I have a theory about WWE pay-per-views; do we still call them pay-per-views anymore, considering they’re all included with the WWE Network anyway? But anyway, I have a theory about the monthly shows that the WWE puts out: the less effort it looks like they put into their title logo cards, then the less effort viewers should expect from the show itself.
Naturally, this isn’t perfect, definitive and doesn’t apply to all shows; WWE Fastlane had quite the impressive graphic treatment in the production of its marketing, buildup and actual show, but the card itself actually turned out to be quite lackluster. But for the most part, it’s no secret that the WWE dumps more money into their big four ppvs of the year (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series), than they do any other show throughout the year.
And as of this year, 2018, WWE’s gotten into this hysteria over producing shows in other countries, almost for no other reason than to call them historic first-time events, to help drum up interest, hype and other attention. It started with “The Greatest” Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, and was followed by the United Kingdom Championship Tournament, where it was held at, for the very first time, the Royal Albert Hall in London. This past weekend was the WWE Super Show-Down, which was held, for the very first time, in Melbourne, Australia. And during Super Show-Down, I found out that there was yet another international show on the horizon, Crown Jewel which is going to be in Saudi Arabia again, but instead in, for the very first time, Riyadh.
As historically monumental as the WWE likes to tout these international events, make no mistake that they are NOT immune from the shitty logo, shitty show logic. Look no further than the fact that “The Greatest” Royal Rumble logo was literally the same logo used in January’s Royal Rumble, but had the word “Greatest” added to the top of it, and had their accent colors changed to Saudi red, green and white. Surprising nobody, the show was horribly sub-par, and the events of the show had nearly no impact on storylines, save for the Reigns vs. Lesnar feud.
And then we have Super Show-Down, which was basically a four-hour long Super Let-Down, with the only really halfway decent match being the Shield vs. Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. But this wasn’t at all the least bit surprising, because their logo was about the lowest budget logo that the company could have possible put together.
The header graphic for this post isn’t the actual WWE Super Show-Down logo, but instead a recreation that took me all of literally six minutes, and that’s only because I was being a perfectionist and trying to match the kerning as accurately as possible. Seriously, Abadi MT is the literal first font in my entire font library, and it just so happened to be the one pretty accurately matching the Super Show-Down logo mark. The colors are standard RGB red and blue, without any effort to modify any color sliders to get possibly any unique color alternatively. I knew exactly what treatment the text was given to get that reverse bulge, and it literally took me six minutes to recreate it.
The point remains that the logo takes almost no effort to recreate, and if the WWE is going to put so little effort in branding a show, why is there any reason to believe that there’s going to be any effort in the show itself? The Charlotte/Becky Lynch feud gained a little bit of advancement, but really this was a match better suited to main event the upcoming women’s only Evolution show, although I figure they’re going to do that anyway, or give it to the wholly undeserving Ronda Rousey instead.
It was apparent that whatever Australian backers of this show demanded John Cena, as well as the Undertaker, which explains their inclusions in the show, much like the Saudis did for “Greatest,” and although the Ultimate Warrior is long past dead now, don’t put it past the WWE to dress someone else as him and trot him out and call him Warrior if someone is willing to pay enough money.
Buddy Murphy winning the completely worthless Cruiserweight championship was basically done to give the hometown crowd some novel, but it also further cements just how worthless the Cruiserweight division is, which is completely tragic in itself, because if this were 1999, 205 Live would easily be the best wrestling show on television.
And much like Charlotte vs. Becky, Daniel Bryan vs. Miz was completely wasted on this show, especially with its convoluted three-minute length that has people more curious to why such was the case more than anything else. Regardless, it sets up an AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan match, which on paper is a proverbial dream match, but given the fact that it’s going to take place at Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia, one can only assume that it’s going to be a stinkfest with a likely Dusty Finish.
Ultimately, I feel like the WWE really needs to ease up on all these international events. The speculation is that the WWE isn’t raking in the big bucks like they used to in the late 90s, and in attempts to think outside the box, they’re likely making tons of money from these international tours, but the frequency in which they’re occurring, I feel has a high probability of burning out the talent. Sure, the House of Saud might be paying tens of millions of dollars to bring the WWE out to them, but the question is are any of the talent getting paid justly for their contributions? If so, that might mitigate the burnout rate, but if not, then WWE wrestlers might be keeping their resumes up to date from when they get tired of having to make all these cross-continental trips for the same money they’d draw wrestling in the United States exclusively.
Regardless, you read it here first: the quality of logo is a good indicator of what the quality of the show might possibly be. Greatest Royal Rumble and Super Show-Down were pretty lazy mode logos, but given the fact that Crown Jewel doesn’t look that terrible, there’s a good chance the show itself might not totally suck. Then again, if a jet-lagged AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan throw up a stinker, only on the WWE Network, then maybe I’m not so wrong that it might be best for business to keep the health of the talent optimal, because good shows will bring in money and all the good shit will take care of itself.
