10 Things You'd Do To Improve Current WWE

[sek69]

4) Bring back the atmosphere of the 80's. Bring the guardrails closer to the ring, make the ramp to the ring more narrow and dim the lights in the arena. Look at an entrance like Terry Funk's from The Great American Bash 1989. It just FELT important. Funk had ten yellow shirted security officials by his side, and they were fighting their way through the tightly packed aisle with a huge spotlight on them. This kind of entrance still happens in boxing, and it's effective as hell. Also, people complain that fans aren't focused on wrestling while it occurs, but when the arena is lit up like a greenhouse what do they expect. Hogan/Andre is an immortal moment in part because of the visual of a sea of darkness surrounding a lit up ring containing the most important match of the era. We know you can draw decent crowds WWE, no need to always show them off. It's a minor detail, but Batista/Lesnar would feel much more epic in this kind of environment, and in theory it should be much harder for two wrestlers to lose a crowd in a darkened arena, because they have nothing else to focus on.

 

 

This can't be overlooked. Watch tapes of World Class and you'll see that the walkways were so small it looked like they were walking through the crowd. The Von Erichs would almost get stripped naked by the crush of female fans as they walked to the ring. It made them look like the most important people in the universe, and for that moment in that arena, they were.

 

I never understood why WWF/E started keeping the lights on for the whole crowd, having just the ring lit would go light years toward fixing the growing problem of idiots going to WWE shows just to get themselves (or their websites) over.

[Coffey]

Thought this thread could use a bump.

 

Also, could it be possible to compile of list of all the things that Hogan has done wrong, politically, in the business?

[Guest SweetMama Scaat]

8) World Champions Wrestle ONLY on pay-per-view. Seeing Hulk Hogan in the ring used to be an event. Every match was special and memorable. You just can't say that about World Champions today. In order for a pay-per-view match to draw, it has to be seen as being a huge deal, and if it's the only time you get to see the champion wrestle that month, it will be. Obviously house shows and dark matches are fair game for champions to wrestle though.

 

Well, there are eight things that I would do.

That wasnt to give it an "epic event" feel, thats cause Hogan was lazy

[Guest The Big Dog]

1. Get rid of the writters who don't know the product

2. Tell UPN to cram it and bring back Hassan

3. Get Austin involved somehow

4. Replenish the tag team division

5. Keep Triple McMahon at home

6. Boot Lawler

7. NO MORE DIVA SEARCH CRAP

8. Bret Hart back on TV 'nuff said

9. Keep Brian Ger-Whiz away from the product

10. Let Shane O' Mac have the reigns

[sek69]

Thought this thread could use a bump.

 

Also, could it be possible to compile of list of all the things that Hogan has done wrong, politically, in the business?

In keeping with the theme of top ten lists:

 

1. Had the nWo angle re-directed as his personal career revitalizer.

2. Refused to pass the torch to Bret in 1993.

3. Kept Randy Savage stuck on the B shows because he was constantly stealing the show.

4. Would veto storylines in WCW at the last possible moment and leave the bookers and writers scrambling to appease his demands.

5. Dug up anyone who he ever did a job to so he could get his win back.

6. Took part in the Fingerpoke of Doom.

7. Immediately got all his talent-deprived friends jobs when he landed in WCW.

8. Had anyone who disagreed with him marginalized.

9. Spent a year building up the program with Sting, only to not put him over cleanly at the end.

10. Kept dragging Ed Leslie around to every new territory.

[Loss]

11. Completely improvised a spot at Wrestlemania VI where he'd hug Warrior in tears and raise his hand and walk out moping, which put tons of sympathy on him and kept him more over than Warrior while Warrior was champ because people felt sorry for Hogan.

[sek69]

11. Completely improvised a spot at Wrestlemania VI where he'd hug Warrior in tears and raise his hand and walk out moping, which put tons of sympathy on him and kept him more over than Warrior while Warrior was champ because people felt sorry for Hogan.

I thought that was scripted, and Hebner goofed by giving the belt to Warrior first, causing them to cut to the crowd while they gave it to Hogan so he could do the symbolic passing of the torch by handing Warrior the belt.

[Loss]

According to the Observer at the time, Hogan did that completely on the fly.

[sek69]

You almost have to be impressed by Hogan, in an evil genius sort of way. The lengths he goes to protect his spot are just amazing.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

1. Get rid of the brand split (this is probably the first time I've said that)

 

2. Create Weight Divisions

 

Heavyweight: 250 lbs+

- Taker

- HHH

- Batista

- Big Show

- etc.

 

Light Heavyweight: 220-250lbs

- Benoit

- Angle

- Jericho

- Cena

 

Cruiserweight: 220 and Under

- (all the cruiserweights)

 

The tag division is open weight.

 

3. Change the format of RAW and Smackdown. Use Smackdown as a feature for up-and-coming wrestlers, from various indies (OVW TV), as-well-as old matches. Use RAW as a "Friday Night Fights"-esque show, featuring a few matches, lots of build-up promos and featurettes an in-house JR and King, with Tazz and Cole announcing at ringside. The matches can range from squashes to build up a wrestler, to marquee matches between two top contenders. Everything builds to the PPV, rarely is there a title match. Use less "flash" - tone down most ring entrances, not a whole lot of DIVAs, etc.

 

4. Change the rate of PPV's per year to maybe 8 or 10, as the format cannot sustain 14 PPV's a year.

 

(more later)

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

The sad thing is, they appear to be able to support that number of PPVs. As long as they keep making profit, they'll never stop.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

You gotta wonder how long they can sustain the numerous PPVs a year while increasing the price of them. There has to be a breaking point and I can't imagine fans continuing to support 14 PPV's a year for any more than 2 or 3 years.

[Loss]

I think they will continue to lower their own expectations. That seems to have been the plan over the last few years. And the strange idea they have for drumming up revenue is to run MORESHOWSMORESHOWSMORESHOWS, making a stale roster even more stale and at most, only providing a short-term benefit.

[Coffey]

I think that the big reason why the TV shows are so lackluster nowadays is because there's a PPV, pretty much, every Sunday. You're not going to see big matches and title changes on TV when WWE can just wait six days and charge thirty-five bucks for it.

 

Of course, in the same vein, there's so many PPV's nowadays, that they've pretty much become the weekly shows. So, you get storyline advancement and skits during the PPV's now.

 

I know that WWE makes too much revenue off of the PPV's to drop the number of them that they have, however, I can still reminisce about the "glory days" when they only had four PPV's a year and the WWE schedule revolved around building to those four shows.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

There should be a cost-benefit analysis done on having 14 PPV's a year. In the short-term, it may provide a profit, but what if it turns off a ton of fans who won't buy the shows in the long-term? PPV's will start competing against each other, fans will go "Well, I could by Unforgiven, but No Mercy is coming up and that could be better..." and you'll get shows that do 300,000 buys and shows that do 150,000 buys. What happens to the guys who headline the 150,000 buys shows? Do they get blamed for the number and depushed as a result? What if it wasn't their fault but merely a matter of PPV positioning?

[goodhelmet]

Meltz did an analysis a few weeks back on the detriment of running so many PPVs. Basically, he said on the surface that the shows are making profits so they sound like sound business decisions but they are actually a detriment to making a higher profit. I'll find the article later.

[Loss]

One of the biggest problems with the current method is that the TV/PPV cycle is eating talent alive. Wrestlers usually have a 6-12 month period, at most, where they're hot and they have to be pushed then or they'll never get over like they should because they're jobbing to guys equal or above them on the totem pole and getting their wins back the following week. At that point, they're just like everyone else. Everyone on the roster -- NOT just the main event -- is incredibly stale. Really, guys like Chris Jericho are the worst type of guys to be headlining PPVs at this point, because they're largely seen as yesterday's news, or wrestlers the fans gave up on seeing reach the top years ago. He maintains heat because he was a big name in the boom period, but he's seen as being below a top level player. Cena is hurt by association, especially when the world title match is a midcard match.

[Loss]

In fact, if any two wrestlers on the roster need to take a long break besides HHH, those wrestlers are Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. I'd say Booker T on Smackdown fits that bill as well if he wasn't near retirement already, anyway. The company never elevated that group of talent properly, so expecting them to put over the Cenas and Batistas of the company is completely unrealistic.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

It actually looks like the only guys they can use to get over new guys are Cena and Batista. By keeping those guys in stagnant feuds against Jericho and JBL, which benefit no one and only act as placeholders for the champions, they are slowly sucking the heat away from their top guys and are essentially wasting time not creating new stars on top of the stars they have already. The problem is, they don't really have anyone ready to push with Cena and Batista - hence the Summerslam matches. Who do they have? Masters? What we have here is a structural problem where the WWE has dropped the ball on every single level.

 

On the developmental side, where guys like Masters are supposed to go to be ready for the WWE, they are either a fundamentally bad wrestler with a good look (Heidenreich/Nathan Jones), or a basic wrestler who needs more experience to get ready for a WWE career (Masters/Hassan/Morgan), or a good wrestler who is ready by doesn't have the best look (Dinsmore). Their breeding ground for new talent needs to be reassessed, in my view, and improved. There is too much "basic" and not enough "advanced". If they set up development spots around the country that teach different things, it would provide more wealth of talent to pick from. They also need to slow down on calling guys up. Pushing one guy at 100% is better than pushing 2 guys at 50%.

 

The big problem comes when the WWE calls the guys up too early, in hopes that they improve on the road. Guys like Hogan and Austin worked for years all around the world, which gave them the ability to capitalize on the opportunities provided for them. The WWE has pushed two new guys the most in 2005 - Hassan and Masters. It was clear neither were ready for the push, and therefore even after 6 months of continuous TV exposure, they were unable to make an impact. Their criteria for bringing guys up needs to be radically changed - who they feel is "ready" clearly isn't, and that will catch up to them later on.

 

And when those guys are called up, the push they receive is half-assed and not focused. The Masterlock gimmick has gone on since JANUARY. What has he done in those 8 months? A whole lotta nothin. Lesnar was world champ and an effective top heel within 4 months because they consistently pushed him and put him over top guys. It doesn't take long to create a new star, yet they are unable to do it simply because they do not desire to. It isn't in their plans. Mainly because they don't plan for that long in advance for anyone not named HHH.

 

So here we are, no one fresh is ready to challenge Batista and Cena. They knew by the start of 2005 that Batista and Cena would be defending their belts at Summerslam, yet they did nothing to prepare anyone to challenge them. I know Batista was going to face Hassan, but even at the time of Hassans departure he wasn't ready for a title shot. The champion is only as good as his challenger, and neither champ has anyone good to feud with and there is no one in sight to be an effective foil. So we get the usual suspects (Angle, Big Show, Jericho, Benoit, Eddie) pulling ME slots and nothing ever happens.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I think I am at 5.

 

5. Hire MMA fighters and teach them pro wrestling. MMA is an untapped resource for the WWE - the guys already have the conditioning, along with knowing various submissions and strikes and slams. I was watching a Georges St. Pierre Highlight reel today and the guy is such a physical marvel - imagine his talents in a wrestling ring, it'd be insane.

[Guest KingPK]

I know that WWE makes too much revenue off of the PPV's to drop the number of them that they have, however, I can still reminisce about the "glory days" when they only had four PPV's a year and the WWE schedule revolved around building to those four shows.

The glut of PPVs is exactly why the Eddie/Rey storyline has lost all it's steam. It was pretty obvious that they were going to blowoff the angle at SummerSlam, with the "If Eddie wins, the secret's out" stipulation, but they had no real hook for the Great American Bash, so they had to use up that match for a B-PPV and come up with this asinine "custody battle" to set up what I really hope is the final blowoff for this thing.

 

If WWE would just limit their PPVs to nine a year, it would help things out immensly. The "Big Four" PPVs should have 2 months to set up the matches, so here's how I'd do it:

 

January - Royal Rumble

February - Nothing, giving them two months to set up Wrestlemania

March - Wrestlemania

April - Backlash

May - Taboo Tuesday (since May seems like a slow month, put TT here to spice it up)

June - Great American Bash

July - Nothing, giving two months of Summerslam buildup

August - Summerslam

September - Unforgiven

October - Nothing, to set up Survivor Series

November - Survivor Series

December - Nothing, or perhaps a $20-$30 "Best of" two or three hour show recapping the year's top angles and highlighting the best PPV/TV matches of the year?

 

This also limits the "Brand Specific" PPVs to two for each brand, making them a bit more "special" than the 4(?) each has currently.

[goodhelmet]

I never thought I'd see the day when smarks were bitching about Rey-Eddie matchups.