They've used streaks recently. The guy who beat the streak went on to win the title. Streaks are tough because you have to figure out how to end them. The Goldberg thing turned into a disaster in the end.

They've done the rusev streak about as well as we could've hoped for imo

Where the Michaels heel turn is concerned, teams broke up waaay less frequently back then (they're completely obsessed with breaking them up now), and The Rockers had been together for like 3.5 years only counting the WWF. That's a big factor in why that segment was so fantastic.

I would say squashes except they kind of still exist. I hate that we have to call the job guys "superstars." Iron Mike Sharpe wasn't a superstar. Reno Riggins wasn't a superstar. They just looked like tough local dudes that got their asses handed to them. I miss that. Heels are way easier to get over when they can squash guys. It allows them to maintain some mystery.

Everyone should also be talking about the champion and how they want a piece of that guy. It adds credence to a guy eventually challenging for a title if he's been public ally angling for a shot. This used to happen a lot more.

Finally I think we all wish wrestlers would show more personality in promos. Savage, Warrior, Hogan were supermen partly because they were organic during promos.

Two total hours of weekly programming. Four PPVs per year. Announcers that aren't awful.

I completely agree. There are too many pointless PPVS built on 12 hours of RAW a month, with 50% / more pointless filler.

What does that give us? PPV matches nobody could care about and feuds which make no sense and nobody cares about.

Short promos. 15 second promo calling somebody out to start a match. A 2 minute promo hitting all the key points of an upcoming match. A quick promo after a victory. Not every promo has to be 10-15 minutes.

Over veteran faces mentoring younger ones. Saying they aren't ready and then helping them to get ready with training, teaching, etc. The younger face slowly gets better in terms of win rate over a period of time.

^ +1 to both of those. (Though the "over veteran face" could also apply to a "face manager". Which brings me to my next point: bring back actual managers.)

Another one to the list: the actual crooked referee. They sort of did the fake crooked ref thing with whatshisname a couple years ago with the foot on the ropes thing with Bryan but it was so poorly done that I'm choosing to not count it.

Blinding

The one time I remember the WWE doing this, while the angle wasn't terrible, it led to maybe one of the dumbest matches ever at WM between Jake and Martel.

Was watching the Legends Roundtable on JYD last night and Michael Hayes was talking about an angle where they blinded JYD in the early 80's. He couldn't see his newborn baby and the Freebirds needed police escorts in and out of the building as well as undercover cops in the stands to make sure they got out alive.

How they could do it now?

This should really be the way Cena eventually turns heel. He blinds Daniel Bryan and then says "You can't see me!" and means it literally.

The Sammartino/Zbyszko thing, where the veteran takes the young wrestler under his wing and the young wrestler ultimately unexpectedly turns on the vet. That was the best turn ever.

Just don't have Cena do it with green mist.

What do actual people feud about?

Status/superiority. Hence, feuding over titles makes sense. It establishes the pecking order. "I want your spot." "I want to keep my spot at all costs." etc etc. Also comes into play with "corrupt" authority, such as HHH/Steph.

Women. Yes, feud over women. Holy hell, there's a gazillion ladies on the WWE roster, make some of them useful by putting them with somebody and making that a focal point of a feud.

Other jealousy/ego storylines. Can revolve around damn near anything.

Build off the past. One of the reasons I loved Bret/Perfect at King of the Ring 1993 so much is they referenced the Summerslam history in a pretty good pre-match promo. That stuff matters. Don't pretend we don't remember history ... heck, help us remember it.

As has been written, bounties/heels injuring faces is easy money. Also, heel stables.

Does anyone else find it bizzare that since raw went to 3 hours we haven't had a single ironman match?

Free the ironman match

You're more likely to see an Ironman promo.

Especially now that H's WM entrance will be interlaced with a Terminator: Genisys trailer

How about just getting rid of non-title matches. If you're the champ and you have a match, it's for the title.

I may be completely off here, but I remember very few non-title matches as a kid

I remember non-title matches, but they were against people who had no chance of beating the champion, or rarely to give a newcomer or rising star a chance to have a legit reason to get a title chance. Not like WWE today where the IC champ just jobs to veterans in non-title matches.

I'm having trouble remembering any WWF non-title matches that didn't involve jobbers in the pre-Raw era. Usually they'd do countouts and DQs in title matches to build feuds, like for Savage-Steamboat.

I hardly remember the champs ever wrestling non-jobbers on TV in WWF during the pre-Raw era. And if they did it was usually something absurd like Demolotion vs Powers and Roma; basically jobbers to the stars against champs. Not memorable matches naturally.

I read a Lesnar interview the other day about the time he jobbed to the rock at a house show in a non title match just prior to their wrestlemania match. He absolutely hates the idea of non title matches, which made me like him even more.

Does anybody remember how the first MitB match came about? Was it just randomly announced like The KotR ppv in 93?

I think Bischoff was credited with just creating it randomly like he did with EC.

In storyline, Jericho pitched the idea to Bischoff as a way to get people excited about a Raw match at WrestleMania, and Bischoff ran with it.

Found this after googling. It's from whatculture which is usually terrible but it seems like they just got it all from Jericho's book.

Thanks for the article, El K. This happened during my time away from the product and just randomly wondered about it earlier today. for the way it was brought on screen, TN.

Just came upon an early episode of WCCW last night on the Network that was the prelude to one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history. Michael Hayes was named the "outside ref" for the cage match.

WWE doesn't even really have teams anymore, but I'd have loved to have seen them do something like that with the Shield and Wyatts.