When I first took an interest in watching basketball in 1996, my dad, who raised me on sports, teased me for investing any time/emotion on a game that only matters when the teams are trading free throws in the final 2 minutes of regulation.

If he watched Raw or SmackDown, he'd ask me why I watch matches whose outcomes are as sudden and removed from everything else that transpired beforehand.

I'll focus solely on the finishes in traditional singles matches in WWE for now (tags are another nightmare). Whenever a match between two equally presented wrestlers happens on Raw or SmackDown, the vast majority of the time it ends in an angle/disqualification/interference assisted dirty win/a roll-up. Recent examples include LA Knight vs. Montez Ford and Gunther vs Kevin Owens, which both ended in roll ups. Ostensibly, this is to signal that neither competitor can be considered better than the other.

This is so unsatisfying when matches are supposed to establish who, at least at the time, is better/more worthy of being champion and/or a top contender.

If there were more "cold" matches, 6-8 min in length with definitive winners, an occasional clean loss would be okay. If Ford beat Mansoor, Johnny Gargano, and Dexter Lumis over the two months prior to losing to Knight, he could better take a clean loss. There is so much talking on WWE TV, there simply has to be enough time to fit more matches that exist for the sake of establishing top contender status.

I have never watched a New Japan G6 Summit tournament but I understand they have a lot of highly regarded talent who go 6-2, 5-3, and so on, because losses happen when facing legitimate competition. The NFL's Kansas Chiefs lost a few times en route to winning the Super Bowl this past year. It didn't diminish their status as top contenders. Losses are okay if there are more than one competitive matches on TV each month.

They make the wins mean more.

But that's just my idea.