Planet Kayfabe: WWE Midterm Report

Planet Kayfabe: WWE Midterms
By: Paul Matthews
@PlanetKayfabe on X

Hello everyone, and thank you for reading Planet Kayfave here on NoDQ. Summer breeze, makes me feel fine. I hope you’re enjoying your summer. This piece is a bit of a follow-up to what I wrote after Wrestlemania, where I expressed my concerns that while WWE is still popular, the effect of this “boom” period may be waning and the “Renaissance Era”, as it was called, was perhaps jumping the shark. The build up to WrestleMania was not great. Not the worst ever, but most would agree it was underwhelming. The show came and went and it was not great. Cody Rhodes lost the WWE Championship and they’re really sticking with this John Cena heel turn.

2025 has not been a particularly good year for WWE. Business-wise? Sure, things are great, but business was also great in 2019 when they were at the bottom of the barrel of fans watching and attending shows, mainly due to the TV rights boom. Creatively, however, things are clearly in a lull or at least in a bridge year between the next hot angle, because these hot angles don’t just start and are hot right away. Let’s break it down.

Raw on Netflix and SmackDown moving to 3 hours:

Two moves right here that I was concerned would ruin the flow of things a bit, and two things that I don’t think have been great for the fan experience. Great for business? Sure. Great for you sitting at home watching and not getting paid by WWE? No. Not at all. Wrestling fans, be it in 1998 or in 2025, are creatures of habit and it is a challenge when a show changes networks. You have to promote the change heavily and hope that people still flock on over.

Raw going to Netflix seems like a can’t-miss. Raw was on USA, a cable network, and many are cancelling cable services. Almost everyone has Netflix and it would give WWE more global exposure. Sounds great on paper, but the presentation of Raw on Netflix has not been great. The only way to know is to watch it yourself, but to explain it in plain terms, its like watching a commercial between a good segment that usually starts the show and a good segment that ends the show.

The commercial aspect is beyond parody now. I didn’t mind a few adverts in the ring. They’ve done it in boxing for decades. The Green Monster at Fenway Park is loaded with ads. NASCAR drivers are often identified by their sponsors. Its fine. But the constant barrage of product placement and brand trademarks plastered all over the show is off-putting and distracting. Ladder spots are supposed to be devastating and be taken seriously, but how am I supposed to do anything other than laugh when I see a bright red and yellow Slim Jim ladder get pulled out from under the ring. Is this supposed to be serious?

Moving SmackDown I feel, has hurt WWE more than the Raw move. When WWE started booming again, SmackDown was their top show. The partnership with Fox was a great move, especially in this television climate where its in some ways better to have network TV eyeballs on your program than to have cable TV money. WWE ended their run on Fox and went back to USA in an age where cable is on life support all because it was a higher cash offer. During SmackDown’s run on Fox, they drew over 2 million viewers almost every single week, other than when they were on FS1. These days they pull about 1.3 million. A low non-holiday number for WWE on Fox would have been around 1.7 million. You lost a lot of regular fans by moving to USA and not only that, you lost fans who both don’t want to (or can’t) pay for cable or streaming. Much like how families and casual fans have been priced out of live shows, I suppose.

John Cena’s Heel Turn Has Been a Failure:

Cena’s heel turn has been a mess. The lesson here is that timing is everything. If you’re an older fan, you may not see it as a big deal, but WWE gained a lot of new fans between 2021 and 2024, and they were excited to see John Cena have his big farewell.

Simply put, you can’t do the turn you should have done in 2012 in 2025. That’s a long time. Think of it, if you’re a fan and say you just graduated high school this year, you were only 4 years old when CM Punk cut the Pipebomb promo. You were between the ages of 2-6 when Cena’s internet hate was at its peak. Chances are, you were probably excited when Cena came back to live your piece of Cena’s history one last time before he hangs it up. Instead he comes out to praise and applause and starts talking about how he’s pissed at you fans for giving up on him.

This turn was a mess from the start because it started off like he was aligned with The Rock at first and since then, The Rock has been barely mentioned and never seen. Not even at Wrestlemania. Then they start talking about “you can’t wrestle” chants (something I haven’t heard chanted at Cena in AT LEAST a decade) and burying talent. What are we doing here?

It makes no sense. The older fans are over it. They don’t want to boo him anymore and the younger fans didn’t want to boo him to begin with. To give a personal take, and I am aware this is anecdotal and not statistical, but my daughter used to never miss Raw and Smackdown and she too was excited to see John Cena since its a famous name she has heard before and when he came out and started shitting on the fans she said “this is John Cena??” in the most disappointed tone. Hey, you might think that’s good heat, but that was in March and its now July and she’s barely watched any wrestling since. The moment I put it on she just finds something else to do. Reads. Plays Minecraft. Plays with her sister. She doesn’t even use WWE as an excuse to stay up anymore. We’ve recently watched old family sitcoms together and one week she asked if we could just watch one episode of a show we were watching and then go to bed instead of having to stay up and watch Raw and…. I can’t blame her because Raw on Netflix is like one big boring commercial with wrestling matches in between.

Again, I realize that’s one example, but I can imagine many kids and teens feel that way watching this show now and I’m certain Cena’s 14 year delayed heel turn has not been the lightning rod of heat they thought it would be. WWE caught lightning in a bottle when The Rock turned in 2024. The Final Boss was great heat and everyone was talking about it. The Cena turn got people talking the first day because it was historic, but its not over. Cena is over. People are just waiting for him to turn back.

I feel like WWE could fix this by having Cena turn into the hero of old the way Steve Austin saved Team WWF before the Invasion in Providence, Rhode Island. Where for one brief night it felt like “The Old Stone Cold” (as Vince put it) was back and the Attitude Era was back, too… and then Austin turned heel again at the PPV. Just do that angle without turning heel again and all will be forgiven with Cena and WWE can pretend like this was the grand plan all along and we were all worked. Sure. Whatever. Just fix it.

Seth Rollins is a good supporting actor, but he’s no leader:

This may be the take that gets me the most shit in the comments, but with Roman and Cody gone since Wrestlemania and John Cena making part-time appearances, Seth has had to be the full time television face of WWE and he’s just not great in that role. No one takes him that serious as a leader or a tough guy, yet now he’s leading some stable of two guys that don’t really benefit from Seth and they could both kick his ass easily.

Bron Breakker was doing just fine on his own. Being a guy in Seth’s group is a step back for him, and this brings me to my next point…

Age is still a problem:

Look, I know Cena’s an all-time great and Goldberg was awesome but enough retirement tours and putting these guys in main events. I said in the past WWE should go a whole year without booking anyone over 40 who is not a full time talent and many of yall got upset about it, but its ridiculous how slow they feel they need to develop talent and how they continue to take the easy way out of promoting nostalgia over the present and the future.

The last first time WWE Champion in their 20s was Seth Rollins when he was 28. He’s 39 now. That’s ridiculous. The WWE Performance Center does good things, I’m sure, to ready talent for TV, but damn are they slow. That’s been a gripe I’ve had with NXT for years now. They sign talent young and then just let them age in developmental for years, then they are called up at like 30 or 31 and have to get over again and then maybe they get a main event push when they’re like 35.

Bron Breakker may be a little green but who cares? If he gets over it doesn’t matter. He’s 27 and there’s no reason he can’t be groomed for main event status right now. And no. Don’t tell me they’re already doing that by having him in Seth’s group. Let’s just fast forward a year or two from now, where he turns on Seth and maybe gets a singles push. I want to see more first-time world champions 30 or younger in the coming years. That’s what WWE needs. They don’t need legends from the past holding world titles. They don’t need feel-good “you deserve it” runs for dudes that have been floating in the company for a decade or so. They need youth.

In the age of the performance center, it’s like they’re too focused on how crisp their drop tow holds are and how well they can run the ropes. Take a look at Goldberg. You can say what you want about his lack of wrestling skill, but he got over and was a massive star in his day. If Goldberg were on the WWE roster right now, he’d be sitting in Florida for seven years and then he’d end up getting called up as the heel muscle for a guy like Rollins because they’d be too worried about him not being able to cut a promo. A few years ago, Nikita Lyons went viral on Twitter for pinning people with her big ass in their face. She should have been called up the next week, but no, a bunch of workrate dorks don’t think she’s ready. Dude, not everyone has to be Ricky The Dragon Steamboat. Fuck. Come on!

Take all the time you need, Pat McAfee:

While I feel Pat was a great addition to WWE at the start of their resurgence, I feel he has worn out his welcome a bit and its refreshing to have Corey Graves back.  When Pat first came to WWE it was still in the Vince McMahon era and Pat was refreshing. He wasn’t programmed in WWE speak. He spoke like a fan.  It was different than the usual over-produced commentators they had come off the WWE assembly line. Shit, he almost gave Michael Cole a little bit of a personality.  That’s incredible.

However, in 2025 he became a bit much. It seemed like he saw himself as the star of the show like its his podcast and was constantly trying to get himself over.  Plus, he’d do that annoying thing where sometimes he’d play pretend heel and then he’d be a babyface whenever he felt like it because its all fun and games and it just came off like brand building to him instead of enhancing the show.  He was playing commentator instead of being one.

Pat’s a busy guy in the world of real sports and NFL season is starting soon (preseason starts next month).  He wants to take a break from WWE as their usually lowest rated and least interesting time of the year to talk football? Go right ahead. In fact, take your time and talk hockey and basketball next fall and baseball next spring because I’m ready for Corey Graves and/or Wade Barrett to sit in that chair for a bit.  Pat was great when he was fresh, but its been a few years now and if we are going to have a guy to WWE speak and WWE character then I’d rather it be a guy who gets WWE like Corey Graves.  Just stick with him. He’s  not as famous to the mainstream, but he’s good for the program.

Triple H, I defend you often but one thing bothers me:

I’m largely a defender of Paul Levesque, but one major flaw in his creative style is how the entire roster is like a bunch of cool heels, and instead of working the fans and leading the audience through a story, its like a choose-your-own-adventure book where you just decide who you’re going to cheer and boo.

Let me put this as clearly as possible. Shades of gray is bullshit. Characters can be nuanced, but whether they are good or bad should be black and white. That “shades of gray” crap is just something lazy writers say because they think it sounds smart. All the best stories have clear good guys and clear bad guys. You can’t always control who the fans at a live show will boo or cheer, but you need to at least try and they don’t try at all anymore. Everyone’s cutting shoot promos. Heels do fancy high spots. Babyfaces use weapons. You need to get control of this shit.

Tweeners don’t draw. Gray doesn’t draw. Gray confuses the masses. You need a story. This is your hero. This is your villain. That’s what gets people interested. Not a heel coming out just for people to sing his fucking song, get no heat during a match until he does a backflip through a table to pop a “this is awesome” chant. I feel like some of these guys are so up their ass sniffing their own farts from the Attitude Era that they forgot that Steve Austin was a total babyface in 1998 and that The Rock was a total babyface in 2000. Yes, they swore and Steve drank beer and The Rock called people retards and cocksuckers, but at their core they were aligned with the fans and were against the heel. Yes, they weren’t your 1980s whitemeat, comic book/cartoon babyface, but they were babyfaces. They existed. As did heels. Triple H should know because he was one of the greatest heels ever in late 1999 through 2000.

If a wrestling character can’t clearly be defined as a face or a heel, then you’re in trouble. It doesn’t mean you’re at another level or playing 4D chess or reinvented the wheel. It means you have no direction. It’s not creative, its lazy, and it’s hurting the product. There’s a lot of chatter about a Cody/Cena double turn at SummerSlam and why? Cody is the one real baby face we have. Why turn? Just so the 50-year-old guy who is retiring can get over?

Oh, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Seth’s “injury” at SNME was a total work and you’ll see him cash in at SummerSlam. There’s your spoiler.

Thank you for reading this edition of Planet Kayfabe. Has the boom died down? Yeah. It’s undeniable at this point. Ratings are down. Tickets, while still selling well, are not the hot seller they were a year or two ago. Cena’s heel turn has flopped. Cody and Roman being off TV has hurt interest. Kevin Owens, out with an injury, has been a blow. No one takes Seth seriously. You might respect him as a worker, but he’s just not a lead actor type. Its a down year. It happens.

To people saying this is the worst year ever, I assume they are trolls or are like 14 years old. Either way, I can’t take them seriously. If you didn’t watch 2009 or the whole 2nd half of the 2010s in WWE, then you don’t know bad. Some of you older fans might swear that 1994 and 95 were worse, but no. it wasn’t. Business speaking it was worse, but as a fan, Raw was only one hour back then and it was just that one show. If you were a fan who watched every episode in 2019, it was almost torture.

2025, so far, I’d classify as just a slightly below-average year. It feels like what I thought it would. Its like 2002. A weird year with the fumes of the Attitude Era still present but the Attitude is clearly gone.  It’s either the bridge before the start of the next great thing or the beginning of another dark period. Who knows. WWE has a lot of talent, but with how Raw has gone on Netflix and how okay-to-fine the PLEs have been this year, I’m not sure. Maybe take my suggestion and push some of those 20-something-year-old wrestlers you have. Maybe one breaks out. The next hot angle likely isn’t going to be spearheaded by a 40-year-old.

Also, I spoke about the “shades of grey” crutch. Another crutch I’d like to see less of is all these fucking qualifying matches throughout the year. It’s all I ever see now. Between the men’s and women’s Rumbles, MITB, KOTR, all I see is fucking qualifying matches. They need to break some of that shit down.  Let’s go, so-called “creative” writers.

Take care, everyone. Follow me @PlanetKayfabe