KELLER'S TAKE KELLER: An overhaul is in order for Raw before ratings drop further - several specific suggestions Jun 4, 2008 - 12:22:59 PM

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By Wade Keller, Torch editor

It's time to shake things up. Even when adding a few tenths of a rating point to account for DVR viewings that are factored in later, it's still a ten-year low rating. The trend within the last few months is down and it keeps going down. The formula Raw uses has run its course, not just in terms of the format of the show and how its paced, but in terms of how only the top wrestlers are treated as being important, and then there's a huge dropoff down to the tag team wrestlers and non-contending singles wrestlers, and the top wrestlers are just incectuously wrestling each other for extended feuds before the same four or five wrestlers simply switch dance partners. Historical boom periods come from new faces and new concepts, not rehashing what worked five or ten years ago.

It is time for WWE to start expirimenting in big ways and throw out the old internal rulebook. Kevin Dunn's philsophy of only stressing two or three things per shows because the viewers can't handle anymore doesn't work. Viewers want to see wrestlers win matches that last longer than two or four minutes, and then have those wins mean somethng where it leads to matches against stiffer competition that eventually leads to them testing the championship waters.

To do that, WWE needs credible mid-card wrestlers who have been well trained and worked years on a developmental or indy circuit. WWE would better spend the million(s) on this giveaway creating multiple developmental territories across the country and scouting for more college athletes who don't quite make the cut as pros in their chosen sports, then create world class training facilities to lure them into becoming pro wrestling.

That means having flushing toilets and running water and throwing out the old school trainer mentality that you have to pay your dues through years of being treated like crap. It'd be great if that worked as it'd build character in future stars, but there's a happy medium of really hard work and schooling in the history of wrestling which is done within a world class training facility that more closely resembles the lobby and gym and top floor of WWE's headquarters when it comes to the equipment and locker rooms.

A shorter term fix is for WWE to start booking Raw six weeks ahead again. Sure, there are injuries and suspensions that would force re-writes, but in general, planning six weeks ahead with scripts pre-written in tentative final form would give WWE the discipline to plan a match such as John Cena vs. Jeff Hardy for weeks ahead of time so that it felt like a monumental happening when it occurred. It's tough to sell PPVs when every week on Raw they're giving away sometimes more appealing or equally appealling match-ups between stars when the match was booked on a whim an hour or two earlier. It demeans the importance of "big fights" and takes away the excitement of seeing two big names face off because there's no time to build anticipation.

Matches must go longer, and wrestlers need to be featured who do exciting things in the ring. There is a wide spectrum of styles, and WWE as evidenced by their plans to give Lance Cade a push, have a very narrow perspective on what a wrestler worthy of pushing looks like and wrestles like. The tag division and women's division should be better build up - especially the tag division.

I'd even suggest a focus group where Brian Gewirtz is forced to watch people roll their eyes and groan at his corny, nerdy pop culture references as he tries to relive the magic of The Rock's promos every week to disastrous results.

It's a good time to drop the G.M. concept because that would also signal to fans that change is real. Either have three separate brands or not, but stop the arbitrary, unexplained visits by wrestlers to another brand. Bring back squash matches. It sounds counter-intuitive since the assumption is people will tune out if there's a mismatch, but a big part of the draw of wrestling before the Monday Night War era was wrestler ring introductions and then watching a star wrestler show off his finishing moves - and have them actually work!

Seeing a wrestler, especially a newer wrestler, firmly establish he can work an exciting, intimidating mix of moves on route to wins over jobbers builds anticipation for seeing him face someone who is tougher. Smackdown is doing is effectively with Vladimir Kozlov in that fans might be curious at this point how he'll do against some of the second and first tier wrestlers on the brand.

Most of all, though, no more two minute matches between competitive wrestlers or teams. Lance Cade vs. Trevor Murdoch lasting only two minutes after all of the TV time put into the feud just sent a message to viewers that all of that time they invested in watching those two break up was for nothing because their feud, for all intents and purposes, lasted two minutes and the less interesting (by far) character lost clean and was swept out of the ring afterward.

If a wrestler belongs on the roster, there should be enough confidence to have them wrestle a longer match when wrestling someone of similar ranking. If WWE doesn't have confidence to have a broken up tag team in their first match wrestle eight or twelve minutes, they shouldn't have been hired and put on the roster in the first place. Same for tag team title matches which go less than five minutes, sometimes much less. That just demeans the whole concept of a wrestling match, not to mention it's totally incongruent with the concept of these same matches lasted five times as long for no reason once their on PPV.

It's time for WWE to have an open brainstorming session and come up with a new, exciting approach to presenting their talented roster of wrestlers. I mean new and exciting relative to the last ten years, but a lot of ideas can be drawn from what WWE used to do during the Superstars era or the early WWE Raw era, or from what some of the more fondly remembered old-time promotions used to do. There are great ideas out there, but you get the feeling the people running the ship are mostly from the Monday Night War era and don't know any other way of presenting wrestling effectively. There are a lot of great concepts of the past not under the Capital Sports or Titan Sports or WWE Entertainment banner that today's WWE could draw from.

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