Rebuilding the WWE in Five ways or less

[Mr Butternut Squash]

popcorngif and all that.

 

Bloody hell this Maxwell bloke is a bit weird.

[jimufctna24]

Camera experience was because they are not camera shy and dont have a problem being on TV in front of crowds.

 

Nor would pro wrestlers be!

 

Well, that's if the MMA fighters have been on TV before. I don't know how much local MMA you're watching, but the only camera at a lot of them are fucking iphones and it's in front of a crowd of about 100.

The guy Maxwell mentioned is a bad example anyway.

 

I looked up his record and I believe he never fought on TV. He was undercards for Cage Rage, so the only camera experience he has is if he filmed any of his rap videos.

 

I think even guys in the UFC would have to be trained to adapt to Pro Wrestling TV, they would really start from square 1 in that aspect like everyone else.

[wandshogun09]

Admittedly I'm not an MMA follower, but I've never even heard of Popek Rak. Looking him up, what exactly does he offer aside from looking like a complete and utter mental? Might be worth throwing this one open to wandshogun, see if he knows much about him.

 

I'll be honest, never heard of him. Looking at the stuff Ian posted and looking at his record now I'm not surprised I haven't heard of him to be honest. Just a big lug with tattoos from what I can tell.

 

Like someone else said, if they were looking at MMA for talent then they'd be better off going after a guy like Josh Barnett. He's big, he shits charisma, can talk and has pro wrestling experience so wouldn't need training from scratch like the tattooed eyed bloke. Ken Shamrock worked in a similar way in that he started off as a pro wrestler before doing MMA.

 

They can't just take any old tatted up, musclebound, not very good MMA fighter and expect his schtick to work in a pro wrestling ring just because he's fought in a high school gym a handful of times.

 

On the subject of the thread, I think Magnum put it very well here...

 

Therein lies the problem for me, from a fan's POV. All the things that a lot of us think would make the product more compelling and exciting are also things which would probably hurt its profitability. To me, overexposure is what's killed wrestling. The more hours of TV you have to fill, the quicker people get bored of potentially compelling storylines because the writers run out of ways to keep them fresh. The more PPVs a wrestler has to main event, the quicker his act gets stale. The more world titles you have, the less special they seem. It also seems that, the bigger a 'talent' pool they've had access to, the more limited their resources seem to appear - in 6/7 years they haven't come close to creating a main event-level draw to match Cena, and they continue to give major angles and storylines to someone as limited as Vickie Guererro.

 

There's little doubt in my mind that I'd be far more inclined to start watching WWE again if it featured only one, 2-hour TV show each week, 6-8 PPVs a year, and one world title. It would likely be far more entertaining, but also far less profitable. This is why I don't see the status quo changing anytime soon - to me, the current business model is inextricable from dull, repetitive and formulaic TV, but as long as it remains profitable, they won't be in any rush to mess about with it.

[neil]

That was like 2 fucking Christmases ago and I was really fucking ill with Swine flu or something at you were all being dicks

 

Don't blame it on flu, you know that's really what you believe. I'd think a lot more of you if you just admitted that, to be honest.

 

Oh I believe it. But the angry over the top nature in which I delivered that performance was flu based. Similar to how Ian's cum in Butch's eyes was alcohol based

You all need to shut up.

[Jason Mayhem]

Back on topic:

 

1 - Hire Guys for shorter contracts, so we don

[Skull]

The best way to rebuild the WWE is to start making PPVs and Titles count. For that, you need to remove a lot of PPVs, even the gimmick ones, because right now, you have one PPV then another in 3 weeks which leads to little buildup, like whats happened for survivor series. With less PPVs, some months there may not be a PPV, this is where a 3 hour RAW comes into play. Back in the brand days, when one brand didnt have a PPV that month, their "end of month" show would have a big match. So, you get rid of 3 hour RAWs until big events like that (ie, say April has no PPV, so you have a 3 hour RAW with a big match, like a 30 min iron man match for the title or something)

 

With this, you can look at making titles count, and maybe have US/IC titles change on TV, but not in a random fashion, with a 3 hour show, you could have that. Remember back when RVD won the IC title in the main event of RAW, it was built up to that match. Now, to do this, you would need to get writers in who know about the biz, maybe some ex wrestlers, heck, maybe russo and heyman, guys who would be prepared to take risks [this is why I always liked Hunter signing sin cara, it was a risk]

[NEWM]

Most people have said most things, but I'll give this a bash. I've tried to avoid stuff that would interject with PG, the Mattel deal, or their PPV model. You're fucking daft if you think they'd even go near that stuff. That's where their bread is buttered. Oh, and turning Cena heel too. Come on, you're better than that.

 

1) TNA and ROH's pithy existence under the shadow of WWE is ridiculous, when you think about it. When Vince went for the territories in the 80s, he crushed bigger and more (locally) profitable outfits than these two. Get any talent you like. Think of a Duggan and a Dibiase who came from UWF full of character and knowledge of how to get over. Lets use Joe and AJ as comparisons for TNA, they come straight in, name them what you like, but push them and let them keep their moves. I don't know who's good in ROH, but at least just drop them into NXT. Seriously though, roster-wise, just fuck those companies up and see who sinks or swims in the WWE. He's taken some stick for his talent acquisitions, but I think this is HHH's view, actually. I think he watches things and looks around for guys, and he's more switched on to other shows than Vince was. Kassius Ohno, Antonio Cesaro, Seth Rollins and Damien Sandow seem like they were big deals in ROH, the way the fanboys go on about them. This tells me HHH keeps an eye open. So yeah, get more aggressive with talent, and with some of the TNA guys, drop them right on telly. Even a Kaz and Daniels showing up one week and taking out Ryder and Santino would carry more weight than putting two current WWE guys together to do it. There's a stale stink on virtually all of the undercard.

 

2) Whilst doing this, do a massive fucking cull of the current undercard. Anybody that doesn't appear on Raw pretty much every week can all go. They shove a lot of guys out there three hours on a Monday, and if you can't get going there, you don't deserve your job. In the 95/96 (I think when JR got a hold of talent) you saw some right dross getting pushed aside and/or sacked in place of Austin, Ahmed, Vader, Mero, Candido, Hunter and loads others. They won't all work, but it took some balls to so markedly change the overall shape and style of the roster. Like then (and any other time really), you've always got your cornerstones so you can afford to shuffle the pack for a 4-6 month spell whilst your Cena's and Punk's look after the show.

 

3) Cliched one this, but yeah, fuck off what's left of the roster split. Have your fresh roster, give them three hours on a Monday and two on a Tuesday to get over or get fucked. The demand problem is a huge one, and 5 hours seems just too much for today's audience. So if Smackdown's ratings don't improve after a while of it being a proper continuation of Raw, shuffle the deck of wrestlers again. They've gone from one extreme to the other with patience in wrestlers now - it used to be that people didn't get a chance, nowadays people get limitless hours and still fail to connect effectively. I'd like to think this could harness the best out of a pretty fractured and frustrated creative team too. It seems like a stifling job working there, but if you and your writing help create a moneymaking character who can sell some shirts and pop a crowd (I'm thinking like a Godfather sort), that would be enough to get you out of bed and do your best. Not everybody can be a Main Eventer, but everybody can be somebody.

 

4) STARS! There's fucking HUNDREDS at the moment, I've never known a time where so many guys are good enough to be out there sharing skills but are instead on the dole or the indy scene. WWE has got these so-callled "young" rosters, but when the fuck did that make anybody any money? The Attitude era had elements of it, but WWE peaked in 2000 when you had all the hot new young guys along with some steady experience from HHH, Benoit and co. A mix is key, even if your big names are predominantly doing jobs. Jeff Hardy, Batista, Sting, X-Pac, Billy Gunn, Kevin Nash, Vader, Nash et all. What the fuck are they doing not working in WWE right now. And not just to put younger guys over. They need to teach new guys how to stir the pot, how to politic, and how to fucking man up once in a while. Cause just enough trouble to get wrestlers to grow balls and get over. The micromanagement isn't going anywhere whilst the WWE is as stable as it is, and CM Punk doing a worked shoot promo basically designed to get every internet fan to buy his t-shirts and convince them he's not basically the exact same thing they all hate about Cena is not going to change owt. They've got a good system of lining up the big stars around this time of year for Mania, so keep Rock, Austin, Hogan, Taker and that for the special ocasions, but if the Prime Time Players promised to leave The New Age Outlaws laying and kill their legacy at a B-show, you'd be all over it. Stars dim in wrestling, but they never, ever go out.

 

5) Push a guy like your endgame is him vs Taker at next year's Mania, even if it's not. Once a year, make somebody a Taker project. If you start with that mindset, I think you'll make somebody. Wade Barrett in 2010 and Ryback in 2012 spring to mind as guys who at some point, we all thought they could maybe be Taker opponents. This means they had traction and a good aura around them. Similar to Mark Henry's run last year, actually. Dominance and destruction, that kind of shit.

 

(All redundant though. WWE is fine and none of us have the first fucking clue about anything, let's be honest)

[gadge]

Awesome stuff NEWM. Just. Tremendous.