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draw consistent ratings like it did during its the golden era (Monday Night Wars lol).

Anyone have any bright ideas? Besides some obvious answers as bring back the Rock (not happening).

Personally I think they need new writers for more originality...

And the quality of the wrestling needs to better... the predictability of exactly how a match plays out is way too easy to even worth watching nowadays... I still watch Raw over MNF on occasion (when the game sucks)... but it's not what it use to be...

At least not to me or my friends anymore... we hardly watch the PPV's anymore instead we may just watch the online stream off some website (if the entertainment value was more we'd definitely pay).

I sometimes think this could be an age thing. Where back when I was younger I was more in tune with the excitement of fighting, and didn't care about it being more show than realistic... but I just find the storylines so played out and I still think the WWE has more potential than the product it's putting out there today.

Thoughts?

Fact is The Rock, Stone Cold, Kurt Angle and HHH as corner stones is much much better than HHH, Chris Jericho, John Cena and who ever else they have now. They don't have the star power have the star power of the attitude era. And they are finding out that they cant just make a new Rock or Stone Cold.

Well that's what made them so good for so many years.

Aside from the crazy story lines, was their ability to pump out star after star (Flair, Hogan, Bret Hart, HBK, Rock, Austin, HHH)... and the list goes on...

Why can't they do that anymore? They couldn't have possibly exhausted all angles and lost all creativity could they?

Because the fans dont just like who ever they tell them to like any more. The fans choose who the enjoy regardless of story lines. And the WWE doesnt care about what the fans want. If they did then they would take note of the boos Cena gets and would change the story line to make him a heel of some sort. They dont care if the older fans watch, not if the younger fans are buying all the toys and shirts and ****. ..

True... but many of the guys I mentioned in the previous post appealed to many different age groups...

My favourite being the Rock and I know he was a very talented guy, but is it THAT hard to find someone charismatic, funny on the mic and is actually a good wrestler? Two of the three can be taught and I have to think there are thousands of people auditioning every year... it's hard to think they can' at least make ONE guy a household name that is liked.

well they need to get out of the dumb little kids ftw era and stop it with jokes like hornswoggles, kung funaki, jimmy wang yang, etc

they need to bring the hardcore title back ... yes, i know wrestlers get hurt but lets face it ... the hardcore title made bums watchable. if the hardcore title was on then snitsky wouldn't be so useless.

they need to reunite the brands ... ditch the dumb waste matches. when the wwe was at it's peak it was because you'd have hhh, austin, kane, taker, big show, angle, rock, y2j, etc all in the same FREE show. you telling me smachdown and raw that every show has orton, edge, hhh, hardys, mvp, benjamin, hbk, kane, taker, boretista, mysterio, jbl, cena, kofi, punk, y2j, etc wouldn't draw a lot of ratings?? but of course it won't happen since vince makes money anyways, bleh

bring back respectability to the tag team divison. outside of cryme tyme, morrion/miz, and edge hedge, who else is there?? a bunch of losers pairing up that's who. fans love tag teams.

but you know eventually this dumb era will move on as how lately the wwe has been moving away from the kid era ... although last weeks raw with losers dancing set them back by 3 years. to hell with the kids, more action. even before y2j changed he never used his signature trash talk "you stupid sob" ... and now they're bleeping out the 'a*s' word.

arghh

oh and yeah, FREE COLT CABANA AKA SCOTTY GOLDMAN

The product now is so watered down that the hole to climb out is pretty steep .

At this point I think the only hope is that some true once a generation star is found somehow . This is a bad cycle the WWE is in now .

CM Punk I thought had the right stuff on the mic to be THEE guy to give a shot of energy into the business . Trouble is he's so damn restricted and watered down like the rest of the bull .

the Comedy of DX, Stone Cold, the Rock and Edge/Christian made it for me. Now its Santino. WT! ?

There used to be Bras and Panties. Not that many people care to see women just wrestling.

Compelling stories. Bigger than life stars.

I want to see them scrap their current format. Shake it up.

Lead the show off with a Major Match. Involve the fans more. Do more run ins. Develop a stable of stars against the McMahons for control of the WWE. Do something mythical, like the Sting/Wolfpack thing. Where Sting would appear in the rafters. Fans go insane for that stuff.

cocktailswith_2short wrote:The product now is so watered down that the hole to climb out is pretty steep .

At this point I think the only hope is that some true once a generation star is found somehow . This is a bad cycle the WWE is in now .

CM Punk I thought had the right stuff on the mic to be THEE guy to give a shot of energy into the business . Trouble is he's so damn restricted and watered down like the rest of the bull .

Although most hate him, what's wrong with Cena?

I mean he needs to improve his wrestling a bit, but the guy is pretty OK on the mic...

I remember when he first started and did those 'freestyles' they were pretty funny, or at least I thought so.

Anyways, do you guys think the WWE has to be more innovative and create completely NEW or different characters/plots or can they revert to past models and bring those stories up again?

I would say they need to do something different, but they've been doing so many things for so long it's a bit hard to fathom what other plots are possible (guess that's what they pay the writers the big bucks for)

boogiesdad wrote:the Comedy of DX, Stone Cold, the Rock and Edge/Christian made it for me. Now its Santino. WT! ?

There used to be Bras and Panties. Not that many people care to see women just wrestling.

Compelling stories. Bigger than life stars.

I want to see them scrap their current format. Shake it up.

Lead the show off with a Major Match. Involve the fans more. Do more run ins. Develop a stable of stars against the McMahons for control of the WWE. Do something mythical, like the Sting/Wolfpack thing. Where Sting would appear in the rafters. Fans go insane for that stuff.

Those stars are hard to make. It usually involves one of the bigger stars taking a fall and losing to make a name for someone else.

ie. Andre w/ Hulk
Bret w/ Stone Cold (although he didn't lose that I quit match I believe made him)
HBK at WM
and many more that I can't recall off the top of my head

The only guys right now that could MAYBE make someone by losing would have to be Taker or HHH, and for that to happen they have to really get those guys involved in a story line so that fans would expect those guys to win in any given fight... only to lose and make someone a star.

They need to be funny, back in the day you had Rock even as hell (before he caught on), being funny.
Remember when Stone cold was heel with Vince McMahon, and would go up with his guitar and sing, and ask for hugs (That was gold, and made him hated even more). Or Chris Jericho back in the day, DX making fun of NOD, and various other people.

One of my fav. was Kurt Angle being unintentionally funny, like when he made a peace offering and offered Undertaker (when he was a biker/american badass) a scooter as present.

Stuff like that.

Right now its way to predicatable.

Basically they either "screw" people out of titles or matchs or just hand it to the most popular.

Things like the whole Jericho reign was just awfully written and now on smackdown.

They just need to make it somewhat believable, stop catering to either the fans or some 3 or 4 month long rivalry they will throw out over 2 or 3 PPV's.

Also stop forcing superstars down the throats. Right now its really hard to like many, I basically like the old school ones, but the new ones, or "old but rising up" are way to gimicy. I refuse to believe that anyone actually likes R-Truths's entry, yet it goes wild etc..

Need more flow to it, better writing is what they need basically.

Surivivor series just put the nail in the coffin to me watching any of it for the next few months.

They need to go back to what made the WWF worth watching. Plain and simple.

Bring back the attitude era and have a TNA vs WWE Invasion. Knowing Vince that will never happen.

Would you shell out the millions to buy out TNA and it's awful roster just to do an invasion line that will most likely fail? Not to mention Vince is known for taking high flyers and ruining them by not letting them do risky moves. Watch Rey Mysterio from ECW/WCW to know and you'll see what I mean. TNA has a few talented guys, but if I'm Vince I'm not even thinking about wasting a huge chunk of money to get three or four guys. WCW just had massive talent and were a huge threat. TNA doesn't have the talent level of WCW at that time nor is it a threat to the WWE right now, sadly.

They have opened Raw and Smackdown with big matches, but you just don't do that with the PPV's. It would make no sense. Imagine if they were to open WM this year with either the WWE Championship match or World Heavyweight Championship and the "main event" was a match that should be 2nd or 3rd on the card. People would then just b*tch that it made no sense and wanted it the way it should be.

I guess after going through all of the storylines they have over the years, you are bound to start running out of completely new ideas. It's not a video game where you can come up with some really, really out there ideas. The Undertaker is probably as close to a video game character as you can get, either that or Boogeyman but they have completely f*cked that character up. It could have been something really good and I could tell they were trying when he debuted, but it came off way too cheesy IMO and people just didn't care.

They are developing a new stable with Orton, Cody Rhodes and Manu but Manu just doesn't fit. They badly need DiBiase Jr. back to replace Manu and then maybe that stable could become something great if given the right material.

Guys like The Rock and Stone Cold seem to be once in a lifetime talents. They are trying like hell to make Cena that next Rock/Austin but the fans have completely turned on him. I keep hoping that they will use those boos and turn him heel. It would be extremely easy to do and he can just say things like "I came out here night after night and busted my ass for you people and all you did was boo me". and have that "**** you, I'm here for myself" type of mentality or something like it. Plus, maybe let him go back to those raps he did as a heel, they were very good. Either that or just let him lose on the mic and the guy could become a major heel. Since he's come back, he has had a *little* edge to his character, but still considered a face. One other thing about him is that I could've sworn he used to have a bigger move set, but he became mega popular and they limited him way too much. That would be another bonus if he went heel, he would more than likely be allowed to use more moves.

Someone else mentioned Punk and I agree with what they said. He hasn't been allowed to be the wrestler he was in ROH nor the mic worker. He was an AMAZING heel and his matches with Samoa Joe were classics. Him signing his WWE contract on the ROH belt was gold. Oh and his Pepsi Plunge (a top rope Pedigree) was a kick ass finisher, wish we could see that in WWE. They haven't completely screwed his character up, but turn him heel and let him use the "I'm straight edge and that means I'm better than you" character.

The writers will be able to find something new they can use and (hopefully) not mess up. It's just a matter of if the fans will like these new storylines and like I said, if they will screw them up or not. It just sucks that they are TV-PG now, because it limits them a lot as opposed to the Attitude Era when they had DX, Austin vs McMahon, The Corporation vs DX, all those amazing feuds that they wouldn't be able to do today, all because of the f*cking TV-PG rating. I mean, I suppose they could try and do something similar to those, but it would probably end up extremely watered down. They'll figure something refreshing out, I haven't lost faith.

^^^ In terms of the Punk, I'm Straight Edged so I'm better than you type of role I think they really missed the boat on that. Looking at the current WWE roster, who could he feud with that persona? Jeff Hardy seems like an obvious choice. If they turned Edge or MVP face that might work. But it really could've worked when Punk debuted. Feuding against guys like Sabu, The Sandman and RVD would've worked perfectly. Also, I'm a big believer in the idea that a great face comes from being a great heel first because a heel always has more freedom with what they can say.

the main thing they need to do is not be so predictable. When did WCW become such a power and a threat? When they turned Hulk Hogan heel. It was one of the most brilliant moves ever imo. The same can be done here. But not with Triple H. Or Shawn Michaels. Or any of the other guys they do it repeatedly with. I'm talking John Cena, Batista, even Jeff Hardy. They need an established face to make a turn. But that will never ever happen. Because its not profitable in the short term.

I like that the superstars (top-tier) are all "normal" guys but I think they need to get more gimmicky with their lower end wrestlers. When I was a kid, I actually cared about the result of a "The Birdman" Koko B. Ware vs. Skinner match even though those guys were the bottom of the barrel. When I see names like "Jeremy Davidson vs. Troy Jackson" (completely made up), I don't really care who wins.

Also, the Austin/The Rock era blurred lines in terms of good guys vs bad guys and it worked well at that time but that's because there actually were lines there to blur. Since there hasn't been a clear-cut distinction between good and bad guys in a long time, it might be worth it to the WWE to work on drawing a line so that they can blur it again a year from now. You draw that line by brightening up the good guys' costumes, and not having good guys facing good guys (or bad guys facing bad guys) for a while.

A couple more suggestions I'd make to WWE are:
- Save your superstars for special occasions. It used to be that superstars might make one appearance on the mic per week and at most, one televised ring appearance per month. Hulk Hogan was a hard guy to see wrestle outside of PPVs, Right now, they over-expose their superstars, so it isn't a "treat" to get to see elite matchups during PPVs.
- Let some matches end without contraversy. Every once in a while, it's nice to see two wrestlers in the ring for 10 minutes with one guy emerging the victor without outside help or the referee missing something. It's especially rare to see heels win fairly except when the match is set up to display a heels dominance.
- Enforce the count out rule all of the time, or never. I can't stand that 80% of certain matches is spent outside the ring and nothing happens and then two guys wrestle each other to the ground in the entrance aisle and they get counted out.

I used to be a big fan of pro wrestling in my younger days, but I still believe that there was a lot more to it than me getting older, or just growing out of that stage (I am only 20 for crying out loud). I agree with most of you. The WWE seems to have lost its creative edge over the years.

1) The quality of the characters nowadays has disappeared. Strong and very unique personalities was the hallmark of the "Attitude Era". It's as if each of those characters represented something a fan could easily catch on to. Stone Cold, Mankind, The Rock, D-Generation X, The Undertaker, Vader, Kane (Masked), the Godfather, Goldust, the Corporation, The Nation of Domination, you name it. Back then, characters could get over with fans as disrespectful anti-heroes, and likewise garner heal heat by just being themselves. To be fair, this generation has its share of bright and charismatic stars, but the majority are just flat characters to put it bluntly. It's almost sad to see that the WWE even needs to push the likes of John Cena so hard just to get him over with the fans. They put him against McMahon, made his opponents disrespect the USA, make racist comments, take shots at prominent figures, and constantly cheat in matches, and even that didn't work. John Cena got most of his attention early on (the disrespectful kid that freestyled) but the WWE couldn't wait to groom him into the next Steve Austin/Rock so they blew it. They scrapped that old character and turned him into a pure babyface who can only pull off three moves, and is boring on the mic. Go figure.

Obviously the "Attitude Era" was a different time altogether, and its been almost a decade since (it will be tough to recreate it given all the TV-PG hindrances). The point I'm trying to make though, is that those days were ratings gold. Given the themes of professional wrestling, 'edgier' is always gonna be better, and I think that is the direction the WWE should at least try to go back to (in whatever way is possible given the limitations).

2) I can only stand so much Triple H vs. Randy Orton, The Undertaker, Batista, Cena or (insert name of main-eventer). Sadly though, they've probably already exhausted all the possible match-ups you could think of (involving their top tier superstars) and I doubt we will be seeing anything new in the near future. I've lost track of how many times those guys have squared off and then traded opponents and then squared off again. There is barely any variance to who gets to be a contender. They add all these twists to and make triple threat matches, six man tag matches, and battle royales, and what not, but the truth is, even with such a big roster it's the same old guys getting a crack at title contention over and over. There are a lot of talented superstars that are overlooked.

3) Continuing on that, story angles and match dynamics have become way too predictable. It's one thing to be seeing the same superstars clashing day in and day out, but to see them pitted against each other in angles that have just been re-hashed is another. When the WWE has tried to think out of the box and come out with something new and controversial though, it's more often than not fallen short or ended up in bad taste. I can think of a lot immediately (Kane being a rapist and murderer, Undertaker having an affair, Chuck proposing to Billy Gun, Heidenrich reciting poems, Eddie Guerrero being the real dad of Mysterio's kid, Randy Orton mocking Eddie Guerrero's death to get heel heat, Vince McMahon faking his own death, Vince McMahon' having a bastard son, Shawn Michaels teaming up with God, May 19th and Kane's imposter, Jillian Hall's blemish)

Moreover, the sequences in matches have become so standard that they've become mundane and unexciting. Believe me, it's been too easy to determine how a match will end these days. It's either the face winning after hitting his finishing maneuver, or losing as a consequence of some form of cheating. I suppose it's a part of pro-wrestling, but it wouldn't hurt to mix things up either. Like someone previously mentioned, make the 'bad guys' win fair and square for a change, decrease the number of matches that involve cheating, interferences, or end in uneventful No Contests. I've seen a few matches that have defied that standard procedure and not surprisingly, I found that back-and-forth action exciting. Another very good suggestion was to bring back hardcore to the WWE. That championship will turn a lot of low profile matches into gems believe me. They could also employ more out-of-the-ring action. I don't think I'm the only one who misses those frequent brawls in the stands, backstage, or in parking lots. It just adds that extra dimension to these matches and that can never be a bad thing.

3) Finally, Brand Extensions. I actually think it was an interesting idea to try at first but by now it's proven to be a bad idea. The WWE is wasting viewers' time by having three separate shows of only mediocre caliber each. It's a clear case of quantity over quality. By having specific brand divisions, all these uninteresting characters are getting way too much airtime and so are all these lackluster storylines. You're basically limited to seeing the same old thing again and again until the next draft (which is more like free agency for select superstars than it is an actual draft). There are also way too many titles to go around that nowadays, it doesn't seem like any of them even matter save for the two top tier belts (heavyweight and WWE championships). Seriously though. A US title and an Intercontinental title? WWE Tag Team Championships and World Tag Team Championships? Winning any of those belts seems to have lost its value and quite frankly, no one really cares who's and who isn't holding those belts.

Merge Raw and Smackdown, trim that roster down, and unify those titles. That's how it's always been in the past, and it was a working formula. We'd be seeing much more stacked cards, and a lot more possibilities when it comes to creating new angles and match-ups. I don't mind keeping ECW a separate thing, but only to exist as a glorified version of Heat/Velocity.