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For quite a few years now, I’ve thought that the WWE should reinstate WCW. Take everyone over 40 — everyone from Randy Orton to Shinsuke Nakamura. The “backstory” if you even need to get this far is that WCW has the funds to buy their WWE deals out and get them all to sign. The show is just wrestling, in an 18x18 ring, with cables, with its own aesthetic.
Do one Nitro a week, 12 PPVs a year. Throw all the 205 Live guys on there for a Cruiserweight Division. You don’t mention WWE, take shots at WWE. You just put on wrestling and that’s where the old guys go.
You’ve immediately got a roster of AJ Styles, Bobby Lashley, Edge, Sheamus, Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Shelton Benjamin and Kofi Kingston right there. Have no McMahon around any of it. Send over Bruce Prichard and Johnny Ace to run it or whatever. Hire Lance Storm to be an agent. Finlay, Billy Kidman, Booker T, Brian Kendrick or whatever.
That show’s going to get as many viewers as Raw. Now you’ve cleared up a whole bunch of roster space and are in the position where there is less clutter and more of a need to get guys up. You’ve still got Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Big E, Drew McIntyre, etc. Move up guys like Chad Gable, Montez Ford. Suddenly everything is less static.
If WCW is #1 and absolutely killing it. Cool, whatever. You still own it. If WWE makes a surge and a comeback with a focus on younger talent? Great. You’ve got three shows that are making giant bank, two “products” for people who might prefer one to the other, and then you’ve kept everyone employed, producing content, but not getting in the way of one another.
WCW would also be a great place to debut talent from developmental or that you want to have a look at, and then you bring them over to WWE TV when you are ready to make them a young star.
This COULD have been what Raw and SmackDown were/are, but the formula and presentation is too much the same and there just hasn’t been that effort made to separate them philosophically that I don’t even think people would buy it now.
Plus, I see value in WCW as an alternative branding, as well as reestablishing PPV as a revenue stream and using old trademarks and IP.
People are probably groaning at the idea, but don’t tell me that you wouldn’t watch a Starrcade with Brock Lesnar vs. Bobby Lashley, AJ Styles vs. Finn Balor, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Randy Orton, Cesaro vs. Rey Mysterio, etc. It would be stonkers.
And that show probably allows them to enter the market with another $100 million per year for talent they already pay.
You don’t do the nWo. You don’t have Eric Bischoff and Jay Leno. You don’t do DQs at the end of every main event. But the essence is “WCW has the money to pluck all these world class names out of the WWE to end their careers for the one-time giant of professional wrestling.”
Just don’t go plastering “WWE Presents” on everything, or forcing your cringe-inducing aesthetics over everything, etc. *Expands* your business (which is the appealing thing about it to a boardroom), redistributes talent, uses it better by giving them a fresh environment (which is important for stars that have been around for a while), and allows for a more streamlined baseline WWE product that is hopefully more appealing than it is as this giant hodge podge.
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