By seasonal, I don't mean for it to have breaks just be broken down.
WWE needs to be held in
seasons!
I wrote a passage years ago
featuring a PPV schedule WWE could follow month to month. Not writing
with the purpose of a stringent guideline to follow more of a fun
means of making their themed ppvs streamline then seem like they're
spinning a damn wheel each month. Wish I could find it but I posted
in on the IGN blogs, which have become obsolete and no one from IGN
cares to reply. What's gone is gone and here is a somewhat different
take on it.
Reason I am writing is due
to the fascination about holding kayfabe win-loss records and usually
making rankings out of them. I understand the excitement of the idea.
When I played the Smackdown game on playstation in the early 2000s, I
loved forcing my favorite jobber wrestlers like X-Pac, D-Lo Brown,
Matt Hardy and even Gangrel through rankings to the main event, where
on TV they didn't belong. It was great seeing the rise. Even
better(even though we know it's not) seeing wrestling treated with
the logic of real sport as NFL. In wrestling, that just doesn't
work. There's no divisions. This is the biggest paradigm that
develops when attempting to include a ranking system with a win loss
record. If WWE tries to introduce a new up and comer whose only
defeating jobbers. Would they honestly deserve a shot against the
world champion. Now the question, who deserve what, is an incredibly
silly one to ask. Wrestling isn't a legitimate sport as we all know,
so to fall for a trap of a win loss record being a consistent reason
to earn said title is illegitimate. Not saying there need to be a
50-50 when it comes to a back and forth for a feud but that's pretty
much what throws a wrench in this device. Let's say Edge finally
overcomes Orton in their feud but since it's flat ranking system,
Edge, who in a feud would have just as many losses as wins, wouldn't
qualify for a World title shot over Miz, who is not doing anything
and just being booked well. Not quite how credibility is developed in
wrestling.
Throughout the whole year,
there would be three seasons. The end of the seasons would be
Summerslam, Survivor Series, and Wrestlemania. Each season they need
to a reason to fight. The grand goal is the wrestlers with the best
record would qualify for the playoffs as in other sports leagues.
This won't always be the same format like in other professional
leagues with a single elimination tournament. Pro Wrestling needs to
have it's spontaneity and diversity in how the competition is
presented. I certainly understand that. For Summerslam, the playoffs
to qualify for a World title match would be the King of the Ring
tournament. The tournament changes from 8-16 slots but the nice part
about wrestlers qualifying with the win loss records is that the
seeds will hold meaning. If a wrestler has the best record going
into the tournament they will have an advantage because they'll be
facing the wrestler with the worst record. Also, there is a story to
tell outright about the last place being the underdog. Even if
they're a well established wrestler, they may have run into a rut
barely qualifying for the tournament.
The problem the ranked
system has had in the past when attempted by multiple promotions is
that they are forced to put a wrestler against the champion is not
quite who creative wanted. With a season format until the so called
playoffs, the win-loss records don't have to be used as qualifiers to
face the champs. The World title program can be all storyline. With
that being said, if a wrestler makes it to the playoffs, who creative
isn't feeling is ready then they can be screwed or have a slip up in
the playoffs. At least with this system, the wrestlers journey is
established.
The standings can be used
when ideas/programs are dry. Truly if they have to rely on the
standings, then there should be no issue with the GM the show before
the ppv showing the standings and crossing out names due to the
wrestlers being booked. Folks would whine about wrestlers being
overlooked in the standings. Well, they're not being overlooked, just
busy. The seasonal standings can be used as a tool or a launching
point rather than a staunch system to abide by. The biggest plus to
having WrestleMania, Summerslam, and Survivor Series being the
payoffs for these season is that if things are messy with the
standings, they start fresh the following season. That's the issue
when Smackdown or TNA tried committing to standings is that there was
no endgame, so they just have ditch the gimmick, when running into
trouble.
Now this isn't super
important to making it work just a caveat but the playoffs for
Survivor Series would be the Elimination Chamber. The top 6, in the
standings, qualify for the chamber. Heck if WWE isn't happy with the
top 6 then make qualifiers with the wrestlers with the best 12
records. There are many ways to mix this up. In the NFL playoffs,
teams automatically pass the wild card round due to their strong
standings. Kayfabe wise this won't be seen as random favoritism, when
the reasoning is amount of wins by the wrestlers. We get it when
John Cena, Randy Orton, or Roman Reigns automatically qualify for
these big multiman matches but storyline wise, there's no
explanation. So the expectation by WWE is the fans will fill in the
blank for them. Simply lazy booking on most occasions.
How the playoffs are
executed, for each season, don't truly matter. It's just a means to
truly utilize a win-loss record system. For WrestleMania of course
there's the Royal Rumble. Now if this was an honest sport, the way to
apply the standings would be 1st place gets to come out as
number 30, 2nd as #29 and so on until 30th
place has to come out as #1. Now this certainly spoils the
spontaneity that is the Royal Rumble. So, a simpler system would be
to break the top 15 in groups of three and have the rest of the
roster and surprises be tossed in as wildcards. For the three
groups, I'd imagine the top five in the standings would come out in
the last 20-30, the 6-10 in the standing would qualify to come out
10-20 group for the Rumble and so on. Really for the rest of the road
to Wrestlemania, the battle would be for the next highest title.
Can't say if that would be the Intercontinental title or the other
brand's world title. Whatever title is 2nd best in the
promotion, this is when they would truly make whoever earn it by being
#1 in the standings by a deadline, which is best be the end of
February; likely the last ppv before Mania.
One gimmick promotions loves
to use to create to hype a new wrestler is an undefeated streak. Many
wrestlers have came in hot as an iron by going several months
undefeated like Ryback, Braun Strowman and CM Punk. Sadly enough once
a wrestler loses, the only means of hyping a winning streaking is
heavy coaxing from the commentating team or said wrestler. With a
season restarting every few months, the fans will see visually who is
hot during the new season without forced bragging by the wrestler or
commentating team to established this.
How I would imagine these
standings be shown weekly is by a scroll bar at the bottom of the
screen throughout the show. Don't be too forceful about it. When the
wrestler comes out right below their name have the W-L record shown
below. If their record is part of a storyline, hype it not and if not
just let it exist.
With all this hypothetical
nonsense, it's understandable something like this won't be
implemented. By no means is it a bad idea but it is a commitment.
Long term plans have huge payoffs though. Saying that, a great way I
think a W-L record can also be utilized is showing the record the
competing wrestlers have against each other. Definitely an easy way
to develop a story for a throwaway match. The commentators can ask if
the wrestler with more losses can finally make things even or if the
wrestler with more wins can maintain their dominance. These
statistics should be used as a launching point for storytelling.
Often they're used as a way to put certain wrestlers on a pedastol.
To me using statistics to do such a things can be effective but after
a certain point also comes out to be a wash. It's the same as asking
the question of who is richer: Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark after enough
comas does it matter? These are not stats with any substance.
Whatever the writer wants is the answer making the stat frankly
inflated. A great example is the concept of the Grand Slam Champion.
Sounds great. Grand Slam is an amazing thing to get in baseball but
wrestling it means winning four titles. Not just any four title um
just specific ones. Whichever ones that is changes every 6 months
since titles get thrown away or just lose their prestige I guess. In
baseball, a grandslam does not change so at least the prestige is
kept.
Treating wrestling like a
real sport is silly. The stats should be a tool, to continue a
program, not make it comparable to other professional leagues. Oh
yeah! Michael Jordan has 6 NBA Championships, well Ric Flair is a 16
time World Champion. It's cockamamie! The times Flair won the titles
is the same as the number of times he lost it unlike Jordan, who
never lost Championships. He could only earn them. The quick
quantitative stat speaks nothing as to the reigns themselves. It
always has bothered me. My idea for breaking wrestling into seasons
is just a means of making the standing many promotions want to have
purpose. There's many other different means of utilizing the seasons
too like when to have drafts or times wrestlers can have breaks
without a demeaning explanation to the fans. Hope you enjoyed this
hypothetical approach of giving wrestling a means to make a rankings
matter without strapping down creative control. Could a seasons model
be sustainable? Does win loss record attached to wrestler take away
the fun or give it another layer?
