Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Last night's WWE NXT Takeover was an excellent show for a number of reasons, many of which Dave Scherer, Richard Trionfo and I covered in the different blogs, reports and audio discussions available here on PWInsider.com.
However, the two hour broadcast last night on the WWE Network should also be used as a learning tool by everyone who wants to seriously promote professional wrestling on a major league level, WWE and TNA especially.
There is a lot to be learned from the show and the reaction fans have had coming out of the event, especially when you compare the broadcast to the most recent episode of Impact Wrestling that aired last night and the most recent episode of Raw that aired on Monday.
Here are some lessons from Takeover that those in decision-making should take heed of going forward:
*The presentation of professional wrestling as a serious, athletic sport. Compare how NXT was presented to most weeks of Raw and Impact, where long, drawn-out and often bloated talking segments leave the audience sitting on their hands, feeling like extras at a TV shoot. Last night, it was all about serious athletes fighting for the only reason a professional wrestler should be fighting for a living - to win, to become champion or to get revenge. As much as wrestlers are "characters", at their core, every single one of them should want to win, because it's how they make their money. Think about how many fans are talking about Takeover today and the nucleus of that discussion and that appreciation was what happened in the ring. You can still, in 2014, use wrestling to sell wrestling, no matter what anyone really "believes" fans want.
*The higher-up we go on the card, the more serious the issue should be. Takeover started out with lighthearted Adam Rose facing Camacho. Then, we went to The Ascension vs. The Luchas in a tag bout that had no real issue beyond the challengers wanted to win the titles. Then, as we moved into a grudge match that doubled as a number one contender's bout, a battle of family legacies that filled the Women's title and finally, a NXT title bout that the challenger could not afford to lose if he wanted to rebound his career and save faith, everything was presented as more and more important. From the big fight feel of the ring announcements, to the seriousness on the competitors' faces to the hard fought mat wrestling, everything was serious and important. No one was here to entertain, they were here to win. Compare that to most episodes of Raw and Impact.
*If you tell a good story, size and gender does not matter. If Tyson Kidd vs. Adrian Neville had been broadcast on the main roster a year ago, chances are it would have been on Main Event or Superstars and seen by a fairly minuscule amount of fans in comparison to the major WWE shows, because they are smaller than what "WWE Superstars" are traditionally supposed to be. If Natalya vs. Charlotte took place a year ago, chances are it would have been three minutes including ring entrances because they are "Divas." In TNA, the matches would have been compounded by the women calling each other skanks as part of some badly acted lesbian zombie storyline or the guys would have been told to go do as many spots as they can in six minutes so Dixie Carter can have 35 minutes to talk...because after all, they aren't stars. Last night showed that not only are all the old arguments as to what a star is in pro wrestling completely antiquated, they were bullshit to begin with. In one night, Charlotte became a franchise for NXT. With one match, Tyson Kidd became an interesting character. If you tell the right story with the right talents, it doesn't matter who they are or what their size or gender is. If your writers can't come up with the right stories, it's not the talent's fault - it's the writers.
*Wrestling for the sake of wrestling is good. Too often, matches with good physical, athletic potential get shitcanned timewise because there are so many other things to promote and push and so many stars that have to have TV time. By doing so, those in power prevent the audience from watching that diamond in the rough and prevent those diamonds from having the chance to develop week to week. Tyler Breeze was always a decent character who had never had the chance to really have a match that would showcase him as a legitimate player in NXT and a potential top name. Imagine if WWE had told he and Sami Zayn to go out on Raw and gave them five minutes instead of what we had last night? We would have been deprived of not just a good match, but of seeing Breeze grab onto and capture his moment to show everyone that he's not just a Rick Martel knockoff gimmick.
*You have to let babyfaces be pure babyfaces. In today's day and age of everyone having to be "cool" and "smart-asses" no matter their role, it makes me appreciate a guy like Sami Zayn even more as the closest thing to what Ricky Steamboat was in the 1980s - a likeable, hard-working hero who fights to win, but even if he loses, you respect him for fighting the good fight and want to see him rebound. There are far too few characters like Zayn in pro wrestling today and that's a shame. It should be corrected, immediately. We need some heroes to fight the good fight.
*You don't need the props. Last night's Impact was partially built around whether Bully Ray would put people through tables. Sure, he got Rockstar Spud, but will it matter in a week? No. Why? The props are overdone and have been forever. Last night, NXT Takeover didn't use one chair. They didn't break one table. There weren't any foreign objects used. Villains were still villains and there were still wins and losses, but we didn't need extracurricular activities to get to the ending. Less is more. NXT showed that. Let's put the trash cans down.
*Kill the talking segments and backstage vignettes. Since the advent of the Monday Night Wars, pro wrestling has been presented as this action-adventure "B" Movie drama and with that comes a lot of wasted talking segments, silly backstage vignettes and a lot of fluff that really, in the end, only serves to slow down the flow of the show and give people a reason to want to click the channel. It's way beyond past the time to freshen things up. Last night, there was only one in-ring promo - Paige's - and it was the former NXT Women's champion praising the fans who made her a star and putting over the title as something that was worth fighting for - it wasn't an awesome promo but it served it's purpose. It legitimized the belt and the battle that was about to take place. Beyond that, there was nothing happening backstage beyond athletes preparing for or heading to battle. Compare that to the numerous Impact Wrestling talking segments about abuse of power and boards of directors that no one has ever seen or cares about. Which do you think made more of a mark on the viewers when the show was over? NXT's presentation made the broadcast feel like a fight card, not a vaudeville show. I challenge Impact and Raw to spend one episode doing the exact same. They'd be shocked how fresh it would make things feel.
*Announcers calling wrestling. The role of the wrestling announcer has changed greatly since the days of Boyd Pierce and Gordon Solie. While announcers were always charged with not just getting over the talent and the stories but also shilling the tickets and later on PPV orders, in the last decade or so, it's gotten so far away from calling the action and become more about being a personality on the show. In doing so, it's stretched credibility and taken away a strong asset that traditionally had been used to build, reinforce and repair credibility. The NXT announcing team last night showed that the art of wrestling announcing isn't dead - it's just not regularly being utilized. In many ways, it was the best called WWE broadcast since Jim Ross and Mick Foley were calling Smackdown, and in some ways, better, because it was all about telling the stories that the wrestlers were relating with their physicality. It's great to push products and joke and ask questions for your audience to wonder about, but it's equally (and in many cases) far more important to tell your audience what is going on, why, why it's so important. As much as I like the work of Mike Tenay, Taz, JBL, Michael Cole, etc., it's impossible to deny how they could benefit from what Tom Phillips, William Regal and Byron Saxton did last night.
*The Post-Game Show is important. Most weeks, the Raw Post-Game show is an exercize in wasting time with talking heads giving meaningless one-liners. They never really, truly follow up on what we saw on the USA Network. TNA used to do post-PPV videos on Youtube but abandoned them a long time ago. Last night's excellent NXT Fallout showed that they can be done right, without being overly scripted, and add a lot to the characters (Tyson Kidd, Natalya), to the prestige of titles (NXT Women's title) and to the brand (Triple H appearing as a mix of UFC's Dana White and Paul Heyman in his ECW era). It helped tell the tale and showcase that while the matches were over, their effect on the competitors was not. Nothing was forgotten. Nothing was meaningless. When was the last time we could saw the same for TNA or Raw?
NXT Takeover provided a great few hours of pro wrestling. It should, however, also provide a lot of food for thought for those in positions of power within pro wrestling. For all the excuses of why certain things can't or won't work, they did last night...on a show presented by WWE. The old excuses are no longer valid. It's time to learn.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
