![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gable_penta.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When I was on vacation, I didn\u2019t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go\/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.\u00a0 But as far as what was going on in the big pro-wrestling industry, I knew that I was missing out on things, but at the same time I didn\u2019t really care.<\/span><\/p>\n Through social media, I saw that Sami Zayn had won the WWE championship at Night of Champions<\/em>, which in one hand made me happy because I\u2019ve grown to really appreciate the man and his career, and it always brings me satisfaction when a hard worker gets rewarded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, in the other hand, was the skepticism that his win came entirely on account of the fact that this was one of the WWE\u2019s gross Saudi shows, and in spite of the fact that the E has gotten a lot of credit in recent years for not treating viewers like complete idiots like they used to, such doesn\u2019t seem to apply to the Saudi shows and the company pretty much does nothing but grasp at low-hanging fruit out in the Middle East. \u00a0It\u2019s very easy to assume that Sami won in Saudi Arabia almost entirely to satiate the local audience, getting to see an openly Muslim man win the largest prize in the company.<\/span><\/p>\n Such narrative was justified just nine days later, when Sami would immediately drop the WWE championship to a returning CM Punk; contrary to what I was just saying about not treating fans like idiots, such had occurred in Chicago, Punk\u2019s hometown, being seen as yet another low-hanging fruit cash grab, or that Sami was seen as nothing more than a transitional champion and that this was the plan all along, neither of which is particularly good optics among the IWC.<\/span><\/p>\n The E has been harder and harder to keep up with, much less actually, like and enjoy, as the sands of time have progressed since the company had been sold, folded into the parent TKO company, and turned into this NASCAR-like ATM of corporate greed.<\/span><\/p>\n Months ago, I stated that I\u2019d never felt more alienated from the WWE and my general fandom, and not only has that not changed, but the chasm has widened and continues to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously, companies like the WWE and their parents TKO don\u2019t become the bloated fat cash cows they are because they care about lifer fans with lots of opinions like me, but if it actually mattered, they\u2019re at constant risk of fans like me turning my back on them because of how much they\u2019ve changed things, primarily for the pursuit of moar and moar money.<\/span><\/p>\n The point of all this is that I\u2019d actually been debating with myself since coming back from vacation, on if it really wanted to bother getting back into watching big wrestling anymore, because over the last few months, watching wrestling has begun to feel more like a chore and that my time was not being spent well doing such, versus actually enjoying the product.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For every Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley<\/a> or El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano<\/a> banger classic, there are hours upon hours of ads to have to sit through, predictable, ChatGPT-generated storylines, moar ads, moar shitty product, and a whole lot more ads.<\/span><\/p>\n But for lack of a better alternative, as well as probably false-hope clinging that just one more RAW<\/em> will get better, I still tuned into RAW the other night, just to see where things were.\u00a0 And honestly, nothing was really new, and I\u2019m left wondering why I even bother, yet again.\u00a0 I\u2019d say I\u2019ll just keep up through YouTube, but even those videos are so loaded with ads now as well, that they\u2019re becoming a chore as well.<\/span><\/p>\n I was chatting with some of my bros during the broadcast, and it dawned on me that watching the WWE was a lot more like a job, than the last time I opined such, and it was slightly more explainable now, because as someone who has worked for large corporations for the most of their career, watching WWE truly feels like a scenario where I like and appreciate all the workers and talent, but I really dislike and detest all of the higher-ups, shareholders and people who are steering the workers and talent into soul-sucking and inefficient uses of their skillsets.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly I realize that I\u2019ve had this mentality and relationship with other fandoms in my life, like how I\u2019ve felt\/currently feel about the Atlanta Braves, as well as how I\u2019ve felt about most of the companies I\u2019ve ever worked for.\u00a0 I appreciate (most) talent, workers and colleagues, but I don\u2019t particularly care much for those higher up, playing a different game than the rest of the pleebs.<\/span><\/p>\n This is probably one of those revelations where I\u2019m amazed to realize at the age of 44, and that there are probably tons of people way more enlightened than me that figured it out way longer ago.\u00a0 That fandoms all eventually feel like jobs at times, and that it\u2019s worth pondering on if they\u2019re worth continuing to keep once they hit that point, or if we should always just be looking for better things to invest our time into.<\/span><\/p>\n As far as professional wrestling goes, I still enjoy going to indy shows with friends, and thankfully Atlanta has no shortage of availability of such shows, and even though I\u2019m jaded and completely skeptical of the E these days, I still have hopes for the few storylines that it\u2019s clear that the company actually gives a shit about, like the masterpiece that is the redemption of Chad Gable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Granted, I know that on a long enough timeline, they\u2019ll fuck it up because they always fuck up eventually, be it through he\u2019ll fall short at Summer Slam due to some shenanigans, an injury, or they won\u2019t plan for anything beyond his initial journey and that he peters out after victory, but at least for the time being, he\u2019s probably the best thing going under the E umbrella, and the only thing I\u2019m truly vested in with the company.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was on vacation, I didn\u2019t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go\/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.\u00a0 But as far as what was going … Continue reading Watching the WWE has kind of become a job<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[196,66,79,100,45,191,37,129,83,69,166,54,49,55],"class_list":["post-51359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-barves","tag-braves","tag-cashmoney","tag-comparison","tag-fail","tag-greed","tag-job","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-television","tag-vacation","tag-wrestling","tag-wtf","tag-wwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51361,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51359\/revisions\/51361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}