The Reality Era Isn't Cool Anymore

It's getting old fast
Photo Credit: WWE.com

When CM Punk came out on June 27th and called Triple H a doofus and threatened to take the WWE Championship to New Japan Pro Wrestling, we all loved it. When he demanded ice cream bars, we all cheered. When John Cena talked about his heel persona coming through and the Five Moves of Doom, we all snickered and were generally amused. This whole "Reality Era", it seemed, would take WWE to the next level. They were blurring the lines successfully and learning from the mistakes of Vince Russo. They were actually using things that might have been real to help enhance the kayfabe.

Then Kevin Nash showed up, and everyone started shooting like it was a bad episode of Impact.

Now, it'd be disingenuous of me to wholly blame this on Nash. It really would. But it seems like a really bad coincidence that he shows up, starts talking about how Punk should respect him because he "saved the business", and then everyone starts spouting off at the mouth. Triple H comes in and implies that this all might not be real because when Vince McMahon was in a match, he got his ass beat because it was good for business. Cena has made a running gag about how Alberto del Rio is a jerk and a phony because he doesn't own his cars and rents them and JEEZ GUISE HES NOT A REAL RICH MAN THIS STUFF ISNT REAL LOLLOLOLOLOLOL. Even Punk's line-blurring is losing its effectiveness, as he's starting to sound whiny. Using the real names isn't helping him at all either. Seriously, I'm waiting for John Morrison to feud with a returning Batista over Melina the way this is going.

I'm getting the feeling now whenever someone starts blurring the lines that I get whenever Kurt Angle or Eric Bischoff or Hulk Hogan or Sting start spouting off about stuff that really shouldn't be spoken about on air. There's a reason why the formula doesn't work for Impact and why it's starting not to work for WWE. It's because people don't generally watch to hear a bunch of backstage jargon or insider talk. Yes, the "real" stuff caught everyone offguard and spiked interest in the short term, but that's because it was a) done in the context of the storyline and used edgy terms to keep kayfabe and b) it was a novelty. Like all novelties though, it has worn out its welcome. Then again, is anyone surprised? Even as much as we all love CM Punk, could we really rely on him to keep this going when everyone else around him wasn't capable of keeping it going? Did we put too much faith in him not to hop off the rails himself? There's one thing for certain, we totally overestimated the ability of WWE's writers and bookers to be able to sustain this for longer than a month. Seriously, insanity is expecting the same people to produce different content just because the month on the calendar changed, or to do the same tired things and expect different results.

The "worked shoot" stuff was good to a point, but unless you keep doing it so that it works within the fabric of the fantasy world, it only works to discourage fans at large. People don't watch wrestling because they want something real. Quite the contrary, in this day and age, people want to believe the lie, even if it's for only the two hours and change that the program is on. It's clear WWE can't walk the knife's edge that is required to make this work over the long term. They cut their feet pretty badly and are now bleeding all over the quality of the show. After Night of Champions, maybe they'd be wise to pull back on the "real" talk, and maybe just let Punk try and re-find his juice. Unless that's the case, then maybe they're better off doing it traditionally and maybe trying to find something else that works, something else that isn't as dependent on finesse as confusing kayfabe.