On Samoa Joe Coming To WWE

Before I get to the main topic, let me just give an overall impression of last night's PPV, Payback. It was lackluster. I am not talking about match quality. Just in terms of swerves or match outcomes that might shake things up, nothing seemed to be there. If the outcome of Cena vs. Rusev was supposed to be controversial, it was a controversy many fans could have anticipated. No title changes. Many of the matches seemed like something that belonged in the midcard of Raw. How are you supposed to get your fans intrigued to tune in with mediocrity?

Enter Samoa Joe? Wrestling fans are pumped about this guy soon debuting for the company. Okay, but what will he do for drawing interest for the general audience? He's not a big name. He left TNA and will soon be coming to the WWE, but he's not Sting. He used to have an undefeated streak, but he's not Goldberg. The WWE already has a ton of great wrestlers to appease rabid wrestling fans, including those on NXT. Even with Daniel Bryan's injury issues, there are a lot of other guys to push that these type of fans like. One of them is currently holding the WWE Championship. In terms of depth, having Samoa Joe will not hurt. But I do not think this will help them start going in the right direction.

If I was managing the WWE, I would stop with all these signings for a while. You have a ton of talent in NXT, you're doing Tough Enough, and another Diva Search is looming. A bunch of those involved in the latter two projects will likely be signed. And the WWE does not release people on a regular basis anymore. There is no rule written in stone that they won't release people as part of budget cuts. They did it last year when financial analysts were criticizing them. But if you don't do it on a consistent basis and keep signing more people, things are going to get congested. Are you going to make more people part-timers? Are you going to send them away to make movies when you can't think of how to push them? The part-timer thing isn't exactly working very well anymore. You developed feuds for a lot of them for Wrestlemania season and ratings were still horrible. And WWE movies aren't exactly killing it.

The WWE needs to focus on what they have. It doesn't matter who is on the roster or who is signed to be on the roster. If they cannot utilize the talent efficiently to connect with the wider audience, things will continue to be bad. If things are boring, ratings will continue to be bad. Ratings are not everything, but they are an indicator of how hot the product is. The diva division is so bad, fans had to finally snap and do some heavy complaining on Twitter a few months ago. The tag division is going backwards from where it was just 2 or 3 years ago. The midcard is bad. The whole product is bad. If they cannot start being efficient with what they have now, how will signing more people really help them?

The only exception I would make to not signing anyone new for a while is if there is some major star available. I am talking about someone that can really generate some major hype or is at least very popular. You need someone that can energize the product, especially when the company is struggling to do it themselves. I just do not feel Samoa Joe falls in that category.