I heard them talking about this on busted open this morning decided to look it up.
Reddit user u/WaitingonNetwork took a look at the appearance stats for WWE over the past couple of weeks and noticed that an astounding 56 (49 non-injured) members of the main roster have not appeared on TV for two weeks.
While some of the names on the list are obvious, given that the likes of the Big Show haven’t appeared in months, but plenty of the names make you wonder what on earth is going on.
For example, the Raw tag team champions Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder haven’t been seen at all, with other tag teams being given the push ahead of them.
SmackDown’s Kairi Sane has also disappeared for some reason having only just been put in a new tag team with Asuka.
The Viking Raiders, who were seemingly getting a monster push on the Raw tag roster have also disappeared for no apparent reason.
The list goes on and on. Can you honestly blame these unused stars for perhaps looking elsewhere? You don’t get into wrestling to sit backstage for weeks on end without sight or sound of a match.
Well yeah creative is a fucking mess because it’s run by a 73-year-old man with a rotting brain.
The entire tag division is god awful. Why do they need two titles for the men? And now, as I predicted ever since the Iconics won them at Mania for no reason, the women’s titles are also meaningless.
The 24/7 title is a disaster and everyone making appearances in that division chasing R-Truth should probably just ask to be released now.
And then you have people like Buddy Murphy and Cedric Alexander who were called up during the draft and basically haven’t been used AT ALL.
But hey we need the wildcard so Roman can be on both shows all the time goddammit.
That’s what drives me nuts every show is Roman and Shane. If it’s not them wrestling it’s another 5 min video package of them or of hhh vs Randy Orton. Who cares.
SmackDown last year was on the right track. Needed one or two changes (mainly the midcard title) but other than that it was good. They started to panic over Raw and instead of making Raw more like SmackDown, they did they opposite.
I was a big fan of the hard brand split, and separate PPV events. It’s too bad that the company can never stick to anything long enough to make it work.
Aside from the insanity of the fact they spent weeks on the brand split - only to decide it was for nothing a week later - the bummer in all of this is that the split worked. It allowed everybody from AJ to Usos to New Day to Owens to Bryan, to Mix, a place to perform and grow that wasn’t just an undercard for Roman and Brock. It was absolutely needed and still is, if they want to justify this ridiculously bloated roster.
It’s a band aid solution too a long term problem. The ratings are worrying the network, and they want results. Unfortunately, that has led to hot shot booking, and more Shane segments (twice the Elias is not gonna fix ratings btw)
The Wild Card rule wouldn’t have been as much a problem so far if they just didn’t allow the same guys to cross over every week so far. I’ve openly stated how much I hate the brand split because we were seeing always the same matches and feuds every week. I thought we’d finally see some variety but it’s the same old crap every week again.
Read that they’ve cancelled 5 SD Live house shows to accommodate for the top stars being on both brands. Which may seem like a bad idea but given the numbers behind house shows in the last few earnings reports maybe less house shows is better?
I never really understood why they had the wild card rule to begin with. Yeah it did help the ratings a little bit, but at what cost really since they will have to abolish it in a few months when smackdown goes to fox since fox doesn’t want wrestlers that appears on a competitve network on their show.
So for now where just doing long drawn out segment on raw with the same guys jumping show and nothing seem to matter. Plus with the fact that both the 24/7 champion and the women’s tag team champs can be on both show, this become even more of a convoluted situation as both don’t count as far as that rule is concern.
I mean the whole reason the brand split is good is because it forces them to use more talent. The reason you don’t like it is because they only used some of the talent on the roster on each show, now they do the same thing just with a combined roster. The problem isn’t the split or not split, it is that WWE seemingly cannot avoid the temptation to grab for ratings by always having only the top guys compete. It over exposes those guys, and buried everyone else. It kills the midcard. I’d be fine with no brand split, one main title, 2 secondary titles, and one tag title for men, then one main title for women, and tag titles. Or them doing the split, the only issue I have with the split right now is for the women and for the tag team belts, in both cases the divisions seem lacking to support 2 belts, even worse on the women’s side with the tag belts included.
Arguably yes it did. But it is a bandaid, and the exact problem I described, WWE fee the need to put their top guys on every show to grab ratings instead of building up more guys. It leads to programs feeling stale.
What if Main Event is secretly a really good show, but nobody has noticed? Like when Ultimo Dragon and Dean Malenko would have an absolute banger on WCW Worldwide.
The issue with Superstars is that they don’t tie it in with Raw and Smackdown. Like if a guy started winning a lot on Superstars and is on Raw they never mention those matches. So superstars might as well be a house show. It is not “cannon” so it is just s place to put guys that don’t get on Raw and Smackdown
What a time to be working for the WWE. Get paid for doing nothing! Must be great for some people but I’m sure the majority would love to be appearing.
Its really not hard as NXT shows regularly. I don’t watch wresting week in week out, but i watch the highlights of the NXT Takeover events and each time theres new wrestlers Ive never heard off. Some look generic but within seconds im invested coz they have talent.
When will WWE learn that a quality product starts with good wrestling, then add some stories, then add some colour and costumes. So many of these people could be used so much more, and it woudl make life easier for WWE if they used them all. This company is a mess
The thing NXT does right is not put the top guys on every show. The Wild Card has killed the midcard titles, if the “world” champions are both on every show, where is the time to build midcard feuds. This was already a problem on PPV shows, and now it is a problem on RAW and Smackdown. Roman v Shane is the same issue, it takes up time that could be spent having Roman (or anyone else) chase a mid card belt. It has the same effect on the tag belts, though arguably having only one tag division would be better than a split division.
At least it has let people that didn’t want the brand split know how much worse the shows would be if the brand split ended by basically ending the brand split…