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Do you think Vince ever looks at how over ECIII, Maria, Galloway, Lashley and others are and wonders why he let them go?
Vince tends to not look backward, only ahead. In the case of EC3, he probably didn’t know much about him since he was let go from developmental. I would like to think he would see the value in him now. The other three are people he has made his mind up on, and could have signed at later dates had he wanted to. That leads me to believe he is fine with the decisions he made where they are concerned, even if I don’t agree.
Being a lapsed viewer of pro wrestling since the demise of ECW and the rule of "should miss tv" until the rise of the Network, how in your mind will they make people care? The brand split is fine. But isn't over exposure a bit like shooting themselves in the foot? I love that I can watch an edited Raw on Hulu and never watch Smackdown. For an average person, there's already too much. How can we justify caring and committing so much time with such thin rosters (and matches we've seen ad nauseam) and little payoff?
You bring up a great point. Obviously, about a third of the people that watch Raw skip Smackdown. So that is an issue. To me, there are a few ways to make people care.
*Make each show very different and actually have the creative teams compete.
*Allow the talents to go back to being more realistic and less overly scripted.
*Start protecting the wrestlers again and realize the fans remember how you book guys in the past when you want to push them in the present.
*Keep the brands separate. Make it so if you want to see a talent on Smackdown, you have to watch it. If the products are unique, it could become more like Raw vs. Nitro.
At the end of the day, remember that during The Attitude Era, WWE did Raw and Smackdown and they had a really long streak of sellouts. The difference was the product was more interesting then. If they can can back to that, they could bring back fans. But they have to commit and make real changes.
I remember a match Demolition wrestled in Japan against Giant Baba and somebody else I can't remember when they were WWE tag champs. Were talents back then allowed to accept outside bookings while employed by WWE?
It was actually Tenryu and Koji Kitao. That is back when WWE had a working relationship with the SWS promotion in Japan and they sent talent to work there. Yes, it was all done under the auspices of The WWF.
From your perspective as a fan, which do you prefer to attend, a WWE televised show or a WWE house show?
Can I take the third option, a PPV? House shows tend to be by the numbers, which is fine for newer fans but at my age, I have been to enough of those. I would rather watch a TV taping on TV. Now PPVs, that is where you get more actually wrestling and often issues are actually being addressed, so I will go with PPVs.
So with Smackdown going live, and Raw is 3 hours. Will SD be going to 3 hours or stay 2?
At present, it will stay at two hours. For all that is holy, I hope it stays that way. Hell, I would like to see Raw go back to two hours.
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