SummerSlam, WWE.com
With SummerSlam just hours away, WWE is at their best. Their storylines are top-notch, and fans are invested in seeing where the company is going to go. But even at your best, there are still changes you need to make to get better.
WWE is currently at the top of their game. Every match on this Sunday’s SummerSlam card feels important. From top to bottom this could easily be the best event WWE has in a long time.
Fans are genuinely intrigued by every match on the card. Either to see how epic it will be, as is the case with the Fatal Four Way main event. Or, how bad it will be, as is the case with the Big Show vs. Big Cass match.
Still though, even with the company at its best, at least in the last decade, there are a few things that bother fans, and these things need to change if WWE wants to keep getting better.
But after SummerSlam, there are a few things WWE could do to keep their upward momentum going.
3. Raw Needs to Go Back Down to Two Hours
As it stands right now if a fan were to watch everything WWE has to offer this week, they would watch a total of nineteen hours of wrestling. Three hours on Monday, three hours on Tuesday (with Smackdown, and 205 Live), an hour of NXT on Wednesday, then four hours of NXT Takeover counting the pre-show, then top that all off with eight hours on Sunday with SummerSlam and it’s own pre-show.
Even on a regular week, it’s seven hours worth of programming. Taking one hour out of it won’t help much, but that’s not the main reason to take Raw back down to two hours.
Watching anything for three hours is a task. There’s a reason most movies are under two hours. Keeping someone’s attention for longer than that is hard. Yet, WWE continues to try and do this every week, even though ratings in Raw’s third hour drop almost every week.
Even the NFL is looking into ways to shorten their game time. Because they’ve noticed that their product is too long to try and watch every week, and they are losing viewers because of it. I am guilty of turning a blowout game off in the fourth quarter because a fifteen-minute quarter somehow turns into a thirty-minute ordeal.
WWE’s reasoning behind moving Raw to three hours was because they were joining the brands, and putting the best guys on one show. It made sense at the time, even then though it was tough to sit through all of it.
Since the brand split though it doesn’t make any sense, the show should go back to two hours. Everything else went back to the way it was before the brand split, shouldn’t Raw?
Credit: sportskeeda.com
2. WWE Needs to Go Back to Two-Man Announce Teams
Gone are the days of two man announce booths in the WWE, or so it seems. WWE has used three man announce teams for close to a decade. For the most part, this has been okay, but recently it has been more a distraction than an asset.
With three people at the booth, it’s hard for them to get their views and opinions in the broadcast. One guy just sits there for the majority of the show and serves little to no purpose.
The three-man booth is hard for everyone. The announcers don’t get enough time to sell whats happening in the ring because they have to let everyone talk. The play-by-play guy misses spots he needs to call because of this too. He has to let the color guys try and add depth to whats happening in front of them. Which is hard enough to do when you have two guys, let alone three.
There’s a reason many professional sports only use two man booths. It makes things flow better; two people can play off of each other easier than three can. When it’s just you, and another person in the booth it’s much easier to call the action than when you have to make sure someone else isn’t trying to talk.
For instance, when JR and King called matches, JR was the play-by-play man, and King was the color commentator. Meaning JR would call what was happening in the ring, and King would give his opinion on it, and what it meant for the rest of the match.
It’s much easier to do things this way instead of having to wait for someone else to chime in. When JR stopped talking King would start, and vice-a-versa, it made the matches easier to watch. There wasn’t confusion in the booth, which meant the fans didn’t get confused.
The guys could focus on the match, not on trying to make sure everyone got to talk. With only two people trying to call the action things were smoother than it is with three.
Cole and Graves have shown they are great together and don’t need Booker there. Plus, Booker is more of a distraction from the action in the ring than anything else.
Phillips and Saxton are great together on Smackdown as well. And many fans are still sour on JBL for his alleged bullying of former Smackdown play-by-play announcer Mauro Ranallo.
SummerSlam looks to be a changing of the guard in WWE. New faces could be rising to the top of the card, and winning championships for the first time on the main roster. So, why not change everything and have different announce teams as well?
Credit: WWE
1. No More Part Time Champions
WWE hurts their product by having a champion that’s never around. Watching Raw each week and knowing you won’t see the top champion on the show hurts the show. Granted the last month and a half Brock has been around, but before this Brock was absent from WWE TV for over two months.
During those two months, all WWE could do was look for ways to make finding out who the number one contender would be last two months until he would return.
This took away from potential story lines the company could have put together featuring their young talent to get them over with the fans.
Part timers are okay. In fact, they give some of the best story lines WWE has had to offer in recent years. However, they should not be the champion. It’s okay for them to challenge for a title now and then, just to put the current champion over, but they should never be the champion.
Imagine how over Samoa Joe would be now had he been the champion going into Great Balls of Fire, and then defeated Brock Lesnar. He would be even hotter than he already is in WWE. Instead, it looks like he’s going to take another loss this Sunday. As every sign points to Joe being the one taking the pinfall to whoever wins in the main event.
WWE has enough talented guys on their roster that could be the champion. Guys like Finn Balor, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt, The Miz, and of course the aforementioned Samoa Joe. Anyone of these guys could and should be champ right now.
Especially Finn Balor since he never technically lost his championship, he had to vacate it due to injury. And he still hasn’t received his rematch. It’s like WWE has forgotten all about that, and his opportunity to become number one contender for said belt was his chance because neither he nor WWE has made mention of it since.
It’s weird too because when Seth Rollins returned after he had to vacate the title due to injury, he was instantly thrust back into the title picture and won the belt back from Roman Reigns only to be cashed in on by Dean Ambrose after he won. But he still received his deserved shot, Finn hasn’t.
More wwe: WWE SummerSlam's Greatest Performers
Coming out of SummerSlam someone besides Brock needs to be the champion. Especially if Lesnar doesn’t have plans on returning after WrestleMania 34.