Love it or hate it, professional wrestling has been, and likely always will be, a big part of American pop culture. From Bruno Sammartino selling out Madison Square Garden in the 60’s to Hulkamania runnin’ wild in the 80’s The Rock electrifying audiences on the big screen all around the globe today, there’s no question that pro wrestling, and the WWE in particular, have been a mainstay in the mainstream.
Since clashing with WCW in the late nineties, the WWE have held a monopoly over the sport, maintaining a seemingly insurmountable ratings lead over the likes of TNA and Ring of Honor. However, as time has passed, so it seems, has the interest in the sport. While millions still tune in every Monday night to catch the flagship show, Monday Night Raw, the numbers are a shadow of what they used to be.
Some of the decline has to do with the fact that in 2016, there’s just too much competition. During “The Attitude Era”, most of their viewers had simple cable television. The WWE didn’t have to worry about what else was on 800 other channels during prime-time on a Monday night. Late in 2015, Raw’s ratings dipped below a 2.7, the lowest in almost twenty years. The McMahon family tried to brush this off, insinuating that ratings don’t matter, and that everything is fine and well in the WWE, but people weren’t buying it.
As a publicly traded company, like it or not, the WWE still need as many viewers as they can get. They can hype up what is “trending worldwide” or blame the NFL all they want, the reality is that things have to get better.
WWE Raw Improvements That Need to Happen
Consistent Booking
The funniest booking decision of 2015 was putting the Intercontinental Championship on Ryback. It’s not funny because Ryback isn’t a suitable champion, because despite his shortcomings, the fans still love some Ryback. It’s funny because only the pay per view before, he lost clean to Bray Wyatt, who never beats anybody. This is one of WWE’s biggest problems. They just assume that the viewer has completely forgotten what they had for breakfast that morning, and that whatever they show will get over just fine. Hilariously, this could not be farther from the truth.
This is most obvious, and frustrating in the women’s division. One week, Paige is a terrible heel. She’s attacking people in the locker room, and bringing up Charlotte’s real life dead brother in a promo. Then she’s escorting Natalya to the ring for her match against Team B.A.D. without any explanation. It gets worse with the Bella Twins, who are face or heel depending on the week and opponent.
It’s not just the women though. Superstars like Mark Henry, Kane, and The Big Show are used as utility guys, filling in wherever someone needs an extra body. They rarely get screen time, and when they do, they’re usually getting pinned.
The most inconsistent trend is trying to determine who the good guys are anymore. Kevin Owens has a great match and wins cleanly, and he is considered the heel. But then Dean Ambrose comes out, throws food on him and assaults him, and he’s considered the good guy. It doesn’t really make sense, and even Michael Cole struggles to find a way to justify rooting for the good guys.
Combining Main Event Feuds With Total Divas
While the exploitation of women on reality TV is bad enough as it is, there’s no question the WWE are making a serious profit off of Total Divas. They get to have a third mainstream show on a second network, essentially printing money by having their talent “live their lives” on camera.
Vince McMahon is a businessman and there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of the opportunities that make themselves available to make a little extra money.
However, there is something wrong with having Total Diva’s storylines lead to matches on Monday Night Raw. This is something that fortunately, doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s truly upsetting.
This is both stupid and frustrating for many reasons, the greatest being that if asked, the WWE would claim they “revolutionized” women’s wrestling in 2015. The additions of Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch to the main roster was supposed to symbolize gender equality in the WWE, claiming that these women would be given the same time and respect as the men. While these women are talented, and will eventually engage in historically great feuds, WWE didn’t do as much for women as they pretend they did. They created factions for all the girls, and essentially managed to cram more women into the same short matches.
However, that’s nothing compared to allowing terrible storylines to overflow onto a wrestling show. Firstly, Total Divas is filmed months in advance, so it doesn’t make any sense for matches to happen based on events that happened last year. Secondly, while the WWE does have a strong female fanbase as well, the biggest demographic has always been males, specifically males in their teens and twenties. Thirdly, on Monday Night Raw, Brie Bella defeated Charlotte to promote the show.
Three hours must be hard to book for Mr. McMahon, but it’s completely inappropriate for the shamless advertisement of a reality TV show to be more important than the credibility of the Women’s champion.
Free Pay Per View Matches
Most feuds in the WWE begin on either Raw or Smackdown. While the occasional feud begins because of an event that occurs in the middle of a pay per view match, most stories begin with a promo or a spontaneous match on free TV. This is so fans will be compelled to not only tune in next week, but to buy the monthly pay per view.
Unfortunately, the WWE have fallen into a habit of showing the matches too frequently before the events. The matches happen on Raw and Smackdown far too often before the pay per view, and by the time it happens, the interest has significantly died down.
Right now, it seems as if Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler are on their way to a match at Fast Lane. Since the Raw after the Royal Rumble, Owens and Ziggler have wrestled on every raw. Neither man has a championship, the feud doesn’t really have a storyline, and both wrestlers have defeated each other.
So far, there hasn’t been an incentive added, nor any stipulations, and it looks like they’ll be on the card doing the same thing the WWE Universe have already seen them do three times in three weeks.
Brock Lesnar only wrestles on pay per views. He’ll show up on Raw and destroy everyone, but he’s only there to hype up the fight, not to start one. The three most watched WWE pay per views of 2015 featured Brock Lesnar in the main event. People want to see something they haven’t already seen a million times, and while the younger stars may not have the credibility or drawing power that Lesnar has, they can sell a fight without giving it away for free every week.
Clean Matches
Conversely, the WWE need to have more clean finishes on TV. It is very easy to see why the WWE love to stray away from clean finishes. When the WWE are building to a pay per view, they are trying to convince the fans to purchase their product. They want everyone to shell out 9.99 to see the big matches. However, in order to generate interest, the WWE have to have matches worth watching. They need to have built storylines up that lead into big, satisfying payoffs at the special events.
If the heel and the babyface have every week on Raw or SmackDown in order to sell the match, they can’t give away the finish. If the babyface wins every time they fight, then the heel loses credibility and the fans don’t want to pay to watch the big match happen. If the heel wins every fight cleanly, then they aren’t really heels anymore, and the babyface loses credibility.
It would be excusable if the WWE didn’t give the pay per view matches away for free for a month, but since they decide to do it, they leave themselves open for this criticism. When every big match on TV ends with interference or cheating, it’s very anticlimactic. A wrestling match is supposed to be a story, and without a solid ending, it leaves the fans disappointed and a little resentful.
This is one of the biggest reasons that NXT has been so successful. Not only do they rarely have cheap finishes, but when they do, it’s so rare that it puts the heels over. When Baron Corbin interrupted the NXT Championship match between Finn Balor and Apollo Crews, the crowd booed him, and it turned into a pretty great feud. When it happens on Raw seemingly every week, the fans are just complacently disappointed.
