Motivation

In any storytelling form, the essence of character is "Who is this guy/lady?" and "What do they want?" It feels as if wrestling is always at its best when the latter question has a simple, tangible answer; either "win the thing/be the best" or "avenge _____". Heels and faces disagree on tactics, but they essentially pursue the same goals. Special characters can have objectives beyond victory, like Taker ("harvest souls") or Brock ("wreck things/inspire pants-soiling"); but when it goes wrong you get "Double J" Jeff Jarrett.

It feels like a big reason the Cruiserweight Classic was so excellent was that it was a clean slate pocket universe where no one had sufficient history or familiarity with the audience to have any other motive than the one that makes wrestling great. So is a big problem with the main roster the fact that after years of doing multiple shows a week and having booked-by-fridge-magnet rivalries with every other person on the roster; any credibility they have of wanting anything at all besides a new contract is ground down into nothing?

Honestly, I’m an actor, and I didn’t know you could project "holding pattern" as an emotion, but it seems to be the primary one on many faces on the main roster. In the old days they could have disappeared to Japan for 18 months and come back ready to re-start their story of trying to win the thing/be the best. And the membrane separating the WWE/NXT Universes is still strong enough that a main roster debut can count as a reboot. But is there anything that, say, Cesaro can actually do on our TV at this point that will ever get him into the main event?

​"Projecting ‘holding pattern’ as an emotion" is such an apt description of the entire roster these days, bravo. ​Honestly, part of the problem (and this should not be a shock) is that they’re just not going to give up on Roman Reigns and everyone else has to wait in line behind him while they keep re-annointing him over and over AND OVER until it sticks.