How would you define modern WWE style?

[dawho5]

After watching a few matches over the last few weeks I would say this.

It's lucha dives, Japanese moves, no-selling and strike exchanges, ECW garbage wrestling and attitude era stylings, plus every WWE trope you can think of turned to 11.  Not to mention they very rarely get any of the outside influences right in terms of what they are or why they exist.  McIntyre's dive on Priest in Scotland was a great use of a dive as part of a shine, I'll give whoever put that in some props.

I'm not sold on a lot of the workers either.  Even a main event guy like Damien Priest seems more interested in popping the crowd than actually working towards something big for any amount of time.  I was not sold on him from the opening moments of that match and felt like he was less by the end.  Nothing to do with missing on the dive, just not at all impressed on the psychology side of things.  As an example, Priest felt the need to do a LOUD slap after...what 75% of his strikes?  McIntyre had the good sense to at least save it for his named moves.  I will say both are tremendous athletes.  Priest is going to have a fucked left knee later in life after that one-legged Razor's Edge.  Leaning with the knee in front of the foot with another guy on your back and that is your only support?  It may not show up right away, but that did some damage.  I did think the kneeling strike exchange (if it was ad-lib) was a good idea and a nice way of selling the injury.

And you know, out of the three matches I did watch on that show, my earlier feeling that strikes in the modern WWE are really weak remains.  It's just shy of snug and somehow jumps out at me.  Priest vs. McIntyre was better than the 2 ladies matches.  I won't watch that abomination of an I Quit match because I sullied it with the highlights.  Magnum/Tully spoiled me.  That 3-way tag was okay, The taller half of the tag champs coming in is beastly strong for sure.  Bayley's match was a pretty good not-quite-underdog story.

I will also say that they need to tone down the intricacy of the spots leading to a top rope move.   Way too much repositioning going on.  Very obvious repositioning.

[TheDuke]

2 big things that stand out to me about WWE is, first, all the poses they make the wrestlers do during entrances, after matches, even during matches. It looks stupid. Even worse is the open mouth surprised face they make after every kick out. I think if I was ever in the front row for a show I would throw my hands on my head and make an opened mouth shocked looking face after every kick out to make fun of them. They would probably show that on TV too.

[RazorBladeKiss]

To me, WWE's house style is HBK/Undertaker up and down the card. Lots of drama and playing to the crowd, attempting to appeal to the "WWE is cinema" crowd who only watch Marvel movies. In a vacuum, matches can be very enjoyable and if you tap into the right storyline, they click on that level too. 

Right now, Gunther is my favorite guy to watch in WWE. His matches are a bit less is more, even if he leaned into the drama stuff with Sami at Mania. 

 

[dawho5]

That wide-eyed face is one of my biggest issues with the current style.  Hard to believe people kick out of anything in a wrestling match, I know.

Gunther seems alright.  So does Dragunov, also Cody and Drew McIntyre all seem pretty good as workers.  They are just trapped in a style that makes me want to vomit watching it.

A couple of other issues I had were:

1. Clash at the Castle had two champion-as-underdog matches back to back.  Bayley at least accepted her role and wrestled it as such.  Even if she completely stopped attacking Piper after it took a lot of effort to subdue the bigger woman, only because the interference was getting kicked out of ringside.  And then was selling for the next 10 minutes because of it.  Also, the help wasn't really kicked out.  Utter nonsense.  And Priest seemed to be defiant of the underdog role despite every attempt by the announcers to get it over.

2. When they do Michinoku driver/falcon arrow bumps, the wrestler on offense throws out the victim way early.  And I know why, they want to make it less of a neck/head bump.  Only problem is it usually results in a completely uncontrolled, awkward angle back bump that probably does just as much damage to the spine as the alternative.  Just don't do the damn move at that point.