By Jon Cudo, PWTorch Specialist

TRUE - WWE SHOULD USE MORE NON-TITLE MATCHES ON TV

WWE occasionally refrains from giving away major title matches on TV, knowing scarcity helps make these matches feel special and encourages people to pay to see those on PPV. Top champions like John Cena and Randy Orton engage in various tag matches leading up to PPV to keep the title from being defended.

The non-title match is one tool in the toolbox that remains underutilized. This may mean the opponents aren't top contenders, but, most often, this stipulation is currently used to allow the champ to lose without losing the belt, setting up a bigger re-match in the coming weeks.

This ignores the full benefits of these matches. Non-title matches should be the standard, across all titles (Heavyweight, U.S., IC, Tag, and Diva). First, it allows champions to be vulnerable. It allows them to lose occasionally, giving wins to a wider array of wrestlers. Dolph Ziggler could lose to Zack Ryder or Alex Riley in non-title matches providing more hope for the babyface at the next PPV. In the current model, wins by the challenger are often tainted, which decreases the hope fans have to see their guy win in the next title match and decreases the impact of the challenger's win. Challengers just rarely beat a champion heading into match, except in the tired tag team match format where the challenger pins a singles champ. While that model works, its become passé and ineffective.

Using non-title matches would increase WWE's ability to tell an effective championship chase story and it would provide more interesting match-ups. It helps facilitate top wrestlers matching up with lower card wrestlers, without the results seeming like forgone conclusions. Currently, if Air Boom has a title match against Primo and Epico on TV, few believe that anything other than Air Boom retaining is about to happen. The non-title rules actually makes more fans believe that they could see an upset. Then that more meaningful upset can help jump start a story between a young challenger and the more established championship team. The upset is less meaningful in the moment, but more effective in the longer storyline arc. Overall, these non-title matches should become the rule, not the exception, for all titles.

FALSE - WWE TWITTER OBSESSION HELPS WITH MALE TEEN AUDIENCE

As the teen male audience erodes for WWE's Raw program, there are a lot of fingers to point. A childish stale Cena character, characters like C.M. Punk who may not resonate with (or speak to) young fans, and a reliance on nostalgia acts like Mick Foley and Kevin Nash who have no meaning to fans who weren't born when the act was hot.

WWE's obsession with Twitter isn't helping either. Constant references to Twitter seem boorish and silly to those of us who use Twitter, imagine those who don't use it...perhaps male teens.

A July 2011 Pew Reserach poll looked at who uses Twitter and found that teen boys simply aren't that interested in Twitter. One poll found teens in general lag in Twitter use, 8 percent using compared to 45 percent who are active on Facebook. One researcher summarized that these teens are more interested in connecting with their current social network or friends (i.e. Facebook) than broadcasting to a network they don't know like Twitter.

The July 2011 Poll found only 10 percent of teen males use Twitter, which means WWE's constant Twitter references mean little or are just plain annoying to about 90 percent of that shrinking teen audience. The same poll also noted that Twitter shows strength with non-whites, which also isn't traditionally WWE's audience.

While I believe the social networking focus of the WWE is wise as a general practice, it may be contributing to a real tangible decline in some segments of their viewership.

TBD - THE HORNSWOGGLE CHARACTER WILL BE ENHANCE NOW THAT HE CAN TALK

Santa works in mysterious ways and now that he has given Hornswoggle the early holiday gift of speech, it may not be too early to ask if it was a wise change.

Hornswoggle is a mixed bag. For every fan who enjoys his antics, you can find one who would be fine if he never appeared on TV again. He provides writers with a talented comedic actor who had a very different presentation, while almost always limiting how seriously you could take the characters he was interacting with. The recent Smackdown Holiday Battle Royal, which ended with Sheamus and Hornswoggle, could be seen as entertaining as easily as it could be seen as absurd and damaging to Sheamus. Hornswoggle helped bring a different more engaging side out of Finlay, while neutering his ability to be taken seriously in the ring.

The addition of the ability to talk will likely be a mixed bag for the character. His quirky ability to communicate with grunts and screams has been replaced with the more common delivery of WWE-style comedy scripting. If that scripting was so strong and clever this might be a net positive, but I suspect it will just cause Hornswoggle to blend in more and be the target of lame comedy focusing on his appearance and size like the Teddy Long Santa skits at TLC.

It remains to be determined if the performer will be able to tap into this new speech asset and turn it into a positive, or if he's just lost what helped make him a unique character.

***

Jon Cudo is the newest PWTorch Specialist, presenting the "True-False-TBD" format. Jon has worked in the sports entertainment industry for over 20 years, including major league sports teams and Nike. He has been a life-long pro wrestling fan and has attended WWE, WCW, and ROH events in person, including backstage access at multiple events. He grew up in Minnesota and now lives in Cleveland. He runs his own business, www.GameOps.com, a web site designed to connect sports teams and event producers with ideas and tools that will enhance the entertainment value for fans attending their events.

[Torch art credit Neal Obermeyer (c) PWTorch.com]

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