BillAlfonso
Getting Noticed By Management
Now, I know that pro wrestling will probably never go back to the old format of a PPV every quarter of the year and holding a special live event during the off months like WCW used to have Clash of The Champions(which were better than some of the PPVs) but there's something else they can do, they can save their best stuff for the PPVs.
Here's what I'm talking about, a few months ago, I saw John Morrison feud with Ted DiBiase. The match had a false finish as Ted said "fuck it" and tried to leave. JoMo goaded him into coming back by offering to be his "Virgil" as Ted was looking for a man-servant in the preceding weeks. Ted came back and during the second part of the match, JoMo pulled off one of the best spots I've ever seen when he pulled off a full front flip to the outside from a springboard from the top ropes.
A few months later during the month with the month with the Money In The Back PPV, they had a spot in the Raw leading into the PPV where RKO, uh, RKOed Evan Bourne out of a Shooting Star Press.
In both cases, I'm thinking that they were incredible spots but they would've been more effective if they saved things like that for the PPVs, what they could do is bring back jobbers to work the undercards with established guys during the month so you can have shorter matches used soley to get the one guy over and make him look strong without having to make another guy look weak. Example, the episode of Raw where Sheamus came out and destroyed Daniel Bryan who was the U.S. Champ. I understand that they wanted to make Sheamus look strong but they effectively buried their U.S. Champ in the process who is supposed to be on his way to the WWE Title if they portray the title progression correctly. So, they bring in a jobber for good five minute beat down so that established guy can look good. Now, when the PPV rolls around, no one has to look weak and now the crowd can come into the event with a little bit of anticipation as they're now about to see two strong competitors and are left to imagine what they're about to see in the match since this is touted as such an event over the over Raw, Smackdown, Impact, etc. Don't get me wrong, you can still have a main event with two established guys but mainly use it continue story lines for one or both guys' respective feuds.
I know what you're thinking, ratings are going to take a hit and they will initially but that's going to be offset by the increased PPV buy rates and eventually that's going to bring back the ratings because guys are going to look stronger and get over faster without having to constantly fight through HHH, RKO, Cena, etc. so fans are going to tune in to see their favorite guys take it to a random jobber, I stayed tuned to WCW Saturday Night or Main Event on TBS on Saturdays and Sundays in the hopes that one of the Horsemen or Sting or Luger were going to have a match. Even if they didn't, I still got a solid match between someone like Marcus Alexander Bagwell and a jobber named "Phil Foray" which made me want to see Stunning Steve Austin vs Bagwell at The Great American Bash for example because Bagwell looked like he could beat Austin during the match or Austin may have ran in for a beatdown then cut a promo which gave Austin more heat as a heel and put Bagwell more over as a face plus it didn't make him look particularly weak as it was a cheap shot.
Back to the ratings, we all know that a loss of ratings equal a loss of revenue but another way this helps is that this will allow for the company to cut down the roster, especially since both WWE and TNA have bloated rosters, to a few guys that are going to be at shows and the rest are going to be guys that are brought in off of the street to work a match and you can pay him like a few hundred dollars instead having to pay guys contracts that you may not even use that week. You can also save your bigger names for a main event here or there but they mainly wrestle at the PPV.
Now, with you saving it for the PPV, you can now pull out all of the stops at the events with having to try a whole lot as the audience are anticipating anything and haven't seen your best yet so you don't have to have a bunch of crazy spots that the fan isn't really impressed by because they've already seen it. This leads to bigger pay offs for feuds and you can actualy have resolved feuds because both guys can go on to feud with other people for months at a time because they don't have to wrestle each other all of the time.
So, what do you think? Am I wrong in this vision or do you think it could help?
Here's what I'm talking about, a few months ago, I saw John Morrison feud with Ted DiBiase. The match had a false finish as Ted said "fuck it" and tried to leave. JoMo goaded him into coming back by offering to be his "Virgil" as Ted was looking for a man-servant in the preceding weeks. Ted came back and during the second part of the match, JoMo pulled off one of the best spots I've ever seen when he pulled off a full front flip to the outside from a springboard from the top ropes.
A few months later during the month with the month with the Money In The Back PPV, they had a spot in the Raw leading into the PPV where RKO, uh, RKOed Evan Bourne out of a Shooting Star Press.
In both cases, I'm thinking that they were incredible spots but they would've been more effective if they saved things like that for the PPVs, what they could do is bring back jobbers to work the undercards with established guys during the month so you can have shorter matches used soley to get the one guy over and make him look strong without having to make another guy look weak. Example, the episode of Raw where Sheamus came out and destroyed Daniel Bryan who was the U.S. Champ. I understand that they wanted to make Sheamus look strong but they effectively buried their U.S. Champ in the process who is supposed to be on his way to the WWE Title if they portray the title progression correctly. So, they bring in a jobber for good five minute beat down so that established guy can look good. Now, when the PPV rolls around, no one has to look weak and now the crowd can come into the event with a little bit of anticipation as they're now about to see two strong competitors and are left to imagine what they're about to see in the match since this is touted as such an event over the over Raw, Smackdown, Impact, etc. Don't get me wrong, you can still have a main event with two established guys but mainly use it continue story lines for one or both guys' respective feuds.
I know what you're thinking, ratings are going to take a hit and they will initially but that's going to be offset by the increased PPV buy rates and eventually that's going to bring back the ratings because guys are going to look stronger and get over faster without having to constantly fight through HHH, RKO, Cena, etc. so fans are going to tune in to see their favorite guys take it to a random jobber, I stayed tuned to WCW Saturday Night or Main Event on TBS on Saturdays and Sundays in the hopes that one of the Horsemen or Sting or Luger were going to have a match. Even if they didn't, I still got a solid match between someone like Marcus Alexander Bagwell and a jobber named "Phil Foray" which made me want to see Stunning Steve Austin vs Bagwell at The Great American Bash for example because Bagwell looked like he could beat Austin during the match or Austin may have ran in for a beatdown then cut a promo which gave Austin more heat as a heel and put Bagwell more over as a face plus it didn't make him look particularly weak as it was a cheap shot.
Back to the ratings, we all know that a loss of ratings equal a loss of revenue but another way this helps is that this will allow for the company to cut down the roster, especially since both WWE and TNA have bloated rosters, to a few guys that are going to be at shows and the rest are going to be guys that are brought in off of the street to work a match and you can pay him like a few hundred dollars instead having to pay guys contracts that you may not even use that week. You can also save your bigger names for a main event here or there but they mainly wrestle at the PPV.
Now, with you saving it for the PPV, you can now pull out all of the stops at the events with having to try a whole lot as the audience are anticipating anything and haven't seen your best yet so you don't have to have a bunch of crazy spots that the fan isn't really impressed by because they've already seen it. This leads to bigger pay offs for feuds and you can actualy have resolved feuds because both guys can go on to feud with other people for months at a time because they don't have to wrestle each other all of the time.
So, what do you think? Am I wrong in this vision or do you think it could help?
