The year is 2014 and Batista has just won the Royal Rumble match and Randy Orton has just defeated John Cena for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. If you hadn't been keeping up to date with the goings on in the world of wrestling recently, you'd be forgiven for thinking I had got confused with the year 2007.
But no. Last night at the Royal Rumble PPV, the aforementioned events did take place. Much to the disgust, I might add, off the Pittsburgh crowd in attendance. It should be a turning point for WWE. The two supposed biggest stars in the company got booed the entire match, with chants of "boring" ringing out at regular intervals. This was nothing to do with wrestling storyline, the participants were not being booed because they are the perceived bad guys. It was simply down to the fact that people are so tired of the same thing. Randy Orton vs John Cena has been happening every few months practically since 2005, and neither of their characters has really changed at all in that time. It really is boring.
Last night the man the crowd really wanted to see was Daniel Bryan. His match against Bray Wyatt opened the show, and stole the show. For the rest of the night his name was chanted constantly, and everyone in attendance and those watching at home held on to the hope that WWE and the powers that be would do the right thing and enter him in the Royal Rumble match, and have him walk away from it victorious. He is young, he is exciting, he is the most popular guy in the company. But those in charge did not do the right thing, and they continued to bury their most popular star.
It is not clear who exactly is running WWE at this moment, Vince McMahon or Triple H. But what is clear is that neither of them see Daniel Bryan as the man to carry the company. It is common knowledge that Vince McMahon has a big man fetish, he is a muscle mark. Daniel Bryan doesn't fit his description of a WWE champion. But Vince needs to get with the programme. In the past, he's always said he'll do what's best for business, but it seems now in his later years he is too stubborn for this. CM Punk once described Vince McMahon as a millionaire who should be a billionaire and it's not too hard to see why he felt this way. Surely he must see, after last night's reaction, that he is risking the future of the WWE? Not only in the short term, as buy rates for the next PPV will obviously be down after last night's reaction, but also with the WWE network launching soon. They can't afford to alienate the majority of fans by not pushing the most popular superstar, just because Vince doesn't think he has enough steroids in his system.
Vince McMahon has strange ideas about what people want to see in wrestling. He has always preferred to have the big guys beat up the small guys. This was clear last night, when El Torito entered the Rumble match. He thinks people get enjoyment from seeing a little guy get thrown around by a big muscle bound man. Vince McMahon thinks bullying makes good storylines.
So he continues to keep John Cena and Randy Orton at the top of the company, even though everyone is bored with it. Wrestling has always gone in stages, or as they are more often known, "eras". In modern wrestling there have been two defining eras. First, there was the wrestling boom in the mid to late 1980s, which included Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant etc. This was followed by the second big boom of the Attitude Era in the late 90s to early 2000s, which was spearheaded by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. The time between these eras has really just been a lull, where wrestling has continued but hasn't flourished. The lull between the wrestling boom and the Attitude Era was carried by Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, who pretty much kept WWF afloat during that period. In my opinion we've been going through one of these lull's for probably about 10 years now, and that has been spearheaded by John Cena and Randy Orton.
During these quiet periods for wrestling, the industry is just waiting for the next big star or stars to come along to elevate them to the big time again. In the 1990s Stone Cold came along and changed wrestling forever as he ushered in the Attitude Era. However, the catalyst for this change was the popularity of WCW at the time. WWE (WWF at the time) was forced to make the change, and it paid off for them.
Right now there is no competition to WWE. There is no WCW breathing down their neck, threatening to steal their viewership and their top stars. At the moment, wrestling is in a lull and unfortunately it doesn't look like the people in charge at WWE are going to be pressured into changing that. Daniel Bryan might be this generations Stone Cold Steve Austin, but whilst Vince McMahon and his family continue to do things their own way at WWE, we may never get to see the next golden era of professional wrestling.
@adamheath
