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Old 02-21-2018, 04:19 PM   #1
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Forbes: SD sucks and needs to change - do you agree?

Good article from Forbes, I agree

Quote:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeoe.../#2b2740cf67b3


WWE SmackDown has stuck with the same format since last last year's Superstar Shakeup: Too much Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon, an overexposed duo of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens and poor use of top stars like Shinsuke Nakamura. The predictable presentation of the blue brand is far from tried and true. It's more like boring and redundant, and it's alienating fans at a rapid pace.


Viewership for SmackDown has dropped for all seven episodes in 2018, dipping to 2.449 million viewers last week after averaging 2.72 million viewers on January 2nd. The February 13th episode marked the blue brand's lowest average viewership since October 2017 and further demonstrated why the current structure of SmackDown isn't working for WWE, its superstars or its fans. Perhaps the biggest issue with SmackDown is its over-reliance on the "SmackDown Four" of Owens, Zayn, Bryan and Shane, who often open and close the show in some way, shape or form. It's not uncommon for a typical episode of SmackDown to begin with some combination of those four stars in a promo segment that ultimately leads to that episode's main event but takes far too much time to get there. While Owens and Zayn are great talents who deserve to be featured prominently, WWE has gone way past overexposure with these two into full-blown and unnecessary overuse.


Ditto for Bryan and Shane, who have taken up so much TV time that AJ Styles, Nakamura and Rusev were inexplicably left off last week's episode (and the latter two were left off again this week), which is becoming increasingly more commonplace. After all, it wouldn't be an episode of SmackDown if the blue brand didn't leave off a number of top stars, like Bobby Roode, Randy Orton, Baron Corbin or the Bludgeon Brothers, right?





The lack of TV time for SmackDown's rising stars, including everyone from Rusev to Nakamura to Corbin, is ultimately a microcosm of the show's biggest problem: Dependence on stars who have already been established. But don't expect that to change anytime soon as WWE will soon be switching to dual-brand PPVs, which will ultimately result in even less TV and pay-per-view time for any star who isn't an upper midcarder or main eventer. Ideally, the opposite would be true, and the return to dual-brand PPVs would force WWE to use its TV time more wisely and do so by featuring its midcard, lower card and female superstars more prominently on a weekly basis.


What we've really seen, however, is that WWE seems unwilling to build up legitimate singles rivalries, instead thrusting as many people as possible into a feud, reportedly in order to "keep fans guessing" about what will happen next. But most fans, especially diehard ones, know what's coming and can see through all the smoke and mirrors in order to realize that SmackDown, in particular, has been virtually incapable of creating riveting rivalries. It's almost become expected for SmackDown to throw all of its female superstars into six-woman tag team matches every week, just like it's a safe bet that at least two or three major superstars will be left off the show each week without any rhyme or reason. That, of course, could explain why viewership has plummeted literally every single week this year and/or why the WWE Network subscriber count has completely plateaued, with little signs of that changing, except at WrestleMania time.


Not only does SmackDown desperately need another Superstar Shakeup that reestablishes a balance of power between the brands, but it needs a complete overhaul of the way its show is formatted and its superstars are booked. It starts with decreasing the amount of TV time allocated for the "SmackDown Four" and giving more of that time to midcarders, tag teams and female superstars, but there is a multitude of other changes that could be made: Fewer drawn-out promos, more singles rivalries, pushing superstars who get over and sell merchandise (think Rusev), etc.


It's not rocket science here. It's simply doing what is best for the brand, and that's moving on from a show dominated by four stars who clearly aren't attracting enough fans. After all, if that's not working, why not try to fix it?
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:34 PM   #2
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I think the show was just really hurt by the Jinder Mahal era. It's been hard to recover from it but I think they are on their way.

The women's division has just fallen apart, though.
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:35 PM   #3
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Definitely not going to be helped by dual brand PPVs or a "superstar shakeup", though.
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:36 PM   #4
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This seems to imply that Raw has a different, more unpredictable formula. It doesn't. It just has the bigger stars.
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:43 PM   #5
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It is weird that SD will go several weeks at a time w/o popular wrestlers like AJ, Rusev, Nakamura etc...but always squeezes in that DBry/Shane feud that will have zero payoff.

The last women's storyline on SD was James Ellsworth winning the MITB briefcase.
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:51 PM   #6
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Would be cool to keep the main guys off TV weekly and not overexpose them if they were using that free time to push midcard guys to be main "draws" of the weekly show. Old school tactic. It seems they're using the free time to overexpose Zayn, Owens, Bryan and Shane though.
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Old 02-21-2018, 05:02 PM   #7
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The D-Bry/Shane stuff does feel very weird, especially if it isnt going to lead to a match. Was "refreshing" to see them cooperating and just going about the business of eunning the show without getting too involved or invested.
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Old 02-21-2018, 05:38 PM   #8
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I'd agree. Outside of the tag division, rest of Smackdown is either in a mess or lagging in quality and its been that way for too long.

Nakamura winning the Rumble should have been the start of him being heavily pushed as the next top star of the brand but instead he's been pushed to the side for the never ending Shane-Bryan storyline and Top 10 storyline involving the US title. WWE title feud is in a mess because WWE wanted to cram more people into it and the Women's division is back to doing meaningless multi-women matches again.
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Old 02-21-2018, 08:03 PM   #9
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Mostly fair points, and many of them also applicable to RAW.

There is a real lack of main eventers, and the ones they have tried to make aren't neccesarily the right ones. The amount of effort which has been wasted on Jinder Mahal and Baron Corbin for example, despite them both being pretty terrible.

Meanwhile there has been a degree of missed potential as well. Breezango was actually doing ok with the whole Fashion Files thing but it never went anywhere. Lots of effort put into the Bludgeon Brothers, but that is really just a tag team thrown together because they can't think of anything to do with either of them (Luke Harper's split from Bray Wyatt last year was an utterly wasted opportunity and should have been delayed rather than becoming part of someone else's feud which was so forgettable I can't even remember who it was).

At the end of the day, the main problem remains that the WWE still sees it a the 'B' show. The RAW roster is the priority and gets the majority of the main stars and the focus. Despite Nakamura winning the rumble, there is no possibility that it will actually be the main event and the dual branded PPVs is only going to make this worse. Does anyone remember how infrequently the Smackdown World Title used to open the shows on PPVs with the original brand split?

Although despite all of this, I'd still rather watch Smackdown than Raw.
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Old 02-21-2018, 08:06 PM   #10
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Also, they're over using Shane.

When Shane came back it was a big deal because it was so unexpected, but he should be kept back for doing one mad stunt at the occasional PPV.

He'd work a lot better if he was used like Stephanie, with his appearance on the show being unusal and a bigger deal rather than the day to day. That should be Daniel Bryan's role.
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Old 02-22-2018, 04:56 AM   #11
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The WWE product, in general, feels worn through. SmackDown is tired and it feels like non-wrestlers and mid-carders are the focus of the show, but Raw is tired at this point too. The brand split does not help, but it's not like the product was great in 2015 either.
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Old 02-22-2018, 03:27 PM   #12
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SmackDown has way too much focus on Kevin Owens.

It actually is "The Kevin Owens Show (featuring Sami Zayn)".

I find myself skipping a massive chunk of SmackDown now because it's just non-stop Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. It's horrible.

For so long after the brand split, SmackDown was the A-Show but those days seem a lifetime away now. Even the women's division has gotten worse and that used to be so good. I don't understand why there's such a big focus on just two people and these two people aren't even the WWE Champion or the Royal Rumble winner.

The focus should be with them but instead, we've got the champion playing second fiddle and a Royal Rumble winner who's went AWOL.

The mid-card scene is also suffering as we've got a terrible angle involving the US Championship which has three men bitching about a Top 10 list. The women's division is just a big clusterfuck, as week in, week out, we have all (or most) of the women piled into the ring swapping victories that lead to nowhere, and as for the rest, they've either fallen off the face of the earth, such as Mojo for example, who looked to be going somewhere but suddenly vanished, or they have a match or two every now and then before dissapearing again, such as Ziggler, Corbin, Dillinger and Rusev.
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Old 02-22-2018, 03:59 PM   #13
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The only segments I end up watching are the tag division and KO/Sami when it's not to do with authority figures. AJ rarely wrestles and there was no tag focus last episode, so fuck it.

I don't find it to tally unwatchable like I do most of Raw, but it's mostly utterly shit.
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Old 02-22-2018, 04:22 PM   #14
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Vince: Send in the big show and the great kahli to fix the problem!
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Old 02-22-2018, 05:10 PM   #15
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RAW has 1 really good match and suddenly its SD that needs to change
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Old 02-22-2018, 05:11 PM   #16
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RAW also stinks.
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Old 02-23-2018, 03:32 AM   #17
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Raw does also stink, but this shouldn't be an excuse for SmackDown stinking.
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Old 02-23-2018, 10:47 AM   #18
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Brand splits don't work because they refuse to treat them as two separate promotions. Smackdown should be WCW and ran similar to how NXT is now. NXT should go back to being the development promotion.
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Old 02-23-2018, 10:59 AM   #19
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That would be a better way of running things, but the WCW name is dead. Maybe enough time has gone for a revival to avoid stank, but it's probably just not worth it.
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Old 02-23-2018, 11:13 AM   #20
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Stank? Do you see what you type sometimes? How would WWE bringing back the WCW name have any stank on it? It's not like it would be the same company it was before and even then I don't understand how it has stank.
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Old 02-23-2018, 12:11 PM   #21
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I don’t get the point in bringing back the WCW name but I agree that they do too little to differentiate the 2 bands. SDL is just RAW Lite; same format, same tropes, smaller stars.
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Old 02-23-2018, 12:12 PM   #22
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There is some "stank" involved in the WCW name given how it ended and how the invasion went. The only plus to bringing it back as a brand is to feed off of whatever nostalgia the network has generated for it. But that's not enough to make it worth it. Especially if it's replacing a Smackdown brand that WWE is already pretty heavily invested in.
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Old 02-23-2018, 12:48 PM   #23
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Maybe some "stank" from the invasion but I don't see how a new WCW would carry any from the previous incarnation. Especially since it wouldn't involve anyone who had anything to do with it. It doesn't have to be WCW but it definitely needs to be ran as a separate promotion and I don't think the name Smackdown represents that idea. WCW is just their most well known property to use if they were to do a roster split correctly in my opinion.
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Old 02-23-2018, 07:20 PM   #24
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Stank? Do you see what you type sometimes? How would WWE bringing back the WCW name have any stank on it? It's not like it would be the same company it was before and even then I don't understand how it has stank.
They've spent years telling their audience that WCW was a hick company that always made bad financial decisions, got lucky, and then had a slow death because of incompetence. As recently as WrestleMania 31 they went out of their way to make sure that WWE was perceived as superior.

And if your plan is to bring back WCW as a completely different entity -- what's the point of using the initials WCW?
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Old 02-23-2018, 07:21 PM   #25
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It needs to be run separately -- I agree with that much.
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Old 02-23-2018, 08:53 PM   #26
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Forgot about the fact that WWE even basically brought Sting in just to give one last "lolWCW".

Yeah. If you wanna separate the brands entirely, separate the brands entirely. Don't attach the "WCW" name to one though
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Old 02-23-2018, 09:16 PM   #27
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They've spent years telling their audience that WCW was a hick company that always made bad financial decisions, got lucky, and then had a slow death because of incompetence. As recently as WrestleMania 31 they went out of their way to make sure that WWE was perceived as superior.

And if your plan is to bring back WCW as a completely different entity -- what's the point of using the initials WCW?
That's the point though, WWE has to be superior. Just like Raw is superior to Smackdown although they do their best to tell you its not. Trying to make them compete with one another hasn't worked out and is pointless. Needs to be set up like a farm system, NXT/WCW/WWE.

The point of using the WCW initials is for the name recognition.
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Old 02-23-2018, 09:53 PM   #28
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Except they've spent years and years telling its audience that WCW = crappy.
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Old 02-23-2018, 10:04 PM   #29
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I mean if thats the way you've taken it I guess but I just haven't seen it that way. Especially in recent years with t hem putting WCW stars in the Hall of Fame and the use of Sting and Goldberg. Plus they've spent years making their own product crappy so I don't see why it would matter.
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Old 02-23-2018, 10:05 PM   #30
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The Rise and Fall of WCW should tell you exactly what they want you to think of WCW.
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Old 02-23-2018, 10:09 PM   #31
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I mean if thats the way you've taken it I guess but I just haven't seen it that way. Especially in recent years with t hem putting WCW stars in the Hall of Fame and the use of Sting and Goldberg. Plus they've spent years making their own product crappy so I don't see why it would matter.
It's the canon of the story they've been telling.
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Old 02-24-2018, 11:32 AM   #32
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I mean if thats the way you've taken it I guess but I just haven't seen it that way. Especially in recent years with t hem putting WCW stars in the Hall of Fame and the use of Sting and Goldberg. Plus they've spent years making their own product crappy so I don't see why it would matter.
I think it's pretty clear that your opinions differ from the majority a lot of the time (not saying you're wrong, just that you have a different opinion).


They don't need to rebrand it; most fans would still know it's run by WWE, they need to re-imagine what they want from it.


At the minute it's very standard fare; World Title, Midcard Title, Women's Title, Tag Title. Authority figure making the matches at the top of the show, getting too involved with storylines.


It's exactly the same set up as Raw, and pretty much any other company since the 90s. SmackDown is Raw Lite, and Impact is Diet Raw Lite.


Look at the buzz coming out of last week's Raw because they did something different.


The original brand split (for all it's faults) had a very defined line; Raw for the over-the-top storylines and personalities, SmackDown for the wrestling. Times have changed and most fans will expect great in-ring action on any show but that doesn't mean you can't differentiate the product.


What makes the US Championship different to the IC, aside from how it looks? What makes SDL different to Raw?


They could take a similar approach to the GM role as they have with NXT; you only see Regal to make a quick announcement, or if some real shit goes down. He doesn't come out at the top of every show to book that night's main event.


They could really throw some shit at the wall to see what sticks, this is the show they should be taking risks with if they feel they can't with Raw.


The Top 10 List is a thing, but not if it's just a device to facilitate a single US Title programme.


They could bring in elements of the Cyber Sunday/Taboo Tuesday idea with matches voted on by fans; they could open the Top 10 thing to fans if they genuinely want to get a feel for who's popular (I know, I know, they don't).


SmackDown is the "Land of Opportunity", right? Scrap the US Title (or reformat it), to something similar to the FCW 15 Championship with guys competing in 15 minute (or more) "Ironman" matches, then set the challenge that if the champion can defend it 15 times he automatically becomes Number 1 Contender to the World Title. So many ways to play that out, and there's your standard build towards the main event that the IC title represented back in the day.


Guy A wins the belt, defends it 15 times, challenges the World Champ. Wins.
Guy A wins the belt, defends it 15 times, challenges the World Champ. Loses.
Guy A wins the belt again, defends it 15 times, challenges the World Champ again. Wins this time.
Guy A wins the belt, defends it 14 times, gets screwed by Guy B
Guy A wins the belt, defends it 15 times, challenges the World Champ, screwed by the guy that he beat for the belt.
Guy A wins the belt, loses it next match.
Guys A/B/C/D/E/F/etc win belt but nobody can get past [INSERT NUMBER HERE] retentions until one guy eventually does.


So may possibilities you can cycle through.


That's one idea that will provide you with a TV segment every week if you like for the next 2 years and provides a platform for midcard guys (or former Main Eventers that have been denied another shot at the World Title).
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Old 02-24-2018, 09:27 PM   #33
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Supposedly WWE is fully aware Smackdown has serious problems although don't have a real solution in sight. One big reason is due to some in management caring a lot more about the record revenues they recently hit. Same for their focus being more towards RAW and fixing sagging PPV sales.

https://www.ringsidenews.com/2018/02...mackdown-live/
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