The Problem with WWE (random epiphany I had)

[Wolf Hurricane]

As we all know, one of the biggest comparisons professional wrestling gets is to soap operas. Well, how about this; what if the biggest problem going on is, ironically, that WWE writing isn't soap opera enough - particularly in that it lacks kinetic writing and forethought. Even if you've never watched a daytime soap, you know that one of it's trademarks is that everything that happens either triggers, influences, or is related to something that happens next. More importantly, angles and arcs are planned out many episodes in advanced; and as a result, they even have alternate angles they can do if, say, they have to throw out an arc for some reason or an actor is unable to participate. We don't have that in the WWE; what we have is "angle start, angle end, new angle," and you can forget any forethought, so if any of the key players in said angle get sick, you pretty much throw out the entire thing or shoehorn someone else in a role clearly meant for someone else.

Just something to chew on. Along with the usual ideas of building the midcard and figuring out what to do with the Divas (be it using them or losing them), what about having some better planning; think months ahead, not episodes - "after this arc, let's go with this," "if this guy gets injured, let's go with this," and have them crafted so they fit together like puzzle pieces, rather than hastily smashed together end pieces.

[hitch]

Soaps are planned and scripted months in advance. If a character or storyline isn't working it can be changed or the character written out but it takes weeks/months for the TV show to be affected.

I think too much emphasis is put on 'live' wrestling. I think PPVs aside they could easily film weeks in advance and for it not to impact their ratings. People might claim spoilers would mean nobody would watch it - but the same has been true with soap and dramas on TV for decades. You could find out detailed spoilers of every scripted show you enjoy watching within the next hour. But you won't. Even if you do - you'll still tune in. It's how the majority of television works and works very, very successfully. To claim it couldn't possibly work for WWE would not be accurate in my view.

I think with the temptation of weekly live programming to chop and change week by week damages any possibility of a consistent storyline arc and undermines the success of something/someone getting over as so much is based on immediate reaction one week.

If soap opera storylines, new characters etc were assessed and judged purely on one episode then 99.99% of them would never make it to the second week without serious retooling or being completely abandoned.

[BoilerRoomBrawler]

I agree. To take that even further, soaps usually have intertwining storylines as you follow different characters with individual problems pass in and out of each other's.

So really, Vince should hire some soap writers. They can be there to juggle multiple storylines while people from Hollywood are more the "ideas men" and then he should have a couple people with a mind toward wrestling itself. It could be an interesting blend of methods. It could happen, y'know, on some other planet.

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2012 21:03:39 GMT -5 BoilerRoomBrawler said:

So really, Vince should hire some soap writers. They can be there to juggle multiple storylines while people from Hollywood are more the "ideas men" and then he should have a couple people with a mind toward wrestling itself. It could be an interesting blend of methods. It could happen, y'know, on some other planet.

The WWE do not need to be expanding the writing room, they need to be narrowing it down to a 1 or 2 man creative team so we can get a singular vision