Could a gigantic tournament fill the Lesnar void if he's champion?

[A11oftheLights]

Brock Lesnar is rumored to be champion after Summerslam, he is then rumored to be working Night of Champions in what one would assume to be a championship rematch with John Cena. Whether or not Cena or Brock should go over is another argument, but say hypothetically John Cena is unsucessful in retaining and regaining the title could a massive number one contender tournament work. I'm talking about everyone on the roster being assigned a number and then pulled out to determine their opponents. Kind of like the FA Cup in England. You could even bring back a few former superstars that are on good terms with the wwe, as in not Alberto del Rio. Obviously everyone from NXT competes as well.

While it may not be an ideal situation but could a gigantic tournament be the best way to deal with an absent champion?

 

[Boxhead333]

I think that's a great idea. It would pass the time between Lesnars dates and would be great for building up to a huge championship match, maybe as late as Wrestlemania. It would also make for some interesting main event matches at pay per views between the front runners. It would also be a great way to build talent. The winner would most likely be a younger talent like Roman Reigns or Cesaro

 

[A11oftheLights]

I wasnt sure about the end date, I was thinking Royal Rumble but i'm not sure about that, the entire format and who should win. I was thinking a traditional elimination 1v1 until the final 6 who then compete in a round robin event with a win being worth two points or in the case of a no contest/draw one point. The top two would then fight off to be the #1 contender.

But that could be too confusing.

 

[Mudlup50]

I feel like this is a modification of the idea of an interim champion. While this idea I prefer over the interim champion I disagree with it. It would slaughter storylines. A possible Seth Rollins verus Orton match? Cena versus Slater? Some of these matches are just plain horrible. The point of this is to find a challenger for the next PPV right? Well at Hell In A Cell say Brock isn't there, but if he is it'd prolly be a 6 way match? But say he isn't, then you'd have Survivor Series. You can have Orton fight Lesnar, as he's being booked as fed up with the authority. You could slide a Jericho or someone like that in there just to prolong the feud...maybe Kane? Then he'd be gone, so just book a single number 1 contendership match for the next PPV. And bam it's Royal Rumble, one more match and we're built for Mania.

Yea a tournament could work but I just see it being a waste if we have everybody doing it. Why not have a King Of The Ring tournament featuring 8-16 guys not 60+. Winner would probably be Cena or Orton, anticlimactic but it builds the PPV.

 

[lil steroid meat]

I like the idea of having a tournament, I think King of The Ring should have never went away. Should have been an annual summer thing that started at the Raw after the May PPV and culminated at Summerslam. Maybe update it to have it where people send in the hashtags of who they want to see and the Top 20 most tweeted guys are in the competition.

But if a tournament were to happen now, it would kinda render the Royal Rumble pointless.

To make up for Brock being gone, I'd just have Heyman be more frequent on the show, carrying around the title, "negotiating" matches and deeming no one worthy.

I'd also make the IC Title more prominent and maybe have Roman Reigns and the new stable of Big E, Kofi and Xavier Woods feud over it, like a miniature nWo vs. Goldberg.

While Brock is gone, I'd try to get him in some MMA fights so he has SOME type of MMA title (UFC, Bellator, WSOF, maybe some less prominent overseas promotions) so he comes back with both an MMA Title and the WWE WHC Title to raise the prestige of the WWE Title.

It's a lot of ways they could go with this, they just have to be creative.

 

[A11oftheLights]

Having brock go back to MMA is double edge sword. He wins and its brilliant he comes in with more momentum. He loses and it destroys his credibility as champion or even worse he gets injured and then you have no champion.

Having a tournament wont be making the royal rumble pointless as long as it finishes by the Royal Rumble. I think it would be best to finish it at TLC so you can then finally have your traditional build to a feud with the winner of the tournament coming up against Paul Heyman on the mic

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The way to do it is King Of The Ring.

That can easily fill the void between NOC and the Rumble with the winner then having the title for a calendar year.

Make it KOTR over 3-4 months... The whole roster involved and as suggested some from NXT like Neville and Zayn (great way to debut Neville by going to the Quarters or Semis)

Normally KOTR only focuses on the final 8 - so go with 32 or 64... At each PPV/RAW have major matches and the final 8 can be at Suvivor Series or make December KOTR PPV with the final 8 in the traditional way.

WWE would benefit in that it's another way to escalate talent but not necesarily for title shots all the time. Imagine this outcome:-

December PPV - final 8

Neville (Surprise Package), Goldust, Stardust (they get their match in the tourney), Ziggler, Big Show, Jericho (a good way to stagger out his appearances), Barrett and a former KOTR in Kurt Angle as a shock entrant.

Nevillee goes over Show in the quarters, loses to Angle in the semis (remember what Kurt did for Cena) would launch him amazingly.

Barrett could end up winning it over Kurt or Jericho in the finals and have something he "can't lose" for the year.. but as King it would fit the gimmick.

 

[kumarjtk]

i dont known brock wrestle at noc. My guess is after ss brock take the belt with him. Vince come back and warn both hhh and steph and introduce new gm of raw. May be sting or hogan. They make a tournament and crown new champion with new wwe belt with new logo. Make cena 16 champion and rollins cash in and wins at noc.
Later DB wins at survivor series and went throw royal rumble. At royal rumble brock beat DB and rematch at ec. Roman wins rr and challenge brock at wm31. At wm31 roman wins and became new face of WWE. but i dont know what cena and orton and DB can do at wm31. But after wm wwe finally turn cena as heel and make him a record 17 time champion as a heel champion.

 

[shafe_41]

A giant CF of a tournament because Lesnar is gone? And what's the payoff of this? A title shot? A trophy? Or just being named the "Brock Lesnar Isn't Here Right Now" tournament champion? There's no point.

WWE already will have your money for the Network after NoC. They don't need to sell you on the PPV because you'll have already paid until the end of February. So what's the purpose of requiring to have a champion on Raw and whatnot week after week? Having Lesnar as champion and him NOT being there is going to have two VERY positive effects.

1.) More Paul Heyman. Heyman is gold in all aspects of the word. I'm not the person that's going to say everything Heyman does and touches is the best thing of all time. But he's the most consistently entertaining person out there. Lesnar beat the streak. Heyman will continue to tell you that. Then he will very decisively beat WWE's posterchild in Cena. He'll beat him twice. At this point, Lesnar will have nothing left to prove and Heyman will make sure you know that. So Lesnar will go away. You don't need him there. He'll gain heat by saying he's taking the title and going home until a REAL challenger can step up and face Lesnar. Nay... Heyman will tell you those things too. So not having the WWE champion headlining a PPV every month doesn't matter because they don't need to sell the PPV to people that already have the Network.

2.) It will make the title matches Lesnar does have more valuable. Look at the UFC titles. You don't see Jon Jones defending his title at every PPV. I realize there's a difference between real fighting and choreographed wrestling in terms of injuries and such... but WWE is in the business of creating the illusion they're one in the same... if not more important than the UFC. So what value would title matches have if Jon Jones was defending his title month after month after month against guys that didn't exactly deserve a shot or earn a shot, but they needed him to do it to sell tickets? Lesnar's two or three title defenses between NoC and Mania will be more important and will make those matches more believable. Therefore... more people may subscribe to the Network because it seems like Lesnar's title matches are more important and something big may happen in that match. He doesn't need to be there every month.

The tournament is a terrible idea. It would take away from any semblance of storylines and storytelling. They just need to continue to focus on good storytelling and good matches. Because if they do that, you won't even miss Lesnar.

 

[Mudlup50]

I agree with getting rid of the King Of The Ring, if this was any time before TLC I wouldn't though. So right now:
1. The beginning of the year you have the Royal Rumble, classic PPV, great way to build somebody for the main event.
2. Money In The Bank briefcase which is in what May or June? The idea is to build somebody for the main event. Now next year, do we have 1 match or 2?
3. You'd have a king of the ring...which is supposed to do the same thing.

Imagine if next year, we'd have 4 matches which are supposed to elevate people to the main event, Reigns wins the Rumble: wins at Mania but either can't hold it for long or squashes Rollins and makes him look weak. So Dean wins the MitB and Cesaro wins the other? Then Cena wins a KotR tournament?

I'm just saying, we don't need it now. The brand split would've helped it. This time I could see it being an option, but I don't think it's needed. A last resort for if they can't add new dates for Lesnar.

 

[RicSpade]

I would say Paul Heyman makes the best argument when he said the title gets defended too much and that seeing the champ 52 weeks straight 340+ days a year and having to rush these big high profile matches for titles waters down the prestige of the title, I say in my opinion 7 out of the 13 ppvs should have the title defended, the other 6 should be dedicated to determining a #1 contender as the main event or even give the main event to a high profile IC title match to make that title a focal point like they did when Bulldog and Bret main evented Summerslam for the IC championship. with 5 ppvs where the title doesn't have to be defended there is battle royals, a whole ppv tournament (KOTR?), triple threats, hell in a cells, ladder matches for a contract, I mean there are endless possibilities so maybe its time for a different direction

 

[resignedknight]

I agree in theory, but I'm just not sure it would work today. Watching some old WCW ppv's on the network, I was pretty surprised by how seldom the title was defended on PPV, probably less than the numbers you gave, but I'm not sure people would go for it in today's instant gratification world. If they did go that route, they would need some dynamite booking to put over the non-title main events. I guess we'll see if they have it in them if Brock wins on Sunday.

 

[ajdb]

This would work. Do the tournament like the G1. Fill several weeks. I think you gotta let these guys go a little bit though. The G1 is interesting because nearly every match counts and everybody is giving everything they have every night.

 

[Radical]

I freaking LOVE when WWE does tournaments. It really brings that SPORT part of Sports Entertainment into the fold.

It is great because it instantly gives more value to each and every match. You can still have storylines; like someone screwing someone else over from winning their match, or a few double disqualifications because of a team attack or something and obviously you can have some already established rivalry matches all within the Tournament.

I think WWE too often FORGETS how valuable a #1 Contender tournament can be. Battle Royals are great here and there as well but a solid 16-person tournament is excellent.

They have done them in NXT at least a few times and including one right now for the Tag Team Titles and it definitely helps establish a team as a real, LEGIT, threat. Which is what you want, right?

So I would definitely be in favor of seeing a big tournament if/when Lesnar takes the title and doesn't come back until probably RR.

 

[A11oftheLights]

A giant CF of a tournament because Lesnar is gone? And what's the payoff of this? A title shot? A trophy? Or just being named the "Brock Lesnar Isn't Here Right Now" tournament champion? There's no point.

WWE already will have your money for the Network after NoC. They don't need to sell you on the PPV because you'll have already paid until the end of February. So what's the purpose of requiring to have a champion on Raw and whatnot week after week? Having Lesnar as champion and him NOT being there is going to have two VERY positive effects.

1.) More Paul Heyman. Heyman is gold in all aspects of the word. I'm not the person that's going to say everything Heyman does and touches is the best thing of all time. But he's the most consistently entertaining person out there. Lesnar beat the streak. Heyman will continue to tell you that. Then he will very decisively beat WWE's posterchild in Cena. He'll beat him twice. At this point, Lesnar will have nothing left to prove and Heyman will make sure you know that. So Lesnar will go away. You don't need him there. He'll gain heat by saying he's taking the title and going home until a REAL challenger can step up and face Lesnar. Nay... Heyman will tell you those things too. So not having the WWE champion headlining a PPV every month doesn't matter because they don't need to sell the PPV to people that already have the Network.

2.) It will make the title matches Lesnar does have more valuable. Look at the UFC titles. You don't see Jon Jones defending his title at every PPV. I realize there's a difference between real fighting and choreographed wrestling in terms of injuries and such... but WWE is in the business of creating the illusion they're one in the same... if not more important than the UFC. So what value would title matches have if Jon Jones was defending his title month after month after month against guys that didn't exactly deserve a shot or earn a shot, but they needed him to do it to sell tickets? Lesnar's two or three title defenses between NoC and Mania will be more important and will make those matches more believable. Therefore... more people may subscribe to the Network because it seems like Lesnar's title matches are more important and something big may happen in that match. He doesn't need to be there every month.

The tournament is a terrible idea. It would take away from any semblance of storylines and storytelling. They just need to continue to focus on good storytelling and good matches. Because if they do that, you won't even miss Lesnar.

Did you actually read the OP? I clearly stated the tournament would be a way to name a number one contender in Brock's absence. And just because they have sold the network doesnt mean they can ignore how interested fans are because they need to give people a reason to renew. And secondly Raw doesn't air on the network so they need to gather interest to keep up/increase ratings so they can earn more money off advertisements and future TV deals.

 

[shafe_41]

Did you actually read the OP? I clearly stated the tournament would be a way to name a number one contender in Brock's absence. And just because they have sold the network doesnt mean they can ignore how interested fans are because they need to give people a reason to renew. And secondly Raw doesn't air on the network so they need to gather interest to keep up/increase ratings so they can earn more money off advertisements and future TV deals.

Admittedly I did miss that part. But still don't like the idea. Because the end result is still going to be like one of like three or four faces. You can't sell Lesnar/another big heel because after all... it's still good storytelling that will bring someone back to the programming. You have Cesaro, Reigns, Ambrose, etc... and right now, not a single one of those guys is a believable challenger to Lesnar. Believable might not be the right word... but they're not deserving. It's just a CF of an idea. Tournaments aren't believable anymore. Which is why we don't have them.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

They don't need to have EVERY event crown a title shot or contender... KOTR was fine of itself for many years and could easily be again. If the World title is "defended too much" then they need something to fill that void and a strong unified midcard title and the "King" should be enough to do that.

It's lazy booking to have so many things leading to title shots... The Rumble has ruined Mania builds for years... MITB is the only one with a valid reason and that should take place at Mania only. They don't need to have everythign about title shots and main eventing PPV's all the time.. but they do cos they can't think of anything else... and that is bad...