Posted 03-May-2026 in Personal

WWE Fatigue

I'm a life long professional wrestling fan. Growing up in Tampa in the 1980s and 90s meant not only seeing the WWF superstars on television, but also seeing them at the bank or the mall. Even had a neighbor that was a title holder in one of the local promotions.

While I grew up on the likes of Hogan and Savage in the Fed, I was drawn to WCW during the Monday Night Wars. There's definitely a senior class photo out there with me unironically rocking an nWo Wolfpac shirt. Having a girlfriend with a Nintendo 64 with WCW/nWo Revenge was a nice perk.

Then after high school, I slowly fell off. I caught bits and pieces of the Attitude Era. Over time, I didn't keep up at all. That was, until just before COVID-19 when I made the decree that television sucked so bad that "I think I'd rather just watch wrestling again". So we did.

This was just before AEW was founded too. Effectively getting a rerun of WWE having some competition like in the late 90s. This post isn't about AEW though, just helping to paint a picture.

So the pandemic happened, I made carnitas, and WWE didn't miss a beat. It was a weird time, but having a constant, semi-live television experience was comforting. I still crack up when I think about Rey Mysterio (nee Jr.) losing an eye at the hands of Seth Freakin' Rollins in an "Eye for an Eye" match.

We even survived the historic title reign of The Tribal Chief. We'll never know if there was going to be a storyline where The Fiend wins back the title that he never technically lost to Roman. Tears were definitely shed during the Bray Wyatt Memorial shows.

Along the way, there were a lot of highs and lows. There were business deals, lawsuits, and documentaries. Slowly but surely, it's been harder and harder to stay interested.

It's been a ride, but at this point, I'm fatigued on all of it. The myriad of subscriptions you have to maintain to be able to keep up with the content is a mess. The fact that we need R-Truth to explain how to watch on ESPN Unlimited is funny, but also... a joke.

The time commitment has ballooned over the last few years if you're trying to really keep up with it all. There's 2 main shows (RAW and Smackdown) that run between 2 and 3 hours a week, plus Main Event with dark matches or whatever.

There's a weekly developmental show with NXT, but also some Triple A show below that (Evolve). Speaking of AAA, they own Lucha Libre AAA now and do a ton of crossover events. They don't own TNA Impact! but they share wrestlers regularly enough that I wonder if I should watch that too.

Don't get me started on the "popular culture" crossovers. I understand they are trying to get new eyes on the product, but at some point the focus seems to only be on new eyes. I miss the time in my life when I had no fucking clue who Jelly Roll was.

And that's just the stuff I know about, there's a ton of other little programs on YouTube and such. Also all of the aforementioned shows have Premium Live Events (PLE f/k/a PPV) to keep up with.

Then to take it all a step further, some of those PLEs are multiple nights. They are also internationalizing like crazy, so some of them run at weird hours making it harder to watch live in the US.

That's not to say they shouldn't do events overseas (granted, I have opinions about WrestleMania being outside of the US). The bigger issue is avoiding spoilers and such when they do. Algorithms push you relevant content and don't factor in that maybe you haven't watched something yet.

It's turned into a full-time job to keep up, and quite frankly, the product's quality is worse for wear being spread so thin. I could point a finger at the TKO influence, but that's just a tired IWC trope at this point.

I know there are alternatives out there to WWE, but for the moment, I think I'm done with professional wrestling, yet again. I haven't watched anything (Fed, All Elite, or otherwise) since WrestleMania 42. I've kept a bit of an ear on the news and storylines, and honestly, I don't think I've missed out on much.

Maybe if Randy Orton won the title at 'Mania, it would all be different ;)

:wq