Paid Members mim731 Posted May 31, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2012 In general, Raw has seemed a bit dull as of late, and just looking at the Raw thread there is a lot of negativity and frustration going on. Things have arguably stagnated , and while there are some positives (Big Johnny's mobility scooter, Punk vs Bryan) there is a whole lot of boring, bland stuff happening. Â So, what would you do to make Raw exciting again. Especially in mind of the change to permanent 3 hour shows on the horizon? Who would be your champion, and who would you have as your top feud? Who would you elevate from the mid-card and how? Or would you give Raw a complete overhaul? Or maybe you enjoy Raw as it is? Â What would you do (if anything) to make Raw exciting again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Van Dammer Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 I know it wont go down well here, but bumping off Big John Laurinitis would be a start. He has far too big a role on the show for somebody that is very, very bland and I imagine casual and young fans must find his segments extremely dull. I think the authority figure role has been done to death now and keeping the role a bit more low key would be a smart move, preferably with a character that is a bit more relateable and entertaining to the audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sphinx Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Yeah, I agree. I prefer him in smaller doses. I'm bored by him now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loligan Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Agree. Get JL to fuck. Or at least keep him in 1 or 2 segments. Typical overkill. He seems to be feuding with everyone, punk, cena, shemus, teddy long, big show (before the turn) Â Bringing in a few stars would help as well. HHH, HBK, Taker, Austin, Batista could all be helping but would need some serious cash to get them in for a shift (cept trips of course) Â They need to do something and fast. To think they are going to 3 hours soon is scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonworden Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 In all honesty, I dont know of any realistic suggestions that cover every angle. Something I would honestly love to see is reduce raw either by 30 minutes of even down to an hour long again. My attentions span always runs away during 2 hour shows and surely I cant be the only one. With a limited roster it could be worth a try. I know advertising revenue etc make this suggestion stupid it is purely my selfish version of what I'd like to see  As a compromise I wouldnt mind them rebooting superstars or another new formula show thats an hour long but try keeping the main event guys on there and running main event story lines with it as well, not exclusively but certainly have some progression. Could it not be shot after Raw and/or Smackdown instead of the dark matches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexy Dad Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 IC and US title defences a couple of times a month. One real tag team match a week. Include some of the new SD talent on the show, Cesaro, Ryback, Sandow etc even if not every week. Open the shows with a match instead of a long promo, remember when Miz and Morrison opened up the first Raw of 2011 with a falls count anywhere match? I think opening the show with main event/mid card talent in a good solid bout would hook the audience and Cole could announce that Cena or Show etc has something to say in the next quarter of the show. Â I'm not suggesting anything too dramatic but I think these few changes would make the show less stagnant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patiirc Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Sensible booking, sticking with something hot when needed and allowing it time to breath rather than battering it to death or sinking it after 5 seconds because it hasnt done stellar numbers. Conversely, ditching something that bombs quickly rather than dragging it out would also come to mind (Just because it goes well at an arena doesnt mean it translates well to an audience in TV Land) Â Stay away from PPV matches or rematches on Raw as it completely spoils any further matches on PPV. Seeing the same people having the 64,000th match vs each other in a month or over the space of a few months on Tv AND PPV just kills it a little. Feuds can be progressed without an actual match every 5 seconds. Promos, skits, interference etc. Â Build solid contenders in general. Make the titles mean something again. Have them shown to be important and not an after thought, it is killing the product that the belts mean so little currently so making them mean something again would help potentially. Â Have a clear idea of who is lower mid and upper card and stick with it so that they can start having defined roles, and therefore storylines and start building from there. If things escalated then they can move. If everyone beats everyone else as it is at the moment, it becomes a clusterfuck and makes it hard for the audience to give a shit. Â Other than that, the wrestling is actually pretty good. It's not a million miles away, but tweaking the shit comedy boring promos and giving meaning to stuff should work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members niff Posted May 31, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2012 Its funny that as they scrapped the guest hosts being a part of the show the quality still remains pretty low for the whole show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 IC and US title defences a couple of times a month. One real tag team match a week. Include some of the new SD talent on the show, Cesaro, Ryback, Sandow etc even if not every week. Open the shows with a match instead of a long promo, remember when Miz and Morrison opened up the first Raw of 2011 with a falls count anywhere match? I think opening the show with main event/mid card talent in a good solid bout would hook the audience and Cole could announce that Cena or Show etc has something to say in the next quarter of the show. Â I'm not suggesting anything too dramatic but I think these few changes would make the show less stagnant. Â The reason the top talent is in the opening of the show is so that people tune into the start of Raw rather than the start of something else at nine o'clock. If they put, for example, Kofi vs Ziggler as the opening match, by the time they get to the Cena interview at quarter past, people could already be too invested in the episode of whatever they started watching at nine. Starting with a match would only be clever if it was with real top talent. And considering they need an extra hook/main event every week now (for the end of the first hour/start of the second), they haven't got an endless supply of main event matches that they can just keep chucking one in at the start as well. Â Sensible booking, sticking with something hot when needed and allowing it time to breath rather than battering it to death or sinking it after 5 seconds because it hasnt done stellar numbers. Conversely, ditching something that bombs quickly rather than dragging it out would also come to mind (Just because it goes well at an arena doesnt mean it translates well to an audience in TV Land) Contradictory there. How are you judging the bombs that should be killed off and the ones that should be persisted with? Your personal preference? Â Its funny that as they scrapped the guest hosts being a part of the show the quality still remains pretty low for the whole show. What? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patiirc Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Sensible booking, sticking with something hot when needed and allowing it time to breath rather than battering it to death or sinking it after 5 seconds because it hasnt done stellar numbers. Conversely, ditching something that bombs quickly rather than dragging it out would also come to mind (Just because it goes well at an arena doesnt mean it translates well to an audience in TV Land) Contradictory there. How are you judging the bombs that should be killed off and the ones that should be persisted with? Your personal preference? Â I would suggest actually consulting with a wide variety of fans or have a fans panel or some such. The Hotshotting for ratings spikes isn't working nor is the scatter gun approach to as what the writers think will be a success. The product needs to connect with the fans a little more, relying on ratings and merch sales plus creative's ideas only isn't halting the slide nor is it helping to solve in the long run ( I dont know if they do anything else similar to what I've suggested already so would be prepared to be corrected). It is just helping to further the mess. They may get a hit or try and force a hit in the interim, but if the do get something good it is usually obliterated by losing faith in it, booking it into the ground to the point it is stone dead or ends up getting lost in the mix by adding others to it to ride on it's coat tails. Either way it usually ends in a failure or mess and they have to start all over again. Â The fans, know the product, know what they want to see and know what works and what doesn't, those that remain get to see it every week or more. So putting some faith in them could help the product. Clearly a panel would have to be all ages and not just key demographic, but it could help things be targeted better and have some continuity. I appreciate that the WWE get fan submissions via email etc at present, but doing something more formalised and listening to it could have a positive effect in the long term. Im not suggesting that it will miraculously solve anything, but creating a connection between the fan base and the product has to be better than at present whereby its clear something is a miss and its starting to fall apart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted May 31, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2012 They don't book attractions anymore. There's only Rey Mysterio (who might not be back) and John Cena who really take you into a fantasy world because one is such a massive presence and star (and because he's the ONLY full timer that makes a bit of difference to ratings and house show attendance) and the other is straight from the pages of a Marvel comic. Batista was the same. Jeff Hardy was the same. So was The Undertaker and Triple H. Shawn Michaels was a legend who could not only go in the ring, but could do comedy, the evil heel or the firey babyface. He was a complete one off, so there's no use crying over wanting another HBK. I can't see it ever happening. Â Here's a story from a few years ago. I remember when I used to work in a shop. I usually worked in the warehouse, but occasionally I'd venture onto the tills or on the shop floor. This was around 2008 and 2009, and WWE was having a little surge in popularity again. WWE was actually doing really good in 07/08 if I remember, so there was a little buzz for the figures and stuff. The kids were just buzzing for it. Little lads chatting to me on the till about wrestling, which was exactly as I'd done when I was 7. They would talk about Triple H and Rey Mysterio and of course John Cena. I'd try and put Hogan over to the customers, but they weren't having any of it. They were just big into how WWE was at the time, and the cast of characters they had. Â The reason I wrote that, was because I'm looking now and thinking who on the current roster is an attraction that the audience will be drawing pictures of in their jotters? I just can't imagine any kids in 2012 going "Mam when I grow up I want a receding hairline and a beard". Great wrestling is all good for the likes of me. I enjoy a really good match, but its so far back in what I cared about when I was young or even when I was 16. I don't think bringing old stars back is the answer to be fair. Because you can have 50 stars, but if you don't book them as star attractions its pointless having them. But if you look at the roster in 2009 and look at it in 2012, its like a bombs went off and all the good ones died in the blast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Halitosis Romantic Posted May 31, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2012 Exactly - it's a vast sea of boring sods. I like some of those boring sods, and plenty of them are top notch wrestlers, but the mindset now is far too geared towards a big bunch of wrestlemen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 I would suggest actually consulting with a wide variety of fans or have a fans panel or some such. The Hotshotting for ratings spikes isn't working nor is the scatter gun approach to as what the writers think will be a success. The product needs to connect with the fans a little more, relying on ratings and merch sales plus creative's ideas only isn't halting the slide nor is it helping to solve in the long run ( I dont know if they do anything else similar to what I've suggested already so would be prepared to be corrected). It is just helping to further the mess. They may get a hit or try and force a hit in the interim, but if the do get something good it is usually obliterated by losing faith in it, booking it into the ground to the point it is stone dead or ends up getting lost in the mix by adding others to it to ride on it's coat tails. Either way it usually ends in a failure or mess and they have to start all over again. The fans, know the product, know what they want to see and know what works and what doesn't, those that remain get to see it every week or more. So putting some faith in them could help the product. Clearly a panel would have to be all ages and not just key demographic, but it could help things be targeted better and have some continuity. I appreciate that the WWE get fan submissions via email etc at present, but doing something more formalised and listening to it could have a positive effect in the long term. Im not suggesting that it will miraculously solve anything, but creating a connection between the fan base and the product has to be better than at present whereby its clear something is a miss and its starting to fall apart.  That's the last thing they should do. It'd end up being a mess. Bischoff talks about doing it in WCW and they're useless. Aside from the fact that you can gear the questionaires to be answered in certain ways, fans want different things, they also don't know what they really want and in the end you're left with a mess. The fans don't know the product, they know what they think they like, which isn't always right. Besides, you can tell if the fans like something or not by whether they tune in or not and to a lesser extent whether they pop or not. Supposedly if they were listening to the fans at the moment CM Punk would be pushed back down the card.  Bringing in a few stars would help as well. HHH, HBK, Taker, Austin, Batista could all be helping but would need some serious cash to get them in for a shift (cept trips of course)  I don't think it will. Well, it might, but then they brought Austin in when they first had the brand split to booster RAW and it was boring and shit. They've just had Brock fucking Lesnar back and apparently people are already bored again.  Stay away from PPV matches or rematches on Raw as it completely spoils any further matches on PPV.  That's not a way of making TV more exciting though is it?  IC and US title defences a couple of times a month.  What's so exciting about that?  It's not a million miles away, but tweaking the shit comedy boring promos and giving meaning to stuff should work  They should have told them that during the Attitude era.  Whenever I watch all I notice is that everything looks the same and all the characters seem the same. Maybe that's slightly less true now (not sure) but a lot of the wrestlers just seem to be "I wanna win" wrestlers with real names. Fuck that noise. That's partly why I'm more interested in lucha these days, there's loads of different colourful looking guys with proper cool names and they represent different things. People are hailing Negro Casas as one of the best heels in the world right now (I can't say if he is because all I'm really watching is lucha bar a very select amount of other bits and pieces) and he's in a group who wear silly afros and dance with a shrieking tiny bird. He's not "my name is Blandy McBlandy and I'm cocky and I wanna win". Fuck off and get a silly hat or dance move bitch. Do that swiggly foot thing they did at the Eurovision, then I'll care. And then just do some mental shit. Have a doctor wrestler who looks people over after matches and tells heels their fine and to stop sulking and then turns evil and shove massive needles up the arses of people who have blue eyes, and have a guy who hypnotises people and a guy who thinks he's a monkey, in fact give me a whole division of mini animals. Like the choccy biscuits. Give me a tag team who backflip all the way to the ring, get in, fall down exhausted and immediatly get pinned. And then do the great wrestling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GPW Kristian Zane Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 What got me into RAW back in 2000 was how the shows could be unpredictable, Jericho winning the WWE title in the opener, Shawn Michaels turning up and resigning as GM, Mick Foley being reinstated and then becoming the Commissioner. Nowadays the shows seem to follow a pattern and you could read the spoilers pretty much knowing what they are going to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Halitosis Romantic Posted May 31, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2012 Whenever I watch all I notice is that everything looks the same and all the characters seem the same. Maybe that's slightly less true now (not sure) but a lot of the wrestlers just seem to be "I wanna win" wrestlers with real names. Fuck that noise. That's partly why I'm more interested in lucha these days, there's loads of different colourful looking guys with proper cool names and they represent different things. People are hailing Negro Casas as one of the best heels in the world right now (I can't say if he is because all I'm really watching is lucha bar a very select amount of other bits and pieces) and he's in a group who wear silly afros and dance with a shrieking tiny bird. He's not "my name is Blandy McBlandy and I'm cocky and I wanna win". Fuck off and get a silly hat or dance move bitch. Do that swiggly foot thing they did at the Eurovision, then I'll care. And then just do some mental shit. Have a doctor wrestler who looks people over after matches and tells heels their fine and to stop sulking and then turns evil and shove massive needles up the arses of people who have blue eyes, and have a guy who hypnotises people and a guy who thinks he's a monkey, in fact give me a whole division of mini animals. Like the choccy biscuits. Give me a tag team who backflip all the way to the ring, get in, fall down exhausted and immediatly get pinned. And then do the great wrestling. Â Before some surly bollocks tells you that you're trying too hard to entertain, let me just that your post entertained the fuck out of me. Funny shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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