For the past several weeks, the WWE has put The Street Profits and The Viking Raiders in a series of comedic sketches. Each Raw, the two tag teams have competed in a series of ridiculous challenges, including, but not limited to, dancing, bowling and ax-throwing.
They are meant to be internet-friendly bits of content that make the viewer laugh, but despite the best efforts of both teams, oftentimes they instead come off as entirely flat or just strange. This becomes especially true when comparing these sketches to the ones on AEW where the Bubbly Bunch as well as just about any Britt Baker segment have gotten incredibly over. While each company has made attempts at creating more internet friendly content, there are places where WWE still has to grow -- and it can start by learning from its immediate competition.
The central joke in almost every single one of these sketches essentially boils down to one of the teams being extremely good at the challenge while the other team is comically bad at it. In between this is a lot of high energy screaming and cheering, usually ending with either the Street Profits taking an embarrassing fall or the Viking Raiders eating a cartoonishly large turkey leg while a random female authority figure tells Ivar he's cute and Erik he isn't. All of these segments tend to be less funny than they are archaic. The physical humor does not come across as fresh and entertaining, or even natural for that matter. This is only further highlighted when looking at AEW.
While also trying to make internet friendly content, AEW has succeeded due to the more organic nature of its own sketches. Instead of shot-put throws and turkey leg eating contests, AEW allows the natural charisma and senses of humor of its performers to take the spotlight. When looking at the Bubbly Bunch, the main source of laughs does not come from pratfalls or lame catchphrases but from the rapport between the members of the Inner Circle as they interact with each other. Adding to this with hard cuts to stuffed animals and Roombas in the midst of their conversations only heightens the irreverence and fun everyone involved seems to be having. This remains just as true in the ongoing segments involving Britt Baker.
In just about every Britt Baker segment, her increasingly angry heel character is given more time to shine by adding new twists and quirks to her character. From going through the rules of being a role model to being kidnapped and thrown in a dumpster, every moment that Britt Baker is on screen she is allowed to build up who her character is and develop her relationships with Rebel and Tony Schiavone. It lets her character act and react to the many situations she is put in in an organic, dynamic way, rather than just replaying a slight variation on the same lame joke each week. So, what can WWE learn from this?
The first -- and easiest -- adjustment would be to put the Street Profits and Viking Raiders in slightly more grounded situations. Instead of fighting ninjas and running 100 meter hurdles, they could simply be seen interacting with more natural dialogue to build the chemistry between the two. This isn't to say that they cannot also be doing ridiculous things, but at least give them time to actually speak and bring in their personalities while doing this. In every Bubbly Bunch segment, the Inner Circle ends up doing many goofy things, but the main highlight of it is and always has been chemistry they get to show in the conversations they have with each other.
The Street Profits, in particular, shine best when they are simply given a microphone and something interesting to react to. The sketches that the WWE has put them in leave little time for them to act naturally and create laughs organically because they're so over-scripted to meet some producer's idea of what might become popular on the internet.
WWE has two extremely talented tag teams that are stuck in lame, overly produced sketches because the company is letting an out-of-touch creative team try to artificially dictate viral content. Instead, it should take a page from AEW and empower its performers to be funny on their own merits if it really wants to make content friendly for the internet.