What Do You Do With The United States Championship?

There is a tournament going on to find the #1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship. That makes things a little more interesting in the midcard. How about the other midcard title? Dean Ambrose is still holding that. And why? He is part of a stable that is currently feuding against a stable that has authority power. How can the heels stare at their enemies holding a title and not try to screw them out of that title? I know it is only the U.S. Championship, but this is the kind of thing that could help the title seem more important. Dean Ambrose could end up holding that title for a full year and it wouldn't be because he was doing such a great job during the reign. It would be because they tossed the title on him and never featured him properly as U.S. Champion.

What can the WWE do? What could they have done differently? First of all, I don't think it is necessary to rush Evolution vs. The Shield. Save it for after Extreme Rules. Have some singles matches first. Dean Ambrose vs. Kane for the title would not have been bad. Have Roman Reigns face Batista. Where would that leave Daniel Bryan? He has Kane in front of him. Would it really be bad if you let Randy Orton get his rematch he is entitled to at Extreme Rules? Give Triple H and Seth Rollins the night off. If that isn't what the WWE wants, have Seth face one of the other henchmen of The Authority. As you saw on Raw, a lot of heels are on the side of the corporate heels.

Of course, that will not be how things play out. What is left for the WWE to do? I am not saying any member of Evolution should take the U.S. title off Dean Ambrose. Those guys are all above that title. As I said before, there are other heels supporting The Authority. Let one of them take the title off Ambrose. Even better, make him defend the title in a gauntlet match. He might be able to overcome two or three guys, but then he eventually loses the title to someone like Rusev or Swagger. Then they can sell it as The Authority screwing Ambrose out of the title.

In a related note, I have seen talk that the reason they brought back the mask for Kane is because the WWE does not feel he has enough momentum in his current corporate state to be a challenge for Daniel Bryan. That might be the case, but there were definitely other ways to work around that without giving Kane a makeover. Have Kane attack Daniel Bryan with a weapon. Not only would Kane destroy Daniel Bryan, and look intimidating doing it, but you can develop a match at Extreme Rules around whatever weapon Kane used. Or a stretcher. Or an ambulance. Besides, Kane has destroyed Daniel Bryan already just a few weeks ago. I am still going to give WWE credit for deciding to not settle for that stuff and bringing back the mask. It causes better buzz than just an injury angle or developing a gimmick match. 

Let me switch gears. The WWE released initial numbers for Wrestlemania XXX. A million households. Sounds impressive. But you have to actually break those numbers down a little. 667,000 were WWE Network subscribers. Almost 400,000 were PPV buyers. I have seen some fans shocked that it was that high. I saw one guy on a message board a while ago say that Wrestlemania would be a "huge" success if it got just 150,000 buys. Yeah, well, I would love to see what adjective he uses after Wrestlemania got more than twice that. This number is actually not that shocking. I have been saying for a while that the WWE Network would not snag in as many casual fans as some might think. There are fans that just want to see Wrestlemania and don't care about the other stuff the WWE offers on their network. They wouldn't mind paying the huge price for it.

For me, the minimum Wrestlemania XXX had to get in PPV buys was 700,000. As I have said before, you would think the WWE would put their best foot forward for a Wrestlemania as special as this. And if the WWE did put their best foot forward, forgetting the WWE Network ever came out, you would expect a million buys. With the WWE Network, that kind of made it more difficult to set a benchmark. I don't agree with people that believe 150,000 would be amazing. I still say 700,000 is a good benchmark. 600,000 might have been even more reasonable, but I'm not dropping below that. Fact is, ratings were mediocre during this year's Wrestlemania season. The WWE failed to really create a feud that I think could draw in the casual fans. The story involving Daniel Bryan was epic, but it is more appealing to the regulars than the casuals. They didn't hype any huge celebrity or legend to be there. With all due respect to Hulk Hogan, if he could bring the results The Rock could, you would have seen it in the ratings even before Wrestlemania. You didn't. Financial reports have said that the initial numbers for the WWE Network were lower than many hoped for. The WWE will have to work to get 1,000,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Point is, you could just anticipate that this Wrestlemania would not draw as many buyers as it could have had. If the WWE pulled out their Network when The Rock came back or any of the other Wrestlemanias involving him in a major way recently, I am confident you would have had more subscribers and still more PPV buys than you have gotten. The WWE will tout the success of Wrestlemania XXX, but they could have done better.

Some fans are looking at that 1,000,000 and are ready to praise Daniel Bryan as the greatest draw of all time. I feel like posting a picture of Bad News Barrett. I won't. But I do have some news for those fans that might be most unpleasant. The WWE offered Wrestlemania at a very cheap price for those who subscribed to their network. For $9.99 a month, you get the PPVs (special events), past content, and original content. Fans would have been eager to get that regardless of whom was in the main event. They are not necessarily subscribing just to see Daniel Bryan. They want to scoop up that good deal. Moreover, I already pointed out that the actual PPV buys for the event were lower than you would hope for a Wrestlemania following in the line of 1,000,000 buys you have had with The Rock. If this Wrestlemania had done a great job in creating hype, whether you want to praise Daniel Bryan for it or not, you would expect more than a 1,000,000 domestic households in between WWE Network subscribers and PPV buyers. The WWE would have met that 800,000-subscriber benchmark some analysts came up with and the WWE would have roped in a lot of casual fans to want to order. It seems the WWE did a better job promoting the WWE Network than developing a great Wrestlemania season. And the cheap price was the real draw.    

Last thing, I spoke to my cousin recently. I was actually surprised when he told me he subscribed to the WWE Network. He isn't as into wrestling anymore as I am. He was when he was younger. And he does still read dirtsheets. I don't consider him a true casual fan. Over the last few years, he has watched Wrestlemania either through illegal streams or at a friend's house. That is an example of the WWE getting someone to pay to watch Wrestlemania that would normally not pay for it.