Pro Wrestling Power

Less is more. Not only in the pro wrestling business, but in life.

As it relates to wrestling though, in particular the WWE, they really need to embrace the “less is more” philosophy if they ever want to return to doing the big business they did during Hulk Hogan’s 1980′s run and the Attitude era of 1998-2001. With that in mind, here is my take on how the WWE can deliver the best possible product to its fans and jump start another great era in the industry. This is my complete fix for the WWE:

1. Abolish the brand split and unify the titles

I’m starting with the most essential and most common sense move that the WWE can make right now to ensure future success and a high quality product for their irrationally loyal fanbase. There are people that actually argue this point, which boggles my mind. These types of fans are the biggest reason the company has continued to flounder in terms of quality since the spring of 2001. They accept garbage and stupidity by continuing to forfeit over dollars and what little intelligence they have in return for more garbage and stupidity. Ultimately, the product now sucks because the fans won’t demand something better.

There are some people that believe the WWE has been good in 2010 and 2011, and shockingly, many of them are over the age of 14. Look, I’m not into complaining just for the sake of complaining, but the last decade of wrestling has been putrid, and my first step to solve this problem is also by far the most important and one that all the remaining logical fans need to rally around and embrace: There can be only one roster and one world champion. Period, end of story. If we stopped right there, the WWE product would be infinitely better overnight. That seriously might solve about 90% of their problems right now, and the company would make a lot more money in the long run if they just came to their senses and operated like they had from 1963 through mid 2002 (39 freaking years) as compared to the ridiculous way they’ve operated for the past 10 years.

Look, I know the brand split was initially perceived as being necessary because of the overflow of capable wrestlers on the WWF roster after the WCW purchase in March of 2001. But right now, and even back then, there was never a need for a brand split and two separate rosters. Sure, I’ve heard the arguments. “But what about the guys on the bottom of both rosters, won’t they get let go and be out of a job?” And the ever-popular, “Having only one show and one world title will limit the the main event pushes of this guy and that guy and they would have never been able to be 9 time champions.”

To answer moronic objection number one, I hate to break it to you, but it’s not our job as fans to worry about the job security of a bunch of low-grade professional wrestlers whom we don’t know personally and aren’t entertained by. Our only job as fans is to be entertained, as harsh as that may sound. These guys can find a job in TNA, ROH, the NWA or somewhere else on the independent circuit. Or they can be unemployed. It really makes no difference to me. I’m only interested in putting together the best possible wrestling company that will entertain me and the most amount of people possible. If the rosters combined and the total amount of employed WWE wrestlers suddenly went from 80 or whatever it is, to 40 or 45, that’s theoretically eliminating quantity and greatly increasing the quality. That’s all that matters.

To answer moronic objection number two, and this one is even more stupid, we don’t want a bunch of useless upper mid carders constantly in the hunt for one of two watered down worthless titles when we could have an elite, smaller group of actual main eventers going after the one true world title in the company… you know, kind of like it worked for THIRTY NINE YEARS.

The stupidity of some fans amazes me. The reason we don’t have one unified undisputed champion and one normal wrestling roster is the same reason why the NCAA football BCS and bowl system still exists. Idiotic sheep continue to open their wallets in droves and shill out way too much money for a product that could be and should be WAY better than it is. But just like the NCAA has approximately 35 bowl games per year, with 34 of them meaning absolutely NOTHING, the WWE inexplicably has two rosters and two world titles. Who’s the man, the current face of the WWE? Well there’s two. That, my friends, is 100% ridiculous.

So here’s how this should play out. Have your stupid two champions and two rosters through Wrestlemania 28. You can even do your ridiculous draft right after Wrestlemania. But start working on a Smackdown vs. Raw feud and more importantly a WWE champion vs. World heavyweight champion feud in April. Have it build until Summerslam 2012, when the the titles get unified, along with the U.S. title and Intercontinental title being unified, and recombine the rosters on that night with matches pitting Smackdown wrestlers against Raw wrestlers. The night after Summerslam, all will finally be right in the wrestling world for the first time in 10 years. The one world title will have meaning and value again. The main event roster will be bolstered. The fat will be eventually trimmed from the bottom of the roster and business will slowly but surely start to boom once again. But that brings me to point #2. As much as this move alone would benefit the WWE and its fans, there’s more they can do under the “less is more” philosophy.

2. Less Pay Per Views, Less TV shows, Less House Shows

You want to really create a demand and a desire to see your product WWE? Then it’s time to start limiting your exposure in the marketplace to the level it should have always stayed at anyway. First, cut down on pay per views. And I don’t mean from 12 to 8, but more like 12 to 4. Actually, I’ll give them credit because it looks like the creation of the WWE Network in the fall of 2012 is going to make this happen to a certain extent, although there will still be too many “supercards.” I’ll get to that in a bit.

Go back to just having the “big four” pay per views: Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series. Cut the rest of the garbage out completely. Don’t even put on a monthly big event on your channel that would have been a pay per view in the past. Give these feuds and angles time to build for the love of God, like they did in the late 80′s and early 90′s. I would only have two big shows per year that are not a Monday Night Raw on the WWE Network: King of the Ring and one other show that you can call whatever you want. I would go with either No Mercy or Night of Champions. Either way, this brings your total amount of big shows per year to six, with four pay per views and two on the network. Here’s how I’d schedule out the WWE calendar:

Mid January- Royal Rumble PPV

Early April- Wrestlemania PPV

Mid June- King of the Ring on WWE Network

Mid August- Summerslam PPV

Early October- Night of Champions on WWE Network

Mid November- Survivor Series PPV

By the way, all four pay per views should be priced at $29.95 until further notice. If you haven’t noticed Vince, and every other boxing, MMA and wrestling promoter, along with seemingly everyone in any kind of business, we’re in a freaking recession, and people have very limited income to spend on frivolous entertainment.

So now you have six big shows per year, with four on pay per view, one undisputed world champion and one roster. Already the total WWE product is eons better than it’s been since 2001. Now let’s take it a step further.

Get rid of the Superstars program, get rid of NXT, and yes, even cancel Smackdown. A live, two hour Monday night Raw should be the only new WWE program each week, aside from any miscellaneous stuff they do on their network like reality shows and roundtable discussion shows. And preferably, Raw should eventually air on the WWE network as well after the contract with USA runs out.

The rest of the WWE Network, aside from Raw and the new original programming, can consist of the unbelievable amount of archived footage they have from their own nearly 50 year history, plus the tape libraries of the WCW, ECW, AWA and all of the other promotions they own. This alone will make the Network a huge success, and when combined with a significantly improved current product on Monday nights and at the 6 big super shows per year, it will create a thriving business that the McMahons have not seen since early 2001.

The hardest short-term hit to the WWE books under this business model would be the loss of half of the house shows they put on during the year if there’s only one touring roster. I understand this is likely the best and most logical argument from a business perspective to keeping the brand split in place. However, I still feel that the suggestions provided here would have such a positive impact on the bottom line that they’d cancel out any losses from the sheer decrease in the amount of house shows put on each year. In the long run, having half the house shows would contribute just as greatly as the reduction in pay per views and TV shows to creating a better product and more of a demand for the product.

3. Write Better and More Compelling Storylines/Develop Characters Better

This is the only one of the three that I can’t give specific recommendations on, but to me, this just flows naturally if you do the first two. Of course, it’s definitely easier said than done. The WWE needs wrestling people, not entertainment people, to write their shows and develop their characters. The people outside of the biz just don’t get it, and they probably never will.

I’ll be the first to admit that as much as I major in logic and feel I can provide helpful suggestions to the business side of pro wrestling, I am not creative enough to write storylines or develop angles and characters for the WWE. But like I said, make the first two improvements and you make the incompetent current creative staff at the WWE look a lot better overnight. The quality of the product has nowhere to go but up if you have less TV shows, pay per views and house shows, and one unified world champion and talent roster.

So if the WWE would just take these logical steps towards improving their business model in 2012 and beyond, the product would be so much more enjoyable for the fans and thus profitable for the company. I truly believe that less is more, and if Vince and company don’t want to take these preemptive steps towards improving their business, then these things will likely be forced upon them at some point, because the U.S. market will simply not continue to support a bland, stale, watered-down product that has the potential to be so much better than it is. At least I hope they won’t. But either way, more money is better than less, and if the WWE wants to create more profit, then they need to create a better product, and this is the way to do it.