We Need to Talk About WWE's Storytelling Problem

From women's division flubs to mishandling NXT callups, the company's narrative quality is not matching up to its increase in revenue.

Stephanie McMahon hits the microphone during the contract signing between Ronda Rousey (left) and current champion, Nia Jax (right). Photo © WWE

Being a wrestling fan is often a guilty pleasure. It’s often a soap opera with more punching and table breaking.

However, most of the time I don’t have a problem saying I’m a WWE fan. But the last few weeks has changed that. There’s problematic storytelling at a systemic level right now. And there’s been a dramatic increase of segments where if someone didn’t watch wrestling, I’d have a hard time justifying watching, and often even explaining what the hell was going on.

There have been two of the most atrocious segments in recent memory with Sami Zayn bringing in Bobbie Lashley’s “sisters” that turned out to be wrestlers in drag trying to beat up Lashley. Zayn is incredible on the microphone and working a crowd, so it says something when he can’t even sell a segment. Then there was Big Cass. Oh, Big Cass.

There was a time he was in a Championship qualifying match and held his own. But he had a mouthpiece, someone who could talk on the mic. The seven-footer has potential, but his segment in which he beat up a dwarf wrestler dressed as Daniel Bryan was in poor taste, bad storytelling and frankly felt like it was something you’d see decades ago.

But the biggest problem came with the Women’s Division. It seems when they don’t want to make an effort to book them properly, the solution is a Six-Woman Tag Match!

Then there was this week’s Raw, which is completely indicative of WWE’s storytelling problems. Stephanie McMahon came back and her performance and narrative made absolutely no sense. First, she returned to belittle talent more without any repercussions, which is a problem. Then, during the Women’s Championship contract signing for Money in the Bank, two smart competitors fell for the most blatant manipulation imaginable after their previous storylines said they should’ve done the exact opposite.

Then there was this week’s Raw, which is completely indicitave of WWE’s storytelling problems. Stephanie McMahon came back and her performance and narrative made absolutely no sense. First, she returned to belittle talent more without any repercussions, which is a problem. Then, during the Women’s Championship contract signing for Money in the Bank, two smart competitors fell for the most blatant manipulation imaginable after their previous storylines said they should’ve done the exact opposite.

Ronda’s match was built against Stephanie. They HATED each other. You saw over 70,000 fans go completely berserk once Rousey got her hands on McMahon. Yet, when they see each other on Raw this week, they addressed the entire rivalry in two lines of dialogue and moved on. Then as McMahon tried to turn Ronda and Nia Jax against each other by trying to manipulate them, it worked. The story setup seemed so obvious that the two competitors would see through it, agree that they’d face each other at Money in the Bank, but for now let’s throw this manipulative executive through a table. But they didn’t. Stephanie was able to talk about Nia’s size without any repercussions. Which again is a problem. Nia’s entire storyline at Wrestlemania was built around her size, and how the former champion Alexa used her and manipulated her for her own gain. Then Alexa got hers for being a terrible person. So why does this not apply to Stephanie? Nia should’ve been irate and decimated Stephanie. Yet the middle-school level manipulation worked as if both Nia and Ronda completely forgot what they stood for weeks ago at Wrestlemania and couldn’t see through Stephanie, a character whose M.O. is manipulative belittling.

So either WWE hopes we have the attention span of a squirrel in a Planters factory or they have no ability to work with their talent to tell a coherent narrative in today’s world. Storytelling at these levels with men in drag, dwarves being physically abused, women being forgotten and easily manipulated shows how far WWE still has to go to be relevant to mainstream audiences again. These aren’t acceptable behaviors in 2018, and makes for poor, poor writing. With how much content they generate, it’s not surprising. They take no time off and Vince is known for changing his mind about matches and outcomes often during the show rather than choose a lane and build a long-term narrative around it.

It’s why NXT is miles ahead. They don’t treat their women’s roster as if it’s a cluttered mess. And they film weeks of shows at a time, forcing them to know where they’re going with their characters and story.

I hope things change because the roster is insane right now. The number of people in each show to hold up their specific division is formidable. Now if they could work on long-term arcs that don’t insult even the most casual audience member they may be able to tell a decent story again.