Maven said WWE is “on the wrong track” in a YouTube video breaking down what he sees as the company’s biggest problems, pointing to the reduction of house shows as the root cause of declining match quality and weaker backstage bonds between performers.
Maven, who wrestled for WWE from 2001 to 2005, said the current talent is wrestling as much in a month as his generation wrestled in a single week. He pointed to a recent Saturday Night’s Main Event match between CM Punk and Jey Uso as an example of what happens when top performers do not get enough reps together.
“Two guys who I believe one day will be in the Hall of Fame, two guys who I know can wrestle circles around me, two guys who are at the top of their games, and on a recent episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event, they put a match out that both guys in their heart of hearts probably wasn’t happy with,” Maven said. “They looked sluggish. Their timing was off. They lacked any aggression, and they looked like they were still in the feeling out process of working one another.”
Maven said that during his era, wrestlers would work opponents three or four times in a week on house shows before performing together on television, allowing them to remove anything that did not look crisp and learn how their opponent moves. “When you work somebody three, maybe four times in one week, you get to figure out what works, what doesn’t work,” he said. “And you’re not feeling this out on television.”
Cody Rhodes Agrees
Maven cited a recent interview in which Cody Rhodes expressed similar concerns. Rhodes, who experienced the house show era firsthand before it was scaled back, said the lack of road time together hurts team bonding.
“One of the things that I really fear is it’s hard to say you’re part of a team if you’re not playing with your team all the time,” Rhodes said. “Those are a lot easier when I know you already. When it doesn’t feel obligatory. I thought for me, it was incredibly valuable. It was tight, and you learned, and there was a rhythm, and it helped with the live TV matches.”
“Every Match Looks Like a Dance”
Maven also criticized the structured nature of modern WWE matches, saying they look choreographed rather than like real fights.
“Every match in the WWE looks like a dance. It looks structured. It doesn’t look like free flowing, just listening to the crowd, reacting from your audience, giving what your opponent gives you,” Maven said. “It looks like every move is laid out and diagrammed like routes on a map.”
Maven said he has noticed wrestlers repeatedly going back to botched spots on television rather than moving on, which he called a giveaway to the audience. “If you mess up a spot, don’t go back for it,” Maven said, citing advice he received early in his career from Test. “All that is, is telling your audience, ‘Hey, I messed up, but I’m going to fix it right now,’ and that’s not doing anyone any favors.”
The Cost of Being a Fan
Maven also raised concerns about how expensive it has become to follow WWE. He cited streaming costs across multiple platforms, elevated ticket prices, and expensive merchandise as barriers that could drive fans away.
“There’s no reason that people should have to spend 50, 60, $100 a month strictly to professional wrestling, because what you’re going to do is you’re going to lose fans,” Maven said. “Fans are going to choose another option. There is no lack of entertainment for younger viewers.”
Maven said the volume of advertisements on Monday Night Raw was particularly painful. “Every time I could get into something, I was getting sold DoorDash, or I was being told to buy this or buy that,” he said. “I guarantee if you run too many ads, you run the risk of boring your fans, and if you bore your fans long enough and ask for too much of their dollars, they’re going to find their entertainment options better utilized somewhere else.”
Maven said if wrestling is not as accessible and affordable as it once was, the tradition of passing fandom down through families will stop. “The days of being a wrestling fan being passed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, those days are just going to stop,” he said.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit the source and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
