Top five changes WWE should make to save money

As anyone who pays attention to wrestling knows, WWE has been making a lot of roster cuts for more than a year. To date, they have released more than 100 wrestlers since April 2020 with even more cuts on the way, particularly to NXT.

While there are other behind-the-scenes reasons in some cases, WWE’s stated justification is usually budgetary. That’s despite the record profits they’ve reputedly been putting up. Still, there are even more ways to save money that they should keep in mind.

Cut back pay-per-view times

WWE is well known for shows that just drag on. That’s in part due to bad booking with matches on Raw that can run for three or four boring segments. But this can get especially tiresome at pay-per-views, particularly WrestleMania which is often unnecessarily long.

One would have to imagine that tightening up their pay-per-view times would save them some money. Efficiency is always cost-effective. While they’re at it, fans would really appreciate it if the company would shave that third hour off Raw. It’s just not necessary and never was.

Stop booking big money part-timers

Vince McMahon lives in the past, for better or worse. He continues to book WWE programming like it’s 20+ years ago and doesn’t seem interested in changing. This leads to him regularly using part-timers who were big names years ago but fewer and fewer modern fans are interested in.

An obvious current example of this is Bill Goldberg who wrestles for the money by his own admission. Fan responses have been lukewarm at best and there’s no doubt he’s getting better than top dollar. Not shelling out big money for guys like Goldberg or Lesnar would save millions.

Make more changes to WWE corporate

Not all cuts to WWE’s structure have been in front of the camera. Reputedly, entire corporate divisions have been eliminated as part of the streamlining process. Any division that remained also lost its fair share of staff.

While no one ever wants to see someone lose their job, there are further changes that could inevitably be made at WWE corporate. In some cases, that might be less detrimental to the overall brand than indiscriminately cutting talent.

Cancel 205 Live

Coming off the Cruiserweight Classic, this division was absolutely on fire. They had great talent putting on incredible matches. As such, giving the Cruiserweight Division its own devoted time to shine only made sense. Naturally, WWE’s subpar booking demolished that momentum right quick.

These days, 205 Live is just an extra half hour of NXT. And the NXT Cruiserweight Champion rarely even shows up on the program devoted to the division he represents. At this point, it’s probably best for WWE to cut their losses and move on since they seem unwilling to commit to it.

Release even more talent

While some of their choices in who has been released have been dubious at best, that doesn’t change the fact that the cuts were needed. At one point, WWE reputedly had more than 300 wrestlers on their various rosters. That’s just too many.

These talents were signed during WWE’s phase of talent hoarding, something they seem to have left behind. A large percentage of these wrestlers never get TV time. As such, it would be better for them and the company if they got a chance to hit the indies and actually wrestle.