the WWE creative team is constantly being criticized — fairly or unfairly — for the content that they’re producing. Point being, whenever something awful takes place on WWE television, even if the concept was strong, the writers are always getting blamed and the wrestlers almost always seem to skate, no matter how badly they delivered what they were scripted to deliver.
WWE fans aren’t the only people who criticize WWE’s creative team. Former wrestlers — from the bottom level to the top level — are always on the writers’ case. From “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, to Mick Foley, almost everyone wants to see the writers go away. As a matter of fact, this past Monday on the Stone Cold Podcast , not only did Paul Heyman read a text that said “fire all of the writers” after himself and Steve Austin criticized WWE’s current creative system and the lack of true money promos, Austin and Heyman sold a potential match between Austin and Lesnar better than WWE has sold any big match in several years, and they were completely unscripted. It was simple and to the point.
WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross is the latest person to criticize WWE’s creative team via his blog , saying that everything is overthought. Ross longs for the days of simple, straightforward wrestling shows, and he’s not a fan of today’s WWE where everything is so complicated and things are being changed on a minute-by-minute basis.
“Blame who you want, but the territory system stopped doing what brought them to the dance, and that was featuring new stars in compelling rivalries that were based in easy to understand, common sense story lines produced in weekly, episodic television. Plus, the talents back in the day were, by and large, better story tellers than we are fed today with some exceptions.”
“An essentially, easy to watch, non complex hour of TV that virtually anyone could understand and enjoy was what worked best for many of us lifers.”
“Where have those days gone?”
Why is everything so complicated and overthought? Well, in Ross’s opinion, the writers are trying to change the landscape of the business on a weekly basis. In short, some writers want to be known as the one who changed the business forever.
“The product is by and large over thought and those in creative charge seemingly feel compelled to take a tried and true product and put their personal finger prints on it as if they are going to be the one who is forever known as ‘changing the wrestling business forever.’”
This isn’t the first time that Ross has pointed out that WWE is constantly trying to change a form of entertainment that has been successful for several decades. In February of last year, Ross appeared on the Opie and Anthony Show and criticized Vince McMahon for changing things about the business that didn’t need to be changed by giving a brilliant analogy, saying that Vince doing what he’s doing is almost like if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell came out and said that the NFL would be changing the shape of the football, and if someone asked him why, he’d say “well, we’ve had the same football for several years now…”
Basically, his point was that McMahon just wants to change things to avoid staying the same, when — for the most part — nothing needed to be changed, and staying the same would have been best for business.
[Image via Global Force Wrestling ]
