Wrestlemania 31

I'm honestly a more casual watcher right now - I follow the stories on a couple of sites and listen to the Grandland podcast Cheap Heat, catch a couple of highlights or have RAW on the background while I do other things, and that's about it.

Like most entities, they do best when there is legit competition.  The Attitude Era happened in large part because of transcendant stars that happened to be there - The Rock, Austin, Mick Foley, etc. all had their ups-and-downs before they made it big in the WWE, and it took some dumb luck for them to all rise up at the same time in an area when millions of people were willing to watch.  It helped that Ted Turner was pumping millions into WCW and, in turn, capturing a decent number of these eyeballs in addition to keeping a number of the southern wrestling faction that loved the Crocketts, the Von Erichs, AWA, NWA, Mid South, etc.  When you are getting your ass beat you tend to pull out all the stops, and that's why the WWF/E was willing to push younger stars and see what stuck - they didn't have a choice.

Now, WWE is #1 in the US and the second biggest promotion is either one with a 2-hour show on Destination America (TNA) or an indie trying to expand beyond the bingo-hall set (ROH, PWG, Dragon Gate).  Internationally you have federations like New Japan and Lucha Underground that have followings, but the WWE is #1 and they also have the best farm system with NXT.  Plus, there simply aren't more than 4-5 million people who want to watch professional wrestling every week, which is fine from a ratings standpoint but it's a bit of a captured group, mostly comprised of lifer-fans and young kids, two of the more inelastic parts of the fanbase.  What let wrestling really branch out was when people with only a minor interest in the format gave it a shot, and that isn't going to happen unless a bunch of stars align.  And that says nothing about Vince McMahon, a 70-year-old guy with a very particular view of how "sports entertainment" should be.  Someone might catch up and help push them, but it'll take something like WCW with a major source of funding and a platform pushing the competition; an organic promotion getting on TV due to the product alone is unlikely.  But a Ted Turner-type who needs to fill 3-4 hours of programming a week could.

They don't have huge crossover stars, and that is partially attributable to the guys on the roster maybe not being the best at what makes guys like Austin and the Rock big.  The commentary team is absolutely garbage right now, and I think people forget that some of the most memorable moments in history are known as much for the calls as the action in the ring.  There's a reason Jim Ross's Hell-in-a-Cell call is a staple of social media dubbing.  Right now tha announcers treat everyone like idiots and barely call the matches, as a person who has watched this medium for decades and considers himself reasonably intelligent, I don't like being talked to like a child who doesn't remember what happened a month ago.  

The storytelling is lacking, but rarely has it ever been top-notch for everyone.  The biggest problem now, as far as I see it, is that they don't have storylines for people under the top 2-3 of the card.  So yeah, Undertaker-Wyatt has a lead-up, Cena-Rusev is a classic US-Foreigner tale, and Reigns-Lesnar had a main event build.  But they've devalued the tag and IC belts so much that they just throw guys into a ladder match or bring in some clapping quasi-preachers and borderline-offensive matadors and expect us to care.  In the Attitude Era, guys deep down the roster had feuds and some hint of a backstory, and it made it fun to watch.  They have great athletes and some of the best presentation teams in the world, but when you don't have any bones to hold them together you just have this storyline muck.

I liked what they did in this card, and I think with some time to breathe they can put together a few more storylines heading into the summer.   Signing Lesnar to a long-term deal is huge because he's a credible theat to anyone and gives you a guy still in his prime who can be a special attraction outside of when he has a movie to shill.  They have to figure out what to do with Cena, but that's been true for 4-5 years now.  Rollins as the cowardly heel champion absolutely works, and a slight tweak and he becomes a great babyface. Bryan could really elevate the IC title and guys like Ambrose and Ziggler could come along for the ride by chasing him.  And while they'll never treat the women immensely well, they have a couple good performers on the roster and a truck load down in NXT (Charlotte, Banks, Bayley, etc.) with great wrestling chops AND some crossover appeal.

They still have issues with the tag teams and finding enough credible heels, but NXT has some good guys (Owens/Steen, Zayn, Balor, Breeze, Itami, and Neville) who can fill in the gaps, and they've gotten some decent "legitimate" press recently on ESPN and some of the major blogs.  I mean, beyond Grantland talking them up, Deadspin will drop some coverage, cageside seats gets good traffic, with leather on UpRoxx is a must-read, etc.  It's probably never going to be AE-levels for years, if ever, but if you can survive the crap weeks I think the WWE has a chance to rebound a bit.