Quote:
Originally Posted by RainMaker
While I think a Cena heel run would be incredibly entertaining, they don't have to do it to fix the problem. They need to re-build the midcard, need to re-build the tag division. Use these as feeders toward the main event scene instead of bringing in mercenaries from other promotions that no one has heard of and throwing them into the main event scene. Cena's babyface character is fine, you just need other options for people too. If you didn't like Cena in the past, you could tune in because you liked HBK. But now, if you don't like Cena or Orton, there really isn't a point to buying a PPV.
|
I just don't think fans care about the midcard because it's the midcard, it doesn't matter what you do there. Sure, in the 80s, the midcard was a big deal, but that was because the main eventers didn't wrestle on tv so the Steamboat/Savage feud WAS the TV main event feud. The real TV midcard then was Ron Bass v. A jobber - which I think was less over than the midcard scene today (Daniel Bryan v. Wade Barrett, etc.)
People will cite the attitude era - and cheap gimmicks like the Godfather were over.....but they didn't draw or sell PPVs. I would be in favor of taking Cena/Orton off regular TV for the most part, have them wrestle only rarely, and let the midcarders own the TV shows and the main eventers the PPVs. It's only that kind of re-structuring that will "enhance the midcard". I really don't believe that even if they signed 10 new tag teams and gave them all TV time anybody would care - as long as the main event angles were still being developed on free TV.
Andre/Hogan, Hogan/Savage - people fondly remember long build-ups but that's not reality. Both of those storytelling were completely built in maybe 2, 3 steps. Hogan/Andre was literally built on two Saturday AM shows (two short Piper's Pit segments), and then you just had short interviews on TV until mania. The Mega powers breaking up literally only had 2 steps (on Saturday Night's Main Event), and then it was just short TV interviews until the payoff at Mania. Mania's were huge not because of long build-up, but because you had Koko B. Ware v. Iron Mike Sharpe 52 weeks a year on TV. Now, you have a main event step every week on free TV - the midcarders and tag teams just aren't going to be important in that kind of environment.
Edit: And who are the mercenaries they're bringing in from other promotions - they might have been guilty of that towards the end of WCW but now I think they have the opposite problem. They develop guys in FCW, and they bring guys up and throw them up into the main event way, way, before they're ready. They could bring in Randy Savage in 1985 - Savage had already been on TV, been a main eventer in memphis for a decade, he was ready to go. Sheamus, or Miz, or Barrett, or Swagger, etc, wrestle in front of 75 people in FCW and then they're in the WWE, and within a year they're main eventing PPVs....and inevitably, they can't main event EVERY ppv so they go back to the midcard - once there, without that huge "debut push" they can't connect with the crowd anymore because they don't have the experience to do so....Savage was hugely over in the mid 80s as a midcarder just beating jobbers and doing promos in a way Miz/Sheamus/Barrett/Swagger just can't because they don't have the experience.