WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) A company that it's main target audience is kids 7-12. But I would like to look back in the past:
WWE 1980's - WWF. We had the colorful cartoons brought to life. Every character was bright - Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, etc. Al dressed in bright colors. We always had good vs evil and it's target audience was surprise, surprise, kids aged 7-12. Shocker right? Back when WWE had some connection to the NWA, it had some great competitors, but it's talent was big, muscly men, look at Hogan, Andre, Big John, all jacked up guys. Kids loved the show, they enjoyed the colorful athletes, the good vs bad and triumphant wins over the bad guys.
This happened until along cam WCW, funded by Ted Turner, it began to spring up, Bill Watts brought in some great competitors to the industry, and he focused on the sport of wrestling, which brought in a different audience to WWE (Then WWF), teens and adults (18-34) came to see stars compete. This was all well and good, but Bill had a lot of disputes with the network, and ultimately left. Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes had a shot, but didn't quite met expectations.
WCW then hired on Eric Bishoff, who was amazingly talented at booking, and brought on some good stars. Bishoff then took a different approach to WWE, having characters like they had, but rather than making them animated characters come to life, Bishoff brought reality to sports entertainment. We had the nWo, Goldberg, tag teams like Road Warriors and other greats
So at this point we had WWE - Targeted Kids with their generic storylines, colorful characters. And on the other side we had WCW who targeted Kids, Teens and Adults with their product. Now it doesn't take a genius to tell you this, but WCW dominated Monday Night Wrestling. WWE were at a point we they could lose the network. Bishoff had McMahon by the balls and forced the change that won. WWE became more adult focused, with the Montreal Screwjob done, McMahon brought in a more raunchy, adult themed promotion - the birth of the attitude era. We had more blade jobs, we had more extreme matches, we had better quality storylines. WCW still dominated, but WWE came up fast in the ratings. Bishoff took a change and saw this upcoming WWE and decided to do something, an unwritten rule, leak the results of tapped shows. This shot down WWE. However Bishoff left his focus on creating great storylines and moved to making matches and story's to beat WWE in ratings. Goldberg, the biggest draw for WCW won the title in his hometown, and this was a big mistake. With Bishoff focusing on ratings, Kevin Nash took over booking, and they ended the streak of Goldberg, which left hardly a draw for WCW and WWE took over the ratings.
Smackdown - Thunder. WCW Thunder was made for WCW as a 2nd show. WCW Nitor ranked top and WCW Thunder was around 6th most watched. With no draw to WCW, they brought in Double J, Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett thought he was bigger than he was and created a big expenditure, which further dragged WCW down and allowed WWE to beat WCW in the ratings, with the leakage of WWE result saying Mankind would win the title, cost WCW the lead and lost them in ratings.
WCW Closed as well as ECW, who aided WWE during the Monday Night Wars only to be kicked off of TNN by WWE. WWE had a huge roster, they acquired the rights to both WCW and ECW, and united various titles on the show. We had two brands, RAW & Smackdown. Bishoff was brought on as creative & Heyman was brought to commentate but left due in 2001.
Smackdown back then is way different to the Smackdown we have today. Smackdown back then had a variety of wrestlers and wrestled under exclusive brands, and for this they had titles for each division on each brand. They had wrestlers who could actually wrestle, acquiring cruiserweights from WCW, and mid-carders from WCW (who were main eventers on ECW). WWE combined them and had a cruiserweight division on Smackdown, a very decent tag division thanks to ECW & WCW tag teams being brought on, a good mid-card division using ECW superstars and WCW superstars and a Main Event division with the undisputed championship. RAW had likewise a Decent tag division, mostly their own tag teams, with the WCW tag title on the brand renamed the world tag team championship. A Womens division with their own women wrestlers and those from ECW and some from WCW. A Mid-card division mainly of their own, as the title was WWE's title, Intercontinental, and the Main-Event division with the WCW World Heavyweight Championship using a lot of their own stars and some from WCW.
With the divisions, and a mega roster, Bishoff added to creative we had two damn good brands. Exclusive PPV's allowed for builds on both brands. Smackdown despite being tapped was watched, even when RAW went to live shows weekly. WWE went up and up all until 2005, when Eric Bishoff and some other members of the creative team left.
2005-Decline: WWE lost a lot of stars, big stars like Lesnar, Goldberg, and to compensate moved some over from Smackdown to RAW, John Cena and in return received some mid carders. WWE Smackdown lost a lot of it's build and viewers because of this. WWE hired on some talent and put virtually all of them onto Smackdown, to keep RAW with decent talent.
2006 - Loss of more main eventers: Christian, Jericho, Kurt Angle, Scott Steiner, Mick Foley. Big stars meant WWE had to pick up more stars and where from? Smackdown. But Smackdown had a bunch of mid-carders, so RAW took on some mid-carders meaning a smaller main-event division. Storylines became generic and the move back to the USA Network meant a lot more censorship.
ECW - This was a pull back, bringing Heyman and various ECW Stars back brought in Hardcore fans and adult fans, and ratings went up and up, because adult fans began viewing. Because of the success it became a brand. And Heyman was given creative control. ECW gained great success until it moved to Scyfy. WWE moved it their, as they began targeting kids again. ECW was censored. Heyman's rule of every match was under extreme rules was revoked with the move and Heyman left, and thus began the decline of the brand.
2007- There was a spark, McMahon actually hit a gold mine. What was that, something that appealed to adults - D-Generation X. Was insanely popular back in the 90's and brought back adult fans to WWE. But this meant Smackdown had less heat, and showed various recaps and vignettes for RAW. The Diva division declined and had no storyline on it, Bishoff's storyline of Jericho & Christian with Lita & Trish had great ratings then the move to Mickie James with Trish retained good interest in the women's division. Then what happened when he left, the division went to the pits. The tag division decline with the Dudleyz vs Undertaker as no one competed against them
The decline fell further and further, ECW closed and they brought in NXT, which in it's first year generated some interest, however after seeing the repeat in the following season it lost viewers fast. RAW and Smackdown targeted kids again, with juvenile storylines and went back to good vs bad
McMahon struck gold again, Randy Orton, the biggest heel to beat up the McMahon Family and who would come to the rescue? Triple H? Wha? Not John Cena? Despite this, the feud drew in a good crowd as it reflected on Bishoff's faction he pushed, Evolution, and brought back some adult fans. The feud ended at Wrestlemania and with it lost some fans with the push of John Cena again who was drawing in all the kids.
Since then it continued to decline and with the birth of TNA a few years back and seeing a lot of WCW/ECW Superstars on that roster, the adult audience headed over to there. The tag division had died out that they dropped the two titles, and unified them to one as they did with the Divas Belt and Women's Belt. Smackdown began airing more and more raw recaps and to save it, we had CM Punk, Edge & The Undertaker on it. The cruiserwight title was canceled years ago with the majority of the stars heading back to Japan and other promotions due to no tv time.
WWE Brought back The Rock, which in turn brought back adult fans for Cena vs Rock, the current fan base vs the old fan base. And it was pure gold, and got ratings up. After Wrestlemania, they introduced Lesnar which kept the fans interested until they had him job to Cena at Extreme Rules.
Where did Bishoff go? TNA of course. Bishoff moved to TNA to work in creative, not the business side, as that is one of the mistakes that killed WCW. TNA had some great storylines and some ongoing ones, we had the Main Event Mafia, despite being seen as an nWo, was quite the draw. Crimson, the Goldberg of TNA, which drew in a lot. And today's storylines with Aces of 8's, Storm vs Roose. Bishoff does what WWE had, great main event storylines without over shadowing the rest of the roster. WWE on the otherhand has that many CM Punk segments and John Cena segments that the majority of mid/lower carders are on tapped shows like Smackdown and Superstars.
To compensate the lose, WWE renovated NXT which lost so much interest into a now decent brand, with upcoming stars who can actually wrestle and have a place to hone their skills.
WWE then makes the move to further expose their brand, social media, and expansion with other shows.
WWE Today Targets Kids. So what has changed? Since 1980's it has undergone a change from Cartoon Characters which were big in the 80's to today with WCW influenced characters and ECW styled events. What is left of WWF, one thing, it's target audience.
With no competitor, WWE can do what it wants, but the ongoing expansion is not an option.
RAW - 3 Hour show - Tag Division is growing, provided they keep the teams together longer than 3 months. Main Event stars are overexposed. Womens division, There is one? Mid-Card Division. there is none, the US title is a hand-me-down at the moment
Smackdown - Aka the Raw Recap show. Lower carders and Sheamus star here. It is a shell of what it once was. Used to get themselves over WCW and it's brand Thunder. I say shut it down, there is no need for it anymore, Cut back on CM Punk/John Cena and give some lift to mid/lower carders
NXT - Decent show, very decent. Attracts older audience at it follows NWA, it is based in a region.
Superstars - Again a place for lower carders to work,
Main Event - Used to further RAW & Smackdown. 3 Hours isn't enough for RAW, CM Punk comes out at least 3 times a night. Smackdown is just replays, there is no need to further replays
Saturday Morning Slam - A way to get kids to watch, as kids awake to watch Cartoons saturday morning this show was created to drag kids to them
WWE will stay at it's current state until they get a competitor. WWE is a monopoly in Sports Entertainment and know they can do what they wish. I do hope there is an investment into another wrestling promotion to be put on Monday Night Television to combat WWE and force another change to target a wider audience or Close the company.
Phew, had to get this off my chest
WWE 1980's - WWF. We had the colorful cartoons brought to life. Every character was bright - Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, etc. Al dressed in bright colors. We always had good vs evil and it's target audience was surprise, surprise, kids aged 7-12. Shocker right? Back when WWE had some connection to the NWA, it had some great competitors, but it's talent was big, muscly men, look at Hogan, Andre, Big John, all jacked up guys. Kids loved the show, they enjoyed the colorful athletes, the good vs bad and triumphant wins over the bad guys.
This happened until along cam WCW, funded by Ted Turner, it began to spring up, Bill Watts brought in some great competitors to the industry, and he focused on the sport of wrestling, which brought in a different audience to WWE (Then WWF), teens and adults (18-34) came to see stars compete. This was all well and good, but Bill had a lot of disputes with the network, and ultimately left. Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes had a shot, but didn't quite met expectations.
WCW then hired on Eric Bishoff, who was amazingly talented at booking, and brought on some good stars. Bishoff then took a different approach to WWE, having characters like they had, but rather than making them animated characters come to life, Bishoff brought reality to sports entertainment. We had the nWo, Goldberg, tag teams like Road Warriors and other greats
So at this point we had WWE - Targeted Kids with their generic storylines, colorful characters. And on the other side we had WCW who targeted Kids, Teens and Adults with their product. Now it doesn't take a genius to tell you this, but WCW dominated Monday Night Wrestling. WWE were at a point we they could lose the network. Bishoff had McMahon by the balls and forced the change that won. WWE became more adult focused, with the Montreal Screwjob done, McMahon brought in a more raunchy, adult themed promotion - the birth of the attitude era. We had more blade jobs, we had more extreme matches, we had better quality storylines. WCW still dominated, but WWE came up fast in the ratings. Bishoff took a change and saw this upcoming WWE and decided to do something, an unwritten rule, leak the results of tapped shows. This shot down WWE. However Bishoff left his focus on creating great storylines and moved to making matches and story's to beat WWE in ratings. Goldberg, the biggest draw for WCW won the title in his hometown, and this was a big mistake. With Bishoff focusing on ratings, Kevin Nash took over booking, and they ended the streak of Goldberg, which left hardly a draw for WCW and WWE took over the ratings.
Smackdown - Thunder. WCW Thunder was made for WCW as a 2nd show. WCW Nitor ranked top and WCW Thunder was around 6th most watched. With no draw to WCW, they brought in Double J, Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett thought he was bigger than he was and created a big expenditure, which further dragged WCW down and allowed WWE to beat WCW in the ratings, with the leakage of WWE result saying Mankind would win the title, cost WCW the lead and lost them in ratings.
WCW Closed as well as ECW, who aided WWE during the Monday Night Wars only to be kicked off of TNN by WWE. WWE had a huge roster, they acquired the rights to both WCW and ECW, and united various titles on the show. We had two brands, RAW & Smackdown. Bishoff was brought on as creative & Heyman was brought to commentate but left due in 2001.
Smackdown back then is way different to the Smackdown we have today. Smackdown back then had a variety of wrestlers and wrestled under exclusive brands, and for this they had titles for each division on each brand. They had wrestlers who could actually wrestle, acquiring cruiserweights from WCW, and mid-carders from WCW (who were main eventers on ECW). WWE combined them and had a cruiserweight division on Smackdown, a very decent tag division thanks to ECW & WCW tag teams being brought on, a good mid-card division using ECW superstars and WCW superstars and a Main Event division with the undisputed championship. RAW had likewise a Decent tag division, mostly their own tag teams, with the WCW tag title on the brand renamed the world tag team championship. A Womens division with their own women wrestlers and those from ECW and some from WCW. A Mid-card division mainly of their own, as the title was WWE's title, Intercontinental, and the Main-Event division with the WCW World Heavyweight Championship using a lot of their own stars and some from WCW.
With the divisions, and a mega roster, Bishoff added to creative we had two damn good brands. Exclusive PPV's allowed for builds on both brands. Smackdown despite being tapped was watched, even when RAW went to live shows weekly. WWE went up and up all until 2005, when Eric Bishoff and some other members of the creative team left.
2005-Decline: WWE lost a lot of stars, big stars like Lesnar, Goldberg, and to compensate moved some over from Smackdown to RAW, John Cena and in return received some mid carders. WWE Smackdown lost a lot of it's build and viewers because of this. WWE hired on some talent and put virtually all of them onto Smackdown, to keep RAW with decent talent.
2006 - Loss of more main eventers: Christian, Jericho, Kurt Angle, Scott Steiner, Mick Foley. Big stars meant WWE had to pick up more stars and where from? Smackdown. But Smackdown had a bunch of mid-carders, so RAW took on some mid-carders meaning a smaller main-event division. Storylines became generic and the move back to the USA Network meant a lot more censorship.
ECW - This was a pull back, bringing Heyman and various ECW Stars back brought in Hardcore fans and adult fans, and ratings went up and up, because adult fans began viewing. Because of the success it became a brand. And Heyman was given creative control. ECW gained great success until it moved to Scyfy. WWE moved it their, as they began targeting kids again. ECW was censored. Heyman's rule of every match was under extreme rules was revoked with the move and Heyman left, and thus began the decline of the brand.
2007- There was a spark, McMahon actually hit a gold mine. What was that, something that appealed to adults - D-Generation X. Was insanely popular back in the 90's and brought back adult fans to WWE. But this meant Smackdown had less heat, and showed various recaps and vignettes for RAW. The Diva division declined and had no storyline on it, Bishoff's storyline of Jericho & Christian with Lita & Trish had great ratings then the move to Mickie James with Trish retained good interest in the women's division. Then what happened when he left, the division went to the pits. The tag division decline with the Dudleyz vs Undertaker as no one competed against them
The decline fell further and further, ECW closed and they brought in NXT, which in it's first year generated some interest, however after seeing the repeat in the following season it lost viewers fast. RAW and Smackdown targeted kids again, with juvenile storylines and went back to good vs bad
McMahon struck gold again, Randy Orton, the biggest heel to beat up the McMahon Family and who would come to the rescue? Triple H? Wha? Not John Cena? Despite this, the feud drew in a good crowd as it reflected on Bishoff's faction he pushed, Evolution, and brought back some adult fans. The feud ended at Wrestlemania and with it lost some fans with the push of John Cena again who was drawing in all the kids.
Since then it continued to decline and with the birth of TNA a few years back and seeing a lot of WCW/ECW Superstars on that roster, the adult audience headed over to there. The tag division had died out that they dropped the two titles, and unified them to one as they did with the Divas Belt and Women's Belt. Smackdown began airing more and more raw recaps and to save it, we had CM Punk, Edge & The Undertaker on it. The cruiserwight title was canceled years ago with the majority of the stars heading back to Japan and other promotions due to no tv time.
WWE Brought back The Rock, which in turn brought back adult fans for Cena vs Rock, the current fan base vs the old fan base. And it was pure gold, and got ratings up. After Wrestlemania, they introduced Lesnar which kept the fans interested until they had him job to Cena at Extreme Rules.
Where did Bishoff go? TNA of course. Bishoff moved to TNA to work in creative, not the business side, as that is one of the mistakes that killed WCW. TNA had some great storylines and some ongoing ones, we had the Main Event Mafia, despite being seen as an nWo, was quite the draw. Crimson, the Goldberg of TNA, which drew in a lot. And today's storylines with Aces of 8's, Storm vs Roose. Bishoff does what WWE had, great main event storylines without over shadowing the rest of the roster. WWE on the otherhand has that many CM Punk segments and John Cena segments that the majority of mid/lower carders are on tapped shows like Smackdown and Superstars.
To compensate the lose, WWE renovated NXT which lost so much interest into a now decent brand, with upcoming stars who can actually wrestle and have a place to hone their skills.
WWE then makes the move to further expose their brand, social media, and expansion with other shows.
WWE Today Targets Kids. So what has changed? Since 1980's it has undergone a change from Cartoon Characters which were big in the 80's to today with WCW influenced characters and ECW styled events. What is left of WWF, one thing, it's target audience.
With no competitor, WWE can do what it wants, but the ongoing expansion is not an option.
RAW - 3 Hour show - Tag Division is growing, provided they keep the teams together longer than 3 months. Main Event stars are overexposed. Womens division, There is one? Mid-Card Division. there is none, the US title is a hand-me-down at the moment
Smackdown - Aka the Raw Recap show. Lower carders and Sheamus star here. It is a shell of what it once was. Used to get themselves over WCW and it's brand Thunder. I say shut it down, there is no need for it anymore, Cut back on CM Punk/John Cena and give some lift to mid/lower carders
NXT - Decent show, very decent. Attracts older audience at it follows NWA, it is based in a region.
Superstars - Again a place for lower carders to work,
Main Event - Used to further RAW & Smackdown. 3 Hours isn't enough for RAW, CM Punk comes out at least 3 times a night. Smackdown is just replays, there is no need to further replays
Saturday Morning Slam - A way to get kids to watch, as kids awake to watch Cartoons saturday morning this show was created to drag kids to them
WWE will stay at it's current state until they get a competitor. WWE is a monopoly in Sports Entertainment and know they can do what they wish. I do hope there is an investment into another wrestling promotion to be put on Monday Night Television to combat WWE and force another change to target a wider audience or Close the company.
Phew, had to get this off my chest
