Is WWE becoming WCW?

Now I do not mean to infer that WWE is taking washed up has beens and paying them a bucket load to do sweet FA but I am inferring that WWE is trying to make big with guys that the WWE universe isn’t overly interested in when push comes to shove. This will focus mainly on a management angle rather than a talent angle, but just to clarify I don’t need to see Big Show & Kane in main event matches anymore, or at least not as often as I am seeing them in main event matches currenlty.

Roman Reigns won the 2015 Royal Rumble and a massive backlash ensued from the general public because they didn’t feel like he should win the match to get a main event title match against, pardon me, the current reigning and defending WWE champion, the Beast Incarnate, the Conqueror BROCK LESNAR!  (So much cooler when spoken) In all honesty I don’t like Reigns, I never have even when he was in the Shield and I don’t personally like the idea of him ending Lesnar’s run as champion.

Now with Daniel Bryan returning from injury and seemingly on the way back up to the top, most people did believe that WWE should have him win the rumble match to go to Wrestlemania to challenge Lesnar for the WWE title, however with his “brief” stint in the rumble match itself the whole WWE universe at the event turned on the show which up to that point hadn’t been half bad in all fairness. The whole match was booked pretty badly in my opinion and gave the result away too quickly, but then again we all had an inkling that Reigns was going to win as we had been bombarded by internet stories that Reigns was going to go over Lesnar at mania 31, so really it’s our fault for not believing the stories.

Now onto my point, there has been a lot of talk that unless WWE want you to be a star that they will do whatever they can to kill your momentum as they do not want you to be too over with the crowds, a strange angle to take when you’re looking to make money!! Surely the more people you have over the more money they will make you, for example in merchandise sales and tickets / PPV buys or hell even WWE network sign ups. In the “Rise and Fall of WCW” documentary, Chris Jericho goes to mention that you were almost punished in WCW if you got over and your weren’t a main event talent and the likes of himself and Dean Malenko were there to just fill the card in between nWo segments.

This feels like it is now becoming a theme in WWE, the likes of Ziggler, Bryan, Ambrose and Cesaro were all over with the fans but WWE seems determined to not let any of them get over and do their upmost to bury them, which seems so stupid because these are guys who can entertain and make WWE money, which is again surely the whole point of being in business? Cesaro as an example was getting a lot of crowd support from being in the Real Americans and using his big swing, so what did WWE do, split the Real Americans and put Cesaro with Paul Heyman! Fine ok I get it, but all Heyman did was promote the fact Lesnar beat the Undertakers streak at Wrestlemania and then to make it worse they stopped him doing the move that put him over in the first place, the giant swing. WHY???

It seems like Seth Rollins is the only real exception to the rule currently with his heel turn in 2014 pushing him to the moon in becoming probably the biggest heel on the current roster, allowing him to showcase the huge amount of talent he has in the main events of a few PPVs with names like Cena and Lesnar. The future will hopefully be bright for the likes of Rollins and hopefully we won’t see WWE kill the push of another great talent.

The other major note is of course Raw becoming a 3 hour show, no one needed that really, it dilutes the show and instead of getting good matches we get maybe 1 or 2 good matches mixed in to long boring promo sequences and rubbish 2-3 minute matches. I know it brings in millions of dollars of advertising revenue for WWE but come on, quality over quantity my friend. WCW moved to a 3 hour show you know, desperation kicked in for them and look where they are now, filling a 3 hour show with a couple of gems and a load of garbage didn’t pay off for them. Just little bits like that are moves WCW made and were known for making.

With WWE chewing up and spitting out their PPV business with the WWE network, the need for increased revenue is surely at a paramount level of importance now, surely guys getting over will do wonders for your business? Ticket sales and merchandise will obviously become a big percentage of the money made moving forward and I fail to see how not promoting the talent who the fans like is a good business model! Very similar to when WCW didn’t allow the likes of Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and various others to truly climb the ladder there and to become bigger stars than they were previously in the eyes of their audience.

To conclude, these aren’t massive comparisons but you have to admit they are there and they could become even more relevant to the legacy of WWE and even Vince McMahon himself in the future. Hope lies with Steph & HHH at this stage, with NxT taking off and gaining popularity and often being deemed the best TV show WWE puts on, this template could always be brought over to RAW or Smackdown to improve the content of the shows and that would hopefully lead to more eyes on the product and more money being spent on merchandise and tickets sales, which surely is the point?

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I’ve been Big Boss and I’m out…… Peace.