current plan... does it work?

[takertitan]

I am about a month in my first WWE game(i always tend to play small promotion, but so far its quite entertaining). My current plan is for RAW to be my "entertainment" show. Use mostly entertainers with a small mix(umaga, khali...). Smackdown! will be my high flyer show, showcasing the best flyers i can find(signed up Teddy as well as a few others). Finally, my WWEECW brand(prob gunna change the name of it) for my Puro/tech guys.

The basic idea is to have the best sampling of talent around. I picked up a bunch of regular wrestlers for my transition match ups, since they can normally work with just about anyone. my question is this, has anyone ever managed to pull something like this off?

RAW is so far working on star power basically(HHH, shawn, umaga, cena(injured), orton, flair...) but slowly i am bring up some new talent(killings, sean morly, cheerleader malissa, cody, jeff, nitro, simon diamond).

Smackdown! has been the big challenge so far, as it seems like its going to be an up hill battle from my lower card to my main event. I recently picked up RVD, but i still can't get my A+ matches/angles out of the likes of batista/kane/JBL. the undercard are mostly flyers from indy/tna/roh with a few mix and match workers(goldust, D'Lo...). Not quite sure what i plan on doing...

ECW is pulling in decent shows, but then again it has amazing lower card workers(CM, joe, AJ, Austin Aries, chris hero, Chris daniels, homicide...) with WWE's best non-entertainers finally getting ahead(finaly, regal, nick dinsmore...). I am lacking star power on this show aswell, but since its only an hour long its flaws don't stand out as much as SD!. Currently Jericho/Vince are feuding, well till last week, when it became jericho vs brock/vince.

Injuries are not too bad, only missing Kennedy/Lashley and a few other people who i have no plans for (rey, super crazy...).

so is it possible?

[Remianen]

It's possible but the problem is, you don't know what you want to do. Until you figure that out, it's not going to work for you.

First off, with a promotion as reliant on overness as WWE is, you have the deck stacked against SD and ECW. Spread your over workers around a bit more. Let them work with the people you intend to anchor the other two brands so they can help boost their overness enough to make those shows a bit closer to RAW. You seem to have the same problem the real TNA does (or did, at one time). You have too much talent and not enough airtime to showcase it all. The key is to be smart about who you utilize and how you utilize them. (Poop) rolls downhill and so does overness. You don't have to job Triple H to anyone in order for them to reap the benefits of having worked him.

You don't have anything for Rey and Super Crazy? Put them in a tag team or stable or something LAX-like, have them feud with some workers you want to get over and, whether those workers win the feud or not, I guarantee they'll be more over than when you started. There, now you have a use for two workers you didn't have a use for before. Use your most over workers in the major slots on TV and work your younger/newer talent in gradually. That should get you ratings AND help develop those workers (since their overness is the only thing that matters to you).

[Michael Wayne]

Originally Posted by Remianen

(Poop) rolls downhill and so does overness.

poop don't roll silly. It stays where it's dropped. :}

[takertitan]

just ran my first PPV (NYR) and got a B+ rating... all my brands are turning in between B- and A- shows.

[takertitan]

by this years wrestle mania if i can maintain this string of good card ratings i may go back to brand only PPV's 2-3 times a month.

[AndyJP]

I tried doing different brands focusing on different types of wrestling too, and it turned out okay. It sounds like it wouldn't generally work in TEW, so maybe I just had the right formula on the product.

[sheepy]

Once you get to the size of the WWE you should be able to have dynamic enough wrestlers to carry through with this idea. As long as the star power has average ability then that should work. As long as the high flyers have average overness then that should work etc.

As for Smackdown I'd consider switching someone like Batista, JBL or Kane for say Orton, Flair or HBK. You're 3 smackdown stars need decent wrestlers to carry them to good matches (at least in TEW mods). On Raw with the talent there they can be carried but if you're relying on the 3 smackdown stars to put on great matches amongst themselves that's where you're gonna struggle. Jeff Hardy might be a good option to move as he could mesh with the high fliers and also has drawing power.

As for the brand only PPV I'd keep most of them together and then do the occasional brand only PPV. That and I think it'd be near impossible for ECW to put on an exclusive PPV with only a 1 hour show (think december to dismember).

Hope some of these thoughts help you out.

[takertitan]

i am pushing Jeff on raw right now, but that is a good option. ECW has more lower card star power right now, mostly because everyone on that brand can work. A lot of puro(cm, joe...) tech(regal, hero...) and regular(eugene, ray gonzalas). the CW's on SD! are slowly building up. pushing teddy hart right now over there the hardest. Jimmy wang yang is holding the title and is just barely able to pull it off.

my tag division just got a massive boost(motor city, briscoe brothers...) but they are not over yet.

[sheepy]

You certainly look like you've got the talent to build to an ECW exclusive PPV but I'd still worry about only having 1 hour of tv a week to build to a 3 hour long ppv (any less than that with WWE is cheating ) Oh and if you're making the smackdown brand the home of high fliers there's no way you can't find a way to use Super Crazy and Rey.

Out of interest and for future ref, what kind of ratings are you bringing in with the different types of brands?

[takertitan]

RAW is getting between 10-12
CW is getting between 20-22
ECW is 15's every week

No idea how RAW is pulling in my lowest ratings, i never checked them before.

Also, i full intend to get a 2nd hour for ECW next month. Not sure if i am going to drop the show to try and get it but... *shrug*

[Wildcat]

I generally do this with any promotion I run when I have multiple brands, one show ends up being power/hardcore based with a womens division and the other ends up being technical/high-flyer based with a cruiser weight division.

It ends up working really well as long as you are able to have enough guys that are over to keep the top of the brands strong and have a deep, balanced roster to keep things fairly even.

You can't be too stringent though, you need to have a few guys that put on great matches with either style that can act as go betweens and keep things clicking on both sides.. guys like Kurt Angle that are brawlers and technical are an example, as are HBK and Chris Jericho who can fight the power guys but are great against the speedy guys as well.

Especially in the WWE, star power matters a ton - so if you can do these types of show divides but still keep enough stars on each brand to get great ratings than it is well worth it as it gives you a built in way to make sure there aren't major mismatches that will hurt the ratings, and it also allows you to get guys over and create stars where you may not have done so without the type of split this becomes.