A New PPV Format

[Jack-Hammer]

An article on the main page discussed interest in the December ppvs representing a continuing trend of disinterest among WWE ppvs with the most likely reason, according to the report, being an oversaturation of WWE ppvs. Each brand gets its own ppv each month and the original Big Four shows of the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series are joint brand.

While it's true that all you have to do is not log onto the WWE Network as a means of dealing with the overexposure, you still have to consider that if they keep the same format in 2017, there'll be a combined total of 22 ppvs for the year and that's simply too way too much. One thought I had was for each brand to have 4 ppvs and to keep the Big Four as dual branded. It'd take the combined total of ppvs back down to an even dozen and the brands could alternate months; both brands work the Royal Rumble, Raw gets a ppv for February, SmackDown gets a ppv for March, WrestleMania is dual branded and so on.

WWE could reduce the number of ppvs further if they wanted, but I don't think it's realistic that they'd run less than 12 a year.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Well if they tried it for a semester and they do not feel that it is working, it cannot hurt to try another format. There's 12 months in the year. Have a Big 6 instead of a Big 4. Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Money In The Bank, Summerslam, Night Of Champions, and Survivor Series. Then for the remaining half of the calendar you split it up between Raw and Smackdown which would both get 3 exclusive events. Here is how I would do it.


January: Royal Rumble
February: Smackdown PPV 1
Early March: Raw PPV 1
April: Wrestlemania
May: Smackdown PPV 2
June: Raw PPV 2
July: Money In The Bank (dual-branded)
August: Summerslam (dual-branded)
September: Smackdown PPV 3
October: Raw PPV 3
November: Survivor Series (dual-branded)
December: Night Of Champions (dual-branded)


This gets both brands a show before Wrestlemania to help set up their portion of the card for the biggest show of the year. This would likely be Elimination Chamber and Fastlane. June could be anything. Maybe Over The Limit or something on those lines for Raw. May could be a good time to put TLC on for Smackdown since December is now taken by another brand. Money In The Bank stays as it is though the winner now has two belts to pick from once again. September could be anything for Smackdown. October could still have Raw's Hell In A Cell. Night Of Champions would have every belt from every brand defended, to finish off the year.

This gets us a Big 6 with 3 Raw shows and 3 Smackdown shows. Problem solved.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

When they decided to do brand only ppv during the last brand split, that pretty much what they would do, you had your big four that was dual brands ppv and then for the last 8 they would alternate. While it was a really good idea on paper, it didn'T really bring the money in. The problems with brand only ppv especially more for RAw then smackdown these day is that fans see them more like a sunday raw or smackdown, they're nothing really special about them. I look at roadblock as an exemple, what made the show look different when compare to a normal 3 plus hour of Raw? Absolutely nothing. Same goes for Smackdown in a way. TLC was just another Smackdown episode with that lasted an hour more and had stipulation matches.

The other problems is the way they are booking matches on raw and smackdown to get to the ppv matches. Let's look at some exemples of booking for PPV main event matches.

Let's start with the 2 main events for roadblock, Sasha vs Charlotte and Roman reigns vs KEvin owens.

First the sasha vs Charlotte match, they did that booking with these 2 for 6 months, Title match between sasha and charlotte on raw, sasha wins the belt, then they do the rematch on PPV, charlotte wins. So you can say all the catchphrase in the world to hype up the rematch, but the outcome is already predictable because you saw the scenario so many time that you lose interest after a while.

the roman vs owens match was even worst because the only reason roman got the championship match was by beating the champion for free so you already got the main event of the ppv for free on tv, then to make matter worst you have roman reigns play second fiddle to whatever to storyline is between jericho and owens so you're more hype about the jericho/owens story then the match your trying to sell the ppv with. That'S the main problem, you need to make those brand split shows feel special. You need to find a way to make theses main event look like they are must see matches and not just throwaway matches and you can't do that by just having your performers recite scripted promos with all the catchphrases that WWE wants they performers to push. That's not going to work and that'S why those brand split shows don't work, because they'Re too many shows that they produce and at some point fans won'T tunes in to watch those shows if they feel like they're nothing that they can'T miss.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Like most decisions WWE makes, this is another bottom line decision. I was surprised as anyone when they announced two PPVs a month but it makes sense from the WWE's and their wrestler's perspectives. Both brands are working on Sundays. May as well host a "bigger" event to get a bigger gate and sell more merchandise.

As a viewer, I would add to that "careful what you wish for". Do I really care what is happening on Raw if they have a May PPV and won't have another title match for two months? I've been programmed to expect a payoff more often than that, I could easily lose interest if I know nothing big is going to build for a month. Then who knows if I come back.

But ultimatelt, the $9.99 subscriber can watch or not as long as they pay their $9.99. I can see where someone would feel overwhelmed by the quantity and frustrated with the repetition but this is a bottom line decision and the dedicated internet fans won't change things.

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

Listened Adam from WhatCultureWrestling on youtube. His opinion is that at this state not only we have too many PPVs but overall quality is somewhat on decline not counting big 4. And he is right on that, at rate of 2 PPVs a month that is 5 bucks for PPV. Not only you have lot more wrestling but you cant expect them to even try for that money so you get another episode of RAW or Smackdown instead of getting some quality. Whats worst, now everybody is on PPV. As much as it gives chance to everyone there is almost no quality control. That would need to change and glad WWE is realising that. Nothing wrong with once a month dual brand PPVs.

 

[That N Word]

This is something I originally planned on doing in the WCWF following the brand split. Something I also plan on doing 2017 and onwards. PPV's every month is overkill and doesnt make the event itself feel special.

 

[N!CKALAS CAGE]

Yeah, 12 ppvs would be wishful thinking. I've been thinking about WWE's PPV format and 22 would be overkill. I think 16 would a good number.

6 Dual brand, 5 Raw and 5 Smackdown.

This would be something I would like to see:

1. New Years Revolution (Raw, early Jan)
2. Royal Rumble (Late Jan, week before Super Bowl)
3. No Way Out (Smackdown Mid-Feb)
4. Fastlane (Raw, Early Mar)
5. Wrestlemania (Early Apr)

6. Payback (Smackdown Late Apr)
7. Backlash (Early/mid May)
8. Money in the Bank (Dual Brand Early June, feature 4 Raw and 4 Smackdown wrestlers and maybe a second MITB either women, tag teams or cruiserweights)
9. Great American Bash (Smackdown late June/early July)
10. Battleground (Raw Late July)
11. Summerslam (Late August)

12. King of the Ring (Dual Brand (mid/late Sept. One night tournament with 4 Raw and 4 Smackdown stars, finals feature one wrestler from each brand.)
13. No Mercy (Smackdown Early Oct)
14. Clash of the Champions (Raw Late Oct/early Nov)
15. Survivor Series (Similar to 2016's Raw vs Smackdown theme, maybe a world title and women's title match on the undercard).
16. Armageddon (Smackdown (mid Dec)

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

The work around to not having each brand with a payoff each month is to treat a Raw/SD during a month when you don't have a PPV as a PPV.

So let's say in May, SD doesn't have a PPV. They may run a SD like the Wild Card episode.

The 13-20K boost in attendance they get once a month is nice for them though, so I doubt it changes. You just wonder the economics of a possible decline in attendance/viewership for raw and sd episodes. If the negative outweighs the positive, then it won't work.

I think it will though, so we'll be looking at 22 PPVs. Plus you have to factor in all the NXT Takeovers.

 

[tomthebodz]

January: Royal Rumble
February: Smackdown PPV 1
Early March: Raw PPV 1
April: Wrestlemania
May: Smackdown PPV 2
June: Raw PPV 2
July: Money In The Bank (dual-branded)
August: Summerslam (dual-branded)
September: Smackdown PPV 3
October: Raw PPV 3
November: Survivor Series (dual-branded)
December: Night Of Champions (dual-branded)

This is pretty much the schedule that I'd go for. It worked before I don't see why is wouldn't now.

I really hope that MITB is a dual brand one. Although I think I heard that it was a Smackdown exclusive.

When it came to the themed PPVs I'd alternate them each year. So if Raw had Elimination Chamber in 2017 it would be a Smackdown show in 2018

 

[King Patrick Star]

I agree with most of those who say it should be 12 Pay Per Views a year. I never really liked the Brand exclusive PPVs, but it did make the Big 4 feel more special. I would prefer all of the special events to be dual branded.

I also do not like PPVs named after match stipulations. “At Elimination Chamber, inside the Elimination Chamber…” or “At Hell In A Cell, but not inside Hell In A Cell itself…” I always that that was redundant, but I completely understand what they are trying to do.

Here’s how I would lay out the 12 dual branded PPVs each year.

January – Royal Rumble

February – No Way Out – Featuring the Elimination Chamber

March – Fastlane

April – WrestleMania

May – Money In The Bank

June – King Of The Ring

July – Invasion – Inviting Professional Sports Wrestling Entertainers from other promotions in open challenge matches against WWE SuperStars.

August – SummerSlam

September – Night Of Champions – Every match is a Championship Title match and every Championship Title Belt is on the line.

October – Bragging Rights – Featuring the 4 Champion vs. Champion matches and the Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown main event.

November – Survivor Series

December – Cyber Sunday / Slammy Awards – The WWE Universe decides everything, from the matches, to the stipulations, to the challengers, and they also vote for the Slammy Award winners of the year.

 

[Cub McCallister]

I feel that having 2 ppv's a month is extremely difficult to maintain, especially with the roster that both Raw & Smackdown have specially Raw as they ar 3 hours and you constantly see the same matches over and over. It would be nice to have 5 dual-branded ppv's and 1 ppv per month for both Raw & Smackdown, I would probably get rid of some ppv names as I couldn't stand them.

Mine would be:

January - Royal Rumble (Dual-branded).

February - No Way Out (Smackdown)

Early March- Fastlane (Raw).

Late March/Early April - Wrestlemania (Dual-branded, it should feature MITB as well).

May - Anarchy Rulez (Smackdown, gimmick/stipulation matches).

June - The Great American Bash (Raw).

July - The King of the Ring (Dual-Branded, you could just have the card filled with tournament matches and possibly have both world champions face of against each other and move MITB to Wrestlemania instead).

August - Summerslam (Dual-branded).

September - No Mercy (Smackdown).

October - Halloween Havoc (Raw, this would be good as you can have all stipulation matches in one night rather than have separate ppv's for seperate gimmick matches it could be a fun night).

November - Survivor Series (Dual-branded, again both brands appear on the same show with a Smackdown Vs Raw feel to it).

December - Night of Champions (Dual-branded, to end the year on a high you have every championship defended with both shows appearing once again).