Post by JTG on Apr 7, 2019 10:11:26 GMT -5
There's been a lot of take as of late regarding the immense talent pool WWE has under their belt, specifically with regards to how certain men and women should be booked. With only two main roster shows in Raw and Smackdown, there leaves a lot to be desired with wrestlers that have more to offer than what they've been given on their respective shows. Superstars such as Samoa Joe, Andrade, Asuka, Bobby Roode, Chad Gable, Shinsuke Nakamura, Rusev, Ember Moon, EC3, Harper, Bray Wyatt, Sanity, and to a lesser extent someone like Drew McIntyre seemingly get lost in the shuffle a lot. It seems as though in a lot of these cases it's the classic "creative doesn't have anything for you" type of situation so they're stuck on Main Event or sometimes not booked on a show at all. At that end, is it worth it for WWE to consider formally creating a legit main roster third brand?
I understand NXT could and probably should take that reign. Some people will likely argue it already is a legit third brand. My argument against this is that NXT has a good thing going with their current format. At it's core it truly is a developmental brand and it doesn't seem as though the powers that be are willing to embrace it as anything more than that anytime soon. It's proven time and time again that it's a solid and efficient method of getting wrestlers ready for the main roster. Due to this, I'm apprehensive of NXT taking on that mantel as it could ultimately be detrimental to NXT's own brand equity as that cooler, borderline underground-esque show that it's become.
A third brand can help thin out the existing main rosters and allow the men and women that are more or less in WWE limbo to find their footing and gain more exposure. A roster of at least 30 people could easily be created out of the existing Raw, Smackdown and NXT rosters. I understand they've dabbled with this to an extent with something like 205Live or even WWECW before it, each of which have had their own struggles in becoming established as a brand. Obviously WWECW had a variety of reasons why it failed. I also fully understand that this would not be an easy task as suddenly WWE is now looking for an additional (ideally) 2-hours of TV time on network television, which could be a hard sell. It makes me wonder if there could be an opportunity in placing this third main roster show exclusively on the Network in an effort to increase subscriptions.
It would absolutely be a gamble and I won't pretend to know all of the semantics that would have to go into the creation of a brand new weekly program. This is simply something that has been in the back of my mind for a while now, and thought I'd see what other fans think of the idea and how WWE might be able to pull something like this off to help let their lesser utilized superstars showcase their talents on a weekly basis.
I understand NXT could and probably should take that reign. Some people will likely argue it already is a legit third brand. My argument against this is that NXT has a good thing going with their current format. At it's core it truly is a developmental brand and it doesn't seem as though the powers that be are willing to embrace it as anything more than that anytime soon. It's proven time and time again that it's a solid and efficient method of getting wrestlers ready for the main roster. Due to this, I'm apprehensive of NXT taking on that mantel as it could ultimately be detrimental to NXT's own brand equity as that cooler, borderline underground-esque show that it's become.
A third brand can help thin out the existing main rosters and allow the men and women that are more or less in WWE limbo to find their footing and gain more exposure. A roster of at least 30 people could easily be created out of the existing Raw, Smackdown and NXT rosters. I understand they've dabbled with this to an extent with something like 205Live or even WWECW before it, each of which have had their own struggles in becoming established as a brand. Obviously WWECW had a variety of reasons why it failed. I also fully understand that this would not be an easy task as suddenly WWE is now looking for an additional (ideally) 2-hours of TV time on network television, which could be a hard sell. It makes me wonder if there could be an opportunity in placing this third main roster show exclusively on the Network in an effort to increase subscriptions.
It would absolutely be a gamble and I won't pretend to know all of the semantics that would have to go into the creation of a brand new weekly program. This is simply something that has been in the back of my mind for a while now, and thought I'd see what other fans think of the idea and how WWE might be able to pull something like this off to help let their lesser utilized superstars showcase their talents on a weekly basis.