WWE has long walked away from the idea of being a professional wrestling promotion. With Endeavor at the helm as owners, the organization is now diving further and further into the land of celebrities to embrace “sports entertainment.” But this presentation is slowly becoming the opposite of entertainment. A major angle involving Logan Paul, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, and Jelly Roll is seemingly on the horizon. This isn’t what fans want to see.
On the July 11 episode of WWE SmackDown, Jelly Roll and Logan Paul were involved in a segment that led to the country music singer getting physical with the former WWE United States Champion. Randy Orton played a part in the moment, and speculation is that Drew McIntyre will also be a part of the angle. Rumors are that Jelly Roll will team with Orton to take on McIntyre and Paul at SummerSlam.
SummerSlam is one of the most important shows on WWE’s annual schedule. A high-profile angle between McIntyre and Orton has the potential to be intriguing, but throwing in Paul and Jelly Roll makes this more of an eye-rolling affair.
Celebrity involvement has always been a major part of WWE. Vince McMahon wanted to get his hands into the world of Hollywood, and that was one of the paths to present his company as a mainstream organization. While McMahon is long gone, that ideal hasn’t changed. In fact, it has become worse under the guidance of Endeavor, perhaps the most powerful organization in entertainment. Every week, it seems like a new talent under the agency's banner shows up in the crowd to get their moment of “cheers” while several names on the roster are “benched” for inexplicable reasons.
Former AEW World Champion, Kenny Omega, had an interesting comment on the future of WWE’s main event scene.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever said it publicly or not, but I think we’re headed on a path where it’s like, a couple WrestleManias down he road, the main event’s gonna be Logan Paul versus MrBeast,” Omega said while speaking to Adi Shankar. “And it’s like, what is the wrestling acumen? How many miles have they put into it? Does it matter? It’s the process of evolution…people are getting cast in roles for films just based on their social media following.”
Omega’s quote speaks perfectly to the problem of so many celebrities being featured in WWE. The focus is no longer about putting on professional wrestling or sports entertainment that fans want to see. Instead, the goal is to draw in as many eyeballs through celebrity involvement as possible. The hope is that these individuals and their brands will pull in their fan bases and create new consumers of the product. But will chasing that goal cause long-term fans to turn away from the product? That’s the major question and perhaps the one that has the real potential to push WWE away from this strategy over time.
WWE isn’t telling interesting stories
WWE Evolution 2025, NXT Great American Bash, and Saturday Night’s Main Event are all set for the weekend. Looking at all three shows, what are the most important angles heading into them? Becky Lynch versus Lyra Valkyria versus Bayley seems like the biggest angle across all three. Gunther versus Bill Goldberg is a match that no one wanted, but of course it is getting massive billing.
None of these matches has intrigue or layers of storytelling that are packed in the top matches on AEW All In. Jon Moxley versus “Hangman” Adam Page and Toni Storm versus Mercedes Mone carry so much weight for the future of the company and the performers in them. That is why fans are so interested in how things will play out. There are stakes both in the matches and beyond them. This is what happens when a wrestling company tells interesting stories, and WWE is not committed to doing that.
This is a packed weekend of professional wrestling. AEW All In 2025 features so many important and interesting storylines on the PPV. WWE has three shows spread across the weekend, and it's unfortunate that there are so few angles that carry any emotional involvement. This is the problem with the creative direction WWE is heading in, and it doesn’t seem like the company is going to change course anytime soon.