WWE - uncharted territory / the future (random speculation thread).

General
41

You hit the nail on the head.

Some try to spin this false narrative that NXT was not successful despite being in WWE, when the reality is that NXT was successful despite being in WWE.

WWE did nothing to promote NXT, you could have had the biggest match of the year on a Takeover, but you never would have known watching Raw or Smackdown. It was really weird, clearly Vince and co. wanted NXT to beat/stifle AEW, but at the same time they didn’t give NXT any real promotion and anytime an NXT star came up they were usually booked like crap (woman being the exception because they had such a weak woman’s main roster). NXT was able to get rid of the WWE stink despite being a WWE product, something that is very tough to do.

As a fan, I don’t really give a shit which company is winning the key demographic, and I dont look at everything through a tribal AEW vs WWE lens , what I care about is does said wrestling promotion entertain me, and for about half a decade or more NXT gold and black (especially the Takeovers) were the best wrestling shows IMO in the world. In my eyes, that’s a success.

To agree with your final point, Triple H is an obvious upgrade to Vince when it comes to taking over creative, and I"m pumped that we are finally going to be able to see what he can do with the handcuffs off.

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42

That’s pretty narrow.

To say it wasn’t popular enough dismisses their paid attendance from House shows and Takeovers. To say they couldn’t sell tickets doesn’t account for the Performance Centre model being constrictive. NXT didn’t have a chance to develop as a road brand even akin to IMPACT, running in a small, then mid-sized venture to develop as a touring band.

AEW is rarely running buildings with even a 10K capacity. And, they’re doing this because it takes time to develop a premium touring brand. Again, something NXT didn’t even have a chance to do.

So, your argument has several logical fallacies, you’re saying “Vince didn’t like it,” “it wasn’t popular,” and “that big stars weren’t signed because they were already on the main roster.”

  1. Vince & Dunn shoved NXT on to the USA Network reactively without really promoting it. Moved it to Tuesday’s thinking they would get a bigger number and be able to better develop the brand, again, without promoting it and used the pandemic to gut the staff and roster. Then, after seeing the ceiling, gutted the product and perverted it into RAW/SD Lite.

  2. The house show and takeover ticket buys, and live crowd responses prove it was popular enough to run small non-TV houses and 14K arenas for major shows. A secondary consideration is that we don’t know what the weekly viewership was on the WWE network before they dumped it onto the USA network. What if the viewership on the WWE Network was similar to the number they pull on the USA Network? That would evidence that the move to a 2-hour format on cable TV wasn’t a good move.

  3. When I say big stars… I don’t mean Adam Cole, RedDragon and etc… I talking about Kenny Omega, the Bucks and Cody when their NJPW and ROH contracts expired. NXT/WWE couldn’t offer the autonomy or money that AEW was set up to give them. The merchandising money for them is better through Pro-wrestling Tee’s than it would have been through WWE, plus whatever cuts of the coming video games and other products would be. Obviously, Cody left, but Kenny and the Bucks seem happy with their choices.

I’m not saying that NXT was a success, but it wasn’t as abject enough of a failure to completely diminish it as such.

NXT made stars. The booking mantra of both 2.0 and/or the “Black & Gold” wouldn’t work for the main roster WWE shows, the audiences are broader so there would still be a balance of GaGa, Entertainers, Combat-sports style and supernatural characters. The difference is likely that there would be some more investment in long-term storytelling.

We’ve also already seen HHH & Stephanie running creative in the past, I would argue that 2016-17 RAW & SmackDown was very HHH/Steph heavy. Likely because there were so many former-NXT talents being added and used on the main roster shows.

Citing NXT’s failure to beat AEW is a singular, strawman counter-point. AEW had bigger names (Jericho, Moxley, Omega, Cody), more money and a much better push both on their own and through TNT’s marketing. AEW didn’t win every week. And, AEW was presenting a better product for sure too,

WWE’s profits don’t outline how much was budgeted for NXT salaries, production, and post-production overhead. It’s the same as how studios finance their TV shows and films. For instance, a show like “Euphoria,” doesn’t have a fragment of the budget a show like “Westworld” has had. So, saying NXT had unlimited financial resources is silly, RAW and SD are clearly the big tent productions, while NXT & 205 Live were small-run shows.

Again, NXT isn’t an abject failure. Just something that didn’t compete with a better-resourced upstart.

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43

As a fan, I don’t really give a shit which company is winning the key demographic, and I dont look at everything through a tribal AEW vs WWE lens , what I care about is does said wrestling promotion entertain me, and for about half a decade or more NXT gold and black (especially the Takeovers) were the best wrestling shows IMO in the world. In my eyes, that’s a success.

I agree completely.

I also hope HHH and Stephanie get to book and develop the product without interference from gatekeepers beholden to Vince’s ideologies.

I am still not watching any of WWE shows until things start changing though :smiley:
I don’t mind sticking to Dynamite and Rampage.

Also, this notion that AEW “destroyed” NXT is also a misnomer. The first 6+ months of head-to-head competition saw AEW either narrowly winning, or NXT narrowly winning.

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44

I think it was Meltzer that reported that while a lot of “Vince guys” were still there, give it a year or so and Triple H will have “his people” in place and the old guard will be gone. I dont blame you at all for not watching right now as this is more of a “transition period” then a reset.

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45

Impact put on high profile womens matches far before NXT or WWE ever thought about it. Japan has also done it for many, many years. I hate the WWE narrative that they somehow made womens wrestling important, it’s embarrassing.

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46

What “big stars” did NXT not sign from 2014 to 2018? They had basically everyone and let them rot in developmental.

I completely disagree. WWE wouldn’t have made the decisions they do if NXT was successful. The bottom line is it was not successful.

Do you not remember bringing Charlotte down to NXT? They tried to bring big names down and it all flopped. And it is WWE’s fault for choosing to run head to head with AEW. USA didn’t originally want Wednesday but they pushed for it and they lost big time.

47

Or NXT being featured as a strong third brand at the 2019 Survivor Series, and Keith Lee being presented on the same level as Roman Reigns? There was a concerted effort for the first few months to spotlight NXT on a much higher level.

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48

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Listen, change is coming. What a team. Triple H! Nick Khan! Steph!.. Kevin Dunn?!?

:neutral_face:

Like everything he is saying is absolutely no different than back when he was “powerless” within the organization:

I’ll believe major changes, when the company is sold and there’s people steering the ship who haven’t already been involved in the office for the last 20 years.

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49

I get some are cynical, I can’t blame them. With that said, this is Triple H’s first chance to handle creative with zero (hopefully) influence from Vince. Lets just all agree to wait and see. For the business, and for the performers, hopefully he does a great job.

As for the company being sold, I’m not sure why people think that if its sold he wouldn’t be involved. If anything, I would imagine that if WWE is sold they would want to keep the staff on board if its doing well. Same as UFC/Dana.

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50

Sorry, I not saying if there is a sale that he wouldn’t be left in charge. I just feel that for me personally, I would have more faith if they actually shook things up and a new team was in place.

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51

I hear you, but I’m the opposite. My worry is if they sell to say Disney, that Disney may put people who know nothing about wrestling in charge (like WCW), so I would prefer Hunter in charge. And by all accounts he’s pretty loved by talent, and I personally loved the NXT product. Time will tell.

52

A very short, and very limited effort. Most of this happened because SmackDown talent was held up on a runway in Saudi Arabia.

Kieth Lee was featured strong because he impressed McMahon, same with Rhea Ripley.

What was the promotional spend WWE put
In to NXT on USA? Because you can count on your fingers how many NXT promos appeared on RAW. How many were on SmackDown?

WWE out NXT in a position to sink or swim, without any real support across the main roster shows, they put no effort into advertising the show even across the USA Network and even across NBC properties.

Like I said, it didn’t succeed, but it wasn’t an abject failure.

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53
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54

Some valid and obvious points, but all the “business stuff” is basically just saying that he’ll be like the head of creative at any other company. He will get notes from the corporate side, but it’s not his responsibility to secure a new TV deal and such. He sells tickets in the sense that the head coach of a football team does. You can blame him if they are not selling because the end product is poor, but his job is not to cater to every gimmick that might sell a few extra tickets for the next game. That’s kind of how WWE got to the low point it’s at now, in terms of creative.

If people wanna talk about the business/backstage side of WWE, they need to recognize that it’s very unusual in a company that size to have a Vince McMahon who is in charge of the day-to-day of everything. And even in wrestling, where traditionally that has been a little more common to have a booker/owner, that’s not what Triple H is.

EDIT: I will admit that my take assumes the position that booking an entertaining wrestling show with good wrestling matches will maintain/grow ratings. If that proves to not be true, I will accept and stand corrected.

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55

I think a good way of analogizing it is that he just got hired as the Manager and GM of the New York Yankees. A team with the expectation to dominate (ratings) every year. While he was given the best set table to succeed on a business end, the single measurement of ratings will determine his success (since monetizing an already contracted product will not happen for another year). Here is how I will evaluate Hunter from a corporate standpoint:

  1. Do ratings improve and does the company sustain interest to get back to where it was prepandemic (not unrealistic)
  2. Does Hunter retain/sign/and utilize talents with better success in which fans who have been negative begin to change their sentiment
  3. When those TV rights are due, can WWE increase their rights fees because the product is producing for its TV partners and hasn’t skipped a beat post Vince in the ratings.
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56

I think in wrestling, there’s never been a clear delineation of when “creative” stops and corporate begins. Because there’s never been a company of this size with this infrastructure before.

Can’t really make an example future forward, so here’s a hypothetical. Suppose it’s 2005 and creative pushes John Cena to the moon same way as actually happened. But then the other side of the business doesn’t get him on the Today Show, execute the merchandising plan, etc. That’s not a creative failure, that’s a business failure.

But I guess, to continue the Yankees analogy, at the end of the day, you just look at the win/loss record. No coach ever kept his job because they lost X number of games on a bad call, X number of games because somebody dropped a fly ball, or anything like that. You are what your record says you are.

57

Yes to this:

On this point:

If a talent catches fire with the audience and is driving the creative product, corporate should have no problem getting them on other shows as they are popular and will draw an audience.

Also if events like Mania or stadium shows aren’t hot enough for other outlets to want to cover it, it does indicate the brand of WWE is not popular or relevant which again a popular creative product would prevent.

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