Less is more

[gasM]

“Less is more.”

RAW is shit. SmackDown is pointless. Who even watches Superstars?

At some point when trawling through WZ forums, you will encounter these statements. General consensus is that 3 hours is too long for RAW, SmackDown has become RAW Lite and the overall product is suffering. (That's not to say everyone thinks this – just the majority.) Other common complaints are that the midcard of WWE is poorly booked and that part time performers are relied upon too heavily because management doesn't seem to able to make new stars.
Here is my proposition to fix, or at least improve, many of the WWE's flaws: “Less is more.”

Too often the WWE repeats matches. Randy Orton vs Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler vs Kofi Kingston, Ryback vs Antonio Cesaro – these are matches we have seen far too many times. But often, there aren't any better options than to redo these matches, because everyone has faced everyone at this point. Three of Wrestlemania 29's top matches are rematches. That's why people are begging to see the likes of Randy Orton and John Cena turn heel, because they've burned through all of the top heel feuds available to them. Cena feuded with Big Show last year, having feuded with him in 2005 and 2009. And that's just off the top of my head. Now he's feuding with The Rock again, with a CM Punk feud likely on the horizon after Mania - the same CM Punk he feuded with briefly last year and for the summer of 2011. But really, who else could he be feuding with? Ziggler was done at TLC and on Raw afterwards, Punk has been done, The Shield was done at Elimination Chamber, and Lesnar was done at Extreme Rules. Anyone else really isn't worth a Mania match with the face of the company right now. But why have all these matches been done already?

Because WWE throw away matches on TV. John Cena vs Dolph Ziggler had enough juice to last until Mania, but instead they clashed on several Raws before and after TLC. (Cena's complete no-sell of Ziggler in said matches didn't help, eg. The smile at TLC, the multiple kickouts at Raw 20th anniversary, we digress). Chris Jericho vs The Miz vs Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Title looks suitable for a PPV, even Wrestlemania – we got it on RAW. And this isn't just Wrestlemania season, folks. John Cena vs Daniel Bryan for the first time ever happened back when Bryan was arguably the top heel in the company, clashing with Punk for the title – on an episode of RAW. (And
Cena won clean, but you probably guessed that.)

Now if we go back to last year a moment, let's see some of the most anticipated matchups of the year:

John Cena vs The Rock – a year's build, yet the two almost never came to blows.
Triple H vs Brock Lesnar – again built on promos and contract signings, with minimal physical contact between the actual combatants.
The Rock vs CM Punk – teased since Raw 1000, yet Rock didn't even show up until a few weeks before Royal Rumble.

These rivalries were arguably the hottest in the last 18 months, and they were all built without the participants interacting physically. (For the most part.) Now if we look at the more anticipated matches on the Wrestlemania 29 card:

The Rock vs John Cena – have interacted once in the 2+ months since Cena won the Rumble, and that was simply a promo.
CM Punk vs Undertaker – Taker hasn't said much and hasn't traded blows with Punk yet. Punk has had one match with Kane and cut a few promos.
Brock Lesnar vs Triple H – Lesnar and Triple H haven't traded blows yet, save for that bloody brawl a few weeks back. That was also their first physical contact since Summerslam.

By keeping the opponents separated until the night of the fight, the anticipation builds and interest increases. We don't know how they will work together in the ring, because we haven't seen it. Notice how Cena-Rock, Rock-Punk, and Triple H-Lesnar all had that “big fight feel”? That's because we were witnessing something truly origiinal, truly unpredictable. In boxing, the competitors don't get in the ring in tag team matches a few times before the show. When they fight, it's a big deal, the culmination of months of buildup. Wrestling main events can have the same atmosphere,and like in the examples above, they usually benefit from it. But how do you keep them apart and fill countless hours of weekly programming? Again, “less is more.”

I actually enjoyed WWE's handling of main stars on this week's RAW:
The Rock – did not appear
John Cena – short segment and squash with the Prime Time Players
Triple H & Brock Lesnar – One segment, contract signing
CM Punk – appeared via the Titantron
Undertaker – One segment, no match

In addition to this, Ryback defeated David Otunga in a squash match, and Fandango once again did not compete. WWE is building anticipation for all of these superstars by giving us only a flavour of what we will see at the big show. However, there are drawbacks to this, such as the burial of the Prime Time Players which will have a negative impact on the tag team division. They needn't have been involved in Cena's business though – because what's another common complaint of today's product?
“Superstars like (Zack Ryder, Michael McGillicutty, etc) are underused.”
Why not feed them to the top dogs? Say you want to build a Cena vs Daniel Bryan feud, why not have Cena defeat Michael McGillicutty in a short match, then cut a promo on how he's going to do the same to Daniel Bryan. Feud furthered, got a taste of a Cena match, and got a lower card worker's face on TV. This also prevents superstars from interacting with each other too often; rather than feed Cody Rhodes to Cena, have Cena beat an NXT star/lower card performer. Then in a year or so when Rhodes is closer to Cena's level, the feud feels fresh.

As for the hours of programming you're filling up, if superstars aren't facing each other on RAW, sometimes one of them won't appear at all that show. Like in the aforementioned Cena-Bryan feud, Bryan could respond with a short match with an NXT guy on SmackDown where Cena isn't even on the card. Thus, one feud is spread across two shows fills up 2x the airtime, keeps any interaction between the two superstars fresh, and gets two up and coming performers a bit of TV time. WWE did this back in the 80s and 90s, and it worked. They had to do away with the jobber formula in order to survive against WCW, but without that competition, they should feel free to return to the formula.

What do you think? Is “less is more” the way forward for WWE? Can feuds survive on promos, video packages and short matches with lower card stars? Or does the WWE need to give us these TV matches, and worry about fresh feuds further down the line?

 

[Dmon3k]

I feel that the majority of this less is more, and keeping them separated is due to the fact that the majority of the guys you mentioned are part timers. Not some genius move by creative.

Rock has to go out and film and promote his movies, so that in turn limited his interactions with Cena and Punk over the last year.

Taker wrestles once a year, Punk has an arm injury, plus how do you get them in a match together. Taker has no business wrestling on Raw, so the best we'll get is Punk is in a match, bell tolls lights go out and Taker appears. Maybe gives him a chokeslam and stands tall as Raw goes off the air one night. But with how good Punk is on the mic, they don't need to be taking unnecessary damage before the big match.

HHH and Lesnar same thing. Brock has limited dates (or so I thought, maybe they renegotiated), and what good does it do us to see him squash someone else, which is the only way he would face anyone on Raw. HHH is busy running the company in real life, and also would have no business in the ring on Raw or Smackdown. Neither is a full time wrestler so of course with them it will be more promos.

Rock is busy promoting his movie, I bet if he was available he'd be on Raw spouting his same catch phrases. Out of all the matches you mentioned the lack of Rock/Cena interaction and them just showing that same video makes hurts the match in my eyes instead of helping it.

Hell Jericho, Miz, and Barrett just put on a hell of a match at Raw, which makes me want more of them come Mania, not less.

 

[mlp420]

"Less is more" is what the WWE will be going forward unfortunately. The days of seeing a year's worth of compelling and unpredictable week-to-week TV leading up to Wrestlemania are long gone. Now the match is set up a year in advance, they have a few encounters during the year and they fight at WM. You're not missing anything by not watching WWE for a year.

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

In my opinion no. Buildup for Wrestlemania is not over but their mainevent build up is not very strong as it could be mainly because Rock is not there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he cant be there but if they wanted stronger buildup for the match he should be there. Like this, we got very weak build up. I dear to say that its nowhere near last years buildup and nowhere near Rock/Punk buildup. But hey, Rock/Cena means money and lets go with that. I agree, proper buildup could be to keep opponents off but for good buildup you need time and good storylining. Thats why all 3 matches you mentioned look big, because Rock/Cena is "twice in a lifetime" , Lesnar and HHH have hostory and very personall, very intense storyline and for Taker you have streek vs a guy who maked that match look like gold in just capturing that urn.

Dont like the undercard buildup and that most matches are not even there and playing "hot potato" when they say "Its Sheamus/Orton/Ryback vs The Shield" but after few days "Ryback you are off, Big Show you are on" but other then that card for Mania looks good.

 

[DirtyD79]

What do you think? Is “less is more” the way forward for WWE? Can feuds survive on promos, video packages and short matches with lower card stars?

As it is the show already has enough recaps with the "moments ago...", Slam of The Week, and "earlier tonight..." bullshit. If anything funny, cool, or shocking happens on RAW you're already tired of it because you've seen it all night and you'll be seeing it again all week on Superstars and Smackdown. What's the point of tuning in if you know you'll be seeing it over and overagain all week? And we've already heard ad nauseum about John Cena needing "redemption" for his loss to The Rock complete with wistful sob story music. Don't get me wrong promos, backstage segments, video packages, and recaps have their place but not when they're dominating the whole show.

I do agree a large part of the problem (and it's hardly unique to WWE) is it's always the same people doing the same stuff every week. Who needs to order the pay per view when you've already seen the same wrestlers face each other several times in one month? When you have a company with a roster of wrestlers the size of WWE's there should be no excuse for having the same guys every week. You don't need a big storyline for why oh I dunno Zack Ryder is wrestling David Otunga. Just say that winning moves them further up the rankings, It's the same logic the WWE video games use for their title standings. Simple storytelling. A newbie wants to get his or her foot in the door, a young up and comer wants to earn their place at the top of the pecking order, the ones at the top want to keep their spot, and the old hands want to prove they can still hang.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I actually enjoyed WWE's handling of main stars on this week's RAW:
The Rock – did not appear
John Cena – short segment and squash with the Prime Time Players
Triple H & Brock Lesnar – One segment, contract signing
CM Punk – appeared via the Titantron
Undertaker – One segment, no match

I suppose the eternal problem in staging repeated productions is finding a balance among all the things they want to do in the show. While the above quote illustrates the "keeping it short and sweet" approach, it flies in the face of the accepted notion that the audience wants to see the stars. You can watch the fans as performers are being introduced and see the folks sitting on their hands while Primo & Epico come strutting to the ring, while cheering (or booing) their heads off when they see John Cena. (And don't think the booing is a bad thing; I'd wager there isn't a performer in the world that wouldn't rather be booed than ignored. If the wrestlers are stirring a reaction, they're golden).

But the first problem concerning "less is more" is the amount of TV programming made available to us. When RAW first came into being, it was a one-hour show emanating from the Manhattan Center in NYC. That was it for original weekly content. Today, RAW and Smackdown alone require five hours a week for the writers to try and keep things fresh. Add to that, NXT, the Wednesday show and the Saturday morning mess and you can start to appreciate how extremely hard it is for Creative to keep coming up with something new.

Some of the factors that make it easier for them are outlined in the OP. They also give us umpteen replays of events that happened right before the commercial break, ad nauseam.. Some of the replays even extend back weeks: for instance, if I see Brock Lesnar slam Vince McMahonone more time, I'm gonna scream.

Back in the early days of RAW from Manhattan Center, I don't remember feeling cheated out of anything; what they were giving us what fine, fresh & feisty.

Sometimes, less is more.

 

[SydTinDad]

"Less Is More" ???

I'm sorry but I have a different take on it because it goes deeper than that. I will however be careful and try not to spam.

The 3 hours is only half the issue. The other half is what they are doing in those 3 hours. The only time "less is more", is when you are accomplishing "more", with "less" time incorporated into hammering home what you need too. I see none of that. It all starts with this lack luster and very predictable WM card. We all know Cena, HHH, Taker, Ryback are certain to come out on tiop. If your triple main event is transparent, then its "less". The build up to all of these has been "less" as well.

But yet, for almost $60 on April 7th, we will be paying "more" for "less".

 

[Judah's Lion]

I do agree a large part of the problem (and it's hardly unique to WWE) is it's always the same people doing the same stuff every week. Who needs to order the pay per view when you've already seen the same wrestlers face each other several times in one month? When you have a company with a roster of wrestlers the size of WWE's there should be no excuse for having the same guys every week. You don't need a big storyline for why oh I dunno Zack Ryder is wrestling David Otunga. Just say that winning moves them further up the rankings, It's the same logic the WWE video games use for their title standings. Simple storytelling.

several points i agree with here:
1. not a problem unique to WWE.
2. same thing every week = why order the ppv?
3. with a roster the size of WWE, there's no excuse.
4. don't need big storylines. simple storytelling.

this topic, or topics like it, have been discussed often here. and for good reason. they should be. the problems are glaring and the solutions seem obvious. or at least the potential for improvements seem obvious.

i read online here an idea of having one of WWE's weekly programs dedicated to the IC title. i like that idea. with as much tv time the WWE has to fill, i say why stop there?

my thoughts would be to drop Raw back down to 2 hours. why pay for a 3 hour ppv if you can get it for free every monday night? let Raw focus on the Heavyweight Championship (start by unifying the WWE and WHC titles) and Tag Team Titles. let Smackdown focus on the midcard title (unify those too -- that'd be the IC and US Titles) and Cruiserweight Title (bring it back). let the wednesday and saturday shows focus on recaps, interviews, training videos, etc, and one major match each. maybe a big money rematch.

i'm thinking of the times that we as wrestling fans most enjoyed professional wrestling as an overall product -- the Golden Age of Wrestling and the Attitude Era. that's not to say that everyone enjoyed every minute of these times, but the majority seem to love these times in professional wrestling. and to be fairly predictable, one thing i notice about these times is the limited amount of tv time and exposure there was. thus, every time wrestling was on, it felt special, feuds felt fresh, payoffs felt big.

 

[FlairFan2003]

In the "Golden Era" of pro wrestling, I guess you mean the 1980s, here is what was on TV in Pgh every week...

One Hour of AWA's Syndiacted Wrestling Show

2 Separate One Hour NWA/WCW Syndicated Wrestling Shows

2 Hours of WCW Sat Night (National Broadcast)

2 Separate One Hour Syndicated WWE Shows

3 Hours of WWE Monday Night on USA (National Broadcast)

That's 10 hours per week... That doesnt include when WCW Started airing a Sunday evening Show on TBS, another hour every week in the late 80s, plus WWE aired 2 hours on WWOR that was broadcast to large portions of the country each week (eventually it went down to one hour). This also doesnt include the televised specials like Clash Of Champions & Sat Night Main Event which typically aired once every quarter, or the one hour per week of UWF wrestling that aired here in 1986-87 or the years ESPN showed World Class Championship Wrestling.

Pretty much during the "Golden Era" we were getting anywhere from 12-20 hours of wrestling shows EVERY WEEK

The syndicated shows started dying off in the mid 90s as wrestling essentially became a two horse race between WWE & WCW, each with lucrative cable deals for the shows broadcast nationwide. Still, in 1998 for instance we had...

2 Hours per week of WCW Nitro
2 Hours Per Week of RAW
2 Hours Per Week of WCW Thunder
2 Hours Per Week of WCW Sat Night
2 Hours Per Week of WWE Smackdown
Plus at least one hour per week syndicated of ECW.

There were also occassional special broadcasts and three hour episodes of RAW & Nitro, meaning that in the late 90s we were still getting anywhere from 10-12 hours plus of wrestling shows every week. If anything these two boom periods were noted for the oversaturation of the product.

These days we get one hour of WWE Main Event and the weekly re cap of Monday Night Raw, aka AM RAW. Those two hours are added to two hours each of Smackdown and Raw, meaning WWE alone, just as it has since at least the 1980s, is broadcasting 6 hours per week of wrestling, actually seven now that RAW is 3 hours. Add in weekly broadcasts of ROH and Thursday showings of TNA and you are again around the 10 hour per week rate.

The problem right now is not the hours of broadcasting, it's the talent. Fact is these were pretty much the same in the early and mid 90s when WCW nearly went under until Flair & Hogan arrived while WWE saw a sharp decline in business during the Brett Hart/New Generation era that was marked by lots of great wrestling matches no one watched. WWE was not nearly as strong in 94-95 as it had been 87-88 for instance but it was showing roughly the same amount of weekly TV, maybe a bit less. WCW by this time was drawing even with WWE but as a whole was not as popular as it had been in it's 80s heyday although it was an improvement over where they were three years earlier. WWE still had brand recognition but fans were not pleased with the product. WCW had Hogan & Flair and did very little with anything other than those two during this time.

Then as now it had nothing to do with how many hours theyt broadcast but the quality of the product. No one was complaining about satuaration when the NwO was invading WCW, when Sting was in exile, when Flair was making his triumpant return from being fired, when Hogan turned heel, when Austin was feuding with DX or Taker, when HHH vs Rock was the top feud in WWE, when DX invaded WCW, during the phenom of Goldberg, etc etc.

Scaling back on TV will just limit how much promotion an already struggling product can get as it tries to rebuild to it's former level of performance.
That wont help the problem, it might make it worse.

 

[rdchili96]

RAW is far from shit, if you want shit, go watch Impact. Wrestling this day and age is fine, it's the fans that are the problem.