Should the WWE have an off season?

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

All the American Sports have it. Most American and English TV shows have it. WWE and other wrestling companies don't have it. I am obviously talking about the off season.

It is no secret that an off season helps TV shows and Sports greatly. It allows sportspersons to remain healthy and allows TV shows to remain interesting for longer periods of time. I cannot understand why WWE and other wrestling companies have not embraced this system already.

Day in and day out we have wrestlers quitting the business due to the heavy workload. The ones that do not quit go on extended breaks in order to refresh themselves from the monotony of wrestling. Wrestlers have to keep their body in shape at all times due to wrestling being around at all times during the year. All this puts a tremendous workload on them.

An off season can help from the entertainment standpoint as well. The writers are always under extreme pressure to come up with new feuds and storylines in a matter of weeks. The off season will give them time to plan a few feuds. An off season will also help workers to remain fresh for a long time as they would not have to be on television all the time.

In my view WWE should lead the way in incorporating an off season in their schedule. They should do this because they have already established two brands, namely Raw and Smackdown. It could be that they run Raw for five months and Smackdown for the other five months with both shows getting airtime in the two months between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. This will also help Smackdown get a bit more visibility. This could be panned out in many other ways too. You could also have both brands performing for 7-8 months between Royal Rumble and Survivor Series and then going off for the holiday season.

Another way in which an off season could be beneficial to wrestling is that it will allow the lesser companies to make a name for themselves. The likes of TNA and ROH can put on some of their biggest PPV's at the time WWE is having an off season. That will allow them to grow more and more people will recognize that WWE is not the only wrestling company out there. In some ways this is detrimental to the WWE but frankly WWE is so far ahead of all the other wrestling companies at this point of time that even an upsurge in the popularity of TNA or ROH will affect them much.

So, should there be an off season in the WWE? And in what manner should the off season be panned out? Should there be a simultaneous off season fo both Raw and Smackdown or should there be an off season for the respective brands at different times during the year.

Discuss it all in here.

 

[Stuntz]

NOt trying to knock what your saying, as I only read part way through it, but the biggest reason this will never happen is money. If they had an off season, they would loose alot of money from commercials and PPV buys alone could severley criple the WWE's monetary flow. So not only no but hell no, the way things are now there is no way in hell that they can afford it. Vince knows he looses viewers in the summer, and that is why Wrestlemania and the road there takes place over the winter. The rest of the year is filler for the buildup to The Road to Wrestlemania. Vince is hoping to aquire more and more viewers throughout the winter months to get the buys on Wrestlemania. It worked this past mania bringing in the Rock, and IM sure next year will bring in another million buys.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

They will never have an off-season, regardless of the benefits of it. Their contracts with USA and SyFy are year-round, and if they were only getting 9 months of programming, I promise you those top time slots would vanish quickly.

If the industry / business ever changed (for example if the wrestlers became employees and not independent contractors or formed a union) then the best way to roll with it would be to have the two shows in 9 months seasons with the overlap coming from Royal Rumble through Wrestlemania. Of course, you'd have issues with guys just starting their season at the Rumble, and the issue of anti-climax if the man who walked out champion from Wrestlemania was going into his off season. So logistically, it would never work.

 

[The Suplexer Perfecter]

Pro Wrestling has never had an off season, and probably never will. It's built as a year long, every year thing.

The closest thing I would do is still have the Raw and SD tapings, but have a limit of live events so they can just rest better during a month or so.

Another way in which an off season could be beneficial to wrestling is that it will allow the lesser companies to make a name for themselves. The likes of TNA and ROH can put on some of their biggest PPV's at the time WWE is having an off season.

You think WWE would let that happen? NO. Plus WWE would obviously lose a ton of money during an "off season".

 

[Mindshatter]

Hell no! Apart from the massive cutbacks on PPV and shows which would lose them lots of money, I think that loads of potential stars could lose their jobs and never get the chance to shine. If there is a limited season it would be dominated by the established stars and VKM would rarely take a risk or try something new in the summer like he can now.

 

[airvar]

Who would continue to watch?

Sure it would still garner attention, but the main advantage Raw has over other Television show's IS that it's year-round.. It's like a Soap Opera, it has to suck you in and keep you watching week - to - week.. They KNOW that, if it was on a Season Schedule like other Television shows, than they might not get that audience to return from last week. One of wrestlings biggest pluses is that it IS on every week, you might get bored of it and leave for a month, but it's always there to watch , and it's always brand new.. You never have and never will see a wrestling re-run.

 

[WWWYKI777]

I don't think an off season is a good idea

HOWEVER I do think that in order to give the wrestlers a break and help them not burnout/injure as much that there should be a massive reduction in untelevised house shows. Perhaps even the complete elimination of house shows altogether.

Then the wrestlers get alot more rest , at a minimal cost if you ask me. If its not gonna be on TV its pretty much worthless and I'm not sure why people even buy tickets to house shows. Maybe alot of them are casual fans with deep pockets who confusedly thought it was a RAW/SD taping? Idk , but making them work constant shows that do not contribute to ongoing storylines that will not be televised is obsurd IMO

 

[KidIncredible]

Maybe the way you have it is you have 6 months of SD coming out of Wrestlemania and then have 6 months of Raw leading into WM. You'd just have WWE Monday Night and WWE Friday Night and from April - September it's all SD talent and from October to WM it's all Raw talent.
It would require some interesting booking for the storylines going into and out of WM, but it'd almost be like having a big star return every 6 months, but it's a whole roster instead.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

I don't think an off season is a good idea. There is a lot of money that will be lost doing that, along with TV time slots etc.

What would work is more vacation time for the wrestlers (I mean in-ring competitors) and periodically fewer house show bookings. Speaking of house shows, the cards for a lot of them lately aren't worth paying money to see. So maybe they could get away with running fewer house shows?

But don't be thinking because a sports season is over that they lounge around until training camp the next year. Other sports train during their off season and I don't mean they just hit the weights.

 

[Swamp D.]

My Opinion.........

They should have a sort of off season. I contribute heavy work schedule to early deaths in life. Working 330 days out of the year is insane.

There are enough wrestlers to do this idea.............

For 4 months have 1 faction of wrestlers be in the spotlight, then for the next 4 months have these wrestlers sit out and change to The 2nd faction..... Its equivalent to Raw and Smackdown right now. Then at the beginning of January both factions can come together with the Royal Rumble all the way through Wrestlemania.

Lets say for 4 months you could have Faction 1Cena, Triple H, Big Show, Ray Mysterio, Kane, CM Punk, Miz, Swagger, Nexus and other guys be doing Smackdown and Raw.

Then the other 4 month you can have Faction 2 Orton, Christian, Undertaker, Shamues, Cody Rhodes, Sin Cara, Wade Barrett, Mark Henry, The Core and others doing both.

Then The Draft can happen every year and be way more exciting!

Sounds More Exciting to Me for sure!

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I was just going through some of the replies and there are a few interesting points that I want to address.

NOt trying to knock what your saying, as I only read part way through it, but the biggest reason this will never happen is money. If they had an off season, they would loose alot of money from commercials and PPV buys alone could severley criple the WWE's monetary flow. So not only no but hell no, the way things are now there is no way in hell that they can afford it. Vince knows he looses viewers in the summer, and that is why .

There can be ways to work around the money issue. Like I suggested you could have RAW on for 5 months and then Smackdown for the other 5 and Raw and SD together from Royal Rumble to WrestleMania. Also you can have a lot more brand specific house shows in that month. Additionally there are PPV's that perform poorly due to the same storylines continuing for more than 3-4 months. Who is to say that an expectancy will not be created if a show is not around for a few months? That expectancy will result in more PPV buys.

They will never have an off-season, regardless of the benefits of it. Their contracts with USA and SyFy are year-round, and if they were only getting 9 months of programming, I promise you those top time slots would vanish quickly.

Again I feel that there are ways in which you can work round the issue. If you have Raw and Smackdown running for 7 months in the format which I have suggested, why not show some greatest matches and feuds from the past for the other 5 months. We know that there is still a lot of demand for the Attitude Era stars as well as the Hulkamania Era stars and a lot of the audience would not have seen them in their prime. In this manner you can not only relive just one or two classic matches but the entire feud. WWE has a huge video library and they can very easily put up such a programming.

If the industry / business ever changed (for example if the wrestlers became employees and not independent contractors or formed a union) then the best way to roll with it would be to have the two shows in 9 months seasons with the overlap coming from Royal Rumble through Wrestlemania. Of course, you'd have issues with guys just starting their season at the Rumble, and the issue of anti-climax if the man who walked out champion from Wrestlemania was going into his off season. So logistically, it would never work.

Fair point but again you can structure feuds in such a manner that you can get over the issue. For example you can structure the feuds of Raw in such a manner that the match at WrestleMania is one of the first matches of the feud while the feuds on Smackdown could be structured in a manner such that the match of the wrestlers at WrestleMania is a feud ending one. This will also spice up WrestleMania in my opinion.

I'll get back to replying back to a few more comments later on.

 

[CleverName51]

Instead of an offseason, just limit the amount of house shows each wrestler...err "Superstar" works for instance

obviously top guys like John Cena and Randy Orton are going to work 52 episodes of Raw or SmackDown and all 13 PPVs for 65 dates right there. But there's all about 50 house shows (or more) per year that these guys work.

So, what I suggest is having house shows be where guys can pick up some extra off time, maybe limit talent to 1 or 2 house shows per month instead of the 3-4 most do.


Also, don't be afraid to have top draws run "injury" angles or "suspension" angles (like the John Cena firing angle from Nexus, where a top star is still appearing on the show) or do the CM Punk method and toss a guy who needs a break on commentary for a while to keep them relevant.

Also, that's the purpose of the 6man and 8 man tag matches we get on Raw every so often...if you get an 8-man tag match with 1 main eventer, 2 mid-card guys and a jobber on each team...you let the lower guys carry the action of the match, then end it with the main eventers getting 50-60 seconds in the ring to hit their finishers and end the match without burning them out.

An offseason, while logical and nice, lends too many problems for money...but if you cleverly book some time off into the schedule....the writers can turn "off time" into "great stories" provided the writers are talented enough to do so

 

[FSWWE]

First "Pro-Wrestling" isn't and it will never be a high competitive sport, like the real wrestling or Football, Soccer or Basketball...
Second WWE isn't NBA or NFL, is a very small company when you compare with both of them in terms of profit and fans...

WWE is like a "soap-opera" (VKM words), the wrestling doesn't matter anymore and I don't see a really high risk move since Benoit or Jeff Hardy.
Of course, they fail sometimes and they get injured in the show, however a lot of them gets injured in practice (Layla, Skip Sheffield...)
And if they though of making SD 5 months, Raw other 5, the superstars would lose steam and momentum...
The main eventers would not exist, and a World Champion at the end of his 5 months, is a 10 month champion, because he wouldn't defend it when RAW was on air...
It's a bad idea Myriad, and I can notice that you doesn't really understand the business.

Note: Two TV Shows means more publicity and more brand recognition...

 

[Boondocks]

No. Purely because just having that many shows isn't what hurts wrestlers all the time. Sometimes, they get hurt while practicing. Hell, I tore my MCL running last football season. Wasn't anything having to do with the actual game. I got hurt and missed my whole year before it started, just trying to get into shape. People get hurt for other reasons than wrestling multiple times a week. An off-season would almost encourage more injuries because people would practice in their spare time, and thus, get hurt. So it would make sence to open up TV time to the other businesses while you're at it.

 

[LegendKiller716]

One big reason it won't happen is TNA. If Raw goes off the air for 5 months, TNA can easily move to Mondays again. WWE fans are looking for wrestling and TNA would be there.

But that aside Vince will never do it. If the Raw brand just ended for months everyone would be forgotten, and nobody would have any momentum.

 

[HorsemenNo4]

WWE would loose a lot of money if they had an off season. Think about all the house shows WWE has every year. Even 2 months off would cost them a fortune in lost merchandise, tickets and PPV sales. Plus, how would they get the fans to return for their return shows? People could just move on. Having it on every week makes it far more addictive (trust me, I know how hard it is to turn away from wrestling when I know it's on when nothing else is).

I don't think WWE fans would turn too TNA to get their wrestling fix. Even if they did, I bet the true fans would come back to WWE when it returned.

There's no need for an off season.

 

[saw411]

Is there a need for some type of an offseason/break for the superstars? I say yes. Now do I see it happening? Probably not. The best that some of these guys can hope for is less house shows. Now I know some of the "superstars" need the house shows if they are not consistently on tv to get pay days.

I think the only way any of the superstars are gonna get time off is if they somehow get it put in their contract the # of dates thery work or how much time they get off. Ultimately if you don't have a lot of pull, a la the undertaker, hbk, you don't get that kinda deal with wwe.

Another option is to do what jericho has done. Fullfill your contractual obligations, and then don't resign right away. Take time off. The problem here is, not all of these guys can do what y2j can do and still have a contract available to them when they r damn pleased and ready to come back.

The third option, which will likely never ever happen as long as vkm is running the show, is the wrestlers unionize and state in their union contracts that each union member can revcieve "time off" or a "vacation" of a specified amount of time.

I still think the best option would probably be a rotation of who works house shows so that the wrestlers can have time off and not have to travel.

 

[AntiChristDeicide]

Saw411, the wrestlers in WWE are paid regardless of if they do house shows or not. They might get a little bonus for being at house shows, but they are paid anyways.

Now do the wrestlers need an off season? Maybe, but it won't happen because the new wrestlers that are just starting out in WWE don't make the same amount of cash as the guys like Cena, Undertaker and HHH. Another thing, TNA is there and could be able to pluck talent off of the WWE.

 

[Calderownz]

I'm going to pretend that the money issue isn't a LARGE deciding factor.

The reasons it won't happen:
Fans would have a hard time keeping the story lines going for themselves. Especially the younger audience that isn't as computer-savvy and doesn't read up on it religiously. Therefore, angles would suffer.

Also, plans would have to be mapped out for a season-long run. Much like they are for a drama or sitcom. With this, they'd have to keep this a huge secret in order to make sure the fans get surprises that are perhaps a few months off. The speculation would be comparable to that of two months prior to WrestleMania. So much spoiling. It could hurt the ratings if the right stuff got out that fans really didn't like.

Newcomers would have an even tougher time getting over, perhaps. While some rare cases might take place where a big debut near the end of the season keeps fans guessing until they come back, it could get more simply lost in the shuffle.

The good that COULD come of it:
I think that the Draft would seem even more important. This would help keep the brands even more distinct, especially if the brands had different off seasons. but both were shut down during ROUGHLY the same time. (This would be hard to do, but it's never happening anyway, so I'm just throwing it out there. Lol.)

Storng enough story lines could really be drawn out and cliff hangers would be crazy if done correctly. Also, they would be ensured of two big ratings night. The first and final night of the season. If the season ended the night after WM.... Goooood Lord.

Some negative, some positive. But I don't see it happening.

 

[Marky-Marc]

I understand the reasons why it wouldn’t work/never happen. However, I really do think that there is a way around most of the issues and you wouldn’t lose too many viewers as a result.

Let’s look at ESPN for example. Every sport they cover has an offseason but is there ever an offseason from talking about it? No.

Here’s what you do:

Move Survivor Series to the end of October instead of November. Make this the last show of the year. It could bring back prestige to the annual event and would probably draw huge numbers considering the offseason is coming.

Give the talent off for two months through the holiday seasons of November and December. However, during this time you continue to run Monday Night Raw but as a show that covers what has happened in the past and what can happen in the future. Make it Lawler and Cole sitting at a desk in a studio discussing the year and the rivalries that took place while showing some of the best matches of the year. You could easily do this for 2 hours, once a week for 2 months and I bet people would watch. Throw on a special guest every week and you have yourself a show.

Make the first night back from the offseason the first Monday of January and it’s a super show where we kick start the road to the Rumble and ultimately the Road to Wrestlemania. Ratings are always good around WM time so the fans will come back having missed the product for 2 months and also because it’s Wrestlemania Season! You can name people into the Rumble, have a number 1 contender’s Battle Royal, jump start feuds, it could work.

You keep Raw on USA during the offseason but there’s no travel and matches taking place so the talent has plenty of time to rest up and be 100% heading into the new year. Could result in higher quality and longer careers. Plus the creative team has 2 whole months to come up with some original stuff for the talent which in turn could mean higher ratings and buy rates.

I definitely think it’s something worth considering.

 

[Funkydr79]

I think the best way to do this is to have each wrestler work 10 months per year. If each wrestler got a solid two months to rest their body I think we would see a lot less injury and wear/tear on the wrestler's bodies. Plus it would help in wrestler's ability to be home with their family.

It's easy enough to write someone off the show for a couple months and have them come back. It doesn't need to be a group of wrestler's en masse so that the show feels different, but Talent Relations could space it out so it's only a couple wrestlers at a time.

 

[KNPKH2ster]

Hmmmm.... This is going to be a tough call. I can't exactly say whether the WWE should have an off season. I do believe they should reduce the number of PPVs, house shows, and mandate time off for certain performers. Like I said, this is a tough answer.

 

[radec]

They would lose money and attention and that what WWE is so no.

 

[LilJimmy77]

If they were to have an off season, I can't see them take a break longer then a month. It just wouldn't make any sense to take a longer break. Revenue would decrease. But, on the upside, it would give WWE creative to come up with storylines that are well... creative.

 

[xoxo French Kiss xoxo]

Last I checked the WWE and Vince were in the business of making money and unlike other pro sports. Also note how the performers in the WWE aren't *****es and happily sign on to do the schedule that the WWE runs year after year.

Taking any amount of time off would cut into the profits the WWE sees year in and year out. The fans would forget about the story lines, superstars, feuds and everything else if they were to take a break throughout the year.

WWE Superstars go out it for 300+ days a year, travel across the world nonstop, and they willing sign up to do this. I would love to be a WWE Superstar because of being able to see and do so much with the company.