i think that's from the audience's exposure to the programming. both in the sense that many 80s fans were younger, but also in the quantity of the shows.
if you see the characters as it used to be, 12 times per year or once a week, there's more of a "the good guys havta win" scenario, because there's so much downtime.
now with wrestling several times a week, plus really a daily flow of online exposure and recaps, it needs to be more story driven. this tends to work better when they're chasing for the belt, as its one of the few, definitive "plots" in wrestling.
