Building a card for a PPV

[Radical]

I wanted to ask your thoughts on the following:

How do you feel about the way cards are usually booked for PPVs in terms of how soon they are booked and how much a feud or storyline is developed before a match on a PPV card is officially booked? How is WWE doing with that now and in the past?

and

How would you do it differently?


In my opinion I don't think the WWE is building card and feuds towards PPVs very well. I think they do some things very well but the things they don't do well make the overall card pretty 'so-so'.

It's pretty obvious that WWE cares a lot about the WWE title and the World Title and the feuds related to that. So you can bet they will start a storyline involving both or either of these titles the week after a PPV, starting to prepare for the next PPV.

What I don't like is how WWE likes to talk (read: the commentators often mention) about what Superstars have won titles, any titles, even the US title or Tag Titles YET those titles at certain times of the year seem to be very very under-appreciated, almost irrelevant. I'm not saying that they need to have a IC, US and Tag Team title match on EVERY PPV but at least have a reasonable feud developing for those titles building towards a PPV match with some relevance to all the titles.

At least right now WWE does seem to be building feuds for the Tag Team titles which is good to see. However there isn't anything notable happening with regards to the IC and US titles right now with the next PPV pretty close!

That's what I don't like. Is when there is so little feud development that they just THROW TOGETHER a match for a PPV or on the DAY of the PPV they throw together a title match. I hate that. So stupid.

Personally, I would like to see WWE really show each title to be important by telling us who are the main contenders for the titles... having more matches specifically related to becoming a contender ... having more tournaments related to winning or getting a title shot.

 

[Heel Ziggler]

I think the WWE, WHC, & IC Titles are finely built. The Miz/Mysterio feud looks great, but I can see a 6 man tag team match on the card, between mysterio/cara/clay against miz/rhodes/sandow. The US Title is waiting for Christian, and the divas title is dead unless you put it on Beth or Natalya or to an extend Kaitlyn.

 

[Wolf Pac]

They need to stop overusing #1 Contender matches to determine the next challenger for a title at the next PPV, and this includes doing any tournaments aswell cause they are basically just another way to determine#1 Contenders for the next PPV. I don't know how many times they have done #1 Contender matches over the last few months but we've seen numerous #1 Contender matches for the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Championship, Tag Team Championship, Womens Championship, IC Championship and what's more frustrating is that it's just the same old people who got title shots on the previous PPV (Del Rio, PTP etc.), winning these contender matches and getting yet another title match on the next PPV. This is what makes Cena-Punk heading into NoC so special, these two aren't facing each other because of a #1 Contender match, they are facing each other because they want to fight over the top spot in the WWE, and they need to build other title matches off of two people just wanting to fight each other for some reason more often instead of using #1 Contender matches all the time to build up a title match.

 

[The Hillside]

I agree with you that IC, US and Tag Team Titles have been pretty useless since a long time and have lost a lot of prestige. But we cannot blame WWE for it totally because they have two main-event titles and their feuds to look after and usually one non-title main event is also on side by side. That means WWE is already offering us a lot in the main event scene, 3 main events feuds at a time? Which is a lot in my opinion, nothing like that happened in the Attitude Era, even WM 17 had 2 Main Event matches and that's it while most of the Wrestlemanias after that had usually 4 Main Event matches.

Top of that ECW World Title also came into picture to further overshadow the midcard titles, it wasn't the IC Title anymore that created main-eventers, but the ECW World Title that was used to push Punk, Lashley, Mark Henry and Kane.

That should not mean midcard titles should be totally ignored but sad thing is they are totally lost in the dark since a long time now. The only time these titles got some kind of importance was when some Main-Eventers were demoted to the IC, US or Tag Team Titles division or feuds like Mysterio, Jericho or Benoit. Even now IC Title is starting to get some heat because both former world champs The Miz and Mysterio are wrestling for it.

Gone are the days when midcard titles were used to trasnform midcarders into main eventers, like Angle, Benoit, Jericho, Eddie, Mysterio, Edge and Jeff Hardy were once always wrestling for European, IC and Tag Team Titles, it was through that they transformed into main eventers. Same can be said for HBK, Bret Hart and Razor Ramon back in the mid 90's.

Right now WWE doesn't even have a proper division for the midcard titles, the wrestler fighting for it change every year, there has not been a serious long feud since Ziggler/Mysterio who fought for the IC Title. IC Title hasn't been established ever since 2005 when Benjamin, Christian, Jericho and Flair were fighting for it.

US Title on the other hand was never taken seriously because it was originally a WCW belt.

I think WWE should change its structure totally. They should remove the World Heavyweight Championship and US Championship totally from its promotion since they were WCW belts and have not been taken seriously by WWE ever since Batista and Edge left the promotion.

I will structure the promotion like this:

WWE World Championship (main-event title): Cena, Orton, Punk, Taker, Lesnar, HHH, The Rock, Kane, The Bigshow and Mysterio as contenders.

WWE Star Championship (upper-midcard title): The Miz, Daniel Bryan, Wade Barrett, Mark Henry, Christian, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes and Alberto Del Rio as contenders.

WWE Intercontinental Championship (midcard title): Sandow, Ryback, Sin Cara, Cesaro, Kofi Kingston, Santino, Tyson Kidd, Zack Ryder, R-Truth and Drew Mcintyre as contenders.

WWE Tag Team Titles: Rest of the roster?

WWE Divas Championship: Never cared about women's wrestling in WWE.

WWE NXT Championship: I will have this one stay as a grooming title on NXT or Superstars show and use it to push guys like Tyler Black and Chris Hero and keep some sort of deal that if a superstar holds a title till certain PPV or for certain days he qualifies for the IC Title.


Wrestlers will be promoted up and down the division depending on their performance and how over they are and yeah rest depends on WWE's booking too.

 

[Mr. HD]

One of the things that made WWE so watchable back in the day, not just the Attitude Era, but even from 2002-2006 is that every division got a good portion of build for a ppv. They didn't focus solely on one title and give everything else a throwaway match.

Take SummerSlam 1998 when The Rock/HHH IC Title match was so well built and the match exceeded expectations. It was on par with Austin/Undertaker in terms of hype. Nowadays, you're lucky if the IC Title is even defended on RAW.

Let's go back to Unforgiven 2006. EVERY match on that card had a good, maybe even great builds. From Jeff Hardy vs Nitro in a Steel Cage for the IC Title, to the Women's Championship, even an ordinary match like Orton vs Carlito had a pretty good build behind it.

Let's go back even further to Unforgiven 1999. I was so excited to see how the IC Title match between Jarrett and Chyna would end. I was a little more excited to see that match than the main event because they built it up so well. That's an example of a great build. If you're more excited to see a midcard match than the actual WWF Championship main event match, you know you're doing something right.

I think this where WWE fails sometimes. Fans like us won't be invested in a ppv match unless there's at least a decent story behind it. These days, they'll usually have a WWE Title match, World Title match, midcard match, and shitload of filler matches. It's like they don't even try to build a story for matches anymore, rendering the titles useless.

Take Summerslam this year. Cesaro won the US Title. That's good, but why should I care? There was no story behind it to make me care more about it. Miz vs Mysterio was solid, but where's the story? At least throw in some promo segment on SmackDown or something. The Tag Title Match? Please.

I guess where I'm trying to get at is that they don't place enough focus on all their titles. As a kid, I would say, "I can't wait to see this match, or that match!" They had built up matches so well that I would be excited to see certain matches more than others. Nowadays, it's like, "There's an IC Title match? Since when?"

 

[Radical]

I agree that is my problem with the way the WWE builds Superstars and feuds (or lack their of) for any title except the World and WWE title.

Like someone said... Cesaro is US champ. Whoop-ti-do! Who cares? No solid build, no real feud between him and Santino... at least not much of one.

I want to clarify that I don't like to see all these #1 contender matches either. I agree the Tag Team Division for example has been down right STUPID. Primetime Players have lost many times to the other teams and other tag teams have beat teams who beat the Primetime Players but just so the WWE can keep their 'top heel tag team' a #1 contender they throw together a #1 contender match and make PTP win it. The problem with that is there is no LOGIC TO IT!

I like to see matches with multiple teams or individuals looking to win the title. But I would like to see a few more tournaments ... that doesn't mean it ends up with only one #1 contender though! You know WWE, they can make changes to make it so there is a double countout or something and make the final match into a Triple Threat or whatever.

My point is... I just want to see more effort put into building up the prestige and importance of ALL the titles and not just AFTER THE FACT. Not just after someone wins the title then the commentators finally go "oh, this guy is so good" ... nobody cares unless they have a reason to care and just pushing an individual or team who have not shown any personality or feud with the title holder isn't good enough.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

It often saddens me that WWE seems to have lost the art of booking PPV's that matter. I look back to the Hogan era, say Wrestlemania 7, when there were 14 Matches on the card!

All of them had some kind of story, even if much of the build was done close to the show.

What did they do different? Well there were much larger gaps between them for one, so over 3 months you could build 14 matches, even short ones by having some promo/angle time for all the people on the card. Today they often struggle to book matches till the night of the show. With 7 hours minimum of WWE TV time a week, there is no excuse other than poor writing to not have every superstar in a feud.
Yep, back then EVERYONE had a feud, even if it was Koko B. Ware or Greg Valentine... Today, it's very rare for a Yoshi Tatsu etc to have a feud, just random matches.Every match had Mean Gene before it with either or both the participants to give it that final push...

You never got "hot-shotted" matches on PPV back then either. All the matches were advertised in advance, unless they did an "open challenge" like HTM/Warrior. So you tuned/ordered knowing exactly who was on the show. In today's WWE, they don't announce all the matches, often "randomly" adding them to the show to fit a time rather than the flow of the show or storylines.

The other main reason card building has suffered is because of the overreliance on TV. When WWF was ruling PPV, they were doing what they wanted on a show with little/no interference. You bought the show cos you wanted to see what they gave you. Today TV is the main vehicle, and with that comes ratings, advertisers, standards and practice, network concerns... all those factors dilute the ability to book the best card. Shows like RAW are all about the quarter hour first, then the hour, then the breaks, then the over-run.... rather than booking a 3 hour piece of "theatre" as the old PPV's were.