Loss

There is no problem having some people on the roster who just have the gimmick of being a wrestler and nothing more. That suited Tito Santana really well for years. But Tito Santana was also one of Vince's most prized wrestlers in that era because he knew he could trust him to get anything over. I would like to see that Tito Santana role cultivated as something meaningful today, and Rollins wouldn't even be the worst candidate for it, but there's also a fan mentality that anyone who isn't winning in main events is being held down. Tito Santana was an IC champ and a guy who made heels look great who were on the way up, yet I think he meant more to his company than the champion Seth Rollins does now.

I hate how this mentality bleeds into what we watch on TV. There was a time when you had people in the company who were clearly slotted as opening match acts, but weren't constantly demeaned in how they were presented as mere opening match acts. The B-Team and Heath Slater are presented as people who don't know their place instead of having some other defining characteristic that's at the center of who they are and how they're presented. That doesn't mean everyone's a headliner. It means that every role on the show is cultivated to matter in its own way.

Absolutely. I was thinking not just about him, but his mother. Any parent having to bury their children is horrible, but having to do it as many times as she did. I can't imagine.

Check out their employee review page on Glassdoor sometime if you ever want a good laugh. Be cautious of the good reviews -- someone pointed out that their HR department was making fake profiles to balance out the bad reviews by talking about what a great place WWE is to work.

I've always heard it framed as there being only two types of courage: the courage to live and the courage to die. Dying does of course require courage in some situations. But that's a bigger conversation than we have capacity for, most likely.

Frustrates me that they try to box everyone into something they just aren't. Harper should look insane and recite Shakespeare or something.

They should definitely survey other people on the roster in commercial bumpers before main events by asking them who they think will win. I think it gives the big matches more importance, and when it's a US or IC or tag title match, having the top stars weigh in with their opinion also adds some gravity.

I hate to throw specific names out there without knowing how they'd do, but I like the idea of Edge, or someone like him, as a color guy when Smackdown starts on Fox. A WWE HOFer.

I think I missed how/where that topic began, but probably not the best for this board.

They've been planning this seemingly forever. I wonder why there has been such a delay.

While I agree with this, I also think the difference is in booking a weekly, episodic show compared to just running "big" shows. There are simple things that aren't by themselves enough to right the ship, but that I think would help. Rotating talent in and out more rapidly so that everyone stays fresh. More week-to-week continuity and consequence. More promos, but shorter and more energetic ones. Titles that are super important, even in the midcard. More video packages used to sell feuds and personalities and less video packages used to sell WWE philanthrophy. Maybe they should keep delivering "big shows" on the network for their hardcore base while doing 8-week arcs on TV. So you get a blowoff show of 2-3 big programs in weeks 7 and 8 and then the talent that was on for those 8 weeks is off for the next 8. (Not all of them of course, but many of them.) They could go to RAW, they could go to NXT, or they could even be exclusive to house shows during that time, which might get attendance up too. I'm spitballing, but you could do something where the first four weeks is setting everything up and week 5 is a blowoff to the IC title feud of the 8-week arc, week 6 blows off the tag titles, week 7 the women's feud, week 8 the men's feud, or something to that effect. It doesn't have to be exactly that. And sometimes things would carry over. But it would provide a general outline for how to keep things fresh. EDIT TO ADD: They should think about things in their wrestling style that are usually big pop getters and do more of them too. Seeing a hot crowd does make a difference to a casual viewer flipping channels. Seeing a match with a quiet crowd will not capture anyone's attention.

I'd say change will come when Vince goes, but a lot of it is too baked in the cake now. And even then, the key angles that have been strong over the last several years have almost always been Vince concoctions as we discover after the fact. His batting average is much worse than it used to be, but his mind for booking is still probably better than HHH's in a lot of ways. What concerns me more than anything is that it's not like there are a lot of strong wrestling minds with great ideas who could come in and turn things around. Wrestling used to produce a lot more minds for this stuff than it seems to now.

I should add to this. I know better at this point than to expect WWE to be amazing all the time, but given the news of WWE actually doing real, serious things with the data they're collecting about why people are tuning out and the pressure to do well on Fox, I do think treading water for the next few months is an acceptable tradeoff. It took them a long time to get to this point, so it will take some time to get out of it.

I'm ok with there being a lull right now. Better to have one now than in fall when it's critical that they get their act together. I expect them to be in a holding pattern until Summerslam.

Sami Zayn is the best thing going today.

Trustbusting would be great for pro wrestling. A shame it will never happen.

I think in the case of WWE, it's too embedded in their culture. They don't have credits at the end of their shows and they don't seem to respect people they see as disposable. I think treating announcers as frightened mouthpieces instead of voices of authority is a symptom of that.

They have a real issue with announcing that I never see changing. But they don't have a credible salesman to get everyone over. Jim Ross came across as a guy who spoke his mind. Michael Cole has never come across as anything more than someone saying what he has been told to say. Him praising someone doesn't help them get over because he doesn't have any credibility himself. I think making the brand the real star *could* work if they did more to protect their institutions -- championships, referees, announcers, backstage interviewers, etc. as important and worthwhile.

It's supposed to disguise bad wrestling, but when the action looks fine, it's like pouring a bucket of sugar on top of a perfectly good birthday cake.

Yes, they think that what most fans want and what hardcore fans want are two different things. The problem is that in trying to make everyone happy, they often make no one happy. Wrestling is unique in that it literally tries to appeal to everyone instead of making choices about who it would rather appeal to. Aside from wrestling's stigma, that's one reason it's never commanded high ad rates, oftentimes lower rates than shows with less viewers. It's better to be exceptionally strong in one demographic than do respectable numbers in all of them.

I think that for a long time, they've seen the type of creative to grow their audience and the type of creative to satisfy their current audience as two different things, and that's why the show is so haphazard so much of the time. But I don't know how true that is. It might be, but I don't know.

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