I think it says something that a female wrestler named Blue Pants got a bigger pop than the guy who won this year’s Royal Rumble and headlined Wrestlemania. But what does it say? That wrestling fans are fickle hipsters? Or that whoever’s booking NXT could teach whoever’s booking the main roster how to do their job? Or that wrestling is more voodoo than science? I really don’t know. All I know is, I was seriously on board with NXT Takeover Brooklyn, but I was scratching my head at much of Summerslam.

Perhaps a good illustration is the contrast between two matches: the NXT Tag Team Championship match, and the Title for Title match between Seth Rollins and John Cena.

On the face of it, the NXT Tag Team Championship match sounds idiotic: the defending champions, a pair of dubstep-loving bros and their evil cheerleader manager, face off against the fan favorites, a pair of vaudeville strongmen. Pure gimmicky stupidity? Hardly.

The vaudeville gimmick figures into the ongoing story, in which Alexa Bliss, the evil cheerleader, continually berates and slaps around the fan favorites, who refuse to fight back. In a recent episode, the crowd chanted “CHIVALRY! CHIVALRY!” to encourage the Vaudevillains to keep their composure.

Wrestling fans, chanting for chivalry. Let that sink in.

Later, in an interview, our heroes assure us that they will soon have an answer to the Alexa Bliss problem.

At Takeover, the Vaudevillains make their way to the ring without anyone accompanying them, but when Bliss insults them and is about to slap them, they motion calmly for her to stop and gesture politely to the entrance ramp. Out comes Blue Pants with a Vaudevillains shirt. The crowd goes insane.

Mind you, this wasn’t even a surprise. The NXT fans had been chanting for Blue Pants to come stomp Bliss for weeks. Predictable? Obviously. But based on the crowd reaction, no less awesome.

The moment when the two women finally fought was telling. Bliss stepped into the ring at a critical moment, ready to attack the Vaudevillains and cause a disqualification, giving up the victory but allowing Blake and Murphy to retain their championship. At this moment, Blue Pants jumps in, trouncing the evil cheerleader and keeping the match going, which the Vaudevillains eventually win clean. “That should have been a disqualification right there!” says Corey Graves, the heel announcer, followed by perhaps the greatest call in recent memory: “Blue Pants, you’ve ruined everything!”

Here’s my thought process going into this match:

  • Blake and Murphy are bad guys because they are mean and they cheat. I buy that. I hope they lose.
  • Alexa Bliss is a bad guy because she is mean to the guys that are trying to do the right thing and she cheats. I buy that. I hope she gets taught a lesson.
  • The Vaudevillains are good guys because they are entertaining and chivalrous. I buy that. I hope they win.
  • The Vaudevillains need a female wrestler to help them. Hey, Blue Pants has a similar goofy charm and is really entertaining. I hope she shows up.

So, what happens? Blue Pants shows up, gives Alexa Bliss what for, and helps the Vaudevillains win a decisive victory.

Contrast that with my thought process going into the Cena/Rollins match:

  • Rollins is a bad guy because he is a self-aggrandizing jerk and won his title in a sleazy way. Lately, however, he’s shown a lot of independence from his sleazy corporate masters. He also has a flashy, high-risk style that’s really fun to watch. And his promo from the other night on RAW was really good-guy-ish. But… yeah, he’s the bad guy. But does WWE think I’m supposed to think he’s the bad guy?
  • John Cena is the good guy because he never gives up and fights clean. I buy that. But not a lot of people do, sounds like. And as much as I like him, I’m really not interested in another John Cena title run, so… yes, he’s the good guy, but I don’t want him to win. Wait, does the WWE know that a large portion of their audience thinks similarly, or do they think we’re supposed to want him to win?
  • Okay, Rollins is the bad guy, but I’d rather see him win than the good guy. So, if Rollins is going to win, I want him to do something dastardly and win, so he can keep being a good bad guy and Cena can… do… something else. Yeah, there we go. Or he could turn into a good guy! Wait, would that make sense?

So, what happens? Cena and Rollins have an exceptional match until the referee gets knocked out and — wait for it — Summerslam host Jon Stewart runs out and hits Cena with a chair. Rollins then hits his finisher in time for the ref to wake up and count three.

It makes less sense when you remember that Rollins and Stewart had a feud a few months ago. Honestly, I didn’t even remember that when Stewart ran out at Summerslam. If I had, I’d have thought, ”oh, sure, he’s going to hit Rollins,” which, now that I think of it, wouldn’t have made terribly much sense, since that feud ended with Stewart kicking Rollins in the junk and making his escape. It was resolved, and I didn’t hear any references to it leading up to the match.

The only thing I can figure is that they’re setting up Stewart for an upcoming role on television, perhaps as the heel general manager of RAW or the like. That would be a cool surprise. Whatever the reason, I was left totally confused.

(Note: Stewart explained on RAW the following night that he did it to preserve Ric Flair’s record of 16 title reigns. While this set up a moderately funny exchange between him and John Cena, I’m not buying it.)

In storytelling, there is a balance to be struck between the audience’s expectation, plain logic, dramatic timing, and what the story needs structurally. Often, the ideal scenario is not to surprise the audience with an ending, but rather to let them anticipate and hope for it. An obvious ending that the audience is looking forward to is usually better than one they didn’t see coming, but to which they have no idea how to react.

The ending to the Vaudevillains’ feud with Blake and Murphy was so obvious as to be inevitable. The setup led invariably to the conclusion. And at the conclusion, the people cheered.

The Cena/Rollins feud, on the other hand, may or may not even be over. The setup and the conclusion are basically unrelated. The end of their match was, in essence, a deus ex machina: it happened that way for no better reason than because the writers say so.

You may be surprised at someone criticizing a wrestling show for bad storytelling. Isn’t that kind of like criticizing a boxer for having bad grammar? you may think. That’s kinda not the point. But for me, it is.

I started watching wrestling because it gave me a series of theatrical, acrobatic fight scenes. I kept watching wrestling as I grew to enjoy the characters and their interactions. Watching a wrestling match is one thing. Watching a match between the valiant underdog that’s been denied justice for months and the villain you love to hate — that’s different.

And when you’ve seen it done well, you come to expect better.