What would it take to make you interested in the WWE again

[Mecca 0]

I just find it funny people bitched about H holding the belt now they bitch about Cena.....it just seems most of us who post here don't like the guys who make the WWE money I guess.

 

It's like I said I like smarky shit I like guys who can work but sadly on the national level 9 out of 10 of those guys doesn't draw enough to ever be a long term champion or even a feature player half the time.

[edgehead69 0]

Yeah i agree.... But HHH Politics sicken me and he should stay the 10 time champ

[Mecca 0]

Triple H doesn't even annoy me as much as Cena......atleast he isn't corny and saying shit that appeals to 8 year olds.

[edgehead69 0]

Alas... you're right.... When i go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch PPV, At least 20 kids dessed as Cena..... But my Clique of 10 people boo the hell out of cena....

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

They need to get away from the rinse and repeat formula. I don't blame them for rehasing storylines and ideas from 10 years ago, as I guess the average WWE fan is too young to remember them clearly at a guess. However, when they repeat a cycle throughout the year it just gets boring. Also the build up Monsters and Heels only to quickly destroy and forget about them once they've been fed to Cena is annoying. If reports that Ken Kennedy has moved to Raw only to job to HHH are true, then you can add that to list.

[GCWPatrick 0]

Realistically?

 

Nothing.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

I'd be very interested to re-read this thread in a few years time to see what WWE have actually done and how it compares to what we want. I know we're the internet and we suck, but hey, fun is fun. Actually, I'd be very interested in seeing WWE in 5 years time, who will the Main Eventers be?

 

Is this what WWE in 93 felt like? Was too young for the internet, and obviously the internet wasn't invented till 1998 anyway, so its not like there was an internet smark crowd crying about how stale the WWF was in 93, but was it anywhere near as this? I can't really remember since I was a kid at the time, and as a kid WWF seemed really good, all those colours and stuff.

[Guest Floridian Cool]

Kennedy going after Cena's title.

[Papacita 0]

My interest in WWE pretty much died off around the time of the USA homecoming, although I tuned in for the ECW relaunch last year, I really haven't watched since then.

 

I agree with those who say the shows got too formulaic, which was a big reason I lost interest. Also, just a lack of interesting (not necessarily new) matches and their borderline mind control booking (i.e. having Angle become anti-American because people were cheering him over Cena, as if anyone with an IQ over 2 couldn't see right through that).

 

I dunno if anything can really pull me back in but as far as things I'd liked to have seen:

 

Shorter Shows: Probably just me, but one thing I really dug about the ECW relaunch was that the shows were only an hour long, which was just refreshing. The 2 hour shows (mainly Raw) could be a chore to sit through a lot of the time, especially with the rosters being as shallow as they were getting. To me, the shorter TV shows give things a little more immediacy, cutting down some of the crap and (hopefully) making writers focus on the more important aspects of the show.

 

Less predictability in matches/more realistic competition: I hate being able to look at a card before hand and being able to tell who wins what match and how they win it. This may have changed some since I've stopped watching, but if they could create an atmosphere where anybody could CLEANLY beat anybody at a given time, I'd be more interested.

 

Less reliance on face/heel lines: This probably irks me more than anything about WWE. I hated having to watch a Cena match and listen to the announcers give a 10 minute speech on why fans were booing him. Who gives a shit?! People are gonna support whoever that want to regardless, so is that really worth wasting time on? Again, this is something that could've changed since I last watched judging from the HBK/Cena and now Cena/Lashley programs, but while you're probably always gonna have faces and heels, it doesn't have to be the be all end all.

 

It'd also be cool if they went the more old-school route of spreading focus to different characters a week rather just focusing on the same characters and issues every week.

 

Edit: I kinda feel like a grumpy old man after re-reading this.

[garfieldsnose 0]

I can picture a Cena loss to Orton or Kennedy, only to get the title back right away, or chase for a while. I think Cena will be able to draw without the belt, but I guess they're not ready to take it off him just yet. It's all business, doesn't have anything to do with talent, which is a bit sad, but understandable. If I ran a company, I'm making all the moves to increas revenue, and that's just what WWE's got to do.

[garfieldsnose 0]

Less predictability in matches/more realistic competition: I hate being able to look at a card before hand and being able to tell who wins what match and how they win it. This may have changed some since I've stopped watching, but if they could create an atmosphere where anybody could CLEANLY beat anybody at a given time, I'd be more interested.

 

 

Apparently, the referees have been instructed to call the match as a shoot, so they're not supposed to know who wins or loses (probably not in main event scenarios, though). They've been making sure the wrestler's shoulders are on the mat and there have been a few cases where we predict the person was supposed to kick out, but since they didn't get the shoulder up in time, the ref counted 3 (see Backlash- Lashley vs. Vince/Shane/Umaga). It's at least got my attention, be it a very small detail.

 

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

If they do the ref-shoot thing, they should go all out with it and just book the matches and let the finishes take care of itself. Then book the storylines based on legitimate wins/losses. But that probably would hurt the product more than help it.

[Timmy8271 0]

It's a shame Smackdown is on Friday nights cause that show is just outstanding. I mean it reminds me of watching a old WCW saturday night or Nitro. You got your weekly Matt Hardy match who has been on fire lately and guys like Finlay, Edge and Flair lighting it up. Hell even Khali is entertaining.

 

Raw can be really hit and miss. I don't hate Cena like most people but then again, I liked 80's hogan. Raw entertains me because it's live and anything can really happen.

 

ECW is a hard show for me to watch. I can't stand punk or Johnny Nitro that much so I have no use for that show. I haven't really watched it since Ariel left.

 

The thing that can help me feel even more exited for WWE programming is firing the Hollywood writers and have Paul Heyman book ECW without Big steph looking over his shoulder.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

IT seems like they are trying a bit harder after the Benoit crap at least.

 

Smackdown is usually a very good show, I actually enjoyed ECW this past week (wrestling with no extra crap) and RAW wasnt that bad either.

 

 

[Mecca 0]

Just because he's mentioned here alot...

 

Source: Wrestling Observer

 

QUOTE

Today's Baltimore Sun has a lengthy interview up with Chris Jericho. Jericho says he is returning to wrestling and will be returning to a full time schedule. He didn't mention whether it will be TNA or WWE.

 

He did say he's happy when TNA mentions his name on their broadcasts. Jericho also spoke on doing his comedy, a play in Toronto and writing his new book.

[foleyfanforever88 0]

I wouldn't say this is realistic, but who wouldn't love to see a returning stable of Jericho, Christian, Lance Storm, Trish, and either Tomko (b/c of Christian) or Test (b/c he's Canadian)?

 

A feud of them vs. the face stable of Booker T (back to the street gimmick), Goldust, and perhaps WGTT would have me tuning in every week for sure.

 

EDIT: Booker, Goldust, and Cryme Tyme (to give them a big guy in Shad, because Booker will be back to the street gimmick, and because Goldust as the odd man out would be hilarious.)

[claydude14 0]

Kevin Nash, RAW GM

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

The same thing that's been a problem for years, it is only more of an issue now because most of the wrestlers that kept me watching are buried/dead/homicidal maniacs. The problem is with creative. Storylines are needed, but just like any action film ever made they are there to build up to what people are really there for the big fight between the hero and villain. Far too often these days there are storylines that simply don't lead up to this big blowoff or feature non-wrestlers.

 

I also really hate the fact that it is not presented as a real sport anymore. We all know it is phony, but 24 is equally ridiculous and has no problem within the confines of the show treating it seriously. Wrestling in kayfabe is supposed to be a legitimate sport, yet we get the equivalent of Jack Bauer winking at the camera eveyr 2 minutes. It isn't serious, but the performers need to treat it seriously to mean anything, at least when they are on camera. One of the reasons JBL is becoming the most popular commentator in the company is because he's one of the few people that actual does treat it realistically.

[NoCalMike 0]

I barely watch now. My DVR is set to record, but sometimes I look online at the results first to see if I even want to watch it. I'd say the first step would be stop pushing roid monsters that can't work.

 

 

[2GOLD 0]

 

Couple of small things:

 

A heel color guy- I'm tired of two face announcers agreeing on everything. It was much more fun with guys like Jesse and Bobby the Brain and even heel Lawler than this. Jerry drooling over the women and talking about how horrible the heels are along with JR just takes away the fun back and forth banter. The announcers need a kind of love-hate chemistry when announcing and I don't get that with JR/Lawler anymore. It was great when a heel would hit someone with a chair and the color guy would say, "I can't believe he rammed his head into a chair like that! I hope Randy's hands are ok from holding it while that moron did that."

 

Natural Charisma- A guy who talks and comes off like it's his own thoughts. Right now, every face and heel tosses out jokes that sound straight from MadTV or SNL. We get about 20 gay jokes an episode, "funny" name play and then a lame catchphrase that isn't working but the writers like it and it's going on a t-shirt. Jericho and Austin are right, if it doesn't feel natural and like it's coming from the guy then it's horrid. Cena on Smackdown was a great character, he felt more realistic than on RAW. Every now and then you get flashes but then the horribly lame jokes come and it falls dead flat. This one seems dead and buried.

 

Stop trying to recreate Vince vs Austin- It's gone, it's dead and replacing Austin with someone else doesn't make a compelling storyline. Vince vs whoever just always feels like the sequel to a movie that didn't need a sequel. Not only is it the unwanted sequel, but it's had a re-cast in one of the lead roles and the new guy isn't interesting. Vince was defeated by Stone Cold, he's a worthless villian now. And making it so he's now a threat in the ring just because Vince needs his daily "kiss the boss's ass" segments doesn't make for good television. If Vince wants to do something then he can unleash a new heel from time to time and then GO AWAY. Let the new heel do something, let them wreck havoc for a bit

 

Revamp the main event scene- Sorry, I still don't buy Edge and I just won't. His Rated R interviews are boring, his facial expressions are comically bad and I couldn't have been more thrilled he was moved to Smackdown since I'm never home Friday. Cena is good now and then but this "CAN HE OVERCOME THE ODDS?!" storyline and character has run the course too many times. Plus the scripted jokes? Not funny in the least. I'm waiting for him to call someone a big bad doo doo head. Love the work of Kennedy though so I have hope there but I get the feeling they are going to damage him for 3 to 4 weeks because he still can't go. Booker T is awesome but he's on RAW and HHH will make sure to put the boy in his place again. Lashley is big and boring but I do like his multiple finishers, makes him like a video game character.

 

Make RAW seem faster- Right now, RAW just drags. It's a 2 hour show but it feels like 5. There need to be a few fast pace matches every now and then that take up time but are moving at such a quick pace that the show gets going. Openers full of headlocks and stalling make a show drag immensely. Then what comes along to pick the show back up? The hilarious Eugene segment? The John Cena comedy half hour? Umaga grunts at things and then storms off to beat up Val Venis? Where is the energy? The one thing I can say about TNA is the show doesn't drag lately, sure the run-ins suck but the show feels like an Impact. It's an hour but it feels short for me because there is action mixed in there that is fast paced. WWE and TNA need to learn from each other: TNA needs less run-ins and more clean finishes while WWE needs more fast paced action somewhere in there to make the show seem shorter. There used to be a time when RAW felt way too short and made me WANT next week to come. Now I'm dreading Mondays.

 

 

If those things come along, I might start enjoying the show and caring more. Now? I can't even mock it with my friend because it's painfully boring and takes forever. I've started to watch re-runs of Enterprise instead and I didn't even like the 2nd season when I saw it the first god damn time!

 

 

 

[NoCalMike 0]

They need to rebuild Heels into monsters that don't lose under normal circumstances. Right now they create monsters merely to feed Cena on the next PPV. Guys like Umaga and Khali are marginalized far too early into their gimmicks by jobbing clean so soon.

[JimmyHendricks 0]

The entire roster is too bloated. They could let go about half the talent currently under contract and I wouldn't care. Character development sucks. Everyone is speaking scripted lines given to them by some unfunny former sitcom writer. The characters they come up with are uninteresting, or rehashes of old characters from 10-15 years ago. Their top guy, who is supposed to be a face, is hated by half of the fanbase.

 

Perhaps it's because I'm 25 now. Perhaps 10 years ago I would have loved this stuff. Perhaps I'm not in the target audience they are striving to impress. I don't know, but I don't have the desire to watch like I did in 1997. What could make me interested again? I really don't know at this point. Things aren't spontaneous anymore. Like someone else said, we already know what is going to happen, before it happens. And if it does go differently, it's usually not to big of a deal, or whatever shocking thing that happened goes back to then usual within a month or so. Nothing seems realistic-they aren't breaking down any walls like the nWo did, "invading" WCW 11 years ago. When they try to recreate Vince/Austin, it comes off as a really bad imitation of it, and no one believes that Eric Bischoff/Teddy Long/Vince (now) is REALLY mad at DX/Cena/Batista. I mean, we all knew Vince/Austin was a storyline, but it SEEMED real.

 

Nothing seems real, anymore.

[mysterious_w 0]

The good thing is, if you know where to get it, there are alternatives. I've only been watching ROH for a few months, but I'm turning into a big fan due to the style of matches and the decent booking. And I'm finding a wealth of stuff from Japan like Dragon Gate, NOAH, Zero-One etc. Hell, the past few months when I've been skipping through ECW, I've used the extra time to watch All Japan classics from Kawada, Misawa and Kobashi. I haven't even glanced at the lucha libre scene yet, even though I've heard it's in a pretty awesome state at the moment.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I also really hate the fact that it is not presented as a real sport anymore. We all know it is phony, but 24 is equally ridiculous and has no problem within the confines of the show treating it seriously. Wrestling in kayfabe is supposed to be a legitimate sport, yet we get the equivalent of Jack Bauer winking at the camera eveyr 2 minutes. It isn't serious, but the performers need to treat it seriously to mean anything, at least when they are on camera. One of the reasons JBL is becoming the most popular commentator in the company is because he's one of the few people that actual does treat it realistically.

 

Agree 100%. You can be outlandish, controversial, even childish. You can run a character like the Boogeyman if you want. But it needs to have well-defined, consistent rules. If there is one thing that bothers me in wrestling, it's when the rules of a match are changed to benefit the storyline.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

John Cena losing the WWE Championship

[Guest beau99]

Cena jobbing to Kennedy.

 

Don't care which venue. I'd just like Cena to put him over. It better be a title match as well.

[King Cucaracha 0]

if Vince and Stephanie McMahon were to either die or both completely get out of the business.

The spman speaketh truth.

 

I still watch all the shows (albeit via taping them to watch later, and fast-forwarding past all the commercials and the crap I don't wanna watch to get to the 20 good minutes each week... 5 for ECW), but I'm definitely not interested in the WWE product. I damn sure haven't spent any money on it in years. If, oh, say, ROH, Chikara, IWA Mid-South, and NOAH had tv shows I could watch, I'd never bother going back to the WWE to get my fix again.

 

Ditto. Well except for the 'spent any money' part, I did buy this year's Rumble. Also, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.

 

 

Obviously, we're talking quick fixes here. I'm going to have to go with the Jericho answer. I'm not even that big of a fan anymore (his last face run was staler than year old bread), but he's about the only guy they could find with name value, in-ring talent and potential interview talent for a quick-fix. The non-quick fix answer- just some sort of shake-up. Something. Anything. Just something different, it seems like the last three or four years are completely interchangeable. The company's in a comfort zone now and that's not entertaining

 

 

EDIT: Also, pretty much everything 2GOLD says. They need to be willing to take a risk, even though they don't have to. The last big 'boom' in the WWF came from Austin and HBK in particular being allowed to go out and be more 'edgy'. Seems like nowadays, they're scared of a- being edgy and b- letting people be individuals in interviews.

Edited July 9, 2007 by King Cucaracha

[Superfly Snuka 0]

Ending run ins for just about every important match would help as well

 

This and I am REALLY turned off by the cookie cutter planning of matches with heels. Other than an Umaga or Khali, EVERY heel has to cheat to win, esp. if it's a title match (which of course, Khali and Umaga job out in anyways). Obviously cheating is the easiest way to build a heel, but why can't Edge be cocky/worries, by win at least some of his title matches in a non-heel way. Cena's major problem now is that he makes every wrestler look inferior booking-wise, even to the point that even when the heels cheat big-time, they still lose...every time.

 

Give me a heel that just dominates, but talks heelishly, and i could get back into it. But with the run-ins and KNOWING that all the heels will lose, often even if they do cheat, is boring.

[Superfly Snuka 0]

Cena jobbing to Kennedy.

 

Don't care which venue. I'd just like Cena to put him over. It better be a title match as well.

 

It only means something if it's a clean win, though.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'd be very interested to re-read this thread in a few years time to see what WWE have actually done and how it compares to what we want. I know we're the internet and we suck, but hey, fun is fun. Actually, I'd be very interested in seeing WWE in 5 years time, who will the Main Eventers be?

 

Is this what WWE in 93 felt like? Was too young for the internet, and obviously the internet wasn't invented till 1998 anyway, so its not like there was an internet smark crowd crying about how stale the WWF was in 93, but was it anywhere near as this? I can't really remember since I was a kid at the time, and as a kid WWF seemed really good, all those colours and stuff.

I don't think WWE was stale at all in 1993. Remember that Monday Night Raw debuted in January. Wrestling fans today take weekly, live televised wrestling for granted. In 1992 I honestly think WWE ran four live shows in total, those being the pay-per-views. Monday Night Raw was a fresh show at the time, and offered a couple great matches like Jannetty/Michaels and Flair/Hennig, as well as the memorable Razor/Kid angle.