The WWE has been big on pursuing moments for a while, but nothing was more egregious than what wrestling fans just witnessed these past couple of weeks. Sami Zayn won his first WWE championship in Saudi Arabia, which made for a truly unexpected and exciting twist for the company. Not long after, he almost immediately dropped it to CM Punk in his first Monday Night Raw back in a while in front of his hometown crowd in Chicago.
I should've been thrilled for both, as a longtime Zayn fan and someone who feels Punk is having one of the best runs of his career. Instead, however, I felt empty, and like I noticed the WWE jingling car keys in my face. They gave Sami the belt in Saudi Arabia because of the pop, and they did the same to Punk because, again, the pop would create a big viral moment. To me, it seems the company is more than happy to chase the easiest pop to achieve, rather than work toward long and sustained storytelling, and that's a problem.
The WWE Is Way More Concerned With Chasing Moments Than Storytelling
While some wrestling fans assumed Sami Zayn would always be the sacrificial lamb to one of the main event stars, I don't think anyone predicted his title reign would last under two weeks. Unfortunately, I feel conditioned to that more than ever, as it seems like the wrestling company is all over the place here lately and throwing twist after twist at the wall with what feels like zero plan for what comes next.
Creating memorable moments is important, but the level and length in which the WWE has gone in the past couple of years to create them is excessive. It seems the goal is to send the fans home happy and feeling like they witnessed something spectacular. It also shows the people who didn't go what they missed out on, and maybe a prod to encourage them to buy a ticket next time around.
Ok, so what's the big deal? Why would I demonize the WWE for wanting to make fans happy and like they got value out of their tickets? Truthfully, I had to think about that myself over the past year and why it bugged me, and then it hit me after I saw Zayn drop the title with my Netflix subscription.
Creating Moments Is Fun, But It Doesn't Sustain Fans For Long
The WWE has these great ideas or pitches for moments that create a spectacle, but the idea is almost always half-baked. Take Seth Rollins with the masked men, and how increasingly stupid that bit got, to where it became Rollins in the ring with several masked men? It made zero sense, and that's largely because the idea probably came about because someone pitched how wild it would be to see multiple masked men in a ring.
Perhaps worse than half-baked, the WWE is sometimes outright deceptive with its moments, allowing fans to believe something like The Rock showing up at an event means he'll be at an upcoming PLE on the 2026 TV schedule. Remember that, and then after people were gobsmacked that The Rock didn't show up at WrestleMania, he was forced to admit he did it as a personal favor to TKO to help boost ticket sales?
I don't fault the WWE for trying to boost ticket sales. It is, after all, their job. I do fault the WWE for going about it in what feels like the laziest way possible, chasing viral moments and pops in exchange for competent storytelling and feuds that will stand the test of time and be remembered longer than the end of the year. Will people remember Sami Zayn's championship at the end of this year? Probably, but not because of how special it was.
I'm hoping to see some better long-term storytelling out of the WWE as this year continues, and ultimately hoping I eat crow and Sami and Punk have some mega feud that rivals what we saw with him and Drew McIntyre back in 2024.
