It’s that latter question that permeates today’s WWE product, but there’s one story bucking the trend. WWE tweeted out that Grimes “belongs to the zombies now.” If that’s true, though, then why did an unscathed (and, well, alive) Grimes reappear two weeks later to interfere in Lumis’s match against Timothy Thatcher? Where did the zombies go? Does any of this really matter? After getting put to sleep by Lumis, Grimes was then set upon by the undead, who descended upon him amid a ring of fog. In October, for example, NXT’s Cameron Grimes wrestled the spooky Dexter Lumis in a “Haunted House of Terror” match that saw Grimes accosted by an army of zombies.
Similar matches haven’t had the same fanfare, but they nevertheless lit up the internet for a spell. It gave us an enduring meme- ‘Taker, bathed in ghostly light, creeping up behind Styles- and WWE’s YouTube clip of the match has more than 2 million views. In that regard, the boneyard match was a huge success. It’s important, then, to aim for those marquee moments, the matches that spawn memes, discourse, and YouTube clips that rack up millions of views. The WWE is a machine of moving parts, and everything, from wrestlers to characters to stories, eventually gets crushed in the gears. There are shareholders and PR campaigns and McMahons with very strong opinions and unquestionable power.
There are injuries, schedules, and scandals to worry about. The current product, unwieldy and amorphous, doesn’t lend itself to longform storytelling.
Is this disappointing, this lack of consequence? Of course, but the modern WWE fan has become accustomed to it.
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