WWE Rumors: Get ready for factions to be the focus

According to the latest WWE Rumors, fans can expect to see the weekly shows revolve around factions now.

The formula to WWE increasing the television ratings should honestly be simple. Build new stars, keep fans invested in storylines, actually promote things in advance instead of announcing stuff on Twitter last minute, and not give up on people randomly. You know, basic stuff.

But you know what WWE thinks will increase the ratings? Wild Card rule! Confusing booking! Chaos! Old-timers! Raw Underground!

And factions?

According to the Wrestling Observer News’ Dave Meltzer, via Cageside Seats’ Rumor Roundup, one of the company’s plans for their new direction on weekly television to boost the ratings is to have more factions. Meltzer says that they want to go back to the 90’s when factions were a huge deal in WWE.

It’s an interesting approach, because when I think of factions in modern wrestling, I think of two promotions. NJPW and AEW. NJPW is excellent at using factions to build characters, storylines, and feuds, and people are super invested in basically all of their factions. AEW has most recently made factions a part of their show, but fans didn’t really care for it so they tweaked things.

A major issue with WWE’s factions is that they mess them up pretty easily. For example, they announced a debuting faction before last night’s Raw, and basically all we saw was them burning down a generator and shoving some random boxes. Some faction, right? And it better not be a shot at ANTIFA either, because nobody wants to see that. And I mean NOBODY.

But it’s important to be honest. There are some factions in recent WWE history that are beloved and legitimately hit legendary status. The New Day is on the list of the most successful factions in wrestling history. The Shield was also a huge success. And in NXT, the Undisputed Era has been wonderful. Fans are starting to get behind the Hurt Business on Raw.

Maybe this is a great idea. Maybe it’s a good idea that WWE botches in the end. Maybe some factions land and others don’t, like we’ve seen in AEW. It’s worth pursuing, but it should be done in conjunction with all the other things WWE desperately needs to improve on.