If you could run the WWE?

[Psykohurricane55]

I've read so many on this board and pretty much everywhere else how the WWE product is crap and everybody how they should run it more like a sports like event instead of entertainment and it got me thinking about this idea of if i was a billionnaire and could buy the WWE from Vince mcmahon how would i change the current WWE product.

So here my thought on how i would change the whole presentation of the WWE product. Feel free to had your own ideas on this thread.

The major problem right now is that they have way too much talents on every rosters. that'S a problem that began when HHH was put in charge of talent relations. So what i would do is look at the three major brand that we have right now, look who i need and who is dead weight at this point and release the dead weight. I think that way i get rid of at less 50 to 60 wrestlers that truly serve no purpure for my company and it gives me plenty of room for moving talent around.

Then i would do like in any major sports and have different tiers and you would slowly progress through those tiers until your able to get to the top tier.

So NXT would be the first tier or college level team. That where everybody learn the WWE style of wrestling. Within that level i would separate that roster in 2 groups the indy stars and the rest of the roster. In the indy side of thing i would have like between 4 to 6 stars in that group and they wouldn't stay long in NXT because they really don't need to. They just have to learn how to work within the WWE style so their no need to keep them there for a year. When they get move to that level, i bring in the next guys and so on and so forth. The indy guys can go directly to the main rosters and don't need to past through the minors. For the rest, we train them and use them as underneath guys for major event until they learn enough to get called up.

So the second level would be WWE main event/superstar depending on which show you get send to. This would be the minor leagues where the NXT rookies can learn while trying to get over with the main roster audience. They would have their own storylines and championship and would get a spot on the kickoff before WWE ppv. When i feel they are ready to move on to the main roster, they get to go to the pro which is Raw and smackdown.

So when they get to the pro, i would have them start at the bottom of the pack and move slowly to a ic or us title feud if your a single star. If your a tag team, you would star with a bottom of the card feud and move slowly up to a tag title feud. As for the women's i would probably just start you up in a tag team before putting them in the single division.

As far as the tv and PPV product goes, NXT, Main event and superstars would be airing on the network in a one hour format. NXT would still get their takeover special every 2 months. The main rosters side would get 12 ppv per years 5 of them would be dual brand and would last not longer then 4 hours except for mania which would be 5. Everything else would be single brand and would be 3 hours.

As far as the rosters are concern. again i would have the strict minimum for every rosters . Which means around 10 to 20 wrestlers in the single division of raw and smackdown plus 6 teams and between 10 and 16 womens on both brand since you need to feel both the tag and the single division.

In NXT. not more then 40 wrestlers at a time. We don't need to overcrowd to system with guys that will amount to nothing. you can have more then that at the performing center but as far as the main NXT roster i would limit that to 40 wrestlers.

As far as NXT UK and 205 live or concern. I would keep those brand as they are niche product but 205 live wouldn'T be live anymore and would probably change name.

So that would be my plan in a nutshell. Again please feel free to post your idea on this subject if you want to.

 

[FromGlasgowScotland]

I would bring back more emphasis on characters and less on in ring performance, More variety and different styles, Right now they all seem like their having the same match and same interview and almost the same look and build.
I would also go back to mainly having squash matches again on TV, To build more excitement to big events, I can't get excited anymore about most matches at big events as I've seen most matches about 100 times before on TV. They may lose a little on TV earnings but I think in the long run more people will subscribe to the network to see these big events as there will be more excitement and anticipation.
Also they have all these different TV shows with their own roster but they still all look and feel the same with Raw and Smackdown especially I would have one show cater to children and safe for families to watch with not too much violence and bad language etc and the other show could cater for a more adult audience with a more edgier product which could keep all demographics happy. Instead of trying to please everyone on the same show.

 

[d_henderson1810]

I would bring back more emphasis on characters and less on in ring performance, More variety and different styles, Right now they all seem like their having the same match and same interview and almost the same look and build.
I would also go back to mainly having squash matches again on TV, To build more excitement to big events, I can't get excited anymore about most matches at big events as I've seen most matches about 100 times before on TV. They may lose a little on TV earnings but I think in the long run more people will subscribe to the network to see these big events as there will be more excitement and anticipation.
Also they have all these different TV shows with their own roster but they still all look and feel the same with Raw and Smackdown especially I would have one show cater to children and safe for families to watch with not too much violence and bad language etc and the other show could cater for a more adult audience with a more edgier product which could keep all demographics happy. Instead of trying to please everyone on the same show.

Your idea sounds a lot like when I was first introduced to wrestling, around 1987-88.

In my country, Australia, we had one wrestling show, called "WWF Superstars Of Wrestling". It would have a top guy wrestle a jobber, like "Iron" MIke Sharpe, Steve Lombardi or David Stoudimeire. The jobber would ALWAYS lose, and it would be there to promote the top guy and give him something to do.

Week after week, I saw people like Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Randy "Macho Man" Savage and Jake "The Snake" Roberts beat some jobber in two minutes. It didn't bother me. In fact, I thought it would be cool, since I was a kid.

Also, WWF Champion Hulk Hogan NEVER appeared on it, as he was kept for the big events and "Saturday Night's Main Events".

I must admit, it did then feel special when you saw two of these guys at Wrestlemania or Summerslam.

I like your idea. But the problem is, in today's society, it wouldn't work. There were four PPVs then, so every event and match felt special. Now, with the hours of WWE TV, a PPV every month, and almost eight hours of wrestling a week, it seems a bit stale after a while. It is more a case of Vince needing to learn the adage "Less is more".

Because they have more TV time to fill, they seem to repeat matches over and over again. This is made worse with the brand extension, as you are working with a limited roster on each show.

I would like them to be more imaginative, like how they used to have every week as the main event on RAW or SD, two guys team together against their respective opponents at the next PPV. This seemed to provide more options, and kept the match fresh when they finally met on PPV.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

I can't follow the nonsense in the OP so I'm not going to try to comment. I'll keep this simple. I'm not going to pretend like I understand WWE's bottom line.

So here goes:

1. I would stop showing the hot interviewers while the wrestlers are talking or just fire them altogether and bring in some Mean Gene looking dudes.

2. I would let The Revival go anywhere they want.

3. I would bring back wrestler/manager hosted interview segments with closed in feeling sets (e.g. Piper's Pit, Barber Shop). I know this is not great for the live audience but they will survive.

4. I would encourage talent to try walking around while they cut promos. Hopefully some will find more intensity and be more comfortable.

5. I would use The Demon more but with less tongue.

6. Demote the full Raw announce team.

7. Move the Universal championship to SD and WWE Title to Raw.

8. Have talent walk straight out instead of coming around a curve. Maybe bring back curtains.

9. More interactions/relationships between the male and female talent.

10. Keep Vince involved but have someone be over him. Like the way he used to keep Vince Russo in check. Kind of like a Chief Quality Control Officer.

11. More pyro!

12. More steroids

13. No more independent contractors or let your independent contractors actually be independent contractors and book other things.

14. A legend maximum competing at Mania.

That's all I've got for now.

Ooh. I can still edit.

15. I would do more tight shots on the wrestlers for promos. I guess that is kind of like #1.

16. I would start a feud by having someone stab one of those inflatable Bayley mascots.

More edits

17. Occassionally have NXT matches where two wrestlers are competing for a main roster spot.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

To explain my thought in a more compact way. Here a resume of the original post

I would use a system similar to pro sports which means you would have to go through AAA and the minors before getting to the majors.

NXT is the AAA system, i would treat it as such with using only a couple of big indy stars on the roster and the rest would be mostly rookies in need of practice on tv.

Takeover's special would happened 5 time a years and get around the same amount of time as right now.

Indy guys would move on quicker to the minors since they really don't need wasting their time in nxt.

The minors would be main event (raw) and superstars (smackdown) they would be airing on the network with they're own singles titles for each division and have their own stories. They also would be featured on the kickoff before the ppv.

Then when you made you time in the minor, you move to the majors and you start with show only feud and go on slowly to stories that lead to ppv matches.

The rosters for all three brand would be cut in half as we don't need to have all theses guys on the rosters if we only use half of them.

The big 5 would be dual brand and the rest would be brand only.

The lengh of the ppv would be 3 hours outside of the big 4 which would be 4 hours and mania 5 hours.

Raw would go back to 2 hour and smackdown stays the same length

205 live would be taped with nxt instead of being live and would be considered on the same level as nxt.

That's pretty much a resume of the original post. Threat this as a legit sport league with all the tiers that real sports has. It would probably hurt NXT more then any other brand since the focus wouldn't be as much on indy stars and more on rookies trying to make a name for themselves but outside of that, it's pretty much a way for talent to prove themselves and grow as performers instead of just throwing them into the fire and hope they get over.

 

[TDFG]

1. End the Brand split. This Wild Card rule effectively has ended the Brand Split.
2. Cut some dead wood. Have the best guys on both shows and ratings will increase.
3. Give the talent more freedom when doing promos etc.
4. Stop all the nonsense with nobody being allowed to say wrestler/wrestling etc.
5. Create an 'off-season', give the talent a week or so off at Christmas & then do a staggered break at some other time during the year.
6. PPV's shouldn't be any longer than 4-4.5hrs.

 

[Brooks Danielson]

1. I’d have a nice long conversation with my staff regarding each and every person on the roster. Evaluate where we see them and move forward.

2. Have meetings with each wrestler evaluating how we assess them and where we see them in the future. If they feel they can do better we will let them leave freely. I want to live up to the independent contractor contract that they truly should have.

3. I’d keep the brand extension and I would also bring back WCW and ECW. I want to manufacture the ratings war again, so I’d give Heyman full reign over ECW creative and Bischoff full reign over WCW (if they want it). I would make Raw on Monday, SmackDown on Tuesday, NXT on Wednesday, WCW Nitro on Thursday, and ECW live on Friday. I would have a recap show of the week on Saturday.

4. Clean the slate and do a whole draft with Raw, SmackDown, NXT, WCW, and ECW.

5. Focus on 2 person commentator teams. With 5 brands, it’s going to be tough to find 10 quality announcers much less 15.

6. Have one WWE championship and WWE women’s championship. Let’s say Seth Rollins is the WWE champion and he faces Drew McIntyre who goes to ECW. McIntyre beats Rollins so Rollins is now a member of ECW. Being the champion gives you full reign to go on any brand and defend the title against anyone on the roster.

7. Hire a kick ass recruiting team and make huge emphasizes on recruiting new great talent all over the world. I know it’s something that’s happening now, but I’d expand the budget on this from what they have.

8. Have Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Starcade, and Survivor Series as the main PPVs. Survivor Series is the last event on the last Sunday of November.

9. WWE goes on an offseason from the end of Survivor Series to New Year’s Day. These wrestlers need time to spend with family and recoup their bodies. Gives creative an opportunity to formulate a plan for the year in that break.

10. Survivor Series will have a 5 way one fall match with one wrestler representing each brand. The winner of that match will get spot 30 in the Royal Rumble and the person that gets pinned/submitted will be the first person in. Their brand will also have more wrestlers to be able to be in the Royal Rumble match.

These are some of the plethora of ideas I have that would take me days to talk about, but yeah there’s a lot of potential.

 

[Doug J Robbins]

If I ran WWE, the top three women's wrestlers would be Natalya, Bayley and Charlotte. There would be the world title, women's and tag team belts and that is it.
Of course, NXT would have the NXT men's and women's/ No other belts.
The top three males would be Shinsuke, Finn Balor and Braun. Raw would be two hours again and I would fire boring talent like Andrade, Ricochet, Lars and make Aleister much more of a satanic character like Kevin Sullivan back in the day.

 

[oneguy]

Like you I would definitely limit the roster size. Vince and Triple H both need to learn how to say no when it comes to recruiting talent. Every time you bring in a wrestler who was popular somewhere else and you have nothing for him to do, it looks bad on your part. And with a bloated roster, you're going to have wasted talent. Doesn't matter how good or bad the creative department is. There just simply isn't enough time for everybody.

For the shows itself, first with NXT and 205 Live I would merge them into one and scrap the cruiserweight title since guys on 205 Live really aren't that much smaller than many guys on NXT anyway. So that title will be redundant. I would make it a 2 hour show since a bigger roster will require more time. NXT will no longer be considered a development show, but instead will be a third brand that appeals to the more sports oriented, hardcore fan. This will also mean that NXT will be a part of the annual draft and if a wrestler gets sent there, it will mean that NXT is a better fit for his type of style rather than looked at as a demotion.

I would also unify both the Universal title and WWE title. As well as the Women's Smackdown and Raw championship. There should be only one main title that encompasses both brands. Midcard titles? Have as many as you want. But when it comes to the main championship and the main guy, there should be only one.

I disagree with making the rest of WWE more sports focused rather than entertainment. That's not going to get you new fans. I don't recall wrestling during the mid 80's being so popular because it was sports oriented. Surely people didn't tune into the attitude era either because it was promoted as a realistic sport. No, it was the outlandish characters and storylines that made people tune in. So one thing I would do is revamp the creative process. People complain that the creative team is bad. But they are mistaken. They're not bad. They are virtually non-existent. If they were bad that would mean that they are at least trying. They don't even do that anymore. This is how I imagine the creative process works nowadays.
Vince: Okay. I've got two new guys coming into the WWE. They are both independent wrestlers who have travelled around the world and they've both wrestled once in another country and their names were Indy 1 and Indy 2. What kind of storyline and characters can we come up with?
After a long pause....
Creative writer: Oh I know. How about they are two independent wrestlers who have travelled around the world and they wrestled once in another country? HUh?
Vince: Great! Lets call them Indy 1 and Indy 2. Don't have time to come up with something else.

So I would limit the creative division to a few of the most creative guys. I would hire someone who can come up with storylines, and someone else who can help wrestlers tell their stories in the ring. Also for the creative process I would encourage the writing team to not watch any other wrestling promotion. This includes AEW, TNA, Lucha or even other promotions within the WWE or past shows. The reason for this is because if you come up with a storyline, I want it to be your own. Get your inspiration from somewhere else. For instance, what if they created a Game of Thrones style story line between Raw, Smackdown and NXT where all three brands battled for supremacy?

As for story development. I would have someone pitch an idea and then I would always say, "Then what?" Because I believe storylines ideas should be approached like a tree growing brances. The trunk would be the main storyline such as Roman Reigns vs John Cena. And the branches would be different scenarios that you could take depending on what happens and how fans respond. For instance if you start the feud with Roman Reigns being the good guy, but the crowd cheers for Cena instead, that would be a branch sprouting in another direction. Or if one of them gets injured and you have to bring someone else into the feud.

I would also put more emphasize on the midcard division. The fact of the matter is is that a good portion of the show is actually filled up with midcard talent. And with a 3 hour show like Raw, having a solid midcard is more important then ever. I don't mean to take anything away from the success of guys like Austin, and Hogan. But a big reason why they had so many people watching them was because they had a strong supporting cast that kept fans watching before they came on. So I would hire someone to be in direct control of midcard development.

 

[rufsim98]

I've read so many on this board and pretty much everywhere else how the WWE product is crap and everybody how they should run it more like a sports like event instead of entertainment and it got me thinking about this idea of if i was a billionnaire and could buy the WWE from Vince mcmahon how would i change the current WWE product.

So here my thought on how i would change the whole presentation of the WWE product. Feel free to had your own ideas on this thread.

The major problem right now is that they have way too much talents on every rosters. that'S a problem that began when HHH was put in charge of talent relations. So what i would do is look at the three major brand that we have right now, look who i need and who is dead weight at this point and release the dead weight. I think that way i get rid of at less 50 to 60 wrestlers that truly serve no purpure for my company and it gives me plenty of room for moving talent around.

Then i would do like in any major sports and have different tiers and you would slowly progress through those tiers until your able to get to the top tier.

So NXT would be the first tier or college level team. That where everybody learn the WWE style of wrestling. Within that level i would separate that roster in 2 groups the indy stars and the rest of the roster. In the indy side of thing i would have like between 4 to 6 stars in that group and they wouldn't stay long in NXT because they really don't need to. They just have to learn how to work within the WWE style so their no need to keep them there for a year. When they get move to that level, i bring in the next guys and so on and so forth. The indy guys can go directly to the main rosters and don't need to past through the minors. For the rest, we train them and use them as underneath guys for major event until they learn enough to get called up.

So the second level would be WWE main event/superstar depending on which show you get send to. This would be the minor leagues where the NXT rookies can learn while trying to get over with the main roster audience. They would have their own storylines and championship and would get a spot on the kickoff before WWE ppv. When i feel they are ready to move on to the main roster, they get to go to the pro which is Raw and smackdown.

So when they get to the pro, i would have them start at the bottom of the pack and move slowly to a ic or us title feud if your a single star. If your a tag team, you would star with a bottom of the card feud and move slowly up to a tag title feud. As for the women's i would probably just start you up in a tag team before putting them in the single division.

As far as the tv and PPV product goes, NXT, Main event and superstars would be airing on the network in a one hour format. NXT would still get their takeover special every 2 months. The main rosters side would get 12 ppv per years 5 of them would be dual brand and would last not longer then 4 hours except for mania which would be 5. Everything else would be single brand and would be 3 hours.

As far as the rosters are concern. again i would have the strict minimum for every rosters . Which means around 10 to 20 wrestlers in the single division of raw and smackdown plus 6 teams and between 10 and 16 womens on both brand since you need to feel both the tag and the single division.

In NXT. not more then 40 wrestlers at a time. We don't need to overcrowd to system with guys that will amount to nothing. you can have more then that at the performing center but as far as the main NXT roster i would limit that to 40 wrestlers.

As far as NXT UK and 205 live or concern. I would keep those brand as they are niche product but 205 live wouldn'T be live anymore and would probably change name.

So that would be my plan in a nutshell. Again please feel free to post your idea on this subject if you want to.

1.Make wins/Losses matter more.
2.Let the good guys lose clean to the bad guys more often
3.throw in a random boxing or UFC style match every now and then between guys who are still trying to get over preferably.
4.Not put the heavyweight belts on the line every month and stop having good guys wanna defend it so bad.Make it more of an event when it is defended.
5.Stop breaking up every successful tag team or stable the in the same way it's been done since the 80's

 

[David Young]

1- Remove the scripts and give wrestlers control over creativity in their promos.

2- Allow any talent that wants to leave to be released from their contracts. I only want wrestlers who want to be there on my team.

3- I would remove the Brand Extension, but would give each brand something unique. RAW would have all of the female talent while Smackdown would have the Tag Teams and Cruiserweights. The World Heavyweight Championship belt will be brought back. With the Intercontinental Championship as the second tier belt. The US and 24/7 titles will be scrapped.

4- Mauro Ranallo will be the voice of Monday Night RAW along with Corey Graves while Michael Cole will go to Smackdown with the Coach. The third play-by-play would be brought in for special analysis like Mike Tenay during WCW's day.

5- Wrestling will have a sense of realism back into it. Wrestlers would be expected to portray their characters 24/7 including their presence on social media, reality TV, and public appearances. You can't pretend to be Russian if you don't have an accent on Total Divas!!! (LANA). Back in the day, wrestlers lived their personas. The Million Dollar Man was also flashing his money around, Ric Flair lived up to his hype. Even Stone Cold was a heightened version of himself.

6- The faces of WWE would be Finn Balor, Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, and Sami Zayn while the heels of WWE would be Samoa Joe, Roman Reigns, Kevin Owens, and Sinsuke Nakamura. Guys like Randy Orton, Triple H, John Cena, Batista, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Hardy's, Undertaker, and Brock Lesner would be limited to special appearances. They had their chance and need to be gone.

7- Royal Rumble, No Way Out, Wrestlemania, Backlash, Great American Bash, Summerslam, Halloween Havoc, Survivor Series, and Starrcade would be the major PPVs throughout the year. 4 Hours long. WWE would have a 2.5 hour network special (house show) during other parts of the year.