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Brian Blade's Blog: How To Fix Wrestling: WWE And TNA

Posted: Feb 10th 2014 By: CMBurnham

I am going to start this by saying I am not Vince McMahon, it is not my company, and I am probably not as smart as he is. That being said, they have backed themselves into a corner right now with the Wrestlemania booking. CM Punk quitting did not help. The amount of people watching on tv and going to live events is not increasing. The internet and all forms of social media do not help. Everyone can see the results of house shows from one night to another and see that it is almost the identical show. The WWE needs to mix it up some on the road and on PPV. The Royal Rumble was disappointing, but Extreme Rules is shaping up as a very good PPV.

The WWE has a very good roster that could have some great house show matches and gauge the reaction of the crowd for future story lines. Have Randy Orton defend the title against different people on house shows. They will still draw and may draw even more. A list of guys for Orton to defend the title against are: John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, Big Show, Big E Langston, Mark Henry, Bray Wyatt, Antonio Ceasaro, and Kofi Kingston. Switch these guys around from time to time. Also change up the other matches, they have some great match-ups that people would pay to see: Daniel Bryan v. Dolph Ziggler, Bryan v. Kofi, Big Show v. Big E, there are any number of combinations. They can throw in a lot of different combo's so that the house shows are not stale.

The Tag Team division is also becoming a problem. Why is the WWE breaking up all these teams right now. It makes no sense. They have a great tag team roster right now and they are starting to kill it. On different nights the tag belts can be defended against 5 or 6 different teams. Stop breaking them all up and give the people different tag matches each night. The Rhodes family is having the best matches of the night and their is speculation about breaking them up, why? Why ruin something that is going so well? They do not have to put the tag belts right back on them, have the Uso's beat DX, and then have someone beat the Uso's and then go back to the Rhodes family. Something like that. The Uso's and Rhoads Family could have some excellent matches together. There is also still the Wyatts, The Shield, Ryback and Axel, The Real Americans, Los Matadores, and 3 MB. There is a very good core of Tag Teams.

The next thing to boost houses is to have a title change once in a while. Even though the IC and U.S. titles have been completely devalued, people would love to see a title change now and then. If people here a title changed in Toledo, more fans may come out to a show in Louisville thinking it could happen. They could also have a surprise return at a house show from time to time. This would boost business and boost the experience. People love surprises and love to feel special, seeing a title change or special appearance makes people feel special. This doesn't have to happen every night, but maybe once every 3 weeks, people will not know when they will see it happen so they will come with hopes that their event will have something extra or special.

How I hope Wrestlemania will be: Daniel Bryan wins the belt as the pay-off for the last nine months. I don't care who he beat whether it's Orton or Batista and Orton in a triple threat. Do not give Bryan the belt at Extreme Rules. Undertaker v. Brock or Cena. I hear they want Cena v. Bray Wyatt, but Cena v. The Undertaker is a huge match. If they go with Brock, have Cena team up with Hogan is possible, imagine that "pop". If Bryan doesn't fight for the belt, put him against Triple H and if he wins, he gets a Title shot. If Bryan fights for the belt and HHH wants a match at Mania, Roman Reigns would be good, but I would like to see the feud between the Wyatts and The Shield extended till Mania. Big E Langston needs to defend the IC belt, have him face Ryback in your big man power match of the night. Have the Uso's face NAO for the Tag Belts. Sheamus v. Caesaro could be a very good match at Mania. Big Show will need a match, put him up against Russev in another big man match. Mark Henry can take on Titus O'neil. Christian v. Kofi Kingston or Dolph Ziggler could be a show stealer. Have AJ take on Cameron or Nataylia and finally lose the Divas Title. This leaves a lot of guys up for matches. We need 2 to take on Cena and Hogan, which could be the Real Americans or any combination that includes a foreigner. We will see if guys like the Miz get a match a Mania or a preshow battle royal. They could also have another Money in the Bank match, which is always exciting. The Ultimate Warrior is rumored to be having a match being lined up. You could also have him and Hogan team up and take on 3 MB. There are possibilities, but the top of the card is the most important, so they better not screw that up, and Orton v. Bautista doesn't make a lot of people look forward to the Mania main event. Put Bryan in there, and then people will tune it to see if he finally can achieve his goal.

Now for TNA: 1. Advertise your shows. They are barely drawing houses and the reason is that nobody knows it is going on. If you don't follow them on twitter or get on their website you may not even know they are having a show. They did an event 20 miles from my house and I saw no advertising what so ever. How do you expect to draw if people don't know your coming.

2. Get a plan and stick with it. People pay attention to what is going on, and if you just forget what you did in the past or decide in the middle of a story to drop it, people get upset. There seems to be no real direction at times.

3. Keep Dixie off TV. How many segments does she need to be on. She comes on and it is an automatic channel change. She is not good on TV.

4. Use your young guys to keep building the roster. They cannot afford high price talent at the moment.

TNA just needs a plan and to get the word out about their events. It may be too late, but they need to start somewhere.

As always leave your opinions and who you would like to see at Mania.