WWE needs to seasonal

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 1^st place gets to come out as number 30, 2^nd as #29 and so on until 30^th 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 2^nd 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?