It’s been a long time since I’ve done an article like this, simply analysing a certain aspect of the show. This time, I’m analysing a certain aspect that’s not even on the show. It’s the Universal Championship reign of BROCK LESNAR. Brock Lesnar defeated Goldberg in a awesome five minute match at WrestleMania and became the champion. He took the championship in a match buzzing with star power and mainstream media coverage, giving the championship that added bit of prestige for an eventual hero to stand up and win. Out of everyone in WWE, there’s no bigger star than Brock Lesnar. I’m sure if you’ve looked at Brock Lesnar’s impact on TV ratings, merchandise selling and PPV buys, it’d probably be a proven fact.
And I’m not going to lie, I LOVE Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar, much like his first WWE run way back when I first started watching wrestling, is a man that is a pure winner and a badass which is what every WWE superstar should aspire to be like. He doesn’t take any crap from anyone, both on and off screen. Every match Brock Lesnar is in always comes off as a must-see match. When he won the championship, that made every Universal Championship match a must-see match.
I was initially ecstatic until I saw the backlash (kinda fitting choice of words considering it’s Backlash this Sunday!) from the Internet Wrestling Community. These fans on Twitter, that I’m positive have purposely went out of their way to ruin my Twitter feeds, have cried about this title not being on Monday Night RAW every week and not being defended every month. Everything from “30 day rule” to the “burying current stars” line have been used as an excuse to complain about Brock Lesnar being the Universal Champion.
Clearly these “smart” fans don’t actually see the bigger picture, so I’ll go ahead and fill them in on the bigger picture. The plan is for Brock Lesnar to run through challenger after challenger all the way to a show like WrestleMania 34, going from Braun Strowman to Finn Balor to Seth Rollins and so on. He’s going to destroy each man all the way to a big show, come off as an unbeatable monster and then a hero (hopefully one who wins a lot) is going to come along and slay the giant. That hero will then become a much bigger star by beating Brock Lesnar.
The “smart” fans are clearly not aware about the affects of appearing on RAW every week and what it affects on the current roster. This is WWE in 2017, where WWE must do everything in their power to protect everyone with 50/50 booking. Everyone must beat each other according to these storylines, leading to nobody getting over. Braun Strowman was the only man exempt from this booking and he’s now the one that comes off as the biggest star in all of WWE. His recent injury does hinder him a little but he’s at least not being beaten every week as opposed to guys like Roman Reigns. He’s the biggest star and everyone loves Braun Strowman and it’s because he’s a WINNER. He’s a winner, who destroys all and he’s someone who is a badass. Remind you of someone?
If they shot the title on Roman Reigns or someone, there’s literally no hope that the guy will go unbeaten until he drops it. Guys going unbeaten until they drop it SHOULD be how title reigns work. Kevin Owens was beaten on RAW EVERY WEEK when he was Universal Champion by guys like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins and those were the only two guys he actually feuded with for the title. Therefore, when Kevin Owens came up against the unbeatable GOLDBERG, who had never been beaten clean in WWE at that point, Goldberg DWARFED him like a star. He beat his ass in 22 seconds and it wasn’t long until Owens was right back where he was before he lost the title.
And no, that had nothing to do with Goldberg beating him. That had everything to do with WWE’s biggest weakness as a business… creating stars. In 2017, they have no clue how to create stars anymore. Even Finn Balor has now fallen victim to crappy 50/50 booking, to the point where it’s not gonna take long before Finn Balor just becomes another guy. You can argue that Finn is just another guy now, as he got beat in the Intercontinental title triple threat on RAW a few weeks ago.
NOW, I’m sure all of you are wondering what all of this has to do with Brock Lesnar. It’s very simple. Brock Lesnar is bulletproof in the sense that because he’s not there every week, his star power remains as strong as it was when he was first champion in 2002. Before he lost to Goldberg at Survivor Series 2016, he’d never beaten clean since WrestleMania 29 when he lost to Triple H. From about April 2013 (when he won the feud with Triple H at Extreme Rules) to November 2016, Brock was unbeatable. Contrary to popular belief, wins and losses are more important than ANYTHING in WWE. If you don’t win, you’re a loser. If you’re a football team and you don’t win matches, you’re losers and you suffer. God bless my beloved Middlesbrough FC but they have now been relegated to the Championship, because they’re losers. It’s not like an opinion either. It’s a fact that Boro have won one league match in all of 2017 and the majority of their matches in 2017 have all ended in the defeat.
Brock is more over than the rest of the roster because he’s the only one that doesn’t get beat. Hulk Hogan rarely got beat in his prime and even when he did, there would be a screwjob. Therefore, when guys like Ultimate Warrior, Goldberg, The Rock and yes… BROCK LESNAR, all beat this man clean, it was a big deal and it elevated the star power of all of those men. When Brock lost the WWE title to Eddie Guerrero in 2004, it turned Eddie Guerrero into a main-event and a legend in WWE. Whoever beats Brock Lesnar (except possibly Roman Reigns but I’m sure someone could argue me on this) will become such a huge star in the process. If the title was around now and someone like Roman Reigns was the champion, and then someone like Finn Balor beat him for the belt, would Finn have really got over bigger than if he beat Lesnar? No, because Roman Reigns loses SO much more frequently than Brock Lesnar.
That’s the bottom line. Do you really think that UFC would put a title on someone like 20th in the rankings, have him lose to all of the top guys in non-title fights and still keep the title on him? No. THE BEST IN THE DIVISION are the champions. Brock Lesnar is the best in all of WWE right now and that’s a FACT in terms of wins and losses. If you want to get over your next top star, he should beat the best. That’s basic wrestling booking for you right there.
The other one that’s really gotten me is fans blaming RAW’s decrease in viewership on Brock Lesnar not being there. These fans must not have tremendous memory because I recall a champion being around this time LAST YEAR when the ratings also plummeted after WrestleMania. It is somewhat of a trend for ratings to go down after Mania but the reason the ratings go down after Mania is that WWE does everything in their power to make the matches at WrestleMania mean nothing. They lose their steam and suddenly, the quality of the show goes down and BY GOD, the quality of the shows have went down.
SmackDown! Live has been crippled by the Superstar Shake-Up to the point where JINDER MAHAL is challenging for the WWE World title after winning one singles match previously while on RAW. 205 Live have also seen low attendance numbers for after SmackDown! Both of the ratings for those shows have also went down. Let’s also think about RAW.
How much talent is on RAW? Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Dean Ambrose, The Miz, Bray Wyatt, The Hardy Brothers, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Alexa Bliss, The Revival, The Club, Cesaro, Sheamus, Big Show, Mark Henry. You’ve even got Kurt Angle as the General Manager. How is it POSSIBLE that all of that talent is on the show and the ratings have gone down? BECAUSE THE STORYLINES SUCK.
Don’t make Brock the scapegoat here folks. The ratings are low because the writers don’t give me a reason to care about the show. The title does not need to be there for the show and the wrestlers to have purpose. If these writers were any good, with a roster like that, you should be able to do good shows with the talent to the point where you shouldn’t NEED to bring in stars like Brock Lesnar to build up the prestige of the title. Roman Reigns should be over. Finn Balor should be WAY more over than he is now. Neither of them are because they beat all of their asses recently.
Can we have men in WWE please WIN? Can we have men other than Braun win every match they’re in? I want a good guy who wins and a bad guy who wins, and then those two fellas that win all the time can wrestle at WrestleMania where only one man can win and become champion. This is what UFC and boxing promoters do ALL THE TIME and WWE, who have all the power in the world and write whatever story they want, can do this simply if they put their mind to it. Brock Lesnar hits one half of the puzzle right there and he should still be a part of that puzzle. He’s the unbeatable champion and it’s WWE’s job to build up a challenger.
For those fans that want to make arguments that Brock not being on RAW is ruining the shows, I request that you show me the TRUE numbers that actually prove the belief rather than just finding one week of bad ratings and pinning it on a man that’s not even there. Look at the best champions of the past and see what made them so great. Look at how Conor McGregor became one of sport’s biggest stars. Low at how Anthony Joshua is such a star in boxing. This is SPORTS entertainment and a big part of that is that men need to win and men need to lose. In WWE land, we need winners.
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