[The CyNick]

I also missed Heyman, there's nothing to "discuss" without you, so good to have ya back.

Anyway, here's my two cents (maybe three) on some of the issues:

#1 Russo
Nobody should ever say Russo was good at booking. In the WWE he got credit for the boom period, but it wasn't him. McMahon always booked all the stuff on top and thats what was bringing in the people. Yeah Russo might have had a good idea from time to time, but as a booker he sucked. For proof, watch WCW when he was in charge, as I recall he was resposible for bringing their monthly PPV buys to the 50,000 and less mark. So no, we shouldn't be looking to his ideas for turning things around.

Roster Split
I was also one of those people who liked the roster split, and in fact I still like the concept. However, its become very obvious from the numbers that the roster split cannot continue as is. SD house shows are being cancelled left, right and centre. The 3 PPVs in 6 weeks could very well kill the WWE's PPV business, unless Summerslam can turn it around (which I dont think it will), and even TV tapings are no longer a huge draw. Titles mean nothing, and I think the two brand concept is just causing more confusions than anything. I would support the idea of ending the brand split, culminating with title unification matches at Mania.

The only benefit of the split is that it increases the number of overseas dates they can do. And if you know anything about the WWE's financials, the overseas house shows are the only non-televised events that are doing any real money. And the fact that they are bringing TV tapings to England and the Pacific Rim tells me that even that part of the business must be getting soft.

I know they are dead set on keeping the brand split going, but I agree that its time to get rid of it. They can still run two house shows per night if they decide to (run "A" and "B" shows), but I think for the sake of the TV and the PPVs, its time to kill the concept. The bottom line is that they just dont have the horses to carry two brands. I mean even on RAw which is considered the far superior brand in terms of talent, does anyone really care about Vengeance which is a week away? I know I dont, and I'm sure the buiyrate will reflect that.

The problem with ending the split is that you can kiss the idea of a guy like Chris Benoit winning the World Title goodbye. Triple H will ALWAYS be on top, no matter what, HBK will always be on top, as will Taker. Thats the top 3 spots, and they wont go away until they die or retire (which I wouldn't count on happening anytime soon for any of those guys). Then you have Angle, who will also be guaranteed a top spot, if he's healthy. That only leaves maybe 2 more top level spots for Eddie, Benoit, Orton, Cena, Edge, Jericho and anyone else who gets hot. Out of those guys, I think Eddie has the inside track followed by Cena and Orton. Jericho and Benoit are out in the cold.

The point is you'll get staleness on top. You'll get HHH vs Taker at Summerslam, then HHH vs HBK at Unforgiven, followed by the rematch at No Mercy, followed by the "We're serious this is the last time were gonna wrestle" match at Survivor Series. And on and on it would go.

The other problem is burnout. As we've seen in the past when you have a headliner on two times per week, they get boring fast and they also run out of opponents very quickly. Either that or you get the same 4 or 6 guys in tags or 6-man tags every show. Again, that will get boring after a while.

Now, you 'could' argue, yeah but if you rotate guys and push new guys..... Well guess what kids? That aint gonna happen. This is the WWE circa 2K4, they dont push new talent, they keep the same guys on top because those are the only guys who know how to work. So now instead of having the HHH-effect only on RAW and affecting those guys, now nobody on SD will be able to get over either. Sad but true, oh so very true.

So I think they loose either way. But from a business standpoint, I think its clear the split isn't working, they dont have the talent to stock two rosters, so they should elminiate it. I mean if people start to see PPVs as largely missable, well then people will miss most of them. And thats the WWE's biggest revenue stream. Yeah no new stars will be created, but new stars cant be created either when nobody is watching the shows, so its a ctach 22.

As for eliminating SD, cant do that, that would be a huge blow to the bottom line. even in its crappy state, SD brings in huge money for the company. And dropping a TV show would likely send their stock into a tailspin.

Shorter Matches
I always consider the time between the day after Mania 2000 to Mania X-Seven as the best year in WWE history frrm booking, to TV to match quality, to making money. During that time they started to push stronger workers on top. The guys on top were Rock, HHH, Austin, Taker, Angle, Jericho and Benoit to a point. All those guys could have really good matches (yes even Taker). And what was even better was that the undercard was getting better (thanks to the Radicalz) so it forced the top guys to get better as well to justify their spots. What you had was a kind of competition among the guys to outdo one another.

Nowadays, they have rules where the bottom guys cant do anything in their matches that might upstage the top guys. Well thats like having a union in a workplace, it breeds laziness, and thats why you dont get consistantly great main events like you did in 2000.

In terms of length of matches, they basically always had the main event even go 15-20 (not much longer than 20 though) and the rest of the matches were kept short. I think that philosophy is good for TV because it gets more guys on TV. When you watch RAW and SD now, very few guys see TV time, and as a result, fewer guys are over even as an opening card act. I think now they have too many 25+ minute matches. What happens then is that the PPV 25 minute matches seem less special and like anything doing it too much is bad. In a perfect world they'd go back to 10-15 minute mains on TV, but then when the time is right let say Benoit and Jericho go 40. That would seem special, and people would feel like they seen something amazing.

I also think they need more DQs. Not every match that is free needs an ending. I think its more important to continue a story and make people want to see guys fight again, instead of getting resolution for free every week.

In terms of more skits, only if they are good skits. The current writing staff really really....really sucks. They dont know how to make people want to watch a fight, and their idea of comedy either sounds like its written by a 4 year old, or is just offensive. So neither works. If the same people are writing, then the LAST thing we need is more opportunities for them to show off their "talents".

Eddie Guerrero
Hasn't proven to be a draw, except for a few towns, but I think he is the most viable babyface they have. Ive explained before, he has to be more serious to be on top. There can be time for comedy (which he still does on occasion, especially in his matches on TV), but to draw money you need to be serious. Rock and Foley are great examples of this. They could be as funny as anyone when they wanted to be, but when it came time to sell tickets, they threw the comedy out the window and turned to violence and seriousness to do so. Same has to happen with Eddie, which I think they've done effectively. The only problem is that he's on SD which is a dead product, and the fans know it, especially when it comes to buying tickets.

Hardcore Title
Like most things in the WWE it got over exposed. when you have ho's winning it, it looses whatever credibility it had. You need comedy on wrestling shows, but having a title that is just there for cheap laughs A) doesn't sell tickets and B) gets old fast. If they want to have a real hardcore title and have actual hardcore matches for guys like RVD and Rhyno to sink their teeth into, sure go ahead. But I dont need to see Mighty Molly as HC champ.

What Do Fans Want?
This is the biggest problem I see with the WWE right now. Some people will say they dont give the fans what they want. But at the same time, we have/had Eddie and Benoit as World Champions, seeimingly thats being done to cater to the smarks (which is usally a bad idea), but business has gone down.

So do we even know what the average fan wants? I dont think anyone knows the answer to that question. I think what has happened is that fans have seen too much in a short time period and now there's nothing they can do that will gain people's attention.

If you look back to when the WWE got hot, they started by doing things that people had never seen. Whether that was in interviews, in backstage skits, elabortae stunts or even in the ring with guys willing to take incredible bumps. But all that is gone because the bar was raised to high. So now when people turn on a wrestling show, they almost always say "Ive seen that before" and they have. I think thats a huge problem.

At the same time, I dont want to see them go back to the TLC style matches every othe rmonth, because again that burs fans out, and it shortens careers.

Whats worse is that the WWE still had even before Mania XX a large enough audience to keep going and stay profitable. Unfortunately, more and more you are hearing hardcore fans turning away form the product. On wrestlingobserver.com, Dave Meltzer does a poll every week asking fans what they thought of SD. One of the options is "I didn't watch the show". That option gets well over 40% every week. Now think about that for a minute. Only the most hardcore fans are going to even think about going to Dave's site, and if well over 40% of those people aren't willing to invest 2 hours into SD, imagine what the average fan is thinking.

I dont have the answer to turn things around. The only thing they can do now is write good television, push guys who are over and talented enough to justify their spots and thats enough to at least maintain their current fanbase. They desperately need a new star to catch on huge (like Austin or Rock) or a new concept to catch on (like Attitude or the Nitro concept), but I dont see either on any nearby horizons.

More and more I think we're looking at the beginning of the end for pro wrestling as we know it. That may sound odd since WWE just had an extremely profitable year, but I see the writing on the wall.