Really? When the WWE was most popular it was carried by Hogan, Austin, or the Rock.
I was talking about Smackdown, not the WWE as a whole. No one person needs to carry Smackdown. You spread a number of quality talents like Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Dean Ambrose, etc. across the card and give the show it's own individual championships. John Cena obviously still carries WWE in all regards. And
I can't read with context?
The Monday Night Wars happened because those that carried WWF went to WCW and WWF had to establish someone to carry the company.
Woah, really?
What I've said is that if you start with it as the "B" show, no one is going to watch. If the split isn't equal, SD! will die. No one wants to watch the second best brand. How's TNA doing? If you try to split the shows equally, there is not enough star power for either show.
It's not difficult to play SD up as significant to the product again. The BEST way to do that is through a brand split as that's the most exposure SD can possibly get. As for star power, are you really going to make me make a list of two rosters. Let's just say Shane wins at Mania and the brands DO split. HHH and Steph go to SD, Shane stays on Raw. In theory, the likely scenario would see Cena and Reigns stay on Raw while Orton and Ambrose go to SD. Brock Lesnar works both shows. In other words, the 1A tier works Raw, while the 1B tier working SD. There's currently 75 male and female wrestlers on the roster, about 20 of them utterly useless. That leaves around 23 useful talents per brand, not including the inevitable NXT call-ups. Tag teams on SD, Divas on Raw or vice versa. As everybody loves to say, the "brand" is the draw today. I'm sure Raw will be just fine without HHH, Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose.
No one is watching it because they saw it on Monday. It's just a rehash and recaps of Raw. If they did anything to further storylines, people would watch.
No one is watching because WWE has effectively obliterated the usefulness of Smackdown over the past few years. WWE has done a lot to further storylines over the past few weeks on Smackdown, as I mentioned title matches, Brock Lesnar appearances, etc. Surprise, people still haven't been tuning in.
Giving them their own roster, openly admitting that it's the "B" show just continues to treat the show like shit.
Who's saying they have to openly admit it's the B show? Where are you getting this from?
Put the top level talent on both shows and have them do something. No one watches SD! because I can read what happened, see that it progressed nothing, and I decide to use my time elsewhere. Also, Thursday it a horrible night for a wrestling show. The target demo is out on Thursdays.
As I mentioned, SD has progressed certain storylines over the past few months. Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and Brock have all made appearances. It hasn't seemed to help very much. It's become cultural habit for most wrestling fans to just skip SD nowadays and prolonged minor tweaks are not going to change that.
That is incorrect. Show was a main eventer brought over from WCW at the height of the wars to be a main eventer here.
Big Show's first title reign was among the worst in history. I don't think he ever main evented one program as champion despite holding the belt for a couple of months. He was completely overshadowed by HHH and The Rock throughout his entire run. He may have been brought in as a main eventer, but he was far from a legitimate one when he won the title.
His first program was at the peak of McMahon vs. Austin. Show was brought here to be the main event. Del Rio too. Del Rio was huge in Mexico and WWE spent a shit ton to get him here. You don't spend money like that to bolster the midcard. You don't give a utility infielder $15 million a year.
Same as Show. WWE may have brought him in but they pushed him and gave him the belt much too soon. 4 years later and what's the big money man doing now?
But Cena and Orton stay at the top and continue to sell tickets and merchandise. Those guys, and more, have had opportunities. Two people took advantage, Punk and Bryan. Everyone else has failed. They are not fit to anchor a show. No one is tuning in to SD! to see them. It would make it even worse.
So Orton to SD. Problem solved?
OK, let's try this again. There are very few guys who can carry a program. When you are making a new star, the established star has to put them over. Bret and Shawn did it for Austin, Austin did it for Rocky, Rocky did it for HHH, HHH did it for Jeff Hardy, Cena, and Bryan, Cena did it for Edge and Punk, etc. There are four guys on the current roster who can successfully make stars. Splitting them up slows down that progress. You need to have two of those four involved with each other, and the other one or two elevating youngsters. It's how the business has always worked. Daniel Bryan didn't get the people behind by beating The Miz. He got it by challenging authority and beating Cena. Beating Ryback isn't going to elevate Tyler Breeze.
Again this is not that big of a problem with some simple foresight. The champion works both shows, Brock Lesnar works both shows. Of the 4 bigger names (Orton, Cena, Rollins, Reigns) 2 go to Raw, 2 go to SD. Not everybody has to work with main event names. There is enough talent to book 2 main event feuds per show, not including the bi-monthly championship feud. Also, beating Ryback would actually completely elevate Tyler Breeze.
No I didn't. The worst case scenario is stock holders selling off shares because SD! can't sell ads and no one is making money.
Why. Why would SD not be able to sell ads? Because Cena's not on the show? It's the same product ffs.
I had to go where you were.
Oh I was nowhere near d-bag territory.
Uh, no it wasn't.
All that point means is that they are beholden to stockholders, advertisers, and network execs, not internet fans. That was a big group "You" not a personally "you." Try reading with context and not using red herring "you're mean" arguments to try and save face when you're getting slaughtered. You sound like a Republican Presidential candidate.
The Brand Split has been discussed, so your assumption that it's just "internet fans" who have proposed this idea is false. You seem to think a split in brands would lead to the crash of the pro-wrestling world as we know it and the bankruptcy of WWE, and that's just not the case. You have a fucking business degree, surely you don't believe half the crap you're typing?
Oh I'm sorry. I just assumed the guy quoting me and using the term "you" was referring to myself personally. How stupid of me. Are you slaughtering me? This coming from the guy who loses every single argument he partakes in on these threads? Well, I guess I'm "slaughtered".
Oh, get off your fucking soapbox for a minute you fucking alarmist.
I'm an alarmist. Me. Says the guy who predicted the end of pro-wrestling in North America based off of one angle. Perspective.
Find some middle ground. Not everything is black and white. There are some arewas that need to be addressed, but the internet broke the week before when Shane came back. There is plenty good with the programming. New Day is fun and even better with Y2AJ. HHH and Ambrose is entertaining. The Divas are fun and have a purpose.
Oh give me a fucking break. Ratings are trending downward, the man who's being billed as the next face of the company is getting ruthlessly booed, and everybody from Mick Foley to his grandma has spoken out on the insistently low quality of the product. More times than not, Raw is boring to the point of coma inducing and while I can only speak for myself, I think it's obvious that the black certainly outweighs the white in this regard.
But let me ask you this. How, and you have never answered this question, you've avoided it in every post; How does creative make five hours of entertaining television by splitting a roster that you claim can't come up with one entertaining hour now?
I did answer the question, I think more than once if you would take the time out to look. First, they utilize the talents that they have. You're telling me a roster consisting of Orton, Ambrose, HHH, The Wyatts, Owens, Styles, The Miz, Rusev, Sheamus, Balor, New Day, The Usos, The Dudleys, and others, can't produce two hours of intriguing television?
Secondly if you cut the filler talents, you know, the ones who generally wrestle on both Raw and Smackdown, in half, it leaves room for less useless crap on both shows. In theory at least.
It makes no sense to me at all. You split the brands when everything is good and there are still guys getting left out. You admit that that's not the case.
Are you some almighty God on how to book a brand split? It's happened one time in history, you don't know shit about what constitutes the right conditions for a brand split. And by the way guy, are you asleep? There ARE people getting left out. I just named a handful in a previous post. Do you have trouble reading or do you just skim through?
What you and everyone else that wants the split is looking for is a major angle and the best you can come up with is splitting the brands. Now you know the struggle creative is going through.
Don't make assumptions about me. I'm not "looking" for anything so take that explanation and shove it up your ass.
When people are financing your company based on what does work, it does. When McDonalds introduces a new product, they don't stop selling hamburgers. You make the changes at the bottom and hope it takes off. SD! and Raw still need burgers. They just need some McFlurry's to get some steam.
Yeah sure, burgers and McFlurry's.
Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University. How ya doing? <y capstone professor was the President of the Dallas Branch of the Federal Reserve. Which online college did you flunk out of?
I legitimately knew you went to business school. It explains why you think you know everything about everything. I'm currently about to obtain my Masters in psychology. A big businessman like yourself probably sneers at that line of study though.
That's why you make the changes at the bottom and maintain what is making you money. It's called speculative diversification. You keep doing what is making a dividend for your stock holders and then you try and develop way to make it bigger. When companies get desperate, they fail. Burger King isn't going to catch McDonalds by suddenly making robots.
You keep comparing McDonalds and Burger King to pro-wrestling. If Burger King were to stop making burgers they would fail. What the fuck's the metaphor here? WWE is not changing the NATURE of their programming, they're just SPLITTING THE ROSTER. Making a change like a brand split is nothing more than a wrestling angle with minimal economic implications. You may harper on about "slaughtering" me with all your "tough guy talk", but you're essentially speaking bullshit.
Oh.
Ya got me.
Cause and effect on a slippery slope. Splitting the brands waters down the talent, which makes it harder to make stars, which makes the product less interesting, which drives away viewers, which drops ad prices, which makes USA pay WWE less to renew, which eliminates the stockholders dividend, which leads to a sell off, which leads to a company with a bloated roster imploding from the inside, which leads to, which leads to. That is a far more likely scenario than people tuning into SD! to see the exclusive talent engage in an R-Truth rap battle royal. The issue is creative, and splitting them up isn't going to help either.
You haven't listened to anything I've said. I wrote that whole fucking essay for nothing.
, the rookies on NXT (like “college”
