Triple H held a conference call with the wrestling media on Thursday morning and spoke on a number of topics, from the difficulties in transitioning NXT talent to Raw and Smackdown to the suggestion of actually replacing an hour of Raw with NXT. While his answers were expectedly diplomatic — he hates bringing up NXT stars without long-term plans, and doing an hour of NXT during Raw wouldn’t be “NXT,” it’d be Raw — one point was unexpectedly candid: He understands fan frustration at how the current three-hour model of WWE Raw works, and acknowledges that they’re not quite sure how to fix it.
Raw ratings are hitting record low numbers. WWE Hall of Famers are threatening to jump ship, and even WWE super fans, classically the easiest to please of the bunch, are penning angry manifestos. What do you do?
“We just have to become more disciplined and more creative with how we do things, and how we operate the shows,” Hunter said. “We’ve had some unfortunate situations with injuries and everything else. It’s on us to be more creative and come up with a better format; a better show. We hear people’s frustrations and in a lot of ways feel the same way. It’s fixing it. And, trying to fix it. It is what it is. How we fix it, we’re not 100 percent sure yet. But, we will get there. Trust me.”
You can listen to the full call below.
I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the product, especially after having to sit through every minute of every Raw for the past five years, but here are five suggestions making the show better:
1. More commercials for Sonic and Popeye’s. If Sonic and Popeye’s can go halfsies on a commercial where their characters interact in a Marvel Cinematic Universe situation, even better.
2. Donny from the hit USA Network TV show Donny! should appear to teach all bland NXT Superstars how to have a personality.
3. If a person is Irish, compare his balls to potatoes. If possible, do this 50+ times in 10 minutes.
4. Dolph Ziggler should wrestle Tyler Breeze, and win. On the next show, they should wrestle again, but Breeze should win. Repeat this every week for four weeks to get us excited for a Dolph Ziggler vs. Tyler Breeze match on a channel we have to pay for.
5. Break everyone’s shoulder.
Now, do the opposite of all that.
