wrestling / Columns
The Piledriver Report: How to Fix WWE
In a little more than a month, the WWE will present the twenty-eighth annual Royal Rumble pay per view event. The Royal Rumble officially marks the beginning of the Road to WrestleMania. Usually, the WWE puts its best foot forward, from a booking standpoint, in the three months leading up to the biggest show of the year.
The upcoming Road to WrestleMania couldn’t come fast enough. Over the last few months, the WWE’s flagship programs, RAW and SmackDown!, have been must not see TV. With each episode, it’s becoming painfully obvious that the WWE has a serious problem on their hands. While NXT keeps putting together great show after great show, the main WWE brand has been turning viewers off. Case in point, this past Monday night, the WWE brought us another lackluster show. Not even Brock Lesnar was able to save RAW from being a good show this week.
FIXING THE WWE
The big question regarding the WWE is what could they do to improve their product? I have a thought on one way the WWE may be able to fix their main brand. While watching the Steve Austin podcast with Vince McMahon on the WWE Network, Austin brought up the fact that the WWE has too many writers on the creative staff. This got me thinking of an idea. Every year, the WWE presents a Throwback RAW episode, where stars of the past come home to the WWE for one night only. I was thinking that the WWE should present a different version of the Throwback RAW concept. For one night only, the WWE should go back to the old ways of doing things. Instead of heavily scripting the show, the creative team should just provide the wrestlers with bullet points, and let them either sink or swim when the focus is clearly on them to hit a home run. Vince McMahon talked about the wrestlers needing to grab the brass ring. This would give the wrestlers an opportunity to show that they can deliver more than just being able to read lines from a script. After the show, the WWE would be able to scan social media sites and message boards to see how people responded to the “old school” format. Plus, the WWE would be able to see which wrestlers really have what it takes to be the next superstar to carry the company.
EVEN STEVENS BOOKING
One of the worst things that the WWE does on their shows is “even stevens” booking. Even stevens booking is when the WWE has one wrestler win a match, and then the next TV show, his opponent would get the win back. The theory behind “even stevens” booking is that it will keep both wrestlers strong. However, this type of booking does the exact opposite. Instead of creating stars, nobody shines, because nobody truly goes over.
The WWE needs to make a decision on what group of performers that they want to push, and get behind them full force. Look back to the Rock n’ Wrestling era. How many times did Hulk Hogan job, even in non-title matches? What about Roddy Piper? Andre the Giant? In today’s WWE, Hulk Hogan would be a fourteen or more time WWE champion, and Andre the Giant would never have been “undefeated” in the annals of WWE history leading up to his eventual loss to the Hulkster. If you don’t think so, then just insert John Cena for Hulk Hogan, and the Big Show for Andre, and you get my point.
Back in the seventies, eighties, and early nineties, the WWWF/WWF shows were filled with matches between stars and enhancement talent. It was pretty obvious to see who the stars were that were being pushed on television. The only time the star performers would face each other were on house shows, Saturday Night’s Main Event, and pay per view events. When a wrestler won on one of these cards, there wasn’t another show where they would give them the win back a week later. Once WCW started to air Monday Night Nitro on TNT, matches between main event players became the norm. The only way to keep a wrestler strong was to put him over other main event talent. This would hurt their other main event opponent to lose, so the “even stevens” booking comes into play.
My suggestion is to leave your main event players separate from one another in the ring. Have the main eventers face semi-main eventers on RAW and SmackDown!. Matches between main eventers should be saved for house shows and pay per views. One thing the WWE loves to do is to take their main event wrestlers and put them in tag matches against one another on RAW. This way, you still get a confrontation, while somewhat protecting them for their pay per view clash. I wouldn’t even do that. If I knew that John Cena and Seth Rollins would be feuding during the late fall/early winter, they would never face each other on RAW or SmackDown! I would have them in verbal battles, and pull aparts, but they would never touch each other in a TV match. This would get the fans excited to see the match between the two. Knowing that the only way you could see a match between the two is at house shows or on pay per view, the WWE may get more subscribers to the WWE Network. As things stand now, why pay $9.99 when you could see John Cena vs. Seth Rollins on RAW for free?
LISTEN TO THE FANS
The WWE has a habit of saying that they always listen to the fans. Obviously, that’s not true. If that were true, then it wouldn’t have taken CM Punk walking out and a fan revolt for thee WWE to realize that Daniel Bryan should have been inserted into the WrestleMania XXX main event right from the beginning. After all, the fans were begging the WWE to have Bryan headline WrestleMania for months before the 2014 Royal Rumble.
Too often, the WWE has a plan, and they will stick with it regardless of the outcry from the fans. Most times, the WWE thinks they know what’s best for their fans, and they believe that the fans will follow like sheep. That may have been the case back in the Hogan era of the World Wrestling Federation. However, today’s fan no longer allows the company to tell them who to root for. Instead, they are vocal in demanding that the WWE listen to them. If today’s WWE fans were a bunch of sheep, John Cena would be the most popular wrestler in the company’s history. Instead, just as many people boo him that cheer him.
John Cena is a perfect example of how the WWE doesn’t always listen to their fans. A few years ago, John Cena was hated by more than 75% of the crowd. In any other era, the WWE would have turned Cena heel. Instead, the WWE stuck to their guns, and told the fans that John Cena is the company’s top babyface, regardless of whether you boo him or cheer him. It looks like the WWE is about to follow a similar path with Roman Reigns. Even though Reigns gets far less boos than John Cena ever has, there is a growing contingent of fans that believe that Dean Ambrose or Daniel Bryan (when healthy) should be the man to lead the company past the John Cena era. It will be interesting to see if the WWE pushes Roman Reigns as the next John Cena, or if they listen to the fans, and give them the choice that they want on top.
These are just suggestions that I am making. I am not implying that my suggestions will change the WWE’s programming into the hot show that it was back in the Attitude Era. However, I think these suggestions couldn’t hurt, and may make the product more entertaining. It’s up to the WWE to let us find out.
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