WWE needs to look at the amount of PPV’s it’s throwing out within an annual calendar.
I know that this is an argument that everyone has talked about but I thought I would throw in my 2 pence (that’s nearly 4 cents to my American friends.)
We see far too many shows which have little or no build up. Take this year’s Summerslam for example. We will have 3 weeks to build up to what they call is the second highest PPV behind Wrestlemania, and storylines are more or less just being thrown together.
Yes we have the Nexus and John Cena’s big tag match coming up, which has been building for the last 2 months but look at how everyone is talking about the Nexus angle as a breath of fresh air.
Too many times do we have 2 weeks till the next PPV and they just throw in a number one contenders match for the main event. How many times have we seen John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, Undertaker and HHH face each other on a monthly basis on PPV?
Now WWE actually look like they are starting to develop some characters for the main event scene in Jack Swagger and Sheamus, but they need to do more.
I know why they do more PPV’s a year, because no matter what, people will buy them. But in an ideal world I would like to see the old system come back with the 4 big PPV’s. King of the Ring (Which has basically been replaced by the Money in the Bank format) Summerslam, Survivor Series and Wrestlemania. Sure, you can have a couple of PPV’s to fill the gaps but at least try and leave about 5 or 6 weeks before each one.
This would allow us to see more chance for storylines to be built up. The more time given, then the more time script writers have to actually make a story that we care about. I’m worried that these days they are chasing their own tails so much that they do not get chance to write anything as nearly as creative as they would like.
Surely wrestlers would see this as a chance to try and get their characters over more.
I know this is a hard situation because they have 5 hours of television to fill every week but each wrestler will only be on the television the same amount of time as before. Because of the brand splits we now have a lot more talent to look at, but do we have more creative team members to compensate? Is this the sign that they need more writers?
This current system is what I believe has destroyed the prestige of the Intercontinental championship. If we look back 10 years, the Intercontinental championship got the same build up on the mid card as the WWE Championship, because they had more time to do so.
How many times did Austin, Rock and HHH equal or upstage the main event with their Intercontinental Championship bouts? They did this because they all had stories going into them. Reasons to fight and situations explained.
People do not need silly gimmicks to make a story work; they just need a persona and reason.
How did Kane become the success he is? His character was introduced in October 1997 tempting a fight with The Undertaker. The bout didn’t actually take place until March 1998 at Wrestlemania. Kane destroyed everyone in his path to get to him. This was creative storyline writing, take away the deadman persona and just look at the story.
Undertaker didn’t want to fight Kane because he was his ‘brother’, Kane wanted to fight his ‘brother’ because of how he felt abandoned as a child. This could work with any wrestler without a silly gimmick attached.
It was similar to the Randy Orton and HHH rivalry that took place at Wrestlemania 25. The build up went from the Rumble and ended at Wrestlemania. It was a good idea but sadly the match unimpressed (largely due to HBK and Undertaker having a classic bout prior) but I appreciated that they tried something a bit different.
I’m fed up of seeing John Cena being cheered by children and booed by men. I’m fed up of seeing him act all happy at the start of each promo and end it with every vain popping out of his neck. I want to see John Cena have to go more personal, give me a main event where I expect him want to kill someone rather than just want to win a match, give him more depth.
We saw the possibilities of this when Randy Orton punted Cena’s father in the head. Sadly the rivalry took a bad turn with Cena’s injury but they were on the right lines.
If you have a good mixture of general wrestling competition and realistic personal feuds then you are catering to all fans.
And why can’t we have decent managers these days? Who is the most prolific manager we have on the roster today? Natalya!? Please!
What happened to the days when managers developed their wrestler with their own persona? By the way I am not counting Ranjin Singh as a decent manager because anyone that spends half his life saying “The Great Khali says…” doesn’t deserve any of mine.
The last manager I can remember that had an impact would be Armando Estrada. This man was everything, he was funny, he was well built, he could talk, he was cowardly and he had a presence. He highlighted everything that the late great Umaga did.
Bring a manager back! Let them control a guy who struggles on the mic and push them towards stardom. Look at Heyman and Lesnar. They were gold, muscle and brains, they complimented each other.
I feel the way forward to obtaining more personal storylines is to drop the amount of PPV’s. This will allow storyline development more and for this to happen they should try and introduce a few managers into the mix, what do you think?
beansontoastuk@msn.com if you want to get in touch with me.
Martyn
