Vince McMahon's Old Rival Finds What's Missing in Today's WWE

WWE is never short on critics. Fans, media, and ex-wrestlers alike never hesitate to point out WWE's warts. But how many of the disgruntled demographic ever have solutions?

Former WCW Boss, Eric Bishoff, not only owns a thoughtful opinion but may have a usable proposition for anyone in WWE who will listen. On a recent episode of his podcast, Bischoff on Wrestling, the former RAW GM opened a discussion on the missing element of WWE:

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"The only thing for me and this is just preference, it's just taste, I would endeavor to produce my shows in a way, particularly Monday Night RAW, in a way that just had a little bit more grit. It was a little less polished. I would work pretty hard, pretty consistently, to try to create the impression and try to build the anticipation with the audience that anything could happen. It doesn't mean that anything can happen on every episode because you can't sustain that. If you create that feeling, subliminal as it may be sometimes, that you can't afford to miss an episode because there is a chance something crazy could happen and you don't want to miss out on that."

Bischoff has a point, for most of 2017 WWE was arbitrary and it was likely a better decision to watch YouTube highlights than 3 hours of a non-eventful RAW. As fans, we simply did not have a great reason to tune in.

"If you can establish that consistently with the audience and then deliver on it as often as possible that's when you create that kind of water cooler type buzz that people used to have. Now it's social media chatter after the show. Buzz is buzz wherever it is. That's how you create it. That's how you create must see TV is by creating that relationship with the audience where they believe your product could have something actually occur that they would never have anticipated."

Bischoff feel that fans don;t have a sense of urgency to watch WWE programming. To him, this lack of enthusiasm is apparent

"Right now to me, because of my taste, the WWE is such a polished and perfect production that I lose that sense that anything can happen because they won't let it. If they do create it, it's so perfectly and flawlessly executed that it doesn't feel like something that wasn't supposed to happen."

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Does WCW's old captain have a point? In the months after WrestleMania WWE was caught in quite the creative slumber. That combined with Vince McMahon and Co.'s obsession with making WWE look and feel like a sports broadcast, made WWE feel like a Tuesday night college football game on ESPN 2.

However, once July came around WWE found itself re-dedicating to stories and character development. The emergence of Samoa Joe, the murderous rampage of Roman Reigns, Big Cass' betrayal, the partial Shield reunion and the unification of Kurt Angle and his illegitimate son have all been introduced this past month in the name of pleasure the Summerslam gods.

So while WWE may never return to the grit Bischoff mentioned, they just displayed they know how to create compelling stories. So don't get your hopes up concerning a more ad-libbed version of WWE, because that just isn't going to happen. But it's fair to expect refined entertainment from the company. Wrestling has evolved from a fairground side-show to a billion dollar industry. Of course, we yearn for a return to the Attitude Era, but just like time, wrestling can only go forward.

[H/T to Reddit/SquaredCircle for transcription]