WWE: Why WWE Creative Needs to Desperately Rethink How It Books Feuds

Indolent booking is no novel concept when dealing with WWE Creative. However, it has reached appalling, mind-numbingly frustrating heights lately, although aided and abetted by the untimely losses of Superstars like Daniel Bryan, Bad News Barrett and now Roman Reigns—stars upon which their original booking most probably relied.

That, however, is no excuse for shoddy storytelling.

While I may not be important enough for WWE to listen to my opinion, it should matter that a common fan can easily point gaping holes in their scripts without much thought. It shouldn't be this easy, not even in the kayfabe world of WWE where dead men, cultist madmen and demons from hell roam free.

The first major flaw is WWE's understanding of storyline progression: It's painfully repetitive and slow. If the idea is to project brooding distrust between Cody Rhodes and Goldust, they do it for three Monday Night Raws on a trot, against the same rivals (RybAxel) in matches that start and end the same way.

Daniel Bryan has to suffer unfair beatdowns from the same cronies in the same style for a month to emphasise The Authority's evil dominion over the wrestling world, and the Bellas have to scream, scratch and slap each other for weeks to live out the family spat. 

It's a weekly episodic television show, which should imply a step-by-step storyline progression. I'm all for dragging out stories to build up anticipation, but it needs to be done smartly while keeping the most frivolous audience in mind. There is also a fundamental difference between progressing a story while stretching it out and just repeating what you did the previous week. 

It shouldn't be (or rather can't be) that hard, since Monday Night Raw and pay-per-views are the only shows where thought and effort are evidently invested. The people in charge of NXT clearly have been granted seclusion from head writers, which is probably why they're doing noble work in the dregs of developmental. SmackDown is just a show to try out wrestling matches that will be repeated move-for-move on the next Raw.

The second problem is centred around match relevance. In a time when WWE is desperately shoving the WWE Network down everyone's throats, it's important that they build PPVs as shows of importance and relevance, not just those shows that fall right before the end of a regular subscriber's six-month commitment period. 

Which means that matches on a PPV need to be built on Raw, with their consequences considered after. However, Roman Reigns bellowed his way to a definitive win over Seth Rollins a week before their Night of Champions pay-per-view match. Morbid it may sound, it's probably better that we got a Dean Ambrose special instead.

If not wasted on Raw before a PPV, most matches are repeated on the Raw right after. If you need crowd investment in the fictional storylines you're trying to sell, they need to have fictional importance. They need to mean something, and characters need to have incentives.

Pay-per-view matches need to have impactful consequences for either result, which then need to be addressed in the upcoming shows. That's how you move forward, construct compelling television, create new scenarios and progress characters. 

If you're going to repeat Mark Henry vs. Rusev on Raw again, what's the point? Why would I pay to watch the PPV match if it doesn't lead to anything new and is repeated on a free show? 

Why should I believe Bray Wyatt means business when he's doing the same thing every week and delivering the same demented promos despite suffering indisputably clean losses? Empty words and threats would make him Kane, and the last person you want to be today is Kane (well, him or Zack Ryder). 

John Cena can't let Wyatt's message escape the cage, so he must not lose. However, nothing changed when he did lose, so why should we care the next time?

In fact, why should we care about any Cena match at all? He wins 90 percent of them, and the ones he loses don't really lead to anything. His massively touted loss to The Rock at WrestleMania 28 lead to his win over a returning Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules. He lost to Daniel Bryan, won the World Heavyweight Title in his return match and destroyed Damien Sandow's only shot at glory. He got trampled by The Beast Incarnate at this year's SummerSlam and he's still Never Giving Up and Hustling and Respecting.

Cena losses don't mean anything, and for a character that's at the centre of most storylines and main events today, they really should.

Still, the logical inconsistencies of a storyline are the worst. Bray Wyatt claims to relish locking Chris Jericho or Cena in a steel cage so they cannot escape his wrath yet tries to escape the cage every couple of minutes during the match. 

Nikki Bella, after being thrown around in handicap matches on numerous occasions, stands up against her self-centred courtroom-loving twin sister and is considered the villain. Dolph Ziggler rues the intrusion of privacy of many Hollywood stars yet gleefully shares leaked pictures of The Miz. Brie Bella quits and slaps Stephanie McMahon but sues McMahon when she does the same. 

Babyfaces have always had to build on WWE's flawed understanding of crowd reactions. It's no wonder then that heels get much better reactions than faces.

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