The biggest problem I’ve had with WWE, and it’s been a problem for many, many years, is how unnatural it all is. It’s overly scripted, sure, but it’s the language within the scripting that makes it so unbearable.
If I have to hear the word “opportunity” one more time...
It got so bad recently they started calling the second fall in a 2-out-of-3 Falls match a “second fall opportunity.” It’s silly, and we know it’s silly, because no one talks like this, anywhere, especially when they’re talking about fighting. And that’s what this is, folks, or what it’s supposed to be pretending to be. Pro wrestling is, more or less, simulated fighting. Two wrestlers build an issue between them and they settle it with a match. Or, put even more simply, they yell at each other and then fight.
It’s hard to get into a fight between two people if they’re calmly stating things like: “I would like a championship opportunity.”
You know what I can get into?
This:
.@TrueKofi has a little something for you! pic.twitter.com/UAYQQvWC3Z
— TDE Wrestling (@tde_wrestling) July 3, 2019
That’s Kofi Kingston responding to Samoa Joe playing games with him by giving him the middle finger.
Or this:
That’s Bobby Lashley, who Braun Strowman put through the stage on Raw this week, saying “the next time I see that son of a bitch I’m not gonna send him to the hospital, I’m gonna send him to the morgue.”
That’s the kind of talk you expect from grown ass men who are about to fight each other, and it’s been sorely missed in WWE.
It doesn’t all have to be that way, of course. The story of Drake Maverick nearing a divorce because he’s neglecting his wife in favor of the object of his obsession, the 24/7 championship, is fantastic. There’s certainly a place on the card for this kind of variety.
But WWE would do well to give us more of this, dare I say it, edgy content.