I think if you cut down on the number of PPVs and/or increase the amount of actual wrestling on RAW this would not be the case.

Yes, I agree with that point (Hogan was always the exception that proves the rule with that). Faces should do face things; when Rusev says "John Cena, I already beat you, I don't need to prove myself to you again" and John Cena's response is to ambush Rusev and beat him into submission until his valet has to grant his wish to get him to stop... who's the face again?

Especially since we had this exact same thing happen like two months before when Seth Rollins was "going to break Edge's neck" and John Cena had to save him and Seth Rollins was such an evil guy for doing that.

what actually happenend to fatal 4-ways and #1 contender matches?

bringing those back could actually give heels a chance to be heels by cheating + it creates storylines

why are there so few real cheating moments? pretty much only rollins is a noticeable heel and everyone hates him because he cheats and is a legitimate ******* (i actually want to boo him) whereas other heals like luke harper and sheamus just beat their opponents and talk some trash... just like most heels actually do (my reaction is more like "oh well that happened") no wonder the crowds are pretty dead

Occasionally is the key word there. 10 times in 1 PPV is not occasionally. But to your point about predictability. What is wrong with predictability within a match? Yes it should be predictable that when you it your signature finisher, it should finish the job. That is how the wrestling business works.

Nobody moves up the ranks and because of it there is a ton of stagnation.

For instance, why are Big Show and Kane being a part of the uppercard feuds right now? Why isn't that spot being taken up by your Shamus/BNB/Cesaro/Ziggler types?

hmm you're probably right but some finishers look too ridiculous to be actual finishers.. some of them look like they barely hurt

i guess finishers should finish the job but they got to make it exciting somehow... too bad they totally failed the concept though (even though ppv matches are somewhat exciting the build-up + match-up gives away a lot too)

also content becomes a bit stale, in my opinion, because they do the same matches nearly every time

I guess I would ask what do you do with big show and Kane then, because you're still paying them

Actually this is one area where the lack of competition hurts... It was easier to remove people from the queue by just not resigning them when you didn't need them, they could stay relevant elsewhere, and then you can get them back.

Move them down the card and feud with people who they haven't already feuded with 1000 times? Send them for a small run ala Rhyno down in NXT?

A big problem with Raw is that it is the same old stuff over and over. The obvious being things like Reigns vs Big Show, which may not end until one of them retires. But also, if you compare it to Raw or Nitro when they were doing well, the old Raws and Nitros had characters that were less similar, promos that were less similar, storylines that were less similar, matches that were less similar. Not clones doing them same thing week in and week out. It was a tasty variety show with a lot of distinct ingredients, now it is like an enormous plain bowl of tomato soup.

It isn't supposed to be filler; income from Raw makes up as big of a percentage of WWE's income now as it ever has if not more. But they make it feel like it is.

There is more (and generally better, in terms of athleticism) wrestling on Raw now than there was in the late 90s-early 00s peak of the show. On some of those Raws no match would even be 6 minutes long. But hardly any of the matches are made to mean anything today like they were at that point. And they had just as many PPVs then.

Just because there is more wrestling in terms of time does not mean there is more meaningful story telling wrestling, but you were sort of alluding to that in your statement. A 5-6 minute match on RAW in the late 90's had a lot more meaning than a 11 minute match today. Especially when 4 of those 11 minutes is commercial.

With regards to PPVs, I just think that less is more, especially if they move them to the Network exclusively. but if they are going to stick to 12, then I think some tweaking should be done. Instead of having an entire PPV revolve a single match, such as Hell in a Cell or Money in the Bank, why not use the names of the actual successful WCW PPVs. Why not have a Money in the Bank match be the main event or co main event at Starrcade? Or Hell in the Cell at Halloween Havoc. I know that would require WWE to actually admit that WCW had good ideas at one point, but I think that would be a nice twist.

Grunge:

Vince McMahon still being alive

Grunge

Grunge

For me, a huge blow was finding out that it was staged. Don't get me wrong, I still like it and finding out that it isn't real is not necessarily wrestling's fault, it happens with all its fans. But really, I used to be the huge wrestling fanatic, couldn't miss an episode, I used to race home to make sure I was in front of the TV in time. This was for two main reasons:

1) Obviously, I enjoyed what I was watching.

2) Thinking it was real enhanced my enjoyment in the show. I thought Austin really hated Vince, Kane was really a burnt freak, Mankind was really a crazy person, etc. My brother, who originally got me hooked, had old VHS tapes that I'd pop in every now and then. Papa Shango scared the **** out of me, I used to fast forward his parts, another guy was Nailz when he first attacked Big Boss Man.

Now that I know all this stuff was/is a show, it's taken away from my enjoyment a good deal. That's why I look back on WrestleMania 9 with such fond memories. Known as one of the worst finishes of all time, I ****ing loved it. If something like that happened today with Cena, I'd be pissed. Because I know the writers wrote that in, or in Hogan's case, he probably used his leverage in the back to make Mania 9 happen.

When people ask me my sports heroes, one of the first names I'll mention is Stone Cold. As I mentioned, I grew up watching him battle Vince and the Corporation on a weekly basis and I ate every second of it up. I certainly wouldn't identify any of today's stars as heroes, even the ones I am a fan of. Wrestling just isn't the same to me.

Don't know if this was what the op was looking for in this thread, as it isn't really wrestling's problem, that's just what wrestling is, a show. But I felt the need to get it off my chest. Also, the post ended up being way longer than I intended.

They have failed to build a new generation of stars, and are just now starting to realise that and rebuild.

They are failing to build any sorts of large storylines/dominant factions.

Did you miss the New Day cheating to beat the Lucha Dragons for a title shot at Extreme Rules on the last Raw?

Or the Orton/Reigns/Ryback #1 contender match a few weeks ago?

Kind of Johnny Grunge-ing, I just skimmed the thread but it should be renamed to what is wrong with WWE because there is still a lot of great, traditional pro wrestling out there. JR took several subtle shots at the WWE during WK9 and they were great.

Without a doubt the number one crime against wrestling is not being able to say wrestling or refer to the talent as wrestlers because that's pretty much the dumbest **** ever. The fact that a guy can get a pop for saying he is a wrestler on a WWE show is ridiculous.

Stop breaking kayfabe. Wrestling has never been real to me dammit, the first event I watched was the 90 RR when I was 7 and 5 mins into it my dad told me it was staged but it didn't stop me from loving what I was seeing. I loved the story telling aspect both in and out of the ring. I want it to be a show and I want the characters to be characters. This half assing of breaking kayfabe here and there in the "reality" era only hurts the show. Like these Austin and Jericho interviews where they're supposed to be real but they're still obviously behind a barrier. Punk's shoot was awesome as a one time thing but when they brought him back and tried to mix "reality" with kayfabe it just bombed. I think it's their attempt of trying to say they're in tune with the times but they've failed to do it in an interesting way from a storytelling aspect.

Kicking out of a finisher should happen once or maybe twice a year.

Nothing has any importance. Things happen for no reason and the lack of acknowledging anything that hasn't happened in the last month has led to everything just feeling flat. Why should we care about anything if we're supposed to forget about it in a few weeks.

Too much TV and lazy booking has led to repetition. Big Show has a PPV match with Roman Reigns. The amount of televised matches between them has to be getting into double figures now.

The death of the midcard and it's titles has lead to wrestlers becoming stagnant in their roles and others being pushed to the moon. Lack of jobber squashes has contributed to this.

Faces acting like heels although this has been happening since the AE.

Commentary is at an all time low. Cole, Lawler and JBL are incredibly obnoxious and Booker T is Booker T. I have listened to at least 100 hours of these men yelling at me about fart jokes and twitter and not of a ****ing word about wrestling.

They are constantly patting themselves on the back. I've never seen a weekly television show talk up it's own praise like the WWE does. They break away from the story at least a couple times a show to updates us on their ratings and social media stats.

Big Show and Kane.

There's probably a lot more that will come to me as I read the thread and think about it more.

Wrestling sucks due to lack of competition.

Competition drives up standards.

i didn't but my point is that stuff like that happens very rarely instead they should do it more often as you can easily write good stuff from those things

The second sentence is true. The first though, not completely. A major point of the territory system was to make it so the individual territories had no competition in their region, yet at any given time many of the territories were excellent, and others terrible.

Adding more cheating by heels is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic until they actually get people to care more about the matches. You can't amass much heat by having people cheat in a match unless the crowd gives a damn who the winner is to begin with.

Wrestlemania - Brock Lesnar faced Roman Reigns, who won the #1 contender's match known as the Royal Rumble then defeated Daniel Bryan when he put his contendership up for a fight
Royal Rumble - John Cena won a #1 contender's match at Hell in a Cell, defended his contendership at TLC. Rollins was later added to make it a Triple Threat.
Night of Champions - John Cena gets his rematch
SummerSlam - Brock Lesnar picked as Cena's challenger by HHH
Battleground - Cena wins a Fatal 4Way vs Reigns, Kane, and Orton
Money in the Bank - Cena wins an eight-way match for the title vacated by Daniel Bryan, with most competitors having to win qualifying matches

More often than not, world title PPV matches in recent history have involved multi-way matches and/or some form of match-based qualification like a #1 contender match.

One problem has been the lack of title defenses since SummerSlam due to Lesnar holding the belt. I think the lack of interaction between Lesnar and the rest of the roster harmed the growth of guys like Ambrose and Reigns. There was no teasing of a future match with Lesnar, no testing the audience reaction to such a fight. Part-timer Lesnar was made to look awesome at the expense of the full-time roster.

There is no way long time rivals should be friends after one or both rivals retire.

Edge and John Cena:

"Yeah, I fought you and we almost killed each other, but I've always respected you."

Wut? No.

Grunching:

For WWE, it's the lack of realism, and thus the lack of feeling that any of it (or at least most of it) matters.

So many things go into this:

1. Insignificance of secondary titles/secondary champs jobbing far too often.
2. Far too few meaningful, long-term (3+ months) feuds built around something personal.
3. Horrible, terrible, atrocious commentary.

A little history: Back in the late 1800s/early 1900s, there were legit wrestling matches. They were generally very long and VERY boring (basically two guys on the ground stretching each other, except a lot of the shoot holds don't look all that painful even though they are). "Pro wrestling" was born when the carnival operators realized, "Hell, we could stage a match instead, make it a little more interesting and generate interest, excitement and money, and no one will be the wiser!" And it worked beautifully. Now of course, we're all the wiser now (and really have been for many decades), but that doesn't mean you abandon the entire concept! Make it seem as real as possible, and it will have a positive effect.