They had to push Cena though. Someone had to fill the void left by Bryan and Punk. Had to be a face and he was the only one with enough drawing power to be put there at that time.

Bray Wyatt's currently a victim of Bryan's injury.

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I don't even know why they're even pushing Reigns to be the top guy. I like him, but only a select few throughout history have had that "it factor" to be THE guy in WWE, and as far as I can see, Reigns doesn't have it.

Cena has not won 14 PPV matches in a row. He's won his last 14 matches on PPV & TV.

I agree. Daniel Bryan is a far better choice and they should stick with him. I think WWE itself is jumping on any bandwagon that might pay off unless Vince has another opinion. For example there was that whole Ryback next big superstar thing and we saw what happened. Out of the three Shield members I actually think Seth Rollins could become the bigger superstar.

This. x 1000.

They seem to have lost this ability. They knew how to do it. I know this because I'm watching 97-98 Raw. The best example of this is Kane, who debuted in October and didn't have the big payoff match with Taker until 6 months later. Imagine if they'd done a bunch of non-finishes or traded victories straight out of the gate?

The other thing that really stood out whilst watching the build to Mania 14 is just how little the top guys actually had matches. Austin had 3 TV matches between the start of 98 and winning the title in March. More often than not he'd have one, maybe 2 matches between PPVs. I suppose this made it a big(ger) deal when he did get in the ring. Now you have a guy like Orton who wrestles twice a week most weeks.

Austins body was kinda fucked though right?

Yeah, I've been high on the idea of less TV matches for the major players for a while. It makes PPVs AND certain wrestlers actually seem like a big deal by not having your main event guys wrestle each other, and more importantly lose constantly. They'd need two things though. They'd need to actually bring the IC Title up to where it is an actual attraction again and can draw and headline TV shows (maybe not the last segment but the feature match) and they'd need writers who can build compelling storylines that don't involve "throw them in a match, have a DQ, therefore heat". They could do it with Austin because they had both of those things working for them.

100% agree with everything in this post. Wish the midcard titles meant more like they once did. Also, would love to not have certain guys touch before PPV's.

At this point, I don't think so.

HBK had the back injury that kept him out of action Rumble to Mania and the subsequent 4 years. Taker was also gone from Rumble to about 2 weeks prior to Mania.

It's moot, anyway. The point is they can, or at least they used to be able to, continue a story without having the guys wrestle every week. They throw away potentially good matches (see Reigns vs. Rusev) on free TV, end it in a DQ or some kind of breakdown so that there's no definite ending and they can book the match again. Such a waste.

I honestly think they don't know how to pace a story anymore. Look at this Woods/Big E/Kofi thing. Woods approaches E and Kofi on Raw, the next night they're a fully formed unit. Could they not have drawn it out a little? Have Woods trying to get them on side over the course of a few weeks, appearing at ringside when the lose with a "see" face, have him help them win in a way of saying "things are better with me around". Give Kofi and E some segments backstage where they're talking it through, have one of them more unsure than the other, a little bit of character development and an opportunity to work on their promo skills. Then you have the group officially come together. Not everything has to happen in the ring/in a match.

They also didnt have 9 hours of TV to fill in the period you are talking about.

So its really apples to oranges.

9 hours!? 3 for Raw, 2 for SmackDown. You can't really count Main Event or NXT. Even if you did, that's 7 hours, not 9.

They have a MASSIVE roster that they actively choose not to use. If you built interesting angles/storylines/feuds/characters with guys like Ryder, Sandow, Ziggler, Cesaro or the bunch of guys they let go like Mahal, JTG & McIntyre they wouldn't need to pad out each card with repetitive and/or repeat matches with the same handful of guys.

In fact, having more TV time makes it even more inexcusable that they feel the need to rush everything. Taking that Woods/E/Kofi example, they've gone from point A-Z in the span of 2 shows - one of which is a C show that only a fraction of the audience watch. Surely, if they have all this time to fill they should be looking to slow some stuff down?