WWE Off-Season?

[Kooldip]

Hey guys, back with something I feel is 100% needed and necessary for WWE to at the very least try and that is an off-season. I've been a fan for almost 15 years and I'd like to continue being a fan for another 15, but if WWE can't dig themselves out of this hole they've created, we're gonna have a problem.

Over the past 4 or 5 years, the general consensus between various wrestling fans is that WWE has become stale, boring and even cringe worthy at times. The matches are short, storylines are poorly executed, no one is getting over and the main event scene is always the same. As a result of this, ratings for both RAW and Smackdown are at an all time low. When you have problems like this, who is it that you blame for this? Can you blame the talent? I would say you'd have a tough time blaming talent, you can't blame them for underperforming when the time and material they're given is not acceptable. Can you blame the creative team? Well sure, they're the ones who are writing the shows and giving the talent this unacceptable material to work with. However, it's not the creative team that decides what happens because in the end, the big dog, Vince McMahon oversees and approves everything that we see on TV. So, it looks like we're going to blame Vince for this mess, but this isn't going to be a tirade against the man, this is going to be a solution to WWE's problems.

If we take a look at pro sports, they literally all have off-seasons for almost the same reasons. First and foremost, the off-season is used to give players a break from playing their respective sport for months on end, that's number one. Second, the off-season is used by teams to evaluate their current situation, whether they just won the championship or finished last in their league, the higher ups take a few months to go through and see what needs to be changed. Third, having the three, four, five months off builds hype for the next season. Everyone watches the final series that rarely includes their own team, then that ends and they have to wait months before they see their team play again. Once those months end, interest in the sport goes way up and the cycle continues. In wrestling, it just goes forever and the on air product has been declining year after year because of this.

What I feel is best is for WWE to take both October and May off, those two months have historically been the worst months for the company (imo). By doing this, it gives everyone two months a year to recharge, it keeps the product fresh and it will also be very good for ratings. I'll describe how I think a full year would go, starting with November. The last RAW or Smackdown of September, WWE left us with the start of their next big feud going in to Survivor Series. A full month goes by and the only activity WWE does is update their website and post videos on YouTube hyping their return. November comes up and depending on whether Friday or Monday comes first, they make their return leaving where they left off with a much clearer idea of where to go. Now we go to Survivor Series and start planting seeds for the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania. We go through the usual Wrestlemania season but because of their off season, more people have tuned in and will tune in for the stretch of January to April. Once they've gone through that, they can finish up by ending anything they need to at the Extreme Rules PPV in late April and once again, start something new to go in to the May break. June comes around, they've hopefully kept the same number of viewers and gained more, they have two and a half months to hype Summerslam and we end up back in September.

This is just a rough outline of how it would go but I assume it makes sense to most of you. Let me know what you think of the idea and leave some feedback on whether you'd change this or keep it the same with your own tweaks.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

- Koodip

 

[Jeremy]

It's an interesting idea and you've clearly put some thought into this but I don't think it would ever happen. It comes down to one thing and that's money. I don't think 2 months of losing out on ticket sales and all that would be a good move. Yeah sure other sports have an offseason but WWE is different.

 

[DK JAMES]

I enjoyed reading and honestly I think it'd be cool. In those months that are off I'd be pretty excited for when it finally returns. Don't think it would evvvver happen, but would be cool.

 

[Lockard 23]

If I remember correctly, there was a small period back in the 80's where the WWF used to take 1-2 months off after Wrestlemania before going back on the road around the middle or end of spring. You could sort of consider that an "off-season", although it was never referred to as such.

IMO, an off-season will never be done in present day WWE unless Triple H decides to experiment with it when he takes over and I doubt that he will. The loss of revenue would be more than enough reason for them not to consider it, especially when the current system with having no off-season (which WWE loves to use as a way of touting how their superstars are tougher and superior and more resilient than the athletes of real pro sports) has been working just fine for years. There's other reasons behind the decision, too.

I think if they were to do one though, it'd be best to do it in the period between Summerslam and Survivor Series. That's almost always one of the dullest periods throughout the year, plus that's right when football starts to chew into the ratings for Raw.

 

[Danielson]

Like your idea, but not sure how fans would react. I personally wouldn't mind it, because it'd give me time to refresh myself and maybe not be so critical. I enjoy almost everything about the "e" now though, and would prefer to keep my Monday (live raw) Saturday night (taped SD)

 

[Brad.]

There are better ways to keep the product feeling fresh instead of this imo.

Obviously, the brand split is one. Going back to separate RAW and SD shows would help with this issue. Alternatively, they could get rid of SD/ME/Superstars and just have 3 solid hours of RAW each week containing no filler shit. I'd be up for fewer PPVs too (8 looks like the best amount).

 

[Leo C]

It is one valid solution to the staleness but the negatives outweigh the positives here, especially for WWE's finances. I think there are other ways to solve the staleness problems that would allow them to have programming the entire year.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Bottom line is its all about the bottom line and thats the bottom line cuz stone cold said so

 

[Wacokid27]

It's worth mentioning that, if pro wrestlers were ever able to form a union, this would be one of the first three demands they would have (along with paid health insurance and a standardized pay scale).

Actually, an off-season would be a terrific idea, despite the possibility of monetary loss (I would make the argument that the off-season would generate an interest that would increase ratings while the product was "in-season", which would lead to greater advertising rates and generate much more revenue that would be lost...I could go into greater detail, but I would need charts and graphs and the snoring would be tremendous....I mean, this only works in every sport and with every seasonal television show in the world, so it's a pretty unproven strategy). Where it would most benefit the business is that it would allow guys to heal all those nagging injuries they carry around until they have a major one and require surgery (or at least time off) to fix it. The health benefits would lengthen careers (may be a good or bad thing depending on how you feel about guys who stay around "too long"...I've seen too many guys who could have been great have careers that were "too short", so I'll take a couple of Ric Flairs if I can get more Chris Benoits and Edges).

The real reason why WWE won't have an off-season is the competitive nature of pro wrestling when it comes to cooperation between the companies. If WWE decided to shut down after SummerSlam in August and return in November with Survivor Series (or what-have-you), TNA, ROH, and every other minor promotion in the country with a television contract would make a huge amount of hay out of it. They would tout their wrestlers as "tougher than WWE", even though their guys would be the ones still suffering from those nagging injuries which could shorten their careers and even though it would instantly make WWE even more of an ultimate destination for every top wrestler in the world who's not in WWE. The only way it would work is if there was some overall controlling agency (or if WWE took over every other wrestling promotion in America and possibly the world).

wk

 

[Dat Girl]

I wouldn't be against it really. It gives us a break from WWE, complete time to rest for all superstars, and time for creative to come up with more ideas to improve the product. Although I assume they'll lose money if they do this. A small idea could be, keeping Smackdown active, but basically like WWE Superstars at this time. No championships defended, just a few matches here and there without storylining. It could be called off season Smackdown or something else, or even just WWE Superstars. Of course it's not the most perfect plan, but it would be interesting to see WWE take time off, which I would enjoy.

 

[BrockLesnarFanForLife]

WWE has no off season and Vince wouldnt allow it he would lose money if he took WWE off the road for a few months

 

[Wacokid27]

I had an idea that might actually work and in which WWE wouldn't risk losing as much money.

1) Have a brand split...an actual brand split. Treat Raw and Smackdown as completely separate "companies", with unconnected storylines, completely different champions, authority figures, everything (the way the original brand split was supposed to work all along). The only times you would have crossover at all would be one or two matches at Mania, one or two at SummerSlam, one classic 5-on-5 match at Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble Match. I would even say go to live airings of Smackdown, give it the same feel as Raw. All other matches at the Big 4 PPV's would be brand-exclusive.

2) Both Raw and Smackdown (you wouldn't really have to keep those names, but I'll use them for clarity and simplicity) operate in tandem between Royal Rumble and SummerSlam, running one PPV for each "company" between Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania and one PPV for each between Wrestlemania and SummerSlam.

3) After SummerSlam, Raw goes to off-season. Smackdown continues to broadcast live shows and has two monthly PPV's between SummerSlam and Survivor Series, when Raw returns. After Survivor Series, Smackdown goes to off-season. Raw broadcasts live shows and has two monthly PPV's between Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, when Smackdown returns. Then they both operate again between Rumble and SummerSlam.

This plan would obviously have many details to be worked out, but it would give the performers on each show (or in each company) a three-month break every year. You could have a "draft" after Mania every year to "mix things up" and give us some new feuds, allow champions to be moved around. Again, obviously with them unifying the titles, they'd have to have separate "world titles", separate "midcard titles", separate "tag titles", separate "women's titles" and all of that. Smackdown would probably have to expand to three hours, but it would most likely improve both shows since those three hours would exclusively cover one set of storylines. There would still be "invasion" possibilities. A lot of things would have to be engineered, re-thought, re-tooled, etc., but it would give the wrestlers a break, give creative a chance to catch their breath, etc., while still preserving a year-round schedule for the company and for hard-core fans who are going to watch WWE (or damn near any televised wrestling) all year regardless of who's on, how good it is, etc.

Just something that's been shooting around my head for a couple of days while I was sitting at Grand Lodge.

wk

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

They would have to bring in more talent and enforce a true brand split. I would love that shit

 

[Wacokid27]

Yeah, they would. They would end up raiding TNA and probably ROH and it would really decimate those rosters (if they got all the talent they could out of TNA, TNA would end up raiding ROH's roster....and so on), but, frankly, if it entertains me (and has the side effect of improving those wrestlers' lives), it really doesn't bother me.

And I would absolutely love it, too.

wk

 

[Lockard 23]

This wouldn't make the TV product fresher or anything, but perhaps doing less house shows is a slightly more realistic idea than an off-season to give wrestlers some time off to heal up and recharge themselves. There was actually a time in the 80's where the wrestlers worked nine shows a week. They'd do one show on the weekdays, and then do two different shows on Saturday and Sunday. This was put to an end when various wrestlers kept complaining about being burned out both physically and mentally. If enough wrestlers rallied together, maybe they could get some sort of change implemented here, too.

I'm not certain, but nowadays, I think they do like five house shows a week (or four, or they sometimes fluctuate between four and five.) That's certainly a lot of work and strain on the body in a week's time and perhaps something like keeping the same number of shows for two weeks out of the month but then doing only do two house shows for the two weeks (or something similar) would be an ideal way to go. Over the course of an entire year, this would be lessening the number of shows by like thirty something. I know that means a loss of revenue for WWE, but given the mass amount of cash they make yearly from their many, many different revenue sources (live events, PPV, merchandise, WWE Magazine, WWE.com, TV rights fees, etc.), maybe they could learn to live with it.