Look, I know WWE isn’t for me anymore. But I still find it interesting to drop in for the biggest shows. And I’m flabbergasted by what I watched.

The level of craft and fundamentals in the in-ring work has completely nosedived across the card to a degree that shocked me. The house style has always had issues and been an inferior style of pro wrestling to most other styles, but it was still competently executed by solid professionals. Triple H might have been boring, but he was still a very solid professional with great footwork and ring positioning. Someone like Koko Ware might have been ruined as a performer by having his prime wasted, but the problem was him being booked as a prelim guy because he was deemed too small, and he still looked like a great wrestler when given the chance.

This isn’t that.

Liv Morgan might be the worst wrestler in the world, a mess of Muppety footwork, obvious feeding, and taking forever to set up moves, and she’s the world champion on Raw. I don’t think she was always THIS bad, was she? This isn’t just me dropping in and realizing she was worse than I used to think, is it? She did execute the finishing sequence with IYO well and take the apron German Suplex like a champ, but otherwise? It was glaring that IYO took 99% of the match because Liv isn’t actually capable of doing anything. Also, watching the rest of the show, it’s genuinely impressive that IYO is still as great as she is. And why were the announcers putting THIS match over as a classic that will be remembered for decades to come?

The men’s trios match was similarly embarrassing. Outside of poor Will Hobbs, who was far and away the star of the match, nobody looked like they took an ounce of pride in their craft. L.A. Knight especially looked completely lost with terrible footwork. Everyone other than Hobbs showed tons of daylight in their strikes. Jacob Fatu has been completely ruined and the superkick he threw on the floor near the end of the match was “ur example” level floaty WWE bullshit. Oh, and there was mid-match yeeting and mid-match “YOU WAS FAMILY, DAWG!” Hobbs looked great, though. Everything he did had pop to it, his fundamentals were solid, and he looked mentally present in the match instead of performing.

At this point I was starting to wonder if Hobbs being a recent arrival from AEW meant he hadn’t internalized the TKO era floaty WWE style, and that’s why he lapped the five other guys in his match so badly. I got my answer in the next match, when Nick Aldis of all people worked circles around Gunther. NICK FUCKING ALDIS. Yes, he’s been producing for WWE for a while, but he hasn’t had the physicality (or should I say lack thereof) of the WWE style beaten into him because this was his first match in the company. So we got a really good match where FUCKING MAGNUS of all people looked like the crisp, professional ring general where he completely outworked a listless WALTER who looked like he couldn’t run the ropes, has none of his trademark physicality left, and may be as physically shot as Hikaru Shida. Wonderful.

And then the women’s trios match was, surprisingly, the most balanced match so far in terms of competent, proficient wrestling. Nikki Bella and whatever Tesha Price and Avery Taylor are called in WWE actively looked good, Paige was fine, and Brie Bella was also fine outside of the usual bad kicks, with the only glaring issue being Toxic Influence #3’s terrible selling of said kicks. Nikki may have actually had the best-looking offense of the whole show with her Nikkisawa elbow smashes. This was actually a very entertaining match.

Also on the plus side, Punk vs. Cody felt like a pro wrestling match accidentally broke out in the middle of SummerSlam. Both guys clearly take pride in their craft, had solid fundamentals throughout, and were making a point of avoiding showing daylight in their strikes or holds. It felt like a contest. Anything that got messed up was just from Punk (and Charles Robinson) being old and beat up. After the show had been filled with amateur hour sports entertainers running the ropes like there were Muppets on black ice, it was a breath of fresh air. Even if the finish sucked. Also, I hope that Punk didn’t explode his knee. That landing was horrifying.

The main event was perfectly well-executed but I have no desire to talk about You Know Who. Good for Oba Femi, though, I guess?

Overall, there were actually more things I enjoyed than I expected there to be on this show. But the bad was so bad and so ever-present that it was baffling. This goes way beyond having a house style. GUNTHER used to be able to still be WALTER within the WWE house style. Jacob Fatu should easily still be able to be Jacob Fatu in the WWE house style. L.A. Knight was never great in the ring, but he was a competent professional. Liv Morgan was never very good, but was able to make what she had work in the WWE style presentation. The Usos and Solo Sikoa are genuinely talented wrestlers. But they’re not who they were anymore. They’re all tripping over their own feet while having matches that look like play fighting. It really is baby soft, baby brained, baby shit wrestling in a way that it’s never been before. How and why this is happening to such a profound degree, though? Outside of maybe struggling with the sponsor decals on the mat, which could genuinely be contributing, I have no idea.