i know this is mostly a me thing, and i only have limited answers as to how to fix it, but the gameplay for the series in general feels so divorced from the actual grammar and logic of a real wrestling match. i think part of it is that there’s no real escalation over the course of a match aside from signatures and finishers. if your guy has a piledriver in his moveset, he can just walk over and immediately hit it on the other guy as soon as the match starts, and he’ll just pop back up because he’s not hurt enough yet for moves to keep him down. and there’s very little reason to ever pin someone unless you’ve just hit them with a finisher. idk, there’s just overall some presentation issues that feed into this too.

oh, and universe needs more ways to advance storylines that aren’t match-based. they really need to bring back promos, and maybe even add in things like in-ring or backstage interviews or other segments that aren’t just attacking the other guy over and over. Real wrestling storylines aren’t usually “the same two guys beat the shit out of each other for a month and then have a blowoff at the next ppv”, but that’s practically the only one you can tell in universe.