It’s a New Year, yes it is! This is the prime time for everybody to shake off the dust from 2015 and to start thinking about how they want to better themselves for the next 12 months. Normally, people ditch their resolutions by February, but let’s not focus on the negative; let’s talk about some potential positives about how WWE will find a way to turn those situations around.
There’s plenty of problems going on in the company right now, and we could go on for far too long if we dissected every single person on the roster one by one, but these are just a few examples of what I think are some of the biggest goals WWE should have for 2016—within reason.
Compensate for Injuries
This year proved that if a few people are forced out of action, WWE needs to be in a good enough position to not have to panic. The only way to do that is to make sure there are multiple top stars who can share the weight of the main event rather than have it all focused on one person and then if that guy gets injured, everyone is scrambling to fill a massive void.
As much as I like Roman Reigns, don’t make this “the Roman Reigns year” like what happened with Seth Rollins. Distribute the popularity with Reigns, Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, John Cena, Brock Lesnar and all of your other major players, and set up your midcarders and upper midcarders to potentially be able to step up as well. WWE needs to look at the large number of injuries from 2015 that all happened concurrently and take that as a lesson learned, rather than ignore it and just hope it won’t happen again.
Don’t Sleep After WrestleMania
Since so much time and effort is spent building up to WrestleMania, when that push is over and done with, the company seems to enter a slumber for a while. The creative team is no doubt tired, as are the performers, but that lull can undo all of the hard work from the prior months.
WrestleMania is the time to reward fans for sitting through all of the bad from the previous year and to create new ones that will stick around until the next WrestleMania, but you can’t do that if you start phoning it in right afterward. Some effort goes into Extreme Rules, but Payback can be a waste of time when WWE is only focused on Money in the Bank, and then they can typically not care about Battleground after that as well because they want to focus their efforts on SummerSlam. While Payback and Battleground aren’t nearly as important as the other three events, that doesn’t mean the build can be on cruise control.
Lack of Foresight
Continuing on from the example above, one of the major issues WWE needs to correct is their inability to plan ahead. Sometimes, those events like Payback and Battleground can be a drag primarily not just because a lack of effort was put forth, but because WWE needs to stall for a future event.
For instance, in 2015, the Intercontinental Championship was in a state of chaos after WrestleMania when Daniel Bryan was forced to relinquish the title. It took far too long to crown a new champion while WWE figured out what direction they wanted to go in, but since it was in the Elimination Chamber, that helped justify it some more. Afterward, however, things got messy. Ryback was set to feud with Big Show and The Miz in a triple threat match that went on for months. At first, a singles match took place that ended in a DQ on a pay-per-view (which should never happen, as that just translates to “nevermind, wait until the next pay-per-view for the real thing”). Then, Ryback was injured, causing the match to be put on hold until 2 months later at SummerSlam. By then, nobody cared, but if the original match would have taken place at the first event, things could have been different.
Just the same, the feud between Lana, Rusev, Dolph Ziggler and Summer Rae dragged on forever with seemingly no end in sight until it was forcibly castrated by TMZ. Either WWE loved this so much and were oblivious to how the audience couldn’t care less, so they kept it going for that reason, or they were unable to think about the next step and kept just stalling while coming up with no solutions.
When WrestleMania is being finalized, there should be rough drafts of potential cards leading up to SummerSlam as well as an extremely rough draft of a card for the next WrestleMania (so as to plan out who wins Money in the Bank). On a month-by-month basis, there should be plenty of backup options so if someone is injured or a feud isn’t working as well as WWE had hoped, things can transition to something more entertaining. Don’t get caught with your pants down hoping that you can sit on your thumbs for a month just because you didn’t want to take an extra hour at a conference table to brainstorm alternate ideas.
Keep the Content Fresh and Worth Watching
One of the best things to come out of 2015 was the advancement in programming on the WWE Network. There’s been less of a focus on old footage than ever before, which makes it considerably more entertaining. Old stuff can be great, but there was a time where nearly all of the content on the network was just previous pay-per-views and a slew of “look back on: insert old event” recaps. There wasn’t much separating Monday Night War from Rivalries or WrestleMania Rewind or Countdown.
This year, though, we’ve seen Tough Enough (which I think would be better off going on the network instead of USA), Breaking Ground, Table for 3, Swerved, and other shows widen the variety. Camp WWE is coming soon as well as Edge and Christian’s show and possibly another Divas Search. These are all different, which is a good thing. If something doesn’t work, it can be ignored and never come back. If something does work, it can be renewed for another season.
I would also love to see a drastic improvement in things like SmackDown, Main Event and Superstars, but I sadly don’t have any faith whatsoever that WWE will put in the work to turn those shows around. For a few weeks, SmackDown might be better with the move to USA, as WWE will make it a priority, but I guarantee we’ll be in the same slump in no time. Those three shows are essentially dead in the water when Raw has even struggled, so while that would be a great resolution, I feel it’s just too ambitious to hope for.
Find the Next Howard Finkel
Something that’s missing from WWE is for it to have a voice. The Fink was the best announcer this company ever had and his voice is iconic, so I don’t expect anybody to be able to replicate his value, but someone needs to step up and be the next best thing.
Lilian Garcia’s time has passed and she’s a shell of her former self. Justin Roberts is gone, so we can’t count on him anymore. While I’m a fan of Eden Stiles and JoJo to an extent, they don’t have that same pizazz. Greg Hamilton stands out to me as having a lot of potential, so I’d like to see him make massive strides, but if that’s not working out, WWE needs to look elsewhere. The shows need a new #1 announcer who can hype the crowd and upgrade the show.
Reutilize Failing Superstars
Jack Swagger. Fandango. Heath Slater. Bo Dallas. Curtis Axel. Damien Sandow. These guys and many others are desperate for some kind of change. What they’re doing now just isn’t working and it will continue not to work if nothing is altered.
For some, it could be as easy as finding them a tag team partner to help give another number to that division and allow them something to do. This has seemingly worked for Zack Ryder with The Hype Bros and it certainly boosted the career of Damien Sandow before when he was partnered up with The Miz. Others might need a full-on repackaging to salvage what’s left of their careers, or they could even be sent down to NXT to work with those guys as a kick in the rear to motivate them.
Something needs to be done with these people or else they’ll just spend the year continuing to dig their graves before finally being released.
Divas Revolution – Show, Don’t Tell
Many months ago, Stephanie McMahon put the WWE Universe on high alert for what would be referred to as The Divas Revolution. It was promised that this was about to kickoff and women’s wrestling would never be the same again.
Remember that?
Since then, WWE has spent more time telling us that there’s been a significant improvement rather than showing us. The quality of the work the women do in NXT was leaps and bounds above the main roster before this segment happened and that disparity has not changed at all. Bayley and Sasha Banks had two spectacular matches that set the bar for the entire history of women’s wrestling while the main roster continued to linger in mediocrity.
Sure, we’re told every week about how amazing these matches are and how people like Charlotte are taking the world by storm, but we’re certainly not witnessing that same level of awesomeness that the scripts claim exists. For whatever reason, the end result just isn’t matching the hyperbole, and 2016 needs to be a year where WWE proves that this division actually is as good as they say it is. We all know that NXT’s division lives up to the hype, as evidenced by the audience literally chanting in support for women’s wrestling, but the main roster is not giving people anything to be receptive towards.
Those are just a few examples of resolutions WWE should be looking to make for 2016 that I had in mind. What improvements would you like to see the company make over the next 12 months? Is there anything in particular you think is too far out of their reach or will this be the best year ever for the brand?
Tell us your ideas in the comments below!
