WWE: Is it time to rethink the schedule of pay-per-view events?

Many fans questioned the way WWE built the card leading up to TLC, with several matches left unconfirmed until shortly before showtime. After an uneven and lackluster end result, perhaps there is reason for the company to consider a different approach to special events moving forward.

Last week, WWE presented its most recent pay-per-view, and reviews have not been kind. TLC was generally viewed as a mess aside from a pair of matches.

Whether poor decisions in terms of match outcome, just bad chemistry in the ring, or an injury-plagued performance was to blame, most are in agreement that TLC was a substandard show. Part of that may be due to the fact that a full card wasn’t advertised until less than a week before the show.

In recent months, fewer and fewer major WWE shows have had a full card announced well ahead of time, with matches being made while the pay-per-view is on the air, or during the Kickoff Show, or on WWE’s social media accounts at the last moment.

Word going around is that this is by design – Vince McMahon believes that most new sign-ups for the WWE Network occur on the day of major shows (h/t Wrestling Observer Newsletter, subscription required), so there’s no reason to advertise matches before then.

If John Q. Public is going to sign up right before the opening bell, why waste your efforts marketing so far in advance?

Of course, this argument misses the big picture – without a solid card in place well before showtime, a supposed “major event” seems unimportant and skippable. By appearing to book a show on the fly, there’s no incentive for fans to invest their time in your product. Why should the fans care more about the show than WWE itself?

While this may seem less than ideal, fortunately there’s reason to believe that this may not actually be a bad idea. Maybe the special events or pay-per-views aren’t really as important as they used to be.

After all, WWE tends to hold off surprise returns or debuts until the shows after pay-per-views — trying to pop a rating for an episode of Raw or SmackDown instead. And ratings get WWE their TV deals, which bring in a lot more revenue than Network subscriptions or pay-per-view buys.

With this in mind, it may be time for WWE to rethink the traditional pay-per-view model that they’ve followed for the past twenty years or so. And the seeds for this change were planted most recently in 2016, even if the change was abandoned by early 2018.

Making this simple change could serve a dual purpose: it would make the pay-per-view events more important in the grand scheme of things and it could allow the company to pop TV ratings.

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This simple change? Go back to a brand split on the pay-per-views, having some shows be exclusive to Raw, and others exclusive to SmackDown.

During both the first brand extension in the early 2000s, and the more recent one in 2016, WWE attempted to do this. But in both cases, the experiment was abandoned after a short time. Not having the full roster available for every monthly show eventually stopped being appealing to the powers that be, so every show was co-branded once again.

What could be different this time around, though, would be the influence of FOX and their deal to air SmackDown. Odds are that both FOX and USA want to promote their own individual WWE shows, so it stands to reason that perhaps FOX would be on board with a SmackDown exclusive pay-per-view. And it would only be fair to give USA the same opportunity for Raw.

The real issue comes from having too many pay-per-views – not counting Crown Jewel events, or Super Show Down, or any of the other international Network events, WWE produces one pay-per-view a month, and it’s already a lot to keep up with. Adding more so Raw and SmackDown each get a monthly show is ludicrous.

Instead, the two shows should trade off months. We’ll keep Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money in the Bank, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series co-branded, and trade off the rest of the calendar — and since Mania is so early in April, we can squeeze in one other show at the end of the month.

Hypothetically, that gives us the following breakdown:

• January – Royal Rumble (co-branded)
• February – Elimination Chamber (Raw exclusive)
• March – Fastlane (SmackDown exclusive)
• April – WrestleMania (co-branded)
• April – Backlash (Raw exclusive)
• May – Battleground (SmackDown exclusive)
• June – Money in the Bank (co-branded)
• July – Extreme Rules (Raw exclusive)
• August – SummerSlam (co-branded)
• September – Hell in a Cell (SmackDown exclusive)
• October – Stomping Grounds (Raw exclusive)
• November – Survivor Series (co-branded)
• December – TLC (SmackDown exclusive)

How does this help TV ratings? Well, if you look at all the space between the brand-exclusive shows, there’s some pretty long stretches in there. SmackDown goes from May to September without another show-exclusive event? Why not schedule a massive, pay-per-view caliber “supershow” in that stretch?

Back in December 2016, SmackDown Live sort of did this – the final show of the year was called the “Wild Card Finals” – not to be confused with the awful Wild Card Rule – and it was STACKED.

There were only three matches on the card, but they were all championship bouts – American Alpha won a four-corners eliminator to become SmackDown Tag Team Champions, while AJ Styles and Alexa Bliss successfully defended their titles on the same night.

Oh, and a fella named JOHN CENA returned to television. No biggie.

The best part about the Wild Card Finals was that all of these things were announced ahead of time.

No one was the victim of a bait and switch or a match advertised that didn’t happen. There was no element of unknown about why you were tuning in two days after Christmas to watch the show. Fans were told, “This is what we’re giving you,” and WWE delivered.

That episode was regarded as one of the best of the year, too! Go figure, putting on a big show, where the matches had consequence and weren’t just filler, would be well-reviewed. And it did bump the rating, too – that episode was the first time since the brand split earlier in the summer that SmackDown pulled in more viewers than Raw.

If WWE would consider brand-exclusive pay-per-views, this kind of episode would be normal for both brands. It would allow for monthly “major shows” even if not a pay-per-view, and it could be considered in the long term planning for both shows.

Yes, I’m aware “long term planning” and WWE go together like lamb and tuna fish.

Think of the roster, too. You’d end up with less talent being overexposed and overworked — everyone gets an extra Sunday here and there off.

It’s a little bit of an opportunity to recharge the batteries. Plus, it would give more superstars on Raw and SmackDown the chance to get a real pay-per-view match – take the Raw side off of TLC, and there’s plenty of space on the card for SmackDown to step in. That’ll build more stars for the future.

Of course, there’s no indication WWE is looking into this. But given the quality of some recent pay-per-views – as well as the success of NXT with its limited number of TakeOver events leading into some episodes of TV being major shows, like this past week’s – it’s a fun thought experiment.

Will it happen? Who knows? But I’ll go on record saying it should.