Things That Can Be Done Right Now To Revitalise Wrestling!

Yousef

Hopefully this can become a thread where people have an opportunity to have some input on what they would do in Vinces/Dixies shoes. If something sounds good, like it. Please include photo's etc to further describe what you think would revitalise the business. ITT - we make the industry great again!

1. Sort Out The Brand Extension.

This needs to be done officially. Does it even mean anything anymore? a) They either end it completely or b) and this is what I propose, they really have competition between both brands to motivate each show to out-do the other. Where is the incentive? Firstly, Vince should make two teams - Blue team and Red team (none storywise this is backroom stuff). These teams should be motivated by money, vacation time...whatever it takes. Perhaps a show that out-performs the other is granted a performer of their choosing from the opposing show. There needs to be some dog-eat-dog cut-throat relationship between the two sets of staff like the old days of WWF/WCW.

What do they have to lose? A company at war with itself? Hell yeah, sure Smackdown is an afterthought anyway as is. The two teams would not co-operate as they're in competition except perhaps in WrestleMania season to co-ordinate.

rovert

Nothing

Eire-Dearg

One thing? Good work.

GarIT

Maybe actually making it real would help. I'd watch it then.

Yousef

Eire-Dearg wrote: »

One thing? Good work.

This is not my blog - add your own.

Lord TSC

Everything can be fixed by making the writing "better".

Of course, this is pretty obvious and if the WWE cared about "revitalising" wrestling, they'd have made moves in that direction already....

GTR63

A bit like UFC I think there is too much of it on tv if i'm honest. Too many pointless ppvs and when you see most the smackdown talent on Raw whats the point of watching Smackdown.

There is too much of the same thing on TV. I wouldnt mind seeing something like ECW happen. Or a strictly 18's show but i dont think there is just one thing out there that could be done. Question is can wrestling in any form or shape do what the Attitude era did again .

starviewadams

Bring back The Hearthrobs,Kronik,Stacy Keibler's arse and Chavo Classic,in that order.

Oh and fire John Cena and push Davey Richards,Low Ki,Chris Hero etc to the moon.

That should sort things out nicely

actually Trade John Cena for Samoa Joe

GTR63

Tbh Joseph Park on his own could just be the next boom period.

airmax87

Bring back the hardcore title, I loved it as a kid and kids nowadays might like it.

Penn

Stop being so PG. And I don't mean a return to unprotected chair shots or crimson masks etc, I mean make it seem like two guys in a rivalry actually hate each other, like they want to kick the sh*t out of each other. Nowadays, I just don't get that from most feuds. Nobody is really trash talking, or making fun of their opponent. They used to run in and interfere in each others matches. They used to attack each other backstage. Now what happens? "I'll beat you, because I'm better than you, and I don't like you, and you're a hypocrite. See you in tonight's match where we're on opposing tag teams."

CMpunked

Nothing, Tis grand for the time being.

If you're always constantly annoyed at one little thing that you want changed then you're never going to enjoy the things they are actually doing right or you might enjoy.

ricero

More backstage brawling, stables and make the divas whores again

J. Marston

ricero wrote: »

More backstage brawling, stables and make the divas whores again

Well, Eve was a ''hoeski'' recently and AJ is currently working her way through three fellas at once so it looks like that's being brought back.

RobbingBandit

Draft soon, have Punk drop the WWE Belt to Kane and have Sheamus drop the World Heavyweight Title to Ziggler. Draft Kane to Smackdown and have him feud with Sheamus and Wade Barret when he comes back,put Ziggler with Cena for a while and have Punk and Bryan and Del Rio feud to be number 1 contender for World Heavyweight Title.

Also have Bigshow, Tensai, Ryback and a Heel Brodus face off for a Super Heavyweight title adding Mark Henry to the mix when he can come back.

Africa

Yousef having another whinge. Surprise surprise. Dont watch it mate, you never seem to be happy.

At the moment, its actually not bad. I worry about the 3 hour shows though.

bobby_says_hi

keep the Smackdown guys on Smackdown and stop them taking spots from the Raw guys

Yousef

Africa wrote: »

Yousef having another whinge. Surprise surprise. Dont watch it mate, you never seem to be happy.

At the moment, its actually not bad. I worry about the 3 hour shows though.

How is it a whinge? It's a general discussion about improving the product that has seen the worst ratings in many years this past month... Jesus, were you dropped on your head as a child? I'm genuinely confused. I really want to know. Bloody hell...you're not very good at this, are you...

Il plus one the better writing, the better the stories being put out the better the product.
And genuinely pushing stars will help. Stop this half assed push that starts in over saturation an then they fade away.
Give technically good wrestlers that are no good on the mic managers or put them in stables with good mic people it will improve them for the future so they can push on themselves,
And lastly and I always bring it up a tag team division a well organised and competitive tag division as seen before is all I can think of for now

Bounty Hunter

Africa wrote: »

Yousef having another whinge. Surprise surprise. Dont watch it mate, you never seem to be happy.

At the moment, its actually not bad. I worry about the 3 hour shows though.

Yousef wrote: »

How is it a whinge? It's a general discussion about improving the product that has seen the worst ratings in many years this past month... Jesus, were you dropped on your head as a child? I'm genuinely confused. I really want to know. Bloody hell...you're not very good at this, are you...

warning lads: if you dont like a thread you dont have to post in it especially if you dont add anything o the discussion. if you feel the need to post anyway in disagreance that is of course fine and CMPunked response is a good example of this but if someone does reply like quoted above a response like above is not ok and could result in infractions etc if it were to happen again.

Africa

My apologies. But I do not understand why this person actually bothers because not one post I have ever seen by himself actually praises anything, and I really wonder what he gets out of it, if anything at all. I dont watch Jersey Shore or Big Brother stuff cause its trash, and this guy just seems to think the same thing. I'll leave it anyway. Sorry BH.

There are some elements that do need some improvements, like the tag team division, which hasnt consistently good work since the Hardyz/E&C/Dudleyz days.

The roster has a lot of jobbers too, but its good to get them on screen and having face time. Think about the guys of years ago jobbing; Dlo Brown with the King carrying him to the ring, Punk with the Tommy Gun at Wrestlemania for Cena, etc. They need on screen time too... this is why I think a lot of the brand extension works, cause it means there are different guys on different shows getting different air time.

But overall, theres no question that its grand for the time being. Even Cena hasnt annoyed me in months (thanks to Wrestlemania loss I think)...

airmax87

I agree with the tag division, I always found the ladder matches & TLC matches pretty entertaining, I just dont get excited about the newer tag teams then I do edge&christian, the dudleys, al snow & steve blackman, the hardy boys, T&A etc etc.

Africa

As a whole, there are a lot of things that are important to the product that the WWE are ultimately selling as entertainment.

• Basically, its a business process. It has to be packaged in such a way that it promotes to specific target markets (Mysterio, Cena to kids, Orton to kids and teens,Taker, Punk to adults, etc etc) for maximum profit. Screen time and backstage time for particular people is important. Target different markets at different parts of the year depending on PPV's or sales for Christmas.
• Need to manage the talent they have at hand, the wrestlers physical condition, ability to talk on the microphone to promote the brand (they are the salesmen after all), also dealing with suspensions, injuries, and of course, a wrestlers ego... they need to allocate the best they have at hand.
• the influence backstage egos and power handlers. Vince, Russo, HHH, Steph, think of their influcent overall, and how they enforce their control of what they think themselves. Some of the big names have backstage influence over storylines and such, think of Sheamus and his buddyness with HHH, Vince, the way Stone Cold was and the way Taker is too.
• They have to have a product that balances comedy, seriousness, give value to the titles, make a crazy stupid story line every so often, have the serious crazy storyline other times, and draw big names into lots of crazy stories. This is 'entertainment' after all, and in a wrestling world, its a joke in itself. Every outcome is scripted anyway, or at least most of it is, in order to maximise profitability. As awesome as it is to see great wrestlers actually properly wresting each other, we, as an audience, need a reason for it to happen... and that reason doesnt always actually have to be a good one! We want to be entertained while watching wrestling.

Look back over the past 15 years and its mostly been the same. Big builds in audience at times, all attributing to the fact that the product is constantly changing on a week by week status. Its a business process.

srm23

ricero wrote: »

make the divas whores again

/thread.

briany

Wrestling can't really be fixed or brought back to the way it once was. It's very much like the traditional circus in that it's still a draw, it's still kind of entertaining but it's relevance and interest in it is slipping and business mindedness has too far encroached which has also compromised the structure that the industry was based upon as well as the traditional values that gave substance to the spectacle. There's hardly any nuance now in the ring or on the mic, there's no real dynamics, there's no real psychology and maybe that's a byproduct of the now society in which we seem to live. If wrestling were music, it would have only two dynamic markings, ff or fff.

I think the best thing for wrestling would be for the uppermost level of the industry to die off and allow it to return to a more even grass roots type level where the greater constraints would hopefully force the promotions and their talent to go back to basics and if that excites the people then all well and good.

CastorTroy

I would like to know if having the Smackdown stars on Raw is helping Smackdown in any way? I read Matt Fowler's review one week and he said Smackdown these days seems to just be adress rehearsal for Raw.
I remember when the brands split, Smackdown was the better show, imo, as they had more wrestling than talking. They need to go back to that.
Also stop relying on just a couple guys to base the company around. Like has been said, Cena being in every main event at PPVs kind of devalues the titles. If you want him in a PPV when he's not the champion, then put him on earlier. It's not like people who paid for the PPV are going to leave before the end since they want their money's worth

gnfnrhead

briany wrote: »

I think the best thing for wrestling would be for the uppermost level of the industry to die off and allow it to return to a more even grass roots type level where the greater constraints would hopefully force the promotions and their talent to go back to basics and if that excites the people then all well and good.

Without WWE pro wrestling is fcuked. TNA likely aren't making a profit so with all the new signings they'd make, they would be dead in the water too. ROH likewise aren't doing too great. A few bad months and they are in real trouble. Smaller Indy companies meanwhile open and close every month. Hardly any of them actually make it. JAPW was one of the biggest and longest running, it went under out of the blue.

No big wrestling company would only serve to kill wrestling altogether.

How they could help the smaller companies, would be if WWE and (to a lesser extent) TNA stopped signing up everyone who shows any potential. Indy companies are left fighting for scraps and it ends up hurting them in the long run. But, that won't happen because it's a business at the end of the day.

Stereomaniac

Exactly, you can't blame them for signing up anyone they believe shows promise, regardless of their motivations.

Bandana boy

only getting round to watching No Way out now and two matches in I can say
More matches like Seamus vs Ziggler (which I thought was great for a thrown together opener)

briany

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Without WWE pro wrestling is fcuked. TNA likely aren't making a profit so with all the new signings they'd make, they would be dead in the water too. ROH likewise aren't doing too great. A few bad months and they are in real trouble. Smaller Indy companies meanwhile open and close every month. Hardly any of them actually make it. JAPW was one of the biggest and longest running, it went under out of the blue.

No big wrestling company would only serve to kill wrestling altogether.

How they could help the smaller companies, would be if WWE and (to a lesser extent) TNA stopped signing up everyone who shows any potential. Indy companies are left fighting for scraps and it ends up hurting them in the long run. But, that won't happen because it's a business at the end of the day.

Yeah, as I said the business element gradually destroyed, or helped to destroy (poor decisions by owners of lesser feds never helped), the wrestling ecosystem that existed in America prior to the rise of WWF in the mid 80s. WWF signed the best wrestlers from the AWA among others and went national and etc....we all know the story but in doing that there was a process of diminishing returns put in place as to where the good talent would come from. We've gone from seeing wrestlers who had 5-15 years experience as a pro wrestler all over America/Canada/Britain/rest of the world before they get to the big table to now with young wrestlers with maybe a year or two in FCW under their belts. These young wrestlers come on and they're usually bland and awfully generic to start but if we suffer them on TV for 2-3 years they can, to be fair, become decent.......sometimes.

WWE will never release their grip on the top level of pro wrestling and even if they, along with TNA ceased to exist, wrestling would and could not revert to the old territorial system in an age where anything can be national, anything can be worldwide. It just wouldn't be the same but maybe, in that unlikely event, wrestling could find a natural balance from the grass roots up that works for today.