The problem with the Bryan story is the same one that wound up biting the NWO angle in the ass back in the day in WCW. It was one that McMahon seemingly learned from during the Austin/McMahon feud, but seems to have forgotten.
Namely, the heels always win.
A well written angle will see the hero overcoming the odds, but he'll do it by occasionally, actually, overcoming them. Even getting a moral victory every once and a while. Steve Austin would occasionally get his ass kicked, but the next Raw would see him come out and one up McMahon in some way. This is not what's happening here. What's happening here is the kind of thing that makes wrestling fans say "oh, for fuck's sake" and turn off the TV. Steve Austin overcame the odds, but they were odds he COULD overcome. This is being booked as "no matter what happens, Bryan will get his ass kicked by the Shield while authority figures stand around and make sure no one can do anything about it, after an episode of the show where highlights of the exact same thing happening on the PREVIOUS show are played."
People will stop caring about Bryan if two times a week, the show ends with the Shield triple power bombing him while HHH and Steph throw their vaguely defined authority around to keep people from interfering. The Austin angle slow burned to the point where Vince lost his mind and started throwing armies at Austin. This angle is the Austin one set to overdrive, and, worse, it's not just making Bryan look bad, it's making everyone else look bad. The entire roster looks bad for not marching down to ringside and beating the shit out of everyone, because you can't fire ALL of them. HHH looks bad because he's once again sticking his nose into the hot angle of the year. The Shield looks bad because they went from the unstoppable wrecking crew destroying EVERYONE they faced into HHH's flunkies. Orton looks bad because he needs the entirety of the WWE to do his dirty work to keep Bryan off him.
WWE has been stuck in a rut since 2001, creatively. If they'd had competition, the endless run of angles designed to be the new Austin/McMahon would have killed them stone dead. Raw basically looks like it did in 1998, still has an overrun because it did when it was against Raw, and is in terminal doldrums. Angles like this don't make people tune in these days, they make them tune out.
Topic: Wrestling - Road to Wrestlemania 29 (Read 213139 times)
