It is obvious to everyone that smackdown has been dead and buried since 2007, viewership is never good and the only way the company knows to generate any interest is by flipping it between Thursday and fighting on Friday night Maggle. So how can we save smackdown?
One problem is that there is no need to watch Smackdown since everything relevant happens on Raw, the solution is to give Smackdown it's own storylines, angles and special interest but I am not suggesting a brand split, instead Smackdown should become "main roster developmental". NXT has always been the developmental show but in reality it's not, it's the indie darling hour. The only developmental stars on the show are American Alpha and Bayley, everyone else is not on that level yet and you have Balor, Nakamura and the TNA guys in or around the main event and with those big names it is impossible for a dev talent to get main event experience. So I would say do this
Put all the main event NXT stars on smackdown
NXT becomes developmental only, no TNA or NJPW guys, just indie guys and WWE homegrown
Any TNA or NJPW signing goes straight to Smackdown
Rising stars on NXT can go on Smackdown to get TV exposure but if they aren't ready they stay on NXT (think Sami Zayn)
The Smackdown main event stars can also work on NXT but rarely
If you really want to, have feuds running on both shows
Really over Smackdown main eventers will then be finally Raw only
Is there anything you would do differently?
>>1167169
Ever hear of Velocity? It was a pure developmental show with TV time. It didn't do well as far as I recall. A few names got pulled out of it then it got shut down.
I think the problem stands that Smackdown has TV time and they don't want to risk losing ratings on it. If you had people who were mid-under carding on smackdown for what you were suggesting I think it'd be fine then, but they'd still need to have the bigger names to make people interested in watching.
>>1167169
>It is obvious to everyone that smackdown has been dead and buried since 2007
funny thing is , this past month smackdown was better and more important that fucking RAW.
AJ/Jericho storyline was basically a smackdown one
>>1167178
Velocity and Heat were the Main Event and Superstars of the day.
>>1167178
But Velocity was on TV, a purely developmental NXT would be fine on the network. I get not wanting to risk ratings with Smackdown but that's why you'd put all the NJPW guys and US established TNA guys on there and have some NXT and Raw guys every now and then. This way you give Smackdown a different feel to Raw and you keep NXT as developmental.
>>1167198
Not everyone who watches WWE is going to have watched TNA and NJPW as well, so they'd need time to establish them there even. Let alone getting them in a comfortable place with the audience, why would that make Smackdown more attractive to watch? It'd become a second NXT, which while good, isn't exactly something you need to have for the whole company.
If it develops it's own feuds, you now have twice the amount of story to keep track of(should smackdown get any form of a push), which for some can start to get overwhelming. Let alone that whoevers in charge of the 'second' show is going to feel like they have to make it better, then it might get better, and all their talent goes to RAW.
The question's probably already discussed in WWE headquarters, more in terms of "Do we want to fix Smackdown?" or "If we get Smackdown it's own roster and stories, is there too much wrestling?" Over-saturation can be just as dangerous to a company as a failing product.
When Smackdown and RAW competed we can look back and say that it was great, because they were trying to outdo eachother. At the same time though, you'd get midcarders and undercarders who were only known as 'who', twice the roster size to try to keep track of, and confusing PPV's if you didn't keep up with both, or a lot of PPV's, not all of which you wanted to see.
>>1167169
Cancel it.
