WWE SmackDown Discussion I

[improper]

What the hell are they doing with American Alpha

got bored of their new toy from NXT (as per usual)

Wonder how many NXT grown stars have actually been successful on the main roster (like really successful, have gone on to win a world title, tag team title or mid card title), not talking guys who wrestled for big time indy's like ROH, PWG or wrestled in national companies like CMLL, NJPW or TNA. Like home grown from the getgo.

All i can think of is Jinder.

To be honest, a company like WWE shouldn't be wasting their time developing guys anyway. You're at the top of the wrestling world. Let other companies develop your guys for you and then grab them at the peak of their careers so you can make money off them immediately.

Triple H has the right idea. You bring in all the best indie stars from around the world to headline your promotion while also developing guys on the side hoping you hit the lottery once or twice with guys like Strowman. But by and large, why waste your time building up dozens of wrestlers when most of the best guys in the world already want to work for you? You can get their best years out of them and they come to you fully, or at least mostly, developed.

[Spens1]

What the hell are they doing with American Alpha

got bored of their new toy from NXT (as per usual)

Wonder how many NXT grown stars have actually been successful on the main roster (like really successful, have gone on to win a world title, tag team title or mid card title), not talking guys who wrestled for big time indy's like ROH, PWG or wrestled in national companies like CMLL, NJPW or TNA. Like home grown from the getgo.

All i can think of is Jinder.

To be honest, a company like WWE shouldn't be wasting their time developing guys anyway. You're at the top of the wrestling world. Let other companies develop your guys for you and then grab them at the peak of their careers so you can make money off them immediately.

Triple H has the right idea. You bring in all the best indie stars from around the world to headline your promotion while also developing guys on the side hoping you hit the lottery once or twice with guys like Strowman. But by and large, why waste your time building up dozens of wrestlers when most of the best guys in the world already want to work for you? You can get their best years out of them and they come to you fully, or at least mostly, developed.

honestly it probably is the best idea. The PC clearly isn't churning out any talent anymore, sure you had Charlotte, Sasha and Bayley as home grown women along with Alexa later on. Then on the mens side talent like Breeze (even if they didn't use him), Rusev etc.

They're not producing the goods anymore, so the PC in terms of development is relatively redundant. They would be better off just picking and choosing who they want (i mean to get talent from America right now is easy since the scene is so barren, they can just pick and choose who they want). In a way, Evolve is already their feeder company anyway.

[improper]

honestly it probably is the best idea. The PC clearly isn't churning out any talent anymore, sure you had Charlotte, Sasha and Bayley as home grown women along with Alexa later on. Then on the mens side talent like Breeze (even if they didn't use him), Rusev etc.

They're not producing the goods anymore, so the PC in terms of development is relatively redundant. They would be better off just picking and choosing who they want (i mean to get talent from America right now is easy since the scene is so barren, they can just pick and choose who they want). In a way, Evolve is already their feeder company anyway.

I wouldn't count Sasha as homegrown. She spent four years wrestling in the indies before signing with WWE. Same with Bayley.

Regardless, I don't think it really matters. You can point to the relative failure of the Performance Center to churn out stars, but you can also point to the absurd success of NXT and question whether the Performance Center is really the point. NXT exists to draw in the indie stars, familiarize them with the WWE audience as a whole, and then push them as legitimate main roster guys. That, I think, has been working incredibly well. Sure, some guys got to the main roster and bombed (Ascension), or took a while to find their rhythm (Neville), but you've got plenty of success stories like Rollins, Owens, Cesaro, and Zayn, and they're certain to have plenty more with Nakamura and a lot of the current NXT stars when they inevitably get called up. Not everyone gets to be a star, though, so it's inevitable that some guys wouldn't make it, either due to their own shortcomings or through WWE's awful booking.

And it's worth noting that a guy like Owens spent less than a year in NXT and was immediately ready upon his main roster debut to beat Cena clean, win the IC title, and then go on to hold the Universal Title and now the US Title. He was ready from day one. That means the overall investment in him was minimal, but the dividends are huge. They didn't have to spend years paying to train Owens. They signed him, they debuted him straight into an NXT title feud, and then straight into a feud with John Cena, the face of the company. That, to me, is far more valuable than spending years building a guy from the ground up.

I do think they should have some developmental guys, because you want to take a chance at locking in the next Austin, Rock, or Cena right from the start. I just don't think NXT really needs to exist solely as a developmental program when they can just as easily bring in the most talented guys from around the world and push them immediately.

[Spens1]

honestly it probably is the best idea. The PC clearly isn't churning out any talent anymore, sure you had Charlotte, Sasha and Bayley as home grown women along with Alexa later on. Then on the mens side talent like Breeze (even if they didn't use him), Rusev etc.

They're not producing the goods anymore, so the PC in terms of development is relatively redundant. They would be better off just picking and choosing who they want (i mean to get talent from America right now is easy since the scene is so barren, they can just pick and choose who they want). In a way, Evolve is already their feeder company anyway.

I wouldn't count Sasha as homegrown. She spent four years wrestling in the indies before signing with WWE. Same with Bayley.

Regardless, I don't think it really matters. You can point to the relative failure of the Performance Center to churn out stars, but you can also point to the absurd success of NXT and question whether the Performance Center is really the point. NXT exists to draw in the indie stars, familiarize them with the WWE audience as a whole, and then push them as legitimate main roster guys. That, I think, has been working incredibly well. Sure, some guys got to the main roster and bombed (Ascension), or took a while to find their rhythm (Neville), but you've got plenty of success stories like Rollins, Owens, Cesaro, and Zayn, and they're certain to have plenty more with Nakamura and a lot of the current NXT stars when they inevitably get called up. Not everyone gets to be a star, though, so it's inevitable that some guys wouldn't make it, either due to their own shortcomings or through WWE's awful booking.

And it's worth noting that a guy like Owens spent less than a year in NXT and was immediately ready upon his main roster debut to beat Cena clean, win the IC title, and then go on to hold the Universal Title and now the US Title. He was ready from day one. That means the overall investment in him was minimal, but the dividends are huge. They didn't have to spend years paying to train Owens. They signed him, they debuted him straight into an NXT title feud, and then straight into a feud with John Cena, the face of the company. That, to me, is far more valuable than spending years building a guy from the ground up.

I do think they should have some developmental guys, because you want to take a chance at locking in the next Austin, Rock, or Cena right from the start. I just don't think NXT really needs to exist solely as a developmental program when they can just as easily bring in the most talented guys from around the world and push them immediately.

Owens could have gotten the Styles treatment, he was ready from day 1 to step in and be a big deal. He was a huge deal before coming to WWE (biggest ROH star by far at the time).

Do agree that the main reason NXT exists is as a transition point from other companies to WWE.

[Spens1]

Apparently the Mahal WWE push is to get Network deals in India. Here's the problem..............

They get everything (and i mean everything) for around $10 a month in HD, complete cable, with every show from the states (HBO, Showtime, basically everything, full package), $5 in standard definition.

By the way, in that package includes free raw, smackdown, nxt and every PPV.

No one is going to spend 600 rupees a month (so yeah, about 10 bucks) just for WWE content that they already get on TV?

[skbucks1985]

When WWE launched the network they sent out this press release that said something like 7-8 million domestic subscribers was attainable. The way they got that was getting a ridiculously high percentage of there weekly viewership and this percentage of lapsed fans. And they underestimated the percentage of there fans for whom $10 (and really $60, because at the time it was mostly 6-month memberships) was too great a financial commitment.

But the main reason is that they got essentially no lapsed fans. And that's because lapsed fans are lapsed fans and getting them back is virtually impossible. And these people will not flock back because the creative is better or certain guys get pushed. The vast majority of lapsed fans are people who haven't watched in 5+ years. Whatever there rationales were for stopping watching at the time the rationale for a long time has been that they're just not wrestling fans anymore and there's really nothing that can be done to get them consistently back.

That's not to say that the creative is perfect or that hey're pushing all the right guys in the right roles. Or even that an improvement in those areas couldn't lead to an increase in ratings. But any increase would be very modest.

[Pharaoh]

Great posts about the problems with WWE atm but IMO the #1 issue they have is obvious:

People wanna watch stuff when they want - not at a set time on a set night.

Ratings are what they are for a lot of reasons but that's the big one to me

NXT has a compelling PG product...so PG isn't an issue

WWE has most of the "best in the world" on roster...so talent isn't a problem.

"Creative" IS a major problem!

They need to go back to bullet points where guys can actually be themselves and not fully scripted...and I think they're trending that way

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember WCW late in 1996...Eric Bischoff forced Vince to change his ways.

There's no one forcing Vince to change now!

Opening promo segment?
Authority figure?
Cruiserweights?
Cena/Reigns winslol
Weak heels?

The formula hasn't changed in almost 20 years!

Name another form of entertainment that has churned out the same product for 20 years?

They change some of the players but everything else stays the same...and that's boring!



Sent from my SM-J110F using RealGM mobile app

[skbucks1985]

I've never seen any evidence that suggests that there's a large contingent of the audience that watches via DVR or doesn't watch at all primarily because they don't want to or don't have the time to watch it live. There are certainly fans that fall into that category, but I've never seen an evidence that WWE has seen significant decline due to this.

[improper]

I've never seen any evidence that suggests that there's a large contingent of the audience that watches via DVR or doesn't watch at all primarily because they don't want to or don't have the time to watch it live. There are certainly fans that fall into that category, but I've never seen an evidence that WWE has seen significant decline due to this.

A lot of times I'll skip Raw and Smackdown when they're actually on, read a summary, find out the segments worth watching (sadly, there's usually only two or three in an entire three hours of Raw), and then just fast-forward through all the junk and commercials. I find this is much more satisfying way to watch.

And that kind of illustrates the problem with modern WWE programming. It's not "must watch" like it was during the Attitude Era where you never knew just what crazy thing was going to happen. Everything is boring and predictable. We've had three moments during the last year or so of Raw that I'd consider "must see."

1. Owens winning the title after Triple H showed up and turned on Rollins.
2. The Festival of Friendship and Owens turning on Jericho.
3. Strowman destroying Reigns and flipping the ambulance.

And while you can't have moments like that every single week, you need to have them more often than three times a year.

Part of getting viewers back is making Raw feel like you must watch it again, and part of fixing that problem is fixing the awful booking, repetitive matches, never-ending feuds, and boring characters.

[skbucks1985]

I've never seen any evidence that suggests that there's a large contingent of the audience that watches via DVR or doesn't watch at all primarily because they don't want to or don't have the time to watch it live. There are certainly fans that fall into that category, but I've never seen an evidence that WWE has seen significant decline due to this.

A lot of times I'll skip Raw and Smackdown when they're actually on, read a summary, find out the segments worth watching (sadly, there's usually only two or three in an entire three hours of Raw), and then just fast-forward through all the junk and commercials. I find this is much more satisfying way to watch.

And that kind of illustrates the problem with modern WWE programming. It's not "must watch" like it was during the Attitude Era where you never knew just what crazy thing was going to happen. Everything is boring and predictable. We've had three moments during the last year or so of Raw that I'd consider "must see."

1. Owens winning the title after Triple H showed up and turned on Rollins.
2. The Festival of Friendship and Owens turning on Jericho.
3. Strowman destroying Reigns and flipping the ambulance.

And while you can't have moments like that every single week, you need to have them more often than three times a year.

Part of getting viewers back is making Raw feel like you must watch it again, and part of fixing that problem is fixing the awful booking, repetitive matches, never-ending feuds, and boring characters.

I don't doubt there are people that watch like this, I've just never seen any evidence that this constitutes a particularly large contingent of fans.

The Attitude Era was also a period where if you didn't watch it live, you were basically screwed. You could technically record it, but no one really did it at that time. So, if you were a wrestling fan you pretty much had to watch it live or not at all. And today there are other consumption options. But to reiterate, I've never seen any evidence that a large contingent of wrestling fans are using those options.

I don't disagree that better creative would lead to an increase in ratings. But I think any increase would be relatively nominal. Some minor ebbs and flows aside, ratings have been going down pretty consistently for the last 15 years and no matter how good you or I think the creative is, the vast majority of those people aren't coming back because they aren't wrestling fans anymore.

[Spens1]

Aaaaaand Rusev is apparently having his program pulled as per the Meltz cause they put the title on Jinder.

Yeah lets leave out our the best all round big man in the company because we can push our roided up, untalented hack of a wrestler because we want to push network sales in India, even though Indians get everything already on cable tv for about $5.

[iMoreland]

Am I the only one who can't wait for John Cena to come back

[jakecronus8]

Am I the only one who can't wait for John Cena to come back

No matter what you think of the guy (I've grown into a fan of his), there's zero doubt that he's good for the product. I really hope they push Nakamura to the moon because a Mania feud with him and Cena has potential to be an all time great one.

[tugs]

Yeah a match without a face-heel dynamic ala Nak-Zayn is still interesting to look out for.

[skbucks1985]

Whatever you want to say about him, Cena's a compelling character. He's had some programs I've liked and some I didn't like. But its been years since I was bored by a Cena program.

Conversely, Orton-Jinder interests me but its only because I'm interested in seeing whether Jinder can rise to this level.

[tugs]

Well if Orton's your barometer it doesn't say much.

[improper]

Am I the only one who can't wait for John Cena to come back

Eh...I honestly rarely even notice he's gone unless someone mentions him.

[Dunthreevy]

Aaaaaand Rusev is apparently having his program pulled as per the Meltz cause they put the title on Jinder.

Yeah lets leave out our the best all round big man in the company because we can push our roided up, untalented hack of a wrestler because we want to push network sales in India, even though Indians get everything already on cable tv for about $5.

I'm just gonna take a guess here, but I think the decision makers at WWE probably put a little bit more thought into the whole India thing than you or any other fan on the internet has. I'm quite sure they're not investing the money and effort into that region if it was as simple as you just made it sound.

And do you honestly think that Vince is going to risk the backlash they would receive just to try to put over a guy who he has little-to-no allegiance to if that guy was on steroids? If Roman freaking Reigns gets drug tested and suspended when he fails, they're not just going to turn a blind eye to some jobber doing steroids and say "screw it, we're going to put our main title on this guy".

[WRau1]

Aaaaaand Rusev is apparently having his program pulled as per the Meltz cause they put the title on Jinder.

Yeah lets leave out our the best all round big man in the company because we can push our roided up, untalented hack of a wrestler because we want to push network sales in India, even though Indians get everything already on cable tv for about $5.

I'm just gonna take a guess here, but I think the decision makers at WWE probably put a little bit more thought into the whole India thing than you or any other fan on the internet has. I'm quite sure they're not investing the money and effort into that region if it was as simple as you just made it sound.

And do you honestly think that Vince is going to risk the backlash they would receive just to try to put over a guy who he has little-to-no allegiance to if that guy was on steroids? If Roman freaking Reigns gets drug tested and suspended when he fails, they're not just going to turn a blind eye to some jobber doing steroids and say "screw it, we're going to put our main title on this guy".

Yes because at the end of the day, they have very little invested in Mahal. And there isn't a single thing to point to that Mahal having the title isn't anything other than a cash grab for the India market.

[Spens1]

Aaaaaand Rusev is apparently having his program pulled as per the Meltz cause they put the title on Jinder.

Yeah lets leave out our the best all round big man in the company because we can push our roided up, untalented hack of a wrestler because we want to push network sales in India, even though Indians get everything already on cable tv for about $5.

I'm just gonna take a guess here, but I think the decision makers at WWE probably put a little bit more thought into the whole India thing than you or any other fan on the internet has. I'm quite sure they're not investing the money and effort into that region if it was as simple as you just made it sound.

And do you honestly think that Vince is going to risk the backlash they would receive just to try to put over a guy who he has little-to-no allegiance to if that guy was on steroids? If Roman freaking Reigns gets drug tested and suspended when he fails, they're not just going to turn a blind eye to some jobber doing steroids and say "screw it, we're going to put our main title on this guy".

i'd hope they did BUT unless their TV deal is up and they need to up interest to get a really good TV deal (that would be a sound strategy), then they're wasting their time.

Also Roman and Cena are more popular in India than Jinder.

Also its not like they've capitalised on him winning, they've only released one Shirt, thats the only piece of merch Jinder has. If this was a big push into India they're not doing a very good job thus far strategically.