Do you remember the night the nWo formed in WCW, when Hulk Hogan turned heel right in the middle of the ring, and outraged fans threw trash and beer into the ring? That’s how you debut a new faction. Just as memorable was the time that the Nexus formed in WWE by marching down to the ring, attacking whoever they found in it, and literally tearing the ring and the ringside area to pieces. That’s also how you debut a new faction. Compare and contrast those scenarios to the debut of the balaclava-wearing faction “Retribution” in the past two weeks, and it seems that WWE has forgotten how to work stable angles.
So far, all we know about Retribution is that they enjoy acts of petty vandalism, they run away after throwing things through windows, and they’re all physically small. They haven’t told us who they are or what they want, we don’t have the first clue who their leader is or who might be under the balaclavas, and we haven’t been given a reason to care about them. Attacking someone the audience has an affinity for might give them a shot at getting over. Having them delicately flip a car over or throw a cinder block at a doorway inside WWE headquarters does not. It’s still early days, but Retribution look like they’re doomed to be another WWE failure, coming hot on the heels of so many others.
We can’t blame WWE for trying new things at the moment. Their ratings for Monday Night RAW are hitting all-time lows, and so far, nothing appears to be able to reverse the trend. Becky Lynch is away on maternity leave. Roman Reigns won’t come to work while there’s a risk that he or his young family might be exposed to the virus, and so his return could still be months away. John Cena works in Hollywood full time now. Years of failing to create new stars has come back to bite WWE on its backside in the worst possible way at the worst possible time, and now it feels like there are too many things going on at once to keep up with, and not enough time spent on a single one of them to help the audience to engage.
Another example of what we’re talking about here is “RAW Underground,” which appears to be WWE’s attempt at creating a worked MMA league. To be fair to WWE, the concept has garnered them some mainstream press attention, but only because the media think the idea has been stolen from Fight Club. In reality, there are a couple of other pro wrestling companies who can rightfully claim that they’ve tried this idea in the past too. There are no ropes on the RAW Underground ring, there are dancing girls in the background like it’s still 1998, and the “women’s revolution” never happened, and the fights end in seconds rather than minutes. As most of the fights are ended by strikes or quick submissions, this rather begs the question of why the action in the regular ring takes so long to complete, but then WWE has never been big on logic. They haven’t even explained to us why Shane McMahon is in charge of this project, or what the point is supposed to be.
At the same time all of this is going on, more names from the past than you can shake a stick at have been brought back in an attempt to pop ratings. Randy Orton is the most pushed act on television. 71-year-old Ric Flair is taking (very gentle) bumps again. Christian has teased the idea of getting back in the ring, and the Big Show is working main events in 2020. There’s a novelty act involving Otis and Mandy, in which WWE believes the joke is that someone like Mandy would never go for someone like Otis in real life. Zelina Vega has a tag team who fall out with each other every week. Seth Rollins and Buddy Murphy are apparently legitimately blinding people and don’t get arrested for it. It’s chaos – and it’s a vaguely enjoyable sort of chaos at times – but it still comes across as a case of Vince McMahon and his writers throwing you-know-what at the wall and hoping something will stick.
Ratings have been in decline for a while now, and the trend for short-lived concepts and ideas has been around for just as long. Remember “wild card” brand extensions, or those couple of weeks where the final hour of RAW was supposed to be more “hardcore” after the introduction of the 24/7 title (which immediately became a running gag)? Vince and the creative department are throwing ideas out like they’re Online Slots UK at the moment, hoping that if they keep spinning for long enough, something will eventually pay off for them. This is an especially appropriate metaphor as the company genuinely has a range of new WWE-branded online slots coming out later this year. What Vince may have forgotten, though, is that you can only stick around at an online slots website while you still have the bankroll to cover your losses. When that runs out, you’re done. If WWE reaches the point of no return with viewing figures before they hit on a winning idea, it won’t matter how good that idea is. There won’t be anyone left to see it.
It isn’t too late to salvage this situation. The writers could get a grip of Retribution within the next week and find a way to prove to us that the group isn’t just Vince’s way of mocking Antifa. They could give them a story, an objective, and a leader who’s good on the microphone. Ironically this would have been a perfect role for the Sanity stable, which Vince did nothing with for over a year before releasing leader Eric Young in April. Alternatively, maybe Shane’s motive for running RAW Underground is to train up a gang of fighters before letting them loose on the main roster. Maybe there’s another idea up someone’s sleeve somewhere that we haven’t seen yet. If there is, it’s got to be good. With ratings threatening to dip below one million of the decline isn’t halted, the company can’t afford to make any more mistakes.
