The first thing that might pop out to you is that Ziggler is a face and this is a face vs. face feud. I will talk about that next, but something else to raise an eyebrow is that Dolph Ziggler hasn't really been pushed well in a long time. He has been a pure midcarder for a long time now. To just toss him into the title picture like this just doesn't seem right.
Ziggler needs to be rebuilt a bit first. He needs a big feud against someone closer to the main-event scene than he was. Once he regains some of that credibility and momentum, then move him to a feud for the WWE Championship.
But how about this being face vs. face? Is it going to remain like that? Or will Ziggler be turning heel? On the one hand, a heel turn would probably add something to the feud. Moreover, you don't want to do face vs. face too much. It can get annoying. Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles was face vs. face for the WWE Championship. Yes, despite his negative reaction, Reigns is a face. And Styles turned heel soon after that feud. On the other hand, I don't think they need a heel turn that badly. AJ Styles is a heel. Bray Wyatt is a heel. Miz, having some main-event credibility from being a former WWE Champion, is a heel that can be pushed higher up the card than he is. And don't forget young talent that they can elevate. A heel turn for Ziggler is just not necessary. So what do you go with? A face vs. face feud that might lack some edge to it? Or a possibly unnecessary heel turn? I would go for the face vs. face feud.
Looking at the two World title feuds, forgetting that they just created a new title, the feuds just look lackluster for the second-biggest PPV of the year. I already talked about how Ziggler has not been a big deal in a while. Dean Ambrose just won the title for the first time a few weeks ago. Seth Rollins isn't a big star, yet. And Finn Balor has wrestling fans on his side, but you can't say much more than that. He's going to draw in subscribers with those NXT fans? The same fans that will be subscribing to the WWE Network already to watch NXT anyway?
The WWE Network got around 1.5 million subscriptions for the previous quarter, which included Wrestlemania. I read somewhere that the WWE is not expecting a big drop for this quarter. I don't know what makes them that confident. Not only was the previous quarter helped by Wrestlemania, but the WWE generated hype with a huge match between The Undertaker and Shane McMahon. They made fans actually think The Undertaker's career was on the line and total control of the WWE was on the line. The WWE proved wins and losses don't matter one night later, but there was still hype there to draw. What is there to sell Summerslam, the biggest PPV of this quarter? I already talked about the title matches. AJ Styles vs. John Cena isn't The Rock vs. John Cena. The WWE will obviously lean on Lesnar, but I am wondering about his ability to draw for them, especially in a mediocre feud, which this feud with Randy Orton is looking like so far. I am not saying numbers will drop below a million, but I wouldn't expect them to do nearly as good as they did for Wrestlemania.
No comments:
Post a Comment