Coming out of this year’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view (PPV), my main man Geno got a quote from The Dark Knight stuck in his head when thinking about Vince McMahon, Brock Lesnar, and WWE’s Universal title.
Turns out that’s not the only well WWE’s gone back to. And it brought the above True Detective and Battlestar Galactica catchphrases to mind for yours truly.
See, there’s a list going around of similarities between the current booking landscape and where Raw & SmackDown were nearly two years ago. This was apparently first mentioned by Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez, and has since been turned into this graphic by another veteran of the wrestling web...
don't know who pointed this out but July 2019 = October 2017
— MaffewBotchamaniaGuy (@Maffewgregg) July 16, 2019
Brock Lesnar as Universal Champ
AJ Styles as U.S. Champ
New Day as SD Tag Champs
Kevin Owens & Shane McMahon feuding
Finn Balor & Bray Wyatt going at it with new outfits pic.twitter.com/Zn75RrsITV
This is being shared with at least an eye roll by most fans, and outright condemnation by others. But there are only so many stories to tell. The 21st century New England Patriots are the 1950s and 60s New York Yankees. The Lion King is Hamlet.
It’s all about the craft with which the stories are told.
At least for WWE, the good news is it won’t be too difficult to tell all five stories from October 2017 better this time around.
And, hey. Even if they screw ‘em up... they’ll get a chance to tell them again in another couple of years.