This Wednesday, the World Wrestling Federation becomes listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It had been a company that I have invested in since July because I believe it has long term growth prospects. Why would anyone actually invest in something so staged, so fake, and, in many cases, so stupid?
My history with wrestling has been quite interesting. I began watching it at a friend's birthday party back in 1989. At that time, I found the occasional "Saturday Night's Main Event" to be a cool way to spend a Saturday night with my friends. However, as time passed, I began watching wrestling less and less for the lame "tough guy" talk and fake wrestling and more for the entertainment value in its soap opera type storylines and its fan involvement. Today, I watch wrestling because it is one of the most entertaining action adventure comedy dramas available. It has all these qualities and also includes a great deal of fan criticism and interaction. I'm sure fans of hit dramas like West Wing or X Files wish they could tell the creators how to manipulate characters and storylines AND see the impact of their input during next week's episode.
However, with wrestling being great entertainment, it also has some major problems. I will attempt to take the remaining space available here to outline major problems each of the three major companies must do to improve their product.
WWF:
This is the big daddy of the wrestling business. They do many things right. However, there are a few things they could really change to make serious improvements:
Mic skills
-Some wrestlers, even in the mighty WWF, still attempt to generate "cheap" heat where they casually make insults to the fans in attendance. This may have worked in the 80s, but these days, people are much more pissed when a bad guy cheats or when a bad guy says something he really thinks people would agree with. Some interviews by such stars as Kurt Angle and Triple H work well because they say more than "you people, shut up. You people are stupid!" Wrestlers who say dumb things end up looking dumb.
-Some wrestlers, like Chyna and Kane, haven't learned to talk with a sense of urgency and passion. Their voices end up being flat and monotone and therefore boring.
Presentation
-If Sunday Night Heat matches continue to be taped before Smackdown episodes on Tuesdays, they need to work to pay attention to the little annoying details. First, get rid of the huge SMACKDOWN banner opposite the main stage and put up either nothing or the WWF attitude banner instead (used for Raw tapings). Also, if they aren't going to change up the entrance's physical appearance, they should at least keep the background colors away from the Smackdown blue (Yellow and Red always match the HEAT colors!!!)
-Black ropes should be used for Jakked/Metal tapings before Raw. They can get everyone in the arena 10 minutes earlier and start things going. Again, let's try to avoid making it TOTALLY obvious where these matches were taped. Suspension of disbelief is KEY!
Jakked/Metal TV shows:
-WHY? First they are hard to sit through because they are boring. Second, nothing, from a storyline standpoint EVER happens. Third, WWF doesn't really give its fans a reason to watch the shows (certainly ZERO promotion). Fourth, they don't even have mini storylines like Sunday Night Heat typically has. Overall, a wasted two hours in syndication that bring down the public perception of what WWF TV is really about.
ECW:
I'll admit it, I don't watch too much of this product. But, a few things certainly jump out at me:
-They need a real business man running ECW. It looks cheap, it sounds cheap, and therefore it feels like a cheap product. They need someone who can point to the WWF's ratings success and persuade some prominent investors to help them beef up the quality of the TV production, the quality of the PPV, and the quality of the company as a whole. They also need to use this time, while not contracted by any cable TV company, to aggressively contact networks like Fox and maybe the WB (since it apparently loves WCW so much..more later) and get its product in front of network TV eyeballs. Cable is good exposure, network TV is MUCH better. Since it would likely draw more than two typical sitcoms in prime time, there is certainly an opportunity for success.
-My second big point about ECW is that it needs to change how the programs are layed out. I have tried more than once to watch their programming and it just seems to abruptly change and move from live action to taped action to a random interview and back to live action and back to what happened two weeks ago and back and aaaahh... This company will continue to be a niche player in the industry if it doesn't make its TV easy to watch and understand. This means smooth transitions and logical ones.
-My third point with ECW is that it needs a few stars. It needs people with name recognition that surpasses the wrestling industry. Right now, there are some pretty good wrestlers making quite an impact. However, if they want to generate new fans, they will need to make these wrestlers exposed in other ways. I would suggest having them on everything from the Family Fued and Hollywood Squares to Entertainment Tonight and Hard Copy. Hopefully, they can land a few cool spots on the Tonight Show as well (due to some amazing charity drive or some other amazing accomplishment outside of wrestling).
WCW:
World Championship Wrestling is the number two company in today's professional wrestling industry. However, due to some poor management, it has become a distant No. 2 to the WWF.
Improved Management:
-Hey Turner Entertainment, HIRE ME! You need someone that has a clue how to run a company and Brad Siegel isn't your man! Perhaps the best example of poor management WCW has faced has been its latest response to an internet rumor regarding its potential sale to the WWF. Instead of killing the rumor by stating WCWs position on the issue as well as the line "We will update you should things change," WCW's management has allowed the internet to make its own story. Speculation has gone wildly out of hand and the company has gone into unrest as a result. Certainly they must realize that this issue has been circling the globe. Therefore, I am truly shocked they would allow this issue to potentially destroy the company.
-There are some rather simple steps to fix WCW's problems. They cost a certain amount of money, but the combination should make WCW once again successful. First, they need to spend the time and money getting high school and college students to back their product. These are the opinion leaders of the wrestling world. I don't care what internet journalists or wrestlers or promoters may think is the cool thing or the "in" character. If the young fans and the college students don't think it's cool, it is already dead. Getting to these people is really not that hard. Most college students read their college newspapers. A weekly add for Monday Nitroo including a one line statement to encourage people to watch can only bring success. For example "Tonight: WCW's Monday Nitro 8PM on TNT. See 10 men battle for the WCW Tag Team Titles and a special interview with sexy Ms. Hancock!!" Secondly, I would get my WCW programming promoted on the WB every night. No matter what the cost, if people don't know about your product, why would they randomly choose to watch it? Also, Nitro announcers should promote other WCW programming, including times airing, more than their PPV events. PPV events are already promoted throughout the telecast. However, on a given Nitro, one rarely hears about Thunder and rarely has any reason to watch it. Each show in the WCW lineup should promote the next much more than the PPV. Why? Building a fan base and building ratings leads to long term growth of the company. The PPV promotion tends to be short term focused (usually less than a month) and tends to not really help the company grow. My third promotional idea is to have WCW take its lame Thunder Tailgate and turn it into a major promotional tool. I would suggest WCW take one or two stops each weekend to towns around the country and have a tailgate party featuring cheap or free food, presentations of PPV matches on large screen TVs, live music, promotional gifts, and live appearances by WCW talent. Other companies do similar things when they have trade shows or career fairs. It's all about getting attention and favor from the potential market.
Irronically, those are just the poor management fixes. Here are some other things:
Preperation:
-People say wrestling is scripted and staged. But honestly, if you've ever watched a wrestler in WCW speak on a mic, you might think otherwise. Unlike their WWF counterparts, WCW wrestlers consistantly sound like they are speaking on the fly. Instead of a rehearsed set of lines that come across as rhythmic and crisp, WCW wrestlers come across as nervous and unprepared. My biggest suggestion to everyone in WCW is that they need to do their show two or three full times each day before they present it. Some of the uneasy places and illogical speaches would be easily eliminated with a little afternoon rehearsal.
-WCW wrestlers also suffer from the cheap heat comment mentioned for WWF wrestlers. Unfortunately, there are not many people within WCW that have good mic skills anyway. Exceptions include Ric Flair, Sting, Shane Douglass, Sting, Kevin Nash, and Jeff Jarrett.
Production:
-People can say this again and again and I swear WCW management will never hear us. BRIGHTEN the RING! We don't really care about the entire arena. Just brighten up the ring. Also, set design is not that expensive. Have a real professional from outside the industry come and design a set (preferably one that could easily be changed between Nitro and Thunder tapings but that could still make each set look significantly different). Also, no matter how much extra time it takes, RED ropes for Nitro and BLUE ropes for Thunder. Want to really be cutting edge? GREEN ropes for WorldWide! Rope changes only take a few minutes and make a BIG impact.
WCW WorldWide:
-Someone needs to figure out what they want from this show. They need to either have NO wrestling and make it a magazine show or make it ALL wrestling. This far, it has been a confusing combination show that tends to be at least two weeks behing the current plot lines for WCW. Should it be all wrestling, it should take the old Sunday Night Heat as a guide (meaning having plot lines for that specific airing that develop throughout the show for the main event featuring mid card stars). Also, if wrestling is included, Worldwide should have a unique enough look that one doesn't say "Hey, I know when they taped that. Look, that's the Thunder Set!!" Hopefully, timeliness of this show will also improve. WWF has no problem keeping its syndication programs on track with its cable programming.
WCW Motorsports:
-Two words: DROP IT!
WCW Themes:
-Hire as many song writers as it takes to make themes so catchy that no one can get them out of their heads. Make music an equal part of the marketing mix!
